Social Media Marketing in India

Does Social Media actually working in India? Is Social Media Marketing the only facet of social media? Can you help your business through social media in India ? What should you be doing if you want to market yourself, or your brand for that matter, on social media? These are some of the questions that have been on my mind recently.

Regus, a provider of workplace solutions with over 1,100 business centers in 85 countries, recently published a study that explored the role of social media in customer acquisition. Based on input from senior managers and business owners around the world, the study found that almost one-half of small businesses are successfully connecting with prospects through social networks.

The worldwide survey also ranked countries who found success in customer acquisition in social networks. With 14 countries reporting, an average of 40% reported that social networks were indeed ripe for converting prospects into customers. At the very top of the list, 52% of businesses in India reported success followed by Mexico, Spain, The Netherlands and China with 50%, 50%, 28%, and 22% respectively. The US ranked 7th with 35%.

1. India – 52%
2. Mexico – 50%
2. Spain – 50%
3. Netherlands – 48%
4. China – 44%
5. South Africa – 43%
6. Germany – 41%
6. Australia – 41%
7. US – 35%
8. Canada – 34%
9. France – 33%
9. UK – 33%
10. Japan – 30%
11. Belgium – 27%

A report in Afaqs by Kapil Ohri discusses how a small brands like restaurants, juice centers and dental clinics in India leveraging the social channels like Facebook better than Big brands. It’s interesting to note that these brands are leveraging Facebook for customer engagement and to drive sales” not just creating fans by numbers.

It does make business sense to spend towards promotional activities in various forms of media, thronged by maximum number of people wherein lays your target customer.

One such new medium that has cropped-up, against all odds of conventional media offerings, is social networking sites. These new generation of sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are attracting maximum number of ad revenues spending among other online mediums.

Social networking sites are fast emerging as the most influential medium of promotional activities for the corporate world globally.

Instead of promoting business through other traditional mediums, the corporate world is increasingly tapping innovative business prospects with their links from sites like Facebook, Twitter and even Linkedin.

ITC's clothing brand Wills Lifestyle is using Facebook and other sites to identify the latest trends among young members. Its Facebook fans can upload pictures and use discussion forums as the company looks to catch the young fashion vein.

"Trends change very frequently, so the real time research on these sites (social networks) are really helpful," said Atul Chand, CEO of ITC's lifestyle retail business. "The contribution can wary from colour schemes to textures to designs," he added.

ITC's Chand said Wills Lifestyle is looking at directly involving its consumers in product development and designing. The band is also pushing online sales through its member community on Facebook. "It's an additional revenue channel. Online sales are almost equal to business made from one store," he said.

Kishore Biyani-led Pantaloons is currently present on Facebook and it plans to extend it to other popular sites too.

"We regularly track the sites to be in touch with the latest trends," said Rajan Malhotra, president - retail strategy, Future Group that owns Pantaloons. Although the brand is not directly involving the consumers now, Mr Malhotra said it is definitely looking at it. "It has become essential."

Analysts say the trend is here to last. A number of brands are concentrating on 'you' to build their images to woo the new consumer empowered by interactive media.

Online presence offers an informal research, which is real time unlike the earlier times, when retailers had to depend on second-hand research reports," said Pinakiranjan Mishra, retail analyst at Ernst & Young.

With several netizens, particularly the geeks, preferring to shop on the net and also making revelations about their personal tastes without inhibitions, brands can ill afford to ignore the power of the mouse and 'YOU'. All sales are not made on the shopfloor, after all.

What do you think?

Mobile Innovations in India

Innovation isn’t thinking about bright new ideas but using ideas from one section and applying it to another. Several innovations that I came across in India truly fits the description. Let’s look at two such  mobile innovations and how they impact our society.

Nano Ganesh:

To operate the irrigation pumps, villages and rural locations in India are often marred by fluctuations in power supply, difficult terrain, fear of animals on the way to pumps, hazardous locations of the pumps along the river or water storage beds, shock hazards, rains etc. Nano Ganesh is a GSM Mobile based remote control system exclusively for the use with water pump sets in agriculture areas.



The need of Nano Ganesh aroused from the routine problems faced by the farmers in operating the pumps. A farmer has to simply dial a number dedicated for a Nano Ganesh set and then punch his on or off code for the control of the pump set. It can be connected to any existing electrical starter and motor pumps. Hence, there is no necessity of replacing the pumping set. With bulk of our GDP coming from agriculture, I think products like Nano Ganesh are super-important to keep the sector blooming.

On the deployment of the system, a pre-set code is given to the farmer to switch on/off the pumpset. In order to switch on the set a farmer has to call up the number of the mobile phone attached in the starter panel. One can confirm the availability of the power in the pumpset by a long beep sound, which will be signaled from the receiving end during the call Followed by the confirmation of availability of the power, the caller has to dial a preset code provided for the user to switch on the pump set.

Once the code is dialed the user has to confirm his function by a feedback tone and then cut the call. For switching off the pumpset, the same process has to be repeated and a different preset code is entered to switch off the pumpset.

To make the phones easily accessible to the farmer community basic phones like Nokia 1100 have been deployed. The modem is also available with a theft proof inbuilt device called ‘Nano Ganesh Hanuman’, whereby its installation will also ensure alert in case of theft attempt near the pump area related to pumpset cable, panel or pump itself.

Priced between Rs.560 and Rs.1700, more than 5,000 farmers are using the application.

GreenPhone

An ecofriendly software application, developed by New Delhi-based Mobimonster 2.0, GreenPhone allows one to save on the phone’s battery and charger life.

Greenphone alerts you to several power consumption modules of your phone so that you can remove the charger or shut down the unwanted services to preserve power and in turn help saving the environment.

Greenphone has advanced algorithms that help the software quickly get call back from the device when the battery is “optimally” charged, Bluetooth, WLAN are active and there is no data transfer and when the backlight is not in use, Greenphone shuts it down.  Greenphone aims to alert the user by means of SMS so that you know when the phone is using resources which are not required.

The firm allows users to download the application free for trial, but charges $15 for constant use.

Mobile Talent in Short Supply as Employers Seek to Fill Jobs

Technology companies are running up against a dearth of qualified developers to create applications for mobile devices, according to a survey by online job board Dice Holdings Inc.

Almost 57 percent of employers and outside recruiters that hired for mobile-related jobs this year plan to boost such hires in the next 12 months, the survey, conducted on behalf of Bloomberg Businessweek.com, showed. More than half the respondents described the supply of quality mobile-software designers and engineers as “scarce.”

Companies need app developers as the market for mobile software surges to $17.5 billion by 2012, from $4.1 billion last year, according to a study by Chetan Sharma Consulting. The demand for programmers who can write for mobile platforms, such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone, Google Inc.’s Android and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry, has stoked competition among recruiters, driven up salaries and led employers to consider getting new talent through acquisitions.

Small Rise

The online survey, conducted Oct. 11-15, was based on 283 recruiters who use New York-based Dice’s site and said they had hired mobile professionals this year. Dice sells services to businesses who recruit employees through its site.

More than a fifth of respondents said they hired substantially more mobile experts this year than last year, and more than a third said they added slightly more. Some 36 percent hired about the same number, while 6.6 percent said mobile hiring fell this year.

In the next 12 months, a fifth of recruiters anticipate a substantial increase in hiring, 37 percent see a slight increase, and 34 percent plan to hire about the same number.

The most common salary range for mobile engineers and designers was $75,001 to $100,000, according to 41 percent of respondents. About 28 percent said average pay was $100,001 to $125,000, while 21 percent said it was $50,001 to $75,000.

Higher Salaries

Almost a third of employers raised salary levels for the average mobile worker “higher than normal,” citing the increase in demand for talent.

Experience with Apple’s mobile platform carried the most weight on resumes, with 72 percent of recruiters saying they are hiring for development of iPhone applications, and 38 percent saying iPhone expertise is the most attractive among platforms.

“Anybody that has an application that has been working on a notebook now wants that to work on an iPad, an iPhone and on Google Android,” said Todd Thibodeaux, chief executive officer of the trade group Computing Technology Industry Association in Oak Brook, Illinois.

He described the supply of qualified talent as “scant.” “There’s a whole bunch of specialties that have to develop and emerge there,” Thibodeaux said.

Android Software

About 60 percent are hiring for Android development, and 23 percent said new recruits with knowledge of Google’s platform is most highly prized. Some 48 percent of employers are hiring for BlackBerry, while just 16.1 percent said that’s the most desirable type of mobile expertise.

This month, Dice’s site had 758 job listings requiring skills or experience with the iPhone, up from 264 a year ago. The site had 685 listings requiring Android skills, up from 158.

“If you look at jobs that require either iPhone skills or Android skills, the number of jobs is still pretty small, but if you look at the growth rate, it’s huge,” said Tom Silver, senior vice president at Dice.

Mobile was described as one of the top three priorities in technology hiring by 35 percent of employers. A year from now, as more businesses incorporate mobile technology, Silver predicts that number will be closer to 50 percent.

The vast majority of employers, or 95 percent, said mobile hiring was either competitive or extremely competitive.

Overseas Demand 

That competition has intensified partly because of increased demand for talent in other countries, especially India and China, said Russell Hancock, CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a San Jose, California-based group formed by business leaders to focus on talent-pool concerns in the region.

While programmers and other skilled workers from India and China have had a significant presence in technology companies during the Internet boom, “in the past decade, that has tailed off significantly,” Hancock said.

Some businesses are resorting to acquisitions. About half of the respondents plan to add mobile-software expertise by buying companies in the next 12 months.

Other companies have learned to be more flexible in their hiring. Jeremy Stoppelman, co-founder and CEO of local-business reviews site Yelp Inc., said he began recruiting engineers talented enough to learn and adjust to new types of mobile platforms.

“If you’re doing searches for people with iPhone experience, it isn’t going to be a deep pool of people,” Stoppelman said. “We just look for good engineers.”

Mobile Content Management and The New Rules of Mobile Marketing

I’ve been thinking a lot about how new technologies and greater adoption of smart phones will impact how we find information online.

Studies indicate the consumer adoption rate of mobile devices (smartphones) is significantly faster compared to the adoption rates of laptop computers and wired Internet access. Basic mobile devices are everywhere. Market saturation of smartphone devices and mobile internet access is not far behind.

Nearly 5 billion people on our planet are now mobile customers. Mobile devices are becoming full-fledged platforms running a wide range of applications. Both realities mean mobile devices will augment or supplant personal computers as the new e-business channel for employees and customers.

What does this proliferation of mobile devices mean for the content management professional, our information management and content publishing strategies and the software that we use to provide services to our organizations ?

Mobile Access to Content

Just when we thought we had all wrapped our head around developing interfaces for small phone sized devices (remember WAP?), not only do the phone screens keep getting bigger, but now we have this class of ‘pads’, slates or tablets, with screen’s ranging from 7 to 10 inch diagonals. And it's not just about the screen size, there's also resolution. The screen resolution of the pads / slates / tablets are all different, with different orientations and generally different user interaction paradigms.

Web Page Versus App

This brings us to something which appears to be a common topic for debate recently with respect to this class of devices, and their smaller smart phone cousins; web standards versus custom Applications.
Instead of attempting to configure a separate mobile web interface for your systems, you could create in house specific applications. Maybe your major application vendors have jumped on the iPad band wagon and already created a generic App so you don't need to worry about development (just deployment).

The argument against Apps is the fragmentation of the internet, i.e. we should stick with the web as a delivery channel and the well established web standards. So you code your new interface in HTML 5 and use other standards to ensure your systems can be accessed from iOS, Android, Blackberry or Windows smart phone devices.

So apps versus web interface is an interesting debate, but one which might be highly contextual, depending on the approach the vendors take to licensing their Software Development Kits (SDK's). Even so, the lowest common denominator is going to be the fact that all these devices have web browsers.

Another element of managing content for these devices is how they interact with software services, and whether your use of these devices may tie you into 'cloud computing'. For example because the iPad is essentially a 'consumer device' and does not have a user accessible file system, many apps rely on integration with cloud systems such as Box.net for moving or synchronizing content. That might be OK for some organizations, but maybe not for others. 

Considerations for Content Management Professionals

As always it will be highly contextual, depending on whether your organization is supporting engineers in the field with ruggedized handheld's running specialized vertical apps, or if your consultants want access to the intranet via their new BB Playbooks — we will still need to consider the following:

• Do you have a multiple channel publishing strategy (write once, publish many) for internal consumption of information? If not does the introduction of these devices mean you need one?
  
  
• Do you already have a 'mobile' strategy for allowing employee's to access internal information and services via smart phones? Can it be expanded to cover the new devices?
  
  
• Do you have the internal relationships in place to be involved in any discussions and decisions on the Application versus Web interface debate?
  
• Does 'mobile access' need to have greater priority the next time you RFI / RFP for a CMS?
  
  
• Does a cost benefit analysis of providing for example intranet access via mobile devices show net benefits for your organization?
  
  
• Do you have enough information to be able to calculate a hard / soft Return On Investment for mobile device access to your internal information?

These devices are here to stay, they will evolve rapidly, and it is has been theorized by experts that people who are used to having these devices at home, will demand the ability to use them for work. So adding 'mobile' elements to your content management and information publishing strategies just got even more important.

Does your company have policies regarding the use of mobile devices, and are you publishing content through multiple channels. If not, should you?

Mobile Marketing

Connected consumers — those who do online shopping, networking and sharing — are seeking mobile devices with similar expectations for productivity. They want accessibility, usability and simplicity, with user experiences tailored to their devices. They also want the mobile experience to be customized to their immediate needs and use patterns, often with a blend of “offline” and “online” experiences.

At minimum, a brand’s mobile strategy and budgets should be aligned to create mobile-friendly experiences across key digital touch points and critical business services.

Consumers expect a seamless, consistent interaction with their favorite brands, whether through a mobile web site or an in-store salesperson. If mobile is the bridge between channels, some consumers are decisively moving back and forth across it, while some consumers want to stay put. They are neither “online” nor “offline” – they are simply “mobile.” Consumers love this gray area, and your business better start loving it, too.

Mobile Web design and development strategies must be aligned to the fact that mobile web visitors are inherently different. Mobile Web content should be specific to mobile users looking to accomplish smaller tasks more quickly. The design, UI and functionality should be tailored specifically to varying device and browser types. This makes device-recognition capability even more critical, and emphasizes streamlined delivery of content and services.

A mobile device is not just a small desktop. Taking something that works in a desktop browser with a mouse/keyboard interface and shrinking it down to mobile doesn’t cut it. What’s different? Two things: limited screen real estate, and your finger is your only input device. These two things have deep design implications.

A branded mobile app may not be a sound investment for the foundation of a mobile strategy. Consider the initial development costs and resources needed to create awareness of the app and drive downloads. Marketers need to get over their app envy and take serious consideration of:

• Whether the app can deliver business value over and above a well-executed mobile web solution;

• What aspects of the app take advantage of the inherent capabilities of the device, such as the camera or accelerometer;
  
  
• Whether an optimized, branded presence in already popular apps like Yelp, Foursquare and Facebook can accomplish the same goals as a branded standalone app.

The increasingly mobile consumer is dictating the terms of engagement with brands and marketers, setting the bar high with expectations of quality interaction through their mobile devices.

Must-have gadgets for the discerning geek

It's that time of year when even adults' thoughts turn to toys. For IT pros and technology lovers, that means gadgets and cool apps. With the right gadgets, you can get things done quickly and easily. 

So you want something that not everyone else has already discovered. You've come to the right place.

Viktor's must-have gadgets

Amkette's 'Instant SyncShare' Device

For the first time in India, Amkette brings to computer users an ‘Instant SyncShare’ device which enables seamless transfer, sharing and syncing between any two computers. 


It’s a completely boot-free and installation-free multipurpose device used for transfer of any data from one computer to another. Movies, music and documents can now be transferred and shared at a blazing speed of 20 MBPS creating backup within seconds.

AMKETTE FLASH Link Specifications:

• High speed data transfer 20 MBPS
• Built in onboard memory of 256 MB
• Embedded user friendly powerful intuitive software
• Compatible with Windows XP/2000/Vista/NT/Win 7

ZTE 7" Touch Screen 3G Android Tablet PC

ZTE Corporation launched its latest touch screen tablet PC, ZTE Light, today. The ZTE Light has a 7 inch touch screen and weighs 403g. ZTE Light also supports voice calling on dual band UMTS 2100 MHZ/900 MHZ and internet access on HSUPA network with a download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps and an upload speed of up to5.76 Mbps. The device packs smart processing capabilities as it features 512 Mb RAM and 512 Mb ROM and based on Android 2.1 Operating system.

ZTE Light provides business applications through its open Android platform and guarantees access to thousands of third party applications and content services at ease. It fully supports various Google Services, Multi Email account setup, desktop widget applications and online document reading and editing  features.

ZTE Light can also be turned into a full entertainment device as the large touch screen and G-sensor can support various multimedia and games. In addition its GPS navigation ability can be used as the best guide on the road. Other highlighted features include Wi-Fi, a standard 3Mp camera, Music and video player with Mp4 support, standard picture format compatibility, Bluetooth, external SD Slot with up to 32G external memory, a 3.5mm stereo headset and up to 10 hours of working battery time.
 

Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Web

With smartphones becoming commonplace and more and more people using mobile devices both at work and at home, enterprises are increasingly looking to make use of mobile applications. Small and medium-sized businesses are apparently beginning to pick up on this trend, and many of them are turning to developers to create custom mobile apps for them.

The mobile apps market has moved its center of gravity from business apps to consumer apps in the past couple of years, and this overall benefits SMEs because they potentially align more with a consumer profile in that they want easy-to-use apps that are inexpensive.

IDC statistics show that mobile devices are becoming the new enterprise desktop for more than 50 percent of the workforce.

Apple and Google have unveiled tools that make it easier to develop apps on their platforms. So why would SMEs go to the expense of hiring app dev firms instead of creating their own apps in-house?

Developing mobile apps with these software development kits might look easy, but you need to understand the technicalities. Each of these platforms has its own language and its own way of working. For example, Apple's iOS uses Objective C, while the Android and RIM platforms use different versions of Java.

Aside from having fewer resources than large enterprises, SMBs face the same challenges when developing on mobile as anyone else. The market's fragmented, meaning they have to create different apps for different platforms and have to design apps for the lowest-common-denominator phones. Also, they have to consider that the phones will have only intermittent connectivity to networks.

Another point working against SMEs developing apps in-house is that application development is more complex than it appears to be.

It's almost axiomatic in the high-tech industry that SMEs lack the expertise and in-house tech staff to do much in the way of IT work, so app development isn't easy for them.

In other words, unless the programmer is sufficiently skilled, apps created with simplified SDKs may not be robust enough to meet SMEs' business requirements. And if the programmers are that skilled, SMEs may not be able to afford them.

Perhaps there's a less costly and better solution -- mobile web apps.

I believe there are far too many native client apps which could have been far better written as mobile web apps.

While these mobile platforms are entirely different from an app point of view, they are quite similar when viewed through the lens of a web app, since all of the smartphones have good browsers. Good mobile web sites can be made almost indistinguishable from native apps. Yes, there is still work to do to make web apps work across multiple platforms but it is significantly easier than building custom apps for each platform. There are other benefits too:

• you can do live updates (no need for constant trips back to the app store)
• the web apps also work on the desktop
• you don't have to deal with the app store submission process
• you get forward compatibility

There are very effective ways to use the Mobile world :

1: Create a Mobi site. This informs your customers that you have a mobile presence. It gets them used to the fact that they can access your info via their cell phone. You can use many tactics to entice them such as competitions etc.

2: Create a Mobile Community. Now that your customers are using your Mobi site, you start building your mobile customers community – ie. those customers who have the ability and the willingness to use your site.

3: Create a Mobile Shortcut. This is an icon that is installed on the user’s phone that is branded with your logo and takes them straight to your Mobi site.

Mobile is defiantly the way to go. Keep in mind that “me-too” applications don’t work – you have to have a unique offering.

With India specifically, mobile web makes most sense – we have limitation and we have a different mentality.

So anyone wanting a Mobile App – please consider the above before spending BIG BUCKS on development. In most cases you can achieve the same result at a fraction of the cost and still be able to talk to all your customers and not just those with the latest iPhone !