Featured in 'The Telegraph' : Social Sense

It’s a new year and it’s a new beginning for a lot of us, but this post comes as a result of something that happened right at the end of the previous year!

After getting featured on Rediff and Careers360, I was featured in a story by The Telegraph on the topic, of course, Social Media Marketing. The CareerGraph section, a weekly supplement has featured a few biggies from the big industry which makes me both honored and proud to be listed along side the likes of Mahesh Murthy and Sanjay Mehta.

To quote myself, the article says :

According to Abhinav Sahai, co-founder of Zapylacz, Bangalore, hard core marketing professionals aren’t welcome here. “They are keen on selling rather than engaging the community. It’s more about communication, less about selling and advertising,” he explains. It needs professionals ranging from content developers to managers. “Software developers, user interface experts (who design software applications and websites focusing on users’ experience), search engine optimisation professionals (who decide how search engines work and what people search for) and people who can conduct research or understand consumer behaviour,” he adds. Sahai himself is a computer science engineer but with no MBA or any other specialisation.

But is this sort of thing here to stay? The consensus among social media professionals is: it’s only set to grow. “The biggest advantage is its viral nature — each person has at least 100 friends. You can reach 1,000 x 100 users in just a week through re-shares on Facebook or re-tweets on Twitter,” says Sahai of Zapylacz.

But of course, this media too suffer from certain weaknesses. The audience is quick to point out the saleability or non-saleability of a product, points out Sridharan of Brand-comm. In other words, negative publicity is difficult to contain. “The biggest disadvantage is its uncontrollable nature — if something goes wrong, it can blow apart a company’s reputation,” agrees Sahai.

The interview was conducted last month and only the excerpts were published primarily due to the size of the story.

You can read the entire story here.

Sounds a nice way to end the previous year, hope there is more to come in the New Year. Happy New Year folks!