Demographics of Social Media in Infographics

Interesting. Check it here and here.

Hacking screens or the future of stealth media

This is brilliant. Tough time for traditional media agencies indeed.

Can you imagine the possibilities. If only we had a small device that can be attached to our Smart Phone and then beam our personal classified ads on any screen? Fucking George :)

Fun social media tools for you

Now if you're a social media cool hunter, here are some interesting tools which let's you explore different things.

Evernote: This is your moleskin notebook on the cloud. make notes, stick photos, add videos, scribble your thoughts and access it anywhere. Works on any device, works from anywhere and its fun. Try it.

Klout: Klout let's you understand your clout on social media. Type in your twitter username and you can see the level of influence you have on others. Neat analysis.

SocMetrics: Similar to Klout, SocMetrics helps you understand the key social media influencers' and how to engage them in various social media marketing plans.

Rypple: Tool for HR Managers and teams to stay connected with their work. Pretty useful I must say after using it for almost 10 days.

The changing pace of media

Just a quick observation on how I got the news of "Osama Bin Laden killed in US operation" started featuring in media. I first received it on Twitter, then on Facebook, then I received an SMS, then I turned on the TV and the same will appear on newspaper tomorrow. Ha.

Interesting times indeed.

Now everyone is on sale

Holy Shit. Now we have a Social Media Exchange called Empire Avenue. It means we can all become millionaires by trading our friends and families to earn virtual money and grow our portfolio and find out our net worth on social media and stuff. Which means we're all on sale. Damn.

Now why on earth would I want to trade my friends and families for virtual money and trading them like equity shares? Am sure there are plenty of people who would do that but ewwww... why? Anyways. I have to sign in and check out to find out more, how it works. They've a detailed FAQs which explains how things work. Maybe there is something in this which will transform our future. You'll never know until you've burnt your fingers. And that's exactly what I'm going to do now. You can check out too.

Facebook Studio - Check out the good work

All you digital folks wanting to break the digital barriers, here is Facebook Studio. Watch the great campaigns on Facebook so far and learn from it. They also have a Learning Lab. Enjoy.

More apps and Webby Awards

If you want to see some of the latest apps and everything digital, visit the Webby Awards website. They have some pretty cool things up for vote. Check out and have fun. Don't forget to vote for the stuffs you like.

DO GOOD OR DIE

This is my second attempt at writing another ATTICUS paper. Do Good or Die is an attempt at understanding the paradigm shift from branding to service. The shift from making profits to being ethical and doing good to society and people. This paper explores how Return on Investment is making way for Return on Involvement. How Social Media and Social Responsibility is changing the way brands are marketed and its future impact on Earth and people living on the planet. How Social Media and Social Responsibility will help brands become more acceptable to people and society. It also explains how Sustainability will become the core focus of brand marketing in an era of increased globalization.

Do Good or Die

View more presentations from Roop Mukhopadhyay.

The Influence Index

Creating a benchmark or a measurement Index on the popularity and level of involvement of the most influential people in Social Media was long overdue. The need to quantify the kind of influence a person exerts in the social networking platform and understanding the breadth of a person's brand. The good thing is we do have an interesting Influence Index to refer now. However, the index needs further development to create a robust measurement model. Time Magazine recently conducted the most Influential People of 2010, who can affect our world.

The formula for networking index = (Twitter Followers) x 2 + (Facebook Connections) / 2

Now don't ask me what that's supposed to mean and how this calculation can give a precise Index of Influence but at least expert are working on it.

In my 2010 Atticus paper, titled "Do Good or Die," I proposed a measurement Index to understand the Return on Involvement of Brand in context to the level of Involvement a brand has with its fans, followers and people in Social Media. Now how do we go about doing it.

Step 1: Conducting a Social Audit of the Brand.

This audit includes understanding of the Digital Footprint of the brand where it gives us a clear understanding how deep the brand has managed to penetrate in the social media sphere, the Social Identity Audit that lets us understand how does consumer identify with the brand, then conducting a Social Engagement Audit that lets us understand how well the brand manages to engage with people on the Social Media. This leads us to understand the Social Capital Opportunity that a brand can gather in the Social Media platforms. The Social Capital of a brand is the most important component for a brand to play with.

Step 2: Engagement vs Involvement.

This step lets us understand the level of engagement vs level of involvement. It helps us identify and understand the process of involvement and where it arises from. Is it individual driven or community led process? Is is about collective responsibility or individual Maturity? Is it at the awareness level or concern level or at the edge to change consumer attitude/ behavior?

Step 3: The shift from ROI to ROIn

Return on Involvement is the measurement to ascertain the efficiency of a company's value in involving its stakeholders, shareholders and consumers to evaluate its social goals. To understand Return on Involvement of a brand we need to understand how transparent a brand is in it's entire value creation process. Second, how much Social Capital it can gather through collaboration and co-creation and finally how does the brand share its value to people of the world.

Step 4: Calculating ROIn.

This is conceptual formula to calculate Return on Involvement. Like most index and formula is needs more clarity and better statistical and mathematical model to create an universal unit as reference and measurement.

The Formula= (Total Audience Size on Social Media Platform/ Implementation cost of Social Activity) x Average Time Spent.

ROIn is a reflection of consumers' sense of belonging and feeling of being valued. ROIn is about bringing people together for a common cause that creates a ripple effect in the market place all contributing to social accountability. It is the measurement of the rate of productive output by collaborating with people on social media platforms.

Coming back to Influence Index, I think it will become an important measurement index in the near future as more brands join the social media platform. Just like TAM, GRP. TRP, INS etc, we do need a strong Index which will bind all social media activities and the level of influence and involvement a brand/ person has on the medium.

Please do share your thoughts and feedback. Maybe we can collaborate to create a robust measurement index for the Influence Ripple and Involvement.

Cheers.

Coke Studio

Coca Cola is the best brand. I don't care what others think, but they know their marketing skills. Coke created Coke Studio in Pakistan. Such a wonderful property. Their Youtube channel is filled with such great content.

The world however did't know about its existence until their Facebook fan page popped up.

If you notice Coke is still silent and not fast enough to spread the concept of Studio in other countries. This is the flip side of global marketing. Response time to identify and implement cross market learnings is so slow that often the impact is lost. Imagine the impact Coke Studio could have in India especially during Aman ki Asha & World Cup or in Myanmar or in Egypt for that matter. Give the youth a platform to express and the use social media to spread the message, spread the love. Such a simple idea that nicely connects back to Coke's core belief of Open Happiness.

I think 2011 will be an year of consolidation by global brands. We'll see lots of Digital Content aggregation happening this year. Content Optimization to be precise. You should check out the work AKQA has done for Heineken, if you haven't yet. So expect global brands like Coca Cola doing lot of content aggregation and optimization this year. Maybe McDonald, Dove, Pepsi, Cadbury etc will jump the bandwagon too.

Cheers.

Philips make sense again

The ‘My Baby & Me’ app made for Philips’ sub brand Avent can help you keep a log of your baby’s growth, weight, sleep, and feeding. The app also allows moms to upload photos, register milestones – like first time crawling – and gives practical tips. Here you can see the instruction film.

With this newapp, created by Muse and Ice Mobile, Philips is yet another step closer to the simplicity in its own pay-off ‘Sense & Simplicity’. It shows that Philips (finally) understands the importance of intuitive software that enhances the functionality of its hardware. Welcome to the future of consumer electronics.

Via Amsterdam Ad Blog.

Why can't you make the Angels more social

Facebook is indeed amazing. They've just introduced Sponsored Stories as part of their Marketing Solutions. Are agencies and clients in India listening?

Sponsored Stories from Facebook can open a floodgate of opportunities, if only marketers are willing to invest and involve themselves in this platform. Social Media is an essential part of the marketing mix but most brands from India who have a Facebook fan page for some reason restricted themselves to stupid status updates. Here's an example:

Axe started Axe Angel Club with more than 1,117,965 people liking the initiative. But when you look at the activities, you just cant stop and laugh. Mindless trivia and questions to get people to respond. That's hardly involving people to start a conversation. On the other hand if Axe started recruiting Angels among the 1117965 fans, it would have created more buzz than the brand could ever imagine. Now thats Return on Involvement. A great example of right brand, right medium but wrong message or maybe the digital agency of Axe India is too naive to think of better ways to engage their fans. Anyways. Facebook page of a brand is not to send stupid status updates but engage fans in a more meaningful way. Especially when you've created such a wonderful property called Angel Club.

Good Luck. Cheers.

Egypt - The rise of Social Media Revolution (Update)

In less than 1 hour, of me mentioning about the Social Media Revolucion, we indeed have "The Virtual March" on Facebook. Go ahead. Bring a revolution. I mentioned here how Egypt is turning to be a great example of social change using social media, rather a regime change. This is a live event happening around us. I just hope more clients in India start listening to what people are saying in the social media platform, before they go out in the streets screaming, 'Viva La Revolucion.'

On a different note, I was wondering, the Communist Party of India is indeed stupid. They couldn't manage to use social networking and social media to their advantage, both online and offline. Am guessing a similar event about to happen in Kolkata very soon. Or maybe not. Didi ain't transparent either. Anyways. Change will prevail upon the regime. May the force be with you.

Egypt - The rise of Social Media Revolution

The latest developments in Egypt can become the new face of Social Revolution in the ear of Social Media. Surprisingly with several instances of people and society coming together to raise their voice against oppression, corruption and government wrong doings signifies an emerging trend - Social Media influenced Revolution.

Examples like:

• The Red Brigade taking over central business district of Bangkok, Thailand last year.
• Uprising in Tunisia against Ben Ali and people using social media to spread the word.
• The civil unrest in Kyrgyzstan and the spreading the news through social media.
• Suu Kyi's supporters using Social Media to raise awareness of the oppression and her house arrest.
• Thousands of people gathering near The Gateway of India after the 26/11 Mumbai attack coming together after spreading the message on Social Media
• Thousands of people sending Pink Chaddi's (Pink underwear) to RSS & VHP supporters against their inhuman action on Valentine's Day in Bangalore.
• Finally Wikileaks taking on Govt. of the world by releasing tapes and classified documents.

What is the new role of Social Media? Can Social Media become the most important channel when it comes to raising voice against wrong doings? Can Social Media become the platform for Social Revolutions? How will Social Media affect Govt. branding? How will it impact government functioning? Will Social Media finally bring in transparency at every level?

Well, these developments are serious issues with greater impact on the way we live our lifes, the code of conduct for govts., the economic state of affairs, etc. Think over. And please do share your views with me.

Mashing up Micro-Credit, Economic Crisis, Social Media and everything in between – Part 2

In my previous post I tried to position micro-finance/ micro-credit as an alternative to traditional stocks, bonds and mutual funds. So far the feedback has been very positive from Drew, Charles, Kyle. As I explore the subject, I am becoming more convinced that Green Money, Social Capital and Social Investment will emerge as new frontiers and it will happen faster than everybody thinks. Mirco-finance and social media will join hands to create a greater movement within the finance and banking segment. We don’t need to wait for the economic crisis to recover. There are high chances of smaller P2P Micro-credit services being bought over by bigger banks. Maybe most micro-finance institutions will give up their NGO status to become mainstream and integrated within the banking system. For that matter, banking regulation for micro-finance will become more structured and move away from the flat interest rate, the norm today.

We are already seeing a lot of integration between green economy, green business, fair trade, micro-entrepreneurs, micro-loans, tactical philanthropy etc. taking place. Though bigger banks will still have greater control but smaller and nimbler MFI’s will be in a better position to gather millions of customers in a short time. These customers may not be the most potential banking clients but large numbers do have their own merits. This is where social network and social media will start playing a larger role. Social organization or ventures backed with social capital from social investors will emerge as a new way of doing business. Shareholders will look for better Return on Involvement instead of greater return on investment.

I was not shocked when I read this article today. “If we do no take measures, there is a risk of a serious human and social crisis with very serious political implications,” Robert Zoellick said. The World Bank’s warning of human catastrophe in the world’s poorest countries and an extra 53 million people at risk of extreme poverty is a good indicator of days to come. Now, I don’t want to sound like a doomsayer but things are worse. 53 million people in less than a year??

Wonder, what measures they can take unless they are ready to change their attitude and outlook about the fundamental principles of banking. And isn’t that fundamental principle of banking somewhere rooted in to the ‘social-wellness’ of economic prosperity?

Change is difficult, especially when it is from Social-Illness to Social Wellness. In Freakonomics, Steven Levitt mentioned that economists love incentives. Isn’t ‘Social-wellness’ a bigger incentive for bankers given that they almost drove 53 million people to extreme poverty? What better incentive can be other than instilling confidence and gaining loyalty of these very same people? Loyalty can be regained if these very people pushed at the edge of poverty had the opportunity to build something meaningful, with the assistance of other ‘good doers’ and financial support. In this case micro-financial support. The incentive for micro-finance is not to make huge profits but make the world a better place. And maybe its time for the banks to realize the mess they have created and get their acts together before a full blown ‘human catastrophe’ takes place. If the banks don’t get their acts together, people will take up the cause, they have already done it before but this time they will do it with gutso and what a shame for big multinational banks that will be.

Disruption thrives on chaos and we are living at a very chaotic time. People all over the world are getting into this act of doing good. Like I mentioned earlier, only micro-finance institutes along with social media (whatever you want to call it…) has the power to bring 5 billion people together at any given time to change the world of banking. Someone will surely take that leap very soon and disrupt the banking category like never before...

Coming up next week, interview with the two young Directors of Veecus, Mr. Clemént Carjat and Baptiste Fabre who has the potential to disrupt the status quo.

Do let me know what you think. Please do share your thoughts. I know I am everywhere but thats what I mentioned in the first place - 'and everything in between.'

Mashing up Micro-Credit, Economic Crisis, Social Media and everything in between – Part 1

In the last 15 days I’ve been working on a project about micro-credit. A client approached our agency and I’ve been entitled to handle the pitch. The subject is actually heavy and tiring and given it’s printemps out here and the weather is beautiful and I have to work late everyday while others are enjoying the sun, the cafés and the skimpy cladded Parisien women, concentration on subject matters like micro-credit becomes little difficult. Not that I don’t like the banking and financial category, it’s too complex for a non-economist poor planner like me. Obviously being as ignorant as I can be, I tried to read as much possible on micro-finance, micro-credit, the impact of economic crisis, world poverty, social media, social investment, civic banking, ethical economy, triple bottom line, corporate philanthropy, Grameen Bank, SKS Microfinance, Mohammed Yunus, Jonathan Morduch, Microplace etc. phew. Honestly too much information for my half-wit brain to process in such a short span of time.

I ended having lots of unanswered questions. So, I thought its better to put everything up here for discussion and someone among you might be able to enlighten me in the process.

The objective of micro-finance is to provide financial access to all people living on the edge of poverty and eventually eradicating poverty from the face of earth. Micro-credit (under micro-finance) helps build micro-entrepreneurs, generate employment for the poor and make them self-sustainable to handle difficult times of their lives. So, microcredit is a tool for socio-economic development.

However marco-banks (read Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, UBS, AIG, Citi) have proved us how they can push the middle-class on the verge of poverty instead of eradicating it. The global financial crisis is slowly manifesting itself across the globe and the impact is becoming clearer by sweeping away firms, mines, jobs, revenues, and livelihoods. What an irony. The microfinance sector is trying to eradicate poverty while global banking segment is making us the people poorer. The recent economic crisis will leave more than 20 million jobless by the end of 2009 according to ILO. In a world inhabited by 9 billion, more than 1.4 billion people are already living under extreme poverty on the sidelines of the global economic crisis. By end of the year more gets added to that number.

Anyways. My concern at the moment is whether the banking segment re-invents itself? If yes, how? Is there a place for ethical economy in the world of finance and banking plagued with growth, gross product and greed? The more we invest in Micro-lending, the more individuals will be working toward bettering our economy as a whole. Will larger banks and corporations start looking at micro-finance seriously?

Forbes magazine said that "microfinance has become a buzzword of the decade, raising the provocative notion that even philanthropy aimed at alleviating poverty can be profitable to institutional and individual investors." There signs of things happening. Members Project from AmEx par exemple. So my first reaction is micro-finance is one very important segment that will indeed see growth and integration within the larger system.

Microfinance institutes benefits from these close ties with their local communities, from knowing their borrowers well, from having an ownership structure that includes shareholders with a strong interest in their well-being, from conforming to local financial regulations and from making good use of local savings. In India, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) finances more than 500 banks that on-lend funds to self-help groups (SHGs). Nearly 1.4 million SHGs comprising approximately 20 million women now borrow from banks, which make the Indian SHG-Bank Linkage model the largest microfinance program in the world. Microfinancing also helps in the development of an economy by giving everyday people the chance to establish a sustainable means of income. Eventual increases in disposable income will lead to economic development and growth.

It’s a kind of offline version of Social Networking. And since big banks didn’t show much interest or help MFI, P2P based institutes like Kiva, Babyloan, Veecus, Microplace etc. gained prominence and started growing. Individual investors and common people understood the importance while banks kept showing their reluctance. Suddenly the whole world of banking got affected by so called Web 2.0, Social Networking, and Digital Media. The internet is now giving birth to new concepts like social investing, social finance, and social budgeting tool. Social Picks, Bull Poo, Green Sherpa, Geezeo. List is endless. Bankers better take noice.

Companies like Virgin Money, Globe Funders are changing the way banking is seen. Will the growing apathy of people towards our banking system force them to re-look at Ethical Economy seriously? I mean people are buying only ethical coffee so why not start focusing on ethical economy sooner. Will traditional banks adapt to these new changes? Yes, I am aware of the fact that this economic crisis will have a major impact of P2P lending platforms like Kiva, Babyloan etc. but I also have a feeling that individual investors driven by their passion of ‘doing good’ to society will keep recycling their money they have already put. And the numbers will grow by the end of this year. That’s because they will find micro-investment a less volatile investment option rather than just sitting on the money or taking up other high risk investment decisions. Micro entrepreneurs participate in micro economies, which are in part fueled by micro loans. This is one system that benefits all. Though it’s a lengthy process of return on investment but it is indeed a right step in the right direction.

I wanted to put these questions out there for discussion. Will small investors start looking at microcredit and micro-lending as a serious alternative to mutual funds, bonds and stocks? Who will social media influence people in social investments or social companies with micro entrepreneurs from poor regions of the world? How innovative do you think bankers will become and what new products can they launch? Will the banks drive these innovations through their social media platforms? Where do you think is the convergence point of social media and micro-credit? Do you think Social Banking is the new frontier?

Do write back with your comments and feedback. Maybe there is merit in what I am thinking, maybe its utter cow crap. Whatever. Would love to hear it from you.

Invasion of ZooZoo

Oglivy India has struck again. This time for Vodafone with ZooZoo and the whole thing has taken everyone by surprise. ZooZoo is a character created to communicate Vodafone's VAS during the IPL. A series of total 30 commercials about the various services offered by Vodafone. I know it's old news as some of you might say but sitting in the Paris office of Ogilvy, I do feel the heat. Everyone's talking about it and they love it. Seems like ZooZoo is making the most of now, hein? Evident from Facebook and Youtube. This article shows some figures etc. about the recent success.

Well, instead of talking about how great the idea is and how it is taking the digital world by storm, I was thinking how the creative guys envisioned the idea it in the first place. What was the problem? What was the brief? What was the strategy? Finally how did the idea turned out to be larger than the brand?

Now this is purely my opinion and I might be very wrong. In case you know the real story or truth behind the whole campaign, please do enlighten me.

The problem: The Indian mobile market is growing at a healthy 20% y-o-y which is coming mostly from the semi-urban and rural market while the urban metro market has become quiet saturated. The brand is also facing severe competition from lower call rates from CDMA and BSNL and other newer and smaller players like Virgin Mobile, Idea Cellular, Aircel etc. With 90% revenue coming from voice and rental, 5% from P2P and the rest from VAS, so mobile operators have hardly anything new to talk about. Vodafone wants to position itself as a leader in the Indian mobile market with VAS as the potential revenue generator for the brand in the future. Therefore it makes sense to target and attract the urban youth with innovative value added services and increase usage (read revenue).

The Brief from the Client: Do exactly what you have previously done for Hutch. Create a character that will strengthen the brands bond with consumers and allow them to explore different value added services offered by Vodafone.

The Strategy: Build a character that is so simple and so stupid but so entertaining and so surprising that mobile users demand more of it. (Now this sounds like a very stupid strategy, but irreverence has its own place in the world of communication) To argue my point let me ask, what strategy did Saatchi adopt for T-Mobile with its flash-mob film and the recent show they pulled off at Trafalgar Square in London, though its nice to tie everything together as 'Life's for sharing'? Like I mentioned yesterday, what is the strategy behind Arnet and hairs? Surprise people. Make people feel good. Make them discover. The way people want to consume advertising is changing (no, am not talking about media or method here) making communication easy yet so very challenging. When irreverence takes people by surprise, you get to create a new differentiator for yourself. This is exactly what the strategy is - Make Vodafone surprisingly irreverent to people (a complex mental state of surprise, fun, entertainment all put together)

The Idea: Rajeev Rao, one of the brain behind ZooZoo is a great creative guy. He did it before with the Pug and the Little Boy for Hutch, something that caught the imagination of people. He created a series of this Pug and Little Boy commercials. That ugly pug became an instant icon and so did Hutch. The campaign was creative, it was effective. So he understands how to make ugly, odd things look extremely stupid and funny and yet get away with it. ZooZoo does exactly that. ZooZoo is this odd white egghead shaped character that is pure entertainment. It does stupid things, knows how to make fun and make people happy about it. The only clever thing that the creative and the production team did was not making another animated film. But using real characters to act as animated ones. And in the process confusing consumers to the hilt and forcing them to question, what is it? The process of not knowing what is it encourages people to come together. Just like people came toegther and started singing not knowing its a fast one pulled on them by T-Mobile.

So what is the winning formula here? The winning formula is not coming up with a great idea, but how to surprise people at the right moment in the right place. ZooZoo launched during IPL when all eyes are glued on the television set. ZooZoo started giving downloaded goodies to people to play with. They let people digital share stuff and have fun with it. It's like seeding the ZooZoo idea are different places and seeing how it grows from there. To me ZooZoo is a perfect example of Transmedia Planning though am not to sure if Transmedia came in Rao's mind while thinking about ZooZoo. Thanks to Faris who gave us this term (but I do have a question for Faris - How different is Transmedia Planning from the much abused '360 Communication Planning' we often talk about?)

Yes, I may have missed out on several important questions like effectiveness, will it increase VAS users, how to make Facebook fans download VAS application for their mobile by making them pay, what does it mean to semi-urban and rural consumers etc etc. Nevertheless, ZooZoo is big idea and has the potential to live for many years. ZooZoo has showed us it can surprise people and create an auro of irreverence around the brands core promise - Make the most of now. That's exactly what the Vodafone should do, allow to make the most of now.

Do let me know what you think?