In my India Social Media Trends 2009 series, here's the # 2 thought, in no order of priority.

I have written about this a couple of times earlier this year - here & here - and expect this to be among the most dangerous phenomenon emerging from the social media revolution.

Brand Stalker Cometh, this year.

There are hackers & then there are 'crackers'. What makes you believe that all impact - positive or adverse - like Mortin -McNeil Consumer Healthcare - so 'painfully' realized recently with outburst by 'mommies' & 'mommy blogger' against their We Feel Your Pain campaign - see case-study here on Diva Marketing Blog - will have bonafide consumer origins like the Mortin (& so many others) example?

What if the motives of the perpetrators are malafide? What if the charges are not true? What if the victim organization has actually made a mistake and finds itself a soft-target against a seemingly above board/ hidden enemy? There could be many scenarios.

The Brand Stalker phenomenon makes guerrilla marketing seem tame. This could be just be an individual (a powerful voice), a group of individuals, it could well be an organization - and like I have said before I don't mean just the mafia - using blogs, social media tools to launch a covert or direct attack against a brand/ organization/ company with malicious intent...garnering support on the way, sometimes even from innocent participants misled - for the moment and joining the herd, realizing the impact only later. Action may last just a few hours of attack to a long drawn slow build up...

The consequences could be loss of reputation/ business, fall in stock prices (a simple motive) and more.

This year I came across three instances that had the making of this scenario. Strangely there has been a sharp rise in number of people landing on my blog, after a Google search on this keyword.

I repeat my questions from earlier...what do marketers think? What is the legal stand? What strategies would a brand need deploy to tackle something like this?

And a thought that makes me shudder: You first need to be a techie to become a 'cracker'. What are the prerequisites for a Brand Stalker...

I have, for over a week now, been trying to complete my India Social Media Trends 2009 piece and not having succeeded in doing so, decided to write them one by one, rather than all at one go. They are NOT in specific order or priority based on impact so request that you read them so. Here's the first one that I got prompted to write after reading this piece Difficult Days: low ad revenue, pagination by Ashish Bagga, CEO, Living Media India Ltd, in LiveMint's 2009 Trend Predictions series.

Bloggers make money via mainstream media and micro-publishing.

Making money in print media is tricky business even in normal times. Advertising & Circulation contribute 65:35 average revenue respectively as cover prices are subsidized significantly in most cases. Advertising revenues have to keep pace with circulation growth, as you are losing money for each extra copy that you sell. A slowdown in advertising could make dynamics change quickly. The Mint article talks about the following as an outcome of this:

1. Higher cover price, leading to lower circulation.
2. Lower pagination - expect ad driven supplements to come less frequently; city supplements may get thinner; even regular pages may reduce.

The piece also predicts:

1. Rightsizing of human resource will be another key trend. Both the number of employees as well as the cost of employment will be under review.

Effort would be to cut salaries and infrastructure cost. In this scenario, I would expect:

1. More dependence on content generated by wire agencies.


2. For some bloggers, this may clearly mean that over are the days of "loser generated content" - as my dear friend Narayan Madhavan of Hindustan Times refers to blogger/ user generated content, as s/he has hitherto not been paid; has mostly felt grateful to mainstream media if it has chosen to feature her content; in many cases the content has been plagiarized anyway - often, not just without permission, but also without due credit.

   In comes, paid - syndicated content, enhanced recognition & visibility for the blog writer/s. Experiments in this direction (the reasons may be different) have already begun with Kamla Bhatt's excellent tie-up with LiveMint and ContentSutra drawing content from VCCircle.

   Expect more and more content from blogs to be sought by mainstream media as, even after payments to blog writers/ blogs the costs will typically be much cheaper than staffers. I have always said about blog credibility : credibility has nothing to do with the tool, but with the name behind the words/ voice. This one is a win-win for both parties involved and a trend likely to go North in 2009.

I am finding myself drawn to a lot of young professionals who write blogs, or are active on Twitter, for our next round of hiring at Blogworks. Much more than even LinkedIn, which I find too static, and definitely more than college recruitment proposals that we get from time-to-time.

In the initial stages of hiring, it was critical for us that we get experienced professionals from a background in public relations, marketing, research, journalism as they brought along certain rigour & it was ok for them to pick up social media tools & impact once as they joined Blogworks. I wasn't too comfortable picking up team members who may have been bloggers, but weren't really from a background in communication/ marketing.

Things have changed, a lot of communication students are now studying/ researching social media impact at university level; they are writing blogs that give a glimpse into their learning; Twitter is their playground and their interactions their allow a nice window into their personality. It's easy to find a culture match when you have interacted with a prospect one-on-one through these online engagements.

Their learning curve is anyway sharper than an average pass out who may, or may not, warm up to social media. Same when one is looking for experienced mid-level team.

The only category where I haven't been able to identify talent (Bar one person, not available for hiring) is at a senior, strategic level - someone with a proven body of work and understanding of social media at a strategic level in marketing & business. It will happen.

When I wrote this piece last year, as we completed a year, I had mentioned that "Sometimes a seed doesn't need more water to become a sapling, it needs more time!" One look around will tell you that social media has taken off, it's mainstream. Our Scenario/ Blogworks seed too has now taken root, and is growing nicely. 2009 is our year of growth - more about this in a bit but first a look at how 2008 has been so far:

We were sitting around my desk day-before, for a discussion on the year ahead and one of the things we reviewed was our objectives, as I had first coined sometime in October 2006, sitting alone at Lodhi Gardens.

Objective

1. We aim to be the most respected name in Conversational Marketing in the country, offering strategic solutions and know-how to brands & corporates.

   
   - Our consulting practice will deliver best-in-class, unique and measurable programmes by constantly innovating and combining this with a process oriented approach.

   - We will operate a range of innovative Web 2.0 communities, forums and platforms. We are clearly focused on creating a set of focused properties that would engage stakeholders we understand, in ways that simplifies processes; adds value to each stakeholder and profits us too.

I am not a great believer in 1st mover advantage and have come to believe that it's a comforting illusion that defocuses you from rigour and innovation that keep you ahead. Instead, we believe that "It is our culture of participation and constant innovation, combined with the focus on a disciplined approach that helps us deliver strategic solutions and measurable results for our clients."

1. It was evolution for us when, preparing for the next round of differentiation, we changed our promise to "Strategic Social Media Solutions" in March 2008. The needle had moved, marketers & corporates had begun to understand the need to engage stakeholders in conversations. As one of the first to enter the space, we too had contributed to this change in our small way, by sharing know-how and learnings. However, we believe, as social media gains mainstream adoption, strategic interventions are the only way brands, corporates and media companies - our key customer groups on the consulting side - could stand out and strategic solutions is our mainstay.

   
   Our work with clients allowed us to learn every moment as we created touch points, engaged, listened, identified evangelists, co-created with customers, learned that conversational marketing is not about online, it's about conversations.The journey continues & real work is our textbook.

2. Since our endeavor has always been to seed an institution, a natural step forward was to institutionalize the business. May 2008 we became Scenario Consulting Private Limited with Blogworks (and now Pitchh.com) as business divisions.
3. We had plans to launch a couple of focused communities right from the time we started, but as would often happen with a self-funded business, you need to prioritize .

   In July 2008 however, Pitchh.com, our first community initiative, was born out of a simple, but powerful, insight that both Brands and 'Agencies' could do with a platform that allows them to 'make the right connect' quickly and effectively.

   The process today, as both sides know, is not just time consuming also cumbersome. Brands often struggle to find the 'right' partner - for their 'specific' need and fit. Similarly for Agencies, it's quite a task to keep track of pitch requests doing rounds. Pitchh bridges that crucial gap.

   We have used the last few months to run test cases, bring about changes based on feedback. New features and enhancements are on the way. On the other one hand, a slowdown in global economy has meant that fewer new pitches are being invited by clients, on the other hand though agencies are now more open to such platforms even more than they were. We are just about starting our outreach...watch out for more action around Pitchh.

4. With 422 started surveys & nearly 200 completed surveys as I write this post, the India Social Media Survey, Brands & Corporates, Edition 1 that Exchange4Media and Blogworks is clearly a nice-nice way to close the year. The insights that I have peeped into ;) are fantastic - this is the real stuff, this is what’s really happening on the ground.

   Honestly, I can't think of a better team to have put this together :)

Powered with a fantastic team, great clients, countless friends, powerful insights, a warm office, this is just the beginning and the year ahead promises more success and joy.

Agenda 2009'

1. Expansion at Blogworks: We have the mind-space of stakeholders, credibility based on client work and referrals. This is our year to grow: offices in Bombay, Bangalore and a bigger team in Delhi, with office spaces to match.
2. Grow the research offering at Blogworks: We only took this live last week, even though we have done a lot of work all through 2008.
3. Blog the Talk goes live & real: Our widely read Blog the Talk Series goes live and becomes a ground event; the agenda of discussion remains pretty much the same.
4. Pitchh.com: Global adoption is our mandate and this year we take our steps in that direction.
5. Launch of another web 2.0 offering: This one is a content offering. We think we have found a cozy niche and would try and launch first quarter.

Any more and we'd have given too much away :).

Simply put:

Our Mission remains'

1. To facilitate transparent communication and conversations between organizations and their stakeholders.

With congratulations pouring in on Twitter, Facebook, G Talk..there is no place I'd - team raises hands and says 'We'd' in synchrony :) - that we'd rather be.

All this wouldn't be possible without each of yours support. Thanks MUCHOS!

Keep sending your good wishes.

Here is to success & joy. Amen.

UPDATE: 27 December 2008 @ 10.02 a.m.

Lots of wishes poured in on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere - here are the ones we were able to capture. A BIG THANK YOU from Team Blogworks to all well wishers.

Also, a few months ago, we conducted this qualitative study attempting to capture an overview of the blogs & social media environment in India. The insights were invaluable and we knew then it was time to do a deep dive and a conduct a larger survey amongst marketers & corporates.

So, here we are, along with Exchange4Media Group hoping to put together an insightful study based on 'real inputs' shared by you & your peers and not speculative theories. This will allow the industry to benefit from shared insights & make for educated decisions.

We need your participation:

1. You can take the survey here- open until 24 December 2008 but don't wait until the last day.

All valid participants get a FREE copy of Summary & Key Points from the “Overview of Blog & Social Media Environment in India”, a report prepared by Blogworks – this will be emailed to you. For it to be a valid entry, you must answer all questions.

Once you have completed your entry, do share your feedback on the questionnaire by writing to survey@blogworks.in.There would be mistakes to learn from & things to do better the next time -we'd appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

Media Partners for the initiative: Impact, Pitch and Exchange4Media.com

Professional blogging and/ or how to make money through blogs are questions that I am asked often. However, most people tend to simply associate making money via blogs to advertising. From where I look at it though, significant or even reasonable amounts of money from writing a blog are for a privileged few who dedicate a considerable amount of time & energy to writing their blogs and cover strong niche/s.

Not all bloggers (or those who write blogs along) are equal...but money can come in many different ways. Also let's not forget that for 'many' earning money may just be a byproduct, or not even a consideration - showcasing thought leadership, seeding & engaging a community, or plain expression might be the simple motives.

Here are a few that come to mind:

1. Advertising - like I said earlier, this is for a privileged few who have the numbers & the authority to get ad revenues. Though in some categories numbers don't really play a role - example: a top scientist blogging to reach only a select peer group - different matter altogether that s/he may not take ads but a top scientific research company may want to post a job hoping to reach this blog's elite readership.

   The hugely popular Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal, professional blogger, a term that, to me signifies someone for whom writing the blog is his/ her primary career engagement. DI is a good example of a blog making good money through advertising, amongst others - writing assignments, content syndication, speaking assignments, workshops, insights & focus groups etc.

2. Consulting - For people like Dina Mehta, Gautam Ghosh, me and others who either have consulting practices or do freelance consultancy and also write blogs for knowledge sharing and as a showcase for thought leadership, the blog becomes the primary outreach tool and consulting assignments and workshops would often happen because a prospect read the blog, liked what s/he read, and the writer/ team got a project.
3. Research & Insights - Increasingly writers who are able to showcase authority and thought leadership in their domain are being sought out by organizations and companies for research and insights. I have been a part of a few such projects and while money is a small part of why one may do it - learnings drawn from views of other participants being the key reason for many - instances like this are clearly on the rise. The Insight Community is an example of site that facilitates such research.
4. Media Contributions - Many blog writers are now being sought by mainstream media as columnists or being invited to contribute regularly. Amit Varma, is a prominent example amongst others; Meenakshi, of The Compulsive Confessor has published her first book.
5. Micro Publishing - A little different from being a professional blogger, micro-publishing entrepreneurs like Medianama, VC Circle, WAT Blog are seeding publishing empires - maybe small now but will hopefully be big someday - with multiple revenue streams - advertising, commissioned research, events and more.

Just some ways to make money via a blog. Which others come to your mind? Don't tell me about 'Pay Per Post' - that's not a way that I endorse :)

Keep writing.

Two of the full page ads in yesterday's Delhi Times (with ToI) made me sit up and notice, for both represent categories that would logically be impacted/ concerned about the slowdown. It would be interesting to see how they fare:

1. The first one promotes something called 'Gloria - The Brand Show' targeting lifestyle brands for participating in this fashion & lifestyle exhibition. Events like this are typically planned months (or even a year) in advance and I suspect there was little they could do at the last minute, for a cancellation could anyway mean losses. Brands are spending less right now, however, for all you know they may have booked earlier and the event sails through just fine - I pray that that's just the case.
2. This one left me thinking about days of the dotcom boom, except that it comes bang in the middle of a slowdown. Naaptol.com appears to be a social networking site for shoppers. I love the thought of customers engaging with each-other and with brand owners and this may just be the time to seed something meaningful (the site however looks no different from any other brand compare/ buy site, and the community, at this moment, just a fringe feature). Entrepreneurs have to make these interesting decisions - burn money to seed a community right now and wait for revenues; except do we have enough cash to last us the wait...only the entrepreneurs in question can answer.

   Personally, I am gung-ho about a community that allows customers and brands to engage with each other in earnest.

What do you think about spending in times of a slowdown? There is a cost to sell but how would you decide what's necessary, and what's a waste?

Keep writing.

UPDATE: My colleague Rajika's brother, Rajbir, referred us to a document from Knowledge@Wharton series. It's aptly titled "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Don't Skimp on their Ad Budgets" - find it here.

My piece of 31 December 2007 in Mint talked about Internet Trends in 2008.

Here is it again.

Which ones did I get right? Which ones did I miss?

Do share your experiences please.

I am now trying to pen my thoughts on what to expect in 2009.

Keep writing.

I want to keep this really simple, direct and actionable.

Here is a call for all Indian media - Newspapers, TV Channels, Magazines, Blogs - everyone.

What stops us from putting a Black Band on mastheads of our respective newspapers, magazines, channels, blogs...until we see some conclusive plan from the government on how it plans to ensure security for all of India's citizens?

Let's do this together and tell the powers that be that the people of this nation are not going to take crap anymore.

Let's spread the word within the fraternity to make the government answer.

UPDATE : Yes, also your page background on Twitter too.

UPDATE: Here's the banner with Black - unfortunately, the idea didn't find any takers.