If politicians went online

While Indian political parties did experiment with the digital medium in the 15^th Lok Sabha elections, it would be interesting if the momentum was continued to establish a conversation with the people.

Websites like http://india.gov.in , http://goidirectory.nic.in/ and http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ provide some static information, however, web 2.0 offers many more opportunities for politicians and leaders to leverage.

Spread awareness:

Leaders can use Blogs / websites and microsites to communicate their missions/opinions and spread the sentiment to citizens. A lot of times the Government makes efforts which are not communicated to people at large (I, for example, did not know of all the helplines available to women for eve-teasing). Channels like you tube, social networking sites and blogs can be used to spread awareness among the youth of today about all the efforts being made.

Establish conversations to get feedback:

Needless to say, web 2.0 will prove to garner tremendous feedback from people. If all the responses are judiciously managed (clubbed under different heads and forwarded to the concerned people in the Govt, who will take the necessary action), not only will it establish a conversation with people, but will be an excellent tool for PR of the politician / political party. We all know, conversations and positive feedback on the internet can work wonders for a brand, and I see no reason why it won’t work in this case.

Garner participation:

When I’m online reading, for example, a politicians’ initiative on safety for women, and I come across comments from 5 women who have benefited from it, it will instantly make me appreciate the efforts and ensure I vote for this candidate the next time. If there is a mechanism provided online, where I can get information & register for volunteering, I would love to participate. If I can forward the initiative to a friend, I would instantly forward it to all my friends and get more participation for the effort.

Besides spreading awareness, establishing conversations and garnering participation, a lot more can be done online. Websites to encourage small scale trade, with a platform for people to interact (for example, if I want to establish a small scale industry, I could simply log on to the relevant site and download the list of vendors with their contact information).

I am sure there are 100s of ways in which the digital medium can be leveraged… But I’ll stop at just this for now.

Democracy going digital in India

The 15th Lok Sabha elections had almost 40% voters under the age cap of 35 yrs. With the rising use of internet and mobile phones across India, a majority of the voters this time were hooked on to these digital media to not only gather information on the constituencies & candidates, but also to express their opinions and hold a dialogue with fellow voters and political parties. I read somewhere that about 4 million unique users searched the net for information on politics, politicians and elections in April.

Digital tools like bulk-calling, tele-surveys, videos on youtube, websites focussed on elections and the likes were initiated by political parties, whereas, online portals with information and discussion forums, online forms to help you register for voting came into existence to get to the young Indian voter.

A few interactive tools used by political parties were:

The SuperCaller: A digital tool used to make multiple phone calls a day to inform voters was used by Congress (Jyotiraditya Scindia in Guna in Madhya Pradesh) and BJD candidates in Orissa.

The ElectionTracker: A web-based service that crawls the net, aggregates information on parties and politicians, and provides a meaningful analysis of the data.

Videos of BJP and Congress were also floated on youtube

Some of the interactive programs which came into existence were:

Tata Tea’s Jaago Re campaign which not only educated & encouraged people to vote, but also provided a platform for people to register to vote, get updates on their voter registration status and get voting & election related news from their respective areas.

Lifeblob.com, (a website that runs a social timeline service – a form of digital diary that maps the social media that subscribers share on to a timeline), created timelines for L.K.Advani & Narendra Modi.

Google India Election Centre, where non-government agencies collaborated with Google to upload data that would help voters find their constituencies online by keying in their address and access information about the current MP and candidates.

Well, that’s the start of democracy going the digital way in India :)

Blind blasts!

Internet marketing, in some organisations is looked at as just e-mailer blasts to different databases to get an instant sale for your products. And this could be because marketing on the internet is looked as something which is catching on, so while the organisation is pumping money on hoardings and publications and TVC and all the jazz, well, let’s just do something on the internet, cause everyone is, and see how it goes.

What most marketers miss is that internet marketing is not just about sending e-mail blasts. Since there aren’t many valid good databases around, the same set of e-mail ids keep on getting e-mailers from different sources. And very soon, as expected, the open rates drop (more and more people recognise these mails as spam, even though database owners market them as ‘promotional material’ meant to benefit the users..).
So in a nutshell, how ever much you space your mailers – if you’re sending it to same databases over and over again, the open rates will drop, response rates will (obviously drop) and so will the ROI per order.

So what’s the solution?

A comprehensive online marketing strategy as I understand it.
This should include the long and short term objectives, and then create activities around these to achieve the desired results.
And e-mail blasts should be just one activity, sent to extremely select group of people who have opted in to receive these mailers.

TV channels on your mobile phones

I am sure everyone knows, but for those who would like to brush up – Mobile VAS are the Value Added Services which are provided to the subscriber / users (people who use the cell phones, like you and I) by service providers (like Airtel / Vodafone etc).

There’s a lot of buzz in the industry around VAS cause it is supposed to be all about Mobile 2.0, with customized services & data, flexibility to book travel tickets on the move, user generated content (Reliance has mobile blogging) and is as of now dominated with the ABC of Astrology, Bollywood and Cricket.

While content providers are wondering how to market services through SMSs, gaming, searches on the mobile net, tiny blinking banners & small tickers running across the screen etc, Mobile TV via MTNL was launched in Delhi.

“We have tied up with a technology partner, who is carrying out the field trials. We would provide 21 channels,” MTNL Executive Director J Gopal said.

From what I have read - The handsets must be compatible with Symbian operating system, the phones must have at least 2MB of memory and have the Real Player application.

Whoa! Doesn’t that sound fun?!

I mean, next time we’re going out for dinner and the aunty wants to watch whatever happened to Tulsi when she slapped her 5th husband with tears in her eyes, all she has to do is look into her cell!
Same pinch if Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab are battling away while you’re stuck in a traffic jam on the way back home.

I wonder if cell phones will be made with a tiny CD drive or of we could just plug in a pen drive and watch a movie on the cell. Or are they already making such phones?!

Online marketing's due in the entire marketing scheme...

In the midst of changing times where old age marketing is the new age "conversation" between people of internetworks and intranetworks,
when blogging as a marketing tool has come and gone, where widgets and the likes are picking up pace,
where social networking is the new bandwagon (which everyone seems to be wanting to be a part of),
SEOs are already being discouraged by some due to google holes and SEM is getting more and more contextual with each click, Virals have done the rounds ages back (with some tongue in the cheek humor), and marketers are finding newer ways to market their products and fit the communication into tiny screens of mobile phones.

How important is digital marketing? Is it worth spending money on it? After all, how many netizens log on to blogs / read SEM ads / understand widgets / log on to the net on their mobiles and search for information?

Just inviting comments on what should be the place / role of online marketing in the entire marketing scheme of organizations...

Dilbert

Adding the Dilbert comic strip to the blog...

Workplace Goof Ups! :)

Here are some actual bloopers from interviews that we took:

• Me (to the guy being interviewed): would you want to throw the chewing gum for this round of interview? Interviewee: Nope… It still has some flavor left

Workplace goof ups:

• In a conference being held to understand why a certain process took awfully long, my colleague explains: “The server to explode images was down”
• A friend thought she was chatting online with me n went on and on about this new guy @ work who she had a crush on… a little while later – the guy gets up and asks – “who is sending these weird messages to me on IM?” She didn’t realize she was messaging him and not me! She sunk into her chair and didn’t look up for what seemed like a whole day!

:) Will be posting in some more in a while...

Ciao!