Thursday, October 21, 2010

Social Rage - Part 3 - The Final Line

Social Media gone Viral (image: onlinemarketingbite)
After a few weeks of digressing from the point, its time to close this chapter and officially publish my latest thoughts into the abyss of the internet. In Social Rage Part 1 and Social Rage Part 2, I covered the phenomenon that is Social Media. In this I would like to introduce a recently established form of marketing known as TTL and then my own concoction that is OTL (if it hasn’t been published elsewhere already).

We've touched on various features of marketing and the whole fuss that is social media. With this has brought about the birth of a new form of marketing which uses blogging (traditional and micro) as a core feature. We call it Digital Marketing and this includes everything from online campaigns to social media marketing and viral content (or digital wildfire as I like to call it) to help fuse everything together.

Your complete array of marketing techniques converged into simple lingo are:

ATL - Above the line: Includes TV, Print, etc. Techniques that don’t require direct contact with consumers
BTL - Below the line: Includes activations & events - direct contact with the target audience on the ground, engaging real people in real ways (great bottom line conversion for companies active with social media)
TTL - Through the line: Recently used in the Middle East by Sharp, an amalgamation of ATL and BTL without the big spend of the former, but a more concerted use of the latter.
OTL - On the line / or Online: The convergence of all online mediums combined with BTL activities to tie it all together. More of a fusion between TTL and BTL really because of its ability to directly target a specific audience and engage them at the same time.

We keep talking about 'the line' but where is this line? Is it up, is it down, left or right? It seems to bring us to the same logic that our good friend and very well-known comedian, Jerry Seinfeld who once asked a very important question: "What's the deal with corn nuts!? Is it a corn or is it a nut?" It’s not really the question that we’re focusing on, rather it’s the action or outcome & use of such a technique. Maybe stepping back and looking at the question of which is which and why it is the way it is.

No one really had the answer to that one, not one that stuck the way the question did. But the point is that with all the lingo flying everywhere, how is it that we gauge the importance of communication over different mediums without actually breaking them down into minute details to look at the core ingredients and work backward by rebuilding them.

Maybe OTL marketing is the line we have been talking about because it does incorporate features of both ATL and BTL, but with the best of both and the worst of none. It's low cost, direct targeting, efficient with amazing metrics available for campaign and activity tracking.

With the various techniques, we are better equipped to become more specific with our communication so that the right message is delivered to the right consumer at the right time. You get these three ‘r’s’ down, you got yourself an effective communication. Albeit, marketing isn’t always this cut and dry, there are the fundamentals that are always required in order to make sure any risk you might take on is mitigated with a core strategy in place.

With social media, anyone can be a marketing specialist. This is an evolution of how blogging allowed just about anyone to become a published author, a citizen journalist and essentially the most effective means of creating chatter about any topic of interest in a shorter span of time. With the mass of communication available and tools such as Facebook, twitter, foursquare, YouTube et al gaining popularity with higher adoption rates on a daily basis, the convergence of social media seems to be the next, most logical step of this evolutionary phenomenon.

The question I want to leave you all with is, should we revisit our use of the various techniques and begin to explore a process of re-prioritizing them on an academic level so as to infuse the newer techniques to the future generations of marketeers? And what role do PR (or PR 2.0) professionals play in the progression of these changes?

Bon Appétit

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Oh, baby! Justin Bieber is a PR genius (PR Junkie)

[Disclaimer: Extracted from Original article at PR Junkie]

Sixteen-year-old heartthrob Justin Bieber was thrown out of a laser tag center Friday night after a 12-year-old complained that Bieber hit him. Here's how the Canadian press first reported this incident:
On Sunday, the CBC--Canada's preeminent news source--said the singer "got into some trouble." The Vancouver Sun headline read, "Justin Bieber linked to alleged laser-tag assault." The Globe and Mail coverage closely reflected that from the Sun.
Could be bad news for Bieber, considering 12-years-old is about his prime fan base. So what's any good pop machine to do? Spin it, baby.
Less than 24 hours after news organizations reported that Bieber did the beating, stories are pouring in indicating the pop star was the result of bullying and he merely stood up for himself. Not only was it bullying, but apparently the 12-year-old called Bieber a gay slur (the f-word, but not the f-word)--and, of course, gay bullying is the cause du jour this season.

Taking care while driving in the 3rd world

Just got this in an email from a loved one and for once I felt here is a forward I can believe and even share with the world:
This is happening now! Sad, especially if you are inclined to 'help' people...
While driving on a rural end of the roadway on Thursday morning, I saw an infant car seat on the side of the road with a blanket draped over it.  For whatever reason, I did not stop, even though I had all kinds of thoughts running through my head.  But when I got to my destination, I called the Police and they were going to check it out. This is what the Police advised even before they went out there to check...."There are several things to be aware of ... gangs and thieves are now plotting different ways to get a person (mostly women) to stop their vehicle and get out of the car. There is a gang initiation reported by the local Police where gangs are placing a car seat by the road...with a fake baby in it...waiting for a woman, of course, to stop and check on the abandoned baby since they are more likely than men. Note that the location of this car seat is usually beside the woods or a grassy (field) area and the victim -- woman -- will be dragged into the woods, beaten and usually left for dead.  If it's a man, they're usually beaten and robbed and maybe left for dead, too.
Do not stop for any reason. Call your local authorities [15 in Pakistan] and report what you saw, but don't even slow down. If you are driving at night and eggs are thrown at your windscreen, do not stop to check the car, do not operate the wiper and do not spray any water because eggs mixed with water become milky and block your vision up to 92.5%, and you are then forced to stop beside the road and become a victim of these criminals. This is a new technique used by gangs, so please inform your friends
and relatives.
These are desperate times and these are unsavory individuals who will take desperate measures to get what they want. Please talk to your loved ones about this new tactic being used. Please be safe. 
This is true that theses are difficult times and unfavorable for better security, especially in a country such as Pakistan where there is civil unrest, political instability, masses of corruption and not to mention Terrorism concerns. We have become so used to living in these conditions that for a local resident things 'could always be worse' - but the fact is that we haven't really known them to be much better.

A good international campaign + improved tourism facilities and a very strong Public Relations team could make an enormous difference to the image that bears the crescent moon and star on green and white.

Question is...when we hit rock bottom, will we notice?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Urdu Version of Flight of the Falcon - 'Shaheen ki Parwaaz' (OUT NOW)


Now available in English and Urdu translation

"Flight of the Falcon" | "Shaheen Ki Parwaz"



Did Ayub Khan Chicken out in Battle for Kohima and sacked by Gen. Reese, nom de plume, Pocket Nepolian?


Was AQ Khan ever a nuclear scientist or only a Metallurgist? 


Did you know the story of $10mn donation by AQ Khan from a swiss bank to obtain Chair of Academy of Sciences?


Also find the real story behind the T-33 high-jack by Bengali Flt. Lt. Matih-ur-Rehman in 1971


Read these & More true facts in the Third Edition of 'Flight of the Falcon'
Bestseller by Vanguard



Visit www.sajadhaider.com for more...

more reads

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