Social Media is about your audience – not your consumers and definitely not about you or what you think
You want to go to town with tall unsubstantiated claims about your virility? Buy a billboard. Use traditional media. SM is not for you. Nobody gives a damn. Move on and take that picture of your trophy model with silicone implants with you.
B2B and B2C are passé Think P2P – people to people
Forget the hyperbole. Dump the management speak. Talk real. Engage people in conversations that interest them. They don’t owe you their existence, you owe yours to them
You don’t need 10000 likes you need 100 new customers .period
It’s not about “bought” likes and “fake” fans, It’s about earning “real” followers. People, who believe in your stories. People, who recommend you and your products to their circle of friends. For, often in the din that we create in the SM, we ensure that the ultimate message is lost – a real case of missing the trees for the woods.
It’s not survival of the fittest anymore but all about survival of the fastest
In a wired world order everybody is just a post away and it is no longer that important to know who to contact or where, but how the medium has become the message and the early bird’s tweet gets the worm.
Look after your audience its far cheaper to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one
History is replete with examples of marauding armies biting the dust for leaving the home front vulnerable. Go out and conquer, but first ensure that your existing assets – your customers – are secure and taken good care of. Else what you win abroad will be offset by the losses at home.
Social Media is so much like teenage Sex: everyone wants to do it but hardly anybody knows how to do it right
It’s the new transcendental meditation offering everything from instant nirvana to karmic cures. And naturally charlatans are having a field day. Before it boils down to “Sexy Sadie what have you done”, it will make sense to do the “Love me do”
Social Media is also like Teenage Sex because when it is done people are surprised why it wasn’t better
It’s a lot like “budding geniuses” growing up into “blooming idiots” as unnatural and downright unrealistic expectations run amok. With self styled gurus promising gratification of the nth kind in a jiffy that too virtually gratis, confounding the confusion
Social Media is not a onetime stunt: it’s more like blood, sweat and tears 24X7. 365 days.
It’s not about one fell sweep, but more about the small consistent chipping away at the base. It takes belief, commitment and a desire to keep on, even while the fruits are not immediately visible.
Be Honest. Be Humble. Social Media, like Life, does not particularly like the vainglorious
The greatest thing about the medium is its democratic core. The meek have finally inherited the world and be prepared to be decimated if you still think that you can replace substance with empty sound
If your content doesn’t work on a handheld it doesn’t count
If the six shooter won the Wild West the new AK47 is the smart phone and if you are not there where it counts that too equipped to fire short, lethal blasts with deadly accuracy you are dead. And you’ve gotta be the fastest draw to boot!
You are not in control of your brand anymore your fans are
The biggest shift that has happened, as the onus has moved from traditional advertising to social media, is in that the entire process of communication – the medium and the message – has become collaborative from being didactic. You cannot sermonise from the top of the Mount of Sinai no more as the world has moved on from edicts etched on clay tablets to conversations on tablets and smart phones
You need a purpose bigger than yourself to succeed. There are no shortcuts on the Infobahn
We are yet to fully comprehend the vastness – the extent and the depth – of the net in general and social media in particular. It is much bigger than the sum total of the parochial and certainly more colossal than petty men trying to peddle their wares. And it has the terrible habit of separating the men from the boys to cap it all.
People share emotions they don’t share facts. Connect emotionally
People populate the Social Space to kill time,to entertain themselves. They are not ducks that you can take shots at. If you have to grab their attention you better give them what they want, in a manner they relate to and make sure it is compelling. Nobody wants your regurgitated sales pitch and least of all, your hype. Learn how to communicate.
The consumer is not a moron she is your wife. Ogilvy said it about advertising, its true for SM as well
Don’t take the consumer for granted, if content is the queen of social media, remember the consumer is still the king
Fans and Likes, like Flattery can be bought, love like respect has to be earned in SM.
Social media is not a packet of instant noodles that can be bought off the shelf. It is more like caviar and champagne – not only does it take long to prepare the delicacies but also involves the often arduous act of acquiring the taste. Sorry no shortcuts here either.
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