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With twitter officially declaring on their blog that restaurants are the most benefitted business from their service, Indian restaurants have woken up as well. And what better place would be than the IT capital of India itself to start making use of this service. Ever since Times of India reported that Food and Restaurants are the two words that are most searched in Bangalore, restaurants and food chains have understood that even they can’t stay away from the internet for too long. Recently I’ve noticed a lot of restaurants turning up towards the net and running campaigns, increasing their social presence through blogs, twitters and the facebooks.

Also recently a restaurant in the Indiranagar also got into the newspapers for the wrong reasons. Desperate to get the crowd back, the also turned up to the social media instead of the regular media. The restaurant called the “The Beach”, launched a “Support The Beach” campaign and offered youngsters free and discounted drinks if they tweeted the link to their incident which had their side of the story and explaining what was wrong in the newspaper reports. I don’t know how successful the campaign was but it definitely grabbed eyeballs of the netsavvy youth in the city. Getting your crowd back is a tough ask especially if newspapers tarnish your image, they definitely acted smartly and found the best way to pull the crowd back which was essentially the youth on any given day.

A few shots of The Beach campaign. Entire campaign can be seen here. No, not much use visiting that link as the discount period is over.

Support the beach campaign

The Beach, Bangalore

Support the beach campaign

Well I’ll leave you with some of the ones I found, the rest of the job you have to do and I’ll add to my list here.

• Punjabi Parantha
• Kyra
• Mast Kalandar
• The Beach
• South Indies
• Potluck Restaurant

South Indies on Twitter

I expect more from you people. Let us know @zapylacz or in the comments below.

The Indian Film Industry is finally waking up to the power of social media. Films have started creating websites and doing promotion online, ads were already seen from quite some time and twitter/ facebook/ orkut were also being tried a bit. Recently I noticed that even the biggest production house, Yash Chopra’s Yash Raj Films (YRF) has understood the power of the internet and taken it up to the social media to get some branding and do good promotions for all its films. I decided to do a done a detailed analysis and was impressed to see the results. Let’s see what they’ve done and what are the thoughts behind the campaign.

The Website:
Yes I agree that a flash site looks good but I still do not favour its implementation primarily because of the slow internet speed in India. Quite a few users who see a flash loading page often tend to close the page straightaway, that’s because of no or little patience. We don’t like to wait! Anyways, once its loaded, a decent interface comes up with the latest release in background (Dil Bole Hadippa these days), a nice way to promote the latest. Also the 30% page flash assures that the recent previous or the upcoming films are also noticed. Contests winners about the previous films are also displayed, motivating people to take part in more contests.

YRF Official Website

Next thing I liked about the site was that each film gets a microsite. No need to create new domains, all on sub domain and having enough knowledge and stuff for the fans or the inquisitive lot. Also contests were promoted in good fashion, full marks to the designers for making them strikingly visible.

YRF-dedicated-movie-microsites with Contests-Facebook-Twitter-Youtube

YRF understands that website alone is not enough to promote and hence has a twitter profile, a facebook fan page, and a youtube channel (operating since 2006), the most essential of them all. All their promos are updated there much before they are aired on TV. A very nice move to get free advertising.

Yash Raj Films on Twitter

Not only YRF, each film has got it dedicated twitter profiles or facebook groups and they’ve mentioned that they are official, a good move once again winning the trust of fans, equally important.

Dil Bole Hadippa (DilBoleHadippa) on Twitter

They have also assured that no one has the slightest of doubts about being official, every profile is linked to one another. The website has links to twitter, facebook and youtube channels and vice versa as well.

Dil Bole Hadippa - Official Group (Yash Raj Films) - Facebook

Dil-Bole-Hadippa-Facebook-ads

Though I am not a big supporter of ads, but if you have the money in your pockets, you should do it is my take and that’s what they’ve done. Facebook ads are evident and done enough to gather a lot of support for the fan pages/ groups .

The engagement team has made a point to keep the fans busy and connected by promoting them all over the place. After all brands are made out of fans/ users. Hence by engaging them consistently they are doing a good job that they speak for them.

YRF-dedicated-Facebook-URL

The technical team seems to be doing a good job. Assuring customized URL’s for their pages, the youtube channel apart from the regular stuff, has branded the page very well.

YouTube - yrf's Channel

They’ve also made sure that every film gets its separate playlist so that the user does not miss any promo for a particular film. A good thought indeed.

Dil Bole Hadippa Playlist

Although they have done a very decent job, the absence of a blog is something which I could not understand. An industry like the film industry which relies heavily or rather completely on its viewers/ fans, keeping that informed is a very important aspect. But not having a blog they are missing on a lot of free advertising and PR. If I am not wrong, Aamir Khan’s dog is named Shahrukh is something that every fan of Asmir knows, but where did they come to know of it ? From his blog of course.

Asking what the fans wished to see in future, what are their opinions, what could be rectified or improved in future is an easy way to get public opinions and then deliver to them. This would improve their fan base, credibility and gain a lot of respect among the crowd. This can be seen by the amount of respect Google has in the online world. A major reason for that is that it does what it’s users want, also the reason why Google’s head designer quit, he had to do not what he thought, but what people wanted. But that’s a one off case, and negligible compared to amount of respect and confidence Google gained among its consumers. So listening to people is a must do for YRF.

Barring the blogging part, Yash Raj Films have done a commendable job on the social media as of now and I must say Kudos to their team altogether. I seriously suggest Quickgun Murugun’s online marketing agency to learn a thing or two or rather all what YRF has done as what they did was entirely crap. Cheers YRF !

Although I did a detailed analysis, I may have missed something which you have noticed. Also possible that you disagree with me on certain points. Do drop in the comments section and let’s have a discussion over it.

Article cross-posted on www.abhinavsahai.com

Initially I thought flame wars were limited to the Linux OS but guess what, I was wrong ! Even the social networking community has it. People fighting over what is better Orkut or Facebook. Well even though India still has a bigger base on Orkut as compared to Facebook(FB), but the pace at which people are joining FB is much faster than they joined Orkut. Recently I overheard someone say to his friend,

“Orkut is passe, join Facebook now”

Well people may have a bigger friends list on orkut, even I have, but that’s only a matter of time, I guess, when the stats reverse. Oh, by the way if you are wondering about all those statements I made, here’s a 4 minute testimony to the facts and probably enough motivation for you to join or engross more on FB whether for business or for fun !

“As a businessman I feel, be where your customers are, not where they were“

And don’t worry I will be coming up a post soon to talk in terms of stats if you wish to indulge in flame wars

We came up with Social Media stats a few days back and then I realized that this should have been there even before the Social Media thing, after all LinkedIn is the biggest Professional Networking Portal so why should it be left behind. Without much talking I take you to the stats.

I guess the presentation says all by itself so need for me to explain anything. Enough testimony to use LinkedIn and start networking. Have queries ? Drop in the comments, would love to handle those and share as well as gain more.

In an attempt to explain why companies need Social Media Branding we started a series last week. The series will comprise of cases where Social Media has affected companies/brands/individuals in a good or bad manner. Last time we posted the case of the United Airlines Stock Crash case, incidentally this time also we post a story which is concerned with United Airlines.
The Case : A Canadian guy travels on a United Airlines flight, but on reaching his destination he sees that his guitar had been damaged by the airline personnel. He pursued the airlines for an year for the damages but when he saw there was no response from them, he put up a video on Youtube which said “United Breaks Guitars”. Being a musician himself he composed a nice song and it became an instant hit. See video :

Effect : When the video views reached 50,000, United Airlines contacted the person and paid him damages and tried to hush up the case. But it had been quite late by then, the net’s a Virus. The video had spread virally to all corners of the world already.

Result : Although United Airlines cleaned up the mistake but now the incident has become one of the most talked about incidents in the Social Media Industry. With the story on CNN and the video reaching a massive 4,000,000+ views the Airline has taken a bashing already. What worsens up the matter is that even if google for United Airlines, you get a first page result of the youtube video “United Breaks Guitars”.

Point to Learn : If you are a service oriented company, you ought to listen to your customers. Had this incident happened a decade ago, it would have never come into limelight as not everyone approaches the media. But in this present scenario, when nobody is out of media, everybody has the power to spread the word and it can really bring more damages as this new form of media has empowered the customers and the best thing is that this is un-censored.
Don’t underestimate the new age customer and the new media – Social Media.

We have been asked a lot over the reality of social media, is it a fad, is it for real, is it here to stay, does Indian market  really needs it ? There have points like : Okay, it’s working for others so what ! What if I don’t benefit from it ? Is it worth the money I pay you ?

And the most common one SHOW ME SOME STATS. While we have made a road map to answer the rest and have already started answering them in a series of posts, the STATS answer is Right Here Right Now.

I guess you cannot question us again on the stats. The only thing that might be concerning you is that India does not have substantial internet reach as compared to the developed nations. My answer to that is : Okay, it does not have the same reach PRESENTLY but does not mean that it will NEVER reach there. It’s just a matter of time when we are there, and with our population way over the other developed nations, we have a much bigger market to target. The only question to ask yourself is whether you want be there before your target or wait till your competitor reaches your target audience. The question “Whether or not I should be there” is gone now, it’s only a question of WHEN ?

Companies/people in the United States might have understood but Indian firms are still playing the waiting game. All of a sudden with major magazines like BusinessToday and Dare having their cover stories on the importance of social media, there is so much social media hype that companies have totally misunderstood what’s the real sense of social media.
For the same reason we have started a series of articles that will make all you business owners to think that probably you should be using it before it gets too late.
The first case is a United Airlines stock crash case. Although the story goes back to last year i.e. September ‘08 but stills it clearly delivers the message.

The Case : A chicago tribune story prompted the United Airlines Stock to crash by 99.2% in barely 2 hours time before the trading had to be suspended on the stock.
The Reason for crash : A Chicago tribune report says that United has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Hence stock prices plummeted.
The Reality : United filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2002. It emerged from bankruptcy in 2006. But someone read the article and not finding the date, thought the report to be latest. Luck was on the other side as both the rising oil prices and recession prompted the people to believe the report to be true. The story was available on chicago tribune website and spread virally like wildfire which resulted in the airlines’ stock prices crash.
It was only after the airlines spokesperson confirmed the report was false that the trading resumed and stock prices rose back to normal. Later on United asked Chicago times to remove the archived story to avoid a repeat.
That’s the power of internet ! I guess it cannot be denied that THIS or something SIMILAR can happen to any of the companies. As it is said “Bad news travels fast“.
Point to Learn : You need to keep an eye all the time to see what’s happening and who’s playing with your brand value in order to protect it.

Barely 9 days into the launch, Zapylacz got its feather in the cap. Yup, we say it a feather in the cap because we got listed in the Social Media Companies in India and that too on none other than Gaurav Mishra’s blog as well as on the 20:20 Social Media analytics blog.

Gaurav Mishra, better known as “gauravonomics” in the dotcom world, is the co-founder of social media research and analytics company 20:20 Web Tech. In his previous avatars, he has done marketing at the Tata Group, taught social media at Georgetown University, and co-founded Vote Report India. His post on his blog Six Types of Social Media Agencies in India, lists Zapylacz among five other companies. While the others have been there for some time especially Rajesh Lalwani’s Blogworks, a couple were in a similar niche stage as Zapylacz.

Well that mention has pumped in further zeal in our work as we continue to vie for more clients and extend its reach. Zapylacz extends its thanks to GauravMishra for talking about us. Cheers !

First event overagec. June 13-14 we got to cover our first event. It was an event management workshop conducted by iReboot, The workshop was held at the 12th Avenue hotel in Indiranagar, Bangalore. Sidhanta Patnaik from the renonwed Wizcraft international was the mentor at the workshop.

In all there were 9 participants all from various backgrounds. The age group was also a varied lot with students ranging from as young as 14 to students moving from school to college to Engineers to pursuing MBA’s to MBA’s to Businessmen were present.

There were great insights on the Event Management Industry, how it operates, what are the things one should know before getting into the industry, what rules (not to be followed) inside the industry. What all risks one faces while conducting the events, the crunch situations, how to build networks, why relationships matter, facing critical situations, making instantaneous decsions, applying Common Sense and handling the crowd were some of the major points that were told that should be taken care of during the events.

Then there were discussions on a lot of matters with students asking a lot of “What if ” queries. At the end of day1 the participants were divided into 2 teams and were given a real life problem for which they had to conceptualize an event. The end of the day was brought by showing pictures and sharing some stories of the events which Sidhanta had conducted, the major ones were the SUnfeast 10K run in bangalore last month, the Nike Indian Cricket Team new jersey launch in Feb’09 and the handling of the KingsXI Punjab, IPL team during the first season last year.

Day2 saw some event promtion techniques, various orthodox as well as unconventional ways of marketing, advertising about your event. Also money involved and raising the money were discussed. The second half was primarily a leadership session with live examples being put into place. Sidhanta, having conducted so many events, had a lot of stories to share which the participants really enjoyed and helped them in connecting with the real scenarios he was presenting them.

The workshop was so great that the participants refrained from breaks on both days and even didn’t want to go for lunch until the mentor himself asked. All in all it was a great workshop with everybody learning so much that they decided to organize an event in the next couple of months showing appreciation to iReboot. We wish the participants and iReboot success.

How many times have we wondered that this is not what I want to to do in life but still staying in that job or on that profile ? Then the very next second the next question arises ? Why am i doing it if I don’t want to do ? Why don’t I quit ? And it doesn’t take long to get the answer as well. I am doing it for money! What do I do if I quit this ? Where will I earn my living from ? And then when we don’t find an answer to that we forget all our questions and then continue doing what we currently hate to do.

The problem is not with us, it’s natural to think of such things and to care about our living before thinking of anything else. So in that case how do we bail ourselves out ? How do we move out from our present condition ? Well the answer to that question is called iReboot.

iReboot, a unique and only one of its kind firm in India, let’s you experience your dream job or in simpler words find what you want to do in life and that too without even taking the risk of moving out from your present job.  Yes that’s why iReboot is unique. You might find many career counsellors who will try to help you figure out what you want to do and then leave you with 10 options to try which you will never try because you don’t know where to go and more importantly won’t want to lose your current source of income.

Mukta at iReboot allows you to try a few options for a couple of days along with a mentor, who will guide you in the job you are trying, and then decide for yourself whether you want to take make a career out of that job.  And best thing is that you don’t need to quit your job before you try the dream job opportunity. Isn’t it great ?

Rajiv went onto become a chef at a restaurant in Indiranagar, Bangalore and along with his mentor Manjit, cooked dinner for the guests that night.

Rajiv trying out his dream job with mentor Manjit

When we are dissatisfied with our jobs we tend to think of hundreds of fields which we can excel in but have never had the option to try it out, but I guess not you cannot complain as iReboot has come to your rescue.

Well as of now iReboot operates in Bangalore and Mysore but it is growing at a fast pace. Having featured in Livemint and Hindu already, Mukta plans to spread iReboot’s wings to the all the metros nationwide.