Yahoo Acquires Tumblr

Yahoo! has announced that it has decided to acquire Tumblr. The official press release about the acquisition has been released by Yahoo. Approximately for $1.1 billion, substantially all of which will be paid in cash. In the release, Yahoo promises not to screw up & will be operated independently as a separate business. David Karp will remain as the CEO of Tumblr.

Yahoo’s corporate blog has been moved to Tumblr & this is a great sign of Yahoo showing its trust in tumblr. Marissa Mayer has also announced the same on her Tumblr blog. Facebook last year purchased Instagram & now Yahoo going ahead with Tumblr. There are more than 100 million blogs on the site & more than 100 million users across the world. There are many challenges for yahoo as well like monetizing revenues from Tumblr, making the mobile tumblr more popular & others.

Related articles

• Yahoo acquires Tumblr in $1.1 billion cash deal, ‘promises not to screw it up’ (theverge.com)
• Yahoo Buys Tumblr and Promises “Not to Screw it Up” (allthingsd.com)

Facebook’s growth & amazing new Stats on Facebook

Facebook, the numero uno social networking site in the world, has recorded tremendous growth in the past year. Facebook has released some impressive stats about the site. Facebook is making rapid moves into the mobile space. It recently launched Facebook home as well. It has been listed on the stock exchange & at present has no competitors nearing it in numbers. Google launched Google+ which is still lagging in members count compared to Facebook. & Some of the stats include

* 4.5 billion likes generated daily as of May 2013. This is up by 67% compared to likes in Aug 2012.
* 4.75 Billion content items shared daily in May’13 up by 94% in Aug’12
* 1.11 billion active users as of march’13
* 665 Million daily active users up by 26% from Mar’12
* 751 Million monthly mobile active users
* Facebook made a bold move of acquiring Instagram. It has got 100 million active users
* $1.46 billion revenue in Q1 of 2013 up by 38% YTY
* 4900 employees at Facebook

Amy’s Baking Company – Facebook Meltdown & Handling Social Media

Arizona bakery Amy’s Baking Company(owners Samy and Amy Bouzagl), made an appearance on Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares,” The Chef walked out of the program claiming it is difficult to work with them. The restaurant is in Scottsdale, Arizona. The owners finally revealed that they were reselling cakes made by other bakeries & also were criticized for the way they handled customers. Finally , they took to brand’s Facebook page to defended themselves about their actions.

This later on snowballed into a major Facebook meltdown with nasty comments. Also a social media shaming campaign began on Reddit & yelp resulting in one star reviews for the company. Here is the Reddit link to epic meltdown. This clearly shows how social media is shaping the real-time conversation about brands. Also companies should have strategies in place to deal with the negative publicity. They finally declared that their fb, twitter & website accounts have been hacked.

Top Twitter Brands in India – NDTV, Times of India, MTV, IPL, CNN-IBN & others

Microblogging in India is emerging as a favorite medium for breaking news, sharing opinion/thoughts & for brand building activities. Twitter is the top microblogging platform in India & has become the favorite of the corporate world for their marketing activities. Pepsi is promoting the IPL hashtag in this season’s IPL, VW India also used Twitter for their #anything4Jetta campaign. Hashtags seems to have taken over the marketing campaigns & they are also commonly seen in Advts.

US, Brazil, Japan, UK & India are some of the top countries for Twitter. Some of the top Indian twitter brands are NDTV, Times of India, MTV, IPL, CNN-IBN, Vodafone India, Tata DoCoMo & many IPL cricket teams. IPL cricket teams are engaging with the audience with interesting tweets & also some of the top facebook brands are active on Twitter as well. Among the sectors, Entertainment, media, sports, telecom & Newspapers are topping the charts. Many advanced analytic programs provide deep dive analysis in to the audience share & engagement helping brands to better connect with the users.

Dell India #ICanDoKuchBhi Twitter Contest

Dell India has launched a new campaign for the Inspiron series of notebooks. With the growing influence of digital marketing & social media, the campaign includes a twitter based promo called I Can Do Kuch Bhi. In this contest, one has to tweet about their passion with the use of technology including #icandokuchbhi. With the youths being the major users of social networks, this promo helps them create a great visibility for the brands.There is no limit to the number of tweets that one submits. Ten people with the most interesting tweets will be getting a Dell branded t-shirt along with their tweets printed on it. The contest was between Apr 27th to Apr 29th.

Related articles

• 18 Of The Coolest Indian Social Media Campaigns Of Quarter 1 2013 (lighthouseinsights.in)
• The Best Digital Marketing Tips For Video Games Ever (supercoolcreative.com)

 

How Banks are using Social Media in India

With the globalization setting its foot in India in the 90′s, banking sector has witnessed a lot of changes. Competition among the banks led to the marketing activities by the banks in promoting their loans, credit cards, personal loans & others. Several foreign banks also set up their branches in India. Internet banking & ATM heralded a new wave of technology for the banks.

Banks have been using social media to connect with the customers, announce new offers & other activities. For ex: HDFC bank twitter account lists all the social media profiles of the bank. This is a very great move by the bank as it helps customers easily access all the profiles. HDFC facebook page has also lakhs of likes & frequent updates. Another bank, Axis bank has also listed all their social media profiles on their home page & also on their twitter page with thousands of followers. With lakhs of likes on their facebook pages. They also have a youtube profile

It is always a good practice to have profiles across all the social media sites & links to other profiles displayed in all the profiles. This helps customers connect easily. Also they can be used to address customer concerns, problems & others. The data found in the profiles can also be used to improvement of the operations. Facebook, twitter, youtube & linkedin are the top social media sites across the banking industry to connect with the customers. Pinterest, flickr, instagram, Google+ & others are also used to connect with the customers.

Top Facebook Brand Pages in India – Tata Docomo, MTV India, Samsung Mobile India & others

Socialbakers, which measures brands on social media, has released the India Q1 Facebook Report. India has 61 million Facebook members. This helps drive digital marketing activities. Tata Docomo has the highest number of Local fans followed by Vodafone Zoozoos & Nokia India. MTV India is the top facebook Media page by local fans followed by India & Bindass. Samsung Mobile India is the top socially Devoted brand followed by Airtel India . Tata Docomo has 13 millions fans with around 11 million local fans. Nokia India, Fastrack, Samsung Mobile India & kingfisher. Secret Engagement with engagement rate of 4.3% stands top by engagement rate followed by Amity University. Among the newspapers Times of India has the highest number of fans.

Many companies in India have succesfully adopted Social media into their Marketing campaigns. Most of the ads have a microsite with facebook, twitter, youtube profile. With the increase of mobile internet, more people are accessing social networks on their smartphones fueeling the social media growth. More info about the Indian facebook brands can be had at Socialbakers website.

Karnataka Assembly Elections 2013 & Role of Social Media

Social media is playing a critical role in this year’s assembly elections in Karnataka to reach out to the urban youths. BJP, Congress & JDS have their social media profiles on Facebook, youtube, Twitter & Google+. Facebook has many official pages of contesting candidates & present MLA’s. In just a short span of 5 years, social media has become a popular tool for the parties to reach out to voters. Ads of the candidates are also coming up on Facebook.

Google+ hangout is a great avenue for the candidates to interact with voters. The official websites of the parties also have links to these profiles. With the increase in the internet penetration & more people going social, it helps parties to tap into the huge member base of social networking sites. To increase the interaction, they can ask questions, value the feedback provided by the voters & also post pics/videos. Below are some of the links to the profiles of the parties.

Karnataka Congress:
https://www.facebook.com/karnatakapcc
https://twitter.com/kpcckarnataka
http://www.youtube.com/user/KPCCKarnataka/feed
https://plus.google.com/111890294643466813358/posts

Karnataka JD(S):
https://www.facebook.com/janatadalsecularofficialpage
https://twitter.com/JanatadalS

Karnataka BJP:
https://twitter.com/bjpkarnataka
https://www.facebook.com/BJPKarnataka.official
https://twitter.com/BJPKarITCell
https://plus.google.com/116018699679405911187/posts

Role of Social Media in Indian Premier League (IPL)

Social Media is proving to be a boon for Brands & teams in Indian Premier League. Social Media sites like Google+, facebook, twitter, youtube & others are providing a constant stream of real time information. Teams can keep up with their fans by providing information on team members, score, players information & others. This fuels a great deal of conversation among the fans. Photos & Videos of the matches results in higher engagement & amplification. Youtube is providing live streams of the matches & also hangouts attracting the fans. Reach of the teams is also increasing across facebook, twitter & others.

For sponsors & their brands, social media helps in increasing their social media profiles reach, know what they are talking about brands & others. They can measure the sentiment of the conversation & take appropriate actions. Companies are using particular hashtags to tweet. On the IPL official website & also on IPL youtube stream a wealth of social media information related to the IPL is available.

With the increasing influence of social media, companies are spending more budget on digital marketing. They are setting up social media command centers to analyze & keep up with the customers. Innovative campaigns & promotions have been made by companies to increase their visibility & to target new markets.

Lufthansa India – Star Chef Contest on its Facebook page

Lufthansa India has launched a contest on facebook called Lufthansa Star Chef contest. With the increase in the internet penentration & usage of social media, companies are finding it easier to use social media to engage with the users. One can win a trip to Germany & also the receipe will be featured in the Lufthansa in-flight menu and also at select Leela resturants. Masterchef Kunal Kapur and the Star Chef jury will judge the recipe. Social media is helping companies create new types of promotion & to engage with the customers. More info about the contest can be had at Lufthansa India Facebook page

Social media sites like twitter, facebook, youtube & others are providing innovative ways to engage with the customers. Analyzing the metrics for the campaigns helps understand consumer behaviour & how to engage with them. With the growth of mobile internet, they are also accessing social media sites through the smartphones.