It is often said that morning shows the day and the first day in Social Media Week, Bangalore has shown us what the week ahead of us will be. The expectation is soaring high and here’s the highlight of Day 1 so that you know what we are talking about-
The Future of Now – Neville Taraporewalla hosted by Microsoft. Neville Taraporewalla, General Manager – India, Advertising & Online, Microsoft addressed the crowd by saying that technology is evolving as far as mobiles are concerned. People are doing more and more things with their mobiles which are beyond conventional communication. Consumers are ready to share their ideas if the companies rewarded them for that and most importantly in today’s world consumer’s are impatient therefore they want to try out new things themselves by reassembling things. According to him, Microsoft is trying to go with the trend.
“Fitness should be free”: Milind Soman in conversation with Lakshmi Choudhury – When a harming personality like Milind Soman speaks, then it is obvious that people will listen attentively to what he has to say. He shared his experience about how Pinkathon gained momentum when they roped in social media. He is trying to make women conscious about their health issues and how they should take some time out for them to exercise. He wanted to spread the awareness that if diagnosed earlier than Cancer can be treated, but for that awareness is important and this is where social media steps in.
Social Media for Social change – Speaker CVL Srinivas addressed the major issue of illiteracy among women and how education could have changed the fate of the country as a whole. A step towards that has been taken by roping in popular TV stars who have a great impact on their life. Social media is the perfect platform to start the operation on a large scale.
Crowd Fund Your Idea – Pawan Kumar – Director of Kannada film Pawan Kumar shared his experience about how his film Lucia took place with the immense support of social media. Starting from auditioning to selecting Assistant Directors almost everything was done trough Social Media. According to him, if everything is planned out properly, then social media will be a great platform to crowd fund the success.
Will Social Media be the game changer for the 2014 elections? This was the topic of discussion which comprised of the Aam Aadmi Party, BJP and AICC and 2 experts from the Social Media Platform. Everybody voiced the same opinion that they are using the platform to interact with the voters and seek their help to bring in changes in the way things are being governed.
ROI in Social Media – The session had all the big names like Alex Oberberg, Nokia, Ashok Lalla, Infosys, Rajiv Mehta, Puma India, K Ramakrishnan, Café Coffee Day and Samar Sing Sheikhawat, United Breweries Limited. They discussed how their rising investment in social media marketing strategies is earning them huge brand recognition and popularity among masses. Though ROI is good everybody second the thought that offline online integration between all social media is important to get the actual figure of ROI.
Zero Road Violation Culture – A Social Media Way? ACP (Traffic) B. Dayananda, I.P.S, took to stage to discuss how the Bangalore Police have taken to Social Media 3 years back to bring about a change in the traffic system. They have made it a positive platform by resolving complains posted and the interesting part is that people upload pictures those who have violated the traffic rule. They are trying to create awareness about carpool. They will be coming up with twitter handle which will offer the people of Bangalore with real time traffic updates.
How Good is Your Social Media Gyan? Presenting “The UN quiz” by Unmetrics hosted by Ranjini Ramchandran of Unmetric. This was one of those sessions which breaks the rules and creates new ones. The panelists had Nidhi Bhasin from TVS Motor Company, Karthik Nagarajan of Group M and Shivraj Subramanium from Madura Lifestyle and Fashion. They formed 3 different teams involving the audience and were quizzed about social media marketing strategy adopted by different companies which lead to an interactive session. At the end winners took home interesting prizes back home.
Entertainment at Social Media Week – First day ended with laughter and music. Sundeep Rao, Stand Up Comedian and Band Aghor helped everybody to relax after they had put up a great show on the opening day. This was the best ending for the day 1 of Social Media Week.
