Social Media Marketing

Using Location based target marketing to bring together online and offline users

Location based marketing or geo target marketing in real terms is bringing the offline and online consumer under one place irrespective of where the individual is. The idea being, to bring them under one single place to interact and engage with the brand and in return enjoy a wonderful brand and product experience.

Over the years we have done geo target marketing or location based marketing campaigns for Brands across Industries of Hospitality, Retail etc and the results were superb.

For the process to be smooth, the most important aspect is for the brands to first and foremost understand “If Social Media Marketing is for you?” and then being the geo target marketing process.

What is needed:

• Every powerful campaign needs content from the brands to be successful. Well planned content that is real and speaks the brands tone and language. So the first step is to get content that talks the way the brand communicates.
• Add to it offers that entice you as a consumer
• Provide users access to tools (simple to use and preferably the ones that can be used across various technology devices with ease eg Android, PC, Blackberry, iPhone etc)
• Finally integrate all of it under one Brand page.

Remember, it’s never just the “tool” or “app” or “website” alone that does the magic. These tools are merely mediums and channels for you to get the end users to engage with the brand. The real treat are the value-add and the way these services are marketed to the online and offline users.

Sites like Gowalla, Foursquare, Facebook places, Google Plus hangouts etc play an important role while integrating the above elements together. What’s needed here is a combination of Technology skills with a clear understanding of your brand marketing strategy and process.

(Interested to know more: Reach us for Industry Customized solutions here)

Now with the advent of Gamification (integrating spot gratification tools and engaging users to ‘use brand services and promote’ by becoming an online brand ambassador and in return winning discounts, gifts, coupons, freebies, premium badges etc), that coupled with technology of Near Field Communication (NFC) – (read our YourSMQ Magazine Vol 2 – Samsung Galaxy Nexus features to know more), sharing and engaging users with relevant information is becoming more and more easy everyday.

Thus an integration of varied services, apps, gamification tools, websites, QRCode, Geo Target Marketing services, technology tools (like NFC, GPS, Bluetooth messaging, etc) at the right time with the right set of users is what makes this process a fun, engaging and gratifying experience, both for the marketer and the end user.

We have been able to increase check-ins for our service users brands considerably by integrating many of the above features to suit their brand style and communication over the years and the response has been amazing, both, from the users and the brands.

Have you tried using a location based service as a marketer or as a consumer? If yes, how and what has been your experience so far?

Do share your comments and views with me here.

You can also Join me across sites here: On Facebook @AnanthV9 Twitter @AnanthV9  On LinkedIn and Circles on GooglePlus

Regards

Ananth V

Techdivine Creative Services

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Related Posts or Links:

• Industry Customized Social media marketing Services ~ Quick Link Form
• Your SMQ Social Media Quotient Magazine Vol 2  is here 
• Is Social Media Marketing really for you? First, know Your SMQ
• Lots for the consumer and more for your brand

Link-in with LinkedIn for professional connect with the right set of audience

LinkedIn is for corporate professionals who want to connect with like-minded professionals, prospects or existing clients and keep things the corporate way, as in Simple, elegant and very precise.

Share your skills, expertise, know-how, connect with professionals, corporate professionals globally, with only, as much “information and networking sharing” as you feel is necessary.

Whether you are looking to sell, network, buy or re-sell, LinkedIn takes you to places wherein it would probably take one a few months before hitting anywhere near to the desk of corporate biggies.

 But, how do you network and connect with a site using LinkedIn?

 To begin with:

Picture: Make sure, your profile picture is not a blank space or a cartoon image or showcasing to the world, your dream of looking like a celebrity. It needs to be your own picture. And remember, it’s a corporate ‘connect’ site. So make sure your profile picture is you at your simplest and best behavior and not capturing one of your ‘creative spur of the moment activities’. It’s a serious site and make sure you are taken seriously.

Profile: Fill your profile details with as much panache, flair and the ‘real-deal’ as you would find in a Corporate presentation. It really is a corporate presentation. The only difference is, instead of numbers, pie-charts, it’s your career and skill statistics keywords on the line. Keep it real, concise and professional.

Your HEADLINE: You are what you present to the Internet. So choose your keywords for your HEADLINE carefully. Let it speak of who you really are. Choose your core keywords appropriately so that you are ‘shown in searches’ where you would like to appear.

Honors, Awards, Additional Information: Be open and honest of who you are and what you have achieved. Do not scream of what you have achieved, neither is there a need to be too modest about it. Say it like it really is.

Remember, with millions of profiles across these sites, your profile will be probably getting less than 10 to 15 seconds to catch someone’s attention. Make sure, you mention something amazing that you have done in your profile under “Headline, Additional information and Honors and Awards section”.

Keep your social/professional connects of Twitter, Corporate Blog, Facebook page, GooglePlus, etc LinkedIn well in sync with the profile if you are regular user of the social sites, apps, platforms and profiles.

Let the ‘prospects, clients and colleagues’ know and get a feel of who you are.  

Keep it fresh, real and remember, the internet is always looking and trying to listen. So speak up well and look good.

How much has LinkedIn been a part of your online connect? Do Share your views with me here.

Feel free to connect with me on:

• My LinkedIn Profile (Link here)
• Tweet with me @AnanthV9
• Join me on Facebook – AnanthV9

Have a nice day.

Ananth V

Founder & CEO

Techdivine Creative Services

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You can also Connect with us:

• Techdivine Creative Services on Facebook
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Related Posts

• Android App from Techdivine Creative Services for Social Media Marketing Connect
• Is Social Media Marketing really for you? First Know Your SMQ
• Your SMQ – Social Media Quotient Vol2 is here
• Marketing & Social Media Trend setters 2011 and for 2012
• Viral Marketing – Integrating Social Media

“The Journey has just begun”

“Your SMQ Social Media Quotient celebrating it’s Second Birthday and it’s 3rd Year at Techdivine Creative Services“

Dear Friends, Thanks for an amazing Support and all Your good Wishes all these years.

We at Techdivine Creative Services are entering into the Third Year of our Second Flagship Brand “Your SMQ”‘s Launch this March 2012 wherein we have catered to around 27 Clients across 15 Industries in 4 Countries so far.  (More about the Company, Background and History & Our Brands ~Click Here)

HAPPY 2nd Birthday  Your SMQ  – Social Media Quotient

Our services range from Brand Monitoring, Product Marketing, SEO, Creative Writing, Social Media Quotient Analysis to Technology integrated Marketing services across Online platforms using the best tools the Industry has to offer and assist our Wonderful Clients grow further ahead in the digital domain reach too. (Our Services ~ Click to know more)

Our style of work and interactions with our clients across their brands has leveraged and earned us wonderful feedback and responses from them, as it not only has assured them of our timely services, value adds etc but also saving lots of meeting and interaction time by optimally using online platforms to connect and communicate too.

We as an Organization have always worked towards not acquiring ‘Clients’ or “business” but Friends and a professional connect for long term, with their teams and brands which has earned us the reputation of being “Trustworthy” “Dependable” and most importantly, “Innovative” with our varied marketing and creative ideas to enhance the brand and consumer engagement experience for everyone based on the trust shared by them with us over the years.

• We are planning lots of surprises for our Clients this year, with lots of value adds and new addition of services.
• As for our Online users, members across our social sites, we assure you, this year will be highly rewarding in terms of connecting with us as we plan to share some amazingly wonderful insights in the Digital marketing domain with lots of fun engaging content too across our Social Profiles listed below.

Connect with us Online here:

• Techdivine Creative Services on Twitter
• Techdivine Creative Services on Facebook
• Techdivine Creative Services Corporate Blog

Looking forward to an amazing year ahead with all of your continued support!

Thanks for your Wishes

Regards

Ananth V

Founder & CEO

Techdivine Creative Services

You can also Connect with me here:

• On Facebook
• On Twitter
• On LinkedIn

The journey from Social Media to Assured Sales

The journey from social media to assured sales is the one every brand would love to make.  As it not only ensures good business, but also helps brands to establish themselves as “Consumers Choice”.

Of the many aspects that are part of an online marketing campaign, there are few which are the core points that brands need to keep in mind while planning a social media marketing campaign:

Understand the consumer first -  Do your homework, research, analysis and understand the complete demographic and online social behavior of the consumers on:

• “How do they react” to specific tone of messages, words, phrases etc online.
• Each consumer (Industry centric) reacts differently online and offline.
• The idea is to have a very thin line between the two worlds and give the end users a real-time experience with rich content, feel in terms of demos, apps, videos, immediate feedback and responses too.
• In simple terms, it should result into value for connecting with your brand and a wonderful experience at the end for the users.

The consumer of today is well informed and it is to be used as an advantage by brands as their target market today interacts and engages themselves more than ever before.

So the first idea is to understand and connect with the consumer within and then with the end users.

• Don’t sell, but relate to their needs, buying patterns, customize and give them value for being a part of this online social engagement.
• Remember, every user online who speaks about you or “Likes or Mentions” you across social networking platforms, is your very own brand ambassador.
• Recognize them and reward them accordingly.Make room for immediate gratification.
• Look at what brands like Starbucks or Mountain Dew does. They take customers feedback and create products relevant to their needs.

Now comes the part of understanding what they need and the aspect of really making it happen based on organizational support and dealing with roadblocks that are inevitable (Organizational roadblocks – Rigid Policy, guidelines, in-house team support etc). Every effort towards customization for consumer, especially on an online platform, assures the Brands tremendous recognition and feedback via brand promotion and mentions by their consumers and the best part is that, its measurable.

Offer them custom designed services and products. Its wonderful when brands ask customers to design their very own “Combo products / services” It not only keeps them engaged with the brand, but also tells them that you value their opinions and doing your best to deliver.

Today e-commerce companies like Flipkart are doing really well because of many reasons, but few of those mainly owing to the fact that they have a “no-hassle return policy coupled with Cash on delivery” option which gives tremendous trust to consumers buying online today. With that, they also offer daily special offers, deals, low-price and that with great service is bound to make them popular. It shows that they have listened.

Another important aspect is, to not be on, each and every available online platform.

This is a mistake which many brands today make. Being or trying to be everywhere. Be at relevant online platforms. Understand whether your end users use blogs, forms, social networking sites, google searches, web banner ads, emailers, smartphone apps etc and establish your presence across those profiles only. Being across 4-6 such platforms to begin with is more than enough during a period of a six month to one year campaign wherein, you get a better understanding of their comfort levels with engaging online and you can then focus on may be just those 2-3 platforms, where their presence is more and for a longer duration.

Search engine optimization also is an important part of digital marketing today with feeds and comments appearing on searches. But with the pace with which social media monitoring and marketing seem to be growing, its become compulsory to integrate social media campaigns with seo. But make sure, you concentrate on on-page optimization as strong as off-age optimization too.

Customer insights and knowing your company or Brand’s social media quotient (SMQ) is the core of a social media or any digital marketing campaign. It also ensures brand monitoring for both, negative and positive mentions about your brand, product and services. Always remember, if you exist as a brand, someone out there is are already talking about you. Make sure you are a part of that amazing conversation prism.

SEO and Brand monitoring helps you to find the relevant sites when combined with social media influence strategies (SMI). It lets you study in-depth about the relevant sites, have a brief look at the profile of registered users on that site based on connect you have with the users or the apps integrated with the site. You then get to know the influencer(s) too. The idea is to gauge the quality of brand and or keyword related conversations real-time.

No campaign is complete without predetermined target to be achieved in terms of real ROI for the company or brand. Make sure your social media monitoring and brand marketing campaigns have enough strategies and process in it to help you evaluate the return on investment for your campaigns. Remember, good campaigns are those which constantly are improvised with consistent responses and feedback based on the social media quotient analysis and reports of your campaign.

Some power packed tools that always go a long way when used appropriately are:

• Blogs: It’s a powerhouse in terms of social media tool. A great way to engage your users with interesting and relevant information and at the same time, gives them an opportunity to interact with the brand too.
• Forums: Extremely efficient when it comes to users wherein the products need a lot of assistance in terms of support intermittently.
• Facebook: Wherein the end user is right in front of you
• Twitter: Users are consumption hungry and need quick information at jet speed.
• LinkedIn: For Corporate professionals. Connect and grow as a business together

So, what did your brand tell your customer today?

Share with me your views and comments here. Would love to hear from you.

Thanks and have a wonderful connect ahead.

Ananth V

Founder & CEO

Techdivine Creative Services

You can also Connect with me here: On facebook, On LinkedIn & on Twitter

Empowering BRAND YOU on Your turf, there’s nothing like it.

There is nothing more powerful than having control over your Brand especially when it comes to consumer engagement and interactions.

Now, how does that happen?

Consumers today, have empowered words like ‘LIKE’, ‘SHARE’, ‘Re-Tweet’ beyond imagination.

But this special blog post comes for a very specific reason.

Recently Cadbury & few other Brands got a clear message from social media powerhouse Facebook, that their brands were hosted on nothing more than a rented domain when the social giant took their pages off the site for certain page violations.

Now the power, reach and impact of this social networking site is well known across countries, age groups and Industries. How do we deal with the ‘fan-frenzy’ desires of  brands?

Similarly, majority of the Corporate Moghuls and their Board too these days end up asking one standard question off-late which is, “How do I get more fans?”

I have always shared a core note with them on this, which I thought is due to be shared on a global platform via our Corporate Social Media Marketing Blog from Techdivine Creative Services where we have successfully launched Brand promotions, PR Campaigns, Corporate Branding etc

This is what I have shared with them each time someone says, “I need more fans or followers”:

• How much useful is a teenager to an Industrial Organization?
• How much will “Random Fans & Followers” across sites like Twitter, Facebook etc matter when it comes to measuring your ROI on your campaigns or your Brand value?
• Does having a million fans or thousands of twitter followers cater to your business goals and brand needs?
• How much are you willing to alter your Brands language, style and tone to suit few fans or followers and are you ready for the long term repercussions?

The answer, each time was a simple No, from each experienced corporate professional.

It has to be a NO. Why?

Customer engagement and brand connect has to be happen with proper planning and using appropriate marketing strategies and tools. Its not about having a page on a social site or a twitter account.

Let us take this for example, each time a telecom, credit card or ISP providers call us on our phone we get annoyed and add them to the spam or block lists. Why? because they are entering on our turf during our time schedule.

How is this related to having random fans and followers?

Now every time a user follows “BRAND YOU” just because you followed them or every time a fan joins you because you asked them to through ‘friend suggests’, it’s the same thing all over. Only this time, it would be “Brand You” sharing so called interesting posts, tweets to people who are least interested or not even remotely associated with the message, product or service.

When we say customers engage in brand conversations, the conversations do not necessarily need to be about Your Brand or Product or service, but they need to be of value, quality and depict BRAND YOU at all times.

4 Rules, never to forget:

1. Brand is only as good as the consumer it reaches.
2. If traditional media were to be avoided for new age media sites, then one has less than 50% of market reach possible especially in a country like India. Integrate and collaborate between online and offline media, always, with the right set of words.
3. It doesn’t matter where the consumers are located. The only thing we need to always keep in mind is, speak our BRANDS language and let them connect with us. Never use a Corporate language or a slang style just because you want that consumer to connect. Brands always need to stay focused on what you desire and aspire from your brand to achieve. Clear Goals.
4. Never leave all your eggs in one basket. Core being, never depend on a single platform for reaching out across to your consumers.

Thus multiple platforms, at least one for each medium is a must.

For eg.

• You can have one site that touches base with Bloggers (there are million bloggers and readers today who are looking for information, reviews, news and offers across Blog searches)
• Social Check-ins for users who are on the go (A must today for those in service industry especially Retail, Hospitality etc)
• A single platform for showcasing your creative skills or videos of your Brand messages
• A social book-marking platform wherein your followers consume the resources that you share with them using Url redirects, useful posts, creatives etc.

Your content is the key here. That’s your Corporate IPR ,your very own Intellectual property. Why restrict it to only a third party site? Use it wisely across platforms that are completely under your control, like self-hosted domains for website, Blog, Forum etc

With the power of social connect today, make sure your website has enough new age media tools like FBML, Facebook, Twitter, Blog feeds integration etc to pull the social conversations from your various online platforms to your website pages. Integrate your Facebook, Twitter and Blog conversations on your websites without fail.

Three key advantages:

• One, it becomes a powerful Search engine optimization (SEO) tool
• Two, your content is re-used and has a larger reach.
• And three, in case your social site goes off or the domain has a server crash, there is at least one platform alive and going strong for you keeping the conversations alive.

Always note, the idea is to convey the “BRAND You” message and not alter it by using the users language. Why?

The day a follower or a fan or the social site decides to go offline or communicates on a third party site with his or her own version of constructive random musings of criticism, is the day your fan numbers would too drop at an accelerating pace.

Moreover, having the right fans and followers matters rather than having a million who end up sharing competitors contents in between your comments and pages which might get lost in the social clutter and noise across your third party pages and sites. Brand monitoring here is an equally important function.

Bottom-line:

• The power to make that global “Brand You” conversation a reality is by sharing relevant content, on-time across multiple sites of which you need at least two to three sites completely under your control all the time.
• Having a self-hosted Blog or your own web domain that pulls in feeds and interactions about your brand from across multiple sites not only gives you a larger reach but also control over the message.
• Consumer insights are the most important aspect of any Brand conversation. They not only tell you what they are saying but also where and when. Make sure you make good use of it.

So, what did your Brand tell your customer today?

Share your views on this post, based on your experience across platforms and brands. Would love to hear from you.

You can also Tweet with me @ananthv9 on Twitter.

Thanks

Ananth V

Techdivine Creative Services

Connect with us:

Techdivine on Twitter

Techdivine on Facebook

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• Viral Marketing Integrating Social Media Monitoring Connect Tools
• The most Insightful Survey Social Media beyond Marketing
• Social Media Marketing Monitoring Measuring and Turbo charging Brand You
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Social Media Marketing, Monitoring & Measuring: Turbo Powering Brand You in real-time

Great, so the world is now way past the “Social Media cannot be measured stage” as brands have begun evaluating the ROI for not only their Customer engagement, brand loyalty but have begun crunching sales numbers for their products, services and are gearing up to now go beyond the daily metrics.

Today with the power of social media tools, online marketing campaigns can track everything from pulls, ping-backs, redirects to actual hits, tracking, connect and sale.

The value in return, is well, just like the plan, long term and priceless.

Its all happening and its in real-time.

The Most Crucial Challenge:

The real challenge which marketers across seem to be facing today is keeping the power of the three M’s (Market, Monitor & Measure) connected not just to numbers but the Brand itself.

Why, because we can use the three M’s today but can we empower it to turbo charge our Brand in real-time?

Let’s see how we can do it:

• Customer within: To begin with, understanding that Brands today have a much larger and more responsible role than ever before, that is to connect with the customer within. This would be the first step. Stop trying to think like the customer, “be the customer’

• Its not me, its always You: Wouldn’t you agree if this was the line used rather than the one that movies have made legends out of, relationships would have been stronger with time and loyalty? Now think from a Brands point of view. One needs to accept the fact that unless you are Steve Jobs or Brand Harry Potter, your product might not get a million pre-booking orders a week in advance. Thus the second step is, it’s not just the service or product or brand that sells, for the end user of any other brand its simply ‘you’. Your commitment to them with sincerity in your gesture, tone, message and the constant effort to consistently deliver ‘value’ to the customer is all that matters.

• Gratify NOW: Today the word “like’ and ‘share’ mean so much more and to a marketer these words today are pure magic when it comes from a customer. Why, because when a customer hits a ‘like’ or a ‘share’ button today for your brand, product or service,he is your very own brand ambassador online.
  • He has done three things for you with a single click:

• Given you real time feedback
• Added a power value in the form of referral
• Turbo charged your Brand for FREE

Now when we think of it in the above terms, we realize the need to ‘Gratify’ that customer ‘Now’.  Always track and thank them, give freebies or badges, discounts for sharing etc that will actually add ‘value’ to them. It’s always easier to gift a prospect than share benefits with an existing customer isn’t it? So make sure, when they have powered you, you too empower them.

• Invitational yet paid Lunch: So you have a fan page on facebook and every post of yours is about the new offer that you have come up with. Well, lets see, now ‘How would you feel if someone invited you at their place for lunch and then tried to sell you something at the dining table during your lunch or worse, made you pay for that lunch?‘ That’s right, so when you have a fan page and members, surround them with conversations about what they would love to do. Feed them with useful interesting information, resources and links. These pages are wonderful source to understand your customers so much better. Ask them, take their opinions, know what they like, engage them in conversations. Imagine scores of ‘fans’ suggesting ideas in real-time that could help you in helping them. That’s multi-dimensional targeted marketing power from a single page for you.

• Ease to connect: Very important. Just because there is a site with lots of people online on it or may be a mobile application that is the most downloaded, don’t force it upon your customers too. Give them various options to connect. Have an easy way or platform for each of your customer to get discounted offers, deals, resources, freebies from anyplace that is of ease to them. So every offer of yours need not be marketed using only a blog or a fan page. It could be shared and integrated with website referrals, viral campaigns, mobile integrated offers with check-ins, twitter power and social bookmarking etc. Let them have the ease to connect with you using tools that they are comfortable with.

• Its always fun when its well, ‘Fun’: Same old movies, dinner, clothes and routine work. So dull! Isnt it? So why give only an opportunity to comment, share or like to your customer. Give them something they can interact with. Engage them with tools that will make them use their creativity, or may be share their photography skills, make them fan of the week for engaging others, let them try out their new smartphone for scanning a QR code may be and sharing the awesome interactivity with his or her friends. Let them find out a fact about something interesting and unique, useful and fun while they engage with your brand. Keep it rolling.

There are so many more things that can be a part of customer engagement, moderation, monitoring and connecting with your user that can help you grow in every which way possible. Like the post reads, Turbo charges BRAND You!

I have listed just a few from it.

Do share your views, comments and your experience using various techniques to keep your customer engaged with your brand.

Looking forward to Your comments.

Have a wonderful day ahead!

Regards

Ananth V

Techdivine Creative Services

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From PR to QR – Reach, leads & branding!

PR has been the age old way to bring people together and connect them for a cause or to educate and or to inform. PR integrated with Marketing has always been a power packed solution across industries, especially since we integrate it today with new age media solutions too.

Quick Response codes are more popularly known as QR codes. They are 2 dimensional images with bundles of codes written in it that can be read by the smartphones of today using Mobile bar-code scanner apps.

What we have done for our clients using these apps / QR code Images is, marketed across to generate, in simple terms “Reach, Leads & Branding” The three most powerful words in the book of Corporate Marketing today.

What do QR Codes do?

They do exactly what’s needed the most in todays scenario.

Instant gratification or Spot satisfaction to the users.

Firstly, the apps itself  are one of the most downloaded apps for connect and business in the world of Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Ovi etc amongst various age groups and secondly it lets people come together, interact, engage into brand conversations and in real terms and real-time talk to your brand.

What it does for a Brand:

• The best part being it helps You bring together two worlds.
• The end result, is the power to bring together the offline and online consumers under one single banner.
• Gives an easy way to reach out to the users, engage them with each other and with Your brand.
• Make connecting and communicating with your brand a fun experience.
• Easy to use, generate and extremely Powerful for a marketer when implemented using the right set of consumer connect social tools for Brand & Product Marketing.
• Adds SEO value to Your campaigns
• Track, monitor and evaluate measuring the ROI on your social media campaigns.

What it does for a User:

Imagine, from a users perspective, no more typing those long urls, no more having to search or wait and ask “Your FAQ’s”, staying connected with your brand even while on the go and most importantly  spending the least amount of time searching for Special Offers from Your most sought after brands and or products as its right there on your own mobile phone.

Try it out: Download Your FREE Barcode Scanner Apps - Few links below OR You can also scan through Your Mobile Apps market to get an app that suits your style: Links below for Mobile Users of Blackberry, Android, iPhone & More……

• For Android Users – Free Barcode Scanner App
• For Blackberry Users
• For iPhone Users
• For Ovi users

We had launched this as a bundled product service across brands in December 2010 for few of our clients, who were positively amazed with the results.

We gave them a completely customized, planned Online Marketing Integrated with Mobile Marketing & QR codes as part of their Social Media Marketing campaign. It helped them with their Landing pages, check-ins, Special Offers, Promotions, reducing ‘how-to’ queries as the answers were much more easily accessible to the end users.

So it helped them not only reduce the business age but also increase the overall business productivity.

Due to the power of QR codes to hold thousands of alphanumeric characters of information, their use to connect and engage in the future would be massively popular.

The idea of a QR code for a business it not just to create them but to create that perfect “call for action” using the right set of social connect and reach on a global platform.

Want to know how to optimize the power of QR codes to Your Brand, Product or Service, feel free to drop us a line here socialmedia@techdivine.com Or even better scan our QR code below to reach us via a Quick form contact and get some wonderful Offers as part of our 4th Year Anniversary special.

Connect with Us:

• Join Us on facebook & Stay Updated on the latest in New age media Marketing Brand tools
• Tweet With Us to be connected with the best in web, seo and mobile technology integrated media
• Subscribe to Our Updates for FREE

Regards,

Ananth V

Tweet with me @ananthv9 on Twitter

Techdivine Creative Services

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Public Relations, Reach & connect – Then & Now, the Mahatma Way!

One of the most powerful, influential, impactful & historic events that took place in the last one century is undoubtedly India’s fight for freedom struggle which was lead by the one and only Mahatma Gandhi as in Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi  - (MKG).

Uniting the world for a single cause across cities in a country which was then reluctant to change was a task which made the freedom fighter more than just a legend. How did he do it?

The adoption of a powerful strategy, well planned and executed to connect people across globally was one of the core aspects of this Mahatma’s plan.  His focus, India’s freedom.

It was the Mahatma with so many other National Leaders & freedom fighters who made this dream possible, but we remember MKG the most not only because of his virtues, ideas, beliefs but also for the way he executed each strategy, calm and well thought over.

Some of his most prominent actions to which the entire nation responded in unanimity were: (Please note, these are just my personal views from mere observations and thoughts. Scholars over decades have tried to study the Mahatma before, but its almost impossible to even fathom to even try and understand his way of life, no wonder he is the Mahatma)

• He believed that for any dream, vision to come true, the people who are part of that community need to be brought together. He wanted them to know what was possible and what could be achieved. He made it clear that the road less travelled would not be easy but what it could ultimately provide. His honesty, sincerity and dedication towards his goals slowly brought together people from various walks of life nationwide.
• His first and foremost strategy was to reach out to the masses.
• He published various books, magazines and periodicals throughout the fight for freedom in languages that people could relate to, hindi, gujrati and English through the Harijan, Indian Opinion, Young India, An autobiography of my Experiments with Truth etc. and fed the entire nation with relevant information and kept them updated.

Indian Opinion by MKG

Young INDIA by MKG

• He was a barrister by profession. Yet, he chose clothes that defined his dream. Simple and truthful. This fragile looking man created an ocean of impact with his message right from the way he dressed. This he always believed made it easier to connect with the Indian masses.
• He associated through his life, works and routine a symbol that would mean so much more in the journey ahead. His logo even today is depicted metaphorically as the chakra (wheel).
• His khadi clothes, powerful slogans and events that he strategized like the Satyagraha,  Dandi March, Do or Die, Quit India movement, Equity enshrined education for all gave people an opportunity to not only create the much needed awareness and impact but also brought them closer to each other. With more people talking about it, the awareness spread like a wildfire and each event and slogan was received with more zest and zeal.
• Each and every step he took brought him closer towards his goal of India’s freedom and he finally achieved it with lot of team work and a faith that would stand to be more historic than anything else this world would ever have seen.

When I trace back these steps, I could read the following actions in the process:

- Adapting to the local flavor but at the same time reaching at the global level with a single message. The Mahatma with his clothes and Chakra had created a symbol and a logo that people could easily relate to. Just like a Symbol or Logo today makes us connect with a brand.

- He optimally utilized the power of words, message, communication, feedback and responses through his various literary works and periodical journals to people all across the globe. Power of Words whether its a newspaper, blog, Journal, Magazine, the idea is to share the latest updates, get feedback and responses too.

- His events created awareness and his slogans helped spread the message quickly and with the impact that it needed to create. Events have always been a part of the larger role for any organization. Today we know it as a webinar in the case of Live Events aired online in this digital age.

When we put this all together we realize, this is what each marketer tries to achieve through his or her campaigns.

In simple terms the most important factor of all is mass appeal and connect. If you are able to reach your message, slogan, brand to people that’s the core of any campaign to begin with. Similarly holding events has always been an integral part of any campaign and thus generating an overall positive PR impact through literary works to complement these events.

When we look at it, we realize that the Mahatma was an early preacher and practitioner of  PR as a tool to get the message across in the right fashion.

Though his ideals and goal is of a caliber that goes beyond something one could even dream of & even imagining walking in his path seems so utterly humongous task even for large corporations today which are filled with resources, people resources and financial backing, it’s yet clear that only through a systematized planning that any campaign can achieve success.

So plan, design and have a strategic implementation with clearly defined goals.

It’s not for a cause as necessary and massive as Freedom for a Nation but the core being to give the people at the end may be a  Brand they can trust which provides them with a service that’s worthy of their time, money and resource and at the same time help to build loyal followers.

Isn’t that what Marketing & PR is all about when done in the right way!

Today the scenario might have changed, people would have changed, general thought process and approach would have changed.  Keeping all these in mind and the technology that has been undergoing a dramatic move ahead, facilitating access to more and more people globally across various age groups, several developments have taken place.

Gradually, the medium of communication has been changing…..  newspapers, radios, televisions, computer, digital age, social media communication & connect with Mobile integration has now taken over the job of a wider coverage at a rapid pace.

No wonder powerhouses like Facebook and Superbrands like Starbucks have such a loyal follow globally. It’s not just the product, it’s the whole approach that creates the much needed impact.

This is why as for Brands, my personal Favorite quote always will be: Brands today have a much larger role to play, to connect with the consumer within!

Stay connected, plan, design, implement, measure but most importantly do it with the idea of adding value to your end users!

Stay connected.

Thank You. Feel free to share your views & comments here.

Ananth V

Techdivine Creative Services

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Connect with Me:

• Ananth V on Foursquare
• Ananth V on Blog
• Ananth V on Twitter
• JOIN US On Facebook – Social Media Marketing Services Group ~ CLICK HERE to Join in

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Image Source of Journals – Via Wiki

Top Online (Technology & Marketing ) Updates for 2010:

Techdivine Creative Services

We are in for a brand new beginning very soon with 2011 just around the corner. So we thought we would bring together some of the most important updates, wonderful freebies, free tools for Marketing online, Brand management guides, ideas & more with design trends with some power strategies using some of the most influencing websites of 2010 (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, WordPress, foursquare)

Power Tools of Social Media

Social Media Marketing

This was probably the biggest entry into the online media space in the last three to five years. In the year 2010 Social Media Marketing services have seen a fabulous response owing to the measurable rate of returns, process of marketing brand & monitoring them at the same time with great control and making the most needed aspect of online media space possible ie.

Connecting with the user & engaging them to interact with the brand.

Social Media Marketing made possible the entry of Social Media Quotient as a power packed marketing research and management tool for Brands & Organizations today for the Company Board & Management to take this tool more seriously than ever. The power of blogs using applications like WordPress has been wonderful for brands using the platform with the right set of technique and skills too.

Why:

Simple reasons: Its more measurable than your regular emailer campaigns, web banner ads, online reviews & a routine ad words campaign as it brings together all those metrics to measure consumer interaction, customer feedback & insights and gives you the ability to constantly improvise at a very affordable online marketing campaign cost.

Most importantly, customized social media marketing campaigns today make it possible to deliver realistic goals to clients for their brand, products and services and at the same time blend in traditional media with new age media tools across various platforms.

Massive developments in 2010:

Mobile Integrated Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing & Monitoring tools gifted the power to combine traditional media with new power tools for online marketing research and management and at the same time gave the power to combine mobile integrated social media marketing campaigns to further leverage the power of todays growing mobile internet users across platforms.

Android Powering Technology today Socially

Also the impact of Android based applications into the mobile space made it a fun experience for users to leverage the connect and for the Organizations, more reasons to make their presence online much more powerful and essential.

Power of Blogs with wonderful plugins from WordPress related application websites made using Blogs more than just a place to voice out opinions but also to get wonderful and sincere customer feedback and loyal readers for life for brands leveraging the power of rich content with them through this medium.

With more and more applications from mobile related tools like from the iPhone, Blackberry, Amazons Kindle, iPad & Android going SOCIAL the availability of these online marketing tools is only going to see massive boost in the year 2011.

How to Leverage:

Humanize Your Brand

Connect with Your consumers by Humanizing your brand. Social Media Marketing is a well planned process that can be customized across industries to also adapt to cross cultural environments across countries if well planned, designed, implemented and measured. So its very important to use the right set of tools to not only increase market penetration but also to monitor and safeguard your brand online constantly and improvise for best results.

Brand Monitoring

Brand You Monitoring

This has been one of the most important part of a Social Media Marketing campaign this year as the more one talks about your brand, care needs to be taken with the quality of conversations too. Its always better to have a 1,000 loyal quality followers than a million discussing or posting content that is harmful for your brand in the long run if left uncontrolled as part of the online conversations.

So make sure you have powerful ways to leverage your Online CRM to converse with your brand and customer connect across multiple platforms with great quality and damage control.

Creative Design styles

The year 2010 saw a very unique side of design styles appreciated by consumers. The stress from Brands and customers online this year was much less on “just design” and much higher on usability and ease of sharing content using that design style. For eg. HTML emerged victorious compared to any other web design application and platforms for the ease to leverage powerful SEO campaigns and flexibility to connect much larger suite of applications as part of the web design and style process. The year 2011 would be thus much largely about:

Layout style: Simple and user friendly

Design style: In tune with Users needs to share content easily

Design technique: Users seem to be much less demanding in terms of core design as before and seem to be stressing originality in layouts with simplicity to converse in todays online marketing conversation prism. So the design technique has to be definitely the one in 2011 that can let each user be a real-time Brand Ambassador for any product, services or Organization and at the same time be rewarded in a way or the other. (For some FREE Tutorials & Step by Step Guide for creating Creatives using Adobe Photoshop – Connect here)

• Free Marketing Tools from GOOGLE that every developer, designer should be aware of today: Here is a link to the set of power packed marketing tools from Google that’s free and is a must for integration across as part of your Social Media Marketing & Brand Monitoring campaigns.

google

IMPORTANT Guides & Tips for a Powerful Connect across Industries Online Using the Power of Social Media:

Simple Ideas, Guides to do more with Your Brand today:

FOR:

• Retail Industry:

Fashion, style statement, pictures, latest trends & designs, users votes on new arrivals, customer feedback and Brand mentions about your line of design accessories: If all of these make sense to you as a Retail brand then what you need are simple engaging conversations customized & controlled as part of creative marketing ideas for your online customer today.

• Banking Industry:

More than a conversation online, more than a social media influence, what you need is a control of your brand mentions negative influences about your services, industry and products from your customers grieving & irate online. They can make or break your brand as we are talking about Your products and services that are directly dealing with your customers hard earned money. So make sure you have a strong Social Media connect online and at the same time have conversations that can “generate”  comments and interactions from your customers especially in case of new product launches for Small and medium scale business, Youth and the high investing clients. You need your Social Media campaigns to reach beyond your average conversations and metrics to be completely planned and customized to meet your needs across various demographics and it needs to be well executed too.

• Hospitality Industry:

That’s a rush, literally. The fast paced hospitality industry has customers across every possible age group and its never too late to get someone love your cuisine irrespective of your culture, history and style of food. All people need are flavors with a great dining experience that takes them away from their homes for that hour or so. The experience needs to be “connecting” while the food, something that would make your customer feel, I am getting value for every single dime that I have spent here. For this, not only do you need continuous feedback from your customers, but you need them to mention about your product online across platforms of twitter, review sites, food dining experience, location based target marketing spaces where people searching for good food can be connected with and their attention drawn towards your food experience. They need to be aware of and constantly rewarded for their brand mention and sharing experiences when they talk well about your products online and at the same time catered to and not tried to be pushed into talking well about your brands. Its food, they need to feel the flavors and the love while dining at your restaurant. That’s exactly what an online Social Media Marketing experience should help you gather for them.

Some simple & yet powerful sites where we have leveraged wonderful responses for Our Clients Products & Services & Brands:

Facebook (Make sure you Use FBML, Facebook Applications, HTML too with your creative marketing techniques – For Queries email us: teamsmm@techdivine.com )

Facebook

Linkedin: Purely for a Corporate Connect and reaching across Industries to leverage more than just a simple product / brand connection

Linkedin

Twitter: Brand Reach, Brand Monitoring, Product Market Penetration and More. This is undoubtedly one of the most essential powerhouses of Online Conversation prism today. Interested in a Customized Twitter Tool Updates & Techniques for Your Brand to have a larger reach – email us at: teamsmm@techdivine.com

twitter

Foursquare: The most impactful location based target marketing application which can do wonders for Your Brand, Product And services if used optimally. For a customized Location based target marketing campaign write to us at: teamsmm@techdivine.com

foursquare

For a Completely Integrated & Customized Social Media Marketing & Brand Monitoring Campaign with Creatives & a powerful blogging platform for your Products & services – Write to us at: socialmedia@techdivine.com

If you would like to hear more from us about connecting with customers across Industries for various other industries for whom we have tried, tested and succeeded in generating positive SMM impact and the desired goals as put forth from our clients , feel free to tweet with us at: Techdivine on Twitter & OR Connect with Us On Our Facebook Group: TD studios: Social Media Marketing Services Group & or write to us at: socialmedia@techdivine.com

We are connecting and have catered for the following industries so far:

FMCG, Banking, Industrial, Infrastructure, Hospitality, Trading & Broking, MLM, Educational, IT, Retail, Advertising Agencies, Art Galleries & NGO’s.

Hope you have a wonderful 2011 filled with millions of quality connect and growth with the power of Marketing using new age and traditional media to leverage and connect with each and every user of yours, both ONLINE and OFFLINE.

Happy connecting. Have a wonderful year ahead.

Thanks & Regards

Ananthanarayanan V

Founder & CEO

Techdivine Creative Services

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Related Posts:

Integrating Technology with marketing

Latest Customized Social Media Marketing OFFERS For Corporates

Watch the new Facebook Profile Come Live: Get Yours NOW!

http://www.facebook.com/about/profile

What it does:

• Adds an easier way to highlight your friends (A feature Lists of Your friends)
• Display & share your photos better (Highlights Tagged Pictures in a simple row format)
• Give a much cleared information about yourself (if You want to, that is)
• Talk about your Work Experience, Your Company -Employer etc

Here is a small preview of how the step by step process goes before you choose to add the new look to your Profile:

Get Yours NOW:

http://www.facebook.com/about/profile

Share your new profile with us here!

Stay connected

Ananth V

Techdivine Creative Services

Connect with Us:

@Techdivine on Twitter

Techdivine on Foursquare

Connect with Me:

@Ananthv9 on Twitter

@Ananthv9 on Foursquare