Courtesy:Matt Hamm at http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthamm/
Today, what differentiates an ordinary company from an extraordinary company is simple. A personality. Many companies choose to be faceless and ordinary. In a world where consumers have more access to information than ever, and more power to share their voice, ‘facelessnes’ does not work anymore.
Some companies and brands choose to have personalities and energize a community of loyal customers around them. For example, Apple. Or Rolex. They build an aura, a personality around themselves that communicates authenticity, uniqueness, likeability.
Our venture into social media more than a year ago was aimed at creating a distinct personality for Khimji Ramdas, one of the earliest corporate houses in Oman. Even as a corporate entity with a tradition of doing business for over 136 years, we wanted to embrace new ways of connecting with our customers.
Thus, we started the KR Bright Sparks blog as a small social media experiment in April 2007. Down the blogging lane, we discovered the many possibilities of social media. We learnt how important it is to give up corporate spiel. We learnt not to flood the blog with just press releases, but also create relevant content that is valuable for our customers across diverse interests.
We learnt the conversational nature of the medium. We came to understand that social media is not speaking at or to people but speaking with them on issues that matter to them. We discovered interactivity in its truest sense when we got feedback on our business from our customers and acted upon it. We started listening more.
As the only private sector corporate blog in Oman, we were recently invited to participate in ‘The New Media Event‘, the region’s biggest event focusing on social media.
Held at the JW Marriott Hotel in Dubai, on Dec 14-15, 2008 , The New Media Event featured over 20 leading experts from Middle East and around the world who helped attendees understand the growing power of new media in corporate world by identifying the key social media tools, challenges, issues and trends that brands and organizations in the region need to be familiar with.
Our presentation ‘Getting On The Corporate Blogging Bandwagon‘ made by, Rajiv Ahuja (yours truly) and Arun Rajagopal (who has been a guiding force ever since the blog’s inception, in his personal capacity) answered questions such as:
* Should you be on the corporate blogging bandwagon?
* What are the lessons to learn and the pitfalls to avoid?
* How to get more value from your corporate blogging endeavors?
A part of our presentation focused on sharing our learnings and experience from Khimji Ramdas Bright Sparks, the first corporate blogging initiative from Oman. It was a unique experience for the audience to hear both the theoretical as well as practical aspects of corporate blogging.
Our presentation was very well received and the encouragement we got from the audience will go a long way in motivating us to do greater things in the social media space in Oman in the coming months.
In 2009, we will continue to focus on delivering greater value to our blog audience. Have a great year!
