I attended a social media workshop by Dave Evans of Digital Voodoo and author of Social Media Marketing, An Hour a Day, earlier this week at Delhi organised by 2020 Media, and I loved the way he talked the new marketing cycle with the emergence of the social media. Dave also talked about how organisations need to identify various touchpoints that define their products, brands, or service and analyse the performance of each touchpoint in the social media space, how important is each touchpoint , how consistent is their delivery, and how talk-worthy are each. I wanted to have a chat with him at the venue but given the number of people waiting to talked to him, I quickly exchanged cards with him, and requested his inputs on few questions I would later send. I sent Dave eight tricky questions frequently asked by clients. His answers are below.

Ashwani has been reporting from Cannes and he has put up an interesting post on how to produce winning PR campaigns. What he said that I like the most was that any campaign has to be built around a central idea, an idea that is simple yet executed well. I also remember having a chat with Prema Sagar before she left for Cannes (she is the only Indian member to be part of the jury) that one of the core things that she look for will be a clear and simple idea and how that has been executed.

“Public communication skills are important for anyone who needs to share information with others. Or those who hope to persuade others about an issue”. Public Relations professionals are no exception to this. Many times we, Public Relations practitioners, pay little attention to the formal consideration of our communication skills, especially public speaking skills. In this increasingly information-oriented age, Public Speaking skills are becoming more and more critical. As part of our profession, we need to influence people and win friends to get our work done. And most of the time, that is achieved through our gift of the gab.

Recently I happen to read in one of the columns where the Master Blaster of Indian cricket mentioned that Viru and Gauti are going through ‘fatigue’. Will they therefore be able to deliver the power and energy as they are the much talked about world opening pair in the shorter and shortest version of the [...]

What 3 digital marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2009?” Here are the top ten tactics selected: Blogging (34%), Microblogging (Twitter) (29%), Search engine optimization (28%), Social network participation (Facebook, LinkedIn) (26%), Email marketing (17%), Social media monitoring & outreach (17%), Pay per click (14%), Blogger relations (12%), Video marketing (10%), Social media advertising (7%)

Most of us today are active on various social media sites and in fact, some of us use these sites in our day to day work. So what are the various sites we can get started with? One of the ways I have used social tools successfully in my PR job is in the media relations bit – forming new contacts, pitching to journalists, getting fast information about the media, etc. Below are the top five sites for me. Which are yours?

If public companies are not proactively analyzing these guidelines and establishing internal policies, frameworks, and penalties, then they are exposed to the dangers that loom in the form of overly enthusiastic employees who are enamored with new and shiny social tools and objects. One wrong, irresponsible or casual post, comment, tweet, or status update can produce a domino effect of consequences that have yet to establish precedence. While a tweet, for example, may seem harmless, the activity and response sparked by an update could result in repercussions that trigger SEC investigation and shareholder retaliation. Corporate and marketing executives who normally rely on self-restraint and common sense across the organization aren’t employing common sense at all.