Thoughts on Social Media

We’re looking out for someone with good communication skills, top-notch writing skills, creativity and lots of enthusiasm to work as an intern in the social media and digital marketing space.

We’ve answered some FAQs about the position below:

What will I do at Dot Now?

As an intern, you will be responsible for researching and writing about Social Media on our blog. You may also handle Facebook pages, Twitter handles and online Ad campaigns for us.

What skills do I need to have?

Are you excited about brands on Facebook? Do you love to Tweet? Can you write delightful headlines and witty one-liners? Are you a writer with an informed opinion? If you’ve answered yes for any of these questions, then you will love our summer internship.

How long will the internship be?

The internship period is for a minimum of 6 weeks though we would prefer it if you could work with us for 8 weeks or longer.

How can I apply?

Please send your resume to deepti@dotnow.in and mark a copy to sashank@dotnow.in

About Dot Now Social

Dot Now Social is a digital marketing agency that provides services in the social media and internet marketing space. To know more please visit www.dotnow.in

www.facebook.com/dotnow

www.twitter.com/dotnow

We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Address:

Dot Now Social

Plot No. 48, Inside Kamaan

Road No. 12, Banjara Hills,

Hyderabad

Alec Ross, senior advisor on innovation and technology at the US department of State had said- “One of the greatest benefits of social media for government’s relationship with citizens is the way in which it helps strengthen democracy. “At the core of democracy is citizen participation. The more our citizens are using social media for the purpose of electioneering, communicating with government and engaging, the more robust it makes our democracy”

Keeping this in mind, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (www.fes-india.org) MICCI (www.micci.in), COVA (www.covanetwork.org) & Dot Now Social (www.dotnow.in) have come together to do a 2 day conference on the Role of Social Media in Democracy on March 24 & 25.

The conference should ideally be attended by social entrepreneurs, social media enthusiasts and pros, media persons, change-makers, students and active citizens

For the detailed itinerary, kindly go here

P.S: To follow the proceedings from the comfort of your home/office, kindly follow #sm4d on Twitter. Thanks

Dear Friends,

As we look back on a year filled with surprises, adventures, major developments, unexpected challenges, and enormous gratifications, we are keenly aware we wouldn’t be here without you, our clients, proteges, well wishers,  partners, supporters and friends.

Thank you for helping us learn and grow.

Here’s looking  forward to a wonderful and joyous 2012 together!

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.”
~Hal Borlan”

Cheers from all of us at Dot Now Social

Deep Listening was the topic for the in-house Learning session held at office, last Saturday. We went about deconstructing it and arrived at some very interesting inferences.

First, we shared each other’s individual experiences when it came to deep listening and observed what difference it had made in that particular context. It’s sincere application made a positive impact while its non-application tended to made things worse.

When we have one-on-one conversations with our peers, family members and others, we often are put into situations where we have to do the listening part or to put it in simpler words- hear out somebody’s story. At this point of time, we often find ourselves getting distracted due to some random reason or unable to pay concentration to what the other person has to say. Deep Listening is the approach we’ve gotta take!

We further discussed on the topic and here are the inferences from the same.

• For Deep Listening to be successful, we’ve got to ask questions to get clarifications and get more info.
• We’ve got to pay utmost attention to Facts in the story, Feelings at every level and the Intent of the speaker in that context.
• There is also a need to give feedback/acknowledgement, the most critical element of effective communication, so that the other person feels ‘being listening to’. This gives him/her the ability to proceed further with their story in an uncomplicated manner
• Deep listening more often than not results in progress/positive change or shift from the previous state.
• We need to listen to the other person without any preconceived notions and an empty mind. This will help us to analyze the other person’s situation better.
• While deep listening, we’ve also got to make sure that we are non-judgmental and don’t come to any conclusions during the conversation.
• At no point of time should the speaker be sympathized with, the listener’s job is to empathize with them.
• Also, we should remember that deep listening is really about understanding the context of the speaker’s story and not about coming to an agreement with it.
• And lastly, deep listening is all about patience and willingness to hold in the heart.

Post the deep listening phase comes action time, when we need to reply to the speaker and express what we feel about the whole thing.

• Rephrase the account and narrate it to the speaker
• Name that feeling
• State the Intention

“The choice to Listen, is the choice to Love!” – Kiran Gulrajani

As we all know, Social CRM is the primary tool for organizations to engage with customers. There are some industries that need Social CRM more than others. One such industry is Hospitality.

In this blog post, you can expect answers to the following queries:

• What is the big deal with Social CRM in the Hospitality industry?
• Is Social CRM really effective and efficient?
• Who is doing it right?
• What kind of problems you might be facing when it comes to Social CRM?
• How to implement a Social CRM strategy in 7 steps?

The Hospitality industry offers a huge potential for Social CRM. The Hospitality industry thrives on two basic factors- Segmentation & Uniqueness. Apart from the regular promises of customer satisfaction, it is the Identity or rather the personality of the hotel that really matters. And not to forget the Stand-out factor, that every hotel has on offering, as compared to its competitors. All these factors contribute towards the building of trust and customer loyalty, and eventually prolonged profitability.

Most hotels spend heavily towards enhancing customer experiences through various marketing ploys. They offer loyalty programs and other exclusive benefits to capture the customer’s attention. But, these promotions tend to become heavy on their pockets. Hence, including Social CRM mechanism in their framework will see a significant cut-down in their costs and also lessen the outreach efforts thanks to social media’s targeted reach resulting in a win-win situation.

Taking a cue from other verticals, social media is slowly but steadily being employed by players from the Hospitality industry. The InterContinental Group of Hotels was one of the first players in this field, to have successfully adopted social media to boost sales. Hotel Westin Mindspace, Hyderabad has also started really well. But, by far the best that I’ve seen is Hotel Royal Plaza on Scotts, Singapore. It seems to be doing everything right.

As we know, the Hospitality industry is heavily dependent on Word-of-Mouth. It can benefit immensely from Social CRM which is nothing but an electronic version of Word-of-Mouth. Any amount of negative feedback from customers can act as a dampener and affect sales, and the brand itself.

Another area of concern in this industry is the lack of qualified social media personnel with Hotel management background. As per a recent research, some hotels have already started including knowledge of social media as a requirement into entry-level job roles, while most hotels have simply engaged a social media agency to carry out the task and rely on them to implement effective social media marketing strategies and Social CRM to manage guest reviews, measure results, engage and communicate effectively with potential customers through social media platforms and blogs.

Also, its important to understand that Social CRM is an extension of the traditional CRM concept of an organization

I’m also listing down a couple of steps to implement Social CRM

1. Listen to what people are talking about your brand.
2. Understand the social graph of your customers and see where they’re coming from.
3. Try to identify your most frequent/best customers from the graph and see if they’re active on Social media.
4. Set your goals and objectives from the above steps.
5. Establish processes and requirements to meet those objectives.
6. Put together a Social media plan based on your requirements and processes.
7. Review and execute. Repeat these steps time and again.

The key is really to listen to your customers and see how best you can use Social CRM in your setup.

Do share with us your experiences with respect to Social CRM & Social Media in this industry. Thanks

References:

• · Towards Social CRM in Travel & Hospitality, Congnizant 20-20 Insights, 2011
• 10 Steps to start implementing Social CRM, Hotel Marketing Argentina, 2011
• Airlines, Travel And Hospitality, Overtone

Fashion has been THE entity that has been consistently reinventing itself from time to time, region to region, person to person and so on…

People of every era or region have got their own signature fashion statement and it may be in the form of clothing, accessories or footwear.

It so happens in the Fashion industry worldwide that the fabric is manufactured in some country (for cost effectiveness), designed in another country and eventually sold in another country. The fashion industry has long been one of the largest employers globally, especially in the United States.

When it comes to the ‘Big Players’ in the Fashion industry, it’s not much of a problem to lure their audience to stores. But for small time retailers and local designers, its really an uphill task to reach out to their audience. There is no clear marketing channel for their success. For some, it may be the location of their boutiques and for some its simply word-of-mouth.

This is where Social Media can play a stellar role! Be it haute couture patrons or bargain shoppers, social media can cater to both.

The Social CRM factor, when plugged-in to this boutique work-flow can make life much easier for the local designers. It brings in the element of ‘Engagement’ into the picture, where consumers-old and new can voice their opinions, discuss the latest trends, share their feedback(good/bad) and general experiences with the store and it’s offerings on social media platforms. Listening to these interactions can help the designers work better to suit their customer’s requirements.

The retailers can take to Blogging and put up their latest range on display (with a restricted login ofcourse, so that their designs remain intact!). Facebook page and a Twitter account can be used to divert traffic to this blog. Have conversations over that and give out tips to their followers. This art of creating a tribe and facilitating a continuous flow of conversation is going to make a huge difference to these boutiques.

Special deals, promotional sales may also be promoted on social media platforms. The designers wouldn’t have to shell out big bucks for announcing their latest range to the world. All they need is a smart strategy to get the sales moving.

Fashion retailers with a youth oriented target audience are currently leading the social media show globally. In UK, TopShop is one of the leading contenders in this race. In India however, the trend is yet to catch up.

eDigitalResearch states that Facebook remains the most trusted site for fashion vendors to engage with their customers.

The Social CRM factor can thus accomplish the main objective of every Fashion Retailer/Designer, i.e to convert buyers into evangelists.