Today the virus of social media is spreading faster than any other epidemic. Almost every internet savvy has come across the term “going viral”. Content going viral resonates so enormously that it catches fire and ends up being the topic of discussion across the internet. This ebook is an attempt to showcase to you the what, how and why of virality. Also find out how the latest trends and technology has changed the entire perspective of digital communication. You will also get to know about some of the most common social networking sites and how they have transformed our world of networking and socialising.

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Preface
Today the virus of social media is spreading faster than any other epidemic. Almost every internet savvy has come across the term “going viral”.
Content going viral resonates so enormously that it catches fire and ends up being the topic of discussion across the internet.
This book is an attempt to showcase to you the what, how and why of virality. Also find out how the latest trends and technology has changed the entire perspective of digital communication. You will also get to know about some of the most common social networking sites and how they have transformed our world of networking and socialising.
Cheers,
Padmaraj Nashi
Creative Designer
Rajashree Das
Social Media Analyst
Prashant Jain
Social Media Manager
Deep Sherchan
CMO

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Stunning facts about social media marketing
 30% of the B2B marketers spend millions of dollars every year for Social Media Marketing
 Over the past few years, 1 million websites are integrated with facebook
 77% of consumers shopping online read consumer reviews before purchasing a product
 56% of consumers say that they are more likely to recommend a brand after becoming a Facebook fan.
 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter
 87% trust LinkedIn as a source of information affecting decision making.
 81% of U.S online consumers trust information and advice from Pinterest
Dos and Don’ts for getting Viral on Social Media
Word-of-mouth to Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing is not a fad. It has been in the market for more than ages just that we used to call it word-of-mouth. The norm behind Word-of-mouth or Viral marketing is simple – ‘Creating peer recommendations for products.’
Marketing and advertising rely on millions of media channels to in today’s world to spread the message and reach niche audiences. Out of these countless media channels, Social Media is marketers’ cup of tea for getting viral. The viral nature of social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus, etc. is the reason why marketers relentlessly make use of social media for going viral. Check the statistics to understand why…
Getting viral through social media is all about using the social media channels to
create or increase the awareness and spread it in the cloud like virus in a
system. A virus that gets submissive by
end of the day is not worth a try. Virus, be it in the form of a video, flash game, eBook, image or even text, penetrating through different channels and staying
alive until it gets noticed by millions is what businesses need. Bringing such marketing tactics into action, marketing strategists creating social media marketing strategies should chalk out plans to make the product or service viral involving less cost.

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The Viral Marketing Loop: Getting viral on social media channels is an infinite loop …
When a user finds an attractive and innovative marketing component, he/she shares it in social media network with friends. When the friends like the marketing ad, they in turn share it in their circles, creating an infinite loop and making it go viral.
When Gangnam Style video, this decade’s most viral thing in the market, was created, neither Psy nor viewers knew it would go to such heights. This is a scenario with most marketers. Despite planning for viral marketing, they end up with meagre results. Creating a strategy and praying for it to work is not a real good way of doing it.
Image courtesy: themusicradar.com
Viral Marketing Loop

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Brand name has done extensive research to obtain in-depth details from top brands that have succeeded in viral marketing. Here we bring you dos and don’ts for getting viral on social media…
Dos for getting viral on social media:
1. Focus on trending events
Check on the hot and trending topics on social media. Current events more scope to reaching more people on all media channels. Utilize Twitter Trends and Google Trends to have a track of the happening things and create buzz using these resources. Remember that trends today need not be the talk of the town tomorrow. It is usually Twitter people look up to for up- to-date trends. If you want people to share news and spread your brand name, you need to be in line with the hash tags trending on Twitter. Businesses can side step and post something completely irrelevant to their business, if it’s going to bag some buzz.
2. Write Unique and Humorous Content to Trigger Emotions
Content that is unique draws more audience attention. It is very important to talk the audience language rather than the brand in
case of social media. Otherwise, they are less likely to share content and the sole purpose of
getting viral is lost. Tap the emotional aspect of the fans and followers. Ads that tickle their
senses are the ones which get most attention and create a stronger emotional engagement with the marketing component and the brand.
3. Use visual content to draw more audience
Users are likely to engage with brands that post images than any other media. Use visuals whenever possible; visuals like picture, images, infographics, videos, graphics and animations work well on social media channels. Hire designers to create original visuals including quotes, checklists, tutorials, infographics, videos and presentations on SlideShare.
4. Go decades back and start storytelling
The cliché ‘survival of the fittest’ holds good even in social media. Ages ago, when there was no digital media, the only tool for marketers to bag few deals, is telling a compelling story, which would be shared with others through ‘word-of-mouth’. The social media trend today is nothing less than those old days. People embrace brands that share stories on social media.
Stories are easily shareable which means storytelling can increase your chances to go viral.

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5. Sweepstakes, contests and other promotions
Like any other marketing campaign, running social media campaigns pooled with sweepstakes, contests is a great way to reach broader audience and capture the attention of consumers in appealing and interactive marketing formats.
Incentivizing offers in a way that
increase exposure to the promoters’ brand are the ones which win more attention and spread like wildfire. Check on the perfect timing to post the promotion on various social media channels. Identify top networks that can aid you with the promotional campaigns.
Don’ts for getting viral on social media:
1. Posting boring which your audience don’t give a dime:
Social media gives businesses to go light hearted. Don’t overwhelm them with technicalities and jargons unless required. You can talk to people on a personal note. It can go to a level of asking what your audience is doing for their vacation. Keep the content fresh make it sound as if it has a soul. Don’t blabber about your awesome products and services every 5 minutes. Remember one golden thumb rule – ‘One promotional message out of 20
updates’. Use humor to market your products and services.
2. Insulting people and hurting their feelings just to create a buzz:
Negative marketing might be a good marketing strategy, but remember that talking low can hit on the brand really bad. Though there are others on the social media talking unethical about others, well it is not a great way
of building a brand. Every negative activity ends with negative results.
3. Auto posting same message on all channels:
Most brands jump into social media accounts without a proper time-bound strategy. With an intention to spread updates on the channels, they post the same message across all the channels. When you don’t speak the same with every person, why post the same on social media networks. Craft a proper social media strategy and create an editorial to have a crystal clear social media plan for your brand.
4. Blasting social space with posts or tweets
Most business executives too have a notion that posting incessantly on social media channels will grab attention of the audience and makes the campaign go viral. Had it been so easy, everybody would be creating chunks of content and posting all over the social space. That is not the strategy that works. So stop blasting your fans

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and followers with irrelevant and unnecessary posts.
5. Lie to win credits
Social media is a transparent that leaves no room for lies or bluffing strategies. Social media is not for businesses that win handful of customers by cooking up stories and fake business cases. While winning trust has been one of the main aspects of social media, creating airy stories, adds no credits to the brand. Talk factual or do not talk at all.
Common sense is that best tool businesses can rely to understand the dos and don’ts for getting viral on social media.

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The Essence of Mobility
“Work is not a place; work is something you do.”
9 out 10 senior executives use mobile apps to be informed, stay productive and get entertained – Based on a Apple study by eMarketer
70% of executives under the age of 40 uses branded B2B apps – Ipsos Mendelsohn Affluent Survey
Almost 46% of C-Suite executives in the U.S. and 75% in Europe have at least one mobile / tablet device.
Mobile Usage Landscape
Think about it, by 2015 there will be more number
of mobile internet users than desktop users.
Mobile bandwidth has already surpassed that of
home broadband connections.
With widespread availability and usage of
4G networks and with data moving on to the cloud,
less data storage is required on local devices, allowing
devices to deliver other computing tasks faster and better.
Reasons Why B2B Organizations Are
Going Gaga Over Mobile Apps…
While organizations in the B2C space are excited
about engaging with customers via consumer
apps for smartphones, B2B companies are now
gearing up for mobile-based, interruption marketing.
B2B organizations feel that mobile apps are the way
to go because they realize helps in communicating
with customers it also increases brand value
and business productivity.
 Improving Communication With
Customers –
Mobile usage has changed the communication process between brands and customers. B2B companies have realized that the current digital landscape requires communication to reflect customer needs and content
used in mobile technology needs to be accessible, in
real-time, interactive and consumable. Mobile technology
provides B2B organizations with new ways of interacting

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with their market whether it is through videos, location-based content or rich interactive media.
 Increasing Brand Value and Business Productivity –
B2B brands also know that using mobile technologies is not only powerful in creating connections with customers and building brand value; it is also a great tool that improves business productivity. Mobile technology helps B2B enterprises maximize support and value of products and services offered to their customers and distribution partners. It also enables their employees to productively manage workloads. In this way, mobile technologies play an important part in optimizing business processes as well as building brand value.
How B2B Brands leverage the power of mobile apps?
In order to leverage the power of mobile apps, B2B brands need to define business objectives, assess their competition in the market, research the
needs of your target market, build a strategic framework and create a roadmap.
Research Your Target Market “WHO”
Assess Competition in the Market “WHO ELSE”
Build a Strategic Framework “HOW”
Create a Roadmap
“WHAT”
Define Business Objectives “WHY”

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1. Define Business Objectives – “Why?”
It is important to identify the underlying growth drivers and market opportunities of your business and gain a clear definition of business objectives. Some of the useful questions that will help in knowing where your business is headed include - Is your brand launching new product lines? Is your company trying to enter a new market? Are you looking to reposition your brand perception in the market? Are you attempting to target a new customer segment? By understanding your business objectives it is possible to develop a mobile strategy round it.
2. Research Your Target Market– “Who?”
B2B brands need to understand their target market, what their needs are and how they like to interact with your brand in order build mobile marketing solutions. Conduct research and analysis through social media and indentify relevant keywords to your brand.
3. Assess Competition in the Market –“Who Else?”
It is useful to know what your competitors are doing in the mobile segment. By knowing your brand position and presence in the market, it will provide you with areas in which you need to improve. It will also help in discovering areas unexplored by your competitors in engaging your market through mobile technology.
4. Build a Strategic Framework - “How?”
Develop a strategic framework by combining the objectives of your business, your customer and your market. In this way, it will be easy to define your investment in mobile strategies and how it can contribute towards business growth.
5. Create a Roadmap –“What?”
With an action plan and strategic framework in place, you can begin building specific plans to deploy mobile initiatives. Through scoring techniques, you can prioritize those activities that need to start immediately and those that need future development.

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6 elements to create Enterprise Apps
Mobile apps have already become an integral part of personal lives of many people. This approach to “there’s an app for that” to get things done, is also seeping into business lives. Enterprise apps are now gaining momentum.
Customers today are more informed and
are specific about what they want. They expect apps to be intuitive and support collaboration; it should provide a user experience that is real-time and enables seamless flow of data. Salesforce.com discussed six elements that are essential while creating enterprise apps.
Elements Does Your App… Checklist on the Essentials 1. Social User Experience Urge and allow users to engage through social networks in different ways?  Is your app usable instantly usable without detailed installation process?  Is it fun and addictive? Think gamification.  Does it create an identity within a network or community, in order to be able to influence behavior?
2. Collaboration
Help in enabling people collaborate and interact in new ways?
 Does your app provide intrinsic business value by enabling deep interactions within the enterprise?
 Does it allow users to interact in various ways such as posting, notifying, voting, pinning, bookmarking, recommending, liking, etc?
 Is it seamlessly accessible to employees, partners, customers, vendors and prospects across the
enterprise?
3. Leveraging the Network Leverage and become more powerful as more people use it in a network?  Does your app become more diversified as the network is  Is it self-organized, where users do not need admins to create groups or connections?  Does your app by default keep things public but allows users to make things private?

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4. Mobility
Allow accessibility anytime, anywhere through any device?
 Does your app allow interaction and accessibility anywhere, anytime through any device?
 Is it designed for all devices and does it provide the same quality of experience?
 Is your connection reliable and secure? 5. Interoperability Allow for easy connectivity to other apps?  Does your app allow for easy mobility of data and connectivity to other apps and systems?  Does it have a standard based API and built in customization functionality?  Does it have levels of accountability, traceability and security, while providing transparency to user as much as possible?
6. Innovation
Transform communication and interaction in your industry?
 Is your app designed keeping in mind future technological developments?
 Does it have the capability to be the first of its kind to be introduced in the market?
The Way Forward
As penetration of 4G network is going globally and smart phones are getting even smarter with better functionalities, B2B organizations are proactively adopting them to optimize processes and boost business growth. The new smart mobile devices are interactive and innovative with more powerful capabilities, robust operating systems, greater flexibility and crisper display features.
The definition of mobility is expanding to wireless devices and with new concepts such as the Google Glass, interaction and communication has become seamless. B2B brands are recognizing the importance of such technologies in improving their interaction with customers, optimizing their internal processes and workload, and in building meaningful relationships with customers, employees, partners, vendors and prospects.

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TABLET FIRST QUARTER SALES
(Year-on-Year Growth)
65.3%
282%
Apple
Samsung
OPERATING SYSTEMS FIRST QUARTER SALES
(Year-on-Year Growth)
18.0%
5.5%
3.7%
1.8%
Samsung - Android
Asus - Nexus 7
Amazon - Kinde Fire
Windows
Why Tablets are replacing
Desktops and Laptops?
 By 2015, tablet shipments are going to exceed that of both desktops and laptops.
 In 2013, tablet shipments have grown by 59% amounting to 229.3 million units and global PC shipments have dropped by almost 8%.
Source: - IDC Research
Think about it, since the introduction of the Apple iPad in 2010, in just three years the sales of consumer tablets has reached figures similar to that of desktops and is projected to surpass that of laptop sales this year. The research firm IDC, states that “with a 13.9 percent decrease in shipments for the first quarter of this year, it has been the worst quarter since IDC began tracking the PC market quarterly in 1994.”
Here’s a snapshot of the year-on-year growth comparing first quarter sales of tablets and operating systems:-
Source: - IDC Research
One of the primary reasons for increase in tablet sales is reduction in prices. Moreover there is an increasing trend noticed in the tablet market that revolves around screen sizes.

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According to IDC, sales of the smaller sized, 8 inched tablets like the iPad mini are expected to surpass that of larger tablets within two quarters.
Reasons Why Tablets Are Preferred:
With new devices such as smartphones and tablets becoming an integral part of the board room and the living room, the big questions today is: “Will tablets replace laptops?” Here are some of the reasons why tablets are the preferred choice:
1. Portable – Tablets compared to laptops weigh less and are smaller in size, making it easier to carry and use for people on the go.
2. User Friendly – Tablets are easier to use and their simple features enable
any kind of user to benefit from it.
3. Touchscreen Functionality– With an
easy swipe, touchscreens make it perfect for different kind of users to
interact and use new programs without the need for in-depth knowledge.
4. Connectivity – Tablets have 4G connectivity making it easier for users to connect to a network or the internet even if they are not in a Wi-Fi zone.
5. Battery Life – One of the main pain
points of laptop users is their battery
life which typically lasts 4 to 5 hours, in comparison to tablets which can last up to 10 hours on a single charge.
Tablets are evolving. The new models
that come along with advanced quad-core processors and physical keyboard docks are bridging the gap between portability and power. Moreover, with the
TABLET MARKET SHARE WORLDWIDE BY SCREEN SIZE – 2011 to 2017
27%
73%
55%
43%
2%
57%
37%
6%
< 8"
8" - 11"
11" +
2017
2013
2011

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widespread use of the cloud, storage space is no longer a concern. Technology that could not be used on tablets earlier are now uploaded onto the cloud and then delivered to tablets. For instance, cloud storage services such as Dropbox provide virtual space to compensate for the limited space of hard drives on tablets. OnLive is another example which provides computing power via the cloud, required to enable desktop-quality media and productivity on tablets.
Usage of Tablets - Based on User Type
1. CASUAL USERS
Characteristics
 They watch videos on Netflix, Hulu+ or YouTube.
 They play games ranging from basic to advanced versions.
 They extensively use social media channels to.....well socialize!
 They like to have an extensive library of eBooks to read on the go, and still have enough of battery life to do other things.
What Tablets Mean to Them
A portable, entertainment device. Casual users did not find it absolutely necessary to own a laptop. It may have been gifted to them by their employers and it mainly served as an entertainment source. For them, portable devices like the tablet which allows them to be entertained on the go, will most definitely replace a laptop or desktop.
2. STUDENTS
Characteristics
 They typically like to take notes,
create reports, develop graphs and run equations to complete assignments.
 They like to be connected via social media most of the time.
 They also like to occasionally watch television episodes or movies.
 Some of them do spend much of their time gaming.
What Tablets Mean to Them
Today for students, new technology devices have become a quintessential piece of their wardrobe. While smartphones have replaced laptops, tablets on the other hand are gaining momentum, especially with the drop in prices. While new touchscreen functionality on tablets have made it easier to use, the storage space required to store class notes, course material and assignments sway students to still prefer laptops over devices like tablets.
3. CORPORATE USERS
Characteristics
 They are two types of corporate users, business travelers and ‘desk-
Jockeys’.

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 Some of them strategize, some write content, develop code, and create graphics or crunch numbers.
 They usually own a mobile device, a laptop and a desktop computer.
 They require rich-featured programs, connectivity, power capacity and storage space to support their business activities.
What Tablets Mean to Them
Devices such as tablets are not yet there, to replace desktops and laptops for corporate users. They need devices that can smoothly run rich-featured programs such as spread sheets, word processors, or video and photo editing software. While tablets are getting there by providing advanced photo and video editing tools, there are many features that corporate users need that they find lacking in tablets, and therefore are not yet inclined to replace their laptops of desktops entirely.
4. FREELANCERS
Characteristics
 They need to be equipped with flexibility and mobility to work it out.
 Based on their line of work, devices like tablets could work for them. For instance, it is convenient for freelance writers to use tablets given that they have alternate energy source and internet connectivity.
What Tablets Mean to Them
Tablets especially for freelance writers, web designers and developers have become a preferred device. Paired with a
physical keyboard, connectivity and power source, tablets seems to be the go to device to enable them to work on the go, without the need for a laptop or desktop.
The Way Forward
While users are juggling with carrying around a smart phone, tablet and notebook, they are looking for one-stop solutions. Tom Kilroy, Executive Vice President of Intel stated that the 2-in-1 computers such as Lenovo Yoga will be the future. 2-in-1 computers are laptops and tablets combined.
While new mobile devices and tablets seem to be taking over the consumer market, business users on the other hand have not migrated entirely and prefer to keep their laptops or desktops as stand by. There is a growing trend of enterprise-wide tablet adoption. Organizations are widely using tablets along with a suitable suite of apps and with data hosted on the cloud, accessibility is seamless across devices.
Organizations are benefiting by handing out tablets instead of laptops to employees. Firstly, they have more control over data as it is hosted on remotely. Mangers are able to monitor usage of resources and with control to access to data, theft and misuse can be prevented. One of the primary benefits of using tablets enterprise-wide is cost saving. It is easier to control costs when a software program has to be installed only once and various hardware systems are allowed to use it. The evolution of tablet versions and new app development, organizations can easily connect them to their servers with minimal customization.

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Pinterest – Reasons for its exponential growth
Pinterest is the third most popular social network – Experian
Pinterest hit 10 million unique US visitors, faster than any other site in the history of web – TechCrunch
The exponential growth of Pinterest has been talk of the town for quite a long time, since it was tagged as the next big thing in the social media space.
Pinterest is Unique!
When Ben Silbermann started Pinterest, the only aim was to encourage users to collect and share images they find on the web. While there are many social media network channels which allows users to share content they like and get connected to friends, family and relatives on the web, Pinterest is unique allowing users to share visuals.
Source: Internet Marketing Inc

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Basics about Pinterest
Pin:
When a Pinterest user uploads a photo or a video, other users can Pin it using the button. Every photo or video can be pinned and they are linked back to the original source that has uploaded it.
Board:
A board is where users can organize their pins based on genres. Boards can be made public or private based on their priority.
Follow:
A feature similar to Twitter, when a user follows another, their pins shows up on the follower’s home feed. User can follow any number of users.

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Why people love Pinterest? – Easy, Visual & Creative
Why people stick to Pinterest? – Curate, Share & Inspire
Why people pin? – Fun, Beauty & Motivation
What is a good pin? – Personality, Beauty & Inspiration
The Secret Recipe of Pinterest
Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann says Marketing
is the secret behind Pinterest’s exponential growth and not Engineering. Pinterest growth accounts to the basic marketing tactics. It has nothing to do with algorithms or engineering. When Pinterest was launched, it could not get more than 3000 users in three months. When
Ben Silbermann spoke to the investors, most
of them had concerns with the tool and
suggested him to make a few corrections
that might change the tool’s fate. But Ben knew it
was not about re-engineering the tool, it was about distributing and promoting the tool.
Pinterest created a strategy to get connected to people through meet-ups and clicked funny pictures and posted them. They had various bloggers, active users on social media channels to work with Pinterest. With a tag line “Pin it Forward” Pinterest has created a viral buzz and created a mark.
Now Pinterest has reached 25 million members across the globe.
Pinterest – The marketers’ way!
Though Pinterest stands as the third biggest social media network after Facebook and Twitter, not many marketers are utilizing it the way needs to be. Pinterest has started of a portal to share i.e. pin images focused around businesses like fashion, hospitality, photography, wedding and beauty. Over the period of three years, it has grown to one of the top referral platforms with great potential to drive traffic to the websites. Despite so many advantages, there are many marketers who say “I don’t understand Pinterest”. For marketers like that, here are few reasons why you need to follow Pinterest.
Reasons why marketers should be on Pinterest:
1. Pinterest reduces the sales life- cycle time:
Pinterest is the only social media networking site that reduces the sales cycle by cutting down on the steps between discovery and conversion. Especially when we are talking about B2C i.e. Business to Consumer marketing, it helps in converting deals faster. The price of the product is available on the picture; the consumer likes it they buy it. It is just a one-step go. No other social media network offers such conversions.

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2. Pinterest Drives traffic to websites:
Pinterest is the only site in the recent history that managed to get 10 million unique views. If you are a company aiming fuel you’re marketing with relevant traffic to your website, Pinterest is your piece of cake. Pinterest is one great site that increases gives back links to the website which gets in more traffic and corresponding SEO ranking. Though Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks preceded it, Pinterest was the best social media tool that drove traffic is a great way.
3. Engagement is insanely crazy:
Engagement happening through Pinterest is insanely too high. Facebook and Twitter have the
metrics to show engagement; but when compared with the Pinterest numbers, the social media networks are nowhere near its engagement levels. The reason for this might be due to the wide array of users who are not usually bothered about the numbers. All they want is to share information and they do it just to meet the purpose. Anything that does not involve too much of salesy content will be liked by people.
4. Know what your customers like: Pinterest is all about interests. Based on the pins or the boards that customers or prospects like and follow, the interests could be easily gauged. There are many consumers that have found companies they would buy from and businesses that they could partner with on Pinterest.
What Marketers can do on Pinterest?
Pinterest gives marketers a new set of marketing opportunities. As now you know what the reasons are for you are on Pinterest, here are few reasons for you that explain what you can do on Pinterest.
1. Share visual content on Pinterest:
As we all know, Pinterest is a visual social media network site where you can share visual content. Businesses are bagging customers with the help if elicit emotional images. When it is business to business companies, they can share images of products, visuals relating to blog
articles, resources like white paper, cheat sheets etc., Infographics and Instructographics are two great content types that are widely used on Pinterest. Data charts, ebook cover photos, photos of your customers, your events happening, sometimes even personal photos that customers can relate to are a great content media.
2. Incorporate Pinterest button on Website:

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Ensure to include a Pinterest button on your website. This helps
people reaching out to your pin boards. When they reach the boards, they need to see information relevant to your website. So ensure that content on your social media network and the website is in line.
3. Stand out as an Industry Leader:
Through your pins, share thought leadership information that makes you stand out in the crowd and makes you stand as a leader in your market. Have themed pin boards that speak your language.
4. Start a video Gallery:
After images, videos are the next big thing in the content marketing funnel. Utilize Pinterest to showcase videos you have created. Create a special gallery for the videos and share them on Pinterest. You can feature videos of events, speakers, conferences, etc. that build credibility.
5. Use #Hashtag to be found:
Like Twitter, Google+ and Facebook now, Pinterest also allows hashtags. Make use of hashtags to tag pins and make the pins search friendly.
Pinterest is not about showing off products or services. It is about showcasing them in such a way that your target audience like it and go for it. Dig out ways to understand how to attract your target audience based on their lifestyle, preferences and buying behaviours.

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Rise of the visual content
machines– Instagram
“Pictures speak a thousand words.”
Instagram, a photo sharing iPhone application was build with a similar idea. Known as “Burbn” in its beta phase, the check-in app could also add photos. What was interesting was the fact that apart from photo sharing the app saw very little engagement.
Hence they tried building “Just Photos”
another prototype where only photos could be shared with friends and family. But at the end it was not launched because applications like Hipstamatic, a photography company which also provided IncrediBooth and SwankoLab for iPhone and Snap magazine already existed. But what still did not exist was a photo sharing app with a social functionality.
This led to the ideation of “Instagram’’. Instagram allowed the user to click images using their mobile phone and share them instantly with the world. There were three fundamental things that were kept in mind while developing this application. They focused on:
1. Creating beautiful photos
2. Allowing users to share them on multiple social networks
3. Making the entire process quick “We focused on three – we weren’t trying to reinvent the world of photography. We focused on these three humble problems. And that’s what turned Instagram from yet another network tackling photos, into a network people used.” - Foundation 16: Kevin Systrom
The journey after the big launch
Instagram was launched on 6th Oct, 2010. The application was launched exclusively as an iPhone application with the release of iphone4 which gave them

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the perfect platform providing a high quality camera displaying high resolution images which can be edited and shared with friends and family instantly.
Within its first 24 hours of launch over 25,000 users logged in and by week 3 the numbers grew to 300,000 and then into the tens of millions. The launch was a success and the main reason for its heighten demand was the founder Mr. Kevin, who had in his interview with Internet Television Network Revision 3 in January explained about his product and created a hype in media. Kevin also let highly influential people like bloggers and contacts like Mr. Dorsey of Twitter use the test version of the application before the official launch. Mr. Dorsey used the application to upload all his images on twitter and in just a matter of time, the word spread through his followers.
Battles fought on their way
Instagram also fought its own battles. First, due to the increasing demand they had to shift to Amazon’s rent a server service over night to avoid any technical glitches and slow down or capacity constraint. Next, it was seen that Mr. Kevin and Mr. Krieger had to carry their Mac Books Airs and wireless cards everywhere they went to get online anytime for trouble shooting technical glitches which happened a lot with shooting influx of traffic.
Recently it came under the line of fire for introducing a revised version of private policy and terms of service. According to the modified policy any image uploaded can be used by Instagram or Facebook for advertisement based on its likeness. All images on Instagram are considered as commodities. This saw an outrage of protest from users and thousands of complaints poured in on twitter. Following which Instagram reacted by a tweet:
Then Instagram posted a blog entry clarifying various aspects of their privacy policy and promised that they would modify their language making their message clearer. However they did not promise to make any substantial changes in the policy.
Read the complete blog here: http://blog.instagram.com/post/38252135408/thank-you-and-were-listening

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Gaining Popularity
So what about Instagram actually caught users’ curiosity and liking? Is the fact that the application allowed users to tweak the images with its strikingly unconventional borders and filters which made the images more striking adding a nostalgic glow? Or was it the speed and ease with which one could upload and share their photos? While it is yet to be discovered, it’s known that one of the few things that worked strongly in favour of Instagram was that soon celebrities joined the league.
Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were the only two celebrities who had 1 million followers before the android version of Instagram was released. The app gained popularity only after the release of android version and its acquisition by Facebook.
The android version of the application was released by April 2012. This move got them a whooping one million people signing up for them in just 24 hours. The success did not go unnoticed, investors lined up but Mr. Kevin was not interested in selling it. They maintained a small highly qualified team of 11 which included many Stanford graduates.
The decision of not selling Instagram changed when Mr. Kevin met Mark Zuckerberg. The deal was closed in just 48 hours which also speculated that Mark Zuckerberg was threatened by the Instagram’s growth. Also, Instagram acquisition was a perfect solution to strengthen Facebooks’s foothold in mobile application space. Mack Zuckerberg considered this as an important milestone for Facebook’s growth in future. The deal was finalized for a $1 billion cash-and-stock deal.
Following these two events, the big guns on Instagram saw a spike in number of followers. Until now it had seen only 27 million downloads but now it saw 50 million downloads and excluding Instagram’s accounts many more celebs received over 1 billion followers. Today the top 5 spots are occupied by Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift and Kendalln Jenner. Looking at brands, MTV, Starbucks, Eonline, Victoria’s Secret and Burberry take the top 5 spots.
In recent times, it has been gaining special popularity amongst sports enthusiasts as a number of them kick start their campaign and share their story/experiences post event through images. It has also been seen that smart phone users login and spending more time on Instagram than Twitter. The trend has been consistent since August.
So while visual social media is still in its infancy stage, the unbeatable factor of Instagram success is its mobile aspect. Like pinterest, Instagram is one of the platforms benefiting from it. Instagram being one of Facebook’s biggest investments makes it even more interesting to watch what their next move would be and how will Facebook use Instagram and make it into a money plant.
So stay tuned, as the battle for Facebook and Instagram to continue to remain as a market leader has just begun!

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Rise of Visual Content
Machines- YouTube
In today’s competitive digital space brands are required to create creative content that generates conversations. This explains why we see a meteoric rise in info-graphics and brands designing social specific content.
The increase in number of images, videos, photographs, live streaming, user generated content and info-graphic is the proof to the fact that social media marketing is moving to a different direction all together.
Whether you are an accountancy firm or a manufacturing firm it is very important these days that you figure out a way to integrate visual content in your marketing mix as some of the stats prove that online imagery is powerful in capturing customer’s imagination.
5 reasons to believe that visual content is the future:
1) Facebook’s Timeline also means brand pages ought to be more visually appealing than before. (Source: Simplify360 Report)
2) 85% of the US internet audience watches videos online. The 25-34 age group watches the most online videos, and adult males
spend 40% more time watching videos on the internet than females. (Sources: Nielsen)
3) Traffic grows by 12% faster by using infographics (Source:AnsonAlex)
4) Over 72 hours of videos are uploaded each minute on YouTube.com and 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every minute. (Source: YouTube)
5) 85% of viewers are more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video. (Source: Internet Retailer)

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Powerful visuals are known to hold audiences’ attention for longer period of time. It is also known that visual content encourages engagement between brands with customers. Implying that in future brands will prefer visual content as more visual content equals more engagement which means more conversations and sales.
YouTube
From left to right: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim (Image Courtesy: Wikinews)
Founded in 2005 by three PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim YouTube has changed the media landscape. Globally Youtube.com is the largest video destination and the most visited website overall.
Over the years, YouTube has seen some phenomenal success. Today it has become a repository of videos on all topics imaginable. Whether it’s breaking news, a case study or a how-to video, the first spot to stop by is Youtube. The website is a one-stop-resource of videos and footages which are shared by on-the- ground citizen journalists; hence they are generally the non-edited version.
The diversity of video’s available is one of the main reasons for YouTube’s success; there is always something available for everyone. It is increasingly becoming a platform where people search for news
and how-to’s on any topic. According to a Pew Research Centre Report the most searched for terms on YouTube were related to news.
On this platform both citizen’s and professionals contribute alike. It has been a collaborative effort from citizen’s, organizations and professionals for content generation and distribution.
However, promising this may look but content distribution still has its own issues. Though they follow a stringent sharing and privacy guideline, not everyone adhere to them. We see content posted without clear attribution, without copyright permissions and without declaration of the source altogether creating opportunities for information falsification and distribution of pirated content.
In 2006, YouTube presented a set of

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agreements to media companies in a humble attempt to escape the threat of copyright infringement lawsuits. On Oct 9th, YouTube was acquired by Google for US$1.65 billion in stock. It was announced that YouTube will continue to operate independently with its co- founders and 67 employees within the company.
Since then YouTube has grown leaps and bounds. They have successfully been able to attract many online marketers and social media enthusiasts to think out the box and run their video campaigns. They have been able to provide innovative means and ideas of utilizing the platform and connecting with audiences by mass.
Today user experience is been splashed by video content as it offers to provide information and entertain at the same time. This trend is only growing as many brands invest heavily in video content. Consumer product brands such as Nike, Red Bull, Old Spice, and Puma etc. have been some of the most creative and innovative brands to have published one campaign after another and attracted millions of followers and take video marketing to the next level.
Post its acquisition, Google has tried and kept YouTube an independent function. However, we did see some integration in Google News and YouTube. In 2009 Google added a local news video channel to its stories aggregation allowing readers to watch related YouTube channels and clips alongside its news.
During this time competition has been high. There are many high-quality video platforms today available with competitive features or specialized markets. Some of them such as Vimeo, Flickr have been there since the start but have failed to gain popularity as Youtube. Some of the platforms such as Blip.tv, Veoh, Viddler, Dailymotion and Yrog are specialized platform that offer features such as unlimited upload capacity, a smart UI make it easy and relatively quick to load huge files; some of the features that YouTube fails to provide.
In March 2013, YouTube hits one billion users per month stat, making it the best video sharing platform. They announce their success by a few comparative measures:
Our monthly viewership is equivalent to roughly ten super bowl audiences and if YouTube was a country, they would be the largest in the world after China and India.
- YouTube’s official blog
This is what makes YouTube one of those “not to be missed marketing tool” today. With the increase in number of visual content haring networks what would really be exciting to see is youtube’s way forward.
With its efforts such as revenue sharing

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scheme with the newswire Reuters, giving it a rich source of raw video footage and now introducing a pilot project of paid channels, it stands tall as the only platform that provides multiple ways on growing your audience, brand awareness and ad revenue through content collaboration.
In its latest attempt, it tries and lures viewers, advertisers and content producers by diverting their marketing investments from traditional TV promotional to YouTube channels. They believe that viewers will be willing to pay to access certain content and so they approached a small group of channel producers and asked them to submit applications to create a channel that users would have to pay to access. They are considering charging anywhere between US $1-$5 per month even for content libraries, live events, self-help and financial shows.
What will be exciting to see is whether YouTube and its partners are able to create such content that a user would be willing to pay for?
Reference:
http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/youtube_news
http://youtube-global.blogspot.ca/2013/03/onebillionstrong.html

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Why People Love
SlideShare?
‘SlideShare: The Quiet Giant of Content Marketing’
– Forbes
Content was always considered the King of marketing. When Content Marketing has been the next big thing in the market, SlideShare quite evidently bagged it too early. Before anybody else could step into the market, SlideShare had taken the leap and made a mark.
SlideShare is now the world’s largest community for sharing content in the form of presentations, PDFs, videos and even webinars. The community brings in about 60 million visitors and 130 million page views every month. It is rated as the number one content portal spreading information, feeding blogs, and social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Though there have been many other tools which came later into the market, SlideShare stood out in the crowd as the only portal that gives business solutions that marketers need from such content sharing portals. SlideShare is the friendliest tool to businesses that helps marketers create brand awareness, track visitors and generate leads. These happen to be the three main reasons why people love SlideShare. However, there are other benefits too.
Business benefits that make people love SlideShare
 Create brand awareness with the help of unique content
 Know if the content is working or not with the help of reports
 Generate niche and qualified business leads
 Get better ranking on search engines especially Google, Yahoo and Bing
 Drive traffic to the website, blog or social media channels through presentations
 Increase the number of followers on social media
 Grow email subscriber base
*SlideShare gets the highest and most qualified B2B traffic when compared to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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Here are the stats from ComScore that proves the point.
507
594
518
199
162
147
99
139
144
156
95
93
96
94
108
164
146
166
85
130
90
91
89
82
99
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Business owner
Micro Business owner
Small Business owner
C-Level
Work in Small Business
Audience Chart
YouTube
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
SlideShare

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SlideShare had made efforts to become a B2B portal helping businesses and especially with the business benefits it offers. Forbes said it right when they called SlideShare a Content Marketing giant. Now, let’s sneak into the key features of SlideShare. With SlideShare you can…
 Share unique presentations with millions of viewers in the community
 Upload professional and educational documents and share publicly or personally
 Conduct research with the help of resources already available in the portal
 Get insights for your presentation from millions of presentations existing in the portal.
 Create a professional network with
other businesses or marketers on board
 Utilize SlideShare widgets on blogs and websites
 Make your content go viral and gain high search rankings
 Create SlideCasts to spruce up your webinars, lecturers, slideshows, etc.
 Collect leads for business through lead generation service
 Marketing professionals are relying on SlideShare as a visual marketing channel to reach prospects and customers easy and fast. SlideShare has become a mandate for every visual marketing campaign to generate niche leads. Here are tips that can turn your presentations into a lead generation machine.
Tips for Best Utilization of SlideShare:
 Prove that you are an expert: When you are talking something to your audience, make sure you choose topics in which you excel factually. Remember that most audience absorb visual elements faster than text. Cut down on the lengthy paragraphs, talk to the point and show visuals everywhere possible. Most importantly, you need to talk the language of the audience. If you are not giving them what they are looking for, it is as bad as not doing it at all. Use your expertise to pull new prospects by giving solutions to their problems.
 Title is the face of your presentation: Like any other
marketing component, title or headline is the element, based on which your audience decide whether to go ahead and read or to leave it there. Audience spare not more than three seconds to take a decision. Grab the opportunity by making it easy to read along with simple, neat and alluring design. Get them with the headline and make them click through the presentation.
 Make the presentation SEO friendly: Optimizing your content for the search engines is as important as making it reader- friendly. Make it a practice to include most popular keywords in the title and also in each slide. Win

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Titbits for Creating SlideShare Presentations
1. Make it easy to run through
2. Chop information into consumable bites
3. Incorporate unique and aesthetic images
4. Use minimal text
5. Include clickable calls-to-action
6. Avoid too many animations
7. Upload presentation as a PDF
the search engine ranking by focusing on meta description and meta tags for the presentation. Ask viewers to share the presentation. The number of shares increases the inbound links.
 Spread presentations through other marketing channels
Presentations on SlideShare can be embedded on different social media and marketing channels. It is easy to engage audience through presentations on blog, facebook, twitter, etc. Sharing becomes easier and content sees more light.
 Do not start right away – Have a Plan
Creating a presentation right away picking some random topic is very easy and anybody can do it. If you want qualified leads and results from SlideShare efforts, you need to create a strategy involving social media, blogs and other marketing channels you rely on. Before you get started, have an editorial calendar and work out based on it for enhanced results. Once you have the plan, publish it on SlideShare and drive shares through social media.
 Repurpose your content
Most businesses have marketing collaterals or resources on websites. Not many people utilize it to the fullest. If you already have a white paper with lots of content,
why not convert it into a visual
presentation for SlideShare. Do not have same content; try to represent the content in a visually appealing way to attract more attention.
 Track reports to understand where you stand
Getting reports on number of views and downloads is one of the best features on SlideShare. Businesses can utilize this option to understand what’s working and what’s not for the brand. Track down to the referring sites, keywords and audience to get in- depth details. Based on these metrics, you can decide on ‘what’s
next’.
.
 Trigger them to ‘Fill the Form’
Businesses are utilizing SlideShare as a lead generation tool. You can get the information of the person who is interested in your products or services. Chances are that people landing on SlideShare are audience searching for niche content. Once you get the details, you can follow

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up immediately and drive through sales.
Top brands using SlideShare:
Have you been thinking that you are an industry that cannot take advantage of SlideShare? Well, you might want to think about it again. Because, here are five companies from the Fortune 100 list belonging to different industry verticals using SlideShare for various business purposes.
 Cisco Systems
Cisco has joined hands with SlideShare to share research presentations, documents, insightful information and discussions. Cisco has been using the community to get a greater reach and also share valuable information which they cannot otherwise.
 SalesForce
SalesForce uses SlideShare as a tool to share new updates about their software of share latest presentations, infographics and eBooks.
 SAS
SAS, the business leader in business analytics shares presentations on SlideShare which educate their prospects of customers about products and services.
 NetApp
NetApp, one of the data management solutions companies, uses SlideShare to talk about their new products and give insights helpful to customers.
 Zappos
Zappos with the help of SlideShare, creates a personal connect with their customers.
SlideShare has been and will continue to be an advantage for both social and search purposes. It gives businesses an intellectual edge over search engines and tactically build networks on social media channels. It is the easiest channel to upload and share content on different marketing channels. Nevertheless, it is a great lead generation tool that shortens the sales cycle of businesses with its qualified leads. With its intelligent ability to integrate with marketing automation tools, the sales and marketing alignment get easier giving scope for more return on marketing investment.
What else would a business want, qualified leads pushed directly into the marketing automation tool and pour in astounding results? That’s what SlideShare gives that make it so loveable.

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Twitter handles
which a social
media enthusiast
should follow!
Are you new to social media? Do you want to make a living out of crafting and reading tweets? Are you a marketer who wants to explore the social media world?
If your answer to any of the above questions is “Yes”, then you should start following the 8 twitter handles mentioned below to get your daily dose of what’s hot in social media.
These twitter accounts will give you a hang of best practices in the social media industry and if you read what they tweet thoroughly then in some while you’d be ready to try your luck in this ever changing industry.
@NeilSchaffer
43108 Following, 69233 Followers
Focuses on Social Media Strategies, emerging trends and tech. journalism!
USP: Very interactive!
@kimgarst
141818 Following, 159762 Followers
Shares captivating stories and tips and tricks to build an engaged community!
USP: Featured in Forbes list of Top 10 Social Media Influencers.

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@socialmedia2day (Social Media Blog)
464 Following, 187,972 Followers
Covers every single movement in social media world, and shares best and worst socmed practices from experts
USP: Conducts super engaging chats #smtlive and #socialshakeup
@memeburn
2 26 Following, 11405 Followers
From startups to social media, they cover it all and that too with much finesse
USP: Very insightful posts and bookmark worthy stuff.
@TheSocialCMO
34764 Following, 32503 Followers
A tweetsourcing platform where all the marketing heads of social organizations sit together and discuss
USP: Conducts a very engaging #MMchat, must attend for every social media junkie.

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@AskAaronLee
127685 Following, 462,836 Followers
His tweets focus on community management, branding and content marketing
USP: Very spontaneous and interactive, maintains a very interesting blog, AskAaronLee
@Steveology
71617 Following, 102,918 Followers
Focuses on lead generation, customer retention and content marketing
USP: Featured in Forbes list of Top 50 Social Media influencers
@SocialMediaKara
19,951 Following, 21,548 Followers
Offers a good information feed on social media news, useful for those who are new to social media.
USP: Thoughtfully constructed Content Stream, focusing on trending topics in social media.

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Common Patterns Amongst them!
 They are most likely to use text blogs for making their opinions count to their audience.
 They love to engage with others rather than RT other’s tweets.
 They use relevant hash tags only when it is required.
 They craft tweets so perfectly that it becomes almost impossible to go away without clicking the link.
 Always remain updated in terms of their content.

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Excellent Non-Brand Facebook Pages when it comes to engagement
Facebook has become the one-stop-shop for all community managers looking at creating a global online community of followers and potential customers in today’s virtual world. As more and more businesses are adapting to the changing consumer behaviour and customer engagement habits, social networking website has become key to developing a successful marketing strategy.
So it does not matter how big or small your business is; going online is the next way forward. While you can find many branded
pages that have successfully build a huge fan following on most of the available social networks, let’s look as some of the less known pages on Facebook. Focusing on how they have successfully built a community and also engage with them without spending a penny on Facebook ads or marketing it through other channels.
We choose the following pages for discussion because of their high rate of reader-engagement ratio. We believe that they are excellent examples for niche social media marketing.
1. I Fucking Love Science (Category: Science Website)
This page tops our list with over 5 million likes and 3 million people talking about it. The page has attracted large number of conversations by sharing interesting facts in science from all around the world.
Launched in March 10, 2012 the page has seen a whooping number of likes and comments in just one year. Elise Andrew, the page moderator is an employee at LabX Media Group, which owns LabWrench and publishes Lab Manager Magazine and The Scientist.
Elise started the page with the objective of sharing information which is less known and presented in an interesting and a fun way to people in her words ‘the lighter side of science’. The description about the page states as follows:
We're here for the science - the funny side of science. Quotes, jokes, memes and anything your admin finds awesome and strange. If you take yourself seriously, you're on the wrong page. We're dedicated to bringing the amazing world of science straight to your newsfeed in an amusing and accessible way. Tell us what makes you say "wow!"

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As the brief says it all, the page posts are light-hearted, entertaining and enjoyable by all science lovers. The theme of the page has consistently been followed and the stories are shared through images combined with a question, poll or a story that people would love to read, share and also comment. Some the best practices followed such as
posting regularly, keeping it interesting and encouraging reader views and comments has made this page one of the favourite’s amongst both the youth and older generation alike.
Elise has been able to attract over 5 million fans in just one year by sharing interesting facts and non-factual information through images and each post has received at least 500 comments. An incredibly high rate of audience conversation and engagement for a non branded page even when compared to branded pages.
Elise also started a sister page called Science Is Awesome which has also seen a huge fan following with 326,458 likes and 232,388 people talking about it.
Link to the pages
I Fucking Love Science: https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience
Science is Awesome: https://www.facebook.com/ScienceIsSeriouslyAwesome

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2. Garbage Bin (Category: Artist)
Kaam na Dhanda....Bekaar Bandaa...!! ^_^
The page owner Faisal Mohd. depicts a witty yet silly, amusing yet a relatable character. The page posts are funny, entertaining and most importantly engaging.
Launched in August 2011, the page has seen 358,941 likes and 65,528 people talking about it in two years.
Faisal Mohd. is the creative hand behind the scenes whose comic strips have become an instant hit. The comic strips are written in colloquial language (Hindi) and that adds to its own charm and uniqueness. Anybody who understands the language and is born in India can relate to the depicted incidences that are humoured about in the comic strip.
The character is created with great care and detail to portray a happy-go- lucky character and the comic strip illustrates incidents occurring in his day to day life to which any middle class Indian can relate to.
It is this creative content that attracts the huge number of likes and comments. Faisal keeps his interactions with fans up close and personal and responds to each one of them promptly. One of the best practices that have played a vital role in helping Faisal gain popularity.
It is seen that his fans have been demanding an increase in frequency of posts regularly, which goes to show how well perceived the page is. This also opens up an excellent opportunity for Faisal to take his passion and creativity to the next level.
Responding promptly as always, Faisal takes advantage of the situation and announces his own website which would carry more content, more gags and will also have an online store for their official merchandise.

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An excellent example of how one can build a business after making it big on social media.
Links to the page: https://www.facebook.com/garbagebin?fref=ts

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3. Delhi Metro confessions (Category: Community)
Public forums have given people a voice. With more and more customers coming forward to comment and share their experiences online, social media forums have provided an excellent feedback channel to all brands.
Delhi metro confessions page is yet another excellent example for the same. Started in March 9, 2013, the page allows confessions and complaints from anyone who wants to share and the sender is kept anonymous. This page has over 105,526 likes and 75,928 people talking about it. Daily commuters share their experiences and encounters during their journey through Delhi Metro here.
The page directs you to a Google form where you can write and submit your confession/complaint and the admin reposts the same on his/her discursion.

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Maintaining complete anonymity of submission, the page follows strict sharing policy to ensure
no unrelated and obscene comments are posted on the page.
The admin himself stays behind the curtains allowing the page to be completely driven by the community. Making it simple for him to create and review content and also maintain some basic social media hygiene.
Links to the page: https://www.facebook.com/delhimetroconfessions?fref=ts

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4. Rajnikant Vs CID Jokes (Category: Just for Fun)
Ankit Mor and Shahid Javed created this page on 10 Oct 2010, to share best SMS jokes. Starting with Rajnikant and CID jokes the page soon saw many a fans like and comment on it.
Who does not like to read and share some light humour. The content shared was the key in building a strong community on Facebook. With over 1.3 million likes and 910,631 talking about it, the page shows a high rate of engagement ratio.
While Ankit and Shahid started by sharing only Rajnikanth
and CID jokes that were a hit in the year 2010. By 2011 they
moved on to sharing other jokes and funny posts (images
and text posts alike) to increase the frequency of the posts
and reader engagement.
A simple page yet a popular one among readers.
So what is that catches reader’s attention here?
Well like the page and find it out yourself ;)

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Page Link: https://www.facebook.com/RajnikantVsCIDJokes

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5. Bohot bhukh lagi hai yaar subah se kuch nahi khaya (Category: Community)
Yet another excellent example of user generated content.
With over 1 million likes and over 766,127 people talking about it, this page has been able to achieve a high reader- engagement ratio through its witty, funny and amusing shared gags. The page moderator Pritesh Rajput encourages users to share jokes and content.
The page is solely aimed at building a community of likeminded people. With images, video’s, gags and links being shared by admin and readers about anything and everything from Bollywood, food, cricket and general news.
What is worth noting on this page is that how Pritesh (the moderator) slips in a couple of posts with a pure sales motive, communicating it in a very creative and an innovative style.

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Pritesh tries and push the sales of t-shirts from Wear Your Opinion (www.WYO.in), Say it Loud (www.sayitloud.in) and Bewakoof.com (of-course these Tee’s have some good, witty captions!)
Page Link: https://www.facebook.com/bhukha.prit?fref=ts

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6. 9gag.com (Category: App Page)
So here is a non brand page which describes itself as a global community of people aimed at sharing happiness.
Created on July 2008, this page attempts to bring people together and let’s them share anything they find interesting. The page encourages user generated content and gives get real responses from people all over the world.
By 2012 they reached a mark of 4 million likes by fans and also launched themselves on Instagram. The content has gone viral since then and within just one more year that is by 2013 they have seen an increase of over one million fan likes on Facebook and 500,000 followers on Instagram. This page has an extremely high rate of engagement ratio with an average of over 25,000 likes on each post and 2,077,581 people talking about it.
One of the first things that come to notice is that the content shared by the admin is original and all the gags pictorially represented are 9gag.com branded. Yet another marketing tactic adapted to build brand awareness through your community building and engagement efforts.
Page Link: https://www.facebook.com/9gag

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Summarizing some key takeaways:
1. Keep it fun, amusing and entertaining.
2. Integrate your online presence. Take advantage of your strong social network to improve your website traffic.
3. Do not try and sell directly. Be creative, funny while you try and promote your sponsor/self products on the page. Refer to how Pritesh Rajput, moderator of ‘Bohot bhukh lagi hai yaar subah se kuch nahi khaya’ Facebook page use’s this very tactfully.
4. Be original in the content you share. Ensure you tag every image or owned content with your brand (like how 9gag.com does it!) so as to multiply your brand reach when fans share your content on other social networks.
5. Develop and maintain social media hygiene. Create some ground rules or a social media sharing policy so that fans and followers are aware of what NOT to share. ‘Bohot bhukh lagi hai yaar subah se kuch nahi
khaya’ Facebook page gives a good example for the same:
ABOUT THIS COMMUNITY: This is your Fan Page and we would love it if you contributed to it, be it through a wall post, video, link or photo. That being said, we want this to be a safe and fun environment for all users to get together. With that in mind, we thought a mini "house rules" would be appropriate. Feel free to disagree with us and other fans, but please do so in a respectful manner. We will not tolerate abuse or harassment (no personal attacks or statements about sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc.), no spamming, and no uploading of inappropriate content (including the promotion or distribution of content that is illegal, harmful, abusive, hateful, racially, religiously or ethnically offensive, obscene, threatening, bullying, vulgar, sexually explicit, defamatory, infringing, invasive of personal privacy or publicity rights) on this Page. To Sum it up: Just Be Cool.

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List of metrics to track on Facebook, Twitter and Social Buzz
Digital Media is full of metrics and insights, sometimes a bit more to digest for a digital marketer. Hence it is important to identify the one that matters and implement them in your daily or weekly reporting structure.
But before you create the reporting structure, you need to have a social media plan and its goal listed. If a metric do not tie to a goal, then it is useless. For example it’s not necessary to measure the size of your community or re-shares, if your goal is to increase web traffic. Rather it is important to find out how many people your content is reaching and how many of them clicked on it.
There are basically 2 types of metrics:
1. Vanity Metrics
2. Actionable Metrics
Vanity metric is a kind of metric, which boosts your brand’s ego, for example the number of Fans, Followers, ReTweets and Likes. Most businesses have a tendency to circle around vanity metrics and feel good about it, even when they do not directly tie with the goals of a business.
On the other hand, Actionable Metric is a business centric metric that demands some immediate actions to be taken. For example, if the CTR of your banner Ads are low, it demands immediate action by the
advertisers to recreate the ad.
Every social network has its own sets of actionable and vanity metrics. As a brand it is important to priorities between them and set out to create the best reporting structure. Below are the lists of metrics, which you are measure and calculate for each of the social network.
Facebook Page
Public:
Likes: Number of people who have liked the page.
People talking about: Number of people who are generating stories about the page by liking the page, commenting on posts, sharing the posts or sharing the page itself.
Likes on Post: Number of likes on the post made by the Facebook Page.
Comments on Post: Number of comments made on the post made by the Facebook Page.
Shares of Post: Number of shares made

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on the post made by the Facebook Page.
Post on Wall of the page: Number of post people have made on the Facebook Page wall.
Number of Post made: Number of post made by Facebook Page in given time period.
Sentiment of comments: Sentiment breakdown of comments made on a post.
Private
Number of views of the Post: Number of people who saw the post.
Number of clicks on the link of the Post: Number of clicks received by the link on the Post.
Page Impressions: Number of impressions received by the Facebook Page.
Page Consumption: Number of people who clicked on the content posted by the Facebook Page without generating any new stories. This means people clicking on photos, links, videos and others.
Number of negative feedback: Number of people hiding the post made by the Facebook Page or marking it spam.
Derived
Engagement Metrics
The measurement can be daily, weekly or monthly. This measures the activity strength of your community members.
 Number of Comments per Post: Divide the total number of comments on the posts by the number of Posts for a given time period.
 Number of likes per Post: Divide
the total number of likes on the posts by the number of Posts for a given time period.
 Number of Shares per Post: Divide the total number of shares on the posts by the number of Posts for a given time period.
 Time to respond: Average time to respond to any query on Facebook.
The metric can be further divided with respect to Post types: Photos, Links, Updates, Videos and Q&A.
Community Metrics
The measurement can be daily, weekly or monthly. This measures the quality of your
community members.
 % Fan Engagement: Number of Unique People talking about divided by Total number of Fans.
Post Metrics
The measurement can be daily, weekly or monthly. This measures the quality of the post made by the Facebook Page.
 % Post Engagement Rate: Number of unique people liking, commenting and sharing the posts divided by the Number of unique people who saw the post.
 % Post Click Through Rate: Number of unique people clicking on the links in the Post by the

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Number of unique people who saw the post.
Twitter
Public
Followers: Number of people following your Twitter profile.
Following: Number of people your Twitter profile is following.
Tweets: Number of Tweets made by your Twitter profile.
ReTweets made: Number of ReTweets done by your Twitter profile.
ReTweets received: Number of ReTweets received by your Twitter profile.
Mentions received: Number of replies received by your Twitter profile
Mentions sent: Number of replies or responses sent by your Twitter profile.
Favorites: Number of Tweets people have favorited from your Twitter profile.
Lists: Number of List counts. List is a curated groups of Twitter profile created by people on Twitter.
Derived
Engagement Metrics
The measurement can be daily, weekly or monthly. This measures the activity strength of your community members.
 Number of RT per Post: Divide the total number of RT on the posts by
the number of Posts for a given time period.
 Number of Mentions per Post: Divide the total number of Mentions on the posts by the number of Posts for a given time period.
 Number of Favorite per Post: Divide the total number of Favorite on the posts by the number of Posts for a given time period.
 Time to respond: Average time to respond to any query on Twitter.
The metric can be further divided with respect to Post types: Photos, Links, Updates, Videos and Q&A.
Community Metrics
The measurement can be daily, weekly or monthly. This measures the quality of your community members.
 % Follower Engagement: Number of Unique People Engaging with your Twitter profile divided by Total number of Followers.
Post Metrics
The measurement can be daily, weekly or monthly. This measures the quality of the post made by the Facebook Page.
 % Post Engagement Rate: Number of unique people engaging with the posts divided by the Number of Followers times Number of Posts times
 % Post Click Through Rate: Number of unique people clicking
on the links in the Post by the Number of Followers times Number of Posts times

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Social Media Buzz
Social Media Buzz is the conversation around particular keywords which can be a branded keywords or general industry keywords.
Public
Total Buzz: Total number of mentions across the social web. (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Blogs, Discussion Form and so on)
Positive Mentions: Total number of positive mentions.
Negative Mentions: Total number of negative mentions.
Neutral Mentions: Total number of neutral mentions.
Active Time: Peak day and time when the buzz was at peak.
Unique Audience: Number of Unique people mentioning involved in the conversations.
Channel Affinity: Distribution of buzz across different platforms.
Regional Distribution: Region wise distribution of buzz.
Demographic Distribution: Age and Gender wise distribution of audience.
Derived
Average Mentions per Day: Total mentions divided by the time periods in
day.
Rate of change of Mentions: Change in the volume of conversation with respect to time.
Influence Score: Weighted value of buzz across each channel. (Buzz is the volume of conversations)
Opinion Score: Ranked score based on positive sentiment buzz for the Brand.
Prominence Score: Ranked buzz score based in comparison with the industry standard.
Buzz Score: Aggregate of Influence, Opinion and Prominence Score.
List
Influencers: List of profiles who are influencing the overall buzz.
Trending Topics: List of key topics that was talked most during the time period.
Key Negative Keywords: List of key topics, which are generating negative buzz.
Key Positive Keywords: List of key topics, which are generating positive buzz.
All the above metrics listed are some of the fundamental metric, which a business must be focusing on. Beside these, there can be many derivatives out of above topics. Furthermore these are dynamic variables and in coming times as the social network change the variables and their relevance also changes.