Dataquest published my article 'Back to the Future' in their last issue, on Social Media trends to expect in 2010 for India. Reproducing the content here:

Back to the Future
Ten trends that will drive social media in 2010

The year 2010 will be about social media coming of age, albeit in select ways. Some relevant trends:

1. Social Media For the Enterprise: 2010 will be the year where the enterprise looks towards social media for providing internal solutions for interaction, learning, fun! By 2010 end, internal e-mails should be passe, with people/ organizations sharing news, information, and updates through their internal social networks
2. Search Will Open Up: If Facebook opens itself to search, that in itself would be the single most revolutionary development in the social media environment for the year 2010. Google may also bring its social search out of the labs as a service, which again would shift the paradigm back in favor of Google as the enduring, preferred search mechanism. Real-time search will gain ground
3. Greater Focus On Tracking and Monitoring: Rigorous social media monitoring will emerge as one of the key focus areas for brands and organizations, in addition to their outreach and engagement initiatives over the social web, a symptom of maturing digital campaigns. While social media monitoring has relevance for several other sectors like governance, e-journalism, etc., it will be interesting to see if its potential gets tapped in 2010
4. The Year of the Mobile, Finally: While for the last two consecutive years, we've been beckoning the arrival of the mobile as the next big thing, 2010 looks like the year that mobile will get third-time lucky. While it is already a ubiquitous device, the mobile itself is increasingly becoming the first tool for social media consumption, making it seamless and instantaneous. People would publish, consume, and share on the go!
5. Collaboration Among Social Media Stakeholders: One of the crucial trends that 2010 will see materialize is the coming together of the various stakeholders within the social media landscape for sharing, learning, collaboration as well as fun. (There are immense possibilities of this vibrant coming together - to name a few, mutual notes-exchange, enhanced business value, cross-sector partnerships, global alliances, et al. One such step has been initiated by Blogworks in IndiaSocial™, with a case-studies series, the India Social wiki and a large-format flagship event in the current pipeline.) 2010 will see this coming of age of the Indian social media scene through such collaborative initiatives




6. Convergence Across Media: Increasingly, all media are coming together - textual, audio, visual. Google Wave is one such example - a cross between chat, wiki, and email. Convergence would gain credence and adoption across platforms, and even in social advertising!
7. Augmented Reality: The much touted phenomenon of augmented reality, only witnessed in science fiction, may not entirely materialize, but will surely develop further. While we already rely on LinkedIn and Facebook to profile/ sample people before we meet them, or meet over Twitter before a real-life face-off, extensive social profiling is something to look forward to. For instance, foursquare is a well known location-based network. This is also convergence in the sense that offline and online identities eventually come together, where the hitherto separate persona and the person come together as one
8. Social Gaming: Farmville and Mafia Wars have only shown the tip of the iceberg in 2009, and this potential of purely fun-based engagement on the social web will be tapped further this year
9. Interest Based Tribes Mature: Just like anything that comes of age, social media would also become boring in general. However, there's respite in the fact that specific interest groups, as they mature, could become even more intensely active. However, these enhanced tastes imply that while 2009 was the year of un-friending, well gradually move to the year where people will un-join communities and un-fan pages that lie dormant on their social circuit. Brands will have to provide value to be on peoples social radars
10. Revenue For Twitter: Twitter, the shiny object having lost its sheen by now, would be relevant for its use-value, and not just its glamor quotient. This in turn also means that 2010 is the one for Twitters growth as a business offering, it having fared well at the numbers growth in 2009


What are your thoughts? Would love to hear if you agree or otherwise.

This is the piece I wrote as part of the Exchange4Media and Blogworks "India Social Media Survey 2009" Report Document that we revealed released on 28 March 2009. It summarizes the gap I see amongst the marketing/ communication fraternity in their understanding of the connected consumer and social media. The gap was obvious on many occasions at the India Social Media Summit 2009 indicating that we are all still just learning the rules of this new game.

Here is the piece:

The game has changed, and for a change, it's not the marketers who are in the driver's seat. The Consumer is...

Meet the 'new and improved' Consumer 2.0. She and her peers (they) are coming together on social networks, blogs, content communities and forming tribes, sharing opinion and voicing their concerns on a variety of social issue, customer service, brand experiences, politics - life.

When Mumbai is attacked, they don't just report live in a perpetual stream, they also take the government to task; when Ram Sene dictates that women belong within the four walls of their homes, smiling they send Pink Chaddis to Sene bosses; Not just are they creators and editors of news, they also take head-on battles with mainstream media from time-to-time.

Mainstream media itself is evolving, integrating social media, to stay relevant to the times. Not the types to be left behind, celebrities and politicians too have joined the social media space engaging stakeholders.

Social media has forever changed the dynamics of how the Internet is consumed - from predominantly being a work tool, to becoming a tool for personal expression & connections

Conversational marketing

Marketing and communication ought to change too, for, marketers now have the opportunity to narrowcast messages; to change the tone from greedy sales pitches, to personal conversations.

How are the marketer's responding? The focus is still on the tool...

Have you seen a child play with a toy? He fumbles with it, turns it around in his hands trying to figure out how the damn thing works; once figured, he plays with it for a bit, gets bored; a new toy appears on his limited horizon - his neighborhood friend - that's what he wants now.

Social media play for most marketers is no different: "Mummy, mummy mujhe bhee apna social network chahiye."

So you got yourself a fan page on Facebook? Also a video up on YouTube? Even an account on Twitter? Great! So?

Have you really thought through why you are doing, whatever you are doing? Are you listening to what the consumers are saying? Do you know where you really want to go?

The rules of the social media game are a little different, they are being written by the community and the game is evolving so rapidly that if you turn away, just for a minute, the scene has already changed.

Why are most marketers lagging behind?

1. Marketers are scared of the unknown and aren't prepared to jump in
2. Marketers have never spoken face-to-face- they get the agencies to front and want to continue doing so
3. Marketers are plain lazy
4. All of the above

Social media is like masturbation, you have to participate 'yourself' to get anywhere.

What is clear though...

1. Social networks are where media will be consumed, besides content being created
2. Brands will be discussed
3. People want to talk brands when they want to, not when we want them to
4. They are equally vocal about brands/ experiences they love/ hate
5. Social media influences purchase decisions
6. Negative comments allow for an educated purchase, besides helping marketers improve the product/ service
7. Social media can't wipe off inefficiencies, or poor quality

So what to expect?

1. Social media credibility is going up, as it attains critical mass and more & more thought leaders join in
2. Social media impact on marketing will only get stronger
3. Social media will seamlessly merge into mainstream media
4. Meaningful blogging, with thought leaders joining in
5. Micro-blogging
6. Breaking news moves away from television, to citizen journalists
7. Social networking will continues to surge
8. Anytime, any device consumption and creation of content
9. Social noise- with so many voices saying so many things- making it difficult & important to separate noise versus signals/ meaning/ insights

Savvy marketers are also evolving: going beyond mere buzz aspects of social media, to draw real time insights and feedback to improve product/ service; the focus is shifting to engagement; social media is becoming central to marketing.

All is well in my world.

In the first piece, titled Hum Blog, Twilight Fairy of Delhi Bloggers Bloc talks about the blogging scene in general and Delhi in particular, online and offline.

The second piece, written by me talks about Twitter.

You can find the newspaper version here.

My longer, unedited version, is below. Choose whichever, but do leave your thoughts:

“Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the most viral of them all?” I asked.

“Twitter, O dear sir!” answered the magic mirror without doubt.

Twitter , the service that lets you stay connected with friends, colleagues and family through exchange of short message updates, sharing “what are you doing right now?” has achieved almost cult following among its users, many of whom are celebrity bloggers and internet influencers from across the globe.

So what really is Twitter?

I could tell you that Twitter is a micro-blogging platform (messages can contain a maximum of 140 characters) and a social networking site (connect with and friends and make new ones). I could also say that it is blogging on the go and lets you disseminate and receive messages using the web interface, an internet messenger/ desktop client or your mobile phone. All of these are correct.

However, think of it as a café, people keep coming, conversations are perpetually on, someone leaves, and someone else joins in. You chat with your friends and acquaintances regularly and ever so often you also meet one of their friends. You join into their conversations and make new friends in the process. Someone you didn’t know earlier reaches out to connect; you do the same when you want to reach out. This café is virtual, but the people are real and they do meet up often – at work, at parties, at Tweet ups (offline group meets of Tweople, or Twitter users).

Like someone said so beautifully on a Social Media Today podcast “Twitter is like talking to friends on way back home from school, reading their blogs is like reading their homework.” No wonder Twitterholics prefer Twittering over even singing ;).

But what makes Twitter so special, so viral?

To understand this, it’s important to understand the genesis of Twitter for the service is based on some powerful insights:

1. The Always on internet environment has less dependency and focus on a web page and that the desktop, widgets, IM are gaining importance.
2. Mobile is quickly becoming the ubiquitous converged device and is increasingly married to the internet.
3. Bloggers, already addicted to posting, were/ are looking for ways to disseminate content quickly, on the go and without having to spend a long time in crafting it. That they were/ are also looking at ways to share their content across multiple platforms.
4. Successful services will be those, which allows users to find unique and multiple uses for the service and that to do so, it would be important to:

   - Becoming the enabling layer

   - Allow other developers to use the Application Programming Interface (API)

   - Create a network but also use other networks to reach larger mass of users/ consumers

The result is a service that lets you use its web interface to push the message, but you could have easily have used your G Talk client or simply sms’d the message instead, using your handset to now an India short-code (5566511).

The moment you did so, the message would be received by people ‘following’ your feed, on their preferred device – mobile handset, IM, or simply their Twitter web-page. You could, similarly, get their messages if you too were following them.

Powerful, you’d agree, but it doesn’t end here. You could display yours and your friends’ messages on your blog using a Twitter widget, let the message be seen as your status update on Facebook (which is where more and more of your friends are) and so on. Add to this many dozens applications and mash-ups developed by 3rd party developers (find them at here) and you have one of the most visible and sticky service on the internet today.

So how are people using Twitter? Honestly, new uses are coming up every minute. Here are a few:

Two weeks into the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway toll plaza crisis, things don’t seem to have changed much and the promised seven-minute journey now seems more a mirage than reality. Commuters are losing 15-45 minutes one way at the gate, but both the National Highways Authority (NHAI) and the operator seem busy counting the booty — more than Rs70 lakh is collected daily as toll fees, said news reports.

I worry that things might turn ugly — this morning, crossing into Gurgaon, I witnessed the usual…poor management, unconcerned staff. I also saw simmering anger with no police back-up — perhaps the making of a different crisis?

Read the full story here.

Today's Hindustan Times carried a piece written by me. You can read it on the HT epaper: 12 December 2007, Delhi Edition, HT2, Tech4U Page. In reverence to the editor, here is the final text as appeared in print:

So, where are you going?

A few day ago, I was chatting on the phone with someone from Mumbai, who had called to discuss 'use of blogs and social media tools for internal knowledge management by organisations' and the talk swerved "Is a blog is better than a forum or vice-versa?".

I was reminded of times when - very young - my younger sister and I would often gather available pillows to create a square/ rectangle, which was our 'car' and using an imaginary steering wheel, made appropriate driving noises. Only, obviously our car shell was going nowhere, for, it didn't have wheels or an engine for that matter.

So the question is: Now that you have got yourselves a car called social media, do you know where are you going?

As is expected with anything that’s surrounded with intense hype, as has been the case with blogs & social media, the focus is on the TOOL with relatively less thought on THE NEED. A mere shell (blog/forum/social networking site or whatever) is not enough. The car is surely not going anywhere without an engine and an ongoing supply of fuel! It's also good to remember- the car cannot drive itself.

Organisations/ marketers in India are finally beginning to look at adopting social media and blogs, but, given that the concepts are relatively new, the emphasis seems to be on continuing traditional marketing thoughts/ logic into the neo-environment. However, Participating in this neo-environment is not about following tradition, here the rules are different - the rules are being written by the consumer, the community. In fact, many believe that the moment you attempt to 'sell' on social media, you have lost the users attention - focus has to be on conversations, on adding value to the user.

Given all that, here are points to consider, which can act as a checklist for you to figure out what a blog can do.

1. What is the need?

   No, I mean what is the REAL need that can be met by adopting blogs & social media? Just because another brand or organisation has adopted/ is adopting the tool is not a good enough reason for you to adopt it too. Remember there is a cost of engagement.

   Yes, many, if not most, of these tools cost very little themselves but as a brand/ organisation the costs to consider are not to the ‘monetary’. There are associated cost in terms of time, content generation, outreach & promotion and like there is a cost of engagement, even more importantly there is a cost to disengagement - mostly on your reputation. Think this through, for, an abrupt withdrawal may not be an option later.

2. Message is your car's engine.
   
   Which stakeholders are you trying to reach through your social media initiatives? Are they users of the Internet? Of course there is increasing indirect impact as messages get picked by mainstream media/ influencers but are your stakeholders 'direct users' of these tools, communities? Which ones?

   What is the message that you wish to share with your stakeholders? Figured your message? Now be prepared to let go of control, evolve the same, for, on social media, it is the user/ community that partly controls the message.




3. Content is the fuel.
   
   What is it that you are sharing with users that will keep them engaged, keep them coming back for more? It's important that you have clarity of purpose, and stakeholders, which in turn will help you determine content.
4. So, who is driving?
   
   The initiative; the content - are you looking at a corporate blog written by many stakeholders or a CEO blog? Maybe set-up a community generating user generated content of interest to your customers?

   Who is in charge of content? No one/everyone doesn't work, like we may have witnessed elsewhere.

5. Look into the side mirror, often.

   Are you tracking what the competition is up to? While you are busy doing your own thing, the competition maybe close by (or ahead for that matter). Look around, but don't copy their moves.

6. Do you know the rules?
   
   Don't get caught on the wrong foot. The social media space is a relatively new. It's important to know the basis, but evolving rules.

   Punishment can be swift and severe, and witnesses have been… mighty giants & countless individuals, who forgot.




7. Show some reverence, please.
   
   Sure blogs can be a free tool, so is uploading content on YouTube, as is setting up communities on Social Networking Sites... but hey, your brand/ organisation is very valuable! While adopting social media, do show YOUR BRAND/ YOUR ORGANISATION some reverence - your brand has a personality, an identity, an image, a reputation – so doesn't your 360 degree apply to blogs and social media?

Off to Mumbai now, where I have a talk to deliver, but will try and put the text here tomorrow.

UPDATED at 7.37 a.m. IST, 26 May 2007.

Here's the text as I submitted and is slightly longer than the print edition; the structure too is a bit different . The piece was originally titled You Blog? . If the piece reads different from my other blog post, please remember that it was written with 'print' in mind and for a larger, diverse reader group. Do share your inputs and feedback.

Here we go:

Even though this piece appears on the technology page, it has really less to do with technology and more with conversations, though enabled by today’s Internet technology.

By now of course all of us know about blogs – that they are diaries on the web; that they are easy to write and manage; that thanks to thousands of free templates you will never need a designer (only partly correct  ); that they are the Internet live and ticking; also that they are big and are seemingly here to stay.

Truth also is that, even as a there is a new blog launched every second, majority of them end up dead, soon after launch.

So we won’t delve upon how big the blogosphere is and all that stuff, instead, let’s try and figure out whether indeed YOU need to blog and if yes, how could you ensure that once you have set one up, it doesn’t end up, like perhaps a majority from among the 71 million + that are listed on Technorati.com (www.technorati.com) already are – dead!

The answer to this can be really simple:

India PR has a loyal readership among the public relations agencies and Hobbit, who runs the blog (and does a phenomenal job of it and does so remaining anonymous) requested me to do a piece for the site and I wrote something for a relatively younger audience.

Here are the excepts from the piece "Experiments with Social Media":

"Last month a client of ours, in the online publishing space, was complaining about staff spending time on Orkut while in office. He wanted this to stop…

We recommended, as part of our strategy, that it be made a part of the KRA for the team to spend time - every day- on not just Orkut but on other social networking and book-marking sites - participating & gaining insights from conversations they pick up; creating, managing relevant & synergetic communities.

The initial shock from both parties however led to quick adoption..."

and;

"How can 'this' piece not be on the blog!" I had silently exclaimed to myself. After all 'this' is where it all started. A session in the office, an informal prompt and I had penned this first, with my limited understanding, for the company newsletter and it was then republished byExchange4Media.com in Jan 2006. It's been there since. In the interim, so much has happened...both for me and for the overall social media space.

I am adding the text below as the e4m story didn't carry links - they help. Do leave your feedback...

It's been a while since I wrote a concerted post and though I really want to sit and write, I think that will only happen next week. Meanwhile...

1. A text message from a friend Sunday evening prompted me to switch on 'We the People' on NDTV. Blogs & Social Media were being discussed and while I only caught bits, I think most of the conversation revolved around what's already been said/ written on other fora: blogs & social media can be misused/ freedom of speech/ who is liable and so on. Barkha Dutt had also written on this subject in HT earlier. Some of this perhaps originates from personal slander and abuse that many amongst the media fraternity have been victims of, on an anonymous blog (now dormant).

   Fundamentally anonymity doesn't lend itself to credibility. How much do we believe stories appearing in a rag? I think the same applies to blogs written by anonymous authors.

   My chosen agenda for the year is to get 'experts' to blog - once that gathers momentum, scales are going to tilt in favour of the 'real' experts anyway. Unlike today's blogosphere (at least the India scene), barring a few real experts, everyone is claiming to be an expert on everything. There is an inherent danger in that.

   I would say Ms. Dutt should start writing a blog too.

   Also, unless I missed, no one on the programme spoke about impact of blogs & social media on business.

The current issue of Impact-the marketing, advertising & media weekly features a piece by me titled - In the News!- under their Insight/ My View section. Here is the text. Do leave your comments if this was useful.

I decided to pick one of old my old articles that appeared on Rediff.com a few years ago. This is really one of my favourites for the simple, fun format in which I wrote it for the younger audience it was meant for...

The piece was actually written via sms prompts that I saved for myself, driving to work a day after an event we were managing. The event, a virutal book launched was itself the culmination of a series of mad things on that project - a commemorative book that took long to complete; leading to the idea of a multimedia presentation, as the virtual unveiling of the book; a presentation that was executed in less than 48 hours, from concept to completion, and with brilliant effect; and then, files that went corrupt and other assorted electronic disasters even as the countdown had begun! And then, it all became smooth again, just a few MINUTES before start! :)

The event itself is another story. For now, hope you enjoy the piece - got an event to promote?

Celebrity Endorsement Index (2004)

If you don’t have a great idea, get a celebrity to endorse your product, says one line of thought. But I wonder if the solution is as simple as that. The whole subject of brand ambassador-celebrity endorsement is intriguing. And, several questions come to the fore as one digs deep into the subject.

Take, for instance, the US where 20 per cent of all TV commercials feature famous personalities. Celebrity endorsements there are, as a matter of fact, not directed to push sales alone but to grab the attention of remote-happy television viewers. Hence, close to 10 per cent of television advertising budget in the US goes for celeb endorsements.

In India, Bollywood and sport personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Fardeen Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag and Bhaichung Bhutia rule the mind-space and airwaves.

It is interesting to see Amitabh ‘touching’ our hearts with Nerolac; making a fervent pitch for peace in the public service message released after the Gujarat riots; playing the matrix for Reid & Taylor; doting grandfather in the new Cadbury’s commercial, and so on.

As an endorser, he fulfills all the FRED objectives, namely, Familiarity (target market is aware of him, finds him friendly, likeable and trustworthy); Relevance (which says that there should be a link between the endorser and the product as well between the endorser and the audience); Esteem (the polio endorsement, for example, is successful as the masses see him as a credible name-face-voice); Differentiation (in all his projections, he is seen to be one among the masses, and yet he towers above them. He is different). His appeal is universal, lesser mortals merely cater to specific niches…

So, which celebrity should one go with? Who should be the spokesperson for your product? Who caters to which niche? Does it always happen by trial and error? Should a corporate organisation pay for individual research to find logical fits for their needs/brands?

he US has a popular index, called the Q score, that summarises various perceptions and feelings that consumers have in the form of ‘likeability’ measurements. It measures familiarity and appeal of performers, characters, personalities, etc.

So, how about developing an index in India that would aid companies in reaching out to their respective audiences? The index could be classified on the basis of demographics, psychographics, and geographical demarcations. It would have to be relevant to advertisers and brand managers (who have used any of the known celebrities as endorsers; they could check out the measurable value addition), representatives from respective fraternities/domains, peers, media, etc.

The index could be based on a rating that takes into account agreed parameters/attributes, past-present media coverage/favourability and relevance, ground situation in terms of successful/unsuccessful seasons/tenures, future prospects, etc.Additionally, the index could look at whether endorsements attributed to a particular celebrity have caused a clutter.

The Business of Movie Merchandise

No longer is film merchandise merely a promotional tool used to boost the fortune of a film at the box-office. Worldwide, it has proved to be a successful hook for film studios, itself making healthy contributions to a film’s revenue streams and sometimes (albeit rarely) generating even more than the box-office collections themselves.

Consider this — tied along with the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the worldwide sale/licensing of Harry Potter merchandise has touched US $ 1 billion - figurines, food tie-ups, posters, accessories, comic strips, stationery to magic kits and home furnishings featuring Harry and friends from the Hogwarts school.

And, who can forget Ghost Busters, Jurassic Park, ET-The Extra-terrestrial - ‘stuff’ that legends are made of, literally, for they stood out for their innovative merchandise, as much for their box-office collections.

Synergy is now the key, as web technology is linking the studios and merchandising in ways never thought possible before. Web viewers are already able to link from devoted sites to buy their favourite toys.

Cut now to the Indian film industry and the situation is totally different.