Aashish, Author at Aashish Chopra

News-jacking Dussehra: An Idea to NDTV coverage in 2 days!

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‘News-jacking’ is the art of injecting ideas (with your brand DNA) into news stories, creating kick-ass content and riding media coverage plus social engagement. What started on a Friday evening, came full circle with coverage on NDTV’s homepage on the D-Day! :)

Idea & Execution

We had the hindu festival of Dussehra coming up in a few days. The popular mythology around Dussehra is the victory of god Rama over the ‘ten-headed’ demon king Ravana. After countless ideas and brainstorm droppings, our hunt was to find brand DNA match to News-jack this.

So came the simple idea to turn the central character of the festival on its head! We re-imagined Ravana (the ten-headed demon king), as if he were alive today, and put him in everyday situations, creating cool graphics for a Facebook Album. There’s always an urgency of a news-room when we’re working on topical content: Move Fast and Execute! And when it’s ready, distribute like crazy. Distribution is half the game, after you’ve cracked the idea and content. From Facebook post, internal promotion to blogger outreach in the beginning.

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See the full series – Guess Who’s Back

Results

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Got a ping from a friend on WhatsApp that NDTV had picked up our post and it had made it to their homepage. Phew! Happy Dussehra!

NDTV did a full story on the post, and embedded the images directly from the Facebook Album (good for distribution)
They posted on their Facebook page among 5.5 million fans
They Tweeted to their 5 million followers
All organic :)

Spending money is easy, getting there with an idea and kick-ass execution is Startup Swag!

Video Marketing – Q & A

One hour of crazy typing, awesome questions and a vibrant group. Prateek Shah organised a Video Marketing chat on Facebook recently, and the rapid fire questions made for a very energetic afternoon :) The event link is now an archive of sorts with questions and answers about video marketing. From review of a video, to best practices to ROI, we covered it all. Check it out

Few questions asked in the chat

Q: Are there platforms other than YouTube and Facebook, that brands should seriously focus on for promoting video content?

Q: What is the difference between video marketing and video blogging? Are they same? How can they be used in b2b business/lead generation?

Q: Can you share some key case studies which gives a great perspective on how a growing brand leaped ahead just by following a strong video marketing strategy.

Q: So I started this ecom startup and am on a very tight budget. How do I go start with DM to let the people know about everything. Get some sales and create awareness!

Q: We build multi author blog, we are trying to promote multi host video channel. What no of volumes we must aim at to promote the Expert?? (I mean how often videos should be released and total no of videos)

Q: How can we generate website traffic with the help of video content?
(It is for marketing of events not for a product)

Q: How do you measure the success of a video marketing campaign? What do you measure?

Q: Does having product videos on product page help more than exclusive videos on Youtube page for an e-commerce company?

Q: What are the best practices to control cost while promoting a brand through videos and to engage audience?

Q: I’ve made a video for my app marketing, according to all the rules and guru research. I made it very short, crispy, informative and what not. I still am struggling to understand why is my video not getting good response? Can you throw some light on it by quickly taking a look at it?

Q: At what stage one should focus on Video marketing in a startup. Should it be done parallel or keeping in view the kind of engagement it demands, done at a later stage. Sounds basic, but just in case your experience can throw some light on this.

Q: How to do marketing in youtube?

Q: Which is the best platform for video marketing? Facebook or Youtube?

Q: Does Instagram video marketing work in India?

Check out the answers :)

How to make a viral video? Quick Interview

Few weeks back I met Rajeev Suri, who’s super energetic and vibrantly spirited about digital marketing. If you want to be in the know of the latest insights from the industry, hit subscribe on his video blog on YouTube, he interviews the game changers in the Indian digital landscape and provides a lot of learnings and insights.

It was an honour to be interviewed by him, and talk about something which has shaped my journey over last few years: Viral Videos. In quick 10 minutes, we discussed the best practices behind making viral videos, from coming up with topics to distribution. One memory from my visit to Mumbai, neatly captured in a video :)

Highlights from the video and his blog post..

Replace your obsession with the video going viral with your focus on the content and story you are going to tell. And for God’s sake, don’t make an ad. Social media is about activism. People are trying to make a change, and impact. focus on that.

Use the right medium to propagate. sharing or share ability is in the DNA of Facebook, not so much on youtube, which is traditionally the source of video distribution. And don’t link a youtube video on Facebook, upload directly on Facebook.

Happy Content Marketing :)

Best Practices in Viral Video Marketing

Few months back I did a webinar on the best practices in viral video marketing, the method to the madness in producing and distributing video content. Here’s a quick 5 minute video with highlights from the webinar, the longer version you can find below. Happy Content Marketing to you :)

Webinar Highlights in 5 Minutes

Content ideas are everywhere, execution is everything

Full Webinar – One Hour

Operate like movie studios, do ten experiments, two will work

Slide-deck

Cracking topical content – Reaching half a million Newsfeeds in a day

With the annual hindu festival of Rakshabandhan (Rakhi) this weekend, what better way to celebrate then to pull off a classic News-jack. Content Marketing can be so much fun.. from brainstorming, designing to finally hitting that post button. Two hours of madness to pull off topical content, with urgency of a news channel! ;) Here’s the Facebook link

What this guy did on Rakhi will blow your mind (lol)

News-jacking is the practice of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story and generating of social media coverage and engagement.

Pointers to crack News-jacking

Act Fast: Trending topics don’t last forever, start to finish in 2 hours.
Brand DNA: What’s the point if the brand ain’t relevant in your post.
Break the chaos: Think outside the box, like way outside sometimes ;)
Distribute, Distribute, Distribute: Initial seeding super important!
Make it share-worthy: We reject 90% ideas trying to answer this question: “Why would anyone share it?”
Keep it short and simple: Human attention span is at the lowest ever, and you’re fighting through overwhelming content density
Don’t make an Ad! Like paste this on your wall!

Author: Aashish