Advertising through social networking sites.....

Hi !!! I recently joined social media marketing group on linkedin. I saw a open discussion over "Social media is..........? (Fill in the blank)". Here is what I say:

Social Media may give reach to mass audience but it makes difficult for business to pull right kind of people to turn them into customers compare to other media. Other media allow you to reach targetted audience, say a newpaper like Economic Times will only interest business news readers but when you create a company profile on facebook you reach mass audience i.e. entire pool of facebook users. When you put thoughts or advertisements in newspaper, it might reach 1 Lakh people and may interest 5000 people (5%). But on facebook, it will reach approx 30 crores and will interest 500000 (0.2%). Finding customers through social media is like finding water in desert.

But there are still some benefit of social media:

• No. of audience is massive.
• They are interactive. You can reply back and ask your questions to the advertiser like in Orkut profile of a company you can scrap them or start a discussion for review in a community. They are not forcible like television, newspaper or pamphlates, where you have to make a judgement with limited amount of information.
• They do not bother audience to share their bandwidth like tele-calling, door selling. Ultimately, a person will only log-in when he intend to do so.
• Most of them are for free.

It is up to business to decide their approach how they want to use it. I believe we can not be dependent on social media for marketing but it is the best for creating awareness.

Where is Customer Satisfaction??

Hi, How are you people? Me?? I am so-so here. Why? The incident goes like this.....happened some days back, my day started in a very strange way.

To start lets go one day back, after a tiresome day at office I came home at 9:30 pm and went to bed 11:30. After a short night I woke up 'exactly' at 05:30 in the morning and got ready for my new hobby 'Swimming'. As usual, my roomie who rolled up with me for the quaterly package (and could not complete his three weeks at the end..:) shut his alarm and waved me babye putting pillow over his head. True to my committment, I drove all the way to pool, took shower and entered the pool.....
Then,

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As soon as I dipped and reached corner of the pool the Chaukidar comes to me and tells me that my subscription is over. ( : o ) was my reaction that I still have 20 more days to go. I tried to explain him but no change (this no change was quite expected by me since he does not understand me nor I do to him, please refer my previous post). Finally, after certain exchange of arguments fellow convinced me to come out of water. You already know after coming out of pool and change, it is impossilble to go back again. I met the caretaker who also happens to be the owner of the place and explained him. He was even beyond, he was not convinced by my explanation of count of months and blindly told me you had subscribed in April once month earlier than I actually did. I forced and made him bring register which had registeration details. The chaukidar was vanished by then, I saw him standing away from us.

BULLSHIT!!!

I subscribed in May and somebody counted May 17th to Jul 16th as three months (you can count they are actually two) and this peon just without consulting his seniors argued & did something obnoxious. Finally, caretaker agreed and politely asked something which I couldn't get but meant 'Is your swimming over'& 'you can go back in' and I gave a sarcastic smile & could only say "This guy just pulled me out man". Over this, he reluctantly said sorry and I left for my routine hoping this he will not stop me till last day of subscription. This is very personal but let me tell you one more part of it when I joined he made me pay one day's fee extra since I was paying him for quarterly package a day after.

Point is Is this what you called as customer satisfaction? Unbelievable. Where business are ready to pull customer through whatever it takes attitude, there are still people who are very rigid and take supplier-customer relationship as just exchange of currency and goods. As a part of service this would have been well avoided by peon showing me the register after my dip and I could have clarified or he would have brought caretaker to talk to me. But I have seen this quite often that customer experience is taken for granted here.

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Later in the evening, when I went in reliance communications shop it was around 30x18 sq feet. It had three executives on the counter. Generally, when you enter brand shops you are greeted by shopkeeper. Here, nobody bothered to look at me. I asked one lady there to tell me about the broadband scheme she directed me to a pamphlate kept apart. I went through it and had some questions I was given a response whatever is written is the only info available. You read yourself !!!

:)

Now tell me, I was just wondering...with this speed..... when they will reach customer delight???

Crowded solitude....

Hi. You must be wondering what is crowded solitude, both the terms sound quite contrary but that is how it is: My present situation. In school, I have learnt India is a country of multiple culture, religions bla bla bla. After coming to this place I am realising this. When nobody understands you, your language, your choices etc. you become a foreigner at your own place. People who have not come here, this is for you: If you want to experience visiting abroad without having passport or visa trust me this is the place :)

NO OFFENCE to localites, they are lovely. But there is something called as acceptance in default culture of humanity, which is to accept others as they are, if not to change yourself but to accept. I feel real stupid when someone says we don't want to change our culture. Hello!!! Wake up, culture is a like a flowing river you can put blockages but it is going to show its effects somewhere else.

I personally believe age old orthodox beliefs can be sacrificed to take the new rides and explore new arenas.

What about you?