While ‘Sunsilk Gang of Girls’ was not a pure social network when that started out, it does suggest why a brand would like to create their own network for their consumers. Over the past years Sunsilk GOG site has undergone changes to suit their brand positioning and has a healthy community of over 7 lakh registered members. Their facebook page has little over 2 lakh fans.

Today more and more businesses and brands are looking to create their own social networking sites. Geek Creative Agency has bagged multiple projects this year ranging from alumni network for a reputed university to social network for stock traders in India to career development and mentoring social site for a large multi-national IT company. All of them have the same basic needs and expectations.

WHY CREATE YOUR OWN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE?

• More interactive than a spot
• Engages your audience
• Creates a true community you can communicate with
• Gain access to user statistics to understand their motivations and behaviors
• Make the whole experience for  consumers around their real interests
• Save costs (Example: for an IT company a career social network means less spend on recruitment ads)

WORDS OF WISDOM

This is essentially related to printer. It was abnormal because there was a file cued for printing and the printer was not connected.

The solution is to cancel the waiting document from printing. One can access this file from Control Panel > Printer and Faxes. Simply cancel the file. Wola!

Something to Think about: Why doesn’t Windows or the Printing software detect such a simple glitch and prompt the user to click a button and resolve it?

Via: Online Schools

Something to Think About – When hiring a person the manager could ask: Whats your Facebook matter?

This report is part of an ongoing web study called The Global Web Index – a syndicated market research service on web behavior and social media — in interactive infographic form.

Something to Think about - Can social media become a more powerful distribution channel than print, television, radio or static web pages ever were?

This is the latest entry into Google’s effort to make information easier and faster to access for its user base. Prior to this advancement the search engine had relied on bits and pieces of text taken from the website and placed as contextually as possible under the search results. Unfortunately this method has not always been reliable in offering a realistic view of what is contained within a link.

Read the whole story

Hands-on Tour

Something to Think about: Are you willing to invest to upgrade your website if an expert told you it will go a long way in helping your business, customers and Google search?

Here is the final storyboard. The video is in production. Will post that next week.

The brief is to create a series of interesting and fun videos that will talk about the contents of whitepapers of Wipro Technologies.

Tell us what you think!

Since social media is predominantly driven by youth-centric marketing, there are a few obstacles to overcome…
1. Data charges need to become a no brainer for dependents to adopt mobile internet.
2. 3G penetration should be faster than it is at the moment.
3. Websites should be compatible with mobile browsers.

I recently purchased a smartphone. The seller insisted on theft insurance of 90% claim of the cost of phone. This is something the government has enforced.

In the future we will experience more data charges for internet use than phone calls on mobile bills.

Something to think about – This post is written and published on a smartphone via WordPress application.

Proximity marketing is the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular place. Transmissions can be received by individuals in that location who wish to receive them and have the necessary equipment to do so.

Bluetooth Marketing is a way of allowing customers to interact with an advertising panel or a poster with their mobile phones. Customers can receive content such as video clips, music, vouchers and coupons, contact information or product information by simply activating Bluetooth on their mobile phones in the vicinity of the display.

There was a humongous buzz bout the Bluetooth technology a few years ago and some marketers still adopt this for behavioral and location-based push marketing. But people have not accepted the technology beyond its ability to easily transfer data from your phone to a known device (or visa versa). Mainly because Bluetooth networks are open to virus attacks. Also, there is a cost involved in setting up a Bluetooth hub(s). And for an individual retailer, this can turn out to be huge.

Something to Think about: As bluetooth phases out will people adopt location-based services? Check out my post on location-based services.

Marketers could leverage from existing platforms to create hyper-local communications which is specific to a person’s location. These messages should ideally have a promise and a specific call to action. They could also at times be about letting their followers know you are happy to have them as your customer and entice them to develop more loyalty towards your brand.

Foursquare which recently forayed into location-based services has gained immense equity among the social media savvy. Users are typically youth who have internet-enabled smartphones. Foursquare is a cool way to connect with establishments and people. The essence of this tool is that it allows you to find Foursquare establishments near your location. Once user has identified a location, they can ‘check-in’ to this establishment and gain ‘badges’. These badges are given away based on various parameters. If a user visits a place often, he can become the ‘mayor’ of that place/ establishment. The cool thing is that Mayors receive offers and deals from establishments like café, restaurants, retailers etc. Additionally, users can find and add friends to their Foursquare profile. Also, users can hook up with other Foursquare users near their location. This way they can exchange thoughts/ reviews etc about the establishment.

In India, Mumbai has accepted Foursquare with arms wide open. Other regions are quickly picking up. There are certain meetup communities in various cities, similar to tweetups who are promoting this platform.

In the future, we will find numerous services come up around the concept of location-based services which marketers could leverage from. This will primarily be driven by youth centric marketing.

Something to Think About: IS BLUETOOTH DEAD? Check out my next post to uncover more.