A new series, and a new episode!

So I created another web-series for the Network. This video is about animals planning to help us, cause they think we are just to messed up to do it for ourselves!

The series is titled 'The Takeover', since it is about the way animals will be taking over our lives. But this is no ordinary 'takeover'! The only reason the animals are trying to takeover is because they feel that during this troublesome time (recession et al), we need help in surviving. Since they have survived for decades without any worries, they are now going to help us, mankind, survive! But will they be able to? Don't we humans tend to put them down generally?

Last week I also released the second episode of 'Every Little Bit Helps'.

Chris makes the pitch to his boss with the presentation, but what do you do when you have a boss who is just not willing to see anything beyond numbers?! The boss has given him a challenge! From here on, the story will go the way people want it! If he has enough supporters for his cause, he will go ahead with it, if not...

Since the series in meant to show people the kind of problems that people trying to help animals face, it is best to get people to direct the story!! I have thought of keeping it simple: If you support Chris, like the video! If by the time the time runs out, Chris does not have 50 likes on his video, then he has not won the challenge! Simple, isn't it?

A special campaign for NOAH

I have been trying to think of a special campaign for my 'buzz campaign'! Personally for me, NOAH has turned into more than just a buzz campaign. It is something that I have believed in for a long time, but was just not able to bring it to 'life'! Now that I am 2 weeks into the campaign, I have managed to bring about a 100 fans to the page! But now I need to think about ways to increase this number.

People may say that with time and through word-of-mouth the name will spread and people will realise the use of the campaign. However, I have decided that since I am learning digital marketing, I will use some of those techniques to build on NOAH as a brand! By New Year, the aim is to get 1000 fans on Facebook.

Think I can do it?

I am sure I can! Yesterday, I spent about an hour on the page, and got around 22 fans! Now I know that is not enough, but I think it's a start!

But just getting likes on the page is not enough. I need to push people to actually post stuff and interact with the page. Which to my joy is actually happening! There are new posts that are shared by those who like the page. This also means that through mere engagement, people will start spreading the word.

The idea behind NOAH is to build a non-commercial, non-regional network linking people worldwide but for a specific cause--helping animals. What better way to do this than use platforms that link people already--like Facebook and Twitter?

A Tweet is NOT Just a Status Update!

I have been thinking about the various things that people do with social media. Since I myself have started getting onto several social network sites, I realized the uses of each are different!

My biggest misconception is finally getting cleared! Twitter is not just about status updates. It is more about conversations and discussions. I know many people who read this might think, she just posted to days ago about 'Getting the Hang of Twitter', and now she says she has understood it?!

To be honest I knew the basics... Hashtags, using the '@' symbol, sending messages, etc. I just didn't know how to use it when I don't have any friends on twitter (on a personal basis)? I used to do it for the company I worked for (although for a short time).

So then I just shifted my focus, from only friends to friends plus work!

My earlier perception was that twitter is mostly used only by people who have a lot of friends (who are on twitter) and by film stars and journalists! Why? Because most of my friends were not on twitter! These perceptions have changed thanks to some friends from my Digital Marketing program. I also always believed that social networking should only be used to connect to friends. That has been put into perspective.

Social media sites may have started out aiming at connecting (or re-connecting) friends, but they have come a long way since. People now have personal and professional accounts or some simply use different media to communicate with different people.

Personally, I have started enjoying tweeting! The only part I still need to start liking in twitter is shortening the URL. Even though twitter is supposed to shorten URLs posted in tweets, I don't think it always does!

Getting the Hang of Twitter

A few years back, when twitter hit India, I thought it was just another networking site--like Facebook and Orkut (Google's first attempt at social media). But then I joined it anyway. Why? Cause of all the hype created by the Bollywood stars, the news industry, etc. I realised that there are a lot of things that I can gather from twitter rather than anywhere else. But soon I lost interest in it. My account just stayed with some 20 odd followers, and with just 2-3 tweets from me!

Last year, I started using my twitter account to promote the twitter account for the company I worked in. Since I had part responsibility in maintaining my company's twitter account, I needed to learn about twitter. So I followed some companies/people talking about Social Media, only to realise that I really enjoyed tweeting (for my company). But personally, I never understood the use of twitter. I always thought it to be more of a corporate tool, for companies to make brief announcements!

When I decided to get into social media marketing, I knew I had to understand twitter in-depth! Sadly, I have still not got a hang of it. I am still quite clueless of how to increase twitter followers for just a regular person!

When you are a star or a company, you tend to get followers, whether you like it or not! but how do you get followers by tweeting about your daily life? Is anyone really interested in what I am doing personally (since I am not yet a big personality)?

I have always had my doubts. This being said, we have repeatedly been told in class that since we are in the field of digital marketing, we must be on all the channels out there! And I couldn't agree more...

So to change my way of doing things, and to get used to twitter, I have decided to use twitter regularly from now. My tweets at start may be quite ridiculous, but I'm sure I will get the hang of it soon! But till then, I will not post anything directly to my Facebook Account! Everything will happen via my twitter account.

So here goes At least a month (if not more) of no Facebook posts! Twitter twitter twitter...

A Day In

I spent my day at home today... why? No class! YEY for that! I had to work on my blogs, this one, and the one for NOAH. First helped my uncle clear out the dishwasher, and then went to my room and started on my work.

Every morning, the first thing I do is go and check the number of followers on the Facebook page. Even 1 follower up and I am happy! It in a way makes my day! So coming back to why I chose this topic for my campaign. For those who do not know me, I am from India. I have seen many animals out on the streets. But I have also seen people helping them. Often the feeling of being of no use would overcome me, when I passed a pup begging for food on the street. The next day, I would find the pup dead!

The thought always daunted me; I kept wondering how I can give them something to comfort them. The fact is even when you send them to an animal shelter, they can hardly stay there for long. I know for a fact that the animal shelters in Delhi are flooded with dogs, but the workers don't give up. They try taking every dog off the street.

People may talk about spraying and neutering, but that is a far fetched option for most places in Delhi, I cannot even think about other parts of the country! Why? Not everyone would like to contribute to getting their neighborhood dogs/cats neutered!

Personally, though I have not calculated it with formula, I can estimate that if 1 person gets 1 dog neutered every year, it would solve the problem of 'stray dogs'.

The problem is that in a lot of places, across the world, there are dogs who get abandoned by owners. For countries that don't have a stray dog problem and where the local animal police are very active, this tends to be a much smaller problem than for many other countries. The animal rescue organizations always try to make it a better place for these voiceless beings. However, they often face problems.

I realized that through social networking, we get connected to people who live in different parts of the world. Some folks in Ghana know people in China who know people in Canada who know people in Brazil who know other people in Ghana! So say there is an animal in Ghana who needs help, and a local rescue group has posted it on their wall, through the network, people could actually share the same post and that animal might get the help needed!

This was why I started NOAH. To link those people with the same mission! The second aim is to connect individuals and organizations in developing places to people in places where they have learnt how to get that help!

So that was what I did pretty much the whole day (apart from having some yummy lunch and dinner!). My first stage is connecting with organizations who help animals in different countries. And believe me, it is not easy finding animal rescue set ups around the world when you don't know half the languages they use -- it is even tougher to share their content in English! For now this is it.

I want to watch Castle and relax for a while, before crashing!