Welcome 2012 - Happy New Year

Just as a new bloom spreads 

fragrance and freshness around

May the new year add a new beauty 

and freshness into your life. 

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year 2012. 

Google Censoring Offensive Images on Google Plus

Google has stepped into shoes of Censor Board when it comes to showing up your profile pic on Google Plus. Don't get surprised if your profile picture is removed automatically by the Big Daddy.
In an instance when earlier this week, Tech Crunch writer MG Siegler found that his Google Plus profile picture suddenly vanished from his profile. Thinking it as bug, it was re uploaded, but it was again removed by Google with following message:

As the first point of interaction with a user’s profile, all profile photos on Google+ are reviewed to make sure they are in line with our User Content and Conduct Policy. Our policy page states, “Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content.” Your profile photo was taken down as a violation of this policy. If you have further questions about the policies on Google+ you can visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html, or click the “Content Policy” link located in the footer of Google+ pages.

This censorship has raised a debatable point about deciding - What exactly is offensive? Body language and signs differ from country to country across the world. Thumbs Up is a praising gesture in US where as it insulting gesture in Middle East. Okay symbol which signifies approval or pleasure in western countries, has a offensive meaning in Brazil.

Will Google think about it? Will the next censorship will be on text in Google Plus. We have to wait for answers to these questions. The success journey of Google Plus will depend entirely on how well they tackle such questions.

Top 10 Viral Advertising Campaigns of 2011

The ten most popular viral advertising campaigns of 2011 compiled by AdvertisingAge and Visible Measures.

1. Volkswagen - The Force
    Agency: Deutsch, Los Angeles
    Views: 62.7 Million



2. T-Mobile: Royal Wedding
    Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, London
    Views:28.4 Million



3. Apple: Introducing iPhone
    Agency: TBWA Media Arts Lab
    Views: 27.8 Million



4. Fiat : Life Is Best When Driven
    Agency: Doner
    Views: 27.4 Million



5. Dirt Devil: You Know When It's Devil
    Agency: Filmakademie Baden- Wurttemberg
    Views: 26.4 Million



6. Old Spice: New Old Spice Guy Fabio
    Agency: Wieden & Kennedy Portland
    Views: 26.3 Million



7. Chrysler: Imported From Detroit
    Agency:  Wieden & Kennedy Portland
    Views: 22.3 Million



8. Google: The Web IS What You Make of It
    Agency: Google Creative Lab
    Views: 21.2 Million



9. Adidas: All In
    Agency: Sid Lee
    Views: 19.9 Million



10. Old Spice: Old Spice Man Is Back
      Agency: Wieden & Kennedy Portland
      Views: 18.6 Million

Using Social Media for Business - Step by Step Infographic Guide

Social media is an emerging tool to help business get needed exposure and reach target audience with less efforts in engaging way. Are you also planning to use social media marketing for business? Check out this interesting step by step info-graphic. 

via

Benefits of Social Media Marketing for the Business

Social Media is the hottest trend in marketing with big businesses to the local barber shop talking up Twitter, Foursquare, Groupon and Facebook. Is social media marketing beneficial for the business? This question haunts every business before jumping into social media bandwagon.

In this recessionary economy where investment of every penny counts, businesses want to get better results with low investment in promotion and nothing can be better than social media to serve this purpose. Compared to traditional marketing campaign social media marketing campaign is quite cheaper.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing:

• The main benefit of social media is helping business standing out in this highly noisy world. 
• As the search engines have tweaked their search algorithm and have started considering the social signals in the ranking, social media marketing efforts lead to improved search ranking.
• The search rankings, exposure and lead generation are interrelated so improvement in search positions can lead to better exposure and increased leads for the business. 
• It takes time to develop relationship which leads to business generation, but if proper efforts are given in social media marketing it leads to actual business.
• Most significant benefit of social media marketing is reduced overall expenses on your overall marketing efforts. Majorly its just a quality amount of time which you invest in creating and maintaining your social media presence. 

However everything and the above mentioned benefits of social media totally depend on Are you doing it in a right way?