Thursday 11 October 2012

Ratner Effect - How to Destroy a Multimillion Dollar Company in 10 Seconds

Ever heard of Ratner Effect?


Gerald Ratner inherited his father’s jewellery business in 1984. Within six years he had turned a small retailer into a multimillion-dollar empire.
He made it so successful that it seemed every British high street had a Ratner’s store or one of the associated companies he had brought up.
People loved his store because it offered affordable products to the working class. In fact it was generally known and the place where working-class boys bought rings for working-class girls.
Life was going well for Ratner, expensive cars, houses, boats, women and he frequented many high society events and was rubbing shoulders with Margaret at Number 10.
Yes life was good until the fateful day when he was guest speaker at the Institute of Directors on April 23, 1991 attended by over 6000 business people and journalists.
Asked how was it possible for his company to be selling a sherry decanter for the extraordinary price of £4.95 he answered, to the amazement of his audience and his shareholders, the following:
“How can you sell this for such a low price?”, I say, “because it’s total crap.”
To make sure that he really made a good job of it he also stated that his company:
sold a pair of earrings for under a pound, which is cheaper than a shrimp sandwich from Marks and Spencer, but propbably wouldn’t last as long.
Additionally the company’s shares dropped £500 million in a matter of days. Gerald lost his playboy lifestyle as well as his job and the company had to do a Phoenix and rename themselves ‘Signet Group’.
So the Ratner Effect is not related to 'generations' or 'platforms' - it is simply that if the CEO of a company calls his own products crap, he will be believed. That will instantly devalue all their products and cause collapse of prices, sales, profits.






Saturday 8 September 2012

Amazing Fact - Fear of No - 13


Paraskevidekatriaphobia
or
Friggatriskaidekaphobia
or
Triskaidekaphobia

Have you ever heard of these terms?

Definitely all of them relate to a certain phobia but the common thread between the three words is No 13 which is considered to be inauspicious in the western world. It derives its negativity from the Apollo 13 mission.

Triskaidekaphobia refers to "Fear of No 13"

Friggatriskaidekaphobia and Paraskevidekatriaphobia refer to "Fear of Friday the 13"

2012 is one such year where we have three Fridays coming on 13th.

Saturday 31 March 2012

Facebook Apps: What to Know Before Allowing Access


Every day I log-in to my Facebook account, I see 5-6 apps requests and ask myself if I should allow the app to access my profile. I hope everyone faces more or less the same situation. Facebook has become bigger and increasing in size every day, so it become more crucial to understand privacy implications and how your personal identifiable information will be used.

So next time before hitting the 'allow' button on any app ask yourself these question to fully understand these Facebook apps.

How much access these apps have? 
Facebook recently launched a new control screen which allows user to learn more about the application and what information it requires to run. Some apps require your public information, e-mail address, interest, demographic information etc.

Depending on your personal privacy preferences, you should make sure you review the app’s permission requests. Remember that once you install apps, your personal information can be shared with those developers.

How much control do I have on these apps?
The new app install screen gives you more authority in terms of restricting access to apps, as well as controlling activity visibility in your friends network. The audience selector allows you to decide visibility of app activity.

So with this new app install screen you have more control over apps and how they access your infromation.

Thursday 16 February 2012

Facebook Timeline for Brands - New Timeline Releasing This Month


In September 2011, Facebook introduced a interesting transformation of profile pages for is over 800 million users with the Timeline format.

The Facebook timeline generates scrapbook like collages covering entire history of user on the social network.

At the time of launching of Facebook timeline for users, the company announced that it will roll-out the timeline for brands which inspite of being consistent with user timeline will not be a carbon copy.

It is expected that the facebook timeline for brands will be announced at Company's Feb. 29 Marketer Conference.

The new pages for brands will start in beta with a handful of partners and then be released to more marketers in stages, according to the sources.

More details will be unfurled at its first-ever fMC event, a day-long conference in New York on Feb. 29 that's specifically for marketers.

1600 Layoffs At P&G - Power of Facebook and Digital Marketing


Banking on the power of Social and other digital marketing tactics, Procter & Gamble Co. is planning to eliminate about 1,600 non manufacturing jobs, including some in marketing.

Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller suggests that it would be within the range of the company's usual restructuring efforts and will result in $240 million annual savings. Overall the cuts only make up about 3% of the estimated 129,000 employees.


Chairman-CEO Bob McDonald said that he expects P&G's advertising costs to moderate as it moves more spending into digital media, where the sheer number of options and availability of largely free distribution drives down expenses.

Mr. McDonald said, "In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that return on investment of the advertising when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient," 


He also cited the example of recent Old Spice campaign which generated 1.8 billion for P&G in free impressions. He said "there are many other examples I can cite from all over the world."


Social Media Marketing Cheat Sheet

Still struggling with various social media marketing networks? Designed for small businesses, the “cheat sheet” provides some basic tips, lingo and relative audience size for various social networking sites.



Social media marketing cheat sheet, Social Media Cheat Sheet

5 Bad Management Tactics - Avoid to Become Bad Boss

Managing people is not an easy job. But is it so difficult that you resort to certain dirty tricks which are unprofessional and can label you as a Bad Boss?

There are certain bad management moves which are often used in business world. I have identified 5 bad management tactics and also the better ways to handle these challenges. Try to adopt the best management practices which will led better results without hurting anyone.

1. 'Be a Professional'
Scenario: You want low and mid level employees to work for 60 hours a week but can pay only for 40 hours.

Bad Manager - Tries to resort on the statement "Be Professional" and tries to convince the employees to extend their working hours irrespective of the fact that the work is regular and does not requires extra hours to put in.

Good Manager - Know the worth of emplyee and pay accordingly. If its not possible for you to decide then...work on your business model because its not viable.



2. 'I am Helpless'
Scenario: Emplyee expects a big raise which is not really deserved.

Bad Manager - Tries to avoid conflict by citing various unverifiable conditions or forces (like salary guidelines, HR Policies or Investor policy) which prevent him from doing this or else he would "really love to do, if it were possible".

Such vague statements never resolve the issue but increases resentment.

Good Manager - Discusses with the employee the real reasons because which big raise will not be coming. Tries to find out the areas of improvement in performance of employee and works on it with the employee to get better results next time.


3. High Employee Turnover 
Scenario: You want to reduce the expensive employee turnover.

Bad Manager - Believes fear is the best tool to handle this. He will email articles about bad economy, high unemployment rate etc. He may discuss the possibility of a layoff at staff meetings.

Good Manager - Improve your hiring process to find better fits for the jobs you need done. The better the fit, the lower the turnover.


4. Showing the Carrot
Scenario: You have a valuable employee which you want to retain, but can't pay what he's actually worth.

Bad Manager - Makes a series of vague, flowery promises devoid of actual commitments, details, and timelines. By Sshowing illusory carrots, the bad manager hopes that the valuable employee will stay put and keep quiet.

Good Manager - Create a great work environment where your star emplyees truly enjoy working, even though they might get paid elsewhere.


5. Sacrificial Goat
Scenario: You want to raise a controversial idea to top management but dont want to risk your image damage publicly if the idea back fires.

Bad Manager - Asks an employee to present at the big meeting, calling it a chance for them to 'gain some visibility.'And adds his idea into the presentation, if it hits the ceiling he gets the credit and if it fails employee is sacrificial goat to blame.

Good Manager - Discuss the idea with top management in one-on-one meeting before bringing the idea in public forum.
 


Tuesday 14 February 2012

What Type of Facebook User You Are?

Most of us have presence on Facebook. We post, we share, we like, we comment and do much more on Facebook. So what type of Facebook user you are? Identify and have fun.

The RoosterThey feel that it is their job to tell Facebook "Good Morning" everyday. 






The 'Lurker' - Never post or comment on your posts but read everything you post. 




The 'Hyena' - Hardly ever say any thing. Then read your post and just LoL or LMAO. 






Mr/Ms Popular - Has 2000 friends for no reason. They are/want to have highest number of friends and flaunt it as their status symbol. 


The Gamer - spends most of the time in their Utopian world of  Mafia Wars, Farms. Generally these are found baking virtual cakes, growing up their farm, building up city.


The Cynic - World is the worst place for them to live. They are fed up with everything in their life and most of the time they are found venting out their anger/frustration on their wall. 






The Collector - Never posts/participates in any forum conversation but they join every group 
and become fans of the most random stuff. 





The 'Promoter' - Always send event invitation to things that you finally delete or ignore.




The 'Liker' - They know only like button on Facebook and use it to full extent. Most of the time they like your posts even without reading.
Drama Queen/King - They often post stuff like "I can't believe this!" or "How can you do this to me?" in the hope that you will ask what happened or whats wrong... but don't expect them ending the story. Their drama never ends.


The 'News Reporter' - Always update you about what they are doing and with whom. Even on deathbed they would think about updating their FB status first "Going to die soon". 


The Thief - Steals status updates and wall posts and posts it as their own. 
   

Friday 3 February 2012

Is Google Reading your Personal Mails?

In our moral studies lessons we were taught that its bad to read somebody's diary or letter without his/her permission, but now the scenario has changed. As it is said that everything is fair in love and war so as all the unfair activities are good when you want your business to grow.

Do you think that your G-mailbox is secure and safe? Do you think that no one can read your mails without your permission? If your answer is YES, read through this blog post to get your facts clear.

In response to question "Given the issues raised by Facebook's security holes and aggressive privacy policy changes, how secure is Gmail data within Google? Can all Google employees and interns access Gmail data?" on Quora Christopher Nguyen, who was earlier responsible for Google Apps operations at Google replied


A small number of GMail-related engineers have access to the servers as a matter of necessity to do their jobs; a very small number of people actually access the contents as a matter of necessity to do their jobs, and even then, almost always only the associated metadata. The rest have to file a request and justify any access they ever need, which is extremely rare. All have to sign paperwork re users' privacy at the risk of dismissal & legal action, knowing that whatever they do is discoverable. And ultimately, an internal culture of respecting users' privacy helps keep one another in check.
So the risk is never zero, but minimized by the factors above.

The contextual ads which are served in Gmail are triggered based on the content of the email message that your currently reading. Certainly these are bots who are scanning your message at that moment and serving ads on that basis, but Microsoft in hope to entice users to shift to Hotmail is using this point to target Google on privacy. 


Some email services, like Gmail, actually read the contents of your mail (both sent and received, even if you aren’t a Gmail user but just sending to someone who is) in order to decide what kind of ads to serve up to you. They may call it “scanning” and attempt to equate it with less invasive activities like “checking for spam” but it’s quite different. For you, and the people you send mail to, it’s not spam, it’s personal.

Further, people tend to stay logged into their email service throughout the day. So all Internet searches you do with Google become tied to that same identity. 

Microsoft has also released a video featuring Gmail Man who highlights this particular Gmail behavior. Check out this video:


 Thanks to g-mail users on youtube for equal number of dislikes :)  

Tuesday 31 January 2012

Google Algorithm Updates in 2011

Every SEO professional wants to keep track of algorithmic changes made by search engines specially Google. Falling Up Media created an interesting infographic listing all the major algorithm updates in 2011.

So check out this interesting and colorful infographic and stay on top of all the search engine algorithm changes made in 2011.


Click on the image to enlarge.

Sunday 15 January 2012

Facebook to Hit 1 Billion User Mark Soon, But Loosing Ground to Its Competitors


Two interesting news related to facebook are surfacing this year. On one hand facebook is going to hit 1 billion users mark by this summer while on the other hand it is loosing market share  to its competitors.

Currently facebook has more than 800 million active users, 50% of which log on to facebook everyday.

Increasing User Base
iCrossing, a UK based digital firm, made a scientific estimate using linear regression and came to a conclusion that Facebook will reach the 1 Billion user mark by mid-August 2012.


Decreasing Market Share
Although Facebook continues to increase its user base, it is loosing the market share to its competitors. Recently The Telegraph reported that Facebook usage in the UK has fallen by more than 7% in December due to emergence of new competitors like Google+.

Saturday 7 January 2012

Social Media Spends - An Increasing Threat for Paid Search Among SMBs


Borrell Associates conducted an extensive research detailing the social media phenomenon that’s prevailing among Small and medium size businesses. It details about how much SMBs are spending on social media marketing, what type of results they are expecting from this media and the overall effectiveness of this marketing model for SMBs.

Although lot of research has been done regarding adoption of social media among SMBs, this reports delves deep into various other aspects of this marketing model.


Social Media Adoption:

The report suggests that SMBs have already understood the current and future prospects of social media marketing and they already have presence on various social media sites which is between 45% and 75%.


Online Media Spends: 

Borrell's report estimates that with such adoptive nature of SMBs, soon Social Media Marketing is going to surpass Paid Search spends in 2012. 

In response to the question On which types of online advertising do you expect to spend money in (the coming year)? Social Media Marketing secured third spot.


So understanding the benefits of social media for businesses, it is advisable for SMBs to get ready for running a successful social media campaign for your business.