Scenario 1
You are going on a long awaited date. Everything seems to go as expected, until your date becomes too judgemental and starts talking of things from your past life that you thought were long forgotten. Whats more, she draws up distorted conclusions about your character based on that. Hardly the end to the date you envisaged.
Scenario 2
You interview for that dream job. You think you are the perfect fit.You handle the technical questions with a panache as only you can. The HR round also went pretty well, though you wondered why the interviewer had a preconceived notion about you not being a team player. You did not get the job.
Scenario 3
You start getting mailers selling your favourite products. Initially it was “delighting” for you, until it turned creepy and you feared invasion of personal space. How the heck are they getting to know?
Flashback : Your IIM Days
The reasons are not hard to find. It was during your IIM days that you had 24 hour net connectivity, and lots of time, sitting in classes, posting blogs and chatting on facebook, orkut, posting on auto forums, self help forums, and what not. You did not think twice about posting, cribbing about your romantic interludes and fights and make-up’s and emotional trauma and emotional highs. Even sexual escapades when you felt adventurous. The habit was carried forward into your first job, when you posted about the problems you had with your boss and your team. Of course, your posts and surfing habits included hard to get information about your innermost desires and preferred consumption patterns. Before someone meets you, they have already met your web personality, based on your web footprints that are strewn all around, mostly unknown to you,and are quite unmanageable.
It is a fact that companies would increasingly do web checks before hiring you. That’s where they see your real unadulterated self uncoached for interviews. With all the raw pitfalls, many times distorted and multiplied manifold. It’s a fact that online posts happen more often than not when you are low. Hence it is more likely to be negative than positive. And it sure is uncomfortable when any new person already has a distorted view of you before meeting you. Whether it is a positive thing or not is debatable. But being part of a generation that was not brought up with the internet, rather found it in adolescence, such scenarios seem scary to me.
Exploting the Phenomenon
As marketeers, the power of exploiting this phenomena need not be overemphasised. It really is the next big thing in marketing where you get a very powerful tool to get to know your customers. The power of google analytics and facebook crawlers etc. are well known. Also, spreading awareness about your product through the blogs and facebooks of this world is already happening, in newer and most innovative ways. This is going to be the primary mode of marketing in the West. In an Indian context, where the tech savy urban dwellers coexist with the vast rural markets, bot traditional media and the internet would coexist, especially since tapping the rural markets is the next big thing in India.
Although this is a bit of an extreme picture I have painted, be aware of the immense power and the undeniable immediacy of such a reality and manage your web brand and web footprints carefully.
You are going on a long awaited date. Everything seems to go as expected, until your date becomes too judgemental and starts talking of things from your past life that you thought were long forgotten. Whats more, she draws up distorted conclusions about your character based on that. Hardly the end to the date you envisaged.
Scenario 2
You interview for that dream job. You think you are the perfect fit.You handle the technical questions with a panache as only you can. The HR round also went pretty well, though you wondered why the interviewer had a preconceived notion about you not being a team player. You did not get the job.
Scenario 3
You start getting mailers selling your favourite products. Initially it was “delighting” for you, until it turned creepy and you feared invasion of personal space. How the heck are they getting to know?
Flashback : Your IIM Days
The reasons are not hard to find. It was during your IIM days that you had 24 hour net connectivity, and lots of time, sitting in classes, posting blogs and chatting on facebook, orkut, posting on auto forums, self help forums, and what not. You did not think twice about posting, cribbing about your romantic interludes and fights and make-up’s and emotional trauma and emotional highs. Even sexual escapades when you felt adventurous. The habit was carried forward into your first job, when you posted about the problems you had with your boss and your team. Of course, your posts and surfing habits included hard to get information about your innermost desires and preferred consumption patterns. Before someone meets you, they have already met your web personality, based on your web footprints that are strewn all around, mostly unknown to you,and are quite unmanageable.
It is a fact that companies would increasingly do web checks before hiring you. That’s where they see your real unadulterated self uncoached for interviews. With all the raw pitfalls, many times distorted and multiplied manifold. It’s a fact that online posts happen more often than not when you are low. Hence it is more likely to be negative than positive. And it sure is uncomfortable when any new person already has a distorted view of you before meeting you. Whether it is a positive thing or not is debatable. But being part of a generation that was not brought up with the internet, rather found it in adolescence, such scenarios seem scary to me.
Exploting the Phenomenon
As marketeers, the power of exploiting this phenomena need not be overemphasised. It really is the next big thing in marketing where you get a very powerful tool to get to know your customers. The power of google analytics and facebook crawlers etc. are well known. Also, spreading awareness about your product through the blogs and facebooks of this world is already happening, in newer and most innovative ways. This is going to be the primary mode of marketing in the West. In an Indian context, where the tech savy urban dwellers coexist with the vast rural markets, bot traditional media and the internet would coexist, especially since tapping the rural markets is the next big thing in India.
Although this is a bit of an extreme picture I have painted, be aware of the immense power and the undeniable immediacy of such a reality and manage your web brand and web footprints carefully.
No comments:
Post a Comment