Gauravonomics Blog

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Saurabh Garg sent me an e-mail today to share his experience with the Nokia blogger review program.

Saurabh has some interesting thoughts on the why and how of blogger review programs, including why Nokia might want to ship out Euro 500 phones to little read bloggers halfway across the world.

I wrote a how-to guide to blogger review programs sometime back and included Nokia as one of the case studies (see Nokia N Series blogger review program). Although Nokia seems to have changed their PR agency since then (why?), the new Nokia blogger review program is essentially the same as the N Series blogger review program.

While Nokia’s blogger review program is great, it would become even better if the website becomes the hub for all social media conversation about Nokia. For instance, I own a Nokia E71, have written a (positive) review on it, and even started a daily vidcast using it. A little link love from Nokia might encourage me to continue to blog about my Nokia E71.

What do you think? Should blogger review programs be ‘push only’ programs or use a mix of both ‘pull and push’ tactics?

Neil Howe — who has co-authored several books about the cyclic nature of American generations — shares some contrarian views about the millenials in an interesting interview with Brandweek (via Murketing). Millenials, by the way, are Americans born after the early eighties.

- Millenials do use social media to express themselves creatively, but their overarching objective is to form new connections and communities –

Millennials are changing information technology. Instant messaging, chat rooms, texting and, above all, social networking. It’s a return to community, but in virtual space. It’s surprising how they are recreating community within the context of a new technology.

It’s easy for millennials to express themselves today, but it’s done within the context of a generation that enjoys being with each other and enjoys customization as a novel way of forming friendships and forming groups. The social-networking phenomenon is taking place within the context of this incredibly vast and intense and unremitting social immersion experience. This is the most connected generation in world history.

Quick Summary: I was quoted recently in Indian newspaper Deccan Chronicle’s story on online advertising in India.

I was quoted recently in a Deccan Chronicle story on online advertising in India, along with advertising legends Alyque Padamsee and Piyush Pandey and fellow blogger Chandrachoodan.

Basically, we all agreed that online advertising will become the core of the Indian marketers’ marketing budget in the next few years. I also pointed out that the internet works best when marketers use it to reach one person at a time. So, search advertising for generating leads and social media initiatives for building community engagement are both great, but not plain-vanilla banner ads.

Here is the complete text of the story –

Consumer Caught in the Net
Online or web advertising is the next big thing in the sphere of advertising
Ashlin Mathew
Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Online pie is getting bigger and better. Of course with almost every youngster choosing to buy tickets or shop online or even home in on the optimum brand through the Internet, even conservatives are willing to put their thumb into it.

Quick Summary: Read my list of the ten unthinkable futures of marketing, scenarios that seem too far-fetched to be true today, but may seem obvious in retrospect tomorrow.

Yes you read it right. This is not a post about the future of marketing. This is a post about the ten unthinkable futures of marketing.

Unthinkable futures are probabilities we tend to dismiss without thinking, scenarios that seem too far-fetched to be true today, but may seem obvious in retrospect tomorrow.

Inspired by the unthinkable futures game between Kevin Kelly and Brian Eno from fifteen years back, here’s my own list of the ten unthinkable futures of marketing —

1. No products will have price tags anymore. People will pick up products from the mall, or order them online and have them delivered home, and pay only what they want to pay.

(Update: I was aware of the numerous examples of authors and musicians giving away their books and music for free, but I discovered two examples of restaurants giving away food for free, and allowing the patrons to decide what they want to pay for it.)

Quick Summary: Get a sneak preview of my chapter for ‘Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t People Get It?’; it’s called ‘The Case for Social Media Outsourcing’.

I have just submitted my chapter for ‘The Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t People Get It?’ and it’s called ‘The Case for Social Media Outsourcing’.

The chapter is based on my earlier post about social media outsourcing (also see), and its basic premise is that social media outsourcing will be a significant part of the third wave of Indian outsourcing (worth $50bn by 2012), making it the next big business opportunity for India.

As I had mentioned earlier, ‘The Age of Conversation 2′ will have 275 237 contributors against the 100 for the original ‘Age of Conversation’ and the chapters will be focused on eight sections related to the broad ‘Why Don’t People Get It?’ theme of the book. Here’s a sneak preview of the eight sections to whet your appetite –

# Manifestos — Declarations, up front, on the Age of Conversation. Why don’t people get it? What about companies? Where are things going? What can you help clarify?

Quick Summary: Check out the fourth edition of ‘The Best of Indian Business Blogs’, a weekly digest by business bloggers you trust.

The Idea

The basic idea is simple: we form a network of five to ten influential Indian business bloggers to promote link-worthy posts from other Indian business bloggers in the form of a weekly digest published on our respective blogs.

The People

The present members in our network are (in alphabetical order):-

- Gaurav Mishra, that is, yours truly, is a marketer and a social media enthusiast (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Gautam Ghosh is an HR professional and a veteran business blogger (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Kiruba Shankar is India’s original A-list blogger and podcaster and a regular speaker at technology conferences (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Palin Ningthoujam is a public relations professional and the founder of India PR Blog (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Rajesh Lalwani is the founder of social media agency Blogworks (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Ranjan Varma is the writer of personal finance online weekly Personal Finance 2.01 (e-Book, Blog, Facebook and Twitter).

Quick Summary: Check out my interview in Indian daily Hindustan Times for ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, my year-long book-as-a-blog experiment in why we choose to consume or not.

‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ is my year-long blog-as-a-book experiment in why we choose to consume, or not.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’, you should subscribe to it now, for free, in a feed reader, or by e-mail.

Yesterday, my first interview for ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ was published in Indian daily Hindustan Times.

The interview was published on the front page of the Delhi edition –

– and the city section in the Mumbai edition –

One interesting thing I learned yesterday is that different editions of a newspaper may publish different versions of a story.

The Mumbai Edition published the full story — see text below — complete with my rules and URL.

The Delhi Edition published a much shorter version of the story — also available online — but it was on the front page and I’m not complaining at all.

Quick Summary: Check out the third edition of ‘The Best of Indian Business Blogs’, a weekly digest by business bloggers you trust.

The Idea

The basic idea is simple: we form a network of five to ten influential Indian business bloggers to promote link-worthy posts from other Indian business bloggers in the form of a weekly digest published on our respective blogs.

The People

The present members in our network are (in alphabetical order):-

- Gaurav Mishra, that is, yours truly, is a marketer and a social media enthusiast (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Gautam Ghosh is an HR professional and a veteran business blogger (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Kiruba Shankar is India’s original A-list blogger and podcaster and a regular speaker at technology conferences (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Palin Ningthoujam is a public relations professional and the founder of India PR Blog (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Rajesh Lalwani is the founder of social media agency Blogworks (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Ranjan Varma is the writer of personal finance online weekly Personal Finance 2.01 (e-Book, Blog, Facebook and Twitter).

Quick Summary: After the runaway success of the original ‘Age of Conversation’, watch out for my next collaborative book — ‘The Age of Conversation 2.0: Why Don’t People Get It?’

After the runaway success of ‘The Age of Conversation’ — it reached #262 in books and #36 in business and investing books on Amazon — it’s time for ‘The Age of Conversation 2.0: Why Don’t People Get It?’

There are three reasons why ‘The Age of Conversation 2.0: Why Don’t People Get It?’ is likely to be even better than the original ‘Age of Conversation’ –

1. It has 275 authors, instead of 100, and the author list is a who’s who of the world’s best marketing and social media thinkers.

2. The theme of the book is a question — ‘Why Don’t People Get It?’ — that social media enthusiasts often ask themselves. With 275 answers to the question, the book is likely to become the reference source for understanding ‘Why Don’t People Get It?’

Quick Summary: Download a copy of the excellent ‘Best-Kept Marketing Secrets’ e-book for great marketing tips from 100 experts, including yours truly.

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends had asked some of the world’s top marketers, small business experts and bloggers — including Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and John Battelle — to share one of their best kept marketing secrets.

Now, she has compiled the best 100 tips from her compilation of best kept marketing secrets into an excellent e-book called ‘Best-Kept Marketing Secrets: 100 Experts Dish With Their Marketing Tips’.

The 33 page e-book has 100 expert tips across various marketing related topics like relationship marketing, marketing strategy, online marketing and social media, including my own tip on learning to make the perfect elevator pitch –

- Step 1 — Describe your idea in one or two sentences. Give both facts as they are and your own opinions.

- Step 2 — Specify what exactly you want to be done, by when and by whom.

- Step 3 — Give three reasons why, including examples to illustrate the benefits.