NDTV Profit – All about Ad, 24 December 2011

Socially big

Mint – business daily, 18 November 2010

Getting Socially Active

Some of the key findings from India Social Media Report, Edition 2

exchange4media.com, 16 November 2010

Blogworks to handle Allen Solly’s social media strategy & engagement programme

Rajesh Lalwani, Founder & Principal, Blogworks – Strategic Social Media Solutions, added here, “Allen Solly identified the shift of power to the individual a long time ago, when it introduced colour to corporate dressing. Social Media will allow us to get closer to the consumer and co-create their brand, their way.”

exchange4media.com, 27 October 2010

Blogworks wins s.Oliver’s India social media strategy and engagement business

Rajesh Lalwani, Founder and Principal, Blogworks-Strategic Social Media Solutions, said, “We have a rich understanding of social media in the youth and lifestyle segments in India and believe s.Oliver’s brand DNA is a perfect fitment for real conversations, amongst real people on social digital channels. ”

Blogworks has, in the past, worked on several successful social media programmes, in youth and lifestyle segment, including Fastrack and Samsung Mobile amongst others.

Career 360, September 2010

You can now tweet for a living

“At the beginner level, we look at postgraduates in marketing communication with work experience or training in advertising, PR, online marketing or similar fields. At the same time, we are open to people from diverse backgrounds since certain verticals are best serviced by specialists in that niche,” says Amita Malhotra, Knowledge Manager at Blogworks.

impact Weekly, August 2010

3 year window

impact Weekly’s 6th Anniversary issue, released a few days ago, featured industry professionals’ 6/6 Vision for the Media.

On the monetisation side, large social networks are seriously working towards it. They have become far more aggressive in terms of reaching out to their partners, for advertisements or promotions or creating opportunities for monetisation.  E-commerce is expected to take off.

American Marketing Association, 7 August 2010

Podcast with Rajesh Lalwani and BL Ochman

Toby Bloomberg’s experiment from last summer, Social Media Marketing GPS , positioned as the 1st business book written using Twitter, is going places. After being published as an eBook, the prestigious American Marketing Association has now launched a podcast series featuring the original contributors to the book.

The chapter on ‘Strategy First’ featuring BL Ochman and me, went live today.

Businessworld, 10 July 2010

How not to do it (cover story)

There are rich insights for businesses that care to listen to their customers on social media. Research that would cost a lot and yield very  little qualitative information has some competition from the real-life learning that comes directly from customers. Rajesh Lalwani explains how directly useful social media is for the customer and the company. “Facebook and Twitter, for example, are great connection platforms. However, when a customer wants to make a purchase decision, blogs and forums.

often provide the answer. And it is easy enough for brand managers to scour relevant blogs and forums and see what customers are saying about them,” says Lalwani.

Hindu Business Line, 07 July 2010

Recruiters track online history.

Mr Rajesh Lalwani, Founder, Blogworks, a social media consulting firm, says that to be fair to candidates, employers must make a distinction between personality traits and character flaws. “If a person says he parties a lot, should that be used against him? Does this mean his character is flawed? These are decisions the company has to make with maturity.”

Assess leadership, knowledge

Companies should focus on assessing thought leadership and knowledge on these sites and ignore the frivolous aspects, he says, recommending blogs and Twitter to analyse candidates. Blogworks also recently hired a ‘knowledge executive’ by studying her blog and following her on Twitter. Such a search, according to CareerNet, averted what could have been a hiring disaster for it of a candidate almost shortlisted for a senior position in an MNC. “A search on the Web revealed that one of the candidates had a case filed against him. We withdrew the name from the list immediately,” the head-hunter said.

Though the practice is widely prevalent in the US with about 75 per cent of the companies there using social media to analyse the profile of candidates, it is only now picking up in India.

The Economic Times, 21 June 2010

Virtual connect: Surfers spend 2 hrs a day social networking, finds survey

Another survey conducted by Blogworks and Exchange 4 Media in December, 2008 and January, 2009, this time among working professionals, business executives and marketers, said, “81-85 % of respondents believe that Indian marketers and corporates have just cursory or no understanding of Social Media ; the need for education and learning continues to be high.” But 90% of the same set believed that social media platforms impact business.

Business Standard, 7 June 2010

Young turks latch on to social networking sites

Social networking sites like Facebook have become a tool for success for many young start-ups and entrepreneurs. While Facebook, Twitter or other such networking sites have been successfully deployed as marketing platforms by multinationals, it is the small-scale entrepreneurs who have begun to get the best out of networking websites — by using these to promote their business and services.

Hindu Business Line, 7 June 2010

Coming full circle

Technology changing lives sounds great but taking over lives?

To those who argue that life was much easier when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits, this is what Rajesh Lalwani who makes a living out of social media has to say. Obsession with technology is part and parcel of new-age living, says Lalwani, Founder, Blogworks, a consulting firm delivering social media solutions to organisations.

Exchange4Media, 25 May 2010

Digital has an unavoidable role to play in reputation management

Commenting on the growing influence of Twitter, Rajesh Lalwani said, “I was listening to the radio the other day and during a news bulletin on Akashvani, the word ‘Twitter’ was mentioned and no other explanation was given along with it. That itself shows how mainstream Twitter has become that it doesn’t need an introduction or elaboration.”

He then spoke about how a headline was created these days as compared to the times when things weren’t that instant. “Today, for example, a young employee thinks aloud on FB, Twitter and this is lifted by his boss, who then blogs, which is read by some editor may be and makes next day’s headline. That’s the way we are moving,” he observed.

Hindu Business Line, 22 May 2010

Infosys uses social media widely to engage with Investors

Says Mr Rajesh Lalwani, Founder, Blogworks, a consulting firm delivering social media solutions to brands and organisations: “It is time companies recognise the immediate impact and influence of social media and start engaging with its stakeholders now, as building trust is a long-term process. With regards speculation, the only way to handle it is through participation and presentation of one’s point of view. And that can happen only if you are present on new-age channels like Twitter and Facebook which are open and transparent. Silence is not an option anymore.”

exchange4media, 09 March 2010

IDMA 2010: Jury meet concludes; winners to be unveiled on March 11

The jury meet for the Indian Digital Media Awards 2010 took place in Delhi on Monday, March 8, which lasted for nearly seven hours. There were sizzling debates on various issues during the entire evaluation process. Jury members explored each and every link on the sites nominated for the Awards in various categories – Can a work done by an Indian for an international client be considered for the Awards?

Financial Express, 7 March 2010

Net-Working

Thinking from where to start? Today, Facebook is the in-style platform with nearly 400 million users, 5 million in India. Twitter is catching up fast with two-million users in the country and growing. Not far behind is Linkedin, which connects around two lakh professionals in India alone. However, don’t forget blogging is with what entrepreneurs started branding themselves with and will always be their all-time favourite. Says Rajesh Lalwani, founder of Blogworks, a strategic social media solutions company, “In social networking what is new today will be old tomorrow. I don’t believe in the concept of ‘hot spot’ for this platform. It’s just when a new toy comes into the house, everybody wants to play with it.”

exchange4media, 26 February 2010

Indian Digital Media Awards 2010 Jury Announced, to be chaired by Mahendra Swarup

The first edition of India Digital Media Awards (IDMA) 2010, organised by the exchange4media Group, will be held on March 11 in Mumbai. The objective of IDMA is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the work being done in the ever-growing digital space, primarily in the Internet, mobile, gaming and social media.

The 19-member jury of top professionals in advertising, media and marketing, including the digital and mobile media, will be chaired by digital media veteran Mahendra Swarup, Chief Mentor, Smile Interactive Technologies Group. The judging will be conducted online and by way of jury meetings in Mumbai and Delhi. The deadline for receiving entries has been extended to 2 pm on Tuesday, March 2, 2010.

While there will be 23 awards in six categories, the entries have been invited for 19 awards, while the remaining four would be decided by the jury. There will be incentives for entrants sending multiple entries.

exchange4media, 23 February 2010

India B2B Media Summit 2010: Of building communities on the web

Carrying the discussions forward, the afternoon sessions at the India B2B Media Summit 2010 covered issues such as technology landscape, social media, and content evangelists, among others. The Summit concluded with a CEO Roundtable. The Summit was held in Mumbai on February 22.

The panel on ‘Technology Landscape’ was moderated by Rajesh Lalwani, Founder & Managing Director, Blogworks, while the panellists included Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, Indiamart.com; Navneet Taori, Business Head, Pressmart Media Ltd; and Sreekant Khandekar, Editor-in-Chief & Director, Banyan Netfaqs.

Before commencing the discussions, Rajesh Lalwani made a short presentation, where he stressed on the essentiality of communication and gave key insights into the genesis of a community. He commented, “B2B, by way of its inherent nature, stands a chance for better monetisation. in every community, starting with the seed content, the cycle followed a user driven approach. Thus, the key to success is engaging the community in conversation and finding ‘content evangelists’. The cycle is so strong that once established, even if you wish to come in between, you would be thrown out by the community.”

Silicon India, 19 January 2010

Online privacy, is it still a necessity?

Another entrepreneur, Rajesh Lalwani, Founder of blogworks.in and Pitchh.com feels that people belonging to the newer generation often share more of their personal details through these sites, while the older generation is still reluctant and prefer more privacy. “Today, as advanced communication devices and new sites are being launched, the youth is sharing more stuff online,” Lalwani says. He feels that people should also think about other’s privacy in order to have a better atmosphere for online sharing. “When we talk about our online privacy, we should also ask ourselves if we respect other’s privacy,” Lalwani adds.

Dataquest, 14 January 2010

Back to the future – ten trends that will drive social media in 2010

The year 2010 will be about social media coming of age, albeit in select ways. Some relevant trends:

Forbes India, 8 January 2010

Bitten by The Zuckerbug – the Facebook effect: Why a billion people like this.

Rohin Dharmakumar is wondering if there is anything or anyone that scares Google?

5 people like this.

Rajesh Lalwani Facebook? I think it’s the most significant threat to Google. Google represents the Internet of yesterday when we searched for information…information that had to be indexed first. With Facebook information finds you, right here and now.

What is happening to search? Earlier when you heard an announcement you went to Google and did a search, but now you see a video and share it on your Facebook page…and half a day later it’s on all of your friends’ profiles and everybody is talking about it. Put simply, earlier you sought news, now news finds you!

Disclaimer: Views of authors are personal and do not represent the views of Blogworks, or any of its clients.