It has been something that has been going on in my head for a significant amount of time and I believe that it is the right time for politicians and famous individuals to take their online reputation management as seriously as the offline one. Here, i will outline a very basic strategy that i believe will equip celebrities and politicians to strengthen their brands.

So lets start with some assumptions that will make our lives easier as the post goes on.

• Paid advertising stand-alone is not an effective way of reaching out.
• A holistic or integrated approach towards internet marketing is what will allow long-term gains.
• Like most blog posts, this is highly subjective. Feel free to improve, argue, debate any points.

So with this initial setup we can charge into how a politician X can become an online brand.

Goals

To plan for the next coming elections, which means that it has to be a sustained campaign over the next 2-3 years to make a meaningful impact.

It also has to ensure that he remains at a peak during his election times, and is able to sustain public interaction at a locality level.

Mechanisms available

We all seem to assume that social media, by default is the internet. In a country with nearly 430 million wireless connections, a strategy also needs to address the offline, but mobile populace.

So here is a list of potential ways of reaching the user using social media

• Internet – Blogs / content
• Mobile (SMS, MMS or GPRS)
• Internet – Social networks
• and many more …

The list can go on, but it is all dependant on the target audience which may be some remote district in West Bengal (India).
Why ? Why not ?

“One does not fit all”, and that is the reality. I would love to use social media to create and enhance everybody’s reputation. For an example, an MLA from a remote bihar village has no use for social media in his political career (unless of course he has national / state level ambitions).

Cosmopolitan cities like kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore have all shown that the internet may emerge as a potentially important mechanism for party propaganda as well as reputation management.

So if you guys want to have a chat with me discussing this further, do comment or email me at me@dipankar.name.

What
The threat of drought is looming large over Northern India, Delhi has received less rainfall than normal and the city if facing acute water crisis, to highlight the impact of climate change on the City on July 17, Friday around 30 volunteers will queue up outside RBI with buckets filled with water to deposit in the Bank.
The message on all the buckets and a banner will be “Climate change = Water crisis”
Time : 10 AM onwards

Online Element – Thousands of Cyber Activists will be asked to sign up for Green Idol and then for every sign up, we’ll deposit a bucket of water.

“Life’s fair if you don’t compare”

The basis of article is the above quote which has no known author. Yesterday, i was sitting with my friends and i was the only IITian sitting there. When these guys started talking about their university life, well I started to realize that the golden years of fun for them were the toughest years for me and my batch. To start this all out, lets go back to the end of 12th and then college life.

Most of the other university kids start their life in college looking out for opportunities to explore life and have fun, the consequences are very much secondary. But in IIT, to tell you the honest truth there is a lot at stake if you mess it up. Take for example attendance … IITs are very very strict (at least my dept. was) compared to Delhi University or for that matter any other. A lot of people have had a DISCO (disciplinary committee) sitting on them for reasons that could be argued as trivial / juvenile mistakes. Basically, fun is not something for the light hearted in our premier institutes.

Now why am i writing about this … the point i want to make is that the 4 years of slogging results in a conception of the world which is extremely utilitarian and to some extent makes you a cynic. Well, we all come out relatively rich in the process, but i do think in an evolving economy like ours making money is not as impossible as it used to be. I am trying here not to be a cynic and have fun writing this stuff … IIT has taught me a lot about people , thinking, and life in general, but maybe just maybe i missed out on all the fun my friends were having. As they say time is money, and i guess most IITians have it built in when they go into the battlefield of life.

I had to compare … even if it is an apple / oranges comparison … feel free to flame me .