Social Media Challenges In India
01/10/2007
On December 18th in the year 2006 Jeremiah Owyang, Web Strategy By Jeremiah, posted the following:
2006 was about “What is social media” and “Why does it matter”. Business blogging, flogs, podcasting and second life were the hot topics.
2007 is about “How do I deploy social media”. Companies will start to integrate Social Media upand down and side to side in the organization, both externally as well as internally.
That might be true in the United States, but in some countries the conversation has not reached that level. In some countries business bloggers have just begun their work to position social media as a credible marketing strategy. In some countries the adventure is just beginning.
Rajesh Lalwani, BlogWorks, has made it his personal mission to educate the Indian business community about the importance of social media. To begin that job Rajesh launched a discussion series, Blog the Talk, that features the best of learning from the blogosphere and otherwise, through panel discussions, talks and one-on-ones – mostly conducted online.
A few weeks ago I had the distinct honor and pleasure of joining several prominent Indian business leaders - Govindraj Ethiraj, New Media Editor for Business-Standard who also writes the popular blog Dateline Bombay - A Reporter's Tale ; and Anurag Batra, Editor in Chief & Managing Director of the exchange4media Group - for the launch conversation - Blog the Talk 1- Impact of blogs and social on business & marketing in India!
Rajesh posted a transcript and the comments are revealing .. reinforcing that in India people are taking the initial steps in understanding the possibilities of social media.
- Possibly the first time that such a debate as been sparked with the marketeer in mind.
- I do believe India is ready for the Blog revolution, if only brand managers the benefits they could drive of it.
- This is an interesting space as business application of blogs is a completely unheard of a thing in Indian context.
In addition, two articles published in IMPACT magazine (published by Anurag) take the conversation from virtual world into mainstream media. PDF of the IMPACT article are also posted on BlogWorks.
Perhaps with the passion of people like Rajesh Lalwani and Govindraj Ethiraj and Anurag Batra in India, 2007 will be about - What is social media and Why does it matter and
Business blogging, flogs, podcasting and second life.
