Expiry Date, but for your Facebook post

It has been quite long since I did a post. I tried writing something on the biggest fad "Ice-bucket challenge" but I couldn't really finish it and that remains as a draft in my account so, chuck it.

So, today I thought of doing a little comeback post for you guys. I wanted to share a small piece of news from the social media world and how important it will be for the people of our species i.e. "Marketers".

Recent reports from TheNextWeb indicate that social media giant Facebook is soon going to give you the power to decide when your post(s) go off the Facebook servers; and it will all happen automatically. Engineers at Facebook are testing a new feature which will allow you to set an expiry date and expiry time for your Facebook post.

Yes, you heard it right "An expiry date for your Facebook posts".

Wondering what's in it for us marketers?

Well, this feature will be of a great help to you if you are operating in a B2C environment and use Facebook as a medium to reach out to your customers by hosting contests, offering discounts or coupons to them.

Imagine how would you feel when you will no longer have to worry about disappointed fans who tried to use one of your offer or coupon that expired 6 months back.

If you have an offer for your customers which will expire in the next 1 hour you could see a sudden increase in the number of fans. This feature can be very useful if you primarily post unmissable time sensitive posts.

This feature is still in its pilot phase and the company will be rolling it out gradually to all the devices around the world.

*Please share this post with your peers (peer to peer marketing, you see :P) through the social networks given on the left. Also keep your comments coming in. Many thanks.*

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Lessons for marketers from the recently concluded FIFA World Cup 2014.

It was just a few days back when all of us (at least the guys at my hostel) used to be glued to the Television sets in the common room. These guys are a bunch of football fanatics who used to stay up till late night so as to watch the FIFA World Cup 2014. I also stayed up for a few games (not all, b’coz I pursue a hobby called sleeping).

The recently concluded tournament was loaded with special moments and some interesting events which caught the eye of the people all over the world.

Some of these events also caught the eye of marketers around the world (including me). It was really interesting to note how companies and businesses around the world rose up to the occasion and tweaked their campaigns to reach out to their customers during the tournament.

The infamous “bite” by Uruguayan and Liverpool star Suarez was one of the events which many brands around the world leveraged. Marketing techniques were tweaks, ad campaigns were changed, some of the major brands also bombarded the timelines of their followers on social networking sites Twitter and Facebook.

Soon after the incident the brand “Listerine” the world renowned mouth wash tweeted the following post.

Apart from Listerine, Bud Light also tried to leverage the moment and tweeted a picture showing a person biting their bottle’s cap.

Both these tweets were part of the #PowerToYourMouth campaign.

Other companies like McDonald’s and Snickers also tried to make the most of the moment.

There were some negative reactions as well

The official sponsor of the Fifa World Cup, Adidas who had signed up Suarez as the Global Brand Ambassadors of the World Cup immediately reacted to the incidence by sacking Suarez from its world campaign.  Adidas also showed their support for the four month ban which was imposed on Suarez by FIFA.

This is a perfect example of how brands nowadays can remain alert in order to save themselves from the negative impact of such occurrences.

Some of the brands such as Unilever, even changed their strategy completely. These brands dropped their conventional rigid promotional campaigns so as to make use of real time data from the sporting event for connecting with football fans all around the world through Twitter.

*Please share this post with your peers (peer to peer marketing, you see :P) through the social networks given on the left. Also keep your comments coming in. Many thanks.*

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Six pickup lines straight from your marketing books.

This one goes out for all my marketing friends who are still looking to solve the love riddle. So if you are looking for a hot date to spend your weekend with, or if you are looking to impress that cute marketer chick/dude in your college or at your workplace.

Why not try to impress her/him with an endearing pick up line straight from the books? (Trust me, you will really thank Philip Kotler for this)

Here are a few ridiculously cheesy pickup lines straight from the books:-

1. Hey girl, you can spam me all night but I still won't unsubscribe.

 2.There are 4P's of Marketing. But, you give a fifth P to my hormones. It's called "Pump".

3. You are my Powerbrand, I so wanna invest all of me in you.

 

4. God has segmented and positioned you so perfectly that you are my only target.

 5.You must be an SEO expert b'coz you are ranked #1 on my list.

 

6.You seem like a paid search campaign, b'coz you left quite an  impression on me.

*Please share this post with your peers (peer to peer marketing, you see :P) through the social networks given below. Also keep your comments coming in. Many thanks.*

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Rise of the Memes

Whenever we come across memes on Facebook or Twitter the first thoughts that come up in our mind is, "Who are these people?", "Where did this come from?"

Well, these memes don't just appear from nowhere. They have their origins and Top10Memes a YouTube channel answers these questions for you quickly.

Take a look at this compilation by Top10Memes :-

For budding marketers, key takeaways from this video are that in this Web 2.0 age; memes can be an effective tool for putting your message across to your customers.

What would be a better way to connect to your customers than using their favorite TV or movie characters to pass on the message?

Think about it, you have all the time.


*Please share this post with your peers (peer to peer marketing, you see :P) through the social networks given below. Also keep your comments coming in. Many thanks.*

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Similarities between Marketing and Dating

The other day I was having a conversation with a few engineer friends of mine, who like many others of their species are single or are having an “It’s complicated” relationship status on Facebook. While we were all talking one of them just tried to equate marketing to sales. So, I decided to explain to him that marketing is not just about selling taking an example of a phenomenon which every engineer understands better than anything else; Dating. Read on!

Marketing and dating have a lot in common and very few people understand this. Let’s take an example:-

Suppose you are smart and good looking and you are crazy about a girl. Everything about you is good except that you are and introvert (now, I can sense a huge problem here). No matter how good looking you are if are not able to express your feelings your crush would never know about your existence. The same is the case when it comes to marketing. No matter how good your product is if you are not able to let your customers know about its features, no one’s going to buy it.

We all know women like confident men. Confidence is the only thing why today every other average guy has a hot girl with him. Being confident about yourself is what will help you win hearts and will make beautiful girls like you. Similarly, having confidence in your product will make customers like it and of course, buy it.

Trust is another thing that plays an important role in both marketing and dating. It is the foundation of any relationship, the cohesive force that keeps two people together. Trust and relationship building are important for a marketer as well.

If trust is lacking, you will not have a good relationship and thus, will have to change your update your relationship status to “It’s complicated” on Facebook. Similarly, if a customer doesn't trust you, they will not buy from you. A marketer can win a prospective customer’s trust by informing him/her about what he does; this can be done through blogs and by staying in touch with your prospective customers over social media.

Marketing is not only about selling products just like relationships are not only about sex. No matter how much both of you want it, if you are too quick with it you might end up losing your date or from a marketers point of view, you sale. I must say, patience is the key here.

Being in a relationship with the right person is what everyone wants so it is very important to understand you partner. If you girl likes funny guys and being funny is not your thing, then you just might not be the right guy for her. In this case, I would suggest you to move on.

Do what’s your thing and people who like your thing will try to relate to you and you will find the right partner or the right customer. Marketing experts call it “catering to the right customer”.

My advice to you would be to be yourself – “do your thing” and be confident with what you do. You will definitely find the right partner or customer.

*Please share this post with your peers (peer to peer marketing, you see :P) through the social networks given below. Also keep your comments coming in. Many thanks.*

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