Why Social Media?

1^st of all many who will be reading this post will be on any one of the Social Media platforms. Interestingly all of them reading this will someway or the other be routed to this post via one of the Social Media Platforms.

Agree or not we are all Social beings and we are proving right in a different way, Not socializing in Public but via the Web. Turn on the radio, TV or for that matter any advertising media, end of the clip/poster there will be something like “Follow us on Twitter” “Like our page on Facebook” and so on. Did you guys ever wonder what is so great about social media?? I am not taking any complicated stories here, but what level of reach “Why this Kolaveri” has attained is all because of Social Media.

Today, all Global Companies ranging from Consumer products to IT products & services to Manufacturing companies to the Recruitment Companies, they all do invest on the Social Media. Even the Healthcare fraternity no longer ignores the Social Media.

People obtain information, education, news and other data from electronic media and print media. Social media are distinct from industrial or traditional media, such as newspapers, television, and film. They are relatively inexpensive and accessible to enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, compared to industrial media, which generally require significant resources to publish information. Apart from Email, Instant Messaging which have been extensively used, a few of the other examples of Social media are the Twitter, Facebook, etc. Social media is a waste of time if you don’t utilize it in the right sense, Playing games or just chatting over these sites will just waste your time but what you have to make sure is it is make use of it by gaining information, proper contacts in all walks of life, Getting your news/post to maximum number of people etc.

A recent report indicate that Indian’s are now spending more time on social media sites. Social Media in India is growing at close to 100 % and is likely to touch 45 million users by the end of 2012. As subscribers are now coming out with cheaper internet packages this figure is slated to grow much further.

The flip-side of all the virtues of Social Media is that there seems to be no universal guideline on usage of the social media. Though we have increasingly more social network users the question that stands out is how familiar they are with these social networks and what precaution have they taken to safeguard themselves against any information leak or against their vulnerability. Off-late, it is been felt in various forums that we need legalized checks to rein in the opinions being expressed, intrusions of privacy all of which may hurt people and their sentiments. Companies like Twitter & Facebook is taking steps to combat this and its ultimately in the hands of the user who uses it properly and not click on things which are in the 'SPAM' category and get trapped.

My suggestion is just this, No matter what people say you are going to need this in the years to come if you want to be successful. Think about it and you will know what i'm trying to convey here as i do not represent any company and its just the person in me that is requesting you.

The post cannot end just like this, I need to give away my Social Media reach as well right?

Follow me (Twitter) : @iMishaal

Blog : The very blog you are reading this post, If you are that illiterate, here it is (www.mishaalhk.blogspot.com :P )

LinkedIn : http://in.linkedin.com/in/mishaalhk

Youtube : http://www.youtube.com/user/Mishaalhk

What Provoked 'THE HINDU"

Nope, this is not about the Religion 'HINDU" i am talking about in the title but the News Paper "THE HINDU". I know there wont be anyone here who wouldnt have seen the new "Go ahead of the Times" campaign of the Chennai based newspaper "The Hindu".

It all started with Times of India coming into the Chennai market where the market leader was "The Hindu". People view this battle with so much of Interest as they are considered to be the market Leaders in the Indian context point of view. Like the very famous Blackberry & Apple fight which happened over a couple of years back (Ad link below for reference)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNj2XPhPrx4

The very moment i saw this Hindu Advertisement it reminded me of the video above. Strange as you call it, TOI did not do it targeting only The Hindu but for some reason the latter took it pretty seriously. I would personally want to read Hindu as against the Entertainment friendly TOI as they hardly have any news in their papers and only Advertisements in their main paper. If you have a close look you would find that atleast 40% of the Newspaper is advertisements, and would you want to spend money for a paper that shows advertisements or read some sensible news? I am sure if a survey is done atleast 70% + people would opt for The Hindu as against the Times of India.

I agree people are moving to TOI loosing their senses to think and wanting to know about what the Entertainment industry is upto and all that, and Hindu would have sensed that they are loosing a lot of people that way and hence the new Ad just to make oneself understand the importance of newspapers. From my small study i did i find that people who have subscribed to the TOI are using it as a secondary newspaper as Hindu remains their primary one. And for a yearly subscription of just below Rs 300 (I guess) people would anyways go for it being a silly amount and that is how they are just a secondary paper. No offence to the TOI fans here but this was just my personal opinion and there is this one right called the "Freedom of Speech" (Refer Jan 27th 1950 Edition of The Hindu :P)

Year 2011 - A Tribute

Well this wouldnt be a long post as like my earlier one's but i would call it more of an Ice Breaker as i havent posted anything here for ages. My reasons for not having posted anything here for a while are many but being 'LAZY' tops the list and then the 'NO TIME' reason tops the list.

All in all a great year it was from passing out of B-School and getting into Maersk, the worlds largest Container operating company in the world. Meanwhile that one phase where i was in the Job-Hunting position was quite a pain and i must tell you its one time that you cant do anything freely and have this thing of getting a call any moment (For Interviews). I was left stranded in this city with friends inviting me to join them for trips and i had to reject it all because of my calls for interviews mostly being on weekends.

We lost lots of Talent Personalities in the area of Cinema, Music, Politics and even well known "Terrorists" as well. We saw many CEO's being replaced and it was indeed a great business year for most of the Companies. Indians point of view we witnessed something which was hard to witness with that of the Rupee falling at its all time low at Rs 54 a Dollar.

Securing the Gold Medal in Finance at my B-School was an honor and i was to be honest surprised at getting that medal but i hope this one achievement can take me places in future. There were no International Trips last year and i'd make it up this year for sure.