Here comes the end of another year and the beginning of a new one! And the world is already checking out the most happening places to ring in the New Year! As the jubilation happens and conversations, food & drinks flow aplenty, the one question you should be asking yourself is what is it that you want to be different about this year’s celebrations.

Want to enjoy a quite toast with close friends and family or ready to experiment in something exciting and all new?! Looking forward to an all night party on New Year’s Eve or a break from all the noise and cacophony in some blissful resort where you can welcome the first sunrise of 2010? Whether you want to indulge in club hopping or take a flight abroad for a different holiday experience, the options for spaces to celebrate are plenty. Indoors and outdoors. That too on a budget that’s not too heavy on your pocket.

Enaltec Labs is a world class API supplier set up by a group of young professionals with the specific objective of providing the critical India advantage to generic formulators across the world.

Enaltec was one of the participants this year’s at CPhI Worldwide Exhibition, a leading international convention on pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates. With 1,500 exhibiting companies from over 110 countries and over 25,000 industry professionals as visitors, this exhibition offered the company a huge international platform to showcase their strengths and capabilities. So Enaltec wanted a complete rebranding, positioning itself as a global company with distinct India advantage.

The brand designing approach we have taken for this entire rebranding exercise is unique and unconventional. We did away with all stock images and planned a photoshoot of actual images of the company and its employees to highlight its strong infrastructure and pool of resources. Right from their website to brochure to stall poster designs this signature style has been carried forward to create a brand image that is internationally appealing yet aesthetic in look and feel. The essence of the company of being a leading Indian company with a global reach has been communicated strongly through this brand image.

Bhutra Group is a leading name in construction and real estate business with over 3 decades of experience. With the change in management into the hands of its second generation, the client wanted a complete brand makeover, switching from its traditional style and approach to something that’s more contemporary and appealing.

Being a strong player in both commercial and residential property and redevelopment, the focus of the company was to position itself as a brand that appeals both to professionals and families and attracts international and domestic investors. A brand that highlights Bhutra group as a legacy of trust.

As a part of this brand building process, we crafted the brand logo, housestyling and brochure for the company. All its marketing collaterals were designed to reflect its strength of dynamism of youth and the wisdom of the old. The Bhutra brand logo was evolved from its inherent qualities of credibility, leadership and steadfastness. A blend of text and element in the logo design gives it a distinct brand identity. The design approach was extended to its housestyling to complement its corporate look and feel.

The brochure has taken a design approach of showcasing the company’s two core values – experience and trust. The visual on the brochure cover is a simple reflection of every individual’s aspiration, something that prospective buyers can easily relate to. The message ‘Shaping your dreams. Building your trust’ sums up the complete brand experience Bhutra Group offers its customers by partnering their needs.

1. Pull, Don’t Push

One of the first lessons you will learn very quickly when engaging in social media is that old-school marketing tactics don’t work. Don’t come out of the gate pushing your products or services. New tools require new rules.

For example, don’t respond to new Twitter followers with a “Thanks for following. Visit my website for a free… [insert promotional message].”

Such a response is a dead giveaway that you are new to social media and do not yet understand that it’s a “pull” medium, not a “push” medium. If I want to review your credentials, I’ll read your bio. (You did complete your bio, right?)

2. Win the Right to Be Heard

Social-media engagement is a conversation, and participation in the community is required. In fact, you might say that participation is the fifth P of marketing. (The four Ps are product, price, place, and promotion.)

Your value as a participant is judged by the value you provide to the community as a whole. Be a “glory hog,” and you’ll garner little attention. Share freely, and you will become a respected member.

3. Content Is Still King, but Conversation Is Queen (and Conversion Is the Prince)

Nothing beats well-written, informative, entertaining content in all its forms: blog posts, tweets, videos, podcasts, images, webinars, or whitepapers. Place yourself in a position of being a knowledgeable expert (assuming you are, of course). Community is the context.

Moreover, keep content and commerce separate. Never the twain shall meet is a good rule of thumb. Editorial and advertorial content should be distant kin, if related at all.

4. Authenticity and Transparency Are Social-Networking Cornerstones

The words “authenticity” and “transparency” may seem trite, but I believe they remain the cornerstones of this new media-marketing paradigm. Be real. Be open. Be honest. Admit mistakes when you make them.

5. You Don’t Have to Be on Every Social Network

It’s impossible to maintain an active presence on every social network, and you don’t have to. You do have to be where your customers are, however. They expect you to be there.

6. Give, and You Shall Receive

Having an attitude of helpfulness goes a long way toward establishing a credible name for yourself in social-media circles. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” said St. Francis of Assisi. “People don’t care that you know, until they know that you care” is how I put it.

“Lose control of your marketing,” is how author David Meerman Scott puts it. Give ideas and information away freely, with no strings attached. Be willing to give up control of the marketing message (as if you could hold it close to the vest in the first place, given the current Web 2.0 landscape).

7. Don’t Throw the Marketing Baby out With the Bath Water

The rules of marketing still apply to social media—well, most of the rules, anyway. Social media is another channel to build your brand and market your message. It’s not a panacea, and it’s not a replacement for other forms of advertising and marketing.

I have learned that marketing has room for integration. Email and search remain the areas where most marketers spend their top dollars, and for good reason: Email and search both perform very well. All forms of marketing are interrelated, and social media is finding its place in the spectrum.

8. Social Media Is a Mindset, Not Just a Toolset

You have to incorporate the essence of social media into your thinking. Don’t just change your toolset (tactics); change your mindset (strategy).

9. Be Yourself, Whoever That May Be

A good friend of mine has a mantra that she follows in every respect: “Be yourself.” (It’s even her personalized license plate.) No better advice can be given, whether or not you engage in social media. One thing is certain: You can’t be who you are not. (See Step 4.)

Use your photo as your avatar and your name as your handle. That’s not to say you shouldn’t have an identity tied to your brand. It’s just that in social media people would rather relate to and build trust with other people than with brands. It’s a trust economy, after all.

10. Social Media Is Not a Religion

Although it does come with a set of largely unwritten rules (sorry, I don’t know of any stone tablets that have been brought down from Mt. Sinai), social media is not a religion, no matter how hard guys like me try to make it one. There is room for experimentation. In fact, experimentation is the only way the medium will grow.do—and so to connect with you and trust your content.

A series of stalls across the venue — a giant arts complex converted from a disused morgue — saw fresh-faced entrepreneurs demonstrating gadgets and applications they insisted will change the way we interface with the Internet.

These might just be the inventions that everyone will be talking about next year or they could simply slip below the radar. Either way, all will face the same question still being leveled at today’s household names — can they make money?

While most insisted they could generate genuine revenue for their start-ups, others were more even-handed about their prospects.

“Will it be successful? No one knows,” Sarel Omer, one of the brains behind “social productivity tool” TicTacDo.com, told CNN. “The important thing is we believe in it.”

There were too many on display at LeWeb to detail them all here, but here’s a handful:

ClubCooee
This one has to be seen to be believed. It’s a groovy-looking desktop 3D web messenger program that allows users to create and furnish their own rooms and then host friends to chat and share videos and photos. Managing director Stefan Lemper says the site, which was launched in early 2009, makes money by selling virtual items like avatar clothing and furniture to its users. Lemper wouldn’t reveal how many people are currently using it, but said feedback was positive: “Users love it,” he told CNN.

TicTacDo
Product Manager Sharel Omer describes his creation as a “social productivity tool” offering more than 10,000 how-to checklists for doing anything from organizing a barbecue to running for president. There’s also a online community to ask for help. He says the Web site hopes to generate income through a premium subscription service.

Withings
A wireless bathroom scale that transmits your weight to your handheld device or computer, this isn’t exactly a technological revolution. But the company’s product manager Nicolas Lubeth reckons the $159 gadget will appeal to enough of its target market (”Mostly men, basically high-tech geeks”) to make it a profitable venture.

Yatedo
Most people have been guilty of “ego-surfing” — entering their own name into Google — but Yatedo takes this one step further compiling an online dossier about anyone from all available information on the Internet. Its creators hope corporate customers will pay for this “image monitoring service” to ensure no one is posting unpleasant things about them.

BlueKiwi
BlueKiwi allows companies to create their own secure social network, linking up employees and clients to share ideas and hopefully improve efficiency. It’s hard to gauge how useful it is from a brief demonstration, but its creators insist it will justify its premium paid-for version.

Netvibes

Netvibes’ Philippe Lassale says the service will make money from companies who want premium slots for their widgets in Netvibes’ directories and also from companies who use its “brandwatch” service to monitor themselves on the Web, in much the same way as Yatedo does for individuals.

PearlTrees
Another invention that really has to be seen. PearlTrees offers a new way of interfacing with the Internet and organizing your online life and friends. It’s either mind-bogglingly complicated or blisteringly simple, but either way it’s an extremely exciting-looking program.

Kinetic sculptures, a blend of art and green engineering, redefines the experience for connoisseurs of art with its amazing motion effect. Powered by spring, this amazing free standing sculpture collection from David C Roy ranges from flying birds to free flowing water and more, and is a fine example of how creativity simply has no limits. Yes, every time these sculptures move they seem to create an illusion of a whole new look! Check it out!