Social Media Marketing course – 21, 22 April, Pune, India

KTA Educare

Social Networking websites represents millions of online users on the planet.  Among social media communities this is an ideal ground for advertising.

This special two days comprehensive course is all about tapping social media sites potential for branding, sales, public relations, and much more.

As a smart professional, you know you should tap in to social media marketing, ramp up your Search Engine Optimization [SEO] efforts and work on your website.   KTA EDUCARE has organized a training program to help business owners navigate online growth.

 For whom?

This course is for anyone interested in advertising and marketing (multinational) corporate types, small businesses, educators, and everyone in between

• Marketers who already us Facebook, etc., but wants greater success.
• New marketeers and IT professionals who wants a kick-start.
• Entrepreneurs seeking to promote their products and / or services in social media space.
• Marketing agencies
• Professors who would like to first learn and then teach the subject: Digital Marketing.
• Advertising agency and public relations officers seeking an edge in social media marketing.
• SME who wants more friends, business, and prominence for their brand.

Attend these classes and discover:

• Simple ways to improve your internet presence and do viral marketing.  How to instantly improve your website effectiveness.
• Where you should spend your online advertising money.  The easiest ways to engage in social media.

Ultimately, you will learn many fast and easy ways to grow your business online:
Moreover, you can do it all without having to become an expert in IT.  With this background in mind let us understand the new way of marketing using the internet technologies called ‘Digital Marketing’ or commonly known as ‘Social Media Marketing’.   Techie people will call it Web 2.0 technology.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, YouTube

How many days?

Day one is introduction, discussion, case studies, question / answer and actual demo of TEN digital platforms.  Day two is hands-on where you can actual get started with social media websites.  The second day is optional; however, participant must attend the first session to be eligible for the second practical session.  On second day, you must bring your laptop to experience the thrill of social media. OR share PC with a buddy.

When?  DAY 1 – Saturday, April 21, 2012.  DAY 2 – Sunday,   April 22, 2012.

  Time? Both days 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

 Venue for the course?

KTA EDUCARE, Behind D-mart, Opp. Sadanand Resort, S. No. 106/1, Baner Road, Pune – 411 045, India.  Google Map Link http://g.co/maps/dnr7a

For more info call: Mr. Chandrakant Golcha +91 78752 96000

OR Prof. Jyotindra Zaveri on +91 94223 38019.

• Hurry, limited seats.
• Benefit:  This Social Media Marketing training will give you insights about – how to leverage tools like Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, LinkedIn, online videos to increase your online visibility, reach new customers & build brand loyalty, viral marketing.

Frequently asked questions:  Why social media campaign?

Answers:  Social media marketing campaign is required for the following key reasons:

1. Marketing technique beyond the search engines using Web 2.0.
2. Sales and marketing executives can easily update networking sites, no need to go to Internet programmers.
3. Create e-marketing campaigns that will dramatically increase traffic to your site.
4. Maximize ROI by getting web analytics reports, to give you visibility in your target audience.

• Questions about ‘Social Media Marketing’?  But you do not know whom to ask?  Here is a chance to stay ahead of competition.  No previous experience or knowledge about internet technologies required.
• Efficient sales and marketing professionals are ones that communicate well.  Learn all about viral marketing from Mr. Zaveri who has mastered these Web 2.0 technologies.
• You are welcome if you are net savvy, but don’t’ worry we will not be discussing bits & bytes to understand and operate networking sites.  Do not worry this is not computer program course.
• Accelerate your career.  By the way, MBA in marketing or IT is not enough; learn new trends by attending this unique training program.

About organizers

KTA EDUCARE has an enlightening academic ambience, world-class infrastructure, well qualified and experienced faculty members, value based education, corporate social responsibility – combined together have prepared our participants real professionals.  We have mastered the holistic approach in using I. T. for business management.  We specialize in internet branding of organization, product, services or individual.

About faculty

Prof. Jyotindra Zaveri is specializing in Internet Marketing using various digital platforms.  He imparts training to your sales & marketing staff so that you can manage social media sites in-house.   He has mastered sixteen digital platforms.  Thousands of training programs conducted successfully by Prof. Zaveri.  He is IT professional since …1975.  Formerly with IBM, specially trained in Germany.  He will personally take both days classes.

• Author of seven books including a book on ERP.
• See complete profile http://www.dnserp.com/jz_profile.htm

Important:  We can setup and manage your digital platforms.  We also undertake in-house training assignment.

Value proposition: One week FREE email support by Prof. Zaveri.  Post training email discussions makes the time and money spent in your training more valuable.

Certificate: Certificate will be given to participants.

Request:  Please share this information with others, thanks.

Course fees:  Please email socialmedia [at] dnserp.com  Note: Second day is optional; bring your laptop for this practical session.  Tea / coffee, lunch, course material included.

Early bird discount: 10% discount if registered on or before Wednesday, 18 April 12.

Group discount: 10% for three or more from same organization.

Cheque in the name of KTA ACADEMY.

Spot booking: On the day of program: 10% extra.

How to register?

Send email giving your name, designation, organization, website and mobile number to socialmedia@dnserp.com WITH cheque details.  Please courier the cheque / DD in the name of KTA Academy to:  KTA EDUCARE. Behind D-mart, Opp. Sadanand Resort, S. No. 106/1, Baner Road, Pune – 411 045, India.

Blog guidelines for effective Social media optimization

Here are some tips for your business blog

1. Most blog platforms like WordPress or Blogger (from Google) are free for basic services.   However, you need to invest time.  If someone gives you a rosy picture take it with a pinch of salt.   Blogs once started cannot be stopped nor can pace be slow.   You have to update and service the comments.   You must plan a strategy and define a business process  for reaping the benefit of the social media sites.

2. It is necessary to give due priority to social media sites and inform others in the marketing department.  The company blog is important communication taking the legacy website to the next level.   Commit sufficient resources such as people and time.

3. It is necessary to identify the ‘audience’ to target the social media campaign.  Incidentally,  you will soon find out audience is actually now not mere listening but going to take active part in your website by uploading their comments, likes, sharing the post with their contacts and so on.   You have just learned another lesson that blogs are not for passive audience like your passive website but an active and participating customers or prospects.   Be careful, you are dealing with real people in real-time.

4. Some team members may find blogging an odd way to spend time (sometime they think it is a waste of time).  All this can be avoided with a formal training and positive involvement.   It may be necessary to show the marketing team the integration of Twitter and blog or linking Facebook with blog and so on.   It is recommended that the directives come from the top management, CEO or the Director.   It is necessary to prepare a guideline document before embarking journey in to the blogosphere.

5. I have published several PowerPoint presentations on the subject of ERP which can be viewed free.  Many people have told me that they have used them in their ERP projects.   Eventually the blogs and websites will get higher ranks because the same will have good traffic, more unique visitors and less bounce rates.

6. Spend time may be just ten / fifteen minutes but regularly on reading blogs of other competition companies.  Compare web analytic reports.   You have to measure and benchmark your own social media initiative and that of your competition companies.   Figures and numbers will help you to improve your social media optimization plans.  Unless you measure you cannot improve.  Most digital platform gives analytic reports, e.g., YouTube insights or WordPress stats.

7. Social media optimization is actually offshoot of the SEO.  You need to select appropriate topic for the posts.  You need to dwell on selecting the keywords so that search engine will index your blog and display your blog page.  Sounds familiar, like SEO here also you need to take care of the ‘spiders’ (or crawlers).   If you are not sure, take help of experts who are already using digital platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter etc.   Remember, your blog may be linked by another blog or your tweet may be retweet by your followers.

8. Spend adequate time on the research of the key words and key phrases your target audience is most likely going to use.  This needs to get included into your posts.  The trick is that search engine should find them and index it.  At the same time do not use key phrases in artificial way.  Keep the tone and the matter real, because it is read by real people besides the robots.

9. Here is the paradigm shift.  Share your knowledge with the readers.   It is not easy and simple change in attitude, because earlier people used to pay for getting the knowledge, now you have to publish it free.  The reward is that people will appreciate and always come back because you have given away useful information.

10. Assign role and responsibility.   This is called R & R matrix.  Who is going to write a post and when.   Daily or weekly, whatever is the duration the team must keep the blogs live.   Many time senior executive takes initiative in the beginning and later the enthusiasm dies down.   In such case it may be a good idea to outsource the task to professionals, but still needs interaction.  Because you know your industry the best.   You still need to give inputs about happenings in your organization.   Assign editorial leader, identify core group of bloggers within the organization, who are constantly thinking up new post ideas, writing and editing.   Two or three writers can share the load and the result will be better because you will get a balanced blog.

    Your comments are welcome, let us discuss further, what do you think of these tips?  Would you like to add some more?

I lost one hour. Seriously, whole of America did.

At 2 a.m. this morning, clocks moved forward an hour with the shift from standard time to Daylight Savings Time (DST).   This is logical change and not adaptive change. This is logical because everyone is changing their timetable.  For instance, getting up one hour early due to ‘Daylight savings Time’ is logical.  No huge adjustment of life priorities is triggered.  Our body clock can change without much difficulty.  But if you decide to get up one hour early to do meditation or go for swimming is difficult, because it is adaptive change.  In both examples same thing ‘get up one hour early’ is involved.

Using new technology such as Blog is adaptive change.  No matter how hard you try some people are not comfortable using facebook or LinkedIn.  You must have seen the clip that shows expert secretary changing from typewriter to a PC, and throwing monitor, because she is used to do the carriage return.  Or changing from manual system to automatic ERP system is a painful transformation.  Changing from legacy way of marketing and using the digital platforms is not an easy because it requires adaptive change.

Daily we make logical changes.  We use our training to solve routine problems, such as dealing with customer’s negative feedback, or altering action plan when sales target is not achieved.  We do customer survey and make a road map to address the issues.   But note that these examples are pertaining to external changes.

On the other hand adaptive changes are transformative, which compels us to change from inside, in the mind.  We want to reign in our temper because it is affecting our relationships with customers and colleagues, but not matter how hard we try we cannot ‘control’ it.  Our frustration spills over, and now we have to fix the damage.

Anupreksha or the cognitive behavioral therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach, which aims to solve problems concerning dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic meditation procedure.  There is empirical evidence that this is effective for the treatment of a variety of problems, including mood, anxiety, personality, eating, substance abuse, and psychotic disorders.   We can treat ourselves by a meditation technique; there are treatments for specific psychological disorders.

Only by fixing our inner feelings of frustration can we make an adaptive change.  We could decide to use cognitive behavioral therapy or Anupreksha, or some other method for the internal change.  To make such changes you need to recognize when you are facing an adaptive change, that requires subconscious level of thought and effort.

The real leadership, the kind that surfaces conflict, challenges long-held beliefs, and demands new ways of doing things-causes pain.  When people feel threatened, they take aim at the person pushing for change. As a result, leaders often get hurt both personally and professionally.

(Reference: Leadership on the Line, renowned leadership authorities Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Wikipedia, and Preksha meditation system).

Look who is hiding face on facebook or LinkedIn?

This is about profile picture on the social media sites.  Here are some do and do not for smart internet marketing on the networking portals.

Would you like to meet a person who says:  “Hey, network with me, trust me, but I will hide my face”?

Well I don’t think so. That is the point for networking sites: picture is required.  Your profile is the most precious real estate out there on a social media site, like, facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, twitter, etc.  Leverage these Web 2.0 platforms to market you business.

If you are casual about your profile on the social media, chances are others will also take you casually. You do not have to be a software engineer (I don’t know why people always give example of a rocket scientist?), to understand that the first thing we see when checking out a new LinkedIn contact, Facebook friend, or Twitter follower connection is a profile photo.

• Your own picture is extremely important in the profile.  We usually recognize a friend or old colleague or classmate more reliably by face rather than by name.  I know that there may be some professionals who would prefer to not be exposed to profile photos from people they may NOT know.  This setting can be done in most social media sites like LinkedIn or facebook. Such setting will allow others to see your picture only if you have accepted them as a friend. Having a good profile picture may be more important than you think!
• On one hand we want our friends and contacts to trust us, on the other hand face are kept a secret; this is not a good idea, in the Global village.
• Uploading a cartoon picture instead of a proper profile picture is not a good idea.  Seriously.
• Not able to find a picture to upload on the social media site is not a valid reason.  You can even use a cell phone camera to take a picture and upload.  It is that easy.  Avoid other things in background, plain background is recommended. Do not put a group photo.
• Do NOT put a logo in place of your profile picture.
• It is recommended that you put your own picture only and not with someone else, even if you love or admire him or her.  Profile picture with other person, on social networking web site is not the place for group photos.  The facebook photos album, Picasa, or Flickr is just the right place for such group pictures and share with your contacts.
• I encourage people to include photo in the profile, because it shows you’re comfortable with yourself.
• Profile picture on social media websites is important from job point of view too. Yes, from HR point of view – as a candidate you would prefer transparency, and not look for associating with such a company which may filter bio by color, gender, race or age.

I strongly advice people who have still not uploaded picture on social networking sites, to do so without further delay.  Think from mere security point of view.  Have you attended a social get-to-gather or a party where guests wearing funny masks? Would you share your ‘happenings’ with such people? Sometime someone can easily get in the crowd and impersonate.

Tip: Picture also makes your profile a lot more pleasant and trust worthy.   It is recommended that you take a head-shot, rather than the picture of you in front of a Pyramid or the Taj.  Sites like facebook allow you to make your Albums to show these kinds of photographs.  Do not put very old pictures.  I would not like to exchange business card with a person who is covering his / her face, in a conference or a professional seminar, would you?

I am writing this topic of profile picture in this blog based on my own practical experience of networking with over 1000 professionals on the LinkedIn, over 700 friends on facebook, etc.  If you have already put a proper picture in your profile, that is good, but you will be surprised when you check your connections.  There are many who are still ignorant.  Do you agree with me? Just share this important guidelines with them by clicking button provided at the bottom of this blog.