It has been trending in Twitter

It has been tweeted by many including Amitabh Bachchan, karan Johar, Your friends and you!!

Amul Butter made a ad based on it.

It has got several versions here, here and here.

A song by a non-singer has been leveraged by Singers also… Sonu Nigam (find it here)

This song has been picked up by IIM biggies to include as Viral Marketing case Study

2,10,000 music downloads within 18 days

Its officially India’s Biggest Viral campaign. Ever, with 23 Mn YouTube Views. 800,000 FB Shares. 12 Mn Twitter Impressions and 2,10,000 downloads within 18 days!!

How did it all happen??

October 12, 2011 – The United States has been revealed as India’s best friend in cyberspace, according to a unique new league table released by Western Union, one of the world’s most globally connected brands.

The league table has been created using data from Western Union’s Your World Facebook Application, which visualises each user’s Facebook connections around the globe and gives them a score for how globally connected they are.

Your World has enjoyed more than 250,000 hits worldwide since its launch in July this year, as individual users compete in the Western Union®Network Challenge: a hunt for the world’s most globally networked person on Facebook. On the 18^th of October Western Union will announce the winner – and reveal an opportunity for them to use their global network as a force for good.

With so much aggregate data being generated by Your World, Western Union has been able to build a bird’s eye view of how different countries connect to one another on Facebook. The data reveals India’s top ten best friends in cyberspace: those countries where Facebook users in India have the most Facebook connections.

The results show how social media is shrinking the world we live in – with some of the India’s closest friends in cyberspace based thousands of miles away in the real world:

1. United States
2. United Kingdom
3. United Arab Emirates
4. Australia
5. Canada
6. Singapore
7. Saudi Arabia
8. Indonesia
9. Malaysia
10. Philippines

The Image depicting the cyber friendship:

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[1] Network data as of June 30, 2011 (inclusive of Western Union, Vigo and Orlandi Valuta branded services).

So here are some facts shown in a very pleasant way with Video, animation and audio!!!

“Blue”

“Lavender”

These were the status messages of my Female chat friends. At first I thought it may be coincidence. but the 2 more status messages “navy blue” and “white” compelled me to ask one of my friends about the status message. the reply was – “its the color of my Bra!!!”. Bra color?? why would anyone keep Brassiere Color as status message? The reply was -” my friend said so, and all other girls also have kept the status message on same lines.”

Why would anyone share their color of Brassiere with the whole internet? Strangely, Nobody (of my friends) knew the reason! Another example of ‘herd mentality’

Google came for rescue again . . . So here’s the reason:

Accotding to Mashable:

A Detroit blog suggests that the color update craze was started by women in Detroit who are trying to raise awareness around Breast Cancer (though October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month). Another blog backs up that notion and includes the following Facebook message:

“Some fun is going on…. just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status… Haha .”

Hmm.. A nice thought and we must admit that it worked. . . it became Viral, and people who dont know the reason also participated in it. Some even declared it as a new Social media case study.

I strongly deny that. I agree it was viral and reached to a large audience but people talked about Innerwear, colours, exchanged views but what they didnt do was – ‘talking about breast cancer‘. and that where it fails. It would have been better if it had message about preventing it. or rise awareness about it. The Facebook Message itself states that “It will be fun to know. .. “. So it was just for fun not on any serious note.

There are already 3-4 groups/pages supporting/against the campiagn, largest being “I Really Dont Care What Color Your Bra Is” – with arnd 2500 Members (as of now). So some other pages have crop up which will die eventually.

So, if you updated your status mentioning your Bra color, even after knowing all this, then we’ll know why you did that, the same reason for which everyone does – Seeking Attention!!!

Now that you got to know about the Bra colors, why not share this, I am sure it will be more helpful: http://www.breastcancer.org/

1. Select your carrier (Yes!! Any Airline!!)
2. Departure date
3. Flight Number
4. Departure, arrival time and date

Just login with your Twitter details and it will automatically update your status.  The status updates looks like this:

Seems an engaging activity, interesting and very good use of social media.

Any more ideas/comments on the same??

Facebook Love story

But an Advertisng agency, BooneOakley, has adopted a unique way. They have created a Video and uplaoded on Youtube. You would probably thing, how do they link to portfolio, contacts etc? Thay have made them clickable within the video. By using the Youtube annotations they have created Links to other videos describing them.  Have a look:

Pretty cool Eh??  In first thought it looks cool idea to have such a website. After around 2 days of uploading It has already got 68,000+ visits & around 89 comments, All Thumbs Up!!!

It features a crap video but whats really good about the site (or Video) is that, its open to sharing, embedding, and commenting. It can be seen on all the platforms which support youtube videos. It certainly has a viral effect. A great website for an agency!!!

Brand DNA says: If I was a client I’d definitely be interested in talking to them. …

You can view BooneOakley video here

It Surely seems a success. But it can Kick Back too. If you remember, earlier such kind of activity was carried out by Skittles too. Thay had Made the twitter page as their homepage.

Once called as a great Social media practice by some Social Media Gurus, was a Social Media Failure.

ZDNet describes Skittles Social media Failure:

When the campaign first launched, the Skittles campaign was one of the hottest trending topics on Twitter.  . . .  All they did was turn their home page into a constantly revolving loop of people saying “OMG SKITTLES LOVES TWITTER.” It almost seemed to be an ad campaign for Twitter versus one to enhance the Skittles brand.  . .  Skittles broke one of the first cardinal rules of social media — it led with a tool and didn’t reach into its community. . . . .Fail, Skittles. Absolute fail.

Posting a image from wordcamp San Franciso. Somehow I find it Suitable!!!

It surely has created a buzz. But does it also have some negative impacts to BooneOakley? Share your thoughts.

In simple words, What happens when social media gets in to your head -

Courtesy: Geek & Poke

Some of us are in to serious business of taking Social Media as a career.  So before applying for any Social media job, get to know what is expected from a Social Media Professional. Here’s a list. . .

1. In love with Social Media – You should be in love with Social Media. You should be active in Social networking sites like -Facebook, My Space, Orkut etc. Being Active means, Rather than Number of friends, Interaction Matters. Linkedin, Plaxo etc also count but not so much.

You  may have to: Build Strategies and Implement them for the company/Client on these platforms. 

2. Writing Skills – You should have a blog. You should be possesing good writing skills. Optimize the articles, for Search engines, with keywords. 

You may have to: Blog, Prepare presentations, write for Podcasts, Communicate with others, write weekly/monthly columns

3. Knowledge - you should be possessing knowledge about Internet marketing. PPC, SEO, SEM, Keywords should not be new to you. Knowledge of HTML, RSS, PHP, Flash is a plus.

You may have to: Prepare marketing strategies for company/client, Optimize the Site, Articles, Content as the requirement arises.

4.  Hardworker -  Social Media is a 24 Hours active profession. your target audience are scattered allover the world. If you are dealing with news, Updates etc. you need to be active. very Active.  Should be high in energy!! So, dont expect a 9-5 job.

You may have to: Post updates as and when required, be online for maximum, skip your holidays.

5.  Know how of Conferences/Podcasting/Webinars – You may not be practising but a knowhow would be useful. 

You may have to:  Podcast on regular basis, conduct Webinars, Conferences.

6.  Searching Ability – You may not be a Sherlock Holmes or Byomkesh Bakshi, but certainly you need to have a flair for search engines/tools. 

You may have to: Do an extensive search & research on Company/brand/product or its compitition. 

7. Hunger for Knowledge updation – Social Media is ever growing and ever changing. You need to keep yourself updated. 

You may have to: Adapt to new technologies/ideas, think out of the box to utilise fully.

8. Interaction – Earlier internet was used as a tool to hide ur identity and interact. But Social media is compltly opposite. You need to Interact, share, gain.

You may have to: Engage, Interact, and find new ways to do the same.

These are the basic requirement for any Social Media Job. Besides these your experiance with Brands/ Clients also count a lot. 

Any more requirement you can think of??

Image:  Courtesy – Imagesbazaar.com