After Social Networking.. Here comes Social Marketing and Recruiting!
Since the rise of Social Networks (particularly Orkut) in India everyone and i mean everyone is looking at posible ways to leverage this social networking phenomenon to gain benefit in one way or the other. So If the social bug has bitten india really hard so has the bug to use these networks for marketing.
SOCIAL MARKETING: Though the marketing on orkut and other social networks earlier was amateurish (spamming doesn’t get you anywhere!!) now it seems marketers are more interested in knowing the "right" way of social media marketing.
As this article mentions brand marketers have started realising the opportunity in communities by launching their own brand communities so be it the ever so marketed Sunsilkgangofgirls or whispers beingirl.co.in or ponds i-blushed.com or MTV India’s effort at using personalisation at my.mtvindia.com.
Marketers seem to be realising the value of engagement vs push/spam/banner advertising. And this engagement isn’t only related to Marketers launching brand sites it also moves on to sponsoring online spaces where its target audience is engaged and also being present on those platforms. For example xbhp.com a bikers community which was started as an individual forum was sponsored by castrol at an early stage. Besides for sponsored communities one also sees a great use of these social networks with respect to creating groups of employees and fans to evagelize ones brand.
Similar sentiment is echoed by Naveen Varshneya Founder & CEO, Mobile Mantra AG in this article where he says that it is the ‘DEATH OF BRANDS AND RISE OF COMMUNITIES’. He also feels that ‘digital advertising agencies need to invest in building digital communities and bring brands to operate and engage these audiences.’
I couldn’t agree more with Mr.Naveens statement but i feel digital agencies aren’t equipped to create powerful longterm communities as their model has always been advertising which looks at short term buzz and push marketing. I think specialised niche social media marketing and engagement companies which understand web 2.0 strategy are much better positioned to create successful communities.
SOCIAL RECRUITING: Social Networking isn’t only attracting the marketers it is also attracting the HR managers and recruiters who have had enough of sifting and sorting through millions of resumes. Social netwoking & business networking are fast becoming hunting grounds for recruits. I can say from personal experience as both WATBloggers from WATBlog and WATConsultants for WATConsult were hired through the social recruiting way due to two reasons a) I did not have money to pay for naukri.com b) I wanted social media savvy people and the best way was to find them on these sites.
And i guess the trend is just catching on to recruiters as well as Gauri Sarin of Approach Talent Solutions states that “Searching for the right person for a job is always a challenge, So there is a rising trend among the companies and recruitment agencies to use social networking sites to look for the right person,”
Recently even techtribe which is techie social network launched job referrals for its users and is also giving an iphone as a freebie to attract more visitors.
According to me Blogs especially corporate blogs can be a powerful way of attracting like minded and knowledgeable talent that understands your business and can connect and participate in the conversation with you. But unfortunately very few indian companies have exercised the blogging option to hire prospective employees.
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