Adding your own digital local flavour in the Middle East

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on Aug 19, 2011 in Default | 0 comments

As an industry, digital marketing in the UAE, and the Middle East is heavily influenced by the west. We’ll look at the likes of Mashable, DigitalBuzzBlog, TheNextWeb and other key prominent sites featuring international campaigns and executions. But it’s important to adapt and localize the ideas to fit locally and be culturally and socially relevant. I discuss the importance of doing so and a few brands that are doing it well in my newest blog post on Econsultancy.

Click here to read Adapting digital marketing for the Middle East

Focusing on the mobile experience

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on May 20, 2011 in Default | 0 comments

There’s a lot of talk around mobile marketing and it’s not expected to slow down. And as easy as it is to get lost in the buzz, we often need to take a step back and realign our goals and objectives with the executions. In my first post for the Econsultancy blog, I write about focusing on building an experience that may augment their real life experience rather than merely creating a substitute platform.

Click here to read the post on Econsultancy blog

Facebook just made your Social Media handbook obsolete

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on Feb 11, 2011 in Default | 0 comments

One of the best things about Facebook is that it never stops evolving into a better version of itself. I remember reading Mark Zuckerberg is extremely paranoid of being ‘out-innovated’ by a smaller shop and this is probably what keeps him on always improving and growing the product at such a frantic pace. The users may not necessarily like the changes at first, but after the initial backlash, everyone comes around to it. The end result is a changed and improved Facebook, for everyone.

Last night Facebook revealed a bunch of changes which fixes 4 of the 7 things I wanted Facebook to fix for businesses (1 was already fixed, leaving 2 more to be done). Apart from a redesign of pages – making them similar to user profiles – Facebook now allows admins to browse Facebook as a page. This means the admin may like, share or comment on other profiles and pages, as a page. It may go on and ‘Like’ other pages and have a news feed of it’s own. A page admin will also receive notifications of likes and comments when he logs in and may even choose to receive email notifications. The page may also have ‘Featured Owners’ which allows the page to showcase their admins and for users to reach them directly.

The last but in no way the least change comes in allowing iFrame tabs on pages and future plans for deprecating FBML and FBJS. This now means brands can feature their applications on the page itself and users will not have to leave the page thus making a lot of brand owners very happy. There’s also another bunch of changes coming on Photos, allowing higher resolutions, improved tagging and a new lightbox style viewer.

With all these announcements, Facebook has definitely set the scene for a dramatic shift in user experience. The first step for pages/brands will be to try and set this up and use it right. Social Media agencies will definitely cross-post, both across their own and others’ communities to build audiences. This may result in an increase in spam and bacn. There still will be legitimate uses for this, the first example comes to mind of a brand with multiple fan pages (based on on geography) or a brand with multiple sub brands. (Microsoft –> Xbox, Windows, Office etc); these are the pages that will definitely benefit from this improved integration.

By improving the experience for brands and pages, Facebook is increasing its attractiveness to business by reaffirming its commitment to them. Although there may a fair amount of changes required, both technical and strategic, these are only going to be better for the brand in the long run.

GoNabit introduces loyalty rewards program, adds Switching Costs to social buying

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on Jan 10, 2011 in Default | 0 comments

@GoNabit today sent out out an email to some of its customers informing them of a new loyalty rewards program called REDpoints. Under the program, registered (and logged in) users receive points for viewing the deal of the day and making purchases. The points are rewarded as follows

• Viewing the Daily Nabit when logged in on GoNabit.com = 1 REDpoint
• Buying the Daily Nabit before it tips = 150 REDpoints
• Buying the Daily Nabit after it tips = 50 REDpoints

What will these points get you? 100 REDpoints give you $1 of GoNabit store credit. Pretty nifty idea really, but not really ground-breaking.

But here is why this this is a brilliant move by GoNabit. The one thing that has separated Social Buying sites from other eCommerce websites is the lack of switching costs for a user, or for that matter a seller. What this means is that once you register and use a site like eBay or Souq.com, you build up a feedback rating with every purchase or sale which in turns helps you do the same easier; every action is cumulative. But with GoNabit or any other Groupon clone, there was simply no need for a user to stay loyal to any one of them. The website with the better deal got the user’s money and this battle was fought everyday.

Except now, there’s one reason to choose GoNabit over, say, Cobone. Of course, the site with the better deal still wins but users may feel more rewarded making a purchase on, or even when simply visiting GoNabit. In a world (especially our region) where Social buying websites are cropping up much like “falafel carts” (credit: @AFahad), GoNabit’s program does set it a little apart and may work well for both them and their users

Your move @CoboneDeals

P.s. Here’s a tip, if you’re logged in to GoNabit, view the deals from all the cities and you can rack up 6 REDpoints everyday instead of just 1. Not much, but it may still count

Here’s to integration in Mobile Marketing and Social Media

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on Jan 7, 2011 in Default | 0 comments

Over the last two weeks, we’ve seen a lot of posts that either recap all activity in 2010 or make predictions for 2011, and apart from the sexified Social Media, the theme of Mobile has stood out. Buzz around marketing on a platform that almost never leaves the consumers’ reach has gained a lot of momentum and for good reason too; 2010 saw a phenomenal increase in mobile internet activity globally. The Next Web has a great infographic that tells us there are 5 billion people in the world who own a mobile, 31% of which are use the mobile web. African countries have leapfrogged the fixed line internet rung and jumped straight to mobile with Kenya and Nigeria showing 20% and 25% of total internet usage to be on mobile. Even locally, UAE has mobile penetration rates of around 205%, users spend 37% of their internet time on mobile.

However marketing buzz around mobile is similar to what it was around Social Media about 2 years ago. Adoption of marketing on this new medium is growing but it hasn’t exploded yet. All signs (and predictions) point to that happening this year – 2011 just may be the Year of the Mobile.

As for 2010, it was without a doubt the year of Social Media; which is why as we step into 2011 we have many marketers asking if the ad spend is going to be put into Social or Mobile. It doesn’t have to be one does it? @Siddhi_D delivers an answer right to the point with “With the capability to cross integrate the likes of social with display, social with mobile, search with mobile etc there will be limited fragmentation whilst reaching the core audience.”

As much of a buzz word ‘integration’ is, I believe that really is going to be the key to effective digital marketing plans this year. Instead of it becomes an either/or situation with Mobile and Social, both can be used, in tandem to deliver effective results. An example of this is taking the banner to a landing page which features a Facebook fanpage like button or taking them to a YouTube video where they may subscribe to your channel. These are of course simple examples but it’s a start to the direction we should start exploring in.

I guess what I’m trying to say is by taking your focus off click and pageview that come in just today, we’re essentially building connections that will last for much longer (by fans, followers or subscribers) increasing the value your brand receives per click. Think strategic, not tactical.