MxMIndia

Tag: Microsoft

  • Introduces LinkedIn Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics for Hyper-Customization of Messages to Brands' Target Audiences

    LinkedIn Strengthens Follower Ecosystem

    By A Correspondent

     

    LinkedIn – the world’s largest professional network with more than 14 million inIndia- is furthering its commitment to help brands build a more effective follower ecosystem in a business context with the launch of LinkedIn Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics. LinkedIn has signed on a select group of early release partners – including DSP Blackrock, AT&T, Dell, Microsoft, and Samsung Mobile – who will be immediately using these new follower tools.

     

    With these new offerings, this initial group of marketers will have access to the most robust targeting and analytics capabilities for their campaign initiatives on the platform from their LinkedIn Company Pages. They will be able to create hyper-focused follower lists – based on several targeting criteria, including Industry, Seniority, Job Function, Company Size, Non-company Employees, and Geography – to which they can deliver highly relevant content to increase engagement.

     

    In addition, marketers will also have self-service access to an insights dashboard that will further support their efforts by allowing them to assess their follower acquisition efforts; track engagement metrics, including likes, shares, comments, and percentage engagement, over time; and review their followers’ demographic information.

     

    LinkedIn Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics, through the hyper-customization of messages and campaign performance analysis it provides, is enhancing the LinkedIn follower ecosystem and the ability of brands to communicate with their most impactful audiences on the platform.

     

    • LinkedIn’s Unique Follower Ecosystem:

    LinkedIn’s follower ecosystem has been designed to enables marketers to: identify and acquire the right followers; more effectively engage and communicate with followers on a regular basis via relevant content; and analyze and optimize the impact of their follower relationships.

     

    • LinkedIn’s Follow Company Button:

    LinkedIn Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics’ launch follows on the heels of the introduction of the LinkedIn Follow Company button – the first phase of LinkedIn’s follower ecosystem strategy in February. It facilitates engagement through a button added to businesses’ Web pages and other marketing materials.

     

    Also 63 per cent of LinkedIn members expect companies to have a presence on LinkedIn. Members “following” companies and want to maintain these relationships: 70 per cent of LinkedIn members follow or would follow companies on LinkedIn; two out of three LinkedIn followers (64 per cent) would follow companies “indefinitely”; followers are active on LinkedIn (global).

     

     

     

  • The main challenge for the industry is to seamlessly blend and enable technology to become user-friendly, finds session on Converged Future.

    @FF12: Time to experiment with technology

    By A Correspondent

     

    Now that digitisation is set to come into effect from July 1, the convergence of media assumes greater significance. This was the topic of discussion in the second session on Thursday at FICCI Frames 2012.

     

    In a session moderated by Neeraj Roy, MD & CEO, Hungama, Sanket Akerkar, MD, MicrosoftIndiatalked about “The Converged future – Multiple platforms, technologies &transforming applications for media and entertainment”. The theme of his keynote address was significance and emergence of digitisation.

     

    To illustrate how connected we are today, he cited an example of how a teenaged son of a friend uses Xbox to connect with friends he was with at school and play games. Though this may common enough, he added that the group of friends used the very same environment to connect and do their homework. This can also be taken as learning life lessons of surviving in the digital world.

     

    Mr Akerkar said that the consumer lifestyles are controlling the conversation, citing the example the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. The industry has to takes its cues from what the consumers want. According to him, even ads will now be consumed as per the consumers’ choice and the advertisers can’t dictate the place and time for the consumption. Now the people are going to become the content creator and content consumer. The main challenge for the industry is now to seamlessly blend and enable technology to become user friendly.

     

    Jonathan Bill, SVP Internet and Data Services, Vodafone joined the conversation to discuss how the telco-eco system can offer better opportunity to the media and entertainment industry to monetise the services.

     

    Mr Bill said thatIndia’s telco-eco system is a hyper competitive market which the lowest price points in the global market. It generates the lion share of revenue in the entertainment stream for Vodafone.

     

    Mr Roy said that technological progress has enabled applications that recognise the customer preferences, be it the Internet or the phone.

     

    Mr Akerkar agreed and added thatIndiawill have 25 million smartphones by the next year and this connectivity gives the opportunity to the industry to experiment in creating applications for the users. He said that the technology is moving ahead at such speed that one only needs to use their imagination to think ‘what next innovation’.

     

    All the speakers were in agreement that once the digitisation bill comes into effect, the choice of content available to the user will be limitless. As Mr Akerkar said, “the challenge will be to separate content, be it mainstream or user generated into what is relevant or not.”

     

    They also discussed the feasibility of creating video content for mobile devices. Mr Bill was of the opinion thatIndiahas huge possibilities as it is the largest internet video consumption market. Mr Roy said thatIndiais poised to become the largest internet market in the next 3-4 years, surpassing evenChina.

     

    The speakers discussed how even gaming had huge possibilities if one was to look at co-developing games along with films. Mr Akerkar said that there was a business model waiting to happen if one figured how to reduce the initial cost of investment and figure out how to connect a known brand (film) and gaming.

     

    But the biggest challenge is the transition to the digital eco system. It is not enough to rely only on advertising revenues. Mr Bill said that the way forward is moving from free Internet content to paid content.

     

     

  • HomeShop18.com users can now browse the website faster through a one-click access system, using Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9.

    Homeshop18.com and Microsoft join hands

    By A Correspondent

     

    This holiday season, HomeShop18.com, Network18 group’s online and television retail marketing and distribution venture, is teaming up with Microsoft to bring its best selling offers closer to its customers. HomeShop18.com users can now browse the website faster through a one-click access system, using Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9.

    All customers who upgrade to Internet Explorer 9 and pin HomeShop18.com to their IE9 browser will get a free gift voucher and easy access to the shopping portal from their desktop taskbar. Windows Internet Explorer 9 can be downloaded free from www.homeshop18.com or from www.beautyoftheweb.in.

    Commenting on the association, Sundeep Malhotra, Founder and CEO, HomeShop18 said, “We feel proud to partner with Microsoft to offer easy access to our e-commerce portal, HomeShop18.com. With this association, we wish to introduce unique technological benefits in order to strengthen our customer interface. Keeping all the consumer needs in mind, we have announced the association with Microsoft.”

    “We are very excited about our partnership with HomeShop18.com, one of India’s fastest growing web destinations. Through this association, we have made it simple and fun for Homeshop18.com subscribers to get one-click access with Internet Explorer 9. We are confident that Indians will love this all new immersive browsing experience”, said Senthilkumar Sundaram, Director – Product Marketing, MicrosoftIndia.

    This association will help Homeshop18.com users to easily ‘pin’ the website to their Windows 7 taskbar and get one-click access to the shopping site. Additionally, users can simply right click the taskbar icon for quick access lists, also called jumplists.