Course on Social Media Marketing

NIIT's been quite aggressive in pushing this course on social media marketing. The curriculum covers everything a marketing person needs to understand to get on this platform.

Formula for Creating a Viral Video

Creating a great video is only half the task, ensuring it goes viral is equally important

Creating an interesting video, that you hope will go viral, is probably as difficult as trying to predict a Bollywood hit. However, like the producers who have a de-risking formula, these are a few things you can do to ensure your video gets some visibility. Of course, if it is picked up by the community...you too can rake in the big bucks.


Pre-launch: It would be good to being pre-launch activities as early as possible. Three months is the minimum time you need to build up your audience. Pre-launch activities include setting up a:

• Facebook Fan Page: This should ideally be around a theme. For example, if you plan to a product related to food, the fan page should be on an aspect of food that closely matches with your product...healthy living and eating etc. Initially you could use this page to link back to other posts or relevant third-party information.
• Twitter ID: As with the Fan Page use the twitter id to build up a following. You could also use the followers you build up as sounding boards for your campaign. In case of a product you have a ready-made audience for product trials.
• Blog: Relevant only if you have a lot of information to convey. Otherwise keep it short and simple with the Fanpage and the ID. If however, you feel the need for a blog, you need to post links back to the Facebook Fanpage and the twitter ID. It would also help to syndicate your posts in relevant forums. This will ensure traffic builds up for the blog. Be warned, however, this is time consuming and unless you are willing to splurge on marketing dollars it takes time to build decent traffic to a blog.

Video Basics: Some basic rules that I have picked up from the top video virals. Excellent examples of these include the Coke happiness machine campaign and the Virgin mobile IPL 3 campaign.

• Product Ads seldom go viral: Simplistic ads extolling the virtues of your product are almost never going to make it to the viral list. 
• Humor and feel-good: Two great emotions for a viral video. If you can associate your product with a cause and build humor into it as well, you're almost there.
•  Short is good: While you can technically do a video up to 10 mins or more (youtube has a limit of 2GB for video files), it is best to stick your video in the 60-90 sec time slot. That is the optimum viewing time for online videos. Also given our slow bandwidths this length is ideal.
• HD only if you have to: HD is a bandwidth hog. So make an HD video only if there is a real benefit from the better video definition. 
• Post only on youtube: Youtube gives you all sorts of options to embed or share the video. Best is to post it once on youtube and embed and share it across your network. This ensures that every view on any platform counts as view on youtube, thereby building it up as a most popular video.

Launch: For the video to go viral it needs to be circulated as widely as possible. The idea is that it should make it to the most popular video lists. That is when it is picked up and goes viral. Some things you can do to push it include:

• Post Video Link: On your Facebook fanpage, twitter ID and all other social media sources you might have developed during the pre-launch stage.
• Circulate: To bloggers, press release forums and publications that are relevant to the video and the product. The key to a successful viral is the views it gets. If it makes it to the Most Popular category on youtube, your job is done.
• Participate: In relevant forums, Facebook pages and communities. You will find it easier to push your video through them.

Post launch: If like the other 99%, your video is not picked up as a viral, it helps to keep the conversation going. One example of a video that did not make viral but had a successful post launch strategy is the Maruti Suzuki Estillo campaign. While the videos generated less than a thousand views till date, the marketing team have kept the interest going on their fan page through simple yet interesting contests related to their core campaign. While this might not help the video itself, Maruti has ensured a strong fan presence that they can capitalize on.

Finally it is the choice of the audience that enables a video to go viral. So spend as much time storyboarding as you can. It will help you more than anything else mentioned here.

PS: For those who need statistics to understand why video virals are such a big deal, read this

Marketing your content

It's been about four months since I started on the topic of Social Media Marketing and its impact on small businesses. While I have enjoyed exploring the platform (and writing about it in Entrepreneur and biztech2.com), the real learnings actually began when I decided to set up my own blog on the subject about a month ago.

Having my own blog had its plus points: For one, I could actually just use it to post links to other great posts on the topic. I could use it also to interact and a build a community that would contribute and help build out a platform for small businesses.

Of course that was the theory. In practice, I discovered that I now end up spending more time figuring out ways to get traffic going for my blog...than anything else. It is during this process I realized the importance, of not only writing great content, but also marketing it. Be it an individual blog, like mine, or a company blog...unless we can get the traffic going...our efforts are meaningless.

Again building the traffic is not an overnight process...especially, I have decided not to pay for any marketing activity...be it SEO, adwords or even Facebook ads. I found this post, to be an interesting and practical guide to marketing content. You too can use it to help drive traffic.

Blogs still work...

...and what do you need to do to ensure a great corporate blog


Following up on my earlier post on personal blogging, I found a number of writers online stressing the need to maintain and develop blogs as part of the overall corporate marketing strategy. While most corporates are looking to integrate Facebook and Twitter in their online strategies, there is still a lot to be said about a well-maintained corporate blog, as a part of their overall social media marketing strategy.

The obvious question would be why have a blog and a website, as most corporates have already set up a pretty decent online presence. A blog differs from a website in that it can serve as an effective communication platform, which can be tweaked to the focus of the moment. For example: Maruti Estillo's excellent social media campaign centered around the Crash Test Dummies can be captured in a blog...whereas on the corporate website, it will only form a part of the messaging.

However, launching a blog is one thing. Maintaining it quite another. Mark Evans lists out the key ingredients to a good corporate blog. Read, implement and watch your circle of influence grow.

Cost of reaching 3 million viewers...

...zero if you follow the Coke formula


Coke's happiness machine is one of the most visible and discussed success of a Social Media marketing campaign. It is also a perfect example of a campaign that uses all elements of social media...from a video (that went viral and resulted in 3 million viewers seeing it), Facebook fan page, twitter and blogs. However, what is really interesting about the process is the costs. Barring the production cost for the video, Coke did not spend a dime on any Social Media Marketing activity.

Read how they did it here. Surely if Coke can do it, so can you.

Six commandments of Social Media Marketing

As a newspaper journalist, the golden rule of writing we followed was the "inverted pyramid." Simply put it meant that you put up the most important news up front and then the details down, with the least important information making up the last few paragraphs of your story. However, when I shifted to TV this changed to the "hour-glass rule". According to the hour-glass rule the story need an intro, a middle and an end. Sometimes the most important part of the news as actually the middle.

Basically, the rules of story-telling changed according to the platform. Something similar is also true of marketing. Marketing rules are crafted to suite the medium. This is more so for Social Media, where the premise is one-on-one communication. Obviously rules that apply in mass media are not going to work here. So what does work for Social Media? Those rules are being written the world over, in different and innovative campaigns. However, for starters this post from Chris Street lays out six rules that, if followed, will ensure a successful Social Media Marketing campaign. Read, implement and enjoy the results.

Why should you blog, about what...

...And some simple and free tactics to get the traffic flowing


With Facebook and Twitter dueling for year-end honors in the Social Media space, advocating a blog is a bit like driving around in an Ambassador. We know that blogging is not going to make us rich overnight, and we also know we're not going to get a million page views by sharing random snippets of our lives. But, there's still a lot to be gained by going this route. The top three reasons why I believe a blog benefits professionals/entrepreneurs and small businesses:

• Personal Branding: Suppose you are an auto engineer and are interviewing at one of the top manufacturers. Imagine the impact, if you pull out your blog and show them some great design or your thoughts on transmission. The written word is way more powerful than anything you can speak, and since not many of your peers blog it shows your commitment and passion.
• Connections: This is a great way to build connections. You will interact with fellow professionals outside your workplace, you might never have met otherwise. 
• Visibility: Again, if you put yourself out there, you never know who you are reaching out to. A blog gives you visibility beyond what your Facebook and twitter updates can.

What should you blog about? Blog about what you are passionate...it might be part of your profession, a hobby or maybe a subject--like the environment--that you care about and you feel the need to share. Some simple dos for a good blog:

• Pick one topic: Random rantings on a variety of topics is not going to build you a readership. Let's face it, just a tiny fraction of writers are good enough to do that. It's better to focus on one subject, preferably micro focus and go the whole hog. Your readers know what to expect, and the keyword density helps push your rankings up with the search engines.
• K.I.S.S: Keep it simple stupid. Short sentences and paragraphs. One clear thought per blog entry. Write in an easy and engaging style...unless you blog on literature or poetry.
• Post regularly: You don't have to write long every day. I like to do one long-piece a week and then for the rest of the week post links to other articles/news items that I found interesting. This way, I ensure my blog is refreshed everyday and I'm not under pressure to deliver an article a day.
•  Make it personal: A blog is supposed to be an online diary. So share your knowledge, but also share experiences. Readers appreciate first-hand info.
• Wait: There are a billion websites and blogs competing for attention...readers are not going to come just because you have a great blog. It takes time to build a following, so be patient. Most of us set high expectations and give up when they are not met. What is the waiting time? Depends on the topic, but it could take you six months to build a reader base. 

While there's no short-cut to building up a readership, here are a few simple steps that could hasten the process:

• Push on your Social Network: Most of us have decent friends' lists on Facebook and Linkedin. Push your content to them. Your initial traffic will be from familiar sources. As they like what you write, they will viral it.
• Twitter it: Facebook and Linkedin are closed circles, in that you and your friend need to accept each other. Twitter, however, lets anyone follow you and you can do the same. You will pick up a bunch of followers by posting regularly to twitter.
• Link back: Ensure your online resume, Linkedin profile and every other online entry has a link back to the blog. Get your friends to link back to your blog and do the same for them. This will enable the search spiders to find it more often...thereby increasing your ranking.
• Submit to web and blog directories: This is a one time activity you do at the start of the blog. You need your blog to be picked up by the blog and web directories. A number of sites do this for free. I have used http://freewebsubmission.com/ and http://www.blogcatalog.com/. Pay if you want to, but its not really worth it. Eventually content will drive readership and good content will always rise to the top.
• Build a Facebook Page: You can build a page on Facebook for your blog. I haven't done this yet, as I don't have the time to maintain a blog and the Facebook page to promote it. But, I've experienced the benefits that compareindia.com derives from its Facebook page, so will eventually get around to setting it up. 
• Publish on your blog and in the media: All my entries on social media marketing appear here. I have a monthly column in Entrepreneur India and also write regularly on biztech2.com. This helps me reach a wider base and validates me as a subject expert. Getting onto a publisher is not that difficult. Figure out the right publication for you and ask the Editor. You'll be surprised by how many of them say yes.

Finally, you wonder how much time all this would take. I normally spend about an hour a day on the topic of Social Media marketing. This includes my reading, writing and whatever experiment I carry out to push this blog or compareindia.com. I do have to spend more when I write these long pieces, but I keep that for the weekends.

Time to make Social Media Marketing payoff

Most entrepreneurs going the Social Media Marketing way will find that while the allure of free is attractive, the process of creating an effective campaign can be time consuming. The number of hours they can afford to devote to this activity, might not be nearly enough to get them the response. Also, while Social Media campaigns pay-off over the long-term, for the first three to six months of the campaign itself returns would be negligible. This could be the critical phase for a start-up in need of a quick marketing burst. 

Social Media specialist Beth Kanter's excellent post looks at both the amount of time that Social Media can take up, as well as the time for it to start paying off. Do check it out.

Catch that Viral

Viral marketing has been around since, well Eve convinced Adam to take a bite of the forbidden Apple way back when. Since it’s rather diabolical introduction viral marketing has become an integral part of any marketing activity. While the offline version of viral has traditionally been through word-of-mouth, online the credit for inventing viral marketing, though not the term itself, goes to hotmail.com


When Hotmail launched every outgoing message contained an advertisement for Hotmail and a link to its website at the bottom of the e-mail. As more people used the service, they were also advertising it and helping it reach out to a wider audience. This enabled hotmail to quickly scale up its membership. Of course the more people that joined and sent out emails only helped increase its reach.


The early hotmail example led to a virtual explosion of viral campaigns online. Companies have taken the link example to the extreme embedding even heavy video files onto emails…hoping for the viral effect. Websites set up elaborate viral emailing schemes based around free content for example: joke-a-day, story-a-day, newsletters etc. But as with everything else online what this did in fact do was create the overkill effect. Too much of anything is poisonous and viral marketing too seemed destined for a quick eclipse.


If it is back today, it is thanks to two developments. The first was YouTube’s explosive arrival as the video content provider to the world and social networking platforms.  The YouTube phenomenon has been extensively chronicled and so does not need repeating here. Suffice to say that most companies now view a viral video campaign as an essential part of their marketing plans. YouTube also helped smaller companies, cash-strapped groups put out great videos and increasing their reach. For long YouTube remained on the periphery of the Indian web experience due to low availability of bandwidth. However, things are changing fast. While bandwidth is still an issue Indians, like the rest of the world, are increasingly going online to watch videos.


Add social networking on YouTube and you have the foundation for making your viral happen. I have noticed an interesting change take place on my network. Where previously my group of friends would post status reports, links to articles and some videos, sharing of videos is increasingly becoming the most popular activity by my group of online buddies. We share everything from funny “slice of life” videos, to TV clips from reality shows, movie trailers and yes the really really good viral campaigns. One campaign that has caught the fancy of most of us is the Virgin telecom series of ads that were supposedly banned during IPL. It’s a simple ad where a bunch of fans call up and tease each other about their teams. Simple, funny and absolutely contagious, it has far outlived the tournament itself.


This is where you come in. Making a viral video is not expensive. All you need is a good story that you know gets your message across but is good enough for people to enjoy and pass on. Videos that display empathy, passion, patriotism and above all humor are prime candidates to get on the viral bandwagon. These are not expensive to produce.


We costed a video at under Rs. 10,000 that we are in the process of developing for a viral campaign. You can use this route too and reach out to an audience that would normally cost you millions of marketing bucks.


This column appears in the December 2010 issue of Enterpreneur India. It has also been published in biztech2.com. The link is here: http://biztech2.in.com/blogs/editorial-blogs/catch-that-viral/96012/0