Archive for June, 2009
My thoughts on Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Of late, the one thing I have seen bandied about a lot in the context of social networking is Social Media Marketing (SMM). As someone who had been in a role that entailed tasks that would have technically come under the definition of SMM, these are my insights (rather 2 cents) on the topic.
The massive growth of horizontal (or mass-market) networking sites like MySpace, Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter etc. or vertical (niche) ones like Dogster with their primary focus on User Generated Content (UGC) has led to the phenomenon called the “social web“.
But (contrary to what some believe), just having a presence on each of these sites would not be sufficient in terms of exposure or awareness from a SMM point of view. Such a belief would be the real-world equivalent of opening a store and expecting massive footfalls from day one. That does not happen and more so in the case of an online presence, where distraction (or competition) is just a mouse-click away.
SMM, for any business, including social media sites themselves (after all, some of the biggest online advertisers are online companies), involves a strategy that takes into account the peculiarities of a particular online platform, including the type of content it generates, the demographics of the audience it caters to, the ebb and flow of its traffic based on time zones and its overall relevance to the product/service offering of the marketer. A no-brainer example is that LinkedIn may not deliver results if one were to promote a site selling cosmetics.
Also, nothing turns off the majority of the active participants on a social site as unsolicited and overt pitching of a product or service. Marketers have to remember that these are the people who could potentially be their brand ambassadors, since recent trends have pointed to fast-growing social sites experiencing the 90:10 syndrome – 90% of the content generated by just 10% of the users and it does not pay to be on their wrong side. The very nature of the “conversational web” makes it antithetical to “in-your-face advertising” and so the only effective SMM strategy is to join, listen and contribute in a meaningful way, that builds both relationships and expertise in a calibrated manner with increasing rewards down the line.
There is a key strategy that can be effective in the online arsenal of a marketer and that is to join forces with a dominant social site in a complementary manner that creates win-win outcomes. For example, Needgrub’s (a site that specializes in restaurant reviews) partnership with Sulekha for its Yellow Pages ensures that a visitor can read the review of a restaurant while looking up its listing in Sulekha’s YP. Similarly with burrp for events and TravelGuru for hotel reviews.
So, it is up to the marketer to look for creative ways to increase awareness, drive traffic and build “social capital” for the brand. Unlike the efforts used in building brands on other media like radio and TV which is akin to “carpet bombing” the audience, in the online world, especially the social one that democratizes the channels of information exchange and puts more power in the hands of the individual, the marketer has to be patient, persevering and participative, in order to be persuasive.
Pregnancy and Parenting Sites – A Brief Review
As mentioned in my first comeback post, I will be periodically reviewing some sites and this post is one on three India-focused pregnancy/parenting sites that are fairly fresh off the block. Of course, the grand-daddy of Indian parenting sites is……you guessed it, indiaparenting.com, which is a decade old now and gets nearly 45,000 visits per day (source: statbrain.com).
For at least two of the sites, I know the people at the helm – JRK Rao of Rage Communications (www.mothersspace.in) and Sathya Narayanaswamy of Parentree (www.parentree.in). The third – www.chennaimoms.com, I came to know only through the media and wanted to review it along with the other two, even though it is Chennai city-centric, only because you all know this happens to be a Chennai lover’s blog 
. Also all the three sites are Chennai-based (the bricks-and-mortar part).
I met JRK Rao while at Sulekha.com and have spoken to him a couple of times. What struck me was how affable he was as a person and his understated intellectual acumen, that was so evident, once the conversation started flowing freely. Rage Communications and Sulekha could have formed an alliance at that time but that didn’t happen. Rage has come a long way from that time.
As per their Press Release, “Designed and developed by Rage Communications P Ltd. (Chennai), http://www.mothersspace.in is an online portal exclusively for mothers – from the expectant ones to those who have turned grandmothers. Committed to providing up-to-date information, support and an opportunity to network, mothersspace.in is a useful resource for women before, and during pregnancy, with the bond continuing well after childbirth. The site’s features allows its members and visitors to connect and interact with each other through the open forum ‘The Crib’ (http://bb.mothersspace.in) and also ‘MUMblings’ (http://blogs.mothersspace.in/), a blog section for those desiring to wax eloquent on motherhood’s myriad demands and rewards.
There are handy downloads (http://www.mothersspace.in/download) too that mothers can print out for ready reference – absolutely free! With the site, mothers-to-be will not find the necessity to invest in books and other educational material on pregnancy and pregnancy care, instead, they can save all that money for their babies to be. In a nut shell, www.mothersspace.in is a destination for every woman who has babies on her mind.”
Although not much from a User Generated Content (UGC) perspective, Mothersspace still packs a punch when it comes to their online tools and overall content for different things related to conception, fertility issues, pregnancy, adoption etc. Overall, the site scores well from the point of view of covering all bases related to motherhood and does so with an interface that is intuitive and easy on the eyes. The site currently gets 1,200 visits per day (source: statbrain.com).
Next is, Parentree.in. I met Sathya, Founder & CEO of Parentree first at the IIT-M meet last year that connected VCs with Entrepreneurs. When I met him for the first time and talked to him, I could see a reflection of myself in him, in the sense, he had also relocated to India and had set out to do something radically different from what he was doing before and one that he enjoyed thoroughly. Something told me that in spite of the keen competition in this space, his venture was going to do well and he just confirmed that a couple of days back, when he wrote to me that they were growing rapidly. I think of him as a highly competent and competitive professional, who sets tough goals for himself and pursues them with dogged determination.
Parentree is positioned as “An Indian Parenting Community” that generates and disseminates the “wisdom of the crowds” on issues facing parents in raising their children. As their “About Us” says “We focus on the practical aspects of Indian parenting – reviews of schools and preschools, good books, local activities in our cities, fostering intelligence and confidence and creativity in our children, reliable classes for arts and sports, safe products for our children, good nutrition, parenting tips, pregnancy, child development, emotional development and behaviour…. and the list goes on. We are a community where information, advice and tips flow from parent to parent, so everyone benefits from each other’s experience.”
Parentree has been able to get a lot of traction in the User Generated Content (UGC) space and this partly explains why they score higher (as much as 6 times) than Mothersspace in visits per day (nearly 7,200 visits a day, according to statbrain.com). Of course, both these sites are not exactly in the same space and so this is not a strict apples-to-apples comparison, although Parentree also includes an ovulation calculator, due date calculator, pregnancy calendar etc. Parents will find the review section particularly useful in deciding on the schools for their kids. From a usability angle, Parentree also scores in simplicity of interface and easy navigability.
The last site I want to touch upon is Chennaimoms.com. Started by Bhavani Raman, a software professional and a mom herself, who returned from the US, to help other moms in Chennai locate good schools, nannies and a myriad other things of concern to mothers in the city, Chennaimoms has a clean and elegant interface and also actively promotes user participation. Like Mothersspace, it also has an “Ask an Expert” section for those medical (and other) questions as well as “Tools for Moms”. Overall, it seeks to provide a sense of community and participation to mothers in Chennai and thus may serve a narrow geographical audience very effectively. Statbrain.com calculates that the site gets nearly 3,800 visits daily.
Check out these sites and see what you can get out of them.
De"throning" the Western-style Sitting Posture
I reflect on a lot of things in life. Perhaps my original thoughts on certain things appear counterintuitive to accepted social practices, but later I discover to my pleasant surprise that what I came up with, using my own instincts and powers of reasoning are actually supported by strong scientific evidence. One of them happens to be my dislike for the almost round-the-clock western-style sitting posture (sometimes even sleep that ought to happen in a “natural” pose) that has become pervasive and this post is on that.
Eastern cultures originally never had chairs in their grand order of things in daily life. Hatha Yoga teaches us several physical poses like Padmasana (Lotus Pose), Vajrasana (Diamond or Thunderbolt Pose), Sukhasana (Easy Pose) etc. These are the “sitting” poses. Then there are the “standing” poses and “supine” poses that are meant to be done only for the purpose of exercising, while the sitting poses came naturally for things one did such as eating, reading, writing, chatting with others and so on. Falling at the feet of elders to get their blessings was mandatory as it forced one to do a “Sashtanga Namaskar” (bowing with eight limbs of the body touching the ground), which is also part of the “Surya Namaskar“, perhaps the best exercise routine ever.
Somewhere along the way, due to the successive invasions by other cultures, we gave up our good old ways practiced over thousands of years and adopted their habits and practices. The western sitting posture as exemplified by its source, the “chair” is one such. Think about it – today, if we are not standing, walking/running or lying down in the horizontal position, we use only one posture for sitting, whether it be on a chair at home reading the paper, sitting on the “throne” to answer nature’s call, driving (including the “car seat” for the baby), the “ergonomic” chair at work and having breakfast/lunch/dinner in the same position. Where is the variation in our pose that is so needed by the body to keep it supple and flexible? No wonder we have cases of spondylitis, arthritis and other “itis” affecting people even in their 30s, since the whole body is kept frozen at a particular angle for entire lengths of the day (and sometimes the night too).
Edward Tenner in this excellent article in “The WILSON QUARTERLY” on “How the Chair Conquered the World” says – “For men and women of all stations, sitting Western-style affects more than the spine. While the water closet as we know it dates only from the 19th century, the contrast between the Western seated position for defecation and the Asian and African squatting posture has long been familiar to travelers. In this century, Western physicians and designers have subjected the commode to the same scrutiny as the office chair, and most agree that it promotes straining and constipation. (Along with diet, squatting seems to have kept the common Western inflammation of the bowel, diverticulitis, out of Africa.) The architect Alexander Kira’s definitive 1976 monograph, The Bathroom, cites overwhelming medical opinion against the throne-toilet as we know it; yet so accustomed are we to the sedentary life that no significant market has ever developed for redesigned fixtures.”
This view is also echoed by Dr. Rad Saeed, an Iranian radiologist at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, who conducted one of the most remarkable clinical studies on toilet posture in 2002 (more on the study here). Somehow because of the cultural shift that happened that put the chair on a higher pedestal (figuratively and literally) than the squatting position on the ground, we started associating higher status with the chair and subsequently venerated it beyond its utility value (as just another way for the body to get exercise for a “brief period” in a particular pose). I use the chair too (or rather I should say am forced to use it), but realizing its limitation and its hazards, I don’t let my feet dangle over for too long and keep shifting position constantly (sometimes sitting cross-legged or half cross-legged when not having to observe social graces like at a meeting). I think that has served me well so far.
You may say it is almost impossible to give up this way of sitting, so used as we are to it and I certainly agree. But the least we can do is first have cognizance of what we are doing and why we are doing it so that we can explore alternatives as also take preemptive action to ward off any negative effects of doing so. After all, we owe our health to ourselves first, more than to others since we can have others attending on us, giving us medicines or performing surgery on us, but will have to endure the pain and suffering ourselves. If this post has at least made you think from a new angle on what you are doing daily, more from reflex than with any conscious thought put into it, perhaps it has served its purpose.
Empowering Women with an "I-Win" Attitude
Saundarya Rajesh is no stranger to the HR industry. Or for that matter, even to many people in the media. And this dynamic and results-oriented lady is a classmate and good friend of mine.
What she set out to do at the beginning of this millennium has grown into a leading HR Consulting and Recruitment agency – Avtar Career Creators. But, being who she is, she wasn’t just content doing run-of-the-mill stuff and started on a path that has defined a new space within the broader HR domain – helping women with flexi-career options through Avtar I-Win. Women constitute nearly half the workforce in many industries and their careers are most vulnerable to life changes such as marriage, motherhood, transfer of spouse etc. As their site says, I-Win is “India’s first HR service to tap Interim Women Managerial Talent”.
As with many societal and workplace changes that are slow and gradual, the concept of having women who work only part-time or who don’t necessarily work under direct supervision, due to their familial commitments, may take time to become more pervasive and I-Win is trying to get there, one job at a time. Technology and the changing nature of work (more services-led businesses) are only serving as catalysts to quicken this process of adaptation on both sides – employer and job-seeker. Before long, we may see legions of women who are only too happy to walk the tight-rope between working and taking care of the family at a pace that is convenient to them. And that is truly a win for everyone.
