Make mistakes, but keep them unique

We all do mistakes don't we? Sometimes it leaves us surprised, sometimes it makes us feel sorry and sometimes it even crushes our confidence to unimaginable depths. Mistakes are actually good if it makes you to think, that is the beginning of the learning process. If you have never done mistakes then either you have not done anything worthwhile or you are a lucky chap hiding behind a temporary fortune.

Most of the time the wounds of our mistakes are so severe that we forget to calm down and look back how and why mistakes happened. There is only a thin line between experience and stupidity. If we learn from our mistakes and not repeat them then that's what the world calls experience, if we repeat the mistakes then it's stupidity. Again, purely this is a choice.

The new year is fast approaching and I would definitely want to look back at whatever mistakes that I have done in this year. I can sense it will be funny, but trust me I have done so many mistakes that I can write a humour book! It's time for some introspection and to prepare a corrective action plan for next year. Signing off for now.....Anto.

Follow @antounplugged

Sharing is caring!

Subscribe to this Blog via Email:

Need Student Bloggers!

Courtesy - prosintraining.com

Yep folks, I understand its been a longtime since I updated my blog, apologies. There is definitely a good reason behind this small hibernation, I've been working really hard to put things together with my professional life and finally I am seeing some upsurge in what I really love to do, online marketing. As part of my job, I am looking forward to expand my team, and I am in search of some student bloggers who would like to be part of one of India's largest 'education abroad' website. If you are a student from Chennai and if you are interested to join my team, give me a shout. If you are good enough, then trust me you are awaiting hell of a learning experience. And yes, you will be paid too!

Follow @antounplugged

Sharing is caring!

Subscribe to this Blog via Email:

Google+ - the Facebook killer?

Google has launched one of its most secretive project till date, yes that's Google+ for you. Google that was and is presumed to be a company based on algorithm taking a social shift to connect with the people. The Social media is expanding wider and that's a good news! So what's so special about Google+?


Hangouts
A feature wherein you can do group video chat with upto 10 people! like a facebook and Skype marriage? All you have to do is click on the hangout feature, a notification will be sent to your friends that you are ready to hangout, people who are interested will join for a video chat. It's that simple!


Circle+
This feature enables you to create social groups with much ease compared to Facebook group, The user interface is super cool, thanks to HTML 5. The news is that you can make a status update and target to which ever circle (group of friends/people categorised based on interest/occupation etc) you want in a single click. Another killer feature that enables seamless  sharing of the entire social experience is the Google+ toolbar. The toolbar once launched will be available across all the Google products, watch out for a grey colour tool bar on the top of your browser next time you log in.

Sparks
It's called the content sharing engine by Google. A feature that will enable you to see what people "liked" oops! +1nd on web - this can be customised to any interest of your choice. A feature mostly controlled by people power through Google +1 button.

Mobile Google+
Yes, there will be mobile version of Google+, especially on Google controlled Android network. One killer feature of the Google+ mobile app will be 'instant photo upload' from mobile to PC. In simple words the moment you take a photo from your mobile it will automatically uploaded to your PC and it's ready to share!

The hopes are high, so keep your eyes open, as per Google's sources there will be partial roll out of Google+ and a lot of beta testing in pipeline. It will be interesting to watch this space as to how Facebook react to Google's answer.

Follow @antounplugged

Sharing is caring!

Subscribe to this Blog via Email:

How to be popular on Facebook

As discussed in the previous post "Why is Facebook so popular", whether you are a business or an individual you need to understand the science behind people's behaviour on Facebook. There is only one mantra for it.

Courtesy - jokesprank.com

Instant gratification - Make people feel cool about what they are doing. If you come across a Facebook page about celebrities or some kick ass quotes then don't be surprised to see a huge fan following for those pages. Say for example Lady Gaga's page on facebook has 36,654,613 fans and still counting. What do you infer from this? Yes, its fact that Lady Gaga is a wonderful artist and she has a huge fan following and if you are part of her fanpage then may be you will be incentivised with access to first hand information to her latest music videos, gossips etc, but at the same time we also need to think about why people want to endorse it? Remember people always think "How does it benefit me?" before they do any activity in the online or offline world. It's a fact and lets face it.

Endorsing a brand or celebrity on Facebook is like making a statement about your likes and interests and you eventually want this to be populated on the wall of your friends. The same rule applies when you come across a funny video, quote, popular news etc. Somewhere down the mind there is a feeling that motivates you to think "let me share this video with my Facebook friends, it may be helpful for them but for me it will definitely be COOL!"

Take away - To be popular on Facebook for an individual or a business its important to create content that's remarkable. Remarkable content will always find its way to popularity among the public, people will share it and this makes them feel cool about it. This is no rocket science but simple common sense.

Ps - This applies to any social network, Facebook was just an example.

Follow @antounplugged

Sharing is caring!

Subscribe to this Blog via Email:

Why Facebook is so popular – the psychology behind it

Today most of us have a Facebook account, but why? The introduction note on the Facebook homepage claims  – “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life”. But have you ever thought what makes Facebook, kind of addictive for some people, in fact many? After all, everybody is just updating some status message and what so great about that?

Let me divide the answer into two. First we need to understand what makes people to do status updates, upload photos, tag friends etc. Can we say they are communicating? Yes, that’s correct but to be precise they are performing. Now you may ask, what do I mean by performing? Ok, how often do you get a chance in your real life wherein hundreds of your friends are ready to listen and watch what you want to say? I mean like, going to a party/gathering and giving a killer speech or perform a live concert or a dance or whatever. How often do you get such a chance? And even if you get a chance will you be able to perform on every stage possible? Either there is too much competition to get the spotlight or you are shy/afraid or not ready to perform.

This is where Facebook comes to the rescue; it gives us a platform to perform anytime and from anywhere. If your performance (status updates, pictures, videos, political comments etc) is good then you are sure to get couple of “Likes” and positive comments! This one activity touches the basic need of every human beings crave for appreciation. This is the very reason why non-stop content is being created by the users on Facebook every second all over the world.

The second aspect - what makes the user generated content so interesting? Again, it’s the very fact that we human beings are more interested in what’s happening with others life than ours.  And this is the answer  why there is a keen audience who are hungry to know what happens in others life!

So in short  - Facebook provides a platform,remember just a platform for you to perform and get appreciated and most importantly to bitch about others :) And  we people love it don’t we? You are super smart Mark!

In the next post, I will be discussing how to market yourself or your brand on Facebook based on the above fact. Thanks for your time :)

Follow @antounplugged

Sharing is caring!

Subscribe to this Blog via Email:

Evolve or Else Perish - Marketing Gyan

Many business give a new name to patience when it comes to change and innovation. May be you built an empire with what you had and all the hard work in the last decade, but that doesn't guarantee you success in the coming decade as well. Just remember that the mankind is evolving and evolving at a much faster pace. It's like the nuclear reaction - starts slow, builds momentum and finally becomes unstoppable.

If you wait until there is another case study in your industry,you will be too late. - Seth Godin

Isn't this true? Businesses that wait to innovate and move on just because there is no other option left either finish last or perish. Let me quote you an example - Search engine optimisation was considered the THE thing of online marketing. The idea of most businesses were to build as many pages as possible stuff them with keywords and finally get ranked by Google to get traffic. In the race to get ranked by a mere algorithm businesses started building websites for search engines and not human beings.

This year we experienced the Google panda - an algorithm change that changed the fortune of content farmers and spammers. After the postmortem every search marketer said publish unique content or else suffer the panda wrath. Is this something new that we hear? If you do business online and you don't know the fact "content is king" then sorry you don't belong here! The after effects of the catastrophe ask each business that suffered the fall to introspect if they were gaming the algorithm and left behind their consumers? To survive there is only one way forward - "Wake up! If you want to sustain then adapt, if you want to succeed then be remarkable"

The algorithms have changed, people have changed long before - when is your business going to change? The fundamental of any marketing effort is "customer is king" and not the search engines. Search engines are just a medium to reach your audience. Do understand that people are smart enough to avoid you if you are bluffing non-sense. It will be too late if you want to wait for another case study to see how a business perished or succeeded the change, you never know if you wait you may feature in the case study and named the sinking ship or else, if you change, may be you will become the benchmark for others to follow.

Follow @antounplugged

Sharing is caring!

Subscribe to this Blog via Email: