Gauravonomics Blog

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Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 report has some interesting data on the who, why and how of blogging. The analysis is based on a survey of 1290 bloggers from 66 countries, apart from their own index.

However, it was the data on brands in the blogosphere that I found most interesting.

The big revelation for me was that more than nine in ten bloggers blog about the brands that they love (or hate). I don’t remember seeing a similar statistic before (and I’ll be grateful if you share a link to a similar study with me) but this means that blogging about brands is more ubiquitous than most brand managers realize. Bloggers also write about a wide range of topics related to brands — from brand or product reviews to news or gossip about brands and their experience with store or customer support employees. It would have been interesting to get a sense of how many of these posts are positive, negative or neutral and how blogging about brands varies across geographies.

(Cross-posted on my fellowship blog: How International Values Shape Communications Technologies)

Before I became the marketer who went off consumption, I was the marketer who understood social media.

Over the last two years, I have been fortunate to be included in conversations around social media thought and practice in India in multiple roles — as a traditional marketer who understood social media, as a blogger who wrote about social media, as an early adopter of new social media platforms, and as a connector of social media thinkers and practitioners. I think that I was able to play the last three roles primarily because of my first role. Much of my legitimacy as a thinker/ blogger and most of the connections I was able to make were rooted in my role as the custodian of a big brand that was engaging with the social media space in a meaningful way.

Over the last few months, my focus has moved away from social media marketing to other use cases of social media in developing countries, especially the use of social media for social change. As I explained in the introductory episode of my fellowship podcast, my research really lies at the intersection of three worlds that (surprisingly) don’t really understand each other — the web 2.0 world, the technology policy world, and the ICT4D world — and also borrows heavily from cultural studies.

I’m speaking at the Interesting New York conference on September 13 about my off-consumption experiment.

I had earlier decided to speak without any visual aids, but finally succumbed to the temptation of using slides. Clearly, the marketer who went off consumption still hasn’t gone off Powerpoint.

Here are the slides I’ll be using for my talk at Interesting New York –

If you are in New York on 13th, do come (tickets are $35 only). Some of the other speakers at Interesting New York are really interesting.

In a guest post on Drew McLellan’s blog The Marketing Minute, I talk about marketing to consumers who define themselves by their anti-consumerism –

An increasing number of consumers are rejecting their roles as consumers and refusing to define themselves by the things they buy. Instead, they are choosing to define their identities from the experiences they have, the relationships they build, and the meaning they create by expressing themselves creatively.

If you are a marketer, you can react to these trends in two ways. You can ignore them until they hit you, or you can immerse yourself in them, like I have chosen to.

After studying these trends for almost six months, I see that there is a way for brands to stay relevant, even if the seven social trends I talked about move closer to the mainstream.

Simplicity, authenticity and community are the three themes that run through the seven social trends that are changing consumption. Brands that help us clear the clutter in our lives, or enable us to have authentic experiences, or assist us in forming and connecting with communities will become the most important necessities, the only things we can’t do without.

People often ask me why I am so passionate about social media.

I became interested in social media because of my need to reconcile the two halves I was split into —

As an individual, I was tired of being targeted by commercial messages from the brands-media-retail triumvirate. As a marketer, I loved the art and science of marketing, adored brands, and was hardwired into the idea of capitalist free markets driven by consumerism.

My endeavor to reconcile these two parts… led to my interest in social media, because, at its best, social media allows brands and consumers to connect as equals, even as people (and brands are people too).

– but that’s not the full story.

At its best, social media enables us to transform ourselves as individuals, transform marketplaces and transform society.

Social media gives us the tools to create meaning (via both content and relationships) in ways that was not possible before, allows us to realize our full potential both as creative individuals and social beings.

Social media also enables brands and consumers to engage as equals, even connect as people (because, as I have said before, brands are people too).

In a year when everything seems possible, why not do a daily vidcast too?

Welcome to the Gauravonomics TV, my daily vidcast on marketing, technology and social media.

Here is the first episode –

The interesting twist is that I’ll record, edit and upload my vidcasts exclusively from my Nokia E71 smartphone. So, the vidcast is also an experiment in what is possible and what is not possible with mobile technology. Stay tuned.

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: 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.