5 Ways To Create Effective Campaigns On Twitter

Twitter has been a social media platform of choice for broadcasting your message, having one on one interaction and for doing customer relationship management. In this post i would like to share some elements using which brands can create & launch effective campaigns on twitter.

#1. Integration across all the channels

It's important to integrate twitter activity with the rest of the campaign across all the social media channels like blogs, flickr, facebook and/or tv, radio etc. For instance Kogi Korean BBQ Taco Truck (a mobile truck restaurant) had a very poor opening initially in Los Angeles but latter on used the combination of it's blog, facebook, twitter & flickr page to launch a campaign which ultimately made it one of the best places to hang out.

#2. Reaching out to Customers

Twitter is a medium known for it's virality and this is one feature which can be tapped by the brands. This can be done by reaching out to your customers on twitter, conversing with them & helping them out. Faaso's a Pune & Mumbai based restaurant works on a very interesting 'tweet to order' model. Their customers order the food via the convenience of tweets which is then delivered to the address provided. Interestingly they are not running after number of followers but have maintained quality. Even the people who don't follow them on twitter but are aware of them order food from them!

[caption id="attachment_202" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Faaso's interaction with a customer"][/caption]

#3. Planning & Engagement is the key

If you are going to run some campaign for a month, scheduling you tweets at least a week ahead is going to help you a lot. We at Digital Vidya follow this strategy. Even if you are not running a campaign, still it's a good practice to schedule tweets. Apart from that regularly engage with your followers by answering their queries or resolving their complaints. If you do it regularly you will a surge in your followers for sure.

#4. Time it Right

Launch your campaigns when a new product or service is launched or when there is new development of interest to your customers as there is a curiosity & interest among them. For instance MTV India launched exclusive preview tweetup of “Roadies-8” for a group of twitter Influencers.

#5. Create landing pages for twitter users

It's also a great practice to create landing pages especially optimized for Twitter. This can help you manipulate the average time that people spend on your site, improve your effectiveness and increase your revenue. More details can be learned at this link: how to build effective landing pages.

What other ways can you suggest to make your campaigns more effective on Twitter?

Use of Social Media in Imparting Education at Schools & Colleges

[caption id="attachment_193" align="alignleft" width="190" caption="An actual 'backchannel' discussion on Erin Olson's English Class in Sioux Rapids, Iowa, about a poem called "To the Lady." "][/caption]

Social Media is increasingly being used by various B2C & B2B companies all around the world. Social Media is no longer a separate area but a part of Marketing Mix for most of the companies. And masses of people have adopted this medium & many feel handicap if they don't have access to Facebook or Twitter. Social Media has proved to be beneficial at almost every walk of life & now it is playing an increasingly important role in Educating the students in Schools & Colleges.

 


Some of the potential benefits of using Social Media in Schools, Colleges & Universities are:
1) Opening up in Backchannels: With Twitter already there and the availability of various other microblogging platforms like Today's Meet , Google Moderator , My Chat Box etc it is easier for teachers to set up “backchannels” in their classrooms. Backchannel simply means apart from the direct lecture from teacher to students there is an online channel running simultaneously for them to discuss & voice their opinions. Usually many students hesitate to open up during classroom lecture but it has been seen that these backchannels actually encourage students to open up & participate freely.

2) Turning Hobby into Work: Teachers who have used this system feel as students these days have smart phones & laptops ready with them and they do all sort of social networking stuff & surfing which can be distracting in a class room, it is better then to turn their hobby into work. Students don't feel distracted as they are discussing & sharing relevant content with their class mates. In fact they feel encouraged & empowered with these tools. They start their own blogs or online communities to discuss & share the knowledge with other students.

Here's an interesting video by University of Minnesota researcher Christine Greenhow on Social Media usage in Schools:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxrlrbP4UNo

Can you think of any more ways where social media can prove to be helpful in education?

Examples & Scope of Location Based Social Networks in India

Social Networking has come of age & more or less it has been adopted by a large section of people all around the world. Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn are the 3 Giants of Social Networking at the moment with all three catering to some particular needs of their users. Apart from these well known Leaders, Location based social networking is another area which is emerging very quickly in this space. Foursquare & Gowalla are the prominent sites in this space. According to a recent ComScore report "Nearly 1 in 5 smartphone owners use check-in services" and its growing. So, i would like to address the scope of these networks in India. What benefit they can provide to the consumers & brands.

1) For Merchants and other Venue owners:

Foursquare offers a free set of tools to help you attract new customers and keep your best ones coming back. Merchants can attract new customers or reward their most loyal ones by offering foursquare mobile coupons, prizes or discounts. Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) is the first brand from India to do a tie up with Foursquare to offer discounts to its regular customers. On your third check-in at CCD (applicable only for Bangalore at the moment), you will get 15% discount. And if you are the Mayor, CCD will serve you a free coffee and a 20% discount on every 3rd check-in. Another benefit for merchants is that 'Merchant Platform' allows access to your Venue Stats dashboard, allowing you to track your customer foot traffic over time.

2) For Brands that are not tied to a specific physical location:

For brands like a consumer packaged good, TV channel, university, manufacturer, or an upcoming movie release foursquare provides two main marketing tools – Pages and Custom Badges. This helps your consumers and fans to do interesting things in their neighborhoods and communities. For instance MTV uses Foursquare Page in USA to create stickiness around its brand. The pages contain the business logo, tips that the business as left at Foursquare venues & the option to follow that business on Foursquare. The page also includes links to that businesses profile on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter, thus helping in cross promotion of platforms.

Some Examples: Indian Merchants & Venue owners have already started adopting the Foursquare as can be seen from the example of CCD. ITC Green Centre (Complimentary dessert at the coffee shop on 3rd check-in!) and Cpm Cafe (Free Pizza for the Mayor!) are some other examples using Foursquare to attract customers. There are various other small brands who have started using Foursquare at various places in India.

But as far as the use of Foursquare pages is concerned there are not many takers of it in India yet. Although Jet Airways has been using this feature beautifully as can be seen from their Foursquare Page. The early adopters of this feature will clearly benefit from this exercise.

Indian Brands haven't shared any official figures yet as to how much benefit they are getting out of it but looking at the global trends and the enthusiasm among these early adopters, i am sure they are getting lot of value in terms of increased foot falls & ultimately sales. So definitely the scope is bright for location based social networks in India. All what is required is positive attitude towards this medium.

Do you know of any more examples of Indian Brands using Foursquare to leverage their Marketing Efforts?

5 Ways to Use LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation

Social media has proved its worth as far as B2C companies are concerned. Even B2B companies have started using various social tools to leverage this technology which can help them to grow their business. Many B2B companies have adopted Enterprise Social Tools like Yammer, Chatter, Socialcast, Qontext etc. But these tools are for internal communication, collaboration & knowledge sharing within employees. As far as lead generation or business development is concerned Linkedin has proved to be a very good tool for B2B companies.

1. Create your Company Page: Company page is like a LinkedIn face of a company. You can provide information on the individuals behind your brand and highlight how consumers use your products. Your Company Page offers tools to bring your brand to life. There is a testimonials tab too on LinkedIn page which can help build credibility and generate business. For reference you can check the LinkedIn page of Digital Vidya (the company i work for).

2. Management Team: It's also important create a team from within your marketing department & train them in the nuances of social media tools & how to utilize them. The roles & responsibilities of the team members should be clearly defined so that there is no mis-match. For a small organization even a single person can handle the account. It's important that the team members should have well polished profiles on LinkedIn so that potential clients should have nice impression of their LinkedIn public profiles.

3. Connect and interact: Participate in the relevant offline industry events & network with people who can be your potential clients or leads. Connect with them on LinkedIn. This can be made easier by including your LinkedIn URL in your email signature, on your business cards and in the contact section of resumes, websites and blogs. Join the groups where these people are active and start & participate in discussions on those groups. This will build your reputation as a thought leader with these people in the long term.

4. Join relevant LinkedIn groups: Joining relevant active groups on LinkedIn is very helpful as many members of these groups run regular discussions on various topics & share insights with each other. This builds up your brand as a thought leader which you can use to the advantage both individually as well as for your organization. You never know when your prospects on these groups will approach you for the business. But be sensitive to the group dynamics, and don't ever try to dominate the conversation. Your materials should be a resource, not a sales push for you or your prospects. Also participate in LinkedIn Answers. They also help in creating a brand for you where you can get rewarded by other users with best answers. These are passive activities but can be very valuable in the long term.

5. Prospect Tracking: An effective keyword search can be used to reach out to the right people. A useful tip for lead generation is to check the list of people who have viewed your profile. This lets you know who is interested in your company, and they are the prospects you can target. To reach them ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts (your prospects) and so on. Evalueserve has done a lot of business through LinkedIn & they swear by this tactic.

What other ways you can think of to generate leads on LinkedIn? We would love to hear!