Twitter - Connected for a Reason

Everybody understands the reason for Twitter marketing. There is a fear that if you are not in twitter, you may loose a huge segment of people. Come on, before buying any statement like that, find out if your target market is using twitter or not!

But yes, if you want to develop a people centric business, you must use social networks like Twitter or FaceBook. These are actually a way to deploy the human face of your business. In one word, identify the reason to network.

By the way, I am Doubts at Twitter

In this post, I will talk about social media marketing via twitter. An overused topic – I know – let’s finds out if I can add some insights or not.

The most common way of twitter marketing is following as many people as possible and waiting them to follow you. You will often see that YourFriend1245 (with 1 follower and 5231 following and 0 tweets) is following you.

Do you even care to visit the profile of that person! Leave alone following…!

So what is the value of following in bulk??

Bees attract bees – once the number of followers take over the number of following, there are high chances of more people following you. Some people like to put it on auto pilot and follow as many people as they can.

And as, now you can group people in different lists, I will definitely see that more people are following more people and keeping a locked list of people they want to follow by heart. These people have a reason to stay connected.

If you are into relationship marketing, play according to the rule... Here are some real people trying to communicate in real words... (80% task of Kolkata Blogger’s Meet was done via Twitter – including getting sponsor).

Things you should not do in Twitter:

• Do not spam. Though you have 1000 followers, is there anyone really reading or acting on your updates? If the answer is no, what is the actual value of having 1000 followers?
• Keeping connected to the right people is the key – if necessary, create a list of people you must follow regularly and follow them.
• Find a way to add value – yapp; this is the only way to get some value out of the social networks. For example, think about @GuyKawasaki channel (yapp, a channel). What he does is he follows everyone who follows him. And how does it add value? That channel constantly tweets interesting links (often retweets them after 12 hrs). Is he doing a voluntary promotional job? Some people may not notice that the target page routes via his blog or Alltop. If you do not get enough information everyday, register to services like Smart Brief - they will keep sending story updates on your industry to tweet and pretend to be an expert. (nice business – making people pretend expert)
• Blog update announcer: Think about @smashingmag. They do not use Twitter as a blog update announcer alone. They promote many other good blogs too.
• Promote others to get promoted: Self explanatory but do not get that identity of a mindless follower.
• People ignore clusters so there are high chances that they will start ignoring you too. Identify the connectors and treat them well – develop a relationship. These people will eventually create the buzz for you.

What are your suggestions?
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Kolkata Blogger’s Meet 2009 was rocking

How do I share my experiences at Kolkata blogger’s meet 2009… thrilled, excited, overwhelmed…!!! Falling short of words… I have no words to express my gratitude to Kolkata Bloggers for making it successful (am I right to call it successful?)… Kolkata rocks… You rock … Please add some more words to it… I am really falling short of words… Please help me to connect the dots… … … … … …

I was exhausted but could not sleep last night… I was feeling somewhat empty (hey moms, do you feel the same when you give birth to a baby?)… Shimul said we have lots more to do… And last night I was sure that Kolkata is jamming, living and breathing – online and offline… And we can do whatever we wish. (Who the hell wants to be politically correct!!! we can do whatever we wish)

I was sure that all the half day leaves from office, all the meetings and all the closed doors and cold calls, >3 hrs/day sleep, empty moneybags were worth it. I wish I could do more.

Whom do I thank? I am simply indebted to everyone (I mean - everyone) – those who came and also those who could not make it but helped us to create the buzz in Kolkata. I felt like saying – I could see a new religion in Kolkata, a new community – blog and bloggers.

Whom do I thank? Aji Issac Mathew, Abhishek Rungta, Saptarshi (he met his childhood friend in the meet), Arun Agrawal, Vikas Kedia? And how do I dare to thank them for adding such great content in the meet?

How do I dare to thank Soham Pal (was not well but made it and still waited patiently for his turn) or Arijit (could not make it to the meet and mailed me) – the two youngest bloggers in the block. I asked myself – are we ready to give them proper support? Are we ready to welcome our next generation? Are we doing enough to make web a better place for them?

How do I dare to thank Fusion Charts or Mitesh Ashar?

How do I dare to thank Anirban, Yogesh, Rahul Bharadwaj, Bijay Rungta, Rajesh Rana, Shirsendu Sengupta, Pallavi Banerjee, Anand Kedia, Manoj Jain, Arjun Ghosh, Ekta Khetan, leon, Debleena (Our Twitter agent), Ranjan Upadhdhay, Amit Kejriwal, Shyama Kant Suruchi Gupta and soooooo many other people…

How do I dare to thank Navin (CCD) and all the people working there for their GREAT support? How do I thank Tata Photon for providing free internet connection? And how can I even imagine of thanking Mr. Abhishek Rungta for his great support?

The list will go on and on and on… There is no stopping… I wish I could interact with more people but had been very busy in anchoring and other stuff... Next time, I will be there with you guys only with you… By the way, how was my performance as an anchor?

We learnt a lot of things and next time we (you are included) will come up with a bigger and better show in Kolkata – Lets map Kolkata In the web. And NOW I believe we can do that...

I am proud to be Kolkatan – proud to be a blogger – proud to have soooooo many friends – online and offline. Thanks guys – we have lots of works to do.

Image by Anirban Saha
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Ideas to take WebReps Forward

Kolkata Blogger's Meet '09 8th August Sector V Saltlake

WebReps is an open platform. And we are taking every possible measure to keep this open – in every possible way. The only thing that we may request is - do not take the meet as a gathering alone. We can do a lot and get much more than links or coffee.

Just to start the conversation, here are 2 ideas from my side on how to move forward with the meet.

1. Helping Non-profit organization in web setup as a Non-profit: We can create a group of web helpers. The group will meet once in every month (may be first Sunday) at a distinct place (???) and will work with NGOs in their web ventures for FREE (if interested, NGOs may sponsor tea or coffee – nothing more :). This will help Indian Web Industries to gather more web ventures as NGOs are very active in their own field and we can connect to a lot of people from different sectors. The group must decide the terms and conditions...
2. Web Speakers or Webby: This group will act like spokespersons of Indian web industry and may be a privileged group. They will be open to invitations from different seminars, meets, schools, colleges etc. to speak about web and web developments. They must work together to create such opportunities in Kolkata and different other parts of India. Their first task may be to spread the idea virus.

These are my personal ideas and do not represent ideas from WebReps. We can follow any or both the ideas if you support them…

And, there is a request from WebReps: Come up with your ideas: write a blog post or send an email... Do not forget that there is a "Best Idea Award" awaiting you at the Blogger’s Meet.
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Moving with Kolkata Blogger's Meet – Some Great Experiences

Kolkata Blogger's Meet '09 8th August Sector V Saltlake

The days are exciting. Almost everyday we are interacting with a new person – discussing different issues – stumbling and again looking for new avenues – going back to basics every time, hijacking time and dreaming. More importantly, dreaming together and working hard to achieve them. I am lucky to have people like Anirudh, Shimul and Saikat travelling in the same boat.

Kolkata Blogger's Meet 2009 wallpaper:

Click on the image to download

The most exciting part is meeting new people – online and offline. I don't think it would have been possible otherwise or would have taken long (life is too short to postpone things). Among all, I would specifically mention a few names: Abhishek Rungta, Shamasis Bhattacharya, Arjun Ghosh, Navin and Rohit (CCD) – you guys are great and Kolkata is lucky to have people like you. And we could have more people like them (read the comments).

However, one interesting thing happened. We are looking for different partnerships to organize the Blogger’s Meet in best possible way. In the process we talked to marketing and production managers of a company (say, company X). We offered them what we could do to reduce the cost (even free services). But they said that production and marketing are two different sectors and they cannot interfere in each other’s domain. They asked us to deal with them separately. Wow! I asked them "But, both the wings are working for the same company and to promote the same product! Isn’t it?"... They said "we are better that way"...

The question is can any company sustain if even at the management level they keep things like production and marketing apart? No idea...

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Kolkata Bloggers Meet 09 – Join us or let us join you

Kolkata Blogger's Meet '09 8th August Sector V Saltlake

Are you a blogger from Kolkata or are you thinking about becoming a blogger or a webby? Join us at Kolkata Blogger’s meet ’09 on 8th August 2009 at CCD; Saltlake Sector 5; Kolkata. Some of the best speakers from Kolkata and other parts of India along with bloggers will be there to welcome you. More details here and enrol here.

This is just a beginning. It will not be like one night stand. We are planning to take the initiative further. For example, we may think about monthly web camps where we can help different non profit organization in web set up. This is just a suggestion. The best thing about WebReps is that things are open (even the website is wiki based). The people at the meet will decide on what we can do to take this initiative further.

If there are many sustainable proposals, we may even divide into separate groups and independently take charge of different initiatives. The rule is simple – We must develop Indian Web Industry. And this requires mass participation where the end users can satisfy a need. Orkut is not the end. Helping non-profit organizations may just be a beginning [another reason is that they are very active in their sphere :)] and we can spread in different directions.

Write your suggestions on what we can do to take this initiative forward. Did you know that the best idea will win the “Best Idea Award” in the meet?

So, get ready – let’s do something. And do not forget to follow Webreps@Twitter for latest updates on the meet.


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