Guest post by Vivek Khandelwal, Co-Founder Voicetap Technologies

When it comes to Human behavior enough is never enough.  One of the most interesting traits of  human behaviour is situations we tend to find comfort and solace in. More then the situation its the conversation that happens that has a pacifying effect -but then conversation do not necessarily have to be relevant. History has it that nothing is as pleasurable then watching your best friends fail at things – while I tend to disagree with that there have been cases where if not friends, but yes people have derived utmost pleasure from incidents absolutely irrelevant to them.

Welcome to whole a new world of human behavior – “Schadenfreude”

Here is a classic explanation of the german word – (More details here)

Schadenfreude — by Si Frumkin

Germans have a way with words. They created words that other languages simply do not have.

Schadenfreude takes 7 English words to define it: “malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others”. The dictionary explains it with a quote from historian Peter Gay — who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics; he said that it “can be one of the great joys of life.”

Now picture this – 50 Million tweets per day. 60 Million Status Updates on Facebook  PER DAY.  Clearly we live in a world where reviews are written before a movie release, debates are held on naming of a product, and kids are named before a couple even has sex.

On a serious note, we are surrounded by opinions –  Good, bad, neutral and extreme, soft, hard. Opinions of every kind.  Thanks to the ease that platforms like twitter and facebook have provided to voice one’s opinion. While these tools have enabled companies to interact with their end customers by tracking their views about their brand, there have been cases where these opinions have created lead to PR nightmares. The human tendency of replicating negative emotion more vehemently over the positive one is not unknown any more.

For instance the Cleartrip Kiruba Incident (Cleartrip’s  Stand and Kiruba’s Stand ) was a issue between a company and a normal customer but the fact that Kiruba’s single tweet reached 1000’s of timelines and was further retweeted n number of times required the CEO of the company Hrush to step in and explain every action over a blogpost. Amidst all this close to 40 twitter updates were made that literally crucified Cleartrip for no good reason.  For some reason people RTed Kiruba’s tweet, while some enjoyed the drama – Amidst all this Cleartrip was defamed. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing but what the heck- people RTed whatever little they knew about the acutal story. Damage beyond repair was done to Cleartrip.

Chetanblock -Another classic example where people drew pleasure from a conversation between Chetan Bhagat and Fly youfools. Consequences – #chetanblocks trended for almost a day on twitter. Some body went on the extent of buying a domain chetanblocks.com. What next – they now intend to make tshirts saying #chetanblocks. All this while hundred’s of people used the hashtag #chetanblocks and thousands of tweets were  exchanged with very few people actually understanding what happened.

While there a dozen other stories where brands have been crucified, people have started deriving sadistic pleasure out of this trend of defaming. I still believe that most of the people don’t actually read facts before they actually share a negative opinion, without actually understanding the consequences their actions might have. They just do it. And yes as a friend of mine puts it – Sadistic pleasure is better then the real version of pleasure. Welcome to the world, the world you live in surrounded by Schadenfreude.

I am no expert at understanding the human psychology but then yes Humans are Humans and social media platforms are no exceptional places for them to behave differently.

The next time you retweet a negative thought or share one on FB, for a moment put yourself in the shoes of the brand manager of the brand and ask yourself – Is this what I actually signed up for – To give justifications to people who believe that their brand is bad.  Food for thought.

From my personal experiences on twitter and facebook

Thank you Mr. Superman. You made the team smile on a very boring Monday.

I myself being a recent graduate (engineer) I know how frustrating it was to learn everything on my own. I think the Indian schools and colleges, right from primary to top IIMs and IITs are very very deficient right now in teaching our country’s students about the new media.

I have seen people coming out from IIMs with MBA in journalism and not knowing what Twitter or Blogs are. Suggesting some ideas from my own personal experience – please put in yours in the comments and work together to change this!

1. What should be the right age to expose a student to new media technologies?

I think it should start from 7-8th grade itself which is the usual age when kids come in touch with computers and internet. And if they can be moulded in the right way, some percentage of them will grow up to use Twitter and Facebook in the right way and not to send ‘fraandhsip requests’ to anon chicks

2. What are we doing about teaching in B schools and journalism schools? What about the top marketing schools like MICA?

Any thoughts or personal observations here? I find the results woefully low. Even small efforts like guest lectures are not being taken.

3. Can we implement an industry / government defined course?

We will have to find interested colleges. Professors. Some survey of readiness of students to this topic. Then work together to define goals and results of the course. Its timing etc.

Amit Klein, Product Manager at Directi is doing some pretty good stuff in this regards. teaching online monitoring and marketing at NMIMS, Mumbai and ISB, Hyderabad. He’s been experimenting a lot even using Google Wave for internal collaboration.

Wat do you guys think? Can this dream be realised?

My last post ‘Are you playing the Foursquare game?‘ had me ranting on whether there is scope for marketers to tap the ever increasing user base on Foursquare.

Foursquare has already answered my question. Cafes are now offering “Mayor Specials” – a free coffee or  appetizer or maybe a special discount to the mayors of their venues and I am hoping to get one from Superchooha too.

Just a couple of days later I got a notification saying Le Royal Meridien wants to be my friend on Foursquare.One of the early adopters, their check ins are in their inhouse restaurants and cafe. They also add their tips “Ask for Chef Qureshi’s Kebab Platter” or to do list “try out the new flavours of ice cream by Chef Vivek there have unique flavours like kafir lime, beetle leaf or paan, blueberry cheesecake etc”.

• It helps me locate them
• I get to know about their restaurants and specialities
• If I am in and around the area they tempt me to come and try their Kafir Lime icecream flavor :)
• They are not throwing an ad on my face, I can see their updates and check ins ONLY after I accept their friend request.

Kafir Lime Icecream, Here I come!

A little brainstorming on customer support using online communities at the office. That little distortion / blob / rectangle on bottom left is my rendition of how a community support overlay should look like. Doesn’t look very good, does it? I guess I need to work on my drawing skills, eh? :)

As if whats on your mind and what are you doing wasn’t enough we now have where are you? Don’t get me wrong. From the day I was introduced to Foursquare I have been hooked on to it! I have been checking where ever I go, and it’s become quite addictive. Foursquare is following more of a ‘location based gaming’ approach then the conversations.

You get points for every check-in, you can unlock badges and also become mayor of your favorite places! What now prickles my mind is that how can marketers use this as another medium to sell, advertise or push their services. Mobile web and platforms are the future and it’s important to tap into location based services.

• A lot of coffee places are serving free stuff for the mayor of the place!
• Brands can run nation wide treasure hunts using this and get users together
• I can so imagine the user generated tips section for every location being ported by Lonely Planet to add on to their database of books. It’s the logical next step
• Harvard already has a deal with Foursquare in which all the students inside the campus are unlocking new places and tips

I am the Mayor of Superchooha office! What do I get? :)

Having been on the hunt for a social business executive to join our team here at Superchooha, I have had the pleasure (and sometimes horrendous) experience of meeting over 40 applicants in the past 3 weeks. Some shocking facts that I have come to realise from the experience:

Disclaimer

I’m not a social media guru / evangelist / stalwart in any way; but hell yeah! I know when things are going the wrong way. And yeah, this is not a rant – I am seriously surprised at the situation.

The industry is in a disorganised mess

• For most of the agencies out there, social media is about Facebook and Twitter (and maybe Foursquare 2 years down the line) And this holds true for firms who have been around for more than 2 years now. Shame.
• Weekly deliverables are in terms of of X updates on Twitter and Facebook! Billing is generated in terms of number of conversations achieved (relevant or irrelevant)
• Huge amount of mailers are sent to randomest of email databases to increase the number of fans on Facebook

Well, if you have fallen prey to this system of doing social media then:

Is this really social media strategy / consulting / execution? This looks more like social media outsourcing to me!

People are stuck on social media marketing

• I deeply, truly believe that the SMM hype bubble is about to burst soon. And it’s gonna take the whole industry down with it unless radical changes are made. Brands will soon realise that Social Media is no more the cool thing to impress your boss. We need to start giving actual value to the organisation – externally and internally
• Though measurables like hits / time spent on the landing pages are good ways to judge success; they fall short of the actual business results that strategic social media can provide.

Conclusions

• Expand your viewpoint. Move away from the SMM bull**** and harness the true power of communities within and outside your organisation to deliver results.
• Move social media away from being platform-centric to results-centric.
• It’s not about the technology, it’s about driving a cultural change from within the organisation.

Zynga’s Farmville has taken the world by storm! And its not just the teens mind you, people of all age groups and walks of life are hooked to virtual farming! But what is this craze about? And most importantly WHY?

• Maybe because, in a day and age where land rates are sky high, everyone can have a 24×24 farm at Farmville. You are ready to plow, plant, harvest and grow!
• Maybe city dwellers want a taste of good ol’ countryside. Mooing cows, quacking ducks, meowing cats are all here to add to the zing. It’s a land where ugly ducklings get transformed to beautiful white swans.
• Its not the aspect of farming that attracts players. Its simply the craze for things we cant have in real life with real money. Living in a rented apartment? Fret not, in Farmville you can own a farmhouse.

All said and done, Farmville is the perfect substitute or defense mechanism to get our dreams virtually. It connects us emotionally to a culture that we all desire. It connects us with more like minded people.

What else can be done?

Some social strategies that can be added to enhance the social gaming aspect:

• A social and more central marketplace - The current game plan allows you to interact with the Farmville admins. Users should be able to sell and buy with more ease amongst each other.
• More detailed views – The current game gives us a top view of our farms. We would like more detailed stuff where we can enter sheds, windmills, kitchen etc.
• Work to make gold coins – Let users give each other jobs (post jobs in the marketplace?) and they can complete tasks for other users for a certified amount of gold.
• Move into the Farmville world – Increase your levels to become the landlord of some area and then rule over it by loaning it to others.