Creating opportunities for the youth

Name of Business: LetMeKnow.in

Website URL: www.letmeknow.in

Industry: Opportunity Portal

Target Audience: Youth, primarily in the age group 18-25

Category of Business

Founded in 2007, Let Me Know is a portal focused on connecting students and young professionals across India with opportunities for growth, career building and self development. It is a unique concept that helps the Indian youth to find internships, workshops, scholarships, events, seminars, conferences, tech-fests, literary events, part-time jobs and more. A number of opportunities arise for undergraduate and post graduate students across disciplines and young professionals. Often organizations with these opportunities find it a huge challenge to find the right people for them. Moreover, the costs associated with reaching out to the right people may be too high to be viable. Such organizations can now post these opportunities on the Let Me Know portal and extend their reach at no additional costs and with great convenience.

Let Me Know enables organizers (corporations, startups, universities, associations, non-profits etc.) to create, post and publish opportunities, invite entries, accept and manage applications and announce results. One can post an opportunity in categories such as business, technology, entrepreneurship, arts, culture and social innovation.

Marketing Efforts and Results

Let Me Know set up a blog in August 2009. They were initially blogging pretty actively. However, of late, their activities on this front have been limited. A blog is a great tool not only to connect with readers, but also to improve Google rankings through dynamic content updates. Moreover, an active sub-domain appears as a separate entity in the search engine results page.

Efforts have been focused on building a fan base with a strong presence on Facebook. The company already has about 9000 fans and regularly posts information about the latest opportunities that appear on their website. The fan page of Let Me Know begins with a registration page, thereby boosting the registrations on their website.

Let Me Know has 777 followers on Twitter. Here, too they publish their daily dose of latest opportunities. Both Facebook and Twitter have been used to encourage comments and questions around the various opportunities. Feedback is gathered from the followers, fans and subscriber on other social media channels and the company uses them to continuously improve their services. Social media has also been used to give special focus to specific organizers and/or opportunities that are most viewed and clicked.

“Facebook has very useful in helping us reach more students and young professionals from around the country. With our recent integration of daily opportunity updates on Facebook, traffic on our newsletter has increased. Facebook has also helped us get good feedback on our service which flows directly into our planning efforts. Twitter, on the other hand, has helped us a little bit in identifying new opportunities but not so much in getting more visitors or subscribers to the portal. We have realized that the Indian youth’s presence is quite strong on Facebook but Twitter is not that popular a social networking website amongst college students in particular,” says Sarabjeet Singh, CEO, Let Me Know.

Marketing Investment

• One-time integration of their daily newletter of opportunities with the Facebook and Twitter pages.
• Two man hours daily to filter opportunities and post the most popular ones on social media channels.
• 1 day every month for a monthly review of activity on Facebook and Twitter and using analytics data to improve marketing efforts.

Online pays off for professional services

Professional service providers like lawyers, doctors, CAs etc need to seriously consider going online to grow their businesses. Users are increasingly turning to the internet to find the services they are looking for. This includes local services. Google has responded to this trend by the launching Google Places. However, Places is just one piece of the puzzle. There is a lot more you can do online to generate more business.

Create a Free Website

Creating a website is like owing an office location where internet users can reach your business. You can read about the importance of a website on thousands of articles on the internet; however, here is what you will not find there – the option of free website makers. Free website makers allow you to create a basic website where you can easily upload information in the form of text, images and videos at no price. Some of the most popular free website makers are Wix, Weebly and Jimdo.

Keywords: The Secret to Online Traffic

Keywords refer to the search query that internet users type to search for specific information via search engines. Optimize the website content for keywords that are relevant for your business. For example, legal services in India, Indian legal services, lawyer in India can be good keywords for a legal business. To find good quality keywords, use the Google Adwords tool, which is available online for free. Use keywords in the title tag, Meta tags, headlines and intro paragraphs. Avoid the excessive usage of keywords, as this makes your content look unattractive.

Start Selling with Ecommerce

If you are serious about selling products online, opt for a paid website that allows online transactions. Such websites enable you to create an online shopping store where users can buy products or services by making payments through their credit cards, debit cards or PayPal accounts.

People Love Freebies

Add freebies on your website for users to download. For example, you can add an industry report or a case study imparting information. Internet researches show that a majority of the users participate in a meaningful quiz to test their knowledge. Add an interesting quiz to make people stay longer on your website.

A Blog a Day

A blog a day will establish your presence as an online expert in your field. While a website is dedicated to your business, a blog is more personalized approach to online marketing. Start writing blogs about the latest in your field, personal experiences, tips, and how-to topics.

Establish Identity on Forums

Forums are websites that allow users to discuss a topic. Look for popular forums that are dedicated to your industry or specialization. Answer queries posted by users and ask them to contact you for further information.

Optimize Social Media Presence

Social networking is the buzzword of this era. Take social networking profiles seriously. Facebook allows you to create a company profile page for your business. Use this page to enable existing and prospective clients stay connected to your business. Updates from the company profile page will work as a remainder to your clients. Also, use LinkedIn to connect with other professionals from the industry. This will help you to understand what they are doing differently.

Apart from these free promotional activities, you can opt for paid internet marketing through the Google advertising program. Enroll into this program and your business will get listed in the paid search results based on the keywords that you have chosen. Similarly, Facebook also allows paid advertising. While paid advertising is an easy way of generating sales, do not underestimate the importance of optimizing your online presence through free marketing strategies.

While the to do list above might seem intimidating, it is essential if you want your business to grow. Of course any half decent online marketing company can create your presence in a week or less at a cost of anything between Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000....depending on the package you opt for. Take a look at the list of companies here, or simply google for one. Remember to check the credentials of the company you sign up with, as there are as many snake oil sellers as genuine companies out there. 

Bollywoodhungama: Facebook's dishum factory

Name of Business: Bollywoodhungama.com

Website URL: www.bollywoodhungama.com/

Industry: Entertainment

Target Audience: Bollywood fans across demographics

Category of Business

The parent company, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, was incorporated in 1999, as an online promotions agency. In the short span of a little more than ten years the company is today a Digital Entertainment, Mobile Services and Promo Marketing firm. Hungama Digital Media Entertainment is headquartered in Mumbai.

Bollywoodhungama.com caters to fans of all things…well Bollywood. With the objective of ‘Bringing the fans closer to their Stars’, Bollywoodhungama.com has launched several initiatives, including live video and text chats with Bollywood personalities, India’s first ever Bollywood video quiz, exclusive production blogs of latest and upcoming films and movie reviews.

Marketing Efforts and Results

Bollywoodhungama.com launched its Facebook page in May 2010. It held a series of contests, giving away merchandise to the winners. Today, there is a roaring community of more than 232,000 fans, who look forward to information through posts and updates on the latest from Bollywood. The focus here is on interactivity, with fans being encouraged to contribute actively to discussions, posts, contests et al. For instance, the website has a weekly update called ‘Guess Who’ where they post an image of a celebrity with their back to the camera. Members are required to figure out who the celebrity is. This concept is replicated on Facebook and typically more than 500 answers are posted by fans. People not only look forward to these fun postings, but also keep coming back to know the correct answer. While the Facebook page is used as a marketing tool for content on the site, the page also features exclusive content not available on the site.

Bollywoodhungama.com has a strong Twitter presence as well, with more than 11,000 followers. The focus has been on keeping users updated on the latest on the website. Typically, a short description of the story, along with the link to the full story is put up as a tweet. YouTube has proved extremely effective as a social media channel. Users can view exclusive interviews with leading celebrities, video features and behind-the-scenes content, among other things. Since its launch, the YouTube channel has received more than 2,436,973 views.

One of the most powerful things that Bollywoodhungama.com has done is to integrate its social media efforts with its website. For instance, the video quiz - ‘Bollywood Ka Baap’ - has been integrated via applications on Orkut and Facebook.

“Since inception, Hungama has focussed on creating properties that help brands interact with their end consumers. Using internet, then and social media now, brands have the opportunity of interacting with their consumers, connect with them and create an ecosystem where the users and the brand can stay connected. As compared to traditional forms of communication, the social media environment allows us to create continuous brand recall by using user friendly messages. Today, a brand may not necessarily use strategic messaging, but use tactical communication methods to stay top of mind with the consumer,” says Siddhartha Roy, COO, Hungama Digital Media.

“For instance, when Bollywoodhungama.com interacts with its members on Facebook, it doesn’t say ‘Come visit my website for the latest in Bollywood news’. Instead the messaging could vary from ‘Hey guys, who is your favourite actor?’ to ‘Did you hear that XYZ celebrity has signed a new film?’ Reactions generated by communication of this nature create brand recall as the user is involved with your brand. Therefore, with social media, we have been able to create constant interaction with consumers which in turn helps us create evangelists which leads to better brand value,” Mr. Roy adds.

Marketing Investment

No direct investments in social media. However, social media has been integrated into every aspect of content and marketing delivery, so all team members contribute to the social media marketing effort.

Book for every child through social media

Name of Business: Pratham Books

Website URL: www.prathambooks.org

Industry: Education (not-for-profit)

Target Audience: Everybody. Pratham wants to put a book in every child’s hand. So anyone who helps them get there is a target.

Category of Business

Pratham Books is a not-for-profit organization that publishes affordable children's books in multiple Indian languages. Their mission is “to see a book in every child’s hand” and create a “Reading India”. In the last seven years, Pratham Books has published over six million books in up to 11 languages.

Marketing Efforts and Results

Being a non-profit organization, the folks at Pratham Books have made time for people. The same is visible in their social media strategy. Pratham Books realized that it was impossible to accomplish their mission alone. The need of the hour was to collaborate with other publishers, writers, translators, parents, etc to be able to reach the last child. Thus, they began their social media efforts to create a community around reading and their efforts have reaped results.

Pratham Books has methodically tapped on the strengths of multiple social media platforms. “Social media, to us, is not a marketing tool and we have never used it as a marketing tool. Social media has been crucial to us building our social publishing strategy and has allowed us to create a very strong community around our mission of ‘A Book in Every Child's Hand,’ says Maya Hemant, Digital Community Manager, Pratham Books.

The organization maintains a blog - blog.prathambooks.org. This talks about publishing, reading, literacy, kidlit, learning, non-profits, events and more. The posts are a treat for anyone who appreciates creativity. Guest blogs have also been welcomed. Pratham Books sees Twitter as a space where they can engage with the community, share ideas, ask for help, get feedback, listen to complaints, participate and mobilize volunteers, to help their reach their goal. Pratham started using Twitter early in 2009 and has more than 3,000 followers. “Growth has been purely organic and we have built a large, geographically diverse community passionate about reading and always ready and willing to help. Twitter and tweeple have helped us connect with children who run a mobile library for other children in Bengal, bikers who have travelled across states and distributed our books to government schools, housewives who informally teach under privileged children in their locality, parents who coax school administrations to hold book fairs with our books, marketing experts who help better our strategy, organizations that need books and want us to help them in setting up their libraries, authors and illustrators who want to work with us, developers who have developed iPad applications for us and more,” says Hemant.

The organization has uploaded many of its books (available under Creative Commons licenses) on Scribd, so they can reach a wider audience. These books can be remixed/repurposed by the community to suit their purpose. There have been cases when their books have been translated into Lojban (a constructed language), Assamese, French and Spanish.

Pratham Books has more than 1,600 fans on Facebook, where it updates information from the blog as well as about the events organized by them. It uses this platform to communicate with the community. The fan page has a very personal and warm approach. Pratham started using Facebook towards the middle of 2009 and has built a tightly knit community. “One of the things that we do differently is that we do not use Facebook, or any of our other channels, to talk solely about our work or market ourselves. This is very important to us because we want our efforts to be larger than just our organization and to reflect the cause of reading,” says Hemant.

Documentation of the initiatives taken by Pratham Books can be found on Flickr. The organization also uses this platform to upload their Creative Commons licensed illustrations. Again the purpose is to reach more viewers and give the community the flexibility to repackage / reuse the content.

One can find Pratham Books on YouTube as well. Documentation of the work they do and information about some of their initiatives are uploaded here. The organization creates trailers to let people know about their books. Audio books, recorded by Radio Mirchi, are uploaded at Soundcloud.

“A key take away is that patience, authenticity and transparency are fundamental building blocks needed to build a successful social media presence and more importantly, a strong community,” says Hemant. Their social media and publishing efforts were recognized at the IndiaSocial Case Challenge, where they won the first prize.

Social Media Marketing Investment

Pratham Books does not allocate a budget for its social media marketing efforts. There is one person, who anchors the effort, while every member of the team.

Case Study: Pagalguy.com a hit on Facebook and Twitter

Name of Business: PaGaLGuY.com

Website URL: www.pagalguy.com/

Industry: Education

Target Audience: People who are interested in getting a graduate degree in management

Category of Business

PaGaLGuY.com is an online platform for MBA preparatory resources. The platform was founded in 2002 with an aim to enable MBA applicants make informed decisions. More than 700,000 MBA applicants access the platform every month. The website provides resources to help with preparing for MBA entrance exams (like the CAT, GMAT and TOEFL) as well as admission interviews. PaGaLGuY.com is also a place where MBA applicants help each other by sharing information, suggestions and experiences.

Marketing Efforts and Results

PaGaLGuY.com has a strong social media presence. It has close to 6,000 fans on its Facebook fan page. The fan page was created in 2008 and sustained a good rate of growth in fans. PaGaLGuY.com facilitates interaction as well as promotes contests through this page. It does not believe in duplicating content on its site and its facebook page. So, the interactions are unique and more meaningful.

“Recently we launched our survey for business school rankings and we saw around 9,000 clicks on our application from facebook over a period of 20 days. This was a phenomenal way to reach out to our current and new users,” says CEO Allwin Agnel.

PaGaLGuY.com has a twitter account as well, where it has more than 3,100 followers. It began the endeavor in 2010. The platform is used to announce new stories to its followers. The followers on Twitter and fans on Facebook have grown organically—no marketing monies invloved. PaGaLGuY.com uploads videos of events and news on YouTube.

The website has experienced huge success with its forum, which has more than 2 million discussion posts. MBA applicants can find useful stuff out there on MBA preparation and admissions.

PaGaLGuY.com’s three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 7,569. Its Indian traffic rank is 480.

Marketing Investment

PaGaLGuY.com has not outsourced its initiatives in social networking. People who update the website spend some time in maintaining the facebook and twitter accounts.

Case Study: How Law is Greek engages customers

Name of Business: LawIsGreek.com
Website: www.lawisgreek.com
Industry: Legal
Target Audience: Laypersons, Lawyers and Law Students

Category of Business
Launched in February 2010, LawIsGreek.com (LIG) is an online platform for resolving legal issues, with a focus on India. It aims at increasing awareness of Indian laws among laypersons and does this by publishing articles that simplify legal jargon and through “how to” articles. The website also publishes legal news. LIG aims to resolve legal problems that people face through its “Ask for legal advice” section. The website features details and profiles of lawyers who offer their opinions through blogs as well as through legal counsel to people seeking information on specific law categories. There are forums that enable discussions on varied topics among laypersons and law experts. LIG provides specialized services to students, lawyers and laypersons.

Marketing Strategy
LawIsGreek.com has used social media integration for enhancing its visibility, popularity and awareness within and outside the legal sphere. Its Facebook Fan Page forms the primary tool to reach out to Indians across the globe. Updates on this page invite a lot of feedback. This interactivity has created a community that is loyal to the site and contributes to it. This fan page has been customized to include additional tabs. For example, the “Latest on LIG” tab is where Facebook users can take a look at all the recent activity on the site. This engages them by providing them the opportunity to express their thoughts around the content on LawIsGreek.com.

LIG has used Twitter to do much more than what businesses typically do. The profile encourages conversations rather than merely being a tool to send tweets to its followers. Additionally, LIG has a page on the site that displays legal updates from people on Twitter.

One medium that has helped LIG to connect with legal professionals is LinkedIn. Using discussion boards to involve experts in the field of law, LawIsGreek.com has built a strong group on this networking site. It focuses on converting this effort into greater activity on the site.

Palash Das, from the Strategic Alliances division of LawIsGreek.com, said, “Social media marketing is the backbone of our marketing initiative. This is what has helped us reach out to our target audience, engage them and create our brand.”

Result
LIG reached 20,000 fans on its Facebook Fan Page in September 2010. Activity of its fans has also grown. As of December 2010, there were more than 50 daily comments on various posts and more than 20,000 daily post views. Alexa’s global traffic rank improved from 800,000 in March 2010 to 66,956 in December 2010. Alexa’s Indian traffic rank improved from 60,000 in March 2010 to 10,383 in December 2010.

Investment
LIG began investing in social media integration in May 2010. Their marketing investment has been in the form of hiring dedicated SMO experts. The associated investment was around INR 60,000 ($1,350) per month for the first eight months. Once the foundation was laid, the investment for maintaining social media involvement declined significantly to about INR 16,000 ($350) per month.

LIG has two separate segments involved in social media integration. One segment focuses on building the base and the other focuses on increasing overall user engagement.