Kiruba Shankar, CEO of Business Blogging was  featured in The Hindu Metroplus Weekend dated Nov 12.

“He infused fun into conferences. He encouraged people to think fresh. He proved play can be combined with work. Kiruba Shankar has shown his countrymen new ways of ideating, sharing knowledge and conducting business.

About five years ago, he was an employee in the dotcom industry. His own boss now, he runs a web development company and another that provides organisations with “ideas that can make all the difference”.

Please read the complete article here

Kiruba Shankar our CEO at Business Blogging, (we’re a social media consultancy firm) and can be reached at Kiruba@Kiruba.com. Below is the article (dated Aug 12, 2010) written by Kribs (as his friends call him) for his a weekly column in Financial express. The column appears every Thursday and focuses on technology with a strong local perspective and a global outlook.

Let me begin this article by saying this. If you are interested in running and if you are considering buying a device that helps you track your performance, then stop thinking right now. Save your thinking time and go right forward with the Garmin Forerunner 305. Once you have it, you will never run again without it! This watch does everything you will ever need it to.

For those who train regularly, you can compare your current performance with your earlier run. You can compare the pace and your heart rate and thus keep track of your improvement. You can see the average and max temperatures and wind speed to see if climate may have affected your performance.

READ ON …

Mr. Kiruba Shankar was quoted in an article titled “School is In” in Outlook Business (September 4 2010 edition). The article features MR. G. Venkatesh – founder School for India initiative (for whom Business Blogging has been helping with online initiatives).  We are happy to share with you the photos of the article.

You can also read the E-version of the article here

Schools for India is a non profitable charitable global organization. Each country organization is independent of each other, and complies with the local laws and regulations. Schools for India is involved in creating the best in class schools across India, with the aim of providing education for the people of rural India.

6000 schools across the country have been planned. Each of the schools will have the capacity to teach 945 students, including up to 15 special children from primary to secondary school.

Schools for India was started in January 2004 and registered as a Non profit charitable trust under the Indian charitable trust Act in December 2005

Business Blogging is proud to be associated with Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) as Official Social Media Partner.

The Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is a not-for-profit industry body registered under the Societies Act, 1896. Its mandate is to expand and enhance the online and mobile value added services sectors. It is dedicated to presenting a unified voice of the businesses it represents to the government, investors, consumers and other stakeholders. The association addresses the issues, concerns and challenges of the Internet and Mobile economy and takes a leading role in its development.

The association’s activities include promoting the inherent strengths of the digital economy, evaluating and recommending standards and practices to the industry, conducting research, creating platforms for its members, communicating on behalf of the industry and creating a favorable business environment for the industry.

Founded in January 2004 by leading portals in India, IAMAI is the only specialized industry body in India representing the interests of online and mobile value added services industry.

IAMAI regularly conducts various conferences, workshops and roundtable events on key issues concerning the telecommunications industry and users. As the official social media partners for IAMAI, Business Blogging will be bringing following value additions to  IAMAI’s activities.

• Live Blog the event
• Live tweet the event
• Manage Event Website
• Create Podcasts, interview with speakers,
• Facilitate Q&A from audience who may not be physically present at the venue
• Do pre event and post event promotions on social media for IAMAI
• And much more

The recent most IAMAI event which we covered extensively was National Security & Digital Technology Conference in New Delhi. Check the event coverage here and photos here.

The next event will be The Mobile Ad Conference, hosted at Hyatt Regency, Mumbai, on 7^th of April. Catch us there for all the action or stay tuned to IAMAI blog to catch the live blogging updates.

Should I, as a CEO, blog for my company? What is the advantage by doing that? What are the negatives that could come out of it? – These are the most frequently thought over questions by CEOs before making their decision. We will try to answer these questions for you.

Whether to blog or not is of course a personal decision, but there are a few factors that you could consider before taking the decision.

People are very interested in hearing what a CEO of a company has to say. So, from the company’s side the corporate blog gets much more readership when the CEO blogs. Also, people would be very interested to post comments and feedbacks on the blog. If they get a reply to their comments, it boosts the people’s trust towards the company. They start to think ‘Here is a company that really cares about what we feel! Great!’

But mind, there would be little time for you to spend on blogging. So, the update frequency of the blog would not be constant. So, the people reading your blog would not know when to come back to check a new blog. If they get disappointed with the update frequency, there is a high chance they might abandon the blog. So, If you think, as a CEO you have little time to blog and you can’t come up with regular posts, It is better not to enter into blogging. Do not even consider a Ghost Writer.

It is always better to consider both sides of the coin, so we must discuss the negatives that could come out the blog. What you say in the blog is as powerful as what you say in a media interview. There is a high chance that your competitor is following your blog. So, take care as to what you put in your blog. Someone might post awkward comment or question in your comments section. If handled carefully it adds as a big positive opinion boost to your company. But, suppose if the comment/question is ignored or mishandled, it could create a negative impact.

On the whole, with a little care, if you could blog regularly, just go ahead, it could prove out to be a big success.

Here are some good CEO blogs worth having a look at-

Jonathan Schwartz (President & CEO, Sun Microsystems)
Craig Newmark (CEO, Craig’s List)
Mark Cuban (Owner, Dallas Mavericks)
Ross Mayfield (CEO, Socialtext)
Matt Blumberg (CEO, Return Path)
Alan Meckler (CEO, Jupiter Media)
Robin Hopper (CEO, Founder – iUpload)
Jason Calacanis (CEO, Weblogs)
Bill Marriott, “On the Move” — (CEO, Marriott International)

Michael Hyatt, “From Where I Sit” — (CEO, Thomas Nelson Publishers)

Richard Edelman — (CEO, Edelman)

Paul Levy, “Running a Hospital — (CEO, Deaconess Beth Israel Hospital)

Nick Jacobs — (CEO, Windber Medical Center)

Bob Parsons, “Hot Points” — (CEO, GoDaddy.com)

Read the rest of this entry »

Corporate blogging is like a modern art, different people might decipher it differently. You have to take care that what you want them to understand is understood. Take in the following tips and try implementing them in reality,

The aim of your blog is NOT self promotion. People just do not care about self promotions. Keep in mind that there would be people who wouldn’t even have heard about your company reading your blog.

When people come to your blog, make sure there is some useful takeaway for them. For example, if a spice company starts a blog, instead of telling about the brand alone, they could give out recipes. So, the blog would add value to the readers.

Be honest. In business blogs, it is very important to have a high level of honesty. Unlike advertisements, in blogs you speak to the readers directly like one to one. So, when people find that you are dishonest or exaggerating, they might develop an instant dislike. So, either be honest or safely avoid the dishonest contexts.

Your blog should be the bridge that customers think never exists, the bridge that connects the brand to the customer. A blog is generally a place where someone opens his mind and writes. It is like speaking intimate things to a friend. So obviously the friend would like to respond. So give the customers chance to speak out. Make sure there are a lot of discussions and interactions going on at your blog because that interests the audience to come back.

Use the current technology to your advantage. With the web 2.0 Icons linking you to social network, you have the opportunity to let customers develop a bond with your brand through socializing. Make sure that your blog can be followed through RSS feeds or some other technique so that people don’t miss out on what you got to say.

Something is better than nothing DOES NOT work out in corporate blogs. A poorly written blog is never acceptable. People take that a brand with a poor blog means a poor brand.

Make sure you reply to the feedbacks. People try only once to check whether you reply or not. Try to reply to every comment in your blog. Understand that the comments are the thoughts of real people out there in the market. It is the voice of the probable consumers. When you reply to them, they feel that the brand cares about them.

Make sure that your blog communicates what your brand wants to communicate. For example if you are an energy drinks brand make sure your blog is energetic. People must get the feel of your brand at your blog.

Speak to your target audience. In blogs you have the complete freedom of choosing topics such that the right target audience gets interested. Taking the previously discussed example, a spice brand’s blog could be targeted easily at moms just by adding some interesting recipes to your blog. So, plan about the topics you are going to blog on.

Take in Criticism. There is a high chance that some one might write negative about your brand in your blog. Never fear that. You have to reply to it in such a way that people who read your reply to the comment must feel positive about your brand and must develop a respect.

Make sure there is an editor allocated to your blog other than the blogger. This helps very much, as there are high chances of little grammatical and spelling mistakes arising in the blog.

Always make the blog visually appealing too. Make sure you add a couple of related pictu

res or videos to make the read more interesting.

We would like to thank and credit the following pages for providing basic content for our blog to develop:

http://www.scoutblogging.com/tips.html

http://fastwonderblog.com/2008/02/23/corporate-blogging-tips/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/10/15/a-guide-to-corporate-blogging/

http://www.clickz.com/3623991