1.

How do I define the frequency of the posts or updates

Best practices for when to post on social media

To recap what you see in the infographic here at Buffer and over at SumAll,
Ive placed each of the best practices for social media posting frequency
below.
Twitter 3 times per day, or more
Engagement decreases slightly after the third tweet.
Facebook 2 times per day, at most
2x per day is the level before likes & comments begin to drop off
dramatically.
LinkedIn 1 time per day
20 posts per month (1x per weekday) allows you to reach 60 percent of your
audience
Google+ 3 times per day, at most
The more often you post, the more activity youll get. Users have found a
positive correlation between frequency and engagement. When posting
frequency wanes, some have experienced drops in traffic up to 50%.
Pinterest 5x per day, or more
The top brands on Pinterest have experienced steady growth and in some
cases rapid or sensational growth! by adopting a multiple-times-per-day
posting strategy.
Instagram 1.5 times per day, or more
Major brands post an average of 1.5 times per day to Instagram. Theres no
drop-off in engagement for posting more, provided you can keep up the rate
of posting.
Blog 2x per week
Companies that increase blogging from 3-5X/month to 6-8X/month almost
double their leads.

Key research for how often to post to social media

The above best practices are super clear and simple if youre interested in
getting started with a frequency framework for your social sharing. As with
all research-backed best practices, Id encourage you to use these as a
starting point for your own tests to see whats best. Your individual scenario
may call for more or less than whats recommended.
Also, I know many are interested in where these recommendations come
from (we dig this type of stuff, too!). Heres a bit more about the research
and resources that have helped to establish the baselines for how often to
share to social media.
Twitter 3 times per day, or more
Engagement decreases slightly after the third tweet
During the summer of 2013, Social Bakers took a random sample of 11,000
tweets from top brands and found that a frequency of three tweets per day
was the point where brands saw their highest engagement.
In the chart below, Total ER (total engagement rate, in blue) and Average
Tweet ER (average engagement rate per tweet, in purple) meet in the sweet
spot right around the third tweet.

A 2012 Track Social study found that the per-tweet engagement peaks at
around five tweets per day.
Does three to five tweets per day seem a bit low?
Perhaps.
Interestingly, in the same Track Social study mentioned above, per-day
engagementthe total number of interactions that occur throughout the
day, regardless of how many times you postshowed a steady rise all the
way to 30 tweets per day. In other words, you could post up to 30 times and
still continue to see positive effects on engagementeffects that might not
top the maximum per-tweet levels at five tweets per day, but still worth
exploring.

Facebook 2 times per day, at most

2x per day is the level before likes & comments begin to drop off
dramatically.
A lot has changed for the Facebook News Feed in the past couple years, so
its worth noting that the best research on Facebook frequency comes from a
Track Social study from 2012 and a Social Bakers study from 2011.
These studies conclude that its best to post to Facebook 5 to 10 times per
week, or 1 to 2 times per weekday.
From the Track Social findings:
When a brand posts twice a day, those posts only receive 57% of the likes
and 78% of the comments per post. The drop-off continues as more posts
are made in the day.
LinkedIn 1 time per day
20 posts per month (1x per weekday) allows you to reach 60 percent of your
audience
As part of the LinkedIn small business guide, the network shared an
interesting stat that relates to how often you should be sharing to LinkedIn.
Share 20 times per month to reach 60 percent of your audience.
Twenty times per month divided by four weeks per month equals five times
per week. Five times per week fits perfectly with a once-per-weekday
posting schedule, ideally suited to reach the audience on LinkedIn, which is
full of professionals who figure to spend their most time on LinkedIn during
business days.
Google+ 3 times per day, at most
Stone Temple Consultings Mark Traphagen and Socialmouths Daniel
Sharkov each shared graphs from their own sharing on Google+. Their
takeaway:
The more often you post, the more activity youll get. Users have found a
positive correlation between frequency and engagement. When posting
frequency wanes, some have experienced drops in traffic up to 50%.

The 50 percent drop in particular was mentioned by Sharkov. He noticed a

large portion of traffic coming from Google+ when he was sharing more to
the network; when the sharing stopped, so did the traffic.
Pinterest 5x per day, or more
The top brands on Pinterest have experienced steady growth and in some
cases rapid or sensational growth! by adopting a multiple-times-per-day
posting strategy.
In 2013, visual marketing service Piqora interviewed big-time brands like
Whole Foods, Lowes, LL Bean, and more to see what they had experienced
on Pinterest. The brands shared the correlation theyd noticed between
frequency of pinning and traffic growth, with spikes in growth occurring most
between a few pins a week and 3 to 10 pins per day.

Instagram 1.5 times per day, or more

Major brands post an average of 1.5 times per day to Instagram. Theres no
drop-off in engagement for posting more, provided you can keep up the rate
of posting.
Social media analytics site Union Metrics spent time analyzing 55 of the most
popular, active Instagram brands to learn the best practices for timing,
frequency, and more.
They found that most brands share once or twice per day to Instagram.
Some shared as much as 10 times per day and did not notice an appreciable
loss in per-post engagement. This hints that it may be possible to post more
oftenwaaay more oftento Instagram than it seems, provided the quality
of the post is still present.
Blog 2x per week
Some of the best research into the effect of frequency on blogging comes
from a 2012 HubSpot study of over 7,000 businesses. Among the many
interesting benchmarks and takeaways from the study, there was this
fascinating note:

Companies that increase blogging from 3-5X/month to 6-8X/month almost

double their leads.
Six to eight times per month would equate to 1 to 2 times per week.
Summary
How often should you post to social media?
Were grateful for all the amazing research out there that gives us some
answers to the question of frequency. These answers are great opportunities
to start discovering whats ideal for your unique situation.
Use these guidelines as a jumping off point for your own tests. And feel free
to share the results! Wed love to know what works and what doesnt.
Very basic but very important question. Should I post 3 tweets or 10 tweets?
How many Facebook updates should go every day? How many times should I
post a company page update on LinkedIn? Should I write 2 blogs a week or
1 blog a day? Well, well again, it depends. You are on social media to
engage with your customers and prospects so you will need to define the
frequency and tone of your communication based on that. If your customers
are based in the US, no point in tweeting 10 times during India time. You
need to be aware of all such nuances. As a thumb-rule, I would say start
small but be consistent. If you decide to post 3 tweets per day- do it every
day! Consistency is more important.

2.

Is it okay to schedule posts?

Why not? As a start-up, it is quite natural that you are constrained on

bandwidth and it is also obvious that you cant be omnipresent. So you can
certainly use tools like HootSuite or Bufferapp to schedule your posts. Just
be careful that any time-sensitive posts should not appear irrelevant because
of being posted at a wrong time. There have been instances when a social
media intern posted a scheduled tweet about a conference happening in full
swing when the conference had to be cancelled at the last moment. Make
sure that such things dont happen with you. Follow sensitivity on social
media.

You can schedule blog posts to automatically publish themselves at any time
in the future. If you want to remove an already published post and
automatically republish it at a specific time/date in the future.
Sometimes you might want to backdate a post. For example, if youve just
come back from a long trip, you might want to write a post for each day of
your travels and have the post dates match the actual days you were away.
To backdate a post, simply edit the date before you click Publish, as
described above. In this case, the button will not change to Schedule.
Please do not schedule more than 100 posts. Any posts scheduled beyond
that amount will not be published.
http://www.grosocial.com/blog/benefits-scheduling-social-media-posts/
http://performancing.com/what-are-the-benefits-of-scheduling-your-socialmedia/

4.

Should one use social media to provide customer service?

I believe social media has a much broader potential for business

development and customer retention. Customer service is evolving to match
the rapid growth and development of new communication media, and
todays most popular social media platforms are the perfect opportunity to
capitalize on that trend.
When most marketers and business owners think about the advantages of
social media for their business, they think about attracting new customers to
the business.
Customer service is evolving to match the rapid growth and development of
new communication media, and todays most popular social media platforms
are the perfect opportunity to capitalize on that trend. When todays
customers try to get in touch with a customer service representative, they
encounter various challenges:
Find and call a phone number.
Unless the number is immediate, just finding the number can be difficult.
Wait times, lengthy unproductive conversations, and multiple call transfers
are all disadvantages that can leave a sour taste in your customers mouth.

Submit a contact form.

Its an impersonal experience, and customers never know where the contact
form is going, when it will be replied to, or by whom.
Send an email.
Invisible and impersonal, much communication can get lost over email, and
responses often take days.
Seek out a service representative.
Its the best option for most customers, giving them a friendly, personal, and
authoritative response. However, it can be costly and inefficient to have
dedicated account representatives ready for each customer.
Using social media as your customer service portal can compensate for many
of these disadvantages. While its still developing as a medium, there are a
number of reasons why its possible and advantageous to get started with it
now.
Reason 1: Communication Is Immediate
When people are upset, or when they need answers to their questions, they
want a response right away. They dont want to wait 24 hours for their email
to be read, sorted, and responded to. They dont want to wait on hold for 30
minutes.
One of the most beautiful elements of social media is its immediacy. The
minute somebody makes a post on your Facebook wall or a post mentioning
your brand, your admin will receive a notification to take action. This is also
a slight vulnerabilitycustomers expect immediate responses when posting
on social media, so if your response team isnt prepared, it could cost you
but if you can respond within minutes of the original post, youll be able to
make your customer very happy. This is especially effective for customers
dealing with an urgent problem, such as a flight delay or a technological
malfunction before a presentation.
Reason 2: You Give People a More Personal Brand Experience
As I detailed in Google Authorship and Personal Branding: Why the
Individual Beats the Corporate, people tend to favor dealing with other
people rather than corporations. Managing your customer service through

social media will give you the best of both worlds. People will immediately
recognize and call out to your brand, but it will be a person reaching out in
response. There wont be any automatically generated emails. There wont
be any tone-based phone menus. Its just a question, followed by an answer.
Social media also allows you to think carefully about your response and
present it in a more casual, conversational tone. This way, you can retain
your brand voice while writing and communicating like a human,
thus humanizing your brand.
Reason 3: The Conversation Is Transparent
This works both ways. For the customer, transparency is all about
vindication. When customers are upset, they want to be heard, and posting
on social media is the perfect way to be heard. By allowing your customers
to make their complaints or questions public in this way, youre giving them
an immediate outlet. They feel in control, and appreciate the urgency
companies feel to respond when the issue is made public.
For companies, transparency means that other potential customers get to
see how well you handle the situation. If you can answer a customers
concerns quickly, nicely, and effectively, youll instantly leave all of your
followers with a good feelingconfidence that your customer service is topnotch.
Reason 4: Youre Encouraging More Brand Mentions
More interactions on social media means you have more opportunities to
point back to your own brand. Your customers will mention your brand in
their posts, making you visible to all their contacts. Even if they come to you
with a concern or an issue, youll get brand visibility and an opportunity to
show off your ability to quickly and effectively and correct the problem.
When relevant, you can also post links to your site for more information. No
matter how you handle questions and comments, youll be encouraging more
activity and more brand mentions, which can help your SEO rankings.
Reason 5: Follow-up Is Easy
Depending on how long it takes for the problem to be resolved, following up
with your customer is fast and easy. If you manage to resolve the problem
with a quick answer, you can immediately ask whether or not the interaction
was helpful. If it wasnt, you have an opportunity to take further action

rather than forcing the customer through another round of calling or

emailing. If it was helpful, you have a publicly visible follow-up interaction
that ends on a positive note. You can also make a note to follow up a few
days later with a private message to make sure the customer is still
satisfied.
Reason 6: Social Users Are More Likely to Talk About Their Experience
This is a selfish reason, but its an extraordinarily advantageous one.
Intuitively, the people most likely to use social media are the people who like
to socialize. The most active users have hundreds of followers and friends on
various social media profiles, and theyre used to posting updates regularly.
How you respond to these people is significant, because they are more likely
to tell others about their experience with your brand. If you treat them well,
theyll share a positive experience with their extended social networkand
youll get access to new potential fans and customers. Harness their
popularity by giving them an unforgettably positive interaction.
Reason 7: You Eliminate the Funnel
Customers hate the funnel. When customers reach out to you, they want to
be responded to in the same medium. Otherwise, they feel like they are
being sent through a mechanical series of hoops, which leaves them with an
alienated, impersonal feeling. Many major companies make the mistake of
ushering people through one dedicated communication channel, usually a
phone number or an email address, and isolating customers who reach out
in any other method.
For example, if a customer reaches out on Facebook, they want to be
responded to on Facebook. They dont want to see a formulaic welcome
message with instructions to call an 800 number. Eliminate the funnel by
having dynamic customer interactions on every platform.
Resolving issues and answering customer questions through social media
does give you a few more vulnerabilities, but the risk is worth the potential
rewards. By using social media, youll be creating more substantial, personal
relationships with your customers, and youll be increasing the visibility of
your brand in the process.

5.

What realistic resources do we have on social media?

Social media continues to rain data onto the market. Tools like Facebook
Insights, Google Analytics, and even us here at HubSpot help pump and
process this data, but its often ignored as it surges into the office.
Even though 83% of marketers indicate social media is important for
their business , according to Social Media Examiner , they continue to
struggle to measure ROI and use social data to improve their strategies. I
mean, what are the actionable takeaways from all this data we're collecting?
Below, we list 12 ways you can use social data to improve your marketing.
This list will help you master these resources and use them to keep your
strategy afloat.
A Word on Social Data
Before we get to the list, let's review what exactly social data is. Social data
is the information you can glean from studying your social media activities.
This could include things like:

Engagement - Things like retweets, Likes, or comments

Leads Generated - You'd want to break it out by each social network,

or even each update type

Referral Traffic - Again, you'd want to break this out for each social
network

Sentiment - Are your interactions generally positive or negative?

Reach Growth - How large is your social reach ? What's the rate of
growth? What's your fan/follower churn rate?

Feedback - What ideas are you generating from user-generated

content and interaction?

As you can see, not all of this social data is just numbers, either. Social data
is any data point you can glean from your social media usage. The key is not

just collecting social data, but also applying it to your marketing strategy!
Here's how ...
12 Ways to Leverage Social Media Intelligence
With that said, here are 12 ways you can take advantage of all that social
data you're collecting -- whether you're conscious of collecting it or not.
1) Optimize your social media content.
The most obvious application of social data is to improve your social content
strategy. Reviewing your data can reveal the best and worst options for a
variety of variables, including:

Post Time - When's the best time to post content to social media?

Post Frequency - How much social media content is too much? Too
little? Does increasing your frequency affect your follower churn or
engagement? Does it help you generate more leads?

Format - Which content formats perform better on which channels?

Tone - Does your audience respond better to, say, a more casual tone
versus a more professional tone?

Identify your best performing posts and your worst performing posts. By
monitoring data around post engagement, sharing, comments, and
clickthrough rates, you'll be able to learn whether the way you're
communicating with your networks is the best it can be.
2) Improve your overall content strategy.
Social data can help you refine the topics you choose for your social media
content strategy, and it can also apply to every other aspect of your content
strategy. And, of course, there's much more to a content strategy than social
media updates. For instance, have you thought about using social media as
a testing ground for content ideas before you invest resources in their
development? Here's a use case for you.
Let's say you're working with a co-marketing partner to host a webinar, and
you're having trouble coming up with a topic that will blow it out of the

water. Why not use social media -- and hey, you could even target your
updates on some networks, or go the paid route on others -- to see which
subject matters generate the most engagement? The most shares? Heck,
you could even use polling mechanisms. It's way better to test out ideas on
either general or targeted audiences via social media than invest a lot of
your time or someone else's on something meatier, like a whitepaper, before
you even know the topic's a good addition to your current content strategy.
And if you dig into the comments and questions from the content you're
posting, you may just find topics you'd never even thought of that address
people's pain points better than what's currently in your batting order.
3) Improve keyword research.
It's easy enough to check out the search volume on keywords, but how do
you actually come up with the search terms you should be looking for?
Where many SEO strategies fall short is in the keywords they target,
because the person doing the research is an expert in their particular field.
That means you get a bunch of keywords that, frankly, aren't even how your
audience thinks or would ever, ever phrase a search query. For instance, I
might search for "conversion rate optimization," while someone new to
marketing might search for a longer tail phrase, like "how to improve
conversion rates."
Consider monitoring the language prospects use in social media to help your
marketing tea
m execute its search engine strategy outside of your industry bubble.
Compile data about how your audience refers to your product, service,
brand, competitors, and industry in general. All of this is rich information for
your SEO and PPC keyword research. Heck, you can even use it to improve
your writing, adjusting your tone to speak like your audience speaks.
4) Invest resources wisely.
Social media marketing used to be a big ol' question mark in terms of ROI,
but today companies can use the magic of closed-loop marketing to
understand social media channels' impact on lead generation, conversions,
sales, and actual revenue. You know, the things marketing and sales

organizations are measured on. By comparing your efforts across channels,

you can understand where best to focus your efforts each month to hit your
goals, and where to abandon ship. This kind of social data is some of
the best social data you can get your hands on, because it allows you to tie
your social media activities back to the results that matter to your CMO,
your investors, your sales organization, and the rest of the team who is
working on meeting your goals each month.
5) Gauge brand sentiment.
Social monitoring tools can process data across networks to measure how
often your brand is mentioned, and whether it's mentioned in a positive or
negative light. Or if you don't neet to quantify social media sentiment to this
extent, you can simple gauge sentiment through acommunity manager . To
make this really helpful, though, it's important that you tie the data back to
specific campaigns and content so you can establish what it is you're doing
that people love, and what grinds people's gears. This is really useful data
for a content team to use to shape their tone, when creating your buyer
personas , and of course is a PR professional's dream!
6) Identify influencers.
Social data can reveal the people in your audience who 1) mention your
brand, product, or service, and 2) have large followings in social media.
Once you find these influencers, set a plan in place to reach out and engage
with them to build a relationship. If you have acentralized marketing
database , you could even create an email list that automatically identifies
those influencers based on how many times they've clicked on your content
or how many followers they have. Building a relationship with the movers
and shakers in your market can help you score mentions and endorsements
from these power brokers, which will help your brand's clout and social reach
in the process.
7) Improve products and services.
Customers are not shy about the products or services they love and hate.
Especially the ones they hate. They will give you this feedback in social
media, and product marketers can use it to get critical, unfiltered (which can
be good and bad) assessments of new features as they're rolling out. For

example, one of Lady Gagas products (or services, I suppose) is her

concerts -- and her team uses social media to make her set lists! Before the
show, her team looks at data from Spotify to identify the most popular songs
in the concerts region, and they make sure to include them on the set list.
Brilliant!
8) Improve and triage customer service issues.
This concept of receiving product and service feedback can be similarly
extended to acustomer service setting. Social media is a notorious soapbox
for upset customers -- from legitimate complaints to straight up cursing, you
can certainly glean a lot from reviewing social media customer service
interactions. But you can also monitor this on an ongoing basis to try to
address needs and problems before they get out of hand. Set up monitoring
alerts around parts of your product, service, or brand to help get ahead of
possible functionality problems. That way, you can alert your engineers,
developers, or IT if you see an inordinate increase in problems around a
certain term for which you're monitoring, so they can get on a fix before
more people run into the snafu.
9) Monitor the competition.
Ooooh, time to go spying! Social networks need information and content to
survive, so many companies publish everything in their social feeds. By
watching your competitors profiles, you can get a sense of the content,
products, and marketing campaigns theyre running. You can also see which
types of content and campaigns get the best reception from their audience
by monitoring Likes, shares, retweets, and comments, and use that
information to improve your teams strategy. We've actually written an entire
ebook about social media competition with a section dedicated just to
gaining competitive social media intelligence -- check it out if you want to
learn more ;-)
10) Improve segmentation.
Data shows that 84% of B2B marketers segment their email
campaigns , but 37% say a lack of user data is a major challenge .
Social networks provide a wealth of data you can use to segment your
audience to improve targeting and personalization. For example, you can use

activity data to keep customers who have recently engaged with your brand
in a social network in a separate segment for special treatment. You can
maintain a segment for followers who have shared your content in the past
to make sure they receive calls-to-action to share your latest material. We
actually have a new feature in HubSpot called Social Contacts that makes all
of this incredibly simple, too, if the idea of merging your top-of-the-funnel
marketing and middle-of-the-funnel marketing is as appealing to you as it is
to me.
11) Track event impact.
Great events spark conversation. Great events also usually have hashtags .
These days they do, anyway. You can track your audiences mentions and
feedback during an event -- or even figure out what local events you should
be going to right now -- through event hashtags. This will also help uncover
which sessions and speakers are the hottest, and which need improvement
next time around.
12) Close more sales.
Your sales organization needs as much information as you can get your
hands on to personalize their approaches, and frankly, just to make them
generally better at sales. Context is everythingin both marketing and sales
these days. Culling social data yourself, or empowering your sales team to
both prospect and create richer profiles of their current leads based on their
social profiles, can help advance leads further down the sales funnel. For
example, one might engage a lead about a particular product or topic having
seen the person Like, comment on, or share related material. Or perhaps
you can leverage common LinkedIn connections to get an introduction to a
prospect who might be perfect for your product or service. Even something
as simple as the last tweet a person sent about your brand can help a
salesperson speak in terms the lead will hear. If you're interested in learning
more about this concept, check out a recent blog post about how to use
Twitter to prospect .

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33952/12-Realistic-Ways-toMake-Your-Social-Media-Data-Actionable.aspx

6.

Which are the crucial events on Social Media?

Social media is now one of the most important tools planners and marketers
can use to disseminate information about events and meetings, interact with
attendees, solicit feedback, and create year-round engagement with a target
audience. But its rise to prominence has prompted questions about how to
effectively employ Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other such sites before,
during, and after live gatherings
AIB example/Deepika Padukone Cleavage/Vogue Empower

7.

Does social media work for B2B?

Marketing by social media is spreading like wildfire now-a-days and every

marketer seems welcoming the social media marketing for more profit and
revenue. In b2b commerce entry of social media has been taken place as no
one can leave this brilliant opportunity of marketing. B2B companies are
swiftly switching towards social media marketing for building new
relationships with other companies. According to a research about 90% B2B
marketing professionals avail LinkedIn and 85% use Twitter for their content
distribution.
Social media marketing provides many benefits to b2b companies as it gives
to other companies:
Inexpensive Brand Awareness:
Most of the b2b companies relied on PPC (pay Per Click) marketing strategy
which cost them a lot and depends on their budget. When it comes to social
media they dont have to bother much about their budgets as marketing on
social media is less expensive and much productive. You just need to create
a page, post some written statuses, videos and ads of your brand, try to
engage people in conversion by replying on your posts and much of your
work is done. If people get enough encouraging knowledge about your
products and some of your fans wrote some positive comments about them
then people will definitely going to buy them. This easy and inexpensive
method of marketing persuades b2b marketers to avail it and they just
jumped into this area of marketing.

Exhibiting Their Expertise:

Social media a great platform for social interactions but it is also used by
people to get informed about latest news, products and the professional
advancements. People are usually seen surfing social media pages relevant
to their field or job to learn new and latest trends. The b2b companies can
make use of this feature of social media and provide the technical or other
knowledge relevant to their products to the audience. This will increase the
worth of their products in the minds of their customers which gives value to
their brand.
The raised value of your brand leads to increased trust among your audience
for your brand. You can gain more trust of your audience by participating in
discussions and provide them all the details about your products with their
pictures. People are always interested in pictures and detailed specifications
and reviews built a sense of trust in the advertised material. All these
benefits can only be earned by availing social media.
Boost Your Sales:
The real purpose of any marketer is to boost sales of a company by
promotion of its products and by developing awareness about the brand.
This purpose can easily be achieved by social media marketing as millions of
people use social media on daily basis. Various companys owners also use
social media for advertising and as well as for social interaction. B2b
company owners can not only promote their brand via social media but they
can also make new reliable connections through it.
Popular Social Media Networks among B2b Companies:
Three social media networks are really popular among b2b marketers. About
80% utilize Facebook 78% utilize Twitter and 51% utilize LinkedIn . By
availing these social sites anyone can increase its sales and gain reputation.
No doubt social media is one of the best ways of marketing.

8.

How does social media fit with other marketing campaigns?

Most social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build

communities.
95.7% of the surveyed social media-savvy organizations in India use the
medium to build communities and advocate usage while 76.1% use social
media as a platform to highlight brand news. Around 16% of organizations,
which use social media for both the above reasons, also use it for customer
service, lead generation, and research indicating high social maturity and
moving toward getting business meanings out of engagements.
Which social media platform:
Facebook most important platform for marketers in India for engaging
customers, followed by Twitter, YouTube and blogging almost half of the
social media-savvy organizations are already using emerging platforms such
as Pinterest, Google Plus, and Foursquare. More than half of the social
media-savvy organizations surveyed regularly engage with bloggers or
online influencers who have authority and strong following.
How does social media fit in with other marketing/communications
campaigns:
Social media-savvy organizations in India have conducted campaigns where
social media is the leading component
Digital marketing is a Must
Digital marketing is predominantly being used by every firm out there and is
proving to be an extremely successful means of spreading awareness and
creating a brand value. The same is true for the real estate businesses.
The challenge is stiff competition in the real estate industry
The biggest challenge for the real estate companies is that in this highly
competitive space, the brands are looking forward to boosting their digital
presence and generating leads. In order to enable the real estate companies
to establish a digital identity and leverage upon it, they need foolproof
innovative digital marketing strategies with lead generation click here at the
center-stage.
Your Website is a gateway to the world
Website should be user-friendly & mobile responsive

There are a couple of things to be kept in mind while designing a website

and implementing digital marketing strategies for real estate companies.
First and foremost, it is the website that needs attention. The purpose of the
website could vary from capturing leads to brand-building. A website must
be user-friendly and must ensure call-to-action. Great content always helps
in increasing visibility on the digital media.
Creative usage of social media to build brand & generate leads
On social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google plus,
what matters is how creative your contents or posts are. The frequency is
not an issue as long as your posts are able to garner enough audience
engagement. Real estate companies need to project their unique strengths
in the most creative manner possible on the digital space. A lot of online
tools and applications are available nowadays that help in automated
updates on the social media sites.
Q. 9 what is the workflow from content creation to publication?
https://auth.abservices.psu.edu/commonspot/help/content/contributors_ref
erence/content_publishing_process.htm
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1845243&seqNum=2
10. How will you measure ROI and define success with your social
media strategy?
ROI is proof that your marketing efforts are working. Clients and supervisors
need to know if youre successful and you do too!
This is important for social media companies, consultants and in-house staff.
The main challenge in measuring ROI is keeping up with changes in
algorithms, implementing the new tools that hit the marketplace and proving
to your clients that theyre getting the most out of their investment in you.
http://www.hugeinc.com/ideas/report/social-roi
q. 11. What is working with your social media marketing efforts?
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/essential-elements-social-mediamarketing-strategy/

12. What is the customer journey from search to purchase?

Savvy marketers understand that you dont always seal the deal with a
single message, image, or advertisement. A user may see a display ad, click
on a link from a friend, or do a search before buying something from your
website and all of these interactions can play a role in the final sale. Its
important to understand the entire customer journey so you can measure all
of the elements that contribute to your campaigns, attribute the right value
to them, and adjust your marketing budgets where appropriate.
Thats the philosophy behind Google Analytics tools like Multi-Channel
Funnels and Attribution Modeling. Tens of thousands of our largest
advertisers are gaining valuable insights from Multi-Channel Funnels every
month, and weve collected these insights using aggregate statistics to
develop a benchmarking tool The Customer Journey to Online
Purchase. This interactive tool lets you explore typical online buying
behavior and see how different marketing interactions affect business
success.

The tool draws on Ecommerce and Multi-Channel Funnels data from over

36,000 Google Analyticsclients that authorized sharing, including millions of

purchases across 11 industries in 7 countries. Purchase paths in this tool are
each based on interactions with a single ecommerce advertiser.
Youll find benchmark data for:

how different marketing channels (such as display, search, email, and

your own website) help move users towards purchases. For example,
some marketing channels play an assist role during the earlier
stages of the marketing funnel, whereas some play a last
interaction role just before a sale.

how long it takes for customers to make a purchase online (from the
first time they interact with your marketing to the moment they
actually buy something), and how the length of this journey affects
average order values.

Channel Roles in the Customer Journey

The data shows that every industry is different the path to purchase for
hotel rooms in Japan is not necessarily the same as the path as for an online
supermarket in Canada.
A few findings stand out, in particular:

As you might expect, customers typically click on display ads early in

their purchase journeys, but in some industries, such as US travel
and auto, display clicks tend to occur closer to the purchase decision.

Across industries and countries, paid search has a fairly even assistto-last interaction ratio, implying that this channel can act both in the
earlier and later stages of the customer journey.

Advanced tip:

Once youve explored the benchmarks, look deeper into your own
marketing data with the Multi-Channel Funnel reports, and
consider defining your channels and campaigns to separate out
categories that are specific to your business needs.

Purchase values and the length of the journey

We also see interesting patterns emerge when examining the length of the
customer journey. While the majority of purchases take place within a single
day or a single step (i.e., a single interaction with one marketing channel),
longer paths tend to correlate with higher average order values.
For example,

in US Tech, online purchases that take more than 28 days are worth
about 3.5 times more than purchases that occur immediately. And
while 61% of tech purchases take place on that first day, only 53% of
revenue comes from single-day purchases.

in Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), on the other hand, most

purchases (82%) are quick, likely because these are smaller and
simpler purchases that dont require much research.

in Edu / Gov, 41% of revenue comes from multi-day purchases, but

60% of revenue comes from multi-step purchases suggesting that
even when customers make decisions in a relatively short time
period, they often have multiple marketing interactions before
purchasing.

13. Where does social media fit within your marketing funnel?
The traditional sales funnel measures ROI independent of any multi-channel
marketing strategy, leading marketers to conclude social media did not
directly lead to the sale.
However, several social media metrics can be integrated into the sales funnel
process. When applied to goals, these metrics show how social media led
prospective customers from the top of the funnel to the sale, and then back
to the top of the funnel again.
According to Saleem, these metrics include:

Association, which measures opt-in association by users on social

media. Includes Facebook likes, Twitter follows, etc. Social media
association results in a long-term audience you can market to at will,
for free, as opposed to paid search campaigns that have no guarantee
of long-term exposure.

Engagement, which results in highly targeted exposure and brand

awareness. It can also drive down the cost per impression, cost per
click, and cost per acquisition associated through paid media.

Evangelism, or brand advocacy, which defines the word-of-mouth

(consumer-to-consumer) conversations that is more effective than
business-to-consumer conversations.

Social proof, arguably the most important factor in the first two
stages of the sales funnel, prove authority, credibility and trust for
moving other prospective customers through the sales funnel.

Search signals, which are improved with social media activity and
make it easier for customers to find your brand. Social media
presence, brand mentions and brand influence are all SEO signals.

Bottom line: by integrating social media into all stages of the funnel,
marketers can pinpoint how social media fits into sales and better determine
its ROI.

14. On LinkedIn, is it better to have a Company Page or a personal

profile? What about a LinkedIn Group?
Company pages have huge potential. Originally, they were nice to have and
something you could easily set up, but they are advancing with new
additions such as the Follower feature and Status Updates as new tools
to help business better communicate to their followers.
Company pages are not a big deal and they often dont generate
tangible results.
There, I said it! Yes, it might come as a shock to many of you that I would
ever suggest any aspect of LinkedIn is irrelevant but company pages arent
where Ive found success that produces sales. Company pages do provide a
unique opportunity for exposure that wasnt previously available to personal
profiles though:

Does this mean you shouldnt have a LinkedIn Company Page? If you have a
business you definitely should have one but the real results always come
from building relationships on your personal LinkedIn Profile.
Reasons Why Your Personal LinkedIn Profile Will Generate More
Results Than a LinkedIn Company Page
1. People Want To Deal With People, Not Logos

When youre on social media, whether its Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any
other network, do you prefer to interact with a human being or a logo?
People like talking to logos just as much as they enjoy talking to automated
message systems when calling their cell phone provider. It sucks!
Every word that comes from a logo has that canned feeling that lacks human
authenticity. Thats because its impossible to be yourself when you are
acting as your brand. The experiences with businesses that are most
memorable in real life are the ones that involve a particular person going
above and beyond for you.

2. Company Pages Are Passive, Profiles Are Active

The most crippling aspect of LinkedIn Company Pages is the fact that you
arent able to proactively connect with targeted prospects and develop
relationships. You are 100% dependent on the interactions that come to you
organically (which are minimal) and with paid sponsored updates. Im a fan
of LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, which I will talk about in a bit, but they
arent enough to justify Company Pages becoming the cornerstone of your
LinkedIn strategy.
The action has always been with personal profiles and the relationships you
develop thereand thats likely not going to change for a long time (if at all).
This is exactly why I provide training to sales teams of companies large and
small because the sales reps can connect with prospects and build
relationships with them via their personal profile.

3. Personal Profiles Give You Power To Be Proactive

The most successful sales people know how to be aggressive in the right
ways to meet and exceed their sales goals/quota. LinkedIn Company Pages
are completely passive and dont allow you to create results when action is

low on your page. Personal profiles give you endless opportunities to find
and interact with targeted prospects, if youre willing to put in the time

Should You Create A LinkedIn Company Page?

Yes, its still worthwhile to create one but dont fool yourself into thinking its
going to be some sort of untapped goldmine of exposure for your brand. If
you manage your expectations, I think youll find that LinkedIn Company
Pages will have their place in the overall spectrum of your online marketing
efforts. Building a popular Company Page on LinkedIn is hard work and takes
a significant budget dedicated to ads to get off the ground.
That said, there are certainly a few benefits to having a LinkedIn
Company Page:

The ability to run Sponsored Updates to promote your best

content with laser-focused targeting. Ive had great success with

LinkedIn ads and found them to be extremely robust at targeting high
quality traffic in a short period of time. I set a $100 budget once and it
blew through it all in two minutes but broke a per-minute site website
traffic record in the process!
Link together all your employees on LinkedIn who have listed

your company as their current position (great organic exposure,

especially for large companies with many employees). Plus your
Company Page becomes a clickable link from within each personals
profile.
LinkedIn Company Pages are extremely SEO-friendly. Ensure
you are selecting keywords that your ideal clients are likely to search
when looking for your services and strategically place them throughout
your description.

It Doesnt Hurt But Dont Expect Much

Its important to manage social media by prioritizing the mediums that will
produce results for your business and de-prioritizing ones that dont.

LinkedIn Company Pages are simply another tool in the toolbox but realize
that the results they produce is highly dependent on the quality of content
you post and the amount of money you invest in promoting it via Sponsored
Updates.

If youre pushing sales for a B2B company, sitting around waiting for leads to
come to you is not the game you are in. You need to be proactive with
networking on LinkedIn using your personal profile and building relationships
one-on-one, aka what youve always been doing to make sales in the past.

LinkedIn Groups. You cannot access LinkedIn Groups as a Company Page,

which closes off a massive source of targeted leads that are interested in
engaging on relevant topics. If youre a locally based business, you cant join
groups from around your area that would easily contain plenty of targeted
prospects. With your personal LinkedIn Profile you have the ability to join up
to 50 LinkedIn Groups and you can even message any member within those
groups for free, a feature most people dont even know exists.
Heres a quick overview of the different ways you can use LinkedIn:
Profile: Similar to a resume, you add information about you and your job
history. With a profile, you build a network by connecting with people who
you have some personal or professional relationship with.
Company Page: A place to include information and create updates about
your business and industry. With a Company Page, you are able to
communicate as your business, rather than yourself.
Groups: These can be public or private, and can be created by an individual
or company. It allows users to come together and talk about a specific
subject on one page.
As a small business owner, you can use these features to promote your
business and build your professional network. Consider using a LinkedIn
Profile to connect with colleagues, employees, and other professionals in

your community. With a profile, you will be able to join and create groups
that are relevant to your interests and professional goals. You can link your
profile to your company page, where you can share content, post job
openings, and keep people up-to-date with everything you have going
on. Check out our LinkedIn Glossary video series for more information.

15. Is it OK to post the same content to each network every day? Or

should we post different stuff on different sites?
No. Firstly, this can cause trouble on your account due to spam rules on
social networks. Replicating and duplicating content can be flagged up to the
platform, and consequently have your account suspended or reported. This
is one of the core reasons SocialSignIn only allows you to duplicate content
twelve times, given that theyre a week apart.
Secondly, posting out unique, engaging content is more like to create a
receptive audience. Using tools provided on our system, such as the content
generator or monitoring tool, can allow you to pick up on trending topics,
latest news and what your audience is interested in. Use social media as a
place to create engagement, rather than to spam with generic content.
Obviously, you wont want to use the same schedule for each network, as
some may require more restraint than others.
For example, it is less advisable to promote the same post to Facebook twice
in one day than it is on Twitter. You will need to monitor your own user
activity to measure the most effective sharing schedule for each network.
This is where proper staggering comes in.
Remember, the goal is to promote your blog with social media, not take over
your social media feeds. Go too far and you will just come off as annoying.

A simple way to prevent you messages from running on top of each other is
to create a visual timeline for your social messages. Start by listing all of the
networks you use at the top of the page and work your way down a simple
timeline. This visualization can also be carried over to an actual calendar.
Its important that your social networks arent just a place for you to blast
information out to your audience. People connect with you on different
networks for different reasons. The best way to figure out what type of
content your audience is most interested in is to do tests. Keep an eye on
your key engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares, retweets, clicks,
etc). These provide insight into which type of content is working, whats not,
and what you could be doing differently to improve your strategy. Stuck for
content ideas? This cheat sheet can help.

16. What is the best way to get my Facebook fans to follow me on

Twitter or Google+?
Let your Facebook fans know that youre getting started on a new social
network. Its a great way to jumpstart your efforts on those sites and start
to build your network right away. One of the best ways to do that is just to
ask. Remember that if you want people to connect with you in more places,
there needs to be a compelling reason to do so. If the content youre sharing
on Twitter or Google+ is the same stuff theyve been seeing on Facebook,
they might not be interested in connecting in other places. You should also
make sure that they have the option to connect on different social networks.
Give people the option when visiting your website or receiving your next
newsletter or announcement, to connect with you in the places that are
important to them. This will help you build a more engaged social media
audience.

17. Will posting more frequently on social media help us show up in

the trends?
Finding the right posting frequency can feel like a bit of a balancing act. You
dont want to overwhelm people by flooding their feeds with updates from
your business; but you also dont want to risk falling off their radar either.
Here are a few rules of thumb to consider when it comes to posting
frequency for each network:

Re

member that these are suggested frequencies; not requirements for success.
Social media is about quality, not quantity. If youre focused on creating and
sharing content thats relevant and engaging to your audience on a regular
basis, you shouldnt have any trouble reaching the right people on social
media.

18. What are the benefits of platforms such as Hootsuite,

TweetDeck, etc?
You might go on a while if you list all the benefits of these platforms. They
will probably only ask you about one or two but its best to be prepared for
several. Lets start with Hootsuite since it is the most likely to come up.
Hootsuite gives you a social media dashboard so you can manage all of your
channels in one place, schedule Tweets, track analytics, find potential
customers, and collaborate with team members.
Tweet Deck is basically the same but only for Twitter.
Customize your Twitter experience by scheduling and even managing
multiple accounts!
Sprout Social is another one that creates an inbox-style way of managing all
messages and engagement at once.
Sprout Social is a social media management tool created to help businesses
find new customers and grow their social media presence.
There are dozens of these platforms so there is a chance that you wont be
able to research all of them. If they ask you about one youre not familiar
with, simply admit you dont know it while stating that you are willing to
learn and should be able to do so thanks to your experience with other
platforms.
HootsuiteHootsuite lets you combine Twitter, Facebook both accounts and
pages, Linked In and Foursquare. You can also add RSS feedsYou'll find a
range of video tutorials here.You can schedule messages, decide when they
are published and to which of your social networks. If you use the Google
Chrome browser and install the Hootlet Chrome extension, you get an icon

on your tool bar that enables you to click to share whatever you are reading
at that point.Sign up for the free version. When you log in for the first time
itll prompt you to start adding your social media accounts:The browser looks
like this:To add accounts when you're on the browser, hover over the grey
panel on the left-hand side and, when some options open, go to Settings and
then Social Networks.HootSuite again uses columns, so in Twitter, for
example, you can separate updates from your replies and direct
messages.You can set up lists of Twitter followers, and have their tweets
appear in a column. So you might separate your key contacts, or have lists
for contacts in particular fields. Such lists enable you to focus on particular
groups within your Twitter community.Hootsuite is aimed at a business
audience particularly those in a social media management role who may
be handling multiple twitter and other social media accounts.The Sunday
Times verdict was: HootSuite has such a wide range of options and settings
that it can be offputting at first; persevere and you'll have a great app for
managing a business's web presence and engaging with customers.A great
tool for business, but too complex for some. TweetdeckTweetdeck lets you
update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Linked In, Google Buzz and
Foursquare.There is comprehesive guidance at the Tweetdeck support site.
And youll find video explanations of all aspects of using Tweetdeck at their
TouTube channel.Here's their video on Tweetdeck for Chrome:The Tweetdeck
smartphone app is particularly good, using the side swipe feture to move
between the columns you have created.TweetDeck, owned by Twitter,is
geared particularly toward segmenting your twitter account.So you can not
only scan updates, replies and direct messages easily, you can also create
new columns by setting up search terms within Twitter.So if there are regular
searches you need to do, they can be there as standing columns, and when
you need to research an additional topic, you can set up a new column and
get a live feed great for keeping up with what is being said about fastmoving news stories.By default you get a pop-up notification each time a
new tweet comes in. That can be really irritating, so I suggest clicking on the
spanner icon at the top of your column and switching those notifications off,
unless you are really keen to see (and hear) them.To add columns, click on
the arrow alongside the yellow bird icon at top left and then on Add Column.
Type what you need in the search box and your new feed will be created.
You can choose to search either tweets or Twitter usersSearching with
tweets:Type in the search term you want and, when you get the results,
click to add the column. Here are two stories relevant to me as I researched

this post:Searching Twitter users:If you type, for example, BBC journalist
you get a feed from those Twitter users who describe themselves thus in
their twitter profiles:To post from TweetdeckClick on Compose in the centre
of the top of the screen, and this box opens:Type in your message, and add
images if you like. You can over-ride the Twitter limit of140 characters, but
bear in mind that means your Tweet will end mid message, which doesn't
look great.Heres some more what you can do with it, according to
Tweetdeck:Check-in to Foursquare direct from the clientManage
conversations with @replies and direct messagesSee what's hot with Twitter
Trends and TwitScoopView YouTube videos within TweetDeck, and record and
share video clips though TwitVidThe Sunday Times said of it: It can become
overwhelming: leave the real-time updating feature switched on in the
desktop version and tweets become an unstoppable stream that can be hard
to keep track of. Choosing which dashboard is right for youSo which is it to
be? That depends on how you use social media.Id guess Tweetdeck is best
for you if Twitter is by far your most important social platform.But you might
prefer Seesmic if you use several platforms with more or less equal
frequency.But I could be wrong. Heres what The Social Webs reviewer
decided: "HootSuite is best for those who need to manage several distinct
accounts, and anyone who wants integrated statistical link reporting."Its
also very useful as a tweet scheduler in its own right due to the integrated
URL shortening."Seesmic, on the other hand, is best for everyday
management of Twitter accounts and engaging in conversations, making it
easy to keep on top of timelines with its clear views and unobtrusive but
effective notifications.""As for me, Ive currently settled on using both
Seesmic and HootSuite on a daily basis."I schedule tweets and tweet any
links from HootSuite as its quick and easy and I get the benefit of reporting
if I want it."But the vast majority of my Twitter activity and monitoring is
from the more flexible, clean and easy-to-use desktop interface of
Seesmic."But I do long for the day when either HootSuite ups its game with
a more friendly user interface or Seesmic builds in additional scheduling and
reporting features.

19. How could you leverage YouTube in order to promote your

brand and increase engagement?

When you think of social sites, what comes to mind? Facebook, Twitter, and
Google Plus, right? But what about YouTube?
According to Alexa, it is the third most popular site in the world, and it is the
second most popular search engine after Google. So, why not use it to
generate more traffic and sales?
By doing a few simple things, you can leverage it to your advantage. For
example, embedding YouTube videos within your emails can increase your
conversion rate by 51%. If you want the most engagement, try to keep your
videos under four minutes.
In order to teach you how to maximize your YouTube traffic and
engagement, Ive created an infographic that breaks down exactly what you
need to do.

People love to see original video content that is fun and sharable. It
shouldnt be so obviously promotional from the start. People should want to
share it simply because it is amazing! A video content ultimately connects to
all the other social media platforms you are working with and benefits
strategy and marketing as a whole. It might even go viral. Dollar Shave
Club is a great example of video content that went viral thanks to excellent
social media marketing!
As a marketer, you should consider leveraging YouTube. Even if you dont
have the time to create videos, you can still use other videos within the
network.
If you havent yet, go to YouTube, create a channel, and start producing
videos. Not only can they help drive traffic and sales, but these videos are
great for branding as well. Plus, youll find that they rank really well on
Google.

20. Which social media platforms are you best at using and why?

With all the social media sites available today, which ones should you
leverage? In an ideal world, you would use them all. As a small business,
however, you dont have enough time and money to do so.
With your limited resources, which social media platform would you pick?
If you think Facebook and YouTube are your best bets because they are most
popular, think again. Just because a site is popular doesnt mean it is a good
fit for you business.
To help you decide which social media platform is best suited for your
business, Ive created an infographic that explains what social sites you
should be leveraging based on real data.
Talk about how Twitter is best for conversations, Facebook is great for
advertising, LinkedIn is best for recruiting and sharing career-related
articles, and how Google+ is an underrated tool that is actually valuable for
creating a social media community.
When it comes to choosing which social media platforms you'll utilize, select
those that offer the best potential for reaching your ideal audience and
broadcast the type of media you've decided is best suited for your company.
Most people and companies can't be amazing on every platform; that takes
a huge amount of bandwidth and resources. Instead of having a sub-par
representation in a lot of places, be awesome on a few of them.

21. What is a limitation you have experienced on a social media

platform? How did you overcome this?
You could just answer this by saying that you used a different platform to
cover the shortcomings of the other. This isnt a bad answer. In fact, it can
be part of a good answer. However, you should definitely know how to
overcome or at least deal with limitations on social media platforms. For
example, Facebook has severe limitations when it comes to organic (nonpaid) reach. One way to overcome this without paying on Facebook is to use
email marketing and subscription-based methods to gently guide people to
the page with links and suggestions (a strategy recommended by Facebook

Marketing Expert Mari Smith).4 If you have your own awesome anecdote
already, thats even better!

22. Which social media experts and/or influencers do you follow?

What are your favorite social media blogs?

23. What are some of the best practices on Twitter?

Always use hashtags and mentions! Doing this will mean more people see
your tweets and retweet. Some of these people might have big followings or
clout that will benefit your company. Twitter is a great tool for conversing
with customers so make sure to reply to their tweets as much as you can.
Use hashtags to connect the conversation with other conversations in
related topics.
Twitter comes with a pretty steep learning curve. When youre just getting
started and trying to figure everything out it can get really overwhelming,
really quickly.
For example, who should you follow? How do you get people to follow you?
Which are the best days and times to tweet? Whats the height and width of
your cover photo? What are Twitter Trends? Where should you place links?
How many times a day is okay to promote yourself? Andwhat in blue blazes
is a hashtag?

24. What is your opinion on Google+? How should it be used in

social media strategy?

Dont dismiss Google+ even if it isnt your favorite part of social media
strategy. Even if the people interviewing you dont perceive it as being

valuable compared to Facebook and Twitter, they dont want to work with
someone who wouldnt be open to integrating it into an overall strategy.
Explain how Google+ is a great resource for community building since it is a
heavily curated and moderated community. Having a thriving community
means people are talking more about your company and sharing more
content. It also increases SEO which you already know is a supplementary
part of social media marketing.
https://www.plusyourbusiness.com/planning-social-media-marketingstrategy-using-google-plus/

25. Which social media brand strategy has inspired you lately and
why?
Talk about why the strategy inspired you but, more importantly, also detail
how you would love to create an original strategy of the same caliber.
Explain how you would do this and implement it in the context of the job
youre interviewing for.

26. What is digital media, and why it is important, explain with case
study?
Media are tools we use to communicate.
I think everyone has a pretty good idea what media are. Humans use tools,
and the tools we use to communicate across distances, across time and to
more people at once than we could with our own voice and body are
"media." Although the definition could include interpersonal and non-mass
media, like the telephone, in common usage we typically have a sense that
"media" are for communicating with more than just one person. Traditional
examples include books, magazines, newspapers, film, radio, and television.
Digital relates to the use of computers.
Digital is even easier, in a sense, since it is almost entirely a technical
definition and relates to the use of computers with their "binary" language
of on/off, 1/zero, bits and bytes. This is the digital world and includes
computers, the software to run them, and the movement and storage of

digital information via networks and storage (hard drives and cloud
services).
Digital Media are shared tools, support materials, and resources for learning
that help to build bridges of opportunity for all learners. Digital Media
extends learning across multiple platforms and transform sometimes onedimensional tasks into three-dimensional learning experiences. Using media
in this way builds environments for learning that do not replicate the
classroom space but rather connect and extend it to build new environments
and worlds.
If you put the radio on the internet, you certainly have digital media. And if
you put a newspaper in a tablet, then you have digital media, as well. The
problem with sticking with that definition is that it misses two important
elements that have been made possible by the combination of computers,
software, and networks: interactivity and group forming.
Interactivity is made possible because most computer networks are bidirectional and addressable. In other words, you can specify where your
message is to go, and get a return message right away. This is a feature that
is built into the telephone, but most mass media are one-way, or broadcast,
media. They are engineered to deliver the same message to many people at
once, but they dont provide for any return messages. Digital media
networks are different you can still send the same message to many
people (e.g., Netflix, or streaming radio, or just a simple web page), but you
can also have interaction ranging from minor elements (choosing shows and
rating them on Netflix) to major components (posting pictures and
comments on other peoples photos on Flickr). For more on the value of
interactivity in telecommunications networks, see the wikipedia entry on
Metcalfe's Law.
The second unique feature of networked digital media is that because it is
based on software the people participating in the network can organize
themselves into ad-hoc and arbitrary groups. This is most obviously seen in
Facebook, where you can instantly and easily create a new group around any
sort of topic. These "group forming" networks have enormous value since
they help us coordinate, communicate, and collaborate on projects large and
small from parties to promotion of brands.

When you look at it in this way, the most important parts of digital media are
not simply the conversion of regular media to digital formats. That is the
easy part. The hard part and the part that unleashes tremendous value for
society is taking advantage of these new capabilities relating to
interactivity and group forming.

27. Write down in 300 to 400 words the Importance of Social Media
for B2B small scale industries in India? Please highlight with
specifics

28. Please explain your thoughts on influence of digital marketing

on viral and guerrilla marketing
Almost everything we do influences the people around us, and in turn our
decisions are influenced by those around us.
Viral Marketing, also sometimes referred to as a Word-of-Mouth
Marketing, is the marketing discipline of exploiting this phenomenon to
achieve better marketing results. Word of mouth marketing has been
around since the dawn of commerce (consider the communications methods
of Paul the Apostle) but in the digital age, word-of-mouth effects have
become much more important. Today, word-of-mouth communication can
make a massive difference to the success of a business. Examples abound.
Guerrilla marketing is the art and science of breaking conventional
marketing rules, bypassing traditional outlets and using uncommon sense to
reach people with marketing messages. Viral marketing can be loosely
defined as digital word-of-mouth marketing. Both strategies can be more
cost efficient than traditional techniques and can reach consumers in ways
that connect with them in more personal and memorable ways.
Understanding and applying these strategies in your marketing campaigns
can provide distinct competitive advantages.
Guerilla Marketing
The term "guerrilla" comes from guerrilla warfare, in which soldiers use
quick, unexpected attacks followed by fast retreats rather than fighting for
prolonged periods out in the open. Like guerrilla warfare, guerrilla marketing
messages appear seemingly out of nowhere, making a big impression on
onlookers before quickly disappearing. This differs from traditional marketing
tactics such as billboard or magazine advertising, which place messages in

front of consumers for extended period in ways consumers have learned to

tune out.
Viral Marketing
Viral marketing gets its name from the way in which physical viruses spread,
which each individual unit replicating ceaselessly, creating exponential
growth. A viral marketing campaign relies on social media sharing and other
online word-of-mouth tactics to reach large numbers of people through their
friends and contacts. A viral marketing campaign presents messages that
consumers cannot resist sharing with their friends, who in turn share it with
more people, fueling the cycle of exponential growth.
Related Reading: 10 Different Forms of Guerrilla Marketing
Examples
Flash-mobs are an example of a guerrilla marketing tactic. In a flash-mob, a
large group of people infiltrates a public area, initially blending in with
bystanders. Then the group acts out a skit or performs a song and dance to
promote a marketing message to the surprise of everyone around. Mobile
billboard trucks are another example of effective guerrilla marketing.
Billboard trucks can display advertisements virtually anywhere, quickly
moving on to cover different areas, even advertising right in front of
competitors' places of business.
Movie studios are providing numerous examples of successful viral
campaigns, creating fake newscasts, websites and stories to generate buzz
about future releases. Prior to the release of "The Dark Knight" in 2008, for
example, Warner Brothers created a fake political campaign website for
Harvey Dent, a character in the movie, providing fans with sharable
campaign posters and other tools to spread the hype.
Tactics and Costs
Guerrilla marketing tactics cost a bit more than viral techniques in most
instances. Guerrilla tactics can require more people, incurring higher labor
costs, and can include the cost of physical media such as signs, vehicles and
props. Viral campaigns, on the other hand, can be simple enough for a single
person with a laptop and an Internet connection to produce. Viral campaigns
truly level the playing field in terms of financial requirements, whereas
guerrilla campaigns can be cost prohibitive to companies with smaller
budgets.

Integrated Marketing Strategy

Integrated marketing strategies can be more effective than those that focus
on a single set of tactics. Using guerrilla marketing techniques to create viral
marketing campaigns can leverage the power of both of these innovative
strategies at once. To create a guerrilla/viral marketing campaign, create a
truly memorable and irresistibly sharable real-life component and turn that
component into something sharable on the web. For example, rather than
simply performing a flash-mob, consider filming the flash-mob and sharing it
among your social media followers.
Digital Marketers Should Aim For Influence, Not Branding
Data Driven Thinking is written by members of the media community and
contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Todays column is written by Adam Heimlich, Client Partner at Razorfish.
Its surprising that we digital marketers arent closer to consensus about how
our medium exerts influence, especially considering what we have to gain
from acceptance of the proposition that digital media is influential. We all
agree that it is, yet we argue about how. The lack of a working model is
especially surprising given the weakness of the default substitute that
what we do represents the next level of branding.
In fact, digital is not a continuation of the old method of media influence.
And it shouldnt be controversial to claim that this line of argument has
failed. Digital marketers have been voicing it consistently for more than a
decade. Yet executives are as skeptical of our communications strategies,
relative to TV-focused plans, as they were in 2003. People who know
branding can plainly see that search, display and social aint it. Fortune 500
marketing execs believe these channels are important only because
attention is on digital screens, and attention is potential energy. As for how
to harness it maybe the quants will find the answer!

As any digital pioneer can tell you, branding effect was the first needle for
which analysts were sent hunting in digitals data haystacks. If it were there,
compelling evidence would have been produced by now. Its time for digital
marketers to admit that top advertisers focus on traditional media for
branding is a data-driven decision.
Well serve our interests better by asserting that new media influences
people in a new way. Advertising history provides precedents; radio ads
differed from newspaper ads, and advertisers whod built their brands on the
page had to learn a new language before they could thrive in the television
era (One of the least-noticed themes of Mad Men is the generation gap
between the advertising approach of print experts like Don Draper and his
staff of electrified young boomers).
Branding works through skillful manipulation of human biases. When we
think quickly, we think what were primed to think. If branding is wellmatched to business strategy, an audience can be primed to associate a
company with a product category thats both profitable and available.
Resistance is futile. This is as true for Lululemon as it was for Cadillac. In
more than 10 years of digital, such an exercise of influential mojo has never
been performed through search, display and social (Digital as the caboose of
a multi-channel branding effort doesnt count).
Of course there are many successful online brands, and some of them made
it without a single branding ad. Their methods are the answer to the riddle
How does digital influence?
A survey of online commentary on this topic turned up approximately one
billion confounding checklists and exactly two articles that espouse coherent
theories, both from paragons of traditional media business: AdAges
Relationship Era and McKinseys Loyalty Loop (Authors are Bob Garfield

and Doug Levy at AdAge, Mar. 2013; David Edelman from McKinsey writing
in Harvard Business Review, Dec. 2010).
Two Branding Theories
The Relationship Era contains the more radical concept. Openly hostile to
branding orthodoxy, it commands us to say goodbye to positioning and
jettison some old habits, such as trying to manipulate prospects. Digital
brings so much transparency, goes the central claim, that brands have more
to gain by being honest and trustworthy than by conveying their unique
selling propositions. Likening the messaging environment to an ecosystem,
the piece urges a sustainable approach, supported by a population in
emotional symbiosis with a company they love.
To follow this theory is to limit corporate communications to endearing
messages. The only thing worth talking about is why you should love us. And
we have to find useful and entertaining ways to get that across, so you also
love receiving the message.
And, of course, the firm must actually be lovable. It goes without saying that
this requires a level of sales, service and operational excellence thats
difficult to achieve and usually beyond the scope of marketing. What Garfield
and Levys Relationship Era demands instead is an authentic sense of
purpose that is clear to and appreciated by an audience that shares the
goal. Mini case studies on Patagonia and Krispy Kreme reveal Relationship
Era theorists to be believers in digital word-of-mouth as a potent upgrade of
branding. The differences are that positioning is now around values, and that
it must ring true.
McKinseys Edelman is more of an incrementalist. Citing a treasure trove of
proprietary data on how 20,000 consumers on three continents made

purchase decisions in five categories, he wants to bury not manipulation

necessarily but the funnel. Branding In the Digital Age, as the piece is
headlined (its subtitle is less comforting: Youre Spending Your Money In All
the Wrong Places), requires a shift in emphasis rather than a total reset.
The crux is that people dont proceed in order from awareness to conversion.
Brands are defined along the journey.
In the digital age, Edelman says, theres a long, rich period of consideration
and engagement that belies the metaphoric funnel. It doesnt make sense to
spend most marketing dollars on TV and point of purchase, which come
before and after this meandering stage. Plus, customers tend to loop back to
engagement after purchase, writing reviews and publishing feedback that in
turn becomes fodder for other considerers. This is the Loyalty Loop. Its
existence implies a need for not only a spend shift but New Roles for
Marketing.
In acknowledgement of the operational necessities that Garfield and Levy
omit, Edelman calls for marketing participation in the creation and function
of excellent owned media (a.k.a. the company website) as well as a plan
that will make a customers experience coherent, thereby stretching
marketings accountability across sales and service, both online and off. For
Edelman, experiences with a company exert more influence than traditional
branding. The marketers job is to find and repair every pothole in the path
to loyalty. He recommends starting with a pilot program.
Can Marketers Realistically Market These Concepts?
The two theories are not contradictory any more than being loved and
providing seamless service are mutually exclusive. But they dont add up to
a methodology as simple and scalable as branding. And both theories assert
that advertising can no longer do what advertising has always done. A CMO

presented with these two options will question if being lovable or delivering
seamless experiences let alone both can ever be mastered as he
mastered branding (which, again, still works on TV).
Garfield and Levys elucidation of the influential superiority of values-based
messaging in the Relationship Era is tough to refute. Much as the first
generation raised on TV was the first to claim possession of a social
conscience, digital technology brings acute awareness of how actions
connect to consequences. If emotion remains the key to influence, values
are where marketers should focus.
If information has made decision-making more rational, then emotional
appeals won't hold sway, and service communications should be prioritized.
McKinsey lists the technical obstacles to smooth dealings across channels,
leaving out the fact that these obstacles are much higher and thornier than
most marketers can handle. The route to experience prowess runs through
Big Data, and most marketing organizations (and agencies) suck at small
data. For a future where service trumps ads, marketers should first build
common cause with IT and sales.
Before choosing a side, one might ask, What about search, display and
social, not to mention mobile and digital video and interactive out-of-home?
After all, these define the arena where new media is funded and assessed
not marcomm or operations. Its notable that the most compelling narratives
about the future of digital influence were developed without regard for its ad
formats. While digital ad buyers aspire to branding, influence experts say we
should buy fewer ads. They arent seeing certain kinds of digital messaging
routinely outperforming others, or campaigns that have proven to support
service experiences and/or word-of-mouth efforts.

An even bigger omission from both theories, one could argue, is

optimization. Do marketers have to decide in advance, for all brands, if
values or experiences are more influential when we can design controlled
experiments and see results every day? If it is, maybe there will never be a
model for how we influence. That's yet another reason to swear off the B
word.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/guerrilla-marketing-vs-viral-marketing11786.html
http://www.fastcompany.com/1825677/rise-digital-influence-marketing
http://www.cmo.com/articles/2013/6/27/how_digital_marketin.html
http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/digital-marketers-should-aimfor-influence-not-branding/
29. List the difference between SMO and SEO?
Online marketing is all about awareness and visibility. Most of the time,
people find your small business online in one of three ways:
Your company comes up early in search engine results,
Youre mentioned or recommended by another person or website they visit,
or
They already know about your company and go looking for you
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies with the broad goal
of bringing more people to your website the first way, by improving your
search engine rankings. Social media optimization (SMO) can be one part of
SEObut it also contributes to all three ways people find you online.
Obviously, SMO has to do with social networks and their growing importance
to business. This aspect of optimization deals with enhancing your
companys presence and online reputation through interactive communities

not just Facebook and Twitter, but also blogs, forums, and anywhere your
business is mentioned or linked to socially.
Working with SMO can help you strengthen your brand and boost visibility,
as well as generate leads and increase sales. Optimizing your social media
builds both familiarity with and trust for your business, because consumers
will see you not only mentioned, but recommended by others
If youre looking to improve your SMO, its important to keep in mind that
having huge numbers of links to your website scattered across social
networks is not optimization. Joining every Facebook industry page, Google+
Community, and LinkedIn group just to seed links to your content is actually
counterproductive, to both SMO and SEO.
Social shares carry a lot more weight when theyre coming from someone
else. In addition, indiscriminate link-spreading without engagement and
participation will get you unfollowed in your social networkswhich in turn
drives down your authority.
In order to improve SMO for your small business, you should focus on
engaging with relevant social audiences, contributing to conversations, and
posting your own shares of authoritative content for your industry.
The term SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is a process that is used to
improve the ranking of a website in a search engine. SMO, on the other hand, stands
for social media optimization. The purpose of SMO is to use social media to increase
traffic to a website.

SEO and SMO are two terms have gotten very popular these days. The
terms are mainly used in context to web masters and bloggers. Both, SEO
and SMO are utilized to increase traffic to a website. However, SEO and SMO
are quite different than each other and utilize different techniques to achieve
their means. There are many webmasters who claim expertise in SEO and/or
SMO. Their main responsibility is to increase the amount of visitors to a
particular website.

The term SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is a process that is
used to improve the ranking of a website in a search engine. It is generally
accepted that the higher the website ranks in a search engine, such as
Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., the more visitors the website gets. Most people
who use search engines do not like to click through pages and pages of
search results to get access to content. They usually access the website on
the first few pages of the search results.

SEO targets certain keywords. It takes into consideration how search

engines work, what people search for, the search terms or keywords that are
typed into search engines, and what is the targeted audience of the search
engine. SEO can be used to target different kinds of searches, including
image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and
industry-specific vertical search engines.

SMO, on the other hand, stands for social media optimization. According to
Webopedia, social media optimization is the process of increasing the
awareness of a product, brand or event by using a number of social media
outlets and communities to generate viral publicity.

The purpose of SMO is to use social media to increase traffic to a website.

This may incorporate RSS feeds, social news and bookmarking sites, video
and blogging sites, as well as social networking sites, such as Facebook,
Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, Vine, etc. Utilizing SMO on a
website essentially means that the website and its content should be
optimized so that the content from the site should easily shareable on social
media. This may be achieved by incorporating widgets, social media buttons,
etc.

Comparison between SEO and SMO:

SEO

SMO

Stands for

Search Engine
Optimization

Social Media
Optimization

Definition as per
Webopedia

Search engine
optimization is a
methodology of
strategies, techniques
and tactics used to
increase the amount of
visitors to a website by
obtaining a high-ranking
placement in the search
results page of a search
engine (SERP).

Social media
optimization is the
process of increasing the
awareness of a product,
brand or event by using
a number of social media
outlets and communities
to generate viral
publicity.

Utilizes

Search engines such as

Google, Bing, Yahoo,
Ask, Baidu,
DuckDuckGo, etc.

RSS feeds, social news

and bookmarking sites,
video and blogging sites,
as well as social
networking sites, such as
Facebook, Twitter,
Google+, Tumblr,
Pinterest, Instagram,
Vine, etc.

Purpose

To generate traffic on a
website or blog.

To generate traffic on a
website or blog.

30. List down and explain the negatives of digital media?

Digital Media certainly has affected modern day society. It has given the
consumers a vast range of information and the opportunity to learn and
educate ones self. But some people mat argue that the cons far out way the
pros. While Digital media has improved they way we learn as a society, it
has also caused problems.
Its made it easier to steal information and call it yours (plagiarism)
Using Google actually hurts you more than it helps, because you're not
really learning anything
Made it easier and more tempting for students of all ages to cheat.
Like on an exam, test or essay
With the vast information out there, some of it is false and isn't
accurate and misleading
It can be a distraction. Instead of doing that 5 page report on biology
some students may get on Twitter, Facebook and just surf the web.
DISADVANTAGES
- It's sterile. Too perfect, like electronic music with a mechanic perfect
tempo.
- No paper/canvas texture, noise.
- No analog randomness, no happy accidents.
- A Wacom tablet has no friction, no media resistance, hard to control,
slippery.
- No romantic physical result, it's all ones and zeros. No visible, bumpy
brushstrokes.
- Too many options! No constraints means no compromises, no thoughtful
study, no careful planning as the media is exceedenly forgiving.
- Unexpected crashes, data loss. (burning chrome)
- Higher cost. (dpaint)
- Requires power source. (dpaint)
- No physical "first and only" unique original due to Digital Media's inherent
nature. (dpaint, Two Listen)
- Due to rapid changes in file formats and storage media, Digital Media files
can become inaccessible over time. (QueenGwenevere)
- Not yet portable enough to work on location. (JeffX99)
- The quickness and easyness removes the learning of important theories
and practices (color, composition, studies, patience, etc.). (JeffX99, ijacobs9)
- All advantages of Digital Media can become disadvantages by

misuse/abuse. It's easy to do bad work with it. (SouMeng, Elwell)

31. What are the different tools of social media, along with
examples, (list at least 7 tools)?
Like any evolving technology, new social media tools and applications are
constantly being developed and marketed. As new tools are launched they
extend the reach of social media to new audiences, while increasing the
functionalities and abilities that are available to social media users.
Social media tools and applications typically fall into one of several
categories:

Blogs

Podcasts/Vidcasts

Social Networks

Wikis

Social Bookmarking

Blogs
The word blog was coined from the words web and log to refer to a
web-based blog.
Blogs began as online diaries, enabling users to post their thoughts, ideas,
writing and opinions for other people to view. Blogs quickly became a source
of user-generated information and proliferated quickly across the digital
landscape. There are currently tens of millions of blogs on all manner of
topics, maintained by everyday people, journalists, writers, famous people
and corporate or bureaucratic entities. Many blogs are sites that aggregate
news sources, or enable like-minded people to engage with one another
around a shared topic of interest.
Corporate blogs are blogs launched, operated and maintained by corporate
entities that share information with their audiences, often employing genuine
voice or a less structured and less formal approach to communications.

Common elements of blogs and blogging include openness to sharing

information, and the ability for users to respond to, comment on, and
converse about the content found on the blog.
Podcasts
Podcasting is essentially audio or video broadcasting over the Internet.
Viewers and listeners can watch or listen to podcasts directly or via the
Internet as well as download them to watch on their computer or portable
media player. Note: podcasts can be accessed using any portable media
player device.
Similar to blogs, podcasts provide an important platform for individual
expression. Podcasts are inexpensive to produce and disseminate versus
traditional forms of broadcast media, such as radio and television. While
users should attempt to make a podcast of reasonable quality, anyone can
produce and star in a podcast with basic recording equipment such as a
microphone, webcam, inexpensive handheld video camera, a computer, and
inexpensive or free software.
Many podcasts are organized in episodesmuch like traditional television
and some require that viewers have subscriptions. Many traditional and
established broadcasting companies now offer their most popular broadcasts
in podcast format after the original air date on traditional television
channels.
Social Networks
Online social networks bring people with common interests, ideas, goals and
experiences together. Some of the most popular social networks are
Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and even commercial social networking sites
where users meet, network and form relationships with one another. Social
networking sites also allow collaboration and enable information to be
passed through the network efficiently and effectively.
Wikis
A wiki is an online tool that enables users to add, amend, correct and post
information for other users to see.

The most famous and successful wiki today is Wikipedia, an online

encyclopaedia that is written, edited and revised by users. Once published,
articles on Wikipedia can be amended by other users with additions,
clarification, corrections or different points of view. When information is
deemed to be obsolete or incorrect it can be changed at any time. It is
important to remember that wiki content is living content that is subject to
change and amendment by users.
Wikis are powerful social media tools that are used for collecting the
wisdom of the masses. Wikis can be used in public or private situations and
can exist behind firewalls or on an intranet. Wikis have been used to create
user manualswhere actual users contribute to the contentor to organize
conferences and as project management tools.
Because wikis are a collaborative product they are good tools for
encouraging participation and involvement.
Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking websites (e.g. Delicious, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon)
enable users to store, organize, search and manage links to Web pages that
they want to remember or share with other people. Usually organized by
topic, bookmarks can be available to the public, saved privately or shared
only with certain people or groups.
RSS
RSS (most commonly expanded as "Really Simple Syndication") is a
common element of social media websites, tools and applications as well as
most online news sites.
An RSS document (which is called a "feed" or "channel") includes full or
summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship.
Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content
automatically. Web feeds benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely
updates from favoured website or to aggregate feeds from many sites into
one place (i.e. a reader or aggregator) such as Google Reader,
FeedDemon or FeedReader.
Other Types of Social Media

Some other popular examples of social media tools and applications include:

Social network update sites such as Twitter (sometimes called a

micro-blogging site)

Video sharing sites such as YouTube

Photo sharing sites such as Flickr

Music sharing sites such as Last.fm

Location-based applications such as Foursquare, Yelp and Urbanspoon

32. What is social media release and where is it used?

The social media release has arrived after 100 years of the traditional media
or news/press release. Social media releases look similar to todays
multimedia releases in format, structure and design, but can open up
dialogue in new ways.
However, they dont replace traditional media releases; they are
complementary because they are intended to reach social media while
traditional releases reach traditional media.
Whats more, gems are not created out of dross: if a person writes
substandard material in a traditional media release (journalists are always
complaining about this), they are also likely to write substandard content in
a social media release.
The social media release (SMR) is intended to make easier for people to
identify and share the most important information with others while adding
their own perspective to the text.
It is important to learn how to implement Social Media Optimized (SMO)
campaigns to more effectively converse with stakeholders and encourage
them to share information with each other. Therefore it is important to learn
technologies such as RSS, tags, SMO, social bookmarking etc, because this
appears to be the way of the future.

You need to remember that traditional releases are not readily picked up by
social search engines like Technorati, even if you use Technorati tags. The
release will remain invisible to the social search engine.
To be seen by these blog-specific engines requires a separate social media
optimization (SMO), also known as blog search engine optimization (BSEO)
process and an entirely different distribution mechanism. If the SMR is not
published via a social platform (blogs are inherently social) like Wordpress or
Blogger, its going to be ignored by Technorati, BlogPulse, Google Blog
Search etc.
The best place to publish a Social Media News Release is on your company
blog or social media newsroom (which is hosted on a blogging engine).
However, its important to recognize that Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
alone will not necessarily draw attention to your news. Its still important to
actively promote and distribute your releases via newswires and social media
tools, and wherever you promote your news to provide a link back to
your Social Media News Release.
This is an important point because social media and traditional media
releases can look exactly alike, but will show up in different places.
------------The Social Media Press Release is an evolved approach to preparing
press releases characterized by a multimedial and facts-oriented approach.
The typical social media press release integrates video clips, bookmarks,
citations, blog posts, multiple links and resources allowing the news editor to
pick and select individual info items that may best serve his interest,
editorial style and audience.
The Social Media News Release is an approach to releasing announcements
that provides a uniquely rich set of relevant aggregated information, in
multiple media, all individually open to re-use and re-distribution and
capable to transform a static text-only press release into a dynamic venue
for relevant discourse and multimedia contributions on the topic.
Though you will see this new type of press release referenced with different
names, such as the social media release, the social news release or the
multimedia release, these are all terms that converge to describe a new
press release format that reflects and integrates all of the communication
methods and tools that web 2.0 has brought with it.

List of Components in a Social Media Release

I compiled this list of elements after reviewing a number of the templates
that exist out there.

Date/Time Stamp: This seems to get forgotten a lot :) Put a date

& time stamp on your release.

Keyword-Rich Headline

Sub Headline (if desired)

Highlights: 3-5 bullet points of key facts

Summary: The narrative version of the highlights - could also be

used as a Twitter summary (e.g. 140 characters)

Relevant Links / URLs: The URLs of sites that are relevant to the
release. Shouldn't be overwhelming - 3 to 5.

Socially Share This Content: There are lots of mechanisms

available for sharing with various services.
Use http://sharethis.com/ or http://www.addthis.com/

Quotes: Separate sections both for quotes from parties involved as

well as independent experts. Make sure there are links to experts.

Embedded Audio, Video and Images: Include logos, screenshots,

photos, audio clips, video and other similar content that is related to
the release.

Traditional Press Release: The original full release in an "easy to

grab" form - for folks who cut & paste or simply republish.

Company Information: Basic company deets

Contact Information: A real person.

Social Network Deets: A subset of contact info. Links like

Facebook page, Twitter account - whatever is relevant and where the
company/product/subject of the press release will be maintaining a
presence.

Tags: Delicious and Technorati are the most popular - use the
keywords/tags that you would want/expect your content to appear.

RSS Feeds: If the company has news release feeds or a blog feed,
include them here.

Source URL: Original published URL - in case the SMR is printed.

Trackback URL: Would really like to see more SMRs include

trackbacks. Alternative is "Who's linking to us" section which pulls
the titles and URLs of links to the SMR from blogs, etc.

33. What is PPC and how it can be effectively used in social media?
Pay Per Click derives from the method of charging for online advertising,
where the advertiser pays not for the number of ads shown, but only pays
when someone clicks on the ad and visits their website. The arrival of PPC
shook up the advertising world as it fundamentally changed the emphasis
from payment simply for showing adverts to a payment for results based
model.
Created by Overture and adopted by Google it has massively overtaken the
previous online model of paying per thousand ads shown. PPC platforms
usually work on an auction basis, with top placement going to the highest
bidder (not entirely true with Google who also factor in the success rate of
the ad itself as well as the amount the advertiser is willing to pay).
Whilst PPC is generally associated with adverts shown alongside online
search results, it is available elsewhere online and whilst the charging
method may be the same the delivery method is fundamentally different.
PPC when used in conjunction with search engines is primarily search
marketing, whereas PPC within Social Media sites such as Facebook or
Linkedin is not related to any search, it is simply online advertising using
the PPC model of charging. Very different propositions and for some
businesses one may work better or worse than the other. For now well talk
about PPC as applied to search marketing and cover its other format
on Social Media platforms under Advertising through Social Media
The simple answer is that you would need to use PPC if you havent been
able to achieve acceptable results using SEO. Perhaps your SEO hasnt
worked (yet) and you are filling in gaps in your online visibility until you
achieve acceptable natural results (in some cases you may never manage to
achieve this) for some search terms. An example of this is while a local
solicitor may be able to achieve natural results for a phrase like solicitor
Richmond the online competition may be too much for a very high search
volume broader search term like solicitor. They might not want (or be able)
to compete UK wide for this phrase, but using PPC they could appear for it,
but restrict the campaign to only show their ads to people within the
geographical area they want to target. Of the tens of thousands typing in
just solicitor a percentage will be within their catchment area and this will

be the only way to reach them. This may become even more important with
the recent launch of Google Instant, which means many people searching
may not get as far as the longer search terms in future. See a more detailed
explanation of Google Instant and how it may affect SEO and PPC here.
Or you may have good natural results but still improve sales by having a
second presence on page one of the search results using PPC. This can have
two benefits. Firstly it denies a place to one of your competitors if you are
occupying it. Occupying two positions on the page also increases the
chances of potential clients clicking on one of them and visiting your
website, partly just a numbers game, but also seeing your company name
twice on the results rather than once can inspire confidence and improve the
percentage of your audience that you convert into visitors to your website.
Another reason some companies may use PPC in preference to SEO, is if the
search volumes are very low and the cost per click equally low, it may be
cheaper to drive traffic this way than to spend time and money on SEO.

34. What is SEO; please explain how it is useful in digital

marketing?
Search engine optimization (SEO) involves achieving the highest position or
ranking practical in the natural or organic listings as the main body of
the search engine results pages (SERPS) across a range of specific
combination of keywords (or keyphrases) entered by search engine users.
As well as listing pages which the search engine determines as relevant for
the search performed based on the text it contains and other factors such as
links to the page, the SERPs also contain other tools which searchers may
find useful. Google terms these tools part of a strategy known as Universal
or blended search.
The Natural or organic listings are the pages listing results from a search
engine query which are displayed in a sequence according to relevance of
match between the keyword phrase typed into a search engine and a web
page according to a ranking algorithm used by the search engine.
The advantages of SEO for marketing

The main benefits of SEO are:

1. Highly targeted. Visitors are searching for particular products or services
so will often have a high intent to purchase they are qualified visitors.
2. Potentially low cost visitors. There are no media costs for ad display or
click through. Costs arise solely from the optimisation process where
agencies are paid to improve positions in the search results.
3. Dynamic. The search engine robots will crawl the home page of popular
sites daily, so new content is included relatively quickly for the most popular
pages of a site (less so for deep links).

35. Please provide your thoughts on how social media helped to

build visual marketing
The Shift to Visual Social Media 6 Tips for Business [Infographic]
Our focus has shifted from Social Media to VISUAL Social Media. We
are drawn to visual content online in more ways than ever before.

The opportunity this provides for business is massive. But there are some
key concepts and strategies that you need to know in order to leverage the
power of this shift towards using visual content in social media.
This post highlights our latest infographic, featuring:

the shift to visual social media and how it developed

what this means for your business or brand online

6 simple strategies for leveraging the power of visual marketing

strategies for greater reach and engagement

The Shift to VISUAL SOCIAL MEDIA

There is no denying that a massive shift has happened in the way we
communicate online, especially with Social Media. We are now, in reality,
using Visual Social Media to share our message.

What began with websites, became dynamic websites or blogs. The

humble Blog attracted interaction, comments and community-building
around posts or articles of 500-1000+ words in length. Then posts became
shorter and we embraced Facebook, and then shorter again as 140 word
tweets sprouted on Twitter and introduced a new way of communicating.
We had moved from Blogs and Blogging to Micro-blogs.
We also made the shift from Tell to Show. Facebook, Twitter and Blogs
became more visual. Images were showcased everywhere. Microblogs
evolved into Multi-media Microblogs with sites like YouTube and Tumblr
offering the rapid, visual transfer of information in entertaining formats.
These platforms allowed us to devour visual material quickly.
And so it was inevitable that we would reach a point where Image-based
social networks such as Pinterest and Instagram have grown at exponential
rates. These Platforms are breaking all records. Platforms where no
words are necessary. Where a picture really does say a 1,000 words.
What Does This Shift Mean For Your Business or Brand?
In short, it means that businesses or brands online need to take note of the
stats. In 2012 alone we have seen You Tube pass 4 Billion Daily Video
Views and Pinterest become the 4th largest driver of traffic
worldwide. UPDATE: In fact, Pinterest, has just recently become the
2nd largest driver of traffic worldwide. You can read more about the
latest stats here and here.
With Pinterest becoming one of the fastest growing networks, Instagram has
matched this with massive growth and high rates of engagement.
Instagram was recently reported by Dane Atkinson (CEO of SumAll.comas
having as much as 10 times greater engagement than other
platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Not bad for a little photo sharing site.
Is it any wonder that Facebook snapped it up for $1 Billion?
A Picture Really Does Paint 1000 Words.
istockphoto.com

Photo Courtesy

We have reached a point where we are, literally, saying 1,000 words with
just one Picture, Image, Photo or Video. The team responsible for popular
Online Photo Editor PicMonkey.com reported to us that they areaveraging

4.3 million images edited daily an impressive result after just 8 months
online. But not surprising, given the visual shift that is happening around
us. And now with new DIY design tool Canva coming on the scene, more
and more business owners are recognising the benefits of creating their own
images.
For business, this means a massive opportunity for businesses who can
leverage the power of visual marketing. If we can learn how to use images,
photos, video, and other visual media in our online marketing, then we have
a greater chance of reaching more people with our message. This then
provides the opportunity for more exposure as visuals drive traffic to our
websites products and services.
How Can Your Business Leverage the Power of Visual Social Media?
In this Infographic, we have highlighted 6 Easy Actionable Tips that you
can take now in your social media marketing to leverage the power of
visuals online. Scroll down to the end of the post for more detail about
these must-do visual actions that will help you to stay top of mind with
your ideal clients on social media

6 Ways for Your Business to Leverage the Power of Visual Social Media
Try one or more of the following 6 Tips to start taking advantage of visual
marketing in your business:
#1 Dont TELL if you can SHOW
Whenever possible, use VISUALS to share your message. This includes
pictures, images, infographics, videos, graphics, slideshows and animations.
JustB is a lifestyle blog in Australia. Their team often use images to be the
1st way to convey a message on Facebook Posts. The text and links are
there to provide context. Very clickable. Anyone hungry?
#2 Create Original Visual Content
Visual Social Media thrives on sharing. If you can provide original content
for others to share, (that links back to your business, website, products or
services), then you are ahead from the outset. For example, did you know

that over 80% of pins are repins on Pinterest? That means that 80% of
information is shared and only 20% of content posted up is original. Be the
20% that gets repinned by 80% of users, by creating your own original
content!
Here are some ways you can create your own original content by investing in
the creation of original visual images that you can share on social media.
These do not need to be fancy or expensive. Keep the focus on original.

Get some in-house training in basic editing for your team. You will be
rewarded with productivity and cost-savings when you and your team
can create and edit your own images for use online.

Use iPhone/smartphone photo apps

like Instagram, Overgram, or Phonto to take relevant, original
images, and to add filters and funky fonts. You can read more about
how to use apps to get professional looking photo effects here.

Learn to use quality DIY editing programs

like PicMonkey.com or new DIY Design tool Canva. I recently
posted about my enthusiasm for the Monkey and also Canva. I love
them both.

Create one or more of the following types of original images:

o Quotes
o Checklists
o Tutorials
o Infographics
o Videos
o Slideshare presentations.

Identify content where you should invest money in hiring an

experienced designer or illustrator to create professional looking,
original content. Some content is worth the extra quality, as it can be
shared across many networks. This may be appropriate for:

o a quality Facebook Cover Photo or a series of promotional

images to be shared across platforms.
o a quality checklist or tutorial/instructional infographic.
o a slideshare presentation that is professionally designed or
illustrated.
o an animated, or professionally filmed and edited video to be
featured on your website and shared to other social media sites.

Think about what information you can provide that is useful/helpful or

inspirational. Information that Helps or Inspires is amongst the
most shared content, especially on Pinterest. Likewise, Quotes and
inspirational messages are shared like wildfire on Facebook. How can
you and your team create some simple, shareable images that
showcase what you do as a business?

TIP: Did you know that SlideShare Presentations and YouTube Videos play
from right inside the Pinterest Newsfeed? yet they are still under utilised on
Pinterest. Think about how you can be original and different.
#3 SHOWCase Your Story
Images = Emotion and Connection. There is no doubting that we respond
quickly, and emotionally to images. Use this to your advantage. Showcase
your story, the why behind your business, with images, wherever possible.
Aromatherapy and Organic Skincare Company, Twenty8.com, use images
to showcase their story. They believe in self-care, so tips and advice is
presented on a memorable image that evokes emotion. It isnt just about
their products. They walk the talk in terms of promoting self care in all
aspects of life.
Or in this example from the team at Twenty8.com, they include a How-To
Image to Showcase their Story. Again, note that it is not about their
products per se but about theculture and message behind their brand.

#4 Crowdsource Visual Content

CrowdSourcing refers to the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed

by a business, employee or contractor to a large group of people. The more
recent buzz use of this word refers to the act of completing a task or
finding a solution to a problem by asking your online network or
community to help you out.
If you are an ice-cream company and you crowdsource your community to
suggest a new flavour, you receive exposure online if the conversation is
shared from friend to friend. Why not do this visually? The concept,
extended, can be relevant to activities where you engage fans to:

Create and share images relevant to your business (therefore

showcasing your brand)

Connect with and promote your brand visually

Contribute to photo and video competitions, promotions or events.

If you can involve your community to help you solve a problem such
as the name of your new product, or content to share online they
will be more than happy to help you! If you can bring videos, images
or photos into the mix. They will help you in a way that will share your
message wider and quicker.

#5 Add Back the Words

Images are powerful in conveying a message. But the message can be
ambiguous if the image or picture is not obvious. I dont advocate
completely removing words from the equation. A combination is best. In fact
words can really pack a punch when combined with a great imageor even
alone as a text-based image. Try some of these Add-backs:

Add captions and descriptions to words and images

Overlay a Call to Action

Chantelle (aka blogger Fat Mum Slim) is a master of visuals + all

things instagram photography. Here she uses a call to action (in fact 2 of
them) to ask her community on Pinterest to join her Instagram photo
competition using a #hashtag to reference their photo entry. Adding
words back is also important!

Add keywords and hashtags to image descriptions

Include a watermark or website url on original images

Words and images together are a powerful combination. The trick is finding
the right balance. Just remember that unless the image really stands alone
and conveys the powerful message that you want, you may need to add
back some words!
Without graphics, an idea may be lost in a sea of words. Without
words, a graphic may be lost to a sea of ambiguity. Mike Parkinson.
#6 Mix it Up
There are many ways to integrate the use of images or visuals in your social
media marketing. Dont just limit your ideas to adding images to Facebook,
making a few new videos or pinning images to Pinterest. Try some of these
ideas for mixing it up:

Overlay text on Instagram photos.

Tweet images (not just text!) as well as your Pinterest Pins on Twitter.

Pin Videos or Slideshare presentations to Pinterest boards

Slideshare presentations on Pinterest add some Pop to the newsfeed. And

they open up on the page! Add a slideshow or a Video and stand out from
the crowd!

Use more images on Facebook. Change out your Timeline cover photo
regularly. If there are important dates in the history of your business,
add them as milestone images on the Facebook Timeline.

Include quality images on your Blog Posts.

Refer to Tip No 2 for ideas about how to do all of the above.

Its Your Turn. Had you noticed the shift to Visual Social Media? Will
you be using more visuals in your social media marketing now? I
would love you to comment below if something has worked in your

business when using images or visual content to engage with your

community.
http://sociallysorted.com.au/shift-to-visual-social-media-6-tips-for-businessinfographic/
http://sociallysorted.com.au/using-visual-marketing-for-social-mediaresults-3-brands-getting-it-right/
36. What is digital media, and why it is important, explain with case
study?
Digital Marketing
What it is and why it matters
In simplistic terms, digital marketing is the promotion of products or brands
via one or more forms of electronic media. Digital marketing differs from
traditional marketing in that it involves the use of channels and methods
that enable an organization to analyze marketing campaigns and understand
what is working and what isnt typically in real time.
Digital marketers monitor things like what is being viewed, how often and for
how long, sales conversions, what content works and doesnt work, etc.
While the Internet is, perhaps, the channel most closely associated with
digital marketing, others include wireless text messaging, mobile instant
messaging, mobile apps, podcasts, electronic billboards, digital television
and radio channels, etc.
Why Digital Marketing Is Important
Digital media is so pervasive that consumers have access to information any
time and any place they want it. Gone are the days when the messages
people got about your products or services came from you and consisted of
only what you wanted them to know. Digital media is an ever-growing
source of entertainment, news, shopping and social interaction, and
consumers are now exposed not just to what your company says about your
brand, but what the media, friends, relatives, peers, etc., are saying as well.
And they are more likely to believe them than you. People want brands they
can trust, companies that know them, communications that are personalized
and relevant, and offers tailored to their needs and preferences.

Manage Customer Relationships Across All Channels

Digital marketing and its associated channels are important but not to the
exclusion of all else. Its not enough to just know your customers; you must
know them better than anybody else so you can communicate with them
where, when and how they are most receptive to your message. To do that,
you need a consolidated view of customer preferences and expectations
across all channels Web, social media, mobile, direct mail, point of sale,
etc. Marketers can use this information to create and anticipate consistent,
coordinated customer experiences that will move customers along in the
buying cycle. The deeper your insight into customer behavior and
preferences, the more likely you are to engage them in lucrative
interactions.

Three Keys to Digital Marketing Success

So, what does it take to do digital marketing right? Here are three keys to
digital marketing success:
1. Manage complex customer relationships across a variety of channels
both digital and traditional.
2. Respond to and initiate dynamic customer interactions.
3. Extract value from big data to make better decisions faster.
So, the latest research suggests an improved approach to planning in

this sample of marketers, with fewer than half without a digital strategy.
Congratulations if you're one of these companies!
A recommended approach for developing a digital strategy
But what if you're one of the companies that doesn't have a digital strategy
yet? Well, I think the two simple alternatives for creating a plan may suggest
a way forward:

1. No-specific digital channel plan.

2. Separate digital marketing plan defining transformation needed and

making case for investment.

3. Integrated digital plan part of marketing plan - digital becomes part

of business as usual.

So, what are the takeaways to act on here? It seems to me that:

Using digital marketing without a strategic approach is still

commonplace. I'm sure many of the companies in this category are
using digital media effectively and they could certainly be getting great
results from their search, email or social media marketing. But I'm
equally sure that many are missing opportunities or are suffering from
the other challenges I've listed below. Perhaps the problems below are
greatest for larger organisations who most urgently need governance.
There's arguably less need for a strategy in a smaller company.

Many, a majority of companies in this research do take a strategic

approach to digital. From talking to companies, I find the creation of
digital plans often occurs in two stages.First a separate digital
marketing plan is created. This is useful to get agreement and buy-in
by showing the opportunities and problems and map out a path
through setting goals and specific strategies for digital including how
you integrated digital marketing into other business activities.Second,
digital becomes integrated into marketing strategy, it's a core activity,
"business-as-usual", but doesn't warrant separate planning, except for
the tactics.

If you don't have a strategy, or maybe you want to review which business
issues are important to include within a strategic review, we've set out the
10 most common problems, that in our experience arise if you don't have a
strategy.

Recommended resource: RACE Digital Strategy Qualification

Create a comprehensive action plan for online marketing and update your
knowledge of digital marketing.
Learn more about our Online strategy qualification.
10 reasons why you may need a digital channel strategy?
1 You're directionless
I find that companies without a digital strategy (and many that do) don't
have clear strategic goals for what they want to achieve online in terms of
gaining new customers or building deeper relationships with existing ones.
And if you don't have goals you likely don't put enough resources to reach
the goals and you don't evaluate through analytics whether you're achieving
those goals.
2 You won't know your online market share
Customer demand for online services may be underestimated if you haven"t
researched this. Perhaps more importantly you won't understand your
online marketplace: the dynamics will be different to traditional channels
with different types of customer profile and behaviour, competitors,
propositions and options for marketing communications. See online
marketplace methodology post.
3 Existing and start-up competitors will gain market share
If you're not devoting enough resources to digital marketing or you're using
an ad-hoc approach with no clearly defined strategies, then your competitors
will eat your digital lunch!
4. You don't have a powerful online value proposition
A clearly defined online customer value proposition will help you differentiate
your online service encouraging existing and new customers to engage
initially and stay loyal.
5. You don't know your online customers well enough
It's often said that digital is the "most measureable medium ever". But
Google Analytics and similar will only tell you volumes not sentiment. You
need to use other forms of website user feedback tools to identify your
weakpoints and then address them.

6. You're not integrated ("disintegrated")

It's all too common for digital to be completed in silos whether that's a
specialist digital marketer, sitting in IT or a separate digital agency. It's
easier that way to package digital marketing into a convenient chunk. But of
course it's less effective. Everyone agrees that digital media work best when
integrated with traditional media and response channels.
7. Digital doesn't have enough people/budget given its importance
Insufficient resource will be devoted to both planning and executing emarketing and there is likely to be a lack of specific specialist e-marketing
skills which will make it difficult to respond to competitive threats effectively.
8. You're wasting money and time through duplication
Even if you do have sufficient resource it may be wasted. This is particularly
the case in larger companies where you see different parts of the marketing
organization purchasing different tools or using different agencies for
performing similar online marketing tasks.
9. You're not agile enough to catchup or stay ahead
If you look at the top online brands like Amazon, Dell, Google, Tesco,
Zappos, they're all dynamic - trialing new approaches to gain or keep their
online audiences.
10 You're not optimising
Every company with a website will have analytics, but many senior
managers don't ensure that their teams make or have the time to review
and act on them. Once a strategy enables you to get the basics right, then
you can progress to continuous improvement of the key aspects like search
marketing, site user experience, email and social media marketing. So that's
our top 10 problems that can be avoided with a well thought through
strategy. What have you found can go right or wrong?
Social media marketing: The Dulux Color Run
Digital marketing industry case study library
Described as the happiest 5K on the planet, the Color Run is a unique race
held in cities all over the world. Its an untimed race in which thousands of
participants are doused from head to toe in different colours at each

kilometre, a hugely popular event in Indonesia. As one of the sponsors of

the event Dulux used social media to amplify its brands association with the
event.

Case study summary

As one of the sponsors of the Indonesian Color Run 2014 Dulux used social
media to generate brand awareness
Dulux created the Dulux Color Run where runners used online avatars to
race to win prizes and share their results via social media
Dulux generated over 24million impressions of its hashtag #DuluxColorRun
The challenge
As a co-sponsor of the Color Run in Indonesia, Dulux wanted to create a
strong association between the event and the brand. The main sponsor of
the event was a bank whereas Dulux a paint company had a stronger
relevance with colour and wanted to use this to raise awareness.
The solution
Sharing via social media is hugely popular in Indonesia, so Dulux decided to
combine social and fun running to raise brand awareness and create the
Dulux Color Run the loudest 5K run on social media. Runners ran with their
avatars online for the chance to win free tickets to the Colour Run event.
Runners used social media as a platform and the hashtag #DuluxColorRun to
share their splash of happiness as loud as possible.
The results
Dulux generated greater brand awareness than all other sponsors of the
event, in one month #DuluxColorRun had over 24 million impressions.
Content marketing case study: Snickers helps fans resell unwanted
items bought when hungry
Digital marketing industry case study library
Ever bought something in a sale that you later regretted? Snickers blame
these shopping errors on hunger to tie in with their Youre Not You When

Youre Hungry campaign. This case study looks at how Snickers helped
shoppers in Dubai resell unwanted items they bought in the sales.
Case study summary
Snickers wanted to launch its worldwide Youre not you when youre
hungry campaign in Dubai
Snickers partnered with Dubizzle.com to offer shoppers the opportunity to
resell unwanted items they had bought (when hungry) during the sales in
Snickers banners on the Dubizzle.com homepage
The campaign was hugely successful with 80% of items posted being sold
on the same day and a CTR five times higher than the industry standard
The challenge
The Snickers campaign Youre not you when youre hungry has been hugely
successful all over the world, and Snickers wanted to launch this campaign
in the Middle East. Dubai has forty of the largest shopping malls in the world
attracting more than 100 million visitors each year, during sale season
millions of people buy unwanted items, a problem Snickers attributes to
being hungry. To introduce people in Dubai to the threats of doing things
they wouldnt normally do when hungry, Snickers launched the Snickers
Hungry Purchase Resale campaign.
The solution
Snickers partnered with advertising agency Impact BBDO and Dubizzle.com
(Dubais leading classified website) to give shoppers the opportunity to
uploaded items they wanted to sell straight to into the Snickers branded
banners that appeared on the Dubaizzle.com homepage.
The expandable banner began with a warning message:

When a customer rolled their mouse over the ad it showed a larger

animation:

View the banner campaign demo here

The results
In the first week of launching the campaign on the Dubizzle.com, Snickers
received over 200 admissions of unwanted items to sell, items received a
CTR five times higher than the industry standard which resulted in 80% of
the items posted being sold on the same day, a huge success for both
customers and Snickers.
Tags: advertising content marketing Digital Marketing Case
Study ecommerce EMEA FMCG digital marketing Middle East videoviral
https://www.emailmanager.com/uk/blog/1/1512/benefits-and-importanceof-digital-marketing-beyond-seo-and-adwords.html
http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/marketing/digital-marketing.html
http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-strategydevelopment/10-reasons-for-digital-marketing-strategy/
http://www.digitaltrainingacademy.com/casestudies/tag/fmcg-digitalmarketing
37. Describe the relation between Social media and Public Relations
Public relations, or PR, practitioners and members of the media have roles
that are in many ways complementary. Both sides of these relationships
have common goals of creating a story, or developing a narrative, that keeps
readers, listeners and viewers informed. The downside is that both parties
have many opportunities for tension between them and their relationships
between them can have many ups and downs.
What Public Relations Practitioners Want
Public relations practitioners want to see the most flattering media stories
about their clients. They learn what producers, journalists, columnists and
popular bloggers want in terms of news and topics, and the exact ways
these people need news pitched to them. As a practitioner, you have to keep
up on breaking news and trending topics that a clients product, company or
expertise could somehow tie into so as to expand that clients business and
reputation through media coverage. For example, the owner of a local
kennel could be a local media guest talking about protecting dogs from
summer heat, or a small-town business owner could bring a personal

perspective to a national news show discussing the impact of changing

health care laws on businesses.
What the Media Wants
The media needs a constant stream of compelling content to fill airtime and
print space. Reporters, editors and producers look for experts and guests
daily. Some services such as Help A Reporter Out and PR Newswire serve as
matchmakers between media and PR professionals, delivering media
professionals needs regarding stories, deadlines and interviewees wanted to
PR practitioners who can determine if their clients fit. The media wants
exciting leads and reliable and articulate guests that offer something
original, engaging and relevant to fit their editorial needs every day.
Conflicts
Media professionals sometimes resent PR practitioners who pitch boring,
non-newsworthy or off-topic ideas. PR professionals sometimes resent media
professionals taking a story in unwanted directions or not responding to their
pitches at all. Additionally, when a client gets into trouble, the media can run
wild. As a PR person, your job is to reign in the medias running narrative as
best you can to keep your clients brand and reputation safe, suggests
Robert Wynne in his 2013 Forbes article titled, What Does a Public
Relations Agency Do? Another conflict area is that, as a PR professional,
you want your clients publicity, social media and advertising aligned to
represent a strong brand message. The media, while looking out for the
greater good, will grasp discrepancies. They may unearth secrets, distorted
facts, corners cut or scandalous information that would cast a cloud over
your client.
Compromises
Relationships between PR and media professionals are built on mutual
respect and common goals. Both groups want to reach the public with good
stories and information people can use to improve their lives, suggests
Rosanna Fiske, CEO of Public Relations Society of America, in a 2011 article
for Poynter.org. PR and media professionals share the goal of educating,
entertaining and expanding their audiences. Through honest and continuous
communication, the relationship can be mutually beneficial.
ocial media and PR have become much more integrated but that does not
necessarily make them synonymous. The agency landscape is very
fragmented with ad agencies, search agencies, digital and design agencies

all vying for social media budget. Marketing Directors are looking for
agencies that can take a mature approach to a brief and work closely
alongside eachother to achieve business objectives.
Pete Goold, managing director, Punch Communications
There is an element of social media which lends itself perfectly to PR
thinking which is the creation and management of an engagement strategy
and the narrative that runs through any given social profile. However, social
media also comprises major elements that are better managed by digital
creative and paid media teams respectively.
The ideal is to have the appropriate areas working harmoniously and
irrespective of which one leads the activity; ensuring that there is openness
across the team is likely to create the best outcome.
Nigel Ferrier, director, Optimise PR and executive chairman, FPCG
They should be. Companies live and die by their reputation, and since the
advent of social networking, they live and die a lot quicker. Consumers look
online for information and reviews; last year the Social Media Statistics
Compendium found 75% say purchasing decisions are influenced by what
they read online, and social media is a key element of that. Companies cant
afford to ignore it. So social media is integral to most PR campaigns in some
shape or form.

38. Is Social media more credible than Traditional Media, discuss

39. What is a Facebook page? How can it be used effectively for

Public relations
Building Facebook into PR strategies can either be an obvious win, or a
terrible idea. With an audience of more than 750 millon who log
700 billion minutes on the social network monthly, the potential this platform
presents to communicators is undeniable. However, as is the case with any
social outlet, Facebook is first and foremost a very personal space for many
users. Communications even (and maybe especially?) between brands and

individuals have an intimate, one-on-one aspect. Respecting individual

preferences and boundaries is important.
Audience research
Im in the camp that agrees Facebook has a place in public relations
strategies. However, the charge to get it out on Facebook isnt a tactic Id
recommend. Before one starts communicating via Facebook, its important to
think first your audience. Chances are pretty good a large chunk of them are
on Facebook. But why are they there, and how do they use Facebook? Do
they tend to be eager and rampant networkers? Or are they more focused
on friends and family? Are they active in groups? Enthusiastic game players?
A little research into how your audience will help you develop more
messages and strategies.
For our clients, we first determine if Facebook is the appropriate outlet and
customize our approach based on our clients goals, says Mike Nierengarten,
an internet marketing consultant at Obility Consulting. For example, our
client Animation Mentor, an online animation school, is perfect for Facebook
because it has tons of great content (video, events, pictures), a strong
(current) student presence on the site, and our target customers (potential
students) use the site regularly.
But exactly how does one research an audience on Facebook? You can start
by simply purchasing an ad on Facebook. As you go through the process,
youll learn more about your audience in terms of size and demographics.
That said, I prefer the gumshoe method meaning you log in and start
looking. Demographics wont give you the insight into where people gather,
what sort of messages they share, and the overall vibe of the community
on Facebook interested in causes related to your organizations objectives.
Any social media strategist worth his or her salt will tell you the first step in
planning a strategy on social networks is to listen, and youll find the same
advice here. Find active groups focused on relevant topics, and join them.
Spend most of your time listening and observing.
Desired outcomes
Secondly, consider the desired outcomes. Do you want to use Facebook to
develop relationships with media people and bloggers? Or are you more
interested in finding and engaging your enthusiasts within your marketplace,
and building awareness among them? Do you have calls to action youll
measure, such as lead-gen (e.g. filling out a form), building web site traffic,
or generating conversation and buzz? Deliberate planning with your
outcomes in mind is always a good idea.

How Facebook can fit into your PR plans

As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways you can weave Facebook into
your communications plans. Lets look at a few specific ways a PR pro can
use Facebook.
Media & blogger relations
Virtual environments lend themselves well to building real relationships with
media and bloggers.
Andrea Samacicia, founder and president of Victory Public Relations, a New
York PR firm, told me that in her former life, several years ago when she was
employed by another PR firm, she communicated with editors all day long,
but didnt really start building real relationships with them until she started
using social media. Im much closer to the people I interact with now, she
says. I have much closer relationships with the editors, producers and
journalists Im linked to on Facebook and Twitter. It makes keeping in touch
much simpler. You can like something theyve done on Facebook and they
get a little reminder about you.
In addition to building relationships and establishing another line of
communication with key journalists and bloggers, by paying attention to
what they share and post, you can learn more about what interests them,
and what theyve written lately. You may even find a story opportunity
amongst the interactions.
You can even pitch media via Facebook with some conditions.
For the reporters in the Web 2.0 space, I have begun pitching them via
Facebook. I have found they often respond quicker to my Facebook
messages as opposed to the emails I send to their corporate accounts, says
Andrew Miller, vice president, external communications at Integral Systems,
in a discussion on LinkedIn. Please note that I have relationships with these
reporters and have linked to them on Facebook. For PR people interested in
using Facebook as a means to pitch reporters, I suggest doing the same.
Finding and connecting with enthusiasts and influencers
Theres something for everyone on the web, and on Facebook, or so it
seems. For most organizations,
Facebook represents a great opportunity to find and connect with your
people. Developing a presence people will want to connect and interact with

requires the ability to produce, curate and share interesting information and
the willingness (and resources) to interact with your audiences one on one.
Yes, you want to encourage people to like your page. But building
interactions with your content getting people to like, share and comment
on the things your organization posts is where the Facebook magic
happens. Those liking and sharing interactions can trigger viral distribution
of your message. People wont like or share boring things, however, so
sharing good stuff is an imperative.
Good old fashioned promotion
Facebook is a great place to generate publicity thats obvious. And once
youve done your research, identified what your audience likes, developed
the content plan attract and keep your audiences attention and have been
rewarded with a growing following, then you can actually start to promote
your company. Please note promoting the company comes after you do all
the heavy lifting described above. Building context and communicating
within that context is important on social channels. It would be jarring
and uninviting if a friendly, funny brand presence suddenly switched to the
hard-sell.
That said, I believe that people do understand that brands need to promote
themselves, and their products and services. And, lets face it if youre in
the market for a particular item, youre probably going to be interested in
information related to that item. So its perfectly OK to promote your
business, brand and products on Facebook. However, if you want to do so
effectively, most of your commnications should be focused on building
relationships and credibility with your audience. If 80% of your
communications are consistently focused on educating and entertaining your
audience, theyll tolerate 20% promotional content as long as you maintain
the context youve already built. So go ahead and promote your blog posts,
white papers and other promotional content, invite your audience to special
events and offer them special deals and discounts for being loyal fans.
Simply put, Facebook can be a terrific medium for public relations, as long as
communicators respect the personal nature of interactions and care is taken
to connect the right audience with a carefully crafted message.

40. List down some of the brands active on Social Media, with
examples.

Indian companies have a very positive feeling about the power of social
media channels and that is why, they are appointing specialised social media
managers for boosting their brands visibility. Over the past few years,
effective social media marketing has proven to generate quality leads for a
company and has helped different brands in building relationships with their
client base. Below are some of the renowned Indian brands that actively
engage in social media marketing.
1. Flipkart

We see flipkart promotions

everywhere. They actively participate in social media marketing and have
successfully engaged a major chunk of loyal Indian customers. Apart from
generic updates, brand promotions etc, they hold contests for their followers
that encourages maximum customer participation.

2. Myntra

Myntra
is
a
leading
ecommerce company in India. Their continual social media activities has

helped them garner several repeat customers. Myntras treasure hunt social
media campaign launched in March, 2014 was a huge success.

3. P&g India

P&g India is a social media

savvy company that uses different social media channels for consumer
engagement, employee motivation and stakeholder interest.

4. Uber Cabs

The general manager of

Uber cabs, Mr. Gagan Bhatia, chose to opt for the social media platform like
twitter for recruiting suitable candidates for the company.

5. Sony India
Sony India actively uses facebook ( with close to 70,000 fans ) and twitter
( with over 1000 followers) to interact with their customers and attend to
their queries.

6. Coffee Caf Day

This renowned coffee conglomerate of

India used social media channels to create a quiz for football fans during
world cup 2014. Only Indians could participate in this contest and were
required to follow coffee caf day on twitter and use #CCDfootballquiz.

7.Tata Nano

Tata Nano launched a social

media campaign, geared towards the youth. It consisted of youth centric
pictures and slogans. The campaign was a hit as it successfully reached to
its target audience and the objectives of the campaign were fulfilled.

8. Samsung India

Samsung
India
has
different social media profiles for its different products. They actively use
facebook and twitter for customer service as well. Apart from these two,
they use LinkedIn and youtube for customer engagement and participation.

9. Godrej Consumer Products

They are catching up with

digital marketing and has hired young digital marketers to launch their
online marketing campaigns.

10. Colgate Palmolive

Colgate
Palmolive
has
started investing considerable amount of their advertising budget behind
social media marketing. They use various social media platforms to
understand customers views and demands for their products.

11. Vodafone India

Vodafone
India
has
a
separate
Vodafone India page and Vodafone zoozoos page, which is a fun activity
based page. They use their twitter handle mostly for customer service.

12. PepsiCo India

Pepsico India uses social

media networking in their real time marketing strategy in order to develop
relationship with their customers and enhance their brand equity.

13. American Express India

Amex India, makes use of Youtube

channels to connect with the young talents of our country.

14. HCL Technologies

HCL
technologies
facebook for niche hiring for segments like SAP, oracle etc.

use

15. Oreo India

Oreo Indias dunkathon

social media campaign helped the company to bond with its customers
better and helped them in positive branding with customer engagement
through facebook app and twitter.

16. The ITC Grand Chola

The
ITC
grand
chola
actively participates in social media marketing. They garnered a lot of
enthusiastic follower through their photography contest. They have a
facebook app that directs the users to their microsite where they can upload
their photographs.

17. Star Plus India

They engaged in a lot of social media

activities during the time when the Mahabharata series was launched. The
author of the series, mr. Devdutt Paitnaik was engaged in a twitter chat with
the followers of the channel. Also, there was a social media game based on
the series.
18. Kitkat India

Kitkat launched a contest

named #RichBreak and the participants had to answer questions asked by
Kitkat. The winners received gift vouchers worth Rs.1000.
19. Trident hotels India

Trident Hotels India used a very unique

social media marketing strategy. They invited people to spend a day in the
hotel and avail every services using social media platforms. People used
foursquare for check-ins, used Instagram for uploading pictures of the
property and used twitter for sharing their experience. The campaign fetched
over 1 million #tridentsocialhotel impressions on twitter.
20. Redwolf.in

Redwolf.in is a growing teeshirt brand in India. They extensively use the social media channels like
facebook for getting maximum traffic to their website. The co-founder of the
brand, Amey, has confirmed that social media works for their brand for
creating awareness as well as for conversion.
21. Loreal Paris India

Loreal Paris India is pretty

active on facebook and twitter for interactive marketing. Through these
platforms, they encourage their fans and followers to share insights.
22. Shoppers Stop

Shoppers stop India after

achieving 1 million fans on their facebook page , gave away exclusive
coupon offers. The objective of this campaign was to engage more loyal
customers.
23. Kolkata Knight Riders

Kolkata Knight riders have

been actively using facebook by sharing pictures to keep their fans updated.
They periodically hold contests on their page to maintain their fan
engagement.
24. Maggi Noodles

launched their Meri Maggi Facebook

engagement and building relationships.

25. Forbes India

Maggi
Noodles
India
campaign for more customer

They have an active Facebook page where they post

regular updates and also monitor comments from their followers and reply to
their queries
We can rightfully predict that more companies will focus on social media
marketing in the coming years and utilize its power to the maximum
possible.

41. Describe the relation between Social media and Public

Relations? How can you use social media platforms for Public
relations?
4 Ways to Use Social Media in Public Relations
By Maggie Patterson
Published September 15, 2014

Are you sending out press releases and waiting for

the media to write about you?
Are you wondering how you can integrate social media with public relations?
Instead of waiting for the media to write their story, organizations are
choosing to share those stories via social media.
In this article Ill share four ways you can use social media to support
and enhance your public relations.

Find out how to use social media in public relations.

#1: Include Social Sharing With Press Releases
If you need to write a press release, find a way to support and extend the
message via social sharing.
Keep in mind that journalists rely heavily on Twitter, Facebook and other
platforms to source and research stories. When you share your story socially,
you are meeting them where they are instead of interrupting them in their
inbox.

Halogen includes social options for a recent research report.

For example, a story about a charitable contribution would translate very
well to video (building up your YouTube channel). Or you can share data via
an infographic that fans can pin, tweet and share from your blog or
Facebook.
The marketing team at Halogen Software tries to make every story visual
and social. The company released an industry report in June 2014 and
added social components with a Twitter campaign, an infographic and a blog
post.

#2: Create Social Campaigns Around Customer Case Studies

Most PR teams create customer case studies to highlight successes and build
credibility. While some customer stories make a good write-up, most people
arent willing to invest the time to read long-form articles. Instead of sharing
the full case study on social media, pick out the key facts from the
clients success story and highlight those across the board.
Many stories are actually more powerful when told through the right social
channel. For example, Microsoft used video to share a story about how their
technology is making a difference in peoples lives.
Thanks to Microsoft technology, Sarah Churman was able to hear for the first
time. The company knew showing instead of telling would elicit a stronger
emotional response. They gave the story life by sharing a video of Sarah
hearing her first sounds.

Microsoft brings customer stories to life on YouTube.

The next time youre gathering customer testimonials and writing case
studies,interview your customers on-camera. You can share the video
on YouTubeand choose the best quotes to share on Twitter or
Facebook.

Infographics have become a popular way to share datapeople are drawn

more to images than text. Take some key metrics from your customer
interview and rework them as an infographic others can share on Pinterest,
Facebook or Instagram.
To spread the word further, write an article summarizing the case study and
addressing any pain points the customer had. These shorter articles are
excellent opportunities to reach a wider industry audience, especially when
you share them on LinkedIn.
#3: Ask Executives to Publish on LinkedIn
When CEOs or other executives actively engage with professional colleagues
and customers, theyre playing an important role in building trust with key
stakeholders. Yet only a handful of CEOs are active on social platforms. Its
time to change that.
LinkedIn is a good place to start because its the leading social platform for
professional networking. Since it now offers a publishing platform, you or

your executives can share content quickly and know youre reaching the
right audience.

CEO of AudienceBloom uses LinkedIn publishing to share content.

Instead of writing an op-ed for a newspaper or an article for an industry
publication, use that content on LinkedIn. Sharing your company updates on
LinkedIn is a much faster way to reach your audience than waiting for
traditional media to publish your contribution.
You can either create content specifically for LinkedIn or republish
from an existing blog or other source.
Jayson DeMers, the CEO of AudienceBloom, is using LinkedIn to republish
existing content from his Forbes.com blog with good results. He now has
more than 3,000 followers who are receiving this information directly in their
LinkedIn feed.
#4: Offer Expert Opinions in Real Time
As industry-related stories break, social media offers the prime way for you
to offer expert commentary and make an immediate impact on your
audience. If you wait for a press release to make the rounds, youll likely
miss your opportunity.
For example, when a government database is hacked or a major story about
stolen credit card numbers breaks, security companies react swiftly on all
social fronts. By helping others understand the situation and offering advice,
theyre positioning themselves as experts, as well as drawing attention to
their product or service.

Information security company iSheriff secured media coverage in outlets

such as Forbes around the Goodwill security breach in July 2014.
Before you connect yourself with specific events in your industry, assess
each opportunity as it arises and have a plan in place for when and
how you will respond to certain situations.
In the case of breaking news, proceed with caution to ensure that you are
adding value to the conversation and not being completely self-serving or
trying to capitalize on a tragedy.
Conclusion
If youve been relying on traditional public relations tactics, its time to
breathe new life into your efforts. By focusing on a social approach, youll be
able to communicate your messages directly with your stakeholders.

Plus, youll be better able to connect with the media and bloggers where
theyre proactively looking for news and resources instead of spamming
them with information (like press releases) they simply dont want or cant
share immediately.
What do you think? Which traditional public relations tactics do you
still use? How have you used social media to enhance those
tactics? Wed love to hear your ideas and feedback. Please share your
comments below.
6 Ways Social Media Has Changed Public Relations
September 8, 2014/0 Comments/in Best Practices /by Jim Dougherty
On a visceral level, most people understand that social media has changed
the public relations discipline significantly.

M
aybe you have been in the PR field long enough to remember the more
straightforward, pre-digital discipline, maybe youve learned about PR in an
academic setting, or maybe youve just been witness to this incredible
change to the way that people consume content and interact. Regardless of
your experience or how you specialize within the PR discipline, social has
changed what you do. And like retroviruses and Gary Oldman characters, the
only constant for social media is perpetual change.
One of my all-time favorite books on social media is Groundswell: Winning in
a World Transformed by Social Technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh
Bernoff. What I appreciate most about the book is how they approach social

media technology, not to talk about specific platforms but to talk about the
characteristics of the most prominent platforms from a users perspective.
The value of this thinking is to tactically consider the social media agnostic of
platform:

How
How
How
How

can
can
can
can

I
I
I
I

listen best using social media?

engage people best using social media?
energize people best using social media?
support people best using social media?

What I want to do in this piece is look at the broader characteristics of social

media as an aspect of the PR discipline, and (in the same spirit as the
Groundswell tactical questions) attempt to try to answer the question:
How can I leverage this best to control my PR message?
1. Full integration with PR

This weekend, I spent an embarrassing amount of time watching (American)

football. I didnt watch it entirely on the television, though. I had my ESPN
app open on my iPhone and I was following other games, paying special
attention to the Twitter feeds. Ten years ago, I would have simply watched
the game. As social is increasingly integrated into the ways that interact with
people and with media, those behaviors must be take into account.

In other words, social media is an inextricable aspect of nearly everything,

public relations included. PR expert and author of Women in High Gear Amy
Howell warns against thinking about them as separate entities:
Social media does not replace traditional media. traditional media is still
very important, when paired with social media, its even more powerful.
The integration of traditional PR and social isnt merely a philosophical
discussion: nearly 65 percent of all PR departments are responsible for the
social media presence of their companies.
How can I leverage this best to control my PR message? Keeping up to date
on social media technologies and frequently measuring the effectiveness of
digital and traditional tactics to communicate your message.
2. User co-creation of PR messages

In the book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson discusses the
advantages of Microsofts Encarta over the crowd-sourced website Wikipedia:

Microsoft had comparatively limitless resources

Microsoft had nearly all of the market share (after effectively cutting
printed encyclopedia companies out of the market)
Encarta was a qualitatively better product

Yet, Encarta was discontinued by Microsoft only eight years after Wikipedia
was created. Despite all of the advantages that Encarta had over Wikipedia,

Wikipedia persists as one of the most influential websites in the world

because it leverages the resources of its users to create its content.
Facebook posts, Tweets, YouTube videos, Amazon reviews, Yelp reviews, blog
posts and everything similar are co-created messages that you dont have
the capability to control (or at least it is quite limited). The key for PR
professionals is to interject your point-of-view into this process. It is such an
important aspect of PR that in the text book Public Relations Theory
II, professors Carl H. Botan and Vincent Hazleton say this about co-created
messaging:
We are confident that co-creation the ideas that publics are self-standing
and often a self-directing force in public relations will be at the core of
developmental theory in the next decade or two.
How can I leverage this best to control my PR message? Use social tools to
proactively be accessible to your audience, and use advanced tools to
monitor for user-created social messaging.
3. Perpetual vigilance

If youre 29th in the queue on a phone call, only you know that. Its you
and the person whos keeping you on hold. But if you tweet, its public and it
could be picked up, and I think companies are very aware of that, David
Schneider in a BBC article on social complaints.

The quote above eloquently summarizes the shift in consumer power that
social media has enabled. You may never know how many people will be
influenced by my Facebook complaint, and that is the impetus for businesses
to set a high-standard for their social care programs.
As PR expert Matthew Royce points out, public relations has increasingly
become a two-way conversation:
PR pros can no longer blast out information about their brand or client and
expect to succeed. Consumers and journalists have come to expect that they
wont be spammed and will be answered quickly and in a personal manner.
How can I leverage this best to control my PR message? You must plan to
monitor and respond to social complaints and questions in a reasonably fast
amount of time (PR expert Matthew Schwartz suggests nanoseconds, while
Lithium Technologies suggests you may have as much as an hour to
respond).
Impossibly to monitor the traditional and social media? See how Vocus can
help. Take a demo now!
4. Hyperlocalized PR messaging

Consider the advanced parameters that you can use when targeting an
audience on Facebook:

Behavior
Interests
Education
Connections

All of this as well as being able to target to a zip code level, along with
traditional parameters such as gender. Twitter and Google offer the same
sort of targeting options depending upon the information that they have.
Before the mass-adoption of social media, such precise messaging was never
possible to the degree that it is now. And it will get more precise in the
future: a new wave of targeting options based upon your proximity to a
particular business or location are on the horizon.
This level of precision allows for more sophistication and efficiency in PR
campaigns.
How can I leverage this best to control my PR message? Leverage
segmentation tools on social media platforms as a tactic within your PR plan.
5. Unprecedented journalist access and insights

Just as social allows for sophisticated targeting of people, it also gives

unprecedented insight into journalists.
Social media (makes) it easier to find out more information about
journalists. PRSA study on the impact of social media on media relations.

PR expert Mia Pearson says that the value of social media for media
relations can be to understand the journalists specific beats, when their
deadlines are, their personal and professional interests and to have informal
conversations with them.
How can I leverage this best to control my PR message? Use social media to
build relationships with key journalists (and bloggers) to help understand
what they write about, when they need resources, and how they prefer to
work with you.
6. The rise of citizen journalists

In 2006, there were 3 million blogs in existence. In 2013, there were 152
million. In a longitudinalanalysis of social and traditional media from 2006 to
2014, a group of researchers found a continuing decline year-over-year of
the influence of traditional media sources:
The internets rise in importance is even more pronounced among younger
Americans with 71 percent of those aged 18-29 now citing the internet as a
main news source. Additionally, these Pew studies report more and more
people are receiving news via social media such as Facebook and this
research also reports the number of Americans using tablets and mobile
devices to receive news continues to rise.
Social medias role in the emergence of blogging is important as a source of
distribution. Networks, such as Triberr, show the amplification potential for

small-publishers to gain distribution almost exclusively through social

channels.
How can I leverage this best to control my PR message? Do not overlook
bloggers in your PR plans, especially consider targeting those with larger
social distribution.

42. Explain why social media is important to companies in

contemporary situation
Looking at how social media change responses to crises, my research found
a need for strategies including immediate response; commitment to two-way
dialogue with public; listening to the audience; building a relationship with
the consumer prior to a crisis; being accountable; reacting to the situation,
being honest, open, transparent, and credible; being human, authentic, and
compassionate; using video technology; and monitoring communications.
The speed with which information can move immediately was identified as
meaning a crisis can escalate to a major scale within days, hours or even
minutes. Jonathan Bernstein noted, Online communication is getting faster
and faster. Literally in an hour social media can do the same amount of
damage that might have taken a week to accomplish in pre social media
days.
As well as the rapid speed, social media enable information to travel more
broadly, being less impeded by regional boundaries. That is, social media
offer a decentralized networked structure that, through sharing, linking, and
posting, permits wider flows of information. In the case of a crisis, this
means it can be revealed publicly, globally, making containment of the crisis
and its impacts (real and imagined) difficult, if not impossible.
Further, the participants acknowledged that social media afford opportunities
for the spread of misinformation to be published, even to create a crisis. In
the era when traditional news media ruled the day, corporations were able to
correct misinformation or demand a retraction in the event of inaccurate
coverage. Today incorrect information can be intentionally published to
negatively affect a brand, and in some cases to start a crisis. Christopher
Barger termed such people brand bullies. Bob LeDrew said, You will have
people sending out malicious information, adding fuel to the fire, making the
fire bigger and bigger. So people like me, our job is to stomp out false fires.

The consequences of such change require instantaneous responses, with less

time to construct a response in the event of a crisis.
Social Media is the Game Changer
Its obvious that social media will continue to have a significant impact in
2014 on marketers and business owners: They now have the ability to reach
out and communicate on a personal level with their target audience on a
daily basis. This is a game changer for businesses engaging in
marketing, sales, customer service and other business activities. This
is very powerful and has never been available with traditional marketing!
Read more at http://www.business2community.com/social-media/socialmedia-important-business-2014-0773321#QTWkJrOUSy17Atht.99

43. How can you integrate social media tools with traditional media
campaigns
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-integrate-social-media-withtraditional-media/

44. What are the characteristics of Social Media?

Social media can be defined as a phenomenon that has recently taken over
the web, allowing more connectivity and interaction between web users and
it encourages contributions and feedback from anyone who is a member of
any virtual community.
Social media is best understood as a group of new kinds of online media,
which share most or all of the following characteristics:
Participation.
Social media encourages contributions and feedback from everyone who is
interested. It blurs the line between media and audience.
Openness
Most social media services are open to feedback and participation. They
encourage voting, comments and the sharing of information. There are
rarely any barriers to accessing and making use of content passwordprotected content is frowned on.

Conversation
Whereas traditional media is aboutbroadcast(content transmitted or
distributed to an audience) social media is better seen as a two-way
conversation.
Community
Social media allows communities to form quickly and communicate
effectively. Communities share common interests, such as a love of
photography, a political issue or a favourite TV show.
Connectedness
Most kinds of social media thrive on their connectedness, making use of links
to other sites, resources and people.
1.

Forms of social media.

We will talk about the most common forms of social media.

2.1. Social networks.
These sites allow people to build personal web pages and then connect with
friends to share content and communication. The biggest social networks are
MySpace, Facebook and Bebo.
2.2. Blogs.
Perhaps the best known form of social media, blogs are online journals, with
entries appearing with the most recent first.
2.3. Wikis.
These websites allow people to add content to or edit the information on
them, acting as a communal document or database. The best-known wiki is
Wikipedia4, the online encyclopaedia which has over 2 million English
language articles.
2.4. Podcasts.
Audio and video files that are available by subscription, through services like
Apple iTunes.
2.5. Forums.
Areas for online discussion, often around specific topics and interests.
Forums came about before the term social media and are a powerful and
popular element of online communities.
2.6. Content communities.

Communities which organise and share particular kinds of content. The most
popular content communities tend to form around photos (Flickr),
bookmarked links (del.icio.us) and videos (YouTube).
2.7. Microblogging.
Social networking combined with bite-sized blogging, where small amounts
of content updates are distributed online and through the mobile phone
network. Twitter is the clear leader in this field.
1.

Advantages of using social media.

A good tool to use to publicize your work.

Costs very little money to set up online.
Easy to create groups and forming communities of interest.
Online participation can be easier than face to face.
Cross border collaboration can be facilitated.
Connections mean power and money for many companies .
Constant flows of information from updates and real time communication
Ex. Twitter.
Breaks down barriers for people who want to stay in touch with other
people.
Companies can obtain information from their demographics.
May be used for educational reasons such as:
- publishing and sharing content.
- collaborating with others.
Provide added context and value to knowledge.
With social networking sites, you are not bound by any geographical and
cultural differences. You get to meet and know a variety of people whose
interests are similar to your own. These sites are a window to different
cultures and places.
The social networking sites also facilitate you to procure information on
any subjects from anywhere.
1.

Disadvantages of using social media.

The most glaring disadvantage of social networking sites is the risk of

identity theft and fraud.
Your message can be caught up in commercial noise.

 Harder to gauge participation and commitment.

Not as effective as a face-to-face conversation.
User drop-out.
Hits do not necessarily indicate attitude change.

45. Which are platforms on Social media which can connect users to
companies directly?
45. Which are platforms on Social media which can connect users to
companies directly?
Social Media: An Overview of Popular Platforms
Facebook is the most popular, and
widely used social networking website,
which allows registered users to create
profiles, pages and groups, upload photos and
video, send messages and keep in touch with
friends, family, colleagues, supporters, and
customers.

Google+ is the second largest social

networking site, which has many similar
features as Facebook including
personal profiles for posting status updates,
photos and videos, as well as "Circles" and Communities for sharing
information with different groups
of people (like Facebook Groups). It also has some unique features like
"Hangouts" for video chatting
with one person or several people.

Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that

enables its users
to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as
"tweets" to a list of
followers. It has become widely used for commercial and political purposes
to keep customers,
voters, supporters and fans up-to-date, and to encourage feedback.

LinkedIn is a social networking

occupations and is mainly
used for professional
connections.

website

networking.

for

Network

people

in

members

professional
are

called

Blogs are websites, similar to an online journal that includes chronological

entries made by
individuals. The word blog was derived from the combination of the word
web and log. Blogs
typically focus on a specific subject (Economy, entertainment news, etc.) and
provide users
with forums (or a comment area) to talk about each posting. Blogs can be
used to post articles and
links to useful resources for people interested in a specific topic, publish
news announcements and press
releases, document trips conferences holidays etc., or as a personal online
e-journal. Some of the most
popular blogging sites are LiveJournal, WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger.

Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo-sharing website that allows users to

create and manage
theme-based image collections such as events, interests, and hobbies. Users
can browse other
pinboards for images, "re-pin" images to their own pinboards, or "like"
photos.

YouTube is the largest video sharing site, which lets anyone upload short
videos for private or
public viewing. Individuals and organizations can set up their own channels
on YouTube to
organize their videos. YouTube videos can also be embedded in any website
page, including
other social media sites, like blogs and Facebook.

Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website. In addition to being a

popular website
for users to share and embed personal photographs, and effectively an
online community, the
service is widely used by photo researchers and by bloggers to host images
that they embed
in blogs and social media.

Instagram is an online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking

service that
enables its users to take pictures and videos with their cell phone cameras,
apply digital filters
to them, and share them on a variety of social networking services (e.g.
Facebook, Twitter).

What is Social Media?

Social Media refers to forms of electronic
communication (such as websites for social
networking and microblogging) through which
users create online communities to share
information, ideas, personal messages, and
other content (such as videos)

Which social media platform is best for your business?

It is commonly suggested that to increase your brand presence, you need to
be active on all forms of social media. While that may be true, unless your
company has a dedicated social media coordinator, finding the time to
maintain every platform out there can be extremely time consuming.
If your company is just starting out on the Web and need to pick a few social
media networks to rule over, here is our guide to choosing the best
platform(s) for your business, and how to make the most out of them.
1. Twitter
Who should use it: Everyone from individuals to the largest multinational
corporations
What to share: Start, join, and lead conversations; interact directly with
brands and customers
Post frequency: Multiple times per day
Twitter is the dominant democracy of the social-sharing economy. Relevancy,
personality and brevity are the keys to making your voice heard.

Useful tools: Buffer lets you stockpile and schedule content in advance.
Tools like this allow for posting around-the-clock, increasing the likelihood of
snagging followers beyond your country or time zone without being working
24/7.
Its a guarantee by this point that a conversation relevant to your industry or
business is occurring on Twitter. The only question: are you part of it?

2. Instagram
Who should use it: Lifestyle, food, fashion, personalities and luxury brands
What to share: Share visual content, including short videos (less than 15
seconds)
Post frequency: Once a day
Instagram invites brands with visual content into their customers zone-out
time. Create and post content accordingly.

Youll want to experiment with your own userbase and followers, but its
likely that the best time to target your posts will be to get to your audiences
eyes during their commutes, nights, and weekends.
Useful tools: While hashtags are clickable and useful for search purposes,
links in comments and captions are not.
Instead, use the integrated sharing functions for Facebook, Tumblr and
Twitter to repurpose your Instagram posts for more shareable media.
Include a relevant hashtag to become more discoverable on Instagram and
to track engagement across sites where you share the content.

Additionally, Followgram is a great tool for tracking your stats on the most
liked and commented posts, along with top tags and locations.
3. LinkedIn
Who should use it: Businesses (especially B2B service providers),
Recruiters and Job-Seekers
What to share: Job-postings, company descriptions, employer/employee
research
Post frequency: Two to four times a week
LinkedIn is the online analog to old fashioned networking. People and
connections to people are everything

Keep a company description and profile page mindful of keyword SEO, but
your network of employees and contacts is your most valuable (and
potentially damaging) content on LinkedIn. Make sure people in your
organization are appropriate, professional and on-brand. Theres nowhere
online where employers and employees are more intimately linked.
Company seeking clients and individuals seeking employment should grow
their LinkedIn networks by adding as many real connections as possible. Use
your second and third-degree connections to request personal introductions
(when reasonable), and weed out the Internets infinity of companies and
applications, focusing on opportunities where you have some real
connection.

Top tip: LinkedIn shares more about your own electronic creeping than any
other network. Paid users can see whos viewing their profiles.
If youre researching a competitor or doing some preliminary job-seeking
youd rather your boss didnt know about, try a Google search specifically for
the LinkedIn page you want to see.
4. Facebook

Who should use it: Everyone and their grandmas (literally)

What to share: All types of online content, events, ads
Post frequency: Once or twice a day
Consider advertising or paying to promote your page on Facebook, but dont
make your brands Facebook page itself look like an advertisement. Inspire
conversations and shares and be sure to ask questions.
Of all social networks, Facebook is best equipped to linearly share responses
to a post asking a question or sparking conversation. Answers then appear in
friends of your respondents, spreading the conversation.
Facebook offers personal connection and an enjoyable distraction amidst the
work day, but use typically peaks outside of work hours. Theres no shortage
of options for analyzing Facebook data. Track the success of your content by
date and time to hone in on the best times for engaging your audience.
Useful tools: URL shortener Bitly does more than just shrink down
links. Each time you convert a link, Bitly offers stats on clicks generated
from that specific link, making it helpful to see how much traffic is brought
directly from sharing to Facebook.

5. Google+

Who should use it: Brands already on the other major social networks,
B2B networking, bloggers
What to share: More formal and professional than Facebook; Hashtags
have major search value
Post frequency: Once or twice a day
As Googles proposed alternative to Facebook, keywords and search engine
optimization are central to the appeal of Google+. Link often to content on
your own website to direct this search boost where you want it most.

Useful tools: Bloggers, set up Google Authorship to have your Google+

profile follow your content from across the Web in search results. More than
any particular feature of Google+, users are enticed by integration with
Googles other products.
Case in point? Comments on this articles next social network now link to
Google+ accounts.
6. YouTube
Who should use it: Brands with video content and ads, anyone giving
explanations or sharing expertise

What to share: Short (less than 1.5 minutes) video content

Post frequency: Once or twice a week
Google treats its own well, and YouTube is the prime example of this fact.
YouTube videos feature prominently in Google search results.
Keep this in mind when naming and describing videos, and direct people
looking for insight or explanations within your industry topics to your brands
page.

Useful tools: A subscription widget or link to your website can help convert
single views into long-term influence.
7. Pinterest

Who should use it: Fashion, food, design, travel and anything DIY;
audience skews female by 4:1
What to share: Creative, visual content
Post frequency: Multiple times per day
Users pin and re-pin posts to Pinterest Boards, which naturally push the
content on Pinterest into categories. This makes easily-categorized content
most apt for sharing, and wisely-chosen keywords essential to successful
post captions.
Pinterest differs from other popular search engines in heavily favoring recent
content. Pinning and re-pinning frequently is necessary to appear within
current results for a given search term, regardless of how popular your
content is.

Top tip: That stunning visual content on Pinterest? Undoubtedly the hard
work of a designer, photographer or videographer. Technically, youre only
supposed to pin content you own or thats within the public domain. Be sure
to attributeyour pins appropriately.
8. Yelp and/or Foursquare
Who should use it: B2C companies, brick-and-mortar outlets (especially
stores, restaurants, and travel/tourism related), reviewers and bloggers
What to share: Location-based business search and reviews

Post frequency: Before your physical business opens and whenever

information changes. Otherwise, at least weekly.
Share details about your business on an official company profile page.
Monitor customer feedback related to your business, and respond to
concerns raised in reviews. Consider it free promotion and advertisement
(although paid promotions are also available).
Keep your information updated, and pay attention to keywords and SEO in
crafting descriptions Yelp listings in particular feature prominently in
Google searches for local businesses.
On the consumer side of these B2C networks, reviewers and bloggers can
use Yelp and Foursquare to grow their following. You cant post a link in a
review (Yelp with flag those and potentially suspend your profile), but you
can develop a reputation for reliable reviews.

Top tip: Both Yelp and Foursquare users tend to glance, so its important to
get as many high numbered ratings as possible to gain a positive first
impression. Add a link to your blog or personal website under the profile
section to capture additional readership.

Related stories
http://www.fcfdu.org/Portals/0/ClubsAndCouncils/Forms%20&
%20Manuals/Social%20Media%20Platforms%20-%20Overview.pdf
http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2014/03/05/social-media-platform-bestbusiness/
47. Describe any 2 recent PR campaigns on social media?
5 Smart Social PR Campaigns to Learn From
The Social PR Series is supported by "Social Media. So What," the free online
conference from Vocus thatll re-shape and re-shine your social media skills.
Let Scott Stratten and friends wipe that frown off your Facebook and make
you a sweeter Tweeter. Register now!
As the web evolves from a network of sites to a network of people, public
relations campaigns must also evolve, and most successful PR campaigns
now include a social component. But beyond the basics, such as creating
tweetable press release headlines and reaching out to influencers on Twitter,
what are some of the more inventive approaches out there?
Here are five great examples of innovative social PR campaigns.
1. Rayovac: Rapid-Response Twitter Campaign

In early February 2011, with a snowstorm of historic proportions on the

horizon, social media outlets were abuzz with news and updates about the
weather. Rayovac and Circle PR quickly created a campaign that capitalized
on the fact that millions of Americans would be home and online on
Wednesday, February 2, the day slated to be the worst of the storm.
The central feature of the campaign was a virtual snowball fight that had
more than 1,000 consumers changing their profile picture to a Rayovacbranded widget and hurling #snowballs at friends and family coast-to-coast
for nearly 48 hours. The brand also hosted a two-hour virtual snow day
tweet-up, where followers could tweet about the weather in their area, their
favorite snow day activities and answer fun storm-prep and weather-related
trivia for a chance to win great prizes.
The campaign generated 1,188 click-throughs to download the profile picture
widget, #rayovac made its first-ever appearance as a top-ten trending topic
worldwide, and the brand saw a 30% increase in followers
on @rayovac_battery.

2. Healthy Choice: Pairing a Social Coupon with Blogger Outreach

Healthy Choice was looking to grow its Facebook fan base, increase
engagement and reinforce the brand's reputation for value. Knowing that the
Healthy Choice consumer is a user of social media and interested in coupons,
the brand introduced a progressive coupon on the Healthy Choice Facebook
Page. The coupon began at a low value ($0.75 off) and increased as people
"liked" the page and signed up for the coupon, ultimately reaching a "buyone-get-one-free" deal.
The progressive coupon was supported through a variety of public relations
tactics. The team conducted extensive outreach to coupon bloggers and
individuals with whom the brand has built a relationship, purchased a
Facebook ad and utilized the brand's e-mail database to spread the word and
encourage consumers to "like" the page and sign up for a coupon.
In just two weeks, the Healthy Choice Facebook page grew from 6,800 to
nearly 60,000 fans, and the team distributed more than 50,000 buy-oneget-one-free coupons. The progressive coupon campaign also generated
significant trade coverage, including an article in Brandweek.

3. Breeders' Cup: Social Storytelling

While horse racing continues to have a dedicated following, overall interest

has dropped in recent years the marketing team for the Breeders Cup
World Championships needed a fresh approach to attracting and engaging
new fans.
For the most recent Breeders Cup, the team at Conover Tuttle Pace decided
to focus its efforts around the story of Zenyatta, the undefeated female
horse who had become a star for her dancing, Guinness-sipping ways and
thrilling, come-from-behind finishes. The team's Zenyatta-focused social
media efforts included creating a dedicated Twitter handle for Zenyatta to
tell her story and share news and exclusive updates. They also seeded the
Breeders' Cup YouTube channel with race footage, relevant fan videos and
World Championship race videos, capped off with a viral, Zenyatta v.
Secretariat video release right after she won her 19th race.

Within one month, Zenyattas Twitter handle reached 1,300 followers.

Breeders Cup and Zenyatta, were trending topics on Twitter during the
event. The Conover Tuttle Pace campaign also attracted 1,000 subscribers to
the Breeders Cup YouTube channel, accounting for more than one million
views since the channels establishment.
The race was the most successful Breeders Cup of all time, with ticket sales
up 40% from 2009.
4. The BALSAMS Grand Resort Hotel: Using Social to Share an Experience

It can be hard to convey the magic of an experience through an ad or a

magazine article. Working with agency bobdonpaul, The BALSAMS Grand
Resort Hotel in New Hampshire decided to use social media to tell the hotel's
unique story.
The hotel's "InnBedded Resorter" campaign used social media to find the
world's first-ever "Resorter" a person who would live at the hotel for July
and August 2010 and use social channels to share all of their experiences at

the 8,000 acre resort. Entries poured in from all over the world after
narrowing the field to a few finalists, The BALSAMS then used online voting
to pick the winner.
The company's first Resorter was 23-year-old Martin Edgar Earley, who
spent two months at the resort this summer. Early blogged and posted daily
social media updates, photos and videos about all The BALSAMS had to offer.
The campaign was a hit, and the hotel saw a 20% increase in bookings in
August.
The resort then ran a winter campaign with Canadian social media travel
superstars Alex & Luke. While at The BALSAMS, the couple used their own
website, along with the resorts Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and other
social media platforms to continually update followers on their adventures at
the resort. As a result, the hotel's opening week of Winter 2010/2011 nearly
sold out and was the busiest holiday weekend in years. Since launching the
campaign, website traffic has also doubled.
5. KFC: The Power of a Single Tweet

With 2.5 million college scholarships awarded every year in the

U.S., KFC knew it had to cook up something innovative to stir buzz around
the brand's 75-scholarship Colonel's Scholars program. That's why KFC and
Weber-Shandwick decided to do away with the tired old college scholarship
essay and award a $20,000 scholarship based solely on a single tweet.
Students had just 140 characters (including the hashtag #KFCScholar) to
convince KFC execs why they deserved a scholarship.
Announced via a USA Today story, the scholarship tweet campaign
generated more than 1,000 media placements and tens of millions of media
impressions, including two AP Wire stories, multiple stories on CNN Headline
News, MSNBC, The Weather Channel and NBC national news. The program
also captivated the online world, generating more than nine million social
media impressions as a result of tweets during the brief entry period. In all,

more than 2,800 applicants tweeted for their chance at $20,000, and the
KFC Twitter handle saw a 20% jump in followers in just two weeks.
One of those followers was 17-year-old Amanda Russell, whose tweet, "Hey
Colonel! Your scholarship's the secret ingredient missing from my recipe for
success! Got the grades, drive, just need cash!" scored her the $20,000
college scholarship.

http://mashable.com/2011/03/08/social-pr-campaigns/
https://indianprforum.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/6-inspiring-social-mediacampaigns/
48. Social Media is a tool for change, kindly state your argument?
10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media
Max Gladwell is the brainchild of writer and marketer Rob Reed. Rob
specializes in sustainability and cause-driven marketing. You can also follow
Max Gladwell on Twitter.
Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of
technology and humanity that is social media. They'll take for granted that
their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from
their laptop. And they'll take for granted that they are connected and
interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment.
What's most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They
represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to
the people they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of
technology, and we are all better for it.
For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way.
Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation
and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the
need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments,
hence the following list.
Please note this is not a top 10 list, nor are these listed in any particular
order. It's also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in

the comments. If you'd like to retweet this post or take the conversation to
Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.
1. Take Social Actions
The nonprofit organization Social Actions aggregates "opportunities to make
a difference from over 50 online platforms" through its unique API. It
recently held the Change the Web Challengecontest in order to inspire the
most innovative applications for that API. The Social ActionsInteractive
Map won the $5,000 first prize. The result is a virtual tour of the world
through the lens of social action. "People are volunteering, donating, signing
petitions, making loans and doing other social actions as we speak all
over the world. To capture the context of the where, this project uses
sophisticated techniques to extract location information from full text
paragraphs."

You can also join the Social Actions Community, which is powered
by Ning...which now boasts more than one million individual social networks.
2. Twitter with a purpose

This list could be exclusive to Twitter. From Tweetsgiving, the Twitter

fundraiser that raised enough money to build a new classroom for a school in
Tanzania, to Twestival, which organized 202 off-line events around the world
to benefit charity: water, it's become the de facto tool for organizing and
taking action. Tweet Congress won the SXSW activism award, and celebrity
Tweeps Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Rose Tweeted their two million followers
about ending malaria.
3. Visit White House 2.0

Inside of its first 100 days, the Obama administration has managed to set
the historic benchmark for government transparency and accountability. The
President's virtual town hall meeting usedWhiteHouse.gov to crowdsource
questions from his 300 million constituents, complete with voting to
determine the ones he'd have to answer. All told, 97,937 people submitted
103,978 questions and cast 1,782,650 votes.
The White House continues to raise the bar with its
official Facebook, MySpace, and Twitterchannels. In so doing President

Obama is not just setting the standard for state and local government in the
U.S. He's establishing the world standard. Because you don't have to be an
American citizen to be a friend or follower of White House 2.0.
4. Choose your cause
Facebook is a powerful platform for change and community action. Apps
like Causes have united users around important issues from global warming
to poverty, AIDS research, and animal rights, and rallied them to action.
Large companies are recognizing this tool for change, and creating
campaigns around it. For example, Target's newly launched "Bullseye Gives"
campaign allows users to vote for one of 10 charities on the
company's existing Facebook page. The percentage of votes for each charity
determines the percentage of a total $3 million dollars Target will donate to
the organizations. This is a smart and simple way for both Target and
Facebook users to make a big difference using social media.
5. Host a social media event

This is the year of the social media event. No meaningful gathering of people
is complete without an interactive online audience, especially when it's so
easy and cost effective to pull off. Essential tools include a broadband
connection, laptop, video camera, projector, and screen. Add people and a

purpose, such as entrepreneurship. Promote it through social media

channels, and you have a social media event.
A recent example in the green world is the Evolution of Green, which was
hosted by Creative Citizen, a green wiki community. It celebrated the launch
of a new web property, EcoMatters, while also establishing a new Twitter tag.
By posing the question, "How can we go from green hype to green habit?"
and including the #GreenQ hashtag, it sparked a conversation between
attendees and the Twittersphere in real time. Thus was born a new
mechanism for getting answers to green questions via Twitter.
6. Travel the world
Tim O'Reilly knows the potential for social media to change the world. In his
opening keynote at this year's Web 2.0 Expo, he called for a new ethic in
which we do more with less and create more value than we capture. This
provided the context for SalaamGarage founder Amanda Koster,
whose presentation followed O'Reilly's. The idea is that social media has
enabled each of us to have an audience. Whether through
Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, or a personal blog, each of us can have influence
and reach. What's more, it can be used for good.
SalaamGarage coordinates trips for citizen journalists (that means you) to
places like India and Vietnam in conjunction with non-government
organizations like Seattle-based Peace Trees. The destination is the story, as
these humanitarian journalists report on the people they meet and
discoveries they make. Their words, images, and video are posted to
the social web to gain exposure and because these stories just need to be
told.
7. Build it on Drupal
You may not have noticed, but the open-source Drupal content management
system (CMS) has quickly become the dominant player on the social web.
While we still prefer WordPress as a strict blogging application, Drupal has
emerged as the go-to platform for building scalable, community-driven
websites. It powers Recovery.gov, a key part of President Obama's
commitment to transparency and accountability. And Drupal will soon
become the platform forCausecast, a site where "media, philanthropy, social
networking, entertainment and education converge to serve a greater
purpose." This is especially significant because Causecast CEO Ryan Scott is

transitioning the site off of Ruby on Rails because Drupal has proved more
efficient, user friendly, and cost effective.
8. Green your iPhone

Looking for an organic diner within biking distance that has a three-star
green rating? There's a app for that. It's called 3rd Whale, and you can
download it for free. (Except that the star rating is actually a whale rating.)
Complete with Facebook Connect, this iPhone app locates green products
and businesses in 30 major North American cities. It uses the iPhone's dial
function to select a category (food), sub-category (restaurants), and
distance (walking, biking, or driving).
In Santa Monica, this might give you Swingers Diner for its selection of
veggie and vegan fare. You could then get directions from your current
location using the iPhone's built-in Google map, rate your experience on the
three-whale scale, and write up a quick review. 3rd Whale recently released

a new feature that integrates green-living tips, which can show how much
energy or waste you'll save by taking a given action.
9. Unite the world through video

Matt's dancing around the world video inspired many to tears. Today, more
than 20 million people have viewed his YouTube masterpiece, where he
performs a kooky dance with the citizens of planet earth. The most recent
example of this approach is Playing for Change, which connects the world
through song. The project started in Santa Monica with a street performance
of the classic Stand By Me and expanded to New Orleans, New Mexico,
France, Brazil, Italy, Venezuela, South Africa, Spain, and The Netherlands.
The project was superbly executed via social media, complete with
a YouTube channel,MySpace, Facebook, and Blog. It's received tremendous
mainstream media exposure and also benefits a foundation of the same
name.
10. Rate a company
The conversation about corporate social responsibility (CSR) takes place
across the social web on blogs, Twitter, and YouTube, but a central hub for
this information and opinion is still to be determined. SocialYell seeks to
address this by building an online community around the CSR conversation,
where users can submit reviews of companies together with nonprofit
organizations and even public figures like Michelle Obama.
The major topics are the Environment, Health, Social Equity, Consumer
Advocacy, and Charity. The reviews are voted and commented on by the
community in a Reddit-like fashion with both up (Yell) and down (shhh)
voting. The site is relatively new and still gaining traction, but there's no
question that a resource like this is needed to shine a bright light on CSR
and and other related issues.
11. Publish a collective, simultaneous blog post on a universal topic
As Nigel Tufnel might say, this list goes to eleven. Let the #10Ways
conversation begin...

Final note: This is Max Gladwell's third list of "10 Ways to Change the World
Through Social Media." The first was posted a year ago today on
Sustainablog.org, and the sequel followed five months later.
Max Gladwell is the brainchild of writer and marketer Rob Reed. Rob
provides strategic and tactical marketing services for brands seeking to use
social media to connect with their customers. He specializes in sustainability
and cause-driven marketing. You can also follow Max Gladwell on Twitter.

http://www.ripplesedgemedia.com/blogbank/2014/4/2/social-media-forsocial-change
http://mashable.com/2009/05/12/social-media-change-the-world/
http://www.accenture.com/us-en/outlook/Pages/outlook-online-2012-socialmedia-technologies-accelerate-large-scale-change.aspx
51. Which are the important aspects of Social media?
9 Reasons Social Media Marketing Should Top Your To-Do List
These days, it isnt enough to have a website for your business your digital
storefront extends to social media marketing sites like Facebook and Twitter,
and its time to start capitalizing on it. If your company still doesnt have a
Twitter account or a Facebook fan page, its time to get with the program
and bring yourself up to speed (or risk falling behind your competition).
Still not convinced? Here are nine reasons social media marketing should top
your to-do list:

1.)
You get to see your target
market, up close and personal. Part of what makes marketing with
Facebook and Twitter so cool is the interaction you get to have with your
customer base you can read their tweets and status updates to get
insights into their daily lives (and maybe adjust your marketing strategy as a
result).
2.) You can respond to problems immediately. If theres a problem
with your product or service, you want to know about it immediately. With
the feedback you get in the process of social media marketing, youll be the
first to know when there are issues and you can take steps to resolve them
right away. Study after study has shown that consumers appreciate
companies that respond to customer complaints (and dont hesitate to rant
online to anyone who will listen when companies dont take the time to make
things right).
3.) Your competition is Tweeting and Facebooking like crazy. The
early bird gets the worm, and the sooner you start up Facebook and Twitter
pages, the sooner you can start amassing a ton of fans and followers. This
isnt something you want to fall behind the competition on, because its
much harder (and more expensive) to play catch up than it is to get in on
the game early. Truth be told, your competition is probably already
marketing with Facebook, and maybe even Twitter and LinkedIn, too.
4.) People are receptive to your messages. People view Twitter and
Facebook as social networks, not marketing machines. As a result, theyre
less likely to see what you post as an advertisement and will be more likely
to hear what you have to say.
5.) It will get you more sales. Not surprisingly, when you stay in front of
your customer base, theyre more likely to buy from you when they need the
products you sell. Social media marketing doesnt just keep your companys
name in front of potential buyers, but it also gives you the opportunity to

constantly give them incentives to buy. Try Tweeting or posting coupon

codes, good only to those who are your Facebook fans or Twitter followers
(around The Content Factory, we call them Tweeps). Youll be surprised at
how many people make purchases using the code!
6.) You will find customers you didnt know existed. If you follow
specific keywords in Twitter, you can find people who are looking for the
products you sell (and then direct them to your site). Using Twitter for
marketing is great that way telling people who want your products how to
get them from your company is just an @ sign away.
7.) Customers you didnt know existed will find (and buy from) you.
In the process of marketing with Facebook, youll probably join a ton of
groups related to your products, industry and customer base. By posting
links in these groups, youll help influence customers to check out your site.
Post a link today, and two weeks later you might see a sale from it.
8.) Its free. How can you argue with that? If you handle your own social
media management, running a social networking campaign is as cheap as it
gets. If you hire a social media management or online PR agency, it will cost
at least $1,000/month, but itll be an investment that youll be likely to see a
return on. If youre intimidated by interacting with people online or your
writing skills leave something to be desired, hiring an online PR agency is
definitely the way to go. Posting poorly written content or conveying the
wrong kind of messages on social networking sites can seriously affect
yourweb PR.
9.) The social media marketing arena is a (fairly) level playing
field.Unlike the brick and mortar world where you need to have millions of
dollars to run traditional ad campaigns, all companies start off on pretty
equal footing when it comes to social media marketing. The people who
thrive and go viral in cyberspace are the people with the most clever,
attention grabbing tactics and the most useful, link worthy content. If you
want to get lots of traffic and really increase your sales online, youre going
to have to outwit, outnetwork and outwrite your competition while offering
superior products and customer service. Isnt that what business is all about,
anyway?
Simply put, social media marketing is part of doing business in the new
millennium. Marketing with Facebook has been hot for quite a while now, but
recently more and more companies have been using Twitter for marketing. If
your business isnt already active on social networking sites, now is the time
to start. Who knows, you could be missing out on sales opportunities right
now.

Increase your online exposure and look legit

Your digital storefront isnt limited to just your website. Your Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn all represent your company in the eyes Internet
browsers and buyers. In fact, some may even say that your business Google
results (relevant, irrelevant, positive and negative) all constitute parts of
your digital storefront.
People expect businesses to have Facebook and Twitter accounts, and
they expect to be able to use them to get in touch with company
representatives, if necessary. If you don't have social networking profiles set
up for your company, you look less legitimate. Ditto if your website looks like
it was ripped off of somebody's GeoCities page circa 1998.
Social media marketing is a must-have for businesses, but its also just the
tip of the iceberg. Having website content that drives sales, a solid SEO
strategy and products that consumers actually want to buy are all important
pieces of the web PR puzzle, too.
As if you needed another reason to use social media for business
At the very least, social media marketing will help drive traffic to your site
and increase brand awareness. Thats a huge part of web PR in and of itself,
and is an outcome anyone would be happy with. Have questions about how
to get started? Get in touch with a reputable online PR agency, and theyll
help point you in the right direction.
The Top 10 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing
To some entrepreneurs, social media marketing is the next
big thing, a temporary yet powerful fad that must be taken
advantage of while its still in the spotlight. To others, its a
buzzword with no practical advantages and a steep,
complicated learning curve.
Because it appeared quickly, social media has developed a
reputation by some for being a passing marketing interest,
and therefore, an unprofitable one. The statistics, however,
illustrate a different picture.According to Hubspot, 92% of
marketers in 2014 claimed that social media marketing was

important for their business, with 80% indicating their efforts

increased traffic to their websites. And according to Social
Media Examiner, 97% of marketers are currently
participating in social mediabut 85% of participants arent
sure what social media tools are the best to use.
This demonstrates a huge potential for social media
marketing to increase sales, but a lack of understanding on
how to achieve those results. Heres a look at just some of
the ways social media marketing can improve your business:
1. Increased Brand Recognition. Every opportunity you
have to syndicate your content and increase your visibility is
valuable. Your social media networks are just new channels
for your brands voice and content. This is important because
it simultaneously makes you easier and more accessible for
new customers, and makes you more familiar and
recognizable for existing customers. For example, a frequent
Twitter user could hear about your company for the first time
only after stumbling upon it in a newsfeed. Or, an otherwise
apathetic customer might become better acquainted with
your brand after seeing your presence on multiple networks.
2. Improved brand loyalty. According to a report
published by Texas Tech University, brands who engage on
social media channels enjoy higher loyalty from their
customers. The report concludes Companies should take
advantage of the tools social media gives them when it
comes to connecting with their audience. A strategic and
open social media plan could prove influential in morphing
consumers into being brand loyal. Another study published
by Convince&Convert found that 53% of Americans who
follow brands in social are more loyal to those brands.
3. More Opportunities to Convert. Every post you make
on a social media platform is an opportunity for customers to
convert. When you build a following, youll simultaneously

have access to new customers, recent customers, and old

customers, and youll be able to interact with all of them.
Every blog post, image, video, or comment you share is a
chance for someone to react, and every reaction could lead
to a site visit, and eventually a conversion. Not every
interaction with your brand results in a conversion, but every
positive interaction increases the likelihood of an eventual
conversion. Even if your click-through rates are low, the
sheer number of opportunities you have on social media is
significant. And as I pointed out in my article, The Four
Elements of Any Action, And How To Use Them In Your
Online Marketing Initiative, opportunity is the first element
of any action.
4. Higher conversion rates. Social media marketing results
in higher conversion rates in a few distinct ways. Perhaps the
most significant is itshumanization element; the fact that
brands become more humanized by interacting in social
media channels. Social media is a place where brands can
act like people do, and this is important because people like
doing business with other people; not with companies.
Additionally, studies have shown that social media has a
100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing,
and a higher number of social media followers tends to
improve trust and credibility in your brand, representing
social proof. As such, simply building your audience in social
media can improve conversion rates on your existing traffic.
5. Higher Brand Authority. Interacting with your
customers regularly is a show of good faith for other
customers. When people go to compliment or brag about a
product or service, they turn to social media. And when they
post your brand name, new audience members will want to
follow you for updates. The more people that are talking
about you on social media, the more valuable and
authoritative your brand will seem to new users. Not to

mention, if you caninteract with major influencers on

Twitter or other social networks, your visible authority and
reach will skyrocket.
6. Increased Inbound Traffic. Without social media, your
inbound traffic is limited to people already familiar with your
brand and individuals searching for keywords you currently
rank for. Every social media profile you add is another path
leading back to your site, and every piece of content you
syndicate on those profiles is another opportunity for a new
visitor. The more quality content you syndicate on social
media, the more inbound traffic youll generate, and more
traffic means more leads and more conversions.
7. Decreased Marketing Costs. According to Hubspot,
84% of marketers found as little as six hours of effort per
week was enough to generate increased traffic. Six hours is
not a significant investment for a channel as large as social
media. If you can lend just one hour a day to developing
your content and syndication strategy, you could start seeing
the results of your efforts. Even paid advertising through
Facebook and Twitter is relatively cheap (depending on your
goals, of course). Start small and youll never have to worry
about going over budgetonce you get a better feel for what
to expect, you can increase your budget and increase your
conversions correspondingly.
8. Better Search Engine Rankings. SEO is the best way to
capture relevant traffic from search engines, but the
requirements for success are always changing. Its no longer
enough to regularly update your blog, ensure optimized title
tags and meta descriptions, and distribute links pointing back
to your site. Google and other search engines may be
calculating their rankings using social media presence as a
significant factor, because of the fact that strong brands
almost always use social media. As such, being active on
social media could act as a brand signal to search engines

that your brand is legitimate, credible, and trustworthy. That

means, if you want to rank for a given set of keywords,
having a strong social media presence could be almost
mandatory.
9. Richer Customer Experiences. Social media, at its core,
is a communication channel like email or phone calls. Every
customer interaction you have on social media is an
opportunity to publicly demonstrate your customer service
level and enrich your relationship with your customers. For
example, if a customer complains about your product on
Twitter, you can immediately address the comment,
apologize publicly, and take action to make it right. Or, if a
customer compliments you, you can thank them and
recommend additional products. Its a personal experience
that lets customers know you care about them.
10. Improved Customer Insights. Social media also gives
you an opportunity to gain valuable information about what
your customers are interested in and how they behave,
via social listening. For example, you can monitor user
comments to see what people think of your business directly.
You can segment your content syndication lists based on
topic and see which types of content generate the most
interestand then produce more of that type of content. You
canmeasure conversions based on different promotions
posted on various social media channels and eventually find
a perfect combination to generate revenue.
These are the benefits of sustaining a long-term social media
campaign, but if youre still apprehensive about getting
started, consider these points:

Your Competition Is Already Involved. Your

competitors are already involved on social media,
which means your potential social media traffic and
conversions are being poached. Dont let your
competitors reap all the benefits while you stand idly

by. If, somehow, your competition is not involved on

social media, theres even more of a reason to get
startedthe field is open.
The Sooner You Start, the Sooner You Reap the
Benefits. Social media is all about relationship
building, and it tends to grow exponentially as your
followers tell their friends, and their friends tell their
friends, and so on. The sooner you start, the sooner
youll be able to start growing that audience.
Potential Losses Are Insignificant. Realistically, you
dont have anything to lose by getting involved in social
media. The amount of time and money it takes to
create your profiles and start posting is usually
minimal, compared to other marketing channels. Just
six hours a week or a few hundred dollars is all it takes
to establish your presence.

Conclusion
The longer you wait, the more you have to lose. Social media
marketing, when done right, can lead to more customers,
more traffic, and more conversions, and its here to stay.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10benefits-of-social-media-marketing/
http://www.contentfac.com/9-reasons-social-media-marketing-should-topyour-to-do-list/
53. What is Public Relations? Give Examples.
What is Public Relations (PR)

Public relations (PR) is the way organisations, companies and individuals

communicate with the public and media. A PR specialist communicates with
the target audience directly or indirectly through media with an aim to
create and maintain a positive image and create a strong relationship with
the audience. Examples include press releases, newsletters, public
appearances, etc. as well as utilisation of the world wide web.
PR and the World of Business
The world of business is characterised by fierce competition and in order to
win new customers and retain the existing ones, the firms have to
distinguish themselves from the competition. But they also need to create
and maintain a positive public image. A PR specialist or firm helps them both
create and maintain a good reputation among both the media and the
customers by communicating in their behalf and presenting their products,
services and the overall operation in the best light possible. A positive public
image helps create a strong relationship with the customers which in turn
increases the sales.
PR Tools and Techniques
PR specialists and firms use a number of tools and techniques to boost their
clients public image and help them form a meaningful relationship with the
target audience. To achieve that, they use tools such as news releases and
statements for media, newsletters, organisation and participation at public
events conferences, conventions, awards, etc.. PR specialists of course also
utilise the Internet tools such as social media networks and blogs. Through
the mentioned tools, PR specialists give the target audience a better insight
into their clients activities and products/services as well as increase
publicity.
Who Can Work as a PR
A PR specialist is usually required to have a relevant type and level of
education such as a Bachelors degree in communications or journalism.
Proper education, however, is not enough to become a PR and much less to
become a successful PR. A PR specialist needs certain skills (they are
acquired through additional education and training), in the first place
excellent writing and verbal communication skills. But a PR specialist also
must know to work under pressure and be able to answer a variety of

questions including unpleasant ones. For example, if the client is under a

public attack, a PR specialist needs to establish a control over the situation
and protect the clients good reputation.
Burger King paying for wedding of Mr Burger and Miss King in great reactive
PR stunt
POSTED BY RICH LEIGH ON 7TH APR 2015 IN ALL, FOOD AND DRINK | 0
COMMENTS
Last week the State Journal-Register a daily paper serving Springfield,
Illinois wrote this story, highlighting an upcoming wedding:

In short, Joel Burger and Ashley King are two college sweethearts from New
Berlin, Illinois. Theyve known each other since kindergarten, been together
since fifth grade and are getting married in July.

And Burger King is now paying for the whole wedding, in one of the best
reactive PR efforts of the year, for me.
The SJ-R story exploded, leading to this point. According to this post by
Dave Bakke:
The New York Daily News posted [the original story]. The Huffington Post
reposted it. Soon I was hearing from BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail in the U.K.
and a producer from Australias #1 Radio Show, which happens to be The
Kyle and Jackie O Show. (But, then, you knew that.)
This all began innocently enough with SJ-R business editor Tim Landis. He
spotted the unique Burger-King engagement announcement and photograph
in the Chatham Clarion. He put it on my desk in case I thought it could make
a column. For my part, all I had to do was recognize it as one.
Since Ashley had already tried to reach out to the Burger King company, but
unsuccessfully, I sent an email to the companys media relations
representative. I soon heard from Alison Brod Public Relations in New York
City, the company that has the Burger King account. I sent them an email
about the wedding, they contacted the company, and Burger King took it
from there.
Which culminated Monday afternoon when Joel and Ashley got the big news
from Burger King via Skype. Ashleys dad, Vince King, was there to help
celebrate, as was Joels mom, Cindy Burger

Dove Choose Beautiful Campaign Encourages Women To Be Anything But

Average
POSTED BY INDERDEEP GILL ON 7TH APR 2015 IN BEHIND THE
CAMPAIGN, HEALTH AND BEAUTY, TOPICAL | 0 COMMENTS

Dove have some great videos on their YouTube page focussing on real
beauty.
For their latest video, Dove set up signs above doors in San Francisco,
London, Delhi, Shanghai, and Sao Paulo. One sign said beautiful and the
other said average.
They filmed a mini-documentary video of womens reactions as they
walked up to, and through the door. Anyone who looked hesitant, or who
boldly made an obvious choice to enter through one particular door, was
asked if they would like to be interviewed by the films director, Paul Dektor,
to explain their choice.
As a part of its Choose Beautiful campaign, Dove interviewed 6,400 women
of all ages around the world about their perception of beauty.
96% said they didnt see themselves as beautiful, but 80% believed every
woman has something beautiful about her. Every single man proudly walks
through the beautiful door in London.
Natasha Devon from Cosmopolitan writes that journalists were invited to go
behind-the-scenes at Westfield White City and observe the behaviour of real
shoppers as they approach the doors.

http://www.ipr.org.uk/
http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/Courses/ResourcesForCourses/PublicRe
lations/PublicRelationsWhatIsIt.html
http://prexamples.com/2015/04/dove-choose-beautiful-campaignencourages-women-to-be-anything-but-average/
http://prexamples.com/2015/04/burger-king-paying-for-wedding-of-mrburger-and-miss-king-in-great-reactive-pr-stunt/
http://prexamples.com/2015/03/audi-launch-disappearing-billboards-forthe-car-that-only-emits-water-vapour/

54. Why is Public Relations important in contemporary situation?

55. What is spin control? Give Examples.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(public_relations)
Spin (public relations)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Spin doctor" redirects here. For the rock band, see Spin Doctors.
In public relations, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing
an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor
or against some organization or public figure. While traditional public
relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, "spin" often
implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highlymanipulative tactics.[1]
Politicians are often accused by their opponents of claiming to be honest and
seek the truth while using spin tactics to manipulate public opinion. Because
of the frequent association between spin and press
conferences (especially government press conferences), the room in which
these take place is sometimes described as a spin room. A group of people
who develop spin may be referred to as "spin doctors" who engage in "spin
doctoring" for the person or group that hired them. [2]
Contents
[hide]

1 History

2 Techniques

3 Fictional spin doctors

4 See also

5 References

6 Bibliography

7 External links
History[edit]
Edward Bernays has been called the "Father of Spin". As Larry Tye describes
in his book The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and The Birth of Public
Relations, Bernays was able to help tobacco and alcohol companies use
techniques to make certain behaviors more socially acceptable in the 20thcentury United States. Tye claims that Bernays was proud of his work as a
propagandist.[3]
As information technology has increased dramatically since the end of the
20th century, commentators like Joe Trippi have advanced the theory that
modern internet activism spells the end for political spin. By providing
immediate counterpoint to every point a "spin doctor" can come up with, this
theory suggests, the omnipresence of the internet in some societies will
inevitably lead to a reduction in the effectiveness of spin. [4]
Techniques[edit]
The techniques of spin include:

Selectively presenting facts and quotes that support one's position

(cherry picking). For example, a pharmaceutical company could pick and
choose trials where their product shows a positive effect, ignoring the
unsuccessful trials.

Non-denial denial

Non-apology apology

Mistakes were made is an expression that is commonly used as a

rhetorical device, whereby a speaker acknowledges that a situation was
managed by using low-quality or inappropriate handling but seeks to
evade any direct admission or accusation of responsibility by not
specifying the person who made the mistakes. The acknowledgement of
"mistakes" is framed in an abstract sense, with no direct reference to who
made the mistakes. A less evasive construction might be along the lines
of "I made mistakes" or "John Doe made mistakes." The speaker neither
accepts personal responsibility nor accuses anyone else. The word
"mistakes" also does not imply intent.

Phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths, or avoiding the

question[5]

"Burying bad news": announcing unpopular things at a time when it is

believed that the media will focus on other news. Sometimes that other
news is supplied by deliberately announcing popular items at the same
time.

Misdirection and diversion[6]

For years businesses have used fake or misleading customer testimonials by

editing/spinning customers to reflect a much more satisfied experience than
was actually the case. In 2009 the Federal Trade Commission updated their
laws to include measures to prohibit this type of "spinning" and have been
enforcing these laws as of late. Additionally, over the past 5 to 6 years
several companies have arisen that verify the authenticity of the testimonials
businesses present on the marketing materials in an effort to convince one
to become a customer.
Another spin technique involves a delay in the release of bad news so it can
be hidden in the shadow of more important or favorable news or events. A
government department could release a controversial report on the same
day as a major sports event.

56. Which are the important aspects of Public Relations?

A career in public relations is like a roller coaster: the ups and downs are
almost always unpredictable and sudden. Aside from the dinners, parties and
exclusive events, there are many other perks to working in the industry.
You hear news first. Public relations professionals are responsible for
monitoring and disseminating news about their clients to the media,
meaning you would be the first to hear breaking news about your client or
organization.
Your hard work is visible. Whether you win a bid on a campaign or
successfully implement one, as a public relations practitioner you can see
your hard work.
Your job is never static. You wont be writing or looking at the same
material day-in and day-out. Even when youre working with only one client,
the work is guaranteed to change drastically and rapidly throughout the job.
5 underappreciated aspects of public relations
Its easy to get lost in the day-to-day grind and forget why we first got into
this business.
Sometimes it helps to step back and look at some of the best things about
what we do, and what separates our industry from the rest. Here are my top
five things I love about public relations that many people forget about:
1. We get to work with language.
Plain Language Network International
Body Language as a Secret Weapon
I love language and the study of it, so this is one of my favorite aspects of
the job that Im not sure many really appreciate. As PR pros, were writers,
too; grammar and spelling are very important, we have to know how to tell
a story, and knowing how words can affect people is crucial.
Also, PR pros have coined interesting terms. Coming up with just the right
words to describe something can be tricky, and using provocative imagery
will often cement the idea in the publics head. Think of the connotations
swirling around a controversial term like pro-life. You know someone with a
PR mind came up with that term.

2. You get to dabble in psychology.

Social Media and Psychology
The Psychology of Selling
Another enormously important aspect of what we do involves the psychology
of the average person. To really sell a product, service, or idea to someone,
you have to understand what makes him or her tick. Understanding how
different people react to situations can help you become a highly successful
PR pro.
I believe its underappreciated because a lot of us in public relations dont
want to think were manipulating people. I dont really see it as
manipulation, but rather that were using peoples psychological traits to our
advantage (if were doing it right, anyway). What we should not be doing is
participating in propaganda or fear programs.
3. You get to meet people.
Real World Interactions Lead to Better Online Results
Interview With People Who Have Interesting or Unusual Jobs
Whether you like people or not, you still have to admit the wide variety of
folks you meet in this job is unique. Besides our fellow PR proswho come
in their own crazy array of personalitiesthe clients also come in all shapes
and sizes. Im constantly amused by incredibly masculine shop owners who
live for selling scrapbooking supplies, or the tiniest old lady who sells violent
horror movies. You see that people absolutely do not fall into the molds the
world has set for them.
4. You follow the flow of change.
How to Keep Up With News Without A Lot of Time
How to Pull Off a Newsjacking
Watching the world change is another perk. Whereas some people casually
watch the news, we study it with a keen eye.
Looking out for the next big thing or trying to gauge the worlds mental state
is part of the job and can become a game. If youre left behind in world
affairs its very difficult to do your job, as you could miss a vital change and
misdirect your PR campaign.
5. You get to change the world.

What We Think We Do
PR Campaigns That Changed the World
Ok, maybe thats a bit dramatic, but with our adoption of technology and
forward-thinking strategies, we public relations pros can help influence the
future.
We have the potential to make a difference when it comes to humanity as
well. Using public relations for the greater goodand following Googles
motto of Dont be evil could only elevate our status in the public eye
from dirty propagandists to beautiful philanthropists.
Whats your favorite aspect of being a PR pro?
Mickie Kennedy is the CEO and founder of eReleases and blogs at PR Fuel.
Follow eReleases onGoogle+, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

50. How could you use social media for global outreach?
We often talk about extending the global conversation to every corner of the
world with the use of social media tools. The means to do this are manifold
and depend upon the support and implementation of local institutions. The
main impediment to this cause is the lack of awareness of the freely
available tools available to enter the global conversation and the absence of
basic communication infrastructure in the developing world. Essentially, the
digital divide is much larger in these countries than the developed countries.
However, with the proliferation of mobile communication in regions such as
the Indian Sub-Continent and Sub-Saharan Africa, internet access has
reached remote rural areas without the need of additional infrastructure like
cables and land lines. But the potential of this phenomenon is largely yet to
be harnessed.
Non-Profits are the Key
The not for profit organizations or NGOs as they are known in some parts of
the world have a wider influence on the population of the developing

countries. In some countries they contribute by sustaining a large workforce

and their development budgets frequently make up a major part of the
economy. These non-profit organizations have the capacity to use this
technology on a wider scale and, thereby, to inspire a communication
revolution among the people they serve. So when we talk about bringing the
fruit of social media to each and every person in the world, we cannot
progress much without enlisting the help of non-profits.
The digital divide
Which side of the digital divide are the non profits and NGOs? First let us
look at the developed countries. In the USA, the Overbrook Foundation had
released a reportassessing some of the foundation's human rights grantees
use of Web 2.0 tools.Some findings are:
Most of the organizations use the web more as a source of information

than as a tool for connecting with others.

Roughly half of the organizations in most cases, the larger ones

maintain blogs.
Respondents experienced a great deal of frustration in determining

which tools to use and where to turn for help.

Participants felt a generation gap with the new technology. Im always

trying to catch up to my younger staff members.

If the exposure of non-profits from developed countries to social media look
like this then imagine the state of non-profits in developing countries. They
are still in the process of incorporating to the digital age. Slowly, more and
more non-profit institutions are making their web presence felt. But their
web presence is mostly characterized by static web 1.0 websites which don't
allow for participation or interaction. They remain typical brochure sites with
nothing more than a mission statement, some advertisements, rarely
updated newsletters, a few photos, contact information, and zero
interaction.
Nepals ASMITA is a powerful advocacy organization where a small group of
female media activists are playing a pivotal role in the countrys
history. ASMITA uses many forms of media. It acts as a print magazine, a
media campaign for womens rights, a research group, a media watchdog, a

TV and radio producer and a publisher of educational literature. But what it

does not have are participatory web media tools like blogs, videos, podcasts.
More than 20,000 NGOs work in Bangladesh. The official websites of
Bangladeshs two big NGOs BRAC and Grameen have still yet to incorporate
web 2.0 applications on a visible scale.
In the era of Web 2.0, non-profits must take their online messages to a new
level. Using social media tools like blogs, podcasts, videos and collaborative
wikis they can initiate more interaction, make their work more interactive,
and can positively distribute their message. We have seen that there is
occasionally mistrusts among people regarding certain non-profits, which are
not always transparent about their activities. When communicating with
interactive social media, stakeholders and supporters can have each have
better understandings of each other and ascertain whether everything is
working properly.

51. Which are the important aspects of Social media?

52. What is SMO? How can one benefit from it?

Social media optimization (SMO) is a subset of search engine optimization
(SEO). SMO optimizes your business site by advertising through social
medial sites, blog sites, online communities, podcasts, and message boards.
SMO is accomplished through really simple syndication (RSS) feeds, video
and photo sharing, social bookmarking, blogging, and social news buttons.
The concept is to drive traffic without spending money on search engine
advertising. SMO creates links to a site by creating more visibility through
Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Squidoo, Blogger, Hubpages, Digg, or Delicious,
etc.
There are two categories of SMO methods:
(1) Social media features added to the content itself, including: RSS feeds,
social news and sharing buttons, and incorporating third-party community
functionalities, such as images and videos.

(2) Promotional activities in social media, aside from the content being
promoted, including: blogging, commenting on other blogs, participating in
discussion groups, and posting status updates on social networking profiles.
SMO is related to search engine marketing. However, it differs in several
ways. Primarily, the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search
engines, although it improves search ranking, is also a benefit of successful
SMO.
As a technique, SMO is connected to viral marketing. In other words, wordof-mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of
networking in social bookmarking, video, and photo sharing websites.
Similarly, the use of blogs achieves the same result by sharing content
through the use of RSS feeds in the blogosphere and special blog search
engines.
There are several ways in which to achieve SMO.
Getting links to your website
The popularity of your website is determined by the amounts of links that
are pulled through. An analogy to this would be the number of votes that a
political candidate receives from the public, which would demonstrate the
popularity of the candidate.
Creating inbound links
When it comes to search engine ranking, inbound links are essential to the
popularity of the site and its content. You should create links to sites and
blogs that contain links that lead back to your site and thus, increase your
online presence.
Bookmarking and tagging
Bookmarking and tagging can be accomplished more easily by employing
content features, such as buttons like add to Facebook and other
bookmarking sites. Also, you can include appropriate tags to your pages in
addition to your home page for popular bookmarking sites.
Allowing others to make use of your content
YouTube is a perfect example of this. YouTube allows you to download videos
to your site(s) in order to jazz up your content. Another way is by
syndicating your content through RSS feeds so that other people can use it

to their own advantage. The positive result of this for you is that it will drive
increased traffic to your website.
Making your content travel
Within your niche area, you can make changes to your site that will allow it
to drive your content all over the place. You can accomplish this by including
PDFs and audio and video files so that you can submit them to your list of
members and also to sites that are related to your niche market. This will
help you to create back links to your site so that your website traffic is
increased.
The good and bad of SMO
Just as with other ways of driving traffic, SMO is the victim of spamming and
link farming. Although the pure concept behind social bookmarking is to
provide links that are useful, informative, and interesting, there are many
cases of people using their own sites without paying any mind to the content
quality, which may be cheap, duplicated, and pirated. It takes away from the
web space of the bookmarking site and creates inferior content.

53. What is Public Relations? Give Examples.

54. Why is Public Relations important in contemporary situation?

55. What is spin control? Give Examples.

56. Which are the important aspects of Public Relations?

57. What does TATA company aim to achieve with social media?

58. Which are the problems which can be resolved on Social Media?
Heres a quick breakdown for each of the top social networks:

Facebook: If less than 200 people like your Page, you can
simply update your info by going to Edit Page > Update Page Info. If
your fan base exceeds 200 people, you will need to submit a request to
have your business name changed. Go to Edit Page > Update Page Info
> Name. Here are further instructions to do both.

Twitter: On Twitter you have both a username and a name.

Your username is the same thing as your Twitter handle (@username).
Your name is displayed in your bio, and alongside your photo. You can
update both of these, if needed, in your account settings. This will not
affect your existing followers, direct messages, or @replies. Here is more
information from Twitter.

LinkedIn: Only admins can change the name on a LinkedIn

Company Page. To do so, click the edit button in the top right corner of
your page. Based on forum discussions in the LinkedIn Help Center, it
looks like the update can take a few days to show up. Here is more
information from LinkedIn.

Pinterest: When logged-in you will see a pencil icon under your
bio, on your Pinterest Page. That will allow you to update your company
information in one simple step.

Google+: To update your business name on your Google+ page or

Google+ Local Page click Edit page or Edit business information (for local
pages) in the upper right hand corner of the screen.