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SMCPune Interviews Farm2Kitchen

posted Oct 18, 2011, 7:52 PM by Shikha Pakhide

[
updated Oct 18, 2011, 7:56 PM
]
Farm2Kitchen was born out of a vision to help today's Indian women manage their lives effectively & efficiently. We've
aligned the entire organization around one mission: To enhance the quality of life of Indian families by helping them plan
their kitchen needs in a better way and to provide the best customer service possible.
SMCPune : What prompted you to
venture in this field?
Farm2Kitchen : Grocery shopping has
always been a popular event for a
common household in India. However,
with changes in the economy, some
families have difficulties in finding
excess time to go to grocery shopping
on a daily or a weekly basis, as both
spouses may be working. During my
pregnancy, I faced challenges in
getting quality farm produce and
that’s when the idea of Farm2Kitchen
came into my mind. With
Farm2Kitchen, families can save time
and effort to shop at supermarkets.
Nutrition is important & so is
convenience!
SMCPune : Why did you choose the
concept of organic farming?
Farm2Kitchen : Organic food is
produced by farmers who emphasize
the use of renewable resources and
the conservation of soil and water to
enhance environmental quality for
future generations. Organic farming is
a holistic approach to food
production, making use of crop
rotation, environmental management
and good animal husbandry to control
pests and diseases.Organic food is
healthier due to the lack of chemicals
and synthetic pesticides. In fact,
studies have shown that children who
eat organic food have lower levels of
pesticides in their blood than children
who eat regular food.Considering the
access to organic food being limited
for Indians, I thought that online
supermarket for organic food will
definitely help Indians shop
conveniently.
SMCPune : There are lot of other
players in the same field, what do you
think is your USP which can sustain
Farm2Kitchen : We have one competitor
and that’s Farm2Kitchen! We are
competing with ourselves to bring
innovations in the way Indians shop
grocery.We know there are players who
are offering similar kind of services but
no one caters to the specific needs like
we do! For example with ‘Automatic
Delivery’ you can order your frequently
needed grocery at one go and relax for
months! We offer special deliveries for
Pregnant Women and Infants as well.We
offer more health conscious choices that
include certified organic food, special
food for people with special needs e.g.
special organic food for women for their
special needs like - before, during and
after pregnancy. Farm2Kitchen provides
a unique website that helps customers
repeat purchases and differentiates it
from other competitors. With
Farm2Kitchen a customer has an option
of shopping at the website or shop on
social network (Facebook). We also have
our ‘Farm2Kitchen App’ in Google
Chrome Web Store which is useful for
regular customers.These are small
things which make us stand apart from
others around and we firmly believe
that innovation is the key to
Farm2Kitchen’s success.
SMCPune : Do you think Social media is
helping you for your business?
Farm2Kitchen : Social media plays a
vital role in a business like ours. In fact,
we are the first e-Com dealing in farm
produce in India to offer shopping on
Social Network. We have our shop on
Facebook
(www.facebook.com/farm2kitchen)
where customers can shop all their
grocery needs while being connected to
their friends. Farm2Kitchen shop on
Facebook is becoming quite popular
with the working class as they are
SMCPune : How many members from
your organization are supporting SM
activities ?
Farm2Kitchen : There are 2 members
who are supporting SM activities at the
moment. Ours is a small team with big
dreams :-)
SMCPune : Did you earn any revenue
from SM?
Farm2Kitchen : Yes! Our store on
Facebook is definitely a revenue
generator for Farm2Kitchen and it’s
quite popular among working women.
SMCPune : Do you think SM is an
important part of marketing mix ?
Farm2Kitchen : The answer is easy; YES!
You can use social networks to gain new
clients, stay in touch with current
clients and promote new products and
sales offers.Using social media can not
only increase reliability and build the
image, but also effectively increase
revenues and increase the number of
customers.
SMCPune : Do you plan to venture in
mobile space as well ?like mobile app
etc ?
Farm2Kitchen : Yes! We will be
launching our mobile app for iPhone.
The launch date is yet to be decided but
we think this would really boost the
convenience factor for people in India,
especially those living in metros and
having a busy life.

you in the market in the longer run ? connected to their friends most of the
times on social networks like Facebook
during their working hours.We also use
Twitter (twitter.com/farm2kitchen) and
FourSquare(foursquare.com/farm2kitchen)
for marketing.
0
Connect with SMCPune via Twitter
SMCPune's Interview with Aaramshop

posted Oct 18, 2011, 7:14 PM by Shikha Pakhide

[
]
AaramShop is an online retail platform that is completely focused on essentials (or FMCG / CPG) needs of every
family. Shopping on AaramShop makes shopping for essentials more engaging, entertaining, effortless, fun and
stress-free.Lets know more about them.
SMCPune : What was the spark
that ignited the thought of AaramShop
?
AaramShop : AaramShop is a hybrid
retail platform designed for sales and
marketing of FMCG / CPG brands to a
convenience seeking urban consumer
by leveraging and integrating the
value offered by a web-store with the
inherent strengths of the independent
neighborhood retailer. AaramShop is
an idea that has been craved out of
the opportunities that emerge from
addressing the current pain-points of
the three main constituents of the
retail eco-system – namely the “short-
on-time, high-on-stress” consumer, the
independent retailer channel and the
FMCG brands. AaramShop brings
convenience and comfort to the
consumer, brings additional and
“larger order sizes” to the retailers
and it provides an engagement & sales
platform for brands. And its usage is
free for all. FMCG / CPG retailing
online has been a challenge across the
world and problem issues are on
account of need for quick delivery,
cost of logistics and low margins on
FMCG / CPG brands. We believe that
the solution lies in not attempting to
SMCPune : Why did you think it was
important to venture your concept in
Social Media?
AaramShop : The consumers that we
want to address spend a considerable
amount on time consuming the socially
generated media. We believe that our
TG, which is the “short-on-time, high-
on-stress” unban folk are best engaged
with using opportunities which lie within
social media.
SMCPune : How many members of your
team are working on social media
activities for AaramShop?
AaramShop : We are a small team, but
our mandate is that everyone has to be
engaged within the social media – in his
or her own areas of expertise. So while
there is a set of folks who manage our
consumer facing initiatives, the teams
that are involved with the brand
engagement function are very active on
the social media specific to that
segment.
SMCPune : Have you earned any revenue
from Social media?
AaramShop : We do not see Social Media
as a separate or a watertight functional
area. Use of social media is integrated
into everything that we do – from the
way our platform is designed, to the
SMCPune : Did you formulate any Social
Media strategy ? If no, do you intend to
do in future ?
AaramShop : Yes we have a SM strategy
document, however, as we are a very
young organization, it gets revised and
improved on a weekly basis.
SMCPune : Do you plan to launch mobile
app?
AaramShop : Our mobile apps are being
stress tested as of now and would be
available soon. We are trying to ensure
that our AaramShop apps are made
available across all platforms
simultaneously. They’re also a number
of exciting apps that are being co-
created by our various partner developer
organizations. Most of them seem to be
brands centric and promise to be fun.
SMCPune : So what's next ? Do you plan
to capture new markets as this is the "
need " of the market ?
AaramShop : As it is a free to use
platform, which adds all around value,
we expect more and more regions to
take up the opportunity, and we intent
being present across all the major cities
of India by the end of this year before
venturing over seas.
SMCPune : One piece of Social Media
advise which you would like to give to
beginners.
AaramShop : Embrace it!
Reference Links-
Hindu Business Line_1
Hindu Business Line_2
Afaqs
Springwise
Connect with SMCPune via Twitter
0

re-create a logistical and distribution
mechanics, rather leveraging on the
strengths of the existing channel,
without disrupting the existing
models. Therefore AaramShop is not
built to be a retailer, but rather a
platform for retailers to connect with
their consumers.
way we engage with consumers,
retailers, brands or the developer
community. So it is fair to say that all
the revenue has social media
component.
SMCPune Interviews Gautam Ghosh

posted Sep 3, 2011, 2:00 PM by Shikha Pakhide

[
updated Sep 14, 2011, 1:15 PM
]
Gautam is a Platform Evangelist and India Marketing at BraveNewTalent and blogger at Gautamblogs.com. He specializes in
the areas of HR, Organization Development and how businesses can leverage Social Media for Organizational Learning and
Employee Engagement.
SMCPune requested Gautam for an email interview ( Gautam is based in Bangalore at present ) and he was more than happy
to share his learnings on Social Media.
SMCPune : Do you think Social Media
helps in enhancing
personal branding?

Gautam : Whenever one participates
and shares via social media
others are
forming opinions based on what
he/she shares. So whether one intends

to or not, social media is shaping how
people are thinking about you !
SMCPune : Which Social Media tools
are a must in promoting oneself as
a
brand in online world?
Gautam : I'd go for a blog, followed by
Twitter and
Linkedin.
SMCPune : Do you think blogs, having
one’s own website
helps in personal
branding ?
Gautam :Absolutely. If one aspires to
be any kind of
"online" professional
one's own blog and website is critical.
SMCPune : How is it useful for head
hunters/ recruiters ?
Gautam : There are two ways recruiters
are using social media. One is to
research
candidates. Once they have
your resume - before they send it off to
their
clients they would check out the
major social media sites to find what
your
views are, are you are cultural fit
for their client etc. The other way is
that
recruiters and hiring managers are
using social media to identify

"prospective candidates" and maintain a
talent pool to figure what
they need and
whether they would make future hires.
This is still low in India
- but I expect
this to increase.
It seems there is a storm in social media
ocean.
SMCPune : How to maintain your distinct
identity midst all this ?
Gautam : Andy Warhol said
"In the
future everyone will be famous for 15
mins" however the
reality is everyone is
famous for 15 people. For those people
who follow your
niche, you are relevant
and important.
SMCPune : Whats your view on
“participating in each and every
conversation” happening online.Is it
positive or negative? Do you think it will
be too much if we answer / tweet about
each and everything ?
Gautam :Participation is dictated by
passion, so my point of view is not to be
to calculating/weighing every
conversation on "whats in it for me?" ,
just participate if it feels right for you.
But stay away from negativity.
SMCPune : Which platform is your
favorite which gives
complete justice to
personal branding ?
Gautam : I focus on my blog, twitter,
facebook
page and LinkedIn profile.
SMCPune :I am an employee of an
organization and I do have
presence on
various social media platforms” Do you
think association with an
organization
should “modulate” my
activities/comments in online world.
What are
your views on it ?
Gautam :Only when there are
conversations about my employer
(and
there is no specific social media policy)
should you hold back.
The gadget spec URL could not
be found

SMCPune meets American Center Mumbai

posted Aug 27, 2011, 8:29 AM by Shikha Pakhide

[
updated Aug 27, 2011, 9:11 AM
]
It
was a weekday and the American Center’s Public Affairs team was visiting Pune. SMCPune team made sure to have a
tete-a-tete with them. Aditi
was more than willing to meet us and talk about Social Media initiatives
embraced by the
American Center. We decided to meet at Aromas,F.C.Road.It was lunch time and we all
reached the venue on time. The
American Center visiting Public Affairs team comprised of Information Officer Kapil Gupta, Assistant Media
Advisor/Marathi
Editor Sumedha Raikar and Information Assistant Electronic Media Aditi Tandon.
So here goes the
interview-
1.Can you brief our members what
exactly
“American Center" does?
The
Consulate General seeks to
promote U.S.-India relations and
progress towards
common goals
through information outreach,
dialogue and exchange programs in

western India, including Mumbai and
the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and
Goa.
The
Consulate General of the United
States of America in Mumbai is housed
in the
former Wankaner Palace, built
in 1938 by the Maharaja of Wankaner,
along the
Breach Candy seaface. Now
called Lincoln House, this building
houses the
officers of the Consul
General, the Consulate's principal
officer; the Consular
Section, which
offers services to American citizens in
India and to Indians
traveling to the
United States; an economic and
political section, and a
management
office.
At
a separate facility in the Churchgate
district of Mumbai, the American
Center
building houses four additional
Consulate offices: the Public Affairs
Section,
which promotes mutual
understanding through its public
outreach programs and
exchanges; the
U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service,
which promotes U.S. exports
and
trade; the Food and Drug
Administration, which promotes food
and drug
safety; and the Foreign
Agricultural Service which represents
the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
2.Do you believe in the power of
3.What promoted you to venture in
Social Media
Platform?
The
changing conversation platform.
People were communicating with each
other in a
new way, so we were quick
to understand our youth audience’s

preferences.The entire Department of
State has overall made a shift to
online
engagement via various social media
platforms.This effort is not
unique to
India-currently the most successful DoS
Facebook page is the
U.S. Embassy in
Jakarta with over 300,000 “likes.” We
are currently
nearing 14,000 likes and
would love to catch up with them!
When
we do outreach activities in person
– for example doing a presentation on

American culture to college students –
the most rewarding part of the program

is the Question and Answer session at
the end, the opportunity to hear
and
respond to questions about the U.S. and
India, and our experiences in
India.What
social media offers is the ability to have
an ongoing
question and answer session
with U.S. government representatives in
a venue
that is open 24 hours a day, 7
days a week.
4.When did you start Social Media
activities?
We have had a facebook and twitter
account since
2009. However, starting
an account is the easy part – the real
work is in
understanding your audience
and using the tools to actually interact
and
fulfill their potential. Aditi started a
few months ago, and her joining
the
American Center team represents our
commitment to dedicated, customized

online engagement with Western India
6.What next ? What are your plans to
maximize the
effectiveness from
Social Media?
We
are building up slowly, seeing what
our fans like and exploring what new
things
we can do. Constant innovation
and exploration of new possibilities is

how we will ensure our effectiveness.
For example, we periodically post

content in Marathi and Gujarati as well.
If we start seeing more
interaction in
vernacular, we will step up the
vernacular posts. This is
the beauty of
social media – near real time
feedback. Geographically, we
are
looking for deeper reach into the Tier 2
and Tier 3 cities. In the
western region
the major percentage of our fans are
from Mumbai and Surat.We would like to
see Pune higher in the rankings! At the
moment,
Pune is third in the Western
region city rankings on Facebook,
with 180+ fans.

7. Has your team charted out Social
Media goals?
No, we have not charted any specific
goals beyond
getting more followers,
and segmenting our content between
Facebook (younger,
more fun) and
Twitter (older, more substantive.) We
aim for 3-4 posts/day on
FB, 4 or more
tweets and regular post of events under
events section on our FB
page.
8.What is more important to you-
-“like or comment “ – comments for
sure, but absence of likes is bad !
-“comment or sharing of post”-
comments

Social Media?
We
are very serious about our Social
Media Activities, as shown by the

resources we devote to our online and
social media presence. At present
we
are targeting youth through social
media channels (youth being a key
audience) and our
objective is to
highlight what we are doing to make
America relevant and
accessible. We
have two colleagues focused on Social
Media, and the entire
Public Affairs
section understands that this is a new
medium for us to reach
the public.
Online we talk about US-India
government issues, lifestyle and also
foster simple interactions like “how
was your day” to build rapport with
our users. Now talking about the
“Power of Social Media” we believe
it’s a way to capture our audience’s
imagination and understanding of the
world through a broader lens.Social
media is at a phase today akin to
television’s expansion during the
1940s and 1950s in the United States,
but with very major
differences: social media is now
global,interactive, and with very
low barriers for consumers
becoming content creators.
through social media.
5.What are your views on penetration
of Social Media in Pune city ?
Currently, in person programs/events are
the main way we do outreach in Pune.
But not having a physical base should
not be an obstacle to communicate with
our fans here. We would like to close
the gap between vague awareness of
the American Center in Mumbai and the
understanding that we are potentially
just as accessible as any other friend
you have on FaceBook. (Or more – we
do about 3 to four posts a day!) In
person we engage with Pune at least 4-5
times a year. For example in May 2010
we had the US Ambassador visit Pune to
engage with students, industry leaders
and civil. In that year, we also had a 5-
day road show in Pune where we had
several events across the city like the
release of three popular American books
translated in Marathi. Each program
interaction is also an opportunity to
promote our social media presence and
offerings.
-“follower or RT”- followers
9.Do you think it’s a fad like dotcom ?
No.
It’s here to stay. Individual sites or
brands may come and go, but social
media
is the new communications mode
for the internet age.
Useful Links-
American Center's Facebook
Page
American Center's Twitter Page
Span Bi-Monthly Magazine
Contact SMCPune
Below picture-Kapil Gupta from
American Center Mumbai
be found
Zomato at SMCPune 2nd Meetup

posted Aug 25, 2011, 7:31 AM by Shikha Pakhide

[
updated Aug 25, 2011, 8:02 AM
]
Zomato presented below case study at SMCPune's 2nd Meetup.Case Study has been Authored by:Pramod Rao [FB :
pramodrao24, Twitter: prao24] and Saurabh Sengupta [FB : sobbi, Twitter: sobelix] (currently on Social Media detox so you
won’t find him on Twitter)
Zomato’s Social Media journey – A
Case Study
[About Us : Zomato.com (previously
known as Foodiebay.com) is India's
largest Online Food Guide. Present
We thrive on feedback and loads of
tweeple give us that everyday. Users
also draw comparisons to competitors
directly in their tweets but we choose
not to RT those. A brand deserves to be

in 10 cities - Mumbai, Delhi
NCR,Bangalore, Chennai, Pune,
Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad,
Jaipur and Chandigarh, Zomato gives
users a choice of more than 17,000
restaurants with menus, ratings,
contact details,
maps, photos and other relevant
information. Zomato has a user base
of approx 1 million per month and also
helps restaurants market themselves.
Zomato is available on smartphones -
iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia OVi
and the not-so-smartphones thru
m.zomato.com ]
Foodiebay started as a small intranet
website in the office of a consulting
firm in Gurgaon in July 2008. For
nearly 1.5 years since the launch, we
worked out of a zero-marketing
budget. It was a nobrainer that with
our zero marketing budget, we had to
rely on word-of-mouth marketing and
other zero-cost marketing vehicles –
which was at that time, quite simply,
Facebook. In fact, it was a beautiful
medium of reaching out to our TG –
until the whole world was on it. The
twitter wave began and we were on it
too (though we had no idea how to use
it then). It was frustrating waiting
for follower count to increase and we
almost gave up on it. In August 2010,
InfoEdge invested 1 million USD in
Foodiebay.We had to build a brand
and expand the reach of the business.
We started getting very active (and
sometimes hyperactive) on
Social Media till the time we felt we
had grabbed enough attention for the
day. In the early days of our Social
Media journey (post-investment), we
used to hear people comparing their
‘Friends’ count on FB and ‘Follower’
Count on Twitter. Follower count was
building up really
slowly so we had almost given up on
using Twitter as a medium to interact
and we conveniently shifted our focus
to Facebook. We made our posts
interesting and stuck to our
positioning as a fun brand. By 15th
November 2010, the day we rebranded
from Foodiebay to Zomato, we had
almost 42,000+ fans on Facebook. The
entire team would congratulate each
other at the mere mention of that
number. Rebranding was like pressing
the RESET button.
A new Facebook Page meant we had to
build our equity once again. Reaching
20,000 fans organically didn’t take long.
We had done certain things right to
make the transition as smooth as
possible and handling rebranding with
some good communication. However,
the pressure to get back to the magic
figure of 42,000 was not going to be
easy. With competitive forces being
around, we saw Facebook Ads as a way
to increase
follower count and hence gain equity of
folks online.And as expected, by the end
of December 2010, we crossed our
magic figure. We thought we had
‘bounced back’.However, with around
50,000+ fans on FB, we would get very
few likes and comments on our posts.We
had been naive on Social Media till now
but had the ability to step back and
analyse what had happened.The FB Ads
just added a ‘Like’ to our page. Its a no
brainer that a ‘Like’ on FB
REALLY means ‘Subscribe to Posts’. It
does not mean that the user actually
adores the concept of Zomato.We
realized we had bought fans. Their
engagement levels were close to nil.
That solved the
‘mystery’ of the very few
likes/comments. We have never done FB
Ads since and we strongly believe that
growing organically is the best option to
have increased interactivity or
response.Twitter was still bugging us all
this while. Our promo tweets and
shameless plugs were hardly of any use.
We met up with a lot of tweeples and
twelebrities to get a hang of the
medium. We soon realized that twitter
is not a medium of promotion but a
medium of conversation. The slightest
hint of promotions drives followers
away. In fact, if we aren’t interesting
enough in absolute terms, people will
unfollow us. Over the last few months,
Twitter has emerg ed as the strongest
medium of interaction with our users.
We get loads of unprompted mentions
on Twitter everyday which is an
indicator of the level of engagement that
the follower has with the brand.
Shameless plugs are a strict no-no. We
don’t go into a tweeting spree to attract
on Social Media only if they can take
feedback (read brickbats) in their stride
and use them to improve the product
and user experience.
The other key learning we’ve had with
our social media experience was more
on how we promote our brand in social
media as individuals.The employees of
an organization take immense pride in
being associated with a brand that is
doing well. So much so, that you can see
their FB Wall and TL filled with updates
on the brand. This can be potentially
harmful for the brand.Here’s why.
Imagine
a bunch of 30 employees instantly
sharing an FB post by your brand. It
invariably floods the News Feed of their
friends. If they have common friends,
the flooding is even more severe. Such
flooding of the News Feed normally
results in the users clicking ‘Block as
Spam’. A large percentage of users on
FB have 500+ friends. There’s already a
lot of clutter to deal with. Why give
them more? The
dilemma that an organization faces here
is how to control such an effect. The
organization cannot govern the use of
Social Media by employees since that is
their personal matter. The only way to
deal with it is to educate employees
about how these mediums work. Why
are we talking about this? Because we
have faced similar issues first hand. The
phenomena of FB Wall flooding is
partially the reason why users see a
twitter and Google+ sharing enabled on
Zomato but not FB.
LinkedIn works well for us on the B2B
and HR end. Foursquare and Quora are
media which we haven’t tapped yet.
There’s clearly loads for us to do on the
Social Media end. In fact, there are a lot
of innovative ‘social’ products coming
out in the market and it doesn’t take
much for us to be present there.
However, we have taken a business
decision: if we are present on any Social
Media
Platform, we will go all the way. If not,
we’d rather not be present on it at all.

the attention of our audience.
(SMCPune - Social Media Club's Pune
Chapter.Their twitter handle is
@smcpune)
be found
SMCPune Team meets TastyKhana

posted Jul 27, 2011, 7:21 AM by Shikha Pakhide

[
]
July is the month when we officialy kickstarted our club..Our first meetup happened on 8th July..And generally after the
start the next question is “What Next”..Yes next meetup is definitely on the cards ! But ,we thought when SMCPune is all
about Pune then why not bring out local stories and talk about the companies who has already tested the waters and how
Social media is changing their lives..Team had zeroed down few names ..and then we thought lets go ahead with TastyKhana
..So our team contacted TastyKhana Team and Vinamra Pandiya was more than willing to meet us and share his learning's…
We decided to meet in the afternoon…Their corporate office is located in Salunkhe Vihar..Nothing lavish plain simple office..I
could see few people who were busy attending phone calls..After all it was the lunch time ! I liked the open terrace area..It
was huge..Perfect for their success parties ! Back to business..Here goes the Question and Answer session !
SMCPune
: What’s
the history of
TastyKhana?
Vinamra: It was the
month of October
and year was 2007, when Shachin and
Sheldon started
TastyKhana.At that
time it was an online listing site for
restaurants.People
had still not
warmed up to the concept of online
ordering and for an year TK
struggled
to make this concept appealing to the
market. There was a missing
link in
the picture – No logistics
support..Food On Wheels was the link
which
we were looking for and which
could complete our model..As the
SMCPune :You have > 1000 fans on
FB.What value you see in those likes?
Vinamra: For us at TK "comments score
over likes".I would like to add here is
many companies are focusing on
"likes"..You will see hoard of agencies
claiming that they can give you "x" no.of
likes..Its not at all about likes dude ..Its
all about conversing with your
customer,understanding him , working
on negative feedback or suggestions
which they have given.And we see more
response on our twitter account.We
make sure that either me or Shachin
responds to the tweets well in time.
SMCPune :You mentioned that you are
more active on Twitter.What are you
looking from Twitter ?
Vinamra: Prime objective is to be in
constant touch with our customers and
receive feedback.Check the tweets and
you will yourself see that customers are
prompt in tweeting feedback.As we are
in the food business,we also post food
related news/tidbits.

name suggests
they were logistics arm
who delivered the food to the end
users..We took over
FOW and 2008
was the year when the journey
started…We are like “justdial “ for

food delivery orders ! We are food
delivery experts. From taking the
order to
delivering it to your doorstep,
we manage the entire process for
most premium
restaurants in town.
You can directly order online from the
site or simply call
us.We have more
than 60 delivery boys spread across
town and more than 1.5lac
food
items.Till date we have delivered
orders worth 3.3 crores..You can
check
it live on our website !
We
started from Pune and now we are
planning to spread wings in Mumbai

too.Expansion is on the cards and we
aim to cover major cities across
India in the next three years (
smiles)
Thats
"the history" if you term it.We
are just three years old !!
SMCPune :You had
set up the system
to take orders via your site as well
phone.You guys are
doing well from
both the channels.What made you
jump into the Social
Media bandwagon
?
Vinamra:See we all
three
(Shachin,Sheldon and Vinamra -TK
team ) are techie people.We like to
keep
ourselves updated with the latest
happenings in the cyber
world.Facebook and
Twitter is quite
popular with the masses and when our
customers are using this
platform so
why we should lose this opportunity
wherein we can talk to them.So
we
thought why not experiment with
these channels as well.We do not have
huge
marketing budgets and these
activities does not involve any
money..Yes it does
require your time
which we are ready to give.We work
twelve hours every
day..(chuckles) We
went ahead and created Facebook
page and twitter account.We
do have
a decent fan following wherein FB has
> 1000 likes and twitter has
> 600
followers..On FB we are not that
active and we use that for posting

news, offers from restaurants etc..You
can also book a table via FB

Page..Twitter is where the
conversations flow and its more
dynamic in nature.
SMCPune :Ok,got your point.This is one
of the common objective across
industry.Do you think Social Media
platforms can be used in any other way?
Vinamra:Yes, definitely.Why not ? We
have gone a step further and have tied
up with Faasos to take care of their
"Tweet2Order" campaign.They needed a
partner who can handle the orders
placed via twitter.As i mentioned
Twitter is a live stream and if you miss
one tweet wherein a customer has
placed an order, you need to do lot of
cleaning later and win that customer
back.Faasos realised the value and
approached us to handle it.See its all
about innovation with these
platforms.Every company is a newbie
here and trying to create their success
stories.
SMCPune :aahhha now i can order my
favorite wrap and be assured that it will
be delivered ! Do you plan to replicate
this model with any other joint ?
Vinamra: Yes , but we will
be restricting ourselves to fast food
joints(like McD) or cafes ( like CCD )
mainly wherein the order can be
tweeted in 140 characters.
SMCPune :This was about
conversations.What about
advertisements?
Vinamra: As i mentioned earlier , we do
not have huge marketing budgets.We do
advertise on Facebook but thats limited
and its more campaign specific.Google
AdWords is what we use on a regular
basis.We have set our monthly budgets
for Google and try that we are atleast at
number two or three position.
If you talk about print , we do it with our
partners ( restaurants ).We publish our
yearly menu guide.Its like Times Food
Guide and there is a value in printing
that.Many of our customers are 40+ who
SMCPune :What is your take on social
media courses/training’s? And do you
plan to hire a Social Media expert in
future considering your expansion plans?
Vinamra: See to be honest, we did not
go for any formal training on Social
Media.We learnt on the job.Basic
reasons were-lack of time and
resources.In a startup as you know you
need to wear several hats.
We might hire a Marketing person
depending upon our requirement.
SMCPune :What's next ?
Vinamra: Many things ! We are
redesigning our website, you can make
online payments now ( its in testing
phase and will be launched soon ),
payments can also be done via phone if
a person doesn't have access to internet
, we have also launched our
web based solutions for automatic order
transmission at the client restaurants (
you can see one at The Great Punjab /
KP and Baner )
SMCPune :Thanks a ton Vinamra for
taking out time from your schedule.
Vinamra: My pleasure !
On a happy foodie thought we called it
an adieu !
Further Links-
·         Website
·         Facebook Page
·         Twitter Page

maynot/do not order online.So for them
it comes in handy.Plus also IT
Parks,wherein we keep it with office
admin/ reception.
SMCPune Interviews The Westin Team

posted Jul 17, 2011, 10:44 AM by Shikha Pakhide

[
updated Sep 30, 2011, 6:18 PM
]
The Westin Pune Koregaon Park is an urban oasis of pristine guest rooms and impeccable service located in a lush, green
setting along the Mula Mutha River. Located just 5 km from the Pune airport The Westin Pune has 277 rooms, 4 restaurants,a
lounge and nightclub, Westin Heavenly spa, state-of-the-art Westin Workout gym and 40,000 sq. ft. of banqueting space
(indoor and outdoor) ideal for hosting events. We are the proud hospitality partners for the Bryan Adams concert in Pune,
The Times Food Guide Awards and Pune Fashion Week, among others.SMCPune met Neha Wasnik who is handling Online
Marketing activities for The Westin. She believes that the training which she received for this helped her immensely and
empowered her to do justice to her present role.When SMCPune met her , she was busy with the launch activities of Squash
court. Here goes the interview with her :
SMCPune : When and why did you start
Social Media activities?
The Westin : We started our activities
in this sphere in 2011 . Our property
completed its first year in Jan, 2011.
Our main aim was to keep the
communication channel open with our
guests , our stakeholders and within
the hotel.
SMCPune : On which all channels you
are present?
The Westin : Facebook , Twitter
,Foursquare and Youtube. Apart from
these channels we also believe that
our own blog gives us a wider platform
to express ourselves.We have chosen
our channels strategically . We do not
want to be present on each and every
site. We maintain same address (i.e
"westinpune") on all these channels so
that our guests know that " this is The
Westin Pune Koregaon Park " and not
any fake profile.
SMCPune : How many members of your
team are totally focusing on Social
Media activities?
The Westin : See Social Media
activities are not stand alone. It will
be only successful when it is done
while engaging all the other
departments together. This is one
marketing function and I work closely
with my other teams who are
managing events , booking etc.
Talking about how many members are
in this team , I am the only one taking
care of online digital marketing
activities along with my other
colleagues who are in Public Relations
Team , BTL Marketing , Sales etc.
SMCPune : Have you earned / plan to
earn any revenue from social media
leads?
The Westin : Yes we did make revenue
for our nightclub Kue Bar, all day dining
Seasonal Tastes and our Venga Weekend
Offer , and it is one of the long term
goals ( smiles )
SMCPune : How is your competitors
presence on Social media ? Do you track
it in terms of what they are doing ?
The Westin : Like any other business ,
we are keeping a track of what our
competitors are doing .
SMCPune : Before starting your social
media activities , did you chart out
social media strategy and goals?
The Westin : It is important to "
formulate a strategy " and to " chart it
in black and white " . This is an
important function and like any other
marketing activity we did a thorough
analysis and laid down our strategy .
There is one major difference in this
arena is you need to keep on visiting
your strategy . You know that how
things keep on changing in this field
.Every day there is some or the
other announcement about new feature
launched etc.Key is to be flexible and in
sync with the constant change.
SMCPune : Have you charted out any
social media code of conduct for The
Westin colleagues?
The Westin : Yes !
SMCPune : Does your print/ATL activities
promote your FB/Twitter ID?
The Westin : Yes , as I mentioned that
we work closely with all our other
departments , our Social Media
SMCPune : In your hotel, you do have
3rd party vendors offering various other
services . Have you tied up with them to
have "Social Media Specific offers "?
The Westin : Not yet , but we do have
Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG Specials
) for our guests on Foursquare
SMCPune : Any plans of a mobile app.
The Westin : If it is launched it will be
done for all properties globally.
SMCPune : Do you think Social Media will
not succeed as a standalone strategy ? It
has to be integrated well with the entire
marketing mix.
The Westin : Any marketing function
cannot work in solace.Organisations who
think that its a stand alone function ,
makes the biggest mistake . We are able
to project a coherent message because
we are working closely with our other
departments.
SMCPune : One Social Media tip which
you would like to share with our
readers.
The Westin : Follow the good old
Altruism on Social Media .
The Westin is a premier luxury brand in
the market and their team makes sure
that this is the message which goes out
into the market.Neha doesn't want
thousands of followers with less
engagement or likes but she is more
interested in meaningful conversations
with her guests and leaving an
impression on their minds by providing
best of experience to them. On this note
, SMCPune said Goodbye to Neha with a
promise to meet again.

SMCPune : Do you use any social media
tools to analyse your industry trends?
The Westin : We use Google Analytics
extensively.
SMCPune : Are you using social media
for lead generation ?
The Westin : Yes , If you see our
Facebook page, welcome page has a
section from where you can make
room reservations.
addresses are mentioned in all the
communication which is going out .
The Westin - Facebook Page , Twitter , Blog
Social Media Club Pune Chapter

posted Jun 14, 2011, 7:53 AM by Shikha Pakhide

[
updated Jun 14, 2011, 8:06 AM
]
So guys, finally we have Social Media Club Pune chapter up
and rolling.You can reach us via following mediums -
Facebook page
Twitter
Social Media Chapter Blog
LinkedIn Group
MeetUp Group
Join Social Media Club Now..Lets connect Socially and make
this world more "social-able" !
Tweet
Social Media Headlines

posted Jun 2, 2011, 8:01 AM by Shikha Pakhide

[
updated Jun 2, 2011, 8:16 AM
]
This was how ET's front page looked like on Tuesday, 31st May.Social Media has grabbed the top headline space.Do I need to
say anything more? Social Media is "the" buzz word and people/organisations who are still in denial mode should go back to
the drawing board and rethink.

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Tweet
What is your FB address?

posted May 28, 2011, 11:23 AM by Shikha Pakhide

[
updated May 28, 2011, 11:39 AM
]
This is an advertisement which is appearing in The Economic
Times' Brand Equity edition for quite some time now.It
caught my attention.Did you notice that your company's
address/contact details/email address has been deviously
replaced by this small
"f "button.Changing face of advertising you see !
Few others who are also following suit is TupperWare
India,InOrbit Mall ,Megamart ....
Tweet
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