Digital Marketing Course- First Edition

I just finished teaching the digital marketing course- its first edition.

It is an exciting new area to teach in, and required a few months of preparation. Fortunately, I was able to write a couple of original case studies, and used them in the course. Chats with former students who work in the area also helped. Compared to traditional media (I used to teach the advertising course earlier, and also worked in an ad agency many years ago), the digital media are very dynamic and may change in character or opportunities offered, every two or three years.

Anyway, since it is a new area, I also tested some unique assessment methods. One of them was to assign students to write blogs on the subject of digital marketing, update the content regularly, and measure the readership after trying their best to promote the blogs through email or social media. The result was gratifying.

More innovations will follow in edition 2 next year. Keeps everyone on their toes. Me too.

Digital Marketing Course

I am currently teaching a course on Digital Marketing to MBA students at IIM Indore. This is an interesting subject, amenable to using a few digital media live during the course. We have already started blogs on the subject of digital marketing, and intend to measure their effectiveness, and discuss why certain blogs did better than others. Nothing like a live project whose results are measurable instantly- like the digital marketing metrics themselves.

We will also try other things such as web design, writing copy for display ads or email marketing as we go along. I also have a couple of cases that I wrote specially for this course, one of which was presented at an international conference recently. Lots of my former students are doing some form of digital marketing at their jobs, and have volunteered interesting tidbits.

In another class, we have a facebook group formed to share any links on useful articles that anyone may find and want to share. Using the power of social media as a learning tool.

Lots of interesting insights will follow from this one, I am sure..

Some Social Media Pointers

These are picked up from various sources, but the remix is mine- feel free to blame me. One source is Guy Kawasaki and his book.

1. Do more rather than less. Many reasons- it's an ocean, you are likely to get lost in it. Of course, this assumes you are sharing sense and not nonsense (from your followers' point of view, before you ask).

2. Be bold, and take positions. This establishes your credibility (assuming you want it).

3. Choose a good picture of yours for the Media, and stick to it for a while. If you don't have a good picture, God help you.

4. Don't use bad words. Bad words are bad on any medium. Learn to do without them, unless you are a teen trying to be cool. (Everything is pardoned THEN)

5. It's impossible to generate loads of new content regularly. Use curated stuff mixed with original content. Cite the source, where applicable.

Facebook, Whatsapp and Me

First there was Orkut. It stormed the world with what it enabled people to do. Share comments, pics and what not. There might have been others, but Orkut was the king. And then FB happened, sweeping away everything in its path.

Now, Whatsapp seems much more popular, particularly for smartphone users. I am a dumb user of smartphones, doing nothing much on mine except making some calls and sending SMSes (remember Short Messaging Service?)- I know, oh- so- outdated.

There's something called Tumblr too, I think, but the only one I know is the one used to have coffee from in the southern part of India.

I am on the list of endangered species like the dinosaurs once were and almost all large mammals except dictators and war-mongers today are, I fear. But I wonder how long facebook will last, particularly because I am told it's more about ads and promos of all kinds (many undesirable to the average Joe on fb) these days.

I think blogs will last forever, though, coz they are not easily noticed, unless you go out looking for them. Therefore, safe from predators. You will never ever hear of a multi-billion dollar takeover of Blogger or Wordpress, I am sure. So, blog away to glory, fellow bloggers. The only thing you need to fear is 'no readers', but fear nothing else!

Reservashuns

There are Indian reservations in the US. No, it's not seats on a plane, or a job, that I am talking about. These are places where native Indians (pre-Columbus) can have their own lifestyle, a sort of autonomous region within the states.

In India, we have different kinds of reservations. For jobs. Imagine having reservations, in the following-

1. Cricket team (The Wall may have crumbled even before being built)
2. Docs in hospitals (population may reduce unintentionally)
3. Pilots (MH 370 would be just a blip on the radar of incidents)
4. Film acting (all Kapoors rendered jobless in one stroke- they may have to turn to agriculture, so that they still influence our culture)
5. Music- The Mangeshkar sisters would not have got an opportunity? Kishore Kumar would have been a stand-up artist.
6. Politics ( Mayawati might have been PM for 10 years instead of Manmohan Singh)
7. Car mechanics- you would have lots of fun driving a car, not knowing what would snap.
8. Builders- we can have a building collapse a day, easily beating world records.
9. Movie directors- "frankly, my dear," this would not change anything!
10. Blog writers. You know what, I might just hang up my boots.

My Blog Audience Stats

I happened to look at the blog view statistics for this blog of mine, and was stunned. I never imagined that it would have been viewed in Slovenia, Spain, Malaysia, Egypt, Russia, UK, Germany and the Netherlands. Of course, India and the US were expected. I find it a great testimony to the internet breaking down global walls. If only we could use this kind of spirit and break down the walls that separate us elsewhere....

Anyway, I got back to reading fiction this week, and the book was "The Clue of the Twisted Candle" by Edgar Wallace. Apart from a brilliantly conceived plot, I found he is very good with his one-liners too. For instance, he says in passing, that 'he could not have been happy (for he was married)', while talking about some character in the novel.

The plot itself weaves its way through Europe, the UK, where Wallace is from too, and where the novel is based and some other regions like Patagonia. There is a wealthy Albanian-Greek who has a central role in the story, and who manipulates a broke mystery author into committing a crime himself. He also engineers his escape from prison and keeps him in captivity. Finally, he gets murdered and the rest of the story unravels as trying to solve his murder. Enjoyable for crime story fans.