Monthly Archives: February 2008

List of Marketing, Public Relations & Social Media Blogs in India

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Quick Summary: A number of good quality marketing, public relations & social media blogs in India form a mature niche now.

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I recently compiled my list of social media agencies in India to highlight the high level of activity I’m suddenly seeing in that niche.

Another related area where I’m suddenly seeing very high level of good quality activity is in the marketing, public relations & social media blogs niche in India.

Not very long back, I had mentioned that Gauravonomics Blog was one of the five Indian blogs on the AdAge Power150 list. Today, as many as fifteen Indian blogs can be on that list.

The blogs included in this list are not only written by marketing, public relations, or social media practitioners, they are also focused on these topics. Blogs on unrelated topics written by marketing, public relations, or social media practitioners are not included in the list.

The main objective of the list is to develop a sense of community in the niche. This is the reason why I have added blogger profiles on Facebook/ LinkedIn/ Twitter wherever possible. This is also the reason why I have structured this list alphabetically (by author name) and not as a ranking. Agency blogs and multi-author blogs are listed separately.

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Updated: Mumbai Twitter Meetp: In Mumbai? On Twitter? Let’s Meet Up!

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Quick Summary: The second Mumbai Twitter Meetup at Italian restaurant White in Goregaon had a full house with as many as sixteen people turning up.

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Mumbai Twitter Meetup

In Mumbai? On Twitter? Let’s meet up.

Here are the details of the next Mumbai Twitter Meetup —

Date: Sunday, March 2, 2008
Time: 11:30am - 3:30pm
Location: White, Off Link Road, Near VIBGYOR School, Goregaon, Mumbai, India

Aditya, who owns the Italian restaurant White, has graciously offered to give us 50% discount on food for the meetup.

So, what are you waiting for? If you aren’t already on Twitter, go sign up Twitter, then start following me @Gauravonomics, Aditya at @acmhatre and Mumbai Twitter Meet at @MumbaiTwit.

You can register for the event by registering on the Facebook Mumbai Twitter Meetup Event, sending a message to @MumbaiTwit, or leaving a comment below.

Remember: Each one, tweet one (that is, get an interesting friend to sign-up for Twitter and come to the meetup).

Also See: Details of first Mumbai Twitter Meetup.

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Update: March 2, 2008

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Yours Truly Featured in Indian Daily Mid-Day’s Story on Cool Bachelor Pads

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Quick Summary: Indian daily Mid-Day did a story today on cool bachelor pads and used mine as the lead.

Gaurav Mishra Mid Day Cool Bachelor Pads

Indian daily Mid-Day did a story today on cool bachelor pads and featured my own humble bachelor pad as the lead —

Gaurav Mishra, 28, Marketer

After 6 years of slumming it out at hostels and PG setups (through his education and internship), Gaurav Mishra was finally ready to settle down. “Not in the oft-used sense of the term, of course,” the IIM-B alumnus jokes. So, the 28-year-old traded in his nomadic lifestyle for a 2-bedroom flat in Cuffe Parade, that he painstakingly furnished and colour coordinated black upholstery, orange bedroom, blue living room to ensure it feels like home.

Gaurav’s tips: Don’t blindly follow people’s advice. I was told cane furniture is difficult to maintain, but I’ve had mine for the last 4 years. And it’s good as new. Instead of letting stuff (clothes, books, dishes…) pile up, allot spaces for various things, and ensure they go there. Booze bottles and glasses stay in the bar cabinet, books and DVDs in my second bedroom, that I plan to turn into a podcasting studio, the technophile says.

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The Economics of Free and the 50/50 Enterprise

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Quick Summary: In today’s attention-scarce economy, where freebies have become the cost of entry, enterprises need to strike the right balance between giving away freebies to get attention and retaining the ability to eventually monetize the attention.

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This post was inspired by a thought-provoking post by Piers Fawkes on free versus paid social networks (via Valeria Maltoni). Piers compares his experiences with a not-for-profit (Likemind) and a for-profit (The Purple List) social network and concludes that –

To leverage the opportunities that digital connectivity has fueled a company should be a 50/50 corporation. 50% about being social, 50% about making profit.

In our attention-scarce economy, consumers demand freebies in exchange for their attention. Enterprises give away freebies in the form of free content, or, in some cases, even free products, in the hope that they will get their customers’ attention, build lock-in, and eventually charge for value-added services. In an earlier post, I have called this trade-off the economics of free –

The Economics of Free

Therefore, Piers’ idea of the 50/50 Enterprise itself is not new. What is new is his insight that unless you decide upfront, and let your customers know upfront, that your enterprise has both free and paid elements, you may not be able to charge for the paid elements.

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Have You Watched the New Indica V2 Dicor TVC Yet?

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Quick Summary: Watch the New Indica V2 Dicor TVC on YouTube.

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Have you watched the new Indica V2 Dicor TVC yet?

We broke the campaign over the weekend, and uploaded the TVC on YouTube almost simultaneously.

Now, I’m sharing the TVC on my blog, Twitter and Facebook.

It’s my first TVC in my brand manager avatar, so be generous with your compliments and gentle with your criticisms. In either case, do e-mail me your feedback both on the TVC and the concept of brand managers talking about their brands on social networks.

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List of Social Media Agencies in India

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Quick Summary: The social media marketing scene in India is heating up both on the demand and supply side, with digital advertising agencies, PR practitioners, and prominent bloggers offering a range of social media services.

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I have been watching the social media marketing scene in India for a while now, and, suddenly, things seem to be heating up in this space. On the demand side, companies/ brands are showing willingness to engage with social media and, on the supply side, many players are offering, or planning to offer, a variety of social media services.

The Indian players offering social media marketing services can broadly be divided into three categories –

- Digital advertising agencies offering social media marketing services with a focus on virals, social network apps, social media campaigns etc.

- Public relations agencies/ practitioners offering social media services with a focus on online reputation monitoring and social media outreach etc.

- Prominent bloggers offering, basically, corporate blogging consulting services and workshops.

Let’s look at the players under each category in some detail.

Digital Advertising Agencies

- Webchutney

Location(s): Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore

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Nobody Owns the Social Media Sandbox, Especially Not PR

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Quick Summary: My take on the PR vs marketing debate in social media circles — nobody owns the social media sandbox.

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There’s a debate going on in search, marketing and PR blogs on what is Social Media Marketing, how does it relate to Search Marketing and Social Marketing, and who owns it.

On one extreme are the SEO/ SEM experts who primarily focus on the role of social bookmarking, social news and other social networking sites in driving traffic to websites (The Search Marketing Purists) –

Social media is easy to hype because there is a lot of traffic on social media sites. But if you try to do anything with social media traffic to convert it to revenue, you will be hard-pressed — unless you are selling CPM-based advertising. (Aaron Wall)

On the other extreme are the not-for-profit social workers who primarily focus on the role of marketing in influencing social behavior and bringing about social change (The Social Marketing Purists) —

Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society. (Nedra Kline Weinreich)

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My Twitter Direct Message Retweet Bug Meme

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

Quick Summary: My Twitter Direct Message Retweet Bug Meme is shaping up into an interesting social media experiment.

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Here’s a quick background and description of my Twitter Direct Message Retweet Bug Meme —

@twilightfairy & @shweta have been having fun with my Twitter direct message retweet bug. (link)

Basically, if you send me a direct message on Twitter, it gets re-tweeted as my own message because of a Twitter bug. (link)

I have requested Twitter to fix it, but they haven’t come around to it yet. Guess they have bigger problems to fix. (link)

While Twitter finds time to fix my direct message retweet bug, let’s have a little fun with it. (link)

If you want your message to be retweeted to my 450+ Twitter followers, send it to me as a direct message. (link)

What fun! To have even more fun with my direct retweet meme, ask your followers to send a direct message to me. ;-) (link)

Here are the conversations that my Twitter Direct Message Retweet Bug Meme has generated so far –

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My Mantra for Building Business Relationships: Treat Partners/ Vendors/ Suppliers Like Customers

Monday, February 18th, 2008

Quick Summary: Read my mantra for building business relationships — treat partners/ vendors/ suppliers like customers.

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Last week, I wrote about Anita Campbell’s compilation of best kept marketing secrets featuring tips from some of the world’s top marketers, small business experts and bloggers.

Toby Bloomberg is compiling another great list of tips (via Rajesh) from marketers and bloggers around the world by asking them —

How do you build great business relationships with people? Do “clients” and “partners/ vendors/ suppliers” have different points of view about what is important for each?

Toby’s compilation post on building business relationships has a wealth of good advice and I would strongly encourage you to read through it.

Here’s my own mantra for building business relationships — treat partners/ vendors/ suppliers like customers.

All of us know how to build great business relationships with customers. All of us know that we should –

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Yours Truly Quoted in Hindustan Times’ Very Well-Researched Article on Micro-Blogging in India

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

Yours truly was quoted today in a very well-researched Hindustan Times article on micro-blogging in India.

Twitter, a popular microblogging service abroad, recently introduced an India number. Says Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, “The people of India are very sophisticated when it comes to using SMS to stay connected.”

In Mumbai, Twitter recently inspired a ‘tweetup’, when Gaurav Mishra, a marketing professional and an “early adopter of technology”, wrote out a post saying “Blog meets are so passé. I want a Mumbai Twitter meet.”

The article covers the entire spectrum of the micro-blogging space in India, from Twitter to MyToday MOBS and Webaroo SMSGupShup to the Reliance m-blog and Nokia N-Series m-blog.

The article also has quotes from Ideasmith, Veer, Kiran, Rajesh and Biz Stone.

Here is the full text of the article —

Blogging by SMS, new rage in cool India
Neha Tara Mehta, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, February 17, 2008

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