Prudent use of humour in Social Media sells-kolkata-chapter

The elements of humour in business promotion and its methodical use for sales growth came to the forefront as the subject of discussion on the 5^th edition of the Kolkata chapter of the SMBTS. The tweeple dwelt on the need for including humour as one of the strategies for selling products and how far it is feasible in the long run.

 

Certain factors that saw a smooth sailing of humour as a major promotion tool include:

 

• One can reach customers either by making them cry or making them laugh. It’s better to make them laugh and get your message conveyed.
• You can take a point from your product and mix that with humour so that the purpose is served.
• Ascertain the style of humour of your clients and post your messages accordingly.
• Good humour comes from good observation. Product owners need to observe their target audience before using humour.
• Humour has to be product-specific and a single style of humour cannot be applied for all categories of products.
• Chuck Norris and Rajnikanth are instances of how humour has clicked when it comes to selling ideas.

 

However, on the flip side using humour in the wrong way puts one’s business promotion at stake. Certain points that were discussed in this regard can be mentioned as below:

 

• Going overboard with humour does not help in sales.
• Some things will remain real and will not convert into humour.
• Tata Docomo is one of the few newcomers which have been using humour for promotion. Not many newcomers dare to use humour.
• Humour becomes so much dominant that the brand dilute at times. People remember the ad but can’t recall the brand.
• Humour can’t help you in selling your products if the quality is not taken care of
• Sometime brands confuse humour with ‘poor jokes’ and that is where filtering content in humour proves essential.

 

It was concluded that the challenge of using humour in social media is to strike a balance between the humorous and the obnoxious. One of the tweeple rightly remarked, “Market is in people’s mind. So, we need to know minds before using humor for product promotion in social media.” Similarly, humour has the risk of getting monotonous if nothing new is being ideated in a consistent manner. Once the idea is conceived and quality of the product is ensured, humour can be put to good use.

Twitter is a news networking site and not a social networking one-kolkata chapter

The 4th edition of the Social Media Breakfast Twitsnaps started off with the issue that Twitter is a news networking site and not a social networking one. It was said right at the top of the meeting that Twitter concerns itself primarily with informative content and is a social networking site per se.

 

Today however the argument progressed in a different manner – discussions were replaced by debate. There were several arguments for and against the topic. The ones who argued in favor of the motion had the following things to say:

 

 

• Every site has a basic intention of constructing it, which can also be used for related purposes but the basic idea remains intact
• For Twitter the basic purpose is information sharing
• Interaction is important but sharing of information is needed for sustainability
• Twitter might not be a branded news forum but nevertheless it spreads awareness that eventually becomes concrete news or information

 

However, there were ones who made their voices heard at the do. They made the following arguments:

 

• Not many people put much thought into their Tweets on a priority basis
• Twitter does not have the privacy settings that are commonplace at other social networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut.
• Communication is the key tool to make friends or increase followers on Twitter.
• Twitter is a micro-blogging site, where people interact in order to expand their network. Hence it could be called a social networking site.
• Internet has been created for communication and Twitter cannot be an exception
• Twitter is social networking site that focuses on information sharing and updates.