Can Customer service be a new metric to gauge a brand’s performance online?

While everyone is talking about content marketing and social media marketing on the online marketing strategies, I believe all of them are turning a blind eye to a gold mine of content in context to their respective brand/service/product – Customer/Consumer created content in form of sentiment. Almost all the marketers focus the bulk of their energy on creating campaigns that will enhance their brand health, but often overlook the importance of what people are saying publicly through social media about the organic customer service experiences they have.

With this curious question in mind out team at TheSocialPeople initiated a research via our ORM tool that helps us capture the brand/industry related data on the social media space, we discovered that there is an immense opportunity for companies to win back lost customers, improve customer service experience and track the customer service performance. By doing this we were able to develop a metric that can enable businesses to define an ROI on customer loyalty & customer retention basis via a strong engagement methodology of converting a threat into opportunity.

During our research we realized that the customer service performance on the Social Media and online space includes two key dimensions – Customer Loyalty and Brand Reputation. These two factors directly impact factors like rate of customer acquisition, wallet share, sales & revenue and customer retention.

So in today’s world of Social media where a customer is brutally honest about their sentiments (positive or negative) brands needs to rigorously monitor their online reputation and ensure that every negative sentiment is well attended to ensure customer retention while every positive sentiment is propagated to all possible circles of the company’s social media ecosystem. In another world a happy customer is the greatest brand ambassador your company can ever afford – Invest more on them!

Viral Thaker, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople
A seasoned HR & Marketing professional, Viral was one of the early adopters of social media. With over a decade of industry experience under his belt, his skills span corporate strategy, delivery management, customer relationship management, business development and operations management. Viral is a voracious reader, a travel enthusiast and enjoys adventure sports. Follow Viral on Twitter @vrlthaker

Why you should never follow your friends on Twitter?

 I was doing some analysis on my Twitter followers the other day on Social Bro. Social Bro is this tool that allows you to understand the nature of your Twitter followers and where are they from and so on.

To my surprise I found that most of my latent tweeters on my network, that is folks who tweet only once a month or less, were actually some of my good friends. As I dug deeper I found out that almost all of my latent followers were those whom I knew very well. But they never had a thing to say on Twitter. Some of them had tweeted last almost 2 years ago.

This revelation brought me to a cross road, and a question. Do I have to add people to my network on Twitter only because I knew them, even though they did not have a single thing to share or say?

The answer to that question is not very simple and as I was looking for expert advice, I decided to post the question on LinkedIn.  And here is what most respondents had to say.

My own perspective is-

1.       Identify why you are using Twitter. If it is to socialize just listen in then it does not matter who all you add in your network.

2.       But if you are using Twitter for building consensus or perspectives or for businesses, then I think it is counterproductive to add your friends if they have nothing to add on the subject or if they are not an expert in the business area you are dealing with.

3.       Always analyze your network every six months. Often you have users who have never used Twitter and are still there in your network. If at all you decide to reorganize your network then you know where to start.

4.       Get familiar with tools like Social Bro. It comes in handy when you want to decide on aspects like the best time to Tweet.

Whether you are using Twitter for personal use or for business, there is no point in following someone who is not likely to share anything. In my opinion kicking them out of the network is the best policy, friend or no friend.

 By Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople

Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran is a marketing professional with almost 10 years of experience. He is passionate about public health, blogging, writing, public speaking and lawn tennis. He can be followed on his twitter handle @drvikram. Visit his blog at Docter Soccer.

Founder Speak is our weekly column by the founders of TheSocialPeople- Viral Thaker & Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran.

Why Twitter is not a social network

It is the telegraph of the internet.

A social network is characterized by a high degree of reciprocity. Take Facebook for example. Most people you know personally are on your friend list. If someone known to you sends you an invite, in all likelihood you accept it. Not many people who are unknown to you would send you an invite anyway.

However, Twitter is characterized by a high degree of non-reciprocity. Here’s an example- Kim Kardashian the reality show star has more than 10 million followers on Twitter. But she chooses to follow only 140 odd people. Consider Lady Gaga. The most followed person on Twitter follows about 140,000 thousand while she herself has about 14 million fans following her.

An analysis on others on Twitter shows a similar trend.

As a matter of fact, according to a research, aired on a Freakonomics podcast 60% of the tweets on twitter come from roughly 20,000 followers, though Twitter has more than 200 million odd accounts.

So what is Twitter if not a social network? Well I am not sure about others but in my opinion Twitter is simply a medium of communication and is actually the internet version of the telegraph.

This analogy revealed itself to me while reading ‘The Hound of Baskervilles’ by Sherlock Holmes. Anyone who has read this marvelous book knows all about how important bits of information were being transmitted over the telegraph.

Not very different from Twitter with its limitation of 140 characters to share information. The news can be a private message or broadcast to all followers.

Quite often, breaking news finds its way onto Twitter before the television or the paper. News networks pick up on information from trending tweets.  Setting up tools like the Tweet Deck, supplies me with quick information. And that’s how I end up reading about Steve Job’s death first via Twitter and follow the Arab Spring movement on it.

I think eventually Twitter has turned out to be more of a news agency than a social network and the model that will suit it best is the one Reuters set up at the turn of the century.

Your thoughts?

 By Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople

Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran is a marketing professional with almost 10 years of experience. He is passionate about public health, blogging, writing, public speaking and lawn tennis. He can be followed on his twitter handle @drvikram. Visit his blog at Docter Soccer.

Founder Speak is our weekly column by the founders of TheSocialPeople- Viral Thaker & Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran.

Social Media loves Small & Medium Business

As a Founder CEO of a B2B specialist firm on Social Media Strategy and Analytics it did not take me a lot of time to realize that it was not only the investors in facebook’s IPO who were thwarted with the Social Network but also a lot of small and medium businesses who claim to have burnt their hands by spending too much time and money on Facebook for negligible returns.




Now every time I’ve met a small business owner and had this scenario I ask them 3 basic questions:

1. Who was running your Social Media campaign and how skilled they were with Social Network sites?
2. What was the strategy they had adopted to achieve their business objective? Or did they actually put any strategy in place first of all?
3. What was their metrics on ROI?

On detailed investigation it was a learning that most of these businesses’ campaign did not even qualify for social media campaign criteria.

What do most of the businesses get wrong in Social Media Marketing?

It’s a sad state that most of the businesses today are more sales oriented rather than to be Marketing centric. Even the marketers today talk the language of reaping immediate yield, rather than to wait for the time to harvest. Instead of building an ecosystem and a network of customers, prospect customers, employees and stake holders on social media they want immediate lead generation and results.
While Attract, Engage, Convert are the 3 milestones of Social Media Campaigning (let’s call it Interactive Campaigning); Patience is the key to its success!

So what is recommended to the entrepreneurs who want to go social?

It’s simple, go back to the basics and start building the blocks – Who your target audience is? What are they looking for? Does your business have a service/solution they require? If your answers are a definite yes to such questions then start thinking of ways to engage them. I’d like to strongly emphasize here that one does not require insanely large numbers. It’s not about quantity but quality. Remember that Content is the King, but Context is the Emperor.

Also the success of a small business very much depends on creating a personal connection with each customer. Do not mix it with a Facebook paid Ad campaign; you might just end up blowing your marketing budget on a “Friends of Friends” advertising where a message seems to come from a friend but is actually an Ad. People hate this – think about it.

What other tips for Small & Medium Businesses who want to maximize their impact on Social Media?

1. I always like to refer Social Media Marketing as Interactive Marketing. Unlike traditional marketing social media has a two way conversation.
2. Having a million followers / fans does not mean your business would increase exponentially. What really matters is to have that one great follower/fan that can make your brand go viral with a strong “friends of friends” engagement as a brand ambassador.
3. Don’t advertise – Offer information instead. Build a social credibility.
4. Remember the old saying – “Rome was not built in a day”; same stands for your Social Media Ecosystem. If you just keep at it, in the long run you’ll find it will pay off in huge returns and cost savings.

Viral Thaker, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople
A seasoned HR & Marketing professional, Viral was one of the early adopters of social media. With over a decade of industry experience under his belt, his skills span corporate strategy, delivery management, customer relationship management, business development and operations management. Viral is a voracious reader, a travel enthusiast and enjoys adventure sports. Follow Viral on Twitter @vrlthaker

Selling Your Business in 140 Characters. Or Less.

Many of you may have heard of an elevator pitch and must have rehearsed one at some point in your life. But what happens when someone asks about your business on Twitter and you have to define it within 140 characters while selling your service? The elevator pitch doesn't seem so old school after all now, does it? Just needs a little tweaking to suit the medium. 

When describing your business to people it’s best you ensure that the business is easy to understand. The reason for this is obvious – it helps the target audience grasp the benefits your business provides. An effective, short business description is an effective way of ensuring your work is understood by the target audience.

So how does one go about providing that crucial 140 character business description?

The goal here is to develop a description of what you do in as concise terms as possible. It needs be devoid of all acronyms or jargons that may confuse your prospect. This description can be used to answer a customer question or respond to any sentiment. It could be a tagline of a video or you can use it in person at an industry event.

Here are a few examples if your business is B2B:

• ‘We are wealth protection specialists offering our clients peace of mind with the best insurance products on the market.’
• ‘A leading B2B insurance service provider.’
• ‘We make complicated IT systems simple and help small businesses leverage technology to be productive and grow.’
• ‘A well known technology consulting firm in EMEA region.’
• ‘We help your business stay uncomplicated. Our consultants specialize in monetizing any effort that is being put into your business.’
• ‘A business consulting firm that enables business transformation.’

So what is your 140 character business description?  Make sure it tells the prospect what you do and how it helps them. Try it and let us know your experience.

P.S. This is not something you would post to your Twitter as a general update or say the very moment you meet someone. It often follows the question that most people ask after they get to know you: “Hi, so what do you do?”

- By Viral Thaker, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople
A seasoned HR & Marketing professional, Viral was one of the early adopters of social media. With over a decade of industry experience under his belt, his skills span corporate strategy, delivery management, customer relationship management, business development and operations management. Viral is a voracious reader, a travel enthusiast and enjoys adventure sports. Follow Viral on Twitter @vrlthaker 

Founder Speak is our weekly column by the founders of TheSocialPeople- Viral Thaker & Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran.

The Next Level: How Mobile Tech Can Transform Education

India today is on the cusp of the mobility revolution with close to 900 million mobile connections. Naturally, it seems that technology can play a big role in transforming education on mobile platforms.

With almost 6-7 lakh villages in the country, almost 70% of the population lives in the rural areas. 70% of these villages have a population of 1000 or less. So what we have is a population that is spread out across the hinterland, and with very little educational infrastructure available to them.

Many young Indians drop out of educational institutions due to two reasons:

•  Lack of proximity to educational infrastructure
•  Need to contribute to the family income

Both of these challenges can be met through mobile education solutions with self -paced modules enabled through regional languages. This will ensure that most are able to continue with their education.  With good modules enabled on mobile phones, the youth in rural areas will be able to access and get the most out of it.

And this will mark the next revolution in the education sector.

 By Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople

Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran is a marketing professional with almost 10 years of experience. He is passionate about public health, blogging, writing, public speaking and lawn tennis. He can be followed on his twitter handle @drvikram. Visit his blog at Docter Soccer.

Founder Speak is our weekly column by the founders of TheSocialPeople- Viral Thaker & Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran.

LinkedIn & Slideshare: Hit or Miss?

A fortnight ago I’d written about why LinkedIn should proactively acquire Branchout and now here’s news about it acquiring an Indian based presentation content sharing apps company – Slideshare. Now I’m not really certain whether this is a good acquisition or a bad, that’s something only time will tell. And since business dynamics can get pretty volatile and unpredictable, I reserve my biased opinion on the topic too, but when I heard of the news, I couldn’t help being just a little skeptical.

It left me scratching my head wondering why LinkedIn was willing to shell out all that money on an app that is already actively used on their platform and contributes to about 40% percent of the app subscriber base.

It was only after thorough research and retrospection that I managed to get a hold on some very interesting insights to this whole deal. I feel it  very necessary to share it with my fellow B2B marketers:

• Combined together, LinkedIn and Slideshare, estimated 136 million monthly unique visitors now aligning 9 million content uploads with 161 million members; this incredibly exciting news opens up a whole new world of possibilities for B2B marketers.
• This acquisition gets to the heart of the impact social media can bring into a business. And shows how the interaction of people and content makes professionals more productive and successful. As social media marketers often say, ‘content is king’.
• Slideshare’s acquisition of Zipcast in February 2011 made it a good bid for LinkedIn to further enhance their social network with powerful collaborative and interactive features like web conferencing (Note that Web Conferencing is a fast emerging online media and is expected to grow into a US $4 billion industry by 2014 according to a report by Frost & Sullivan).
• With new powerful collaborative features on LinkedIn like web conference and presentations, I can’t help but wonder if is also working towards video conferencing. This to me is a logical collaborative feature required by LinkedIn. It can add a whole new dimension to professional networking- just think about private online interviews and mini-conferences.
• Slideshare puts LinkedIn into a Lead Management process. What makes Slideshare a hit amongst Marketers is its ability to allow a user to embed a form for collecting a prospective lead’s data. By acquiring Slideshare LinkedIn now has the ability to manage leads this way which otherwise was a complicated task for any social network to do.
• It is only natural that LinkedIn covets SlideShare’s influence on the C-level. According to a recent DemandGen Report article, SlideShare gets 40% more traffic from C-level executives than LinkedIn. That kind of organic prestige is hard to buy – but LinkedIn just did.

Overall, I think this supernova acquisition in the social media universe- of a giant star pulling in a smaller power star into its gravitational pull- seems to be a natural fit that only time can tell has been a wise choice or not. But both SlideShare and LinkedIn share a common insight that has driven the growth of remarkable businesses, namely that people want to interact with each other through online content and discover new and professionally useful content by online networking.

Hit or flop, what do you think of this move? Do leave your comments here.

- By Viral Thaker, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople
A seasoned HR & Marketing professional, Viral was one of the early adopters of social media. With over a decade of industry experience under his belt, his skills span corporate strategy, delivery management, customer relationship management, business development and operations management. Viral is a voracious reader, a travel enthusiast and enjoys adventure sports. Follow Viral on Twitter @vrlthaker 

Founder Speak is our weekly column by the founders of TheSocialPeople- Viral Thaker & Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran.

Founder Speak

Why Customer Service Needs A Social Makeover

The service industry relies heavily on customer service and how customers value that service.

Recently when a friend organizing an event was feeling shortchanged by a hospitality group, she tried to speak to them about their commitment and agree to the earlier terms. After some time though she realized that they weren't interested in keeping their side of the deal. Irate at the the turn of events, she took to Twitter. Within minutes someone from the hospitality group monitoring the tweets responded and by next day her problem was solved.

Actress Ayesha Takia too tweeted about her discontent with Kingfisher airlines, which not only got the founder's attention but had him personally responding and ironing out the issues as well.

Welcome to the world of social makeover, thanks to the proliferation of social media.

Facebook with 800 million accounts has become the third largest nation in the world after China and India. Most brands and brand managers are present on social networks. As the number of users on social media grows, customer feedback both good and bad travels thick and fast. 

A small example: a classmate of mine started an online business and I happened to buy one of his products and recommend it on Facebook. Soon inquiries from my networks came pouring in asking me about my experience with the product and the service. Perhaps, my positive recommendation led others to try the it as well.

The bottom line is that in the over-marketed world that we live in, personal recommendations whether good or bad really do count. Thanks to social media the makeover of customer care is on the way.

 By Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople

Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran is a marketing professional with almost 10 years of experience. He is passionate about public health, blogging, writing, public speaking and lawn tennis. He can be followed on his twitter handle @drvikram. Visit his blog at Docter Soccer.

Founder Speak is our weekly column by the founders of TheSocialPeople- Viral Thaker & Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran.

Founder Speak

The Battle for BranchOut- Can LinkedIn Cut In Before Facebook?

Acquiring BranchOut has to be the most logical acquisition for LinkedIn today. An option that needs to be considered seriously or it shall lose out to Facebook that anyway appears to be on a major buying out spree (Instagram for US$ 1Bn and Microsoft’s AOL patents for US$ 500Mn).

Two years and 25 million registered users later, Facebook’s professional network is the biggest competitor for LinkedIn. What’s more it provides features similar to LinkedIn right on the Facebook platform. This means that not only can users see which of their friends (or friends of friends) work at specific companies but also doesn't require users to build a network one person at a time. Something that works in its favour given the slow time-consuming network building process on LinkedIn.

From a business perspective, BranchOut would be a lucrative addition both for Facebook as well as LinkedIn. Especially considering that it is a start up with 45 employees, 13 million unique visitors per month, is the 31st most popular app on Facebook, has a business model just like LinkedIn and has now recently launched its own mobile app which accounts for 45% of all its visits.

This means that if Facebook acquires BranchOut it can easily enter the space of business and professional networking, an arena currently dominated by LinkedIn and hence affecting its market share quite significantly.

Now if LinkedIn were to acquire Branchout before Facebook gets around to it, not only will it weed out the competition but will also have a readymade social network on a Facebook platform, increasing its number of subscribers.

It’s a wait and watch situation- does LinkedIn manage to win over BranchOut or will Facebook cut in, proving to be a fatal threat to the professional networking site? What are your thoughts on the subject?

- By Viral Thaker, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople

A seasoned HR & Marketing professional, Viral was one of the early adopters of social media. With over a decade of industry experience under his belt, his skills span corporate strategy, delivery management, customer relationship management, business development and operations management. Viral is a voracious reader, a travel enthusiast and enjoys adventure sports. Follow Viral on Twitter @vrlthaker

Founder Speak is our weekly column by the founders of TheSocialPeople- Viral Thaker & Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran.

Founder Speak

You probably should not be on social media. And I will give you my reasons. 

Reason 1

You have nothing to say. By that I mean you have nothing meaningful to add to the conversation. All you have is noise, jargon or a sales pitch. You probably have updates like “Come visit us on this day at so so venue” or “come experience the new product”. So you are adding to the confusion and have nothing new to add. Please stay away from social media.

Reason 2

Your company does not allow you to say anything meaningful. You have an archaic policy which forbids you to even send an exclamation mark on Twitter. Not only you the only person who is allowed to tweet is your CEO and his admin uses his id to send a very safe tweet like “Cloud computing is the future of technology”. It’s better to give social media a miss and spend time on something more useful like cold calling.

Reason 3

You believe in only responding to celebrities and other famous people, your customers don’t mean much to you. You don’t believe in understanding the customer needs. Your focus is firmly on the celebrity and things like baby names for celebrity kids.

Reason 4

You believe in letting the marketing department create your content. What is written on your channels is carefully orchestrated marketing spiel. Not the genuine conversation from your experts.

If these four or any of the four reasons are present in your social media strategy then I think you need to  move on and leave social media to the experts.

- By Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran, Founder & Director | TheSocialPeople

Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran is a marketing professional with almost 10 years of experience. He is passionate about public health, blogging, writing, public speaking and lawn tennis. He can be followed on his twitter handle @drvikram. Visit his blog at Docter Soccer.

Founder Speak is our weekly column by the founders of TheSocialPeople- Viral Thaker & Dr.Vikram Venkateswaran.