But this one is different by all means. Perfectly blended icing of facebook connect and YouTube features, over a clubbing video to target the youth. I liked it, much! Check out the Desperado Experience;

Online Reputation Management is a key deliverable when it comes to working for brands on Social Media. Over the past two years, I have been associated with it and still continue to figure out better ways of separating the signal from the noise.

In my quest to bring up a sound listening framework and tool, we at Media Redefined have had several achievements and insights to share with.

You may want to download it to read it offline. Here is a copy of the article;

If you’re interested to know what are your customers talking about you and where, get in touch.

The number game!

I have always been the back bencher, all my life. If you were never one, you’ve certainly missed the fun of living a life, king size.

While I was starting my entrepreneurial journey, through the gates of Media Redefined, 2 years ago, I remember I was again sitting on one of the last benches in some lecture at my engineering course. May be that was what I needed to think and plan my moves – a back bench.

Today, when I look back, I have travelled a few miles, if not more. From bagging a campus placement at a nice IT company to rejecting the offer and moving on to start my own business, it has been a great journey so far. I’m glad I proved myself to a few including my alma mater, which invited me to recruit students for my agency. That’s a great feeling! Yes, I may have been the 1st entrepreneur from my college, for a change.

I thank the co-founders I have had in the journey, Honey Singh (No, not the one you’d be humming this new year’s eve!) and Gaurav Mishra (the Godfather) – without them, we would have never grown so strong.

I can go on …

What’s with number game?

While I was working as a freelance blogger for quite a few international blogs in my college, my co-founder, Honey was busy running a blog, which went on to be one of the high traffic blogs while he was active on it.

Earlier this year, he compiled a list of global top 100 Social Media agencies . Today, this post is one of the well indexed posts on Google search! If you have a look at it, it mentions agencies from US, India, Europe, Middle-east, and so on – in that order, not in the order of their global rank! It’s a list, a chronological list.

Now a preface – this post I am writing now, brewed up after I had an interesting conversation with 2 gentlemen on Twitter today morning, for they looked confused between a list and a leader-board (ranking) and were gunning on an agency which is now closed – I agree there may be more than one in that category. It’s social media where the cost of entry is almost zero – agencies open and close every day, globally!

The post by Honey Singh (I hate calling him Honey, just Honey!), nowhere indicates it is a leader-board (if one understands the difference, perhaps). It’s just a list. If it was not, why would an agency, despite being so good and well known stand at number “n” and not within the first 20? It clearly is a list of top 100 “global’ agencies in no order of ranking, but in the order of continents/ countries.

There may be several agencies which did not make it there, I know at least 3 of them, but I do not complaint. It’s his thought. Of course, he’s mentioned his own agency, Media Redefined as the first when it comes to India, but he no where said it’s the top agency in India. (Who knows, by the way?)

Rather than making it a hyped out stuff, one may relate it to several ‘top-10/50/100 list’ posts around gadgets, trends, etc. It was not a report by McKinsey or Nielsen However, I was glad to figure out that Media Redefined is one of the few agencies listed at the Altimeter’s Wiki of Social Media Boutiques – Non US.

Image Credits: Phaneesh

Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life. ~ Henry L. Doherty

It’s such a fascinating thought! However, the pressure of performance is a sheer hindrance in achieving it once you’re in a job or business. Today, we live on the theme – Survival of the freshest! (The Goa fest’2010 theme.)

In this context, social media marketing has been one of the most exciting and easy-to-opt careers for “consultants” and “gurus” across the world. Thank you Beth, for this amazing post on Social Media Experts!

Technology is just an enabler and not the whole pie. With that I refer to the facebooks and twitters of the world which are just tools and platforms for engagement and listening. Where it starts is not this, for sure.

How many of us actually believe in getting our basics right before mounting ourselves as the next “guru”. How important is associating our thoughts with a real case and practicing the way we can use social media tools and platforms to leverage the knowledge gained.

For the ones who conduct workshops or training sessions, it is important to hand hold the attendees and walk them through the  journey, or at least a snapshot of the same. Adding value to the ecosystem with  the experience we gain over time, working on social media strategies for brands and businesses is very important for someone who wants to establish himself as a social media trainer.

Last month, I got an opportunity to be a part of the Digital Vidya bootcamp. I had known Pradeep, the founder, for a while and was always excited to draw some insights on the value proposition he generates at his Social Media Workshops. I should thank him for inviting me to the last bootcamp on Social Search Optimization.

I have been fortunate enough to be invited to/be a part of a few other social media and mobile/internet marketing workshops. There are a couple of things which I would want to say about Digital Vidya;

1. Their workshops are based on – Case Studies & Hands-on Experience – Unlike Gyan/Information session at many other bootcamps. (Think of a Facebook Community Building Competition in a Social Media workshop!). That is what I always want workshops to focus on. Not just jargons.
2. As Digital Marketing Evangelizers, these guys don’t do these workshops to get consulting/execution assignment unlike many others. That makes me respect them, all the more. They leave it for social media agencies like us!
3. Both Pradeep & Kapil, the trainers have a rich, 10 years of hands-on experience in Digital Marketing in all formats like – in-house, agency, etc. and hence bring up some real good insights.

I would personally recommend their workshops, which are on varied topics around Social aspect of the Internet communication. Check out the upcoming bootcamps and try enrolling for one. You would never regret!

When I think of offline communities and societies, there are  direct, one-to-one relationships that appear in the backdrop of my mind – many, if not with all the members. However, being a member of an online community – where I may share an idea, get it voted, do a debate with ‘handles’ and not always people – just fails to generate those vibes.

The essence of building social communities – offline or offline was always to drive participation around a passion or cause with people from varied fields of work but with a common interest or goal which gels with that of the community itself. It essentially is a platform to talk, discuss, share things beyond work.

More importantly, for me, a community is a forum where you build relationships – personal and professional, depending on its kind. How many relations did you develop with people joining an online community? Here, I ain’t talking about Social Networks like facebook, orkut, etc. Shall you need to distinguish between social communities, networks and outposts, Gaurav, had come up with a neat post on this.

The dent which I was trying to make is that the essence of offline communities is entirely different and we as social media practitioners/experts should still think of building up such communities. The size does not matter much. What matters is the content, the objective and the passion. A great example would be Social Media Baithak. An initiative by Sanjukta Basu and Abhay Adhikari. I am glad to be invited for the 1st edition of this initiative where a bunch of social media ‘gurus’ ( read, advocates and evangelists) try to help out NGOs and individuals working for a cause, in what is a one-on-one session.

I truly admire the energy and content we had at the meet.

BarCamp, OSS Camp, TweetUps, Blogger Meets, etc. are some such examples of offline gathering, which help scale the passion of doing something and learning stuff. There needs to be more synergy in offline-online integration of communities. I see that picking up, already. Hope it continues with more people joining in.

Do share your experiences with the offline communities you may have had.

Cheers!

This post has been cross posted at the “Media Redefined Blog“. Check it out for more interesting posts on social media, online engagement and communities.

Image Courtesy: Naina @ StudioAside

We know there are several services which might help you with this, but why would a brand like Airtel need one? Airtel is supposed to be one of the best mobile operators in India. They have the highest number of GSM mobile subscribers amongst private players.

What more? Right after I retweeted this tweet ;

They deleted it!

I hope they would realize and move on with their core job of a real time, online support system via twitter and not get into the mess of getting more followers!

I happened to save some 7.5 grands! Now, how did that happen?

While my daily usage of social networks is pretty high (mostly because of the nature of industry I work in), I happened to stumble on a facebook ad that led me to a pathetic website. However, that website was of a well versed Apple Premium Retailer who assured me some great discounts after we exchanged a few dialogues over phone.

I could eventually get a huge discount on my macbook which I was planing to buy, otherwise. What happened next is a history!

Have you ever benefitted from a social ad? Do share your story!

What do have to say to this?

It has been really long since a post from CopyBlogger was lying open on one of my 50 Firefox tabs which I keep open most of the time!

This one was titled – Is Blogging Keeping You Poor?

Today, I could read it and realized why didn’t I do it long back! Infact while Jonathan Morrow would have been framing this post, I was thinking on the same lines so as to escalate the business to a next level.

Writing for clients for their websites/blogs has been my activity for the initial 6 months of my work-from-home regime. I actually loved it, and I still do! There is no wrong in doing it if you’re a noob and do not understand of the business model that move around the posts you write for your clients. A 5$ posts written by a fresh blogger ends up making 25$ for the Internet Marketer/ blog owner. Else why would he pay that 5$?

This indeed is a simple math but it takes time for a noob to understand. I was no different. Still, I do not curse the time when I wrote 4$ articles for a client. It made me learn how to WRITE for business blogs. Believe me, it’s so very different from writing those school essays which would make you win a competition!

Internet marketing business today have changed leaps and bounds and you really need to know the strategies which the "big boys" use to make money out of you, using you head and keystrokes!

In Jonathan Morrow‘s words,

Partnering is the missing ingredient for blogging success. Yes, you can start a blog on your own. Yes, you can make it popular by yourself. Yes, you can stay involved in it forever. But if you ever want to profit from it, you need to partner with other people.

For bloggers who get into professional blogging for Adsense income, Jonathan says,

Brian didn’t monetize Copyblogger by stuffing it full of ads. Instead, he used the visibility of being an A-list blogger to attract a talented group of partners so he could create relevant products and services for the audience he attracted.

So the idea is to learn what blogging is and how to impress your clients with your work to get noticed amongst the new clients. This would help you have a good clientele and hence a great portfolio.

There after, you can get some like-minded bloggers/Internet business guys to work together on something that would make your business grow.

Freelance writing is not the key to success in long terms, if this is something you’re planing to base your bread and butter on.

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After years of wandering in the blog-o-sphere, having a website and a personal blog, writing hundreds of articles/stories/posts for a plethora of clients, I have finally made it a dream come true by kicking off this sage advice blog. I am not the best yet, and would never be one. Learning is the phase where in I always what to see myself. But it’s been years of amateur blogging, consulting and writing.

It took me years to learn the skills, business and the inside scoop of the blog-o-sphere. More importantly, the social web. This blog intends to reveal the secrets and facts which are sometimes known and often not. This blog is not monetized using any of the programmes like Google Adsense, TLA, etc. as for now, that is not the aim of this blog.

I would be glad to help your bloggers and ‘freelance’ writers who have just kicked off with a new wordpress.com or blogger.com blog and think of having a 6-figure income over the next 2 years! It’s time now, for them, to get a flavor of what lies beneath this blog business and the social media.

I started off as a ‘freelance writer’ as well and graduated to having a business of my own which shall be talked about as the new year arrives! We are working on it for now. Sill, I work as an independent blogger and evangelist, writing blog posts, research articles and analysis for corporate clients and business.

If you’re willing to have a review of your blog/website and wish to know what more I can you do to improve your online presence, feel free to contact me.

I would recommend you to subscribe to the RSS feeds of this blog or keep visiting it off and on for some good stories and experiences which I would share from my daily encounters with keystrokes.

Happy reading!

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