Published on October 10th, 2010 | by Saurabh Pandey

Social Media 5000 Years Back!

Most of us in India have read Ramayana many times over, and are awestruck on how Lord Rama, defeated the world’s most powerful king at that time-Ravana-even though Lord Rama started off alone with his brother in his quest, without any army, infrastructure or wealth.

Lord Rama’s objective was to retrieve his wife Sita who was kidnapped by Ravana; this was a daunting and almost impossible task, given that Lord Rama had relinquished his kingdom and was living as a hermit without advanced weapons or any army.

He set out to achieve his task alone alongwith his brother, and on his way helped many helpless and poor individuals and communities, who felt recognized and were so enamoured that they also pooled in their resources to help Lord Rama.

By the time Lord Rama was set to attack Lanka- where Ravana lived- he already had few of the most powerful warriors in the world by his side. These people were not fighting for money, but had a deep sense of obligation, trust and respect for Lord Rama, who despite his own share of pains, helped them achieve their own objectives.

So much so that even within Ravana’s camp his brother and wife including other key people were psychologically in favour of Lord Rama. (Look at the strong viral effect created in favour of Lord Rama)

Lord Rama. by helping other achieve their own objectives, by alleviating others’ pains, received help which helped him defeat Ravana- who was so powerful that even Gods were terrified of challenging him.

Coming back to 21st century- How can brands learn from Ramayana?

Brands need to play the social media marketing game very subtly. They need to understand that they have to win people’s trust genuinely and help them achieve their own share of objectives first.

Brands, by helping people achieve their aspirations, help themselves. Which aspiration can the brands help fulfil, is something that the brands need to decide themselves.The aspirations can be broad or focused and relevant only to the category which they belong to.

For e.g. Visa Busines network, helps small businesses come together and grow businesses. The idea is not to harp about Visa’s features and benefits, but the idea is that if Visa can help small businesses grow business by various complimentary services and by the power of collaboration, these small businesses will accept visa services on their own as a central hub to power their business.

Check out: http://apps.facebook.com/visabusiness/

There are a few more such examples, can you think of any?

image courtsey: http://inkyboy.com/portfolio/illustration/ramayana/