4 Amazing Child Prodigies Of Our Country

It’s children’s day today. This day is celebrated in honour of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who was born on November 14th 1889. It was because of his love and affection towards children we celebrate children’s day on his birthday. He once said

“The children of today will make the India of tomorrow. The way we bring them up will determine the future of the country".

This children’s day we dedicate this blog to those wonderful and amazingly talented children who outsmart each and everyone around them. We celebrate the smartness and the innocence of such children. Below are kids who are so awesome, we can easily get embarrassed in front of them for their amazing skills and talents.

Every child is an artist- Pablo Picasso

1. Shorya Mahanot- One of the youngest abstract painters the world has ever known. He picked up his brush when he was 4. He was born in 2006 in a family from Neemuch, a town in central Madhya Pradesh. His father who also had a keen interest in fine arts noticed his son’s talents and began uploading Shorya’s abstract art paintings on Facebook, that was appreciated by many. Soon Aditya Singh managed to do an art exhibition for his son’s paintings which turned out to be a very successful event. Now just 11 years he has got attention from art world and has sold paintings worth $3,500

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2. Truptraj Pandya- “This young boy was born with a sense of rhythm,” says the father of a then 2 now 7-year-old Truptraj, the young and talented table player. He started playing with aluminium dabbas when he was little sitting next to his grandmother who would sing devotional songs to him. Today he holds the Guinness world record for being the youngest tabla master the world has known.

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3. Pari Sinha: When we were 3 we could barely say checkmate. But this little 3 yr old checkmated children twice her age at the State Chess Championship in the under 7 category at Kishanganj. Meet Pari Sinha, from Bihar, born in a family of chess players loves chess more than chocolate. On an average pari spends more than an hour daily playing the game. Can’t wait for her to grow older and bring laurels to our country.

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4. Chitresh Tatha: This young boy who is today known as the country’s youngest sailor. He hails from Tamil Nadu and began sailing in 2009 when he was just 8 yrs old. He represented the country in the 2014 Asian games too! He first developed an interest in the sport when he saw his sister Meghna sailing in the Laser Radial category and thought of giving the sport a try himself. Since then, he has never looked back and even won the gold medal at the India International Regatta (Under-12) in 2013.

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It's amazing how these children can do wonders even at such a young age. They certainly prove that age is just a number. Here's wishing all those curious minds a Happy Children's Day.

Brands that have become Verbs

- Pratiti Nath

“Let's google it”, a  phrase frequently used by all of us. Can’t find a location? Google it, comes the answer. Want to know about something – Google it. Indeed “Google” has become synonymous to the verb “search”, so much so that we use in our daily conversations. In reality, we all know what actually it is. A search engine created by Bill Gates company Microsoft. We rely on Google so much that it has become our daily activity. Googling has become one of our natural activities like walking, running, sleeping etc.

Quite similar to GOOGLE, there are certain commodities which have become a part of our daily life. As a result the brand names of these products play a dominant role in our vocabulary. Such brands have become generic names representing those products. Here is list showcasing such brands names.

1.      Band –aid : A slight cut or a big tear, band-aid comes to rescue. The sticky adhesive band used to seal a cut wound was created by Johson&Johson in June 1920[1]. An employee of the company Earle Dickson hit upon this idea while thinking a way out for the frequent wounds encountered by his wife. Thus, started the idea which empowered self-treatment techniques. First released products are handmade. Then in 1951, they introduced commercially made band-aids which instantly gained popularity.

2       Cellophane : Guess what?The thin transparent sheet we used to cover things is actually a brand name. It is an abbreviation of two materials from which they are made. “Cello” from the plant cell wall material  “cellulose” and “phane” from “diaphane”. Swiss chemist Jacques E. Brandenberger  created this in 1912 when he was looking to make a cloth which could repel spilled liquids like wine. For this purpose he used viscose for water –proof coating clothes but the fabric became very stiff. Instead the coating material came out as a thin film. This gave him the idea of making a new material  - a water-proof coating film.[2] It was first used as a candy wrapper by Whitman’s company.

3.    Escalator : The electronically enabled moving staircase has become a part of our life. Everywhere we go there is an escalator to ease the inconvenience of climbing up staircase. In reality,Escalator is a brand name. It is derived from the word “scala” meaning steps. The prefix “E” and suffix “tor” was added to it giving it the meaning traversing from.Charles Seeberger of Otis Elevator Company created this product in 1900. The first commercially available one was manufactured on 1900 and won the prestigious 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. However, Otis lost his trademark and the term was declared a generic name by US Patent Office.

4.       Kerosene : The liquefied combustible substance used in household activities like cooking and other lightning purpose is actually a trademark brand. It is derived from the Greek word of wax, that is, “kerx”. In 1854, Abraham Gesner trademarked it. At first manufacturing rights were only given to two companies - The North American Gas Light Company and the Downer Company. Later it became a generic name and was allowed to be manufactured by other companies.

 5.       Ping-Pong : Ping-Pong or table tennis – what is the actual term? There are some who think that the chinese call table tennis by this name. Well Ping-pong indeed is a trademark brand! The actual sport is Table Tennis…Phew! Ping pong is a trademark brand dealing with all products related to table tennis. It was registered by the Parker Brothers Inc. However, later it went to Escalade Sports Company. 

    

     6.       Xerox :  “The word is photocopy”, scolded our high school teacher every time we said XEROX. If you belong to this category and still refer photocopy as Xerox out of habit, you need to know this. XEROX is the trademark brand manufacturing photocopying machines. Like all other brand names it is written on the product that is the machine. Hence, shopkeepers and ordinary people know it by this name. In 1947 Haloid Corporation, a New York based photographic paper manufacturer used Chester Carlton’s kitchen electrophotography technique to manufacture a photographier, that is a XEROX machine.Later they named the technique Xerography and the company XEROX.

7.       Popsicle: Orange, red , yellow, multi-coloured delicious popsicles sticks – really heaven for children. Alas! They are not called POPSICLES!!!. Yes, you heard it right. Those colourful ice-cream sticks are indeed a trademark brand of the Unilever Company. On a chilly winter night of 1905, a forgetful11-year-old Frank Epperson left some soda water mixture on a stick. In the morning he found the frozen stick. 20years down the line, he banked on his childhood experience to create ice-pops in his lemonade stand. Later Unilever used it to make POPSICLES.

An old man once asked a shopkeeper for a Colgate. "It's out of stock", replied the shopkeeper. The oldman said "O.K give me some other type of Colgate in that case".Product innovation, marketing and positioning has helped these companies in making the generic name of the product a brand itself.
So there you go! Bursting your bubble here!  Hurry up and flaunt your new found knowledge. Thank us later..

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band-Aid

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane

[3] http://www.pingpong.com/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photocopier

Social Media Marketing for Franchisees

- Pratiti Nath

Earlier this month the internet went crazy over a handsome looking roadside tea vendor.  Now, the buzz is that he has become a model. Well, it all started when a few people started raving about his good looks and sharing his pictures on Facebook.  Gradually it spread like a wild fire with major newspapers reporting it and soon he became a face to reckon with it. Here, Social Media acted like a catalyst speeding up the process in a jiffy! 

Now think of it this way. There are billions of people all over the globe. Of these billions, a moderate percentage has access to the internet. So it comes down to some millions people using the social media. Hence, it is an ideal platform for marketing your franchise. In fact a more viable form of marketing because of its greater outcome and outreach with very limited expenditure in a short span of time.  lt’s like the saying by AnushkaSharma in “Band, Baja and Baraat” – similar to weddings as cited in the film social media too is a never ending sphere. Irrespective of the economy or climate or social trends it continues to click.

What exactly is social media marketing?

From the name itself , it is clearly understood that it deals with marketing done via various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. This type of marketing strategy emphasizes on gaining more viewership for your website by promoting your franchise – gradually engaging people and drawing investors.  

Of all the social media platforms Facebook and twitter are more widely used. The reason being their relative predominance on the global sphere. While Facebook is used for global as well as local exposure , twitter is mainly used for global outreach.

India is  the 3^rd highest populated nation and much of its population is on Facebook. Hence, it is the ideal place for social media marketing.

Now the question is - what is franchise business model? How can social media marketing help?

Franchise business model is the legitimate use of a company’s business model - their ideas , vision and brand . A particular company has a given set of business model applicable to all of their brand outlets present all of the globe. This builds up a franchise business model for the company. All local and regional centers follow this franchise model. 

Social media with its crisp and highly engaging content can easily promote and strengthen your franchise. It comes with minimal cost and a greater target audience. It can be simply achieved by opening a Facebook page or a twitter handle for your franchise. Start promoting your website by presenting your ideas- the unique way you are solving the problem.  One benefit of using social media is its personalized and creative connect.  Like you can share videos, short messages, photos, giphs to attract people. On Facebook, you can go live and directly interact or create events related to your business.  You can host special contests and give away a gift from your franchise to the winter. The most important aspect of social media marketing is constant engagement with your audience. It is essential to be quick and responsive. Twitter is the most responsive in this regard. It is  usually used by people to gauge different trends and directly contact with people. So make sure you reply to tweets, re-tweet people who give you feedback, use hashtag to promote your products or use trending hashtags for your purpose. 

This is essentially how social media marketing works.

However, there is an exact model of how to set up things for social media marketing.  There are 4 structures of social media marketing that franchises can opt for.

 

Centralized structure

Here the brand  has single centralized presence in social media, like a same page for all activities relating to the franchise. Thus  content will flow in-out of the same outlet.  This ensures your global outreach and all contents being restricted to your brand without diluting. However, there is one drawback losing out local customers and failing to meet cross-cultural differences.

Centralized Blend Structure

In this model, the same corporate house maintains different social media profiles relating to its franchise. Here different content is generated across various profiles according to various locations/divisions but related to the same franchise. Hence all contents are driven to the same brand and local customers are kept engaged.  It requires a robust social media team to pull this up

Controlled Structure

This structure is quite similar to centralized blend. The only difference is their management.  Here the different franchise profiles are managed by their respective team s but the content is provided by the parent franchise brand.  This involves greater involvement of the franchises with their respective audience. However, conflict of interest may arise due to discrepancy in content approval. Also outcome may vary across different franchises.

Monitored Structure

Different franchises manage their own social media presence without any involvement from the parent franchise. They only follow a set of guidelines from the parent company. By using this model local area content is well established forming a niche in the local market.  This kind of model requires a big and strong social media team to maintain all franchises. 

These are the ways to generate a social media marketing campaign for your franchise.

Despite all these, there are certain problems that franchises face while embarking on a social media marketing campaign.

 What are these potential problems?

The problems are quite genuine and have a potential to derail your social media marketing strategy.

Setting the correct target audience

It is important that you target the correct audience. Any miscalculations in this regard can greatly affect you and you can lose potential customers.

Creating different page for different locations
In order to cover different regional bases over a wide geographical area , it is preferable to opt for different pages for different location. Your brand may be a global one but you need local presence to monopolize the local market. Hence your local business outlet should have a social media presence.

Opt for a fan page or create a group to boost audience interaction
Interacting with your audience is essential for social media marketing campaign. Sometimes it becomes difficult to handle all feedback coming from different franchise sources. The best way to deal with this is to create a separate fan page or a group for your franchise. Add your regular customers and people who are active on your profiles. This way it is easier to get customer feedback and give them personalized response.

Like all marketing campaign, social media campaign also comes with certain checks and balances.

So, what are these checks and balances?

Maintain visibility
Keep updating contents on a regular basis. Come up with refreshing and engaging contents. Make sure your franchise remain visible in their newsfeed.

Always maintain contact with the audience
Keep in touch with your customers. Engage them, interact with them.  Make sure you are responsive to their comments and queries.

 Be Creative
Look out for new ways of engaging people – like creating contests on special occasions, urging your customers to share some unique/memorable experiences related to your brand.  Use different tools like pictures, giphs, videos, and blogs to share contents.

 Make call for action proposals
Post contents that urge people to act and make them curious to look for more. Ask them to subscribe more to avail greater discount or share it with friends to earn reward points. Urge them to download your franchise app and win 1 year free subscription. Attract customers with these kinds of deals.

Circulate content to and from your parent franchise
Remind the audience that you are part of a franchise. Share contents to your parent franchise and post contents from their page as well. Make people aware of your brand credibility.

Thus by formulating a proper social media marketing campaign one can easily boost his franchise business model.  Social media is not just a trend.  In fact it sets up new trends. Who knows with a dynamic strategy YOU MIGHT BE THE NEXT BIG THING!!

Reasons How Email Marketing Can Help Your Business

- Pratiti Nath

Thousands of companies spanning different genres are plaguing the market. Every minute a hundred more are trying to break into the market. By the time you are gearing up to make a mark another dozen are waiting to snatch your place. It’s a never ending vicious circle. Numerous new ones arrive each day. Some survive the test of time while others fade into oblivion.  You must be wondering, “How to stand the test of time and make a mark?” Well the answer is Email marketing. Over the years it has garnered the most revenue- approximately 38$ for each 1$ spent. It is  like the saying by Julius Caesar “Veni, vidi, vici – I came, I saw. I conquered”

E-mail marketing is a phenomenon of marketing your business venture by means of authorized e-mails. It involves sharing monthly newsletters offering new discounts, products, soliciting sales, sending business requests and advertisements. All directly to your prospective clients in their personal electronic letter box!

So what are we waiting for?  Let’s explore the email marketing avenue keeping in mind these insightful points! Here are some reasons to opt for email marketing:

            Direct involvement with customers

Through e-mail you are getting into a person’s heart. It is the most direct form of communication. It’s like a letter from a friend who knows you. Your company will be that friend to the customers.  This is easily achieved by sending e-mail layouts of handpicked products, special offers and discounts, questionnaires for surveys.

Boosts your sales

E-mail marketing draws more people towards your business and retains your loyal customers. Special offers and discounts for new sign-ups, creating more follow-up mails over the time – all these makes you click. It spreads like a word of mouth by means of referral programs.

 Keeps you connected and in top of business

It helps you keep connected with your clients which make sure you are on their mind in times of need. A regular weekly or monthly follow- up email helps you stay connected and also provides great opportunities to draw attention to new schemes/products.

Increases your  brand credibility

Email has the ability to make a personal imprint in the customer’s heart. Almost all of us receive a flood of emails from our subscribed companies. Majority of us delete them as spam mail. However, unique layouts, catchy headlines, action-prompting opening lines makes an impact which prevents us from deleting them. Hence we try to stick to the interesting and credible ones. Credibility comes from consistent efforts of including special features, personalized tips and blogs about your business.

 Cuts down on the expenditure

E-mail is just like a business letter only with less expenditure. One can target a wider audience  within minimal time with the least expenditure. Most email marketing strategies comes with various templates. You just need to improvise, customize and add some creativity. Voila! You are done.

Creates brand awareness and recognition

While using email marketing one uses crisp catchy sentences and words, along with  brand names, logo, tagline, company motto and business vision. Thus the email layout helps to build up your brand recognition and also draws potential investors.

Increases your business knowledge

Emails help in gauging the market mood and customer satisfaction. This is easily done by quick surveys and questionnaires which make you aware what’s clicking and what’s not. You get a firsthand account on how you are faring and where you need to improve.

Email marketing - is it a boon or a bane?

Despite the many benefits of e-mail marketing there is a controversy surrounding its utility. Due to its passive conversational nature many of us doesn’t regard it as a viable option.  There is always a fear of going unheard /unseen. People may delete your newsletters without even taking a glancing or it can end up in their spam folder. Even worse if they get annoyed and unsubscribe.
In spite of these apprehensions it is still very much the in-thing as it involves absolutely zero cost and yields great results within a short span of time. One way of tackling invisibility in email marketing is making sure you follow up with a call and by adding a spam filter. If used properly it can be a good medium for conversing with the customer.

Now, the question arises how do you measure its success rate?

One of the major advantages of E-mail marketing is the relative ease of measuring its success. One can easily analyze this by incorporating certain metric analytics in your email campaign system. These includes measures like bounce rate (% of emails undelivered), delivery rate (% of emails delivered to inbox), e-mail list growth rate, % of people clicking your mail, % sharing your mail, conversion rate (% clicking the links on email). An absolute measurement is Revenue per email sent that is , the total revenue collected from a particular email campaign.

From all this we can gather that E-mail marketing is here to stay. It can never become obsolete. It is a potential tool to build up your business content. As the American actor and playwright Jason Miller said, “The key ingredient to a better content experience is relevance.”

  

10 things you didn't know about Hillary Clinton

-Pratiti Nath

Hillary Clinton, the name buzzing all over the world these days – apart from certain Donald Trump of course! By now everyone has a grasp of this influential politician, the former US secretary of state and first lady. This democrat US presidential nominee is going to create history. If she wins, she will be the first female President of the oldest democracy in the world and the most important person in the world! Win or lose Hillary Rodham Clinton, is a source of inspiration for many and a legend in her own terms. Sure we know all the nitty gritty details about her public life but there still remains certain mystery surrounding this woman – as woman are a bundle of mystery. 

Did you know Bill Clinton proposed her twice before she said yes?  Well, you know now! Here are some more interesting  facts about this mighty lady which will startle you.

1. She comes from a family of republican background. Her parents Hugh E. Rodham and Dorothy Howell Rodham are republicans. Her father owned a drapery business and her mother is a homemaker. She herself has been an activist belonging to the republican party in Wellesley College, Massachusetts.

Clinton meets with United States House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel, right, and U.S. House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, left, in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on February 16, 1993. (Photo: Brad Markel/ZUMA Press/Newscom

2. 12 year old Hillary was bitten with the space bug and wanted to be an astronaut. However, her application was rejected by NASA as the space research organisation didn’t accept women then.

Image source: washingtonpost.com

3. She was featured in the Life Magazine in 1969 for her commencement speech as a student at Wellesley. Her brilliantly articulated speech criticizing Senator Edward W. Brooke received a standing ovation from the audience.

Image Source: Tumblr

4. She was a contestant at the television quiz show College Bowl. She has also sung live on  Saturday Night Live. This is because of her excellent memory of tunes and singing capabilities. She can remember tunes after hearing once.

5. She was in the group of lawyers which impeached the then US President Richard Nixon in 1974. She was amongst the 3 female lawyers in a team of 43 lawyers.

 6. When her husband became the US President in the 1990s, she shifted the office of the first lady from the East Wing to the West Wing. Until then East Wing, the relatively lesser known region was the seat of power for the first lady, away from the President’s office. Hillary wanted to be close to the action centre.

Image source: Alex Wong/Getty Images

       7. At the age of 14 she met Martin Luther King Jr and was influenced by him. The youth minister of the local church introduced her to Martin Luther King Junior.

        8. During her term as the Secretary of State, she has visited 112 nations in 4 years. She flew around 956,733 miles. That’s a turnover of one nation every two weeks.

Image source: yahoo.com

9. Hillary is a Grammy winner just like Obama. Both of them have won Grammies in the non-musical category. The audio version of her book “It takes a Village” won her the Grammy award for the best spoken word in the non-musical album category in 1997.

     10. Hillary is a self-confessed lover of chillies. Her favourite snack is hot chilly peppers and she literally indulges in hot sauces with everything she eats.

So there you go! Shedding some light into the mystery named “HILLARY CLINTON”

5 REASONS WHY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS A GOOD SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

-Ankita Roy

“In the world we live in today, we no longer have a choice on whether to engage in social media or not. The question is, how well we do it.”

You can buy attention. You can beg for attention from the media. Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free. When it comes to marketing, what are the uses of social media and why it would do you good to hire a social media marketing agency? Why use this platform?

Marketing is no longer about YOU but about the STORIES you tell. A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other. And what could be a better platform to achieve these objectives than social media and by the very people who specialize in exactly this!

At this point in the game, not having an active social media presence is kind of like pulling out a flip phone at a business meeting and then not understanding why your boss keeps giving Ramesh all the new accounts. But some people still own flip phones, and some people dig in their heels and say, what is social media marketing going to do for me? Do I really need it? Yes. Yes you do — and here are some of the most compelling reasons why: 

Know your customer base

Part of what makes things like Twitter and Instagram marketing so cool is the interaction you get to have with your customer base — you can read their tweets and status updates to get insights into their daily lives (and maybe adjust your marketing strategy as a result). What products are they buying and why? What are they doing on the weekend? What kind of posts do they love to share, and from what websites? You can also use social media as a tool for connecting with complementary, non-competing businesses, thought leaders and tastemakers in your space, as well as journalists who cover your industry. Sometimes, becoming besties starts with a simple retweet. 

Respond to customer complaints

If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.

If there’s a problem with your product or service, you want to know about it right away. With the feedback you get in the process of social media marketing, you’ll be the first to know when there are issues – and you can take steps to resolve them right away. Study after study has shown that consumers appreciate companies that respond to customer complaints (and don’t hesitate to rant online to anyone who will listen when companies don’t take the time to make things right).

Stay ahead of competition

Did you know that 91% of brands are using more than one social media platform? This isn’t something you want to fall behind the competition on because it’s much harder (and more expensive) to play catch up than it is to get in on the game early. If your competitors get to your potential customers first, they’ll earn their loyalty and you’ll have a hard time winning them over. If you’re active and engaging on a variety of networks, you can gain those friends and followers first and your competition will be playing catch up instead of the other way around.

Tap your potential Customer

Customers, you didn’t know existed will find (and buy from) you. In the process of marketing with Facebook, you’ll probably join a ton of groups related to your products, industry and customer base. By posting links on these groups, you’ll help influence customers to check out your site. Answering questions You Can't Beat the Price (or ROI) of Social Media.

Get featured on a trending topic

When it comes to newsjacking, social media is king. Sometimes your brand is mentioned on a cable TV show. Sometimes it’s not, but you know just how to slide your product into the story to aim the spotlight in your direction. Facebook, Twitter, and even Reddit marketing gives you a front row seat to the news that’s becoming viral right as it’s happening. Jump in at just the right time and you’ll earn some major media attention — and that’s something you just can’t do with a traditional ad campaign. 

Get website traffic/Store Walk-ins

People view Twitter and Facebook as social networks, not marketing machines. As a result, they’re less likely to see what you post as an advertisement and will be more likely to hear what you have to say. This translates to serious web traffic when you link to your site and posts that market themselves as your friends and followers share what you’ve posted.

Simply put, social media marketing is part of doing business in the new millennium. If your business isn’t already active on social networking sites, now is the time to start. Before you go blindly winging your way into the social mediasphere, a word of warning if you will: PLAN YOUR ATTACK!! You can waste hours on social media marketing to no positive effect, therefore allocate some marketing budget to dip your toe and get some assistance if you are not 100% sure of how to approach the medium. That is to say, hire the social media marketing guys to do it for you.