Social Media Agency Feature: Langoor

Who are we?

We are a web services and products and social media agency.

We launch websites, products and experiences that have a real impact in the online world. By focusing on a balance of the user’s experience and an organisation’s requirements, we help our clients get results. In fact we pride ourselves on our ability to deliver our clients’ needs.

We began as a living room project but now we have grown into a team of about 50 people working in offices on two continents. And we have no intention of slowing down.

What's in the name?

Besides the fact that Langoor (or the Great Indian Langoor) is a type of monkey only found in India, “Langoor” also colloquially means “crazy” in Hindi.

We took the name because it reflects our approach: think unconventionally and laterally. Wildly pursue and realize great ideas in the online world.

What we do?

Websites. Products. Experiences. Those are the fruits of what we do. These things empower our clients, giving them the means to fully engage with their audience and create relationships to last a lifetime.

In practice you can divide what we do in two parts – Products (intellectual property, we invest in) and Services.

Products

langoor.mobi - langoor.mobi is a a patent-pending technology that helps you convert your existing desktop website and make it mobile friendly easily.

langoor.biz - langoor.biz is a web based business transaction management system focused on retail companies

langoor.net - langoor.net is a free online tool where you build your website and host it online simultaneously.

Services

* Digital Strategy & Online Marketing

* Responsive Web Design (We specialise in mobile, tablet an tv web experiences)

* Retained Web Services (you focus on your business and we’ll look after your online presence)

* Custom Systems (Phone apps, intranets, facebook apps and complicated web based systems – we’ve got it covered)

Why we do it?

We were frustrated by a marketplace saturated with generic website companies full of buzzwords and empty promises. We also wanted to create an organisation that invested in web-focused technology while listening to clients.

We are all about wide and valuable impact. We help people reach their full potential online.

How we evolve?

The pains of growth involve scaling effectively without losing the essence of being lean and nimble, like a startup.

So we work in small groups formed of different skill sets. All our teams have team names, keeping with the theme of monkeys. Some of the names include Gorillaz, Bonobos, Lemurs, King Kongs.

As an organisation we are very transparent. We share a lot – open Skype threads, emails, etc! Also we read a lot – a LOT! These things help us keep up and grow.

Social responsibility in social media

We believe social media is not a fad, it is merely a medium; an evolution of technology such that people can engage with each other more easily.

If you think of social media as a medium and not the end, your responsibility and approach to it is the same as it would be in the real world.

Would you lie to your customers about your brand on TV? What about newspapers, or in person? What about fake users – do they exist in the real world?

There are many such questions and as an agency we do not tackle them based on the medium, but what the brand stands for.

Need of the hour

We are sure laws will be necessary for privacy, bullying, adult content, etc. But we believe laws should largely be focused on the problems that come as a result of the medium, not restricting the medium itself or all the factors that have resulted in this phenomenal growth of the technology itself.

There are three key things we come across often that we are happy to share:

1. Organisations who do best in social media are the ones who shift from trying to ‘control their image’ to ‘being themself’. It is very important to build communities and engage with them on an ongoing basis.

2. Social media is about being transparent and personal. It is merely a medium that helps you reach out faster – again, ensure that you stay true to your brand values.

3. It is ok to do what suits you. If you only want to use Facebook for great deals – that is fine. If you want to use Twitter for support – go for it. You do not have to mould around “technology” lingo and what others are doing – let it do the work for you for your objectives as an organisation.

Did we just share that?

Facebook can be a really tough platform to create campaigns in sometimes. Back in mid 2010, we were about to go live with a large campaign for a known brand. Their offline products were already in the market and had campaign information diverting the audience to Facebook.

Except, the day we were meant to be live – our Facebook campaign app would not work. We spent hours in panic trying to work out what went wrong, until we realised other app developers were facing the same problem. Turns out, it was a bug thanks to a Facebook developer and we were out of action for two days.

We had to work really hard to convince the client to stay on the Facebook platform after that campaign! We started having “range of dates” for go live after that…

They work with us

Some of our clients can be seen here.

Unfortunately we can’t reveal all of them, but we have worked on more than 400 projects and with more than a 100 clients.

Industry as we foresee

Very soon, the focus is going to come back to accessibility to the medium rather than the medium itself. For this industry to grow sustainably in India or the world, we are going to need to work out ways for brands to be in front of the user when:

a) they face the problem you can offer a solution to

b) help them make an important lifestyle choice

c) be part of their social conversation (offline or online)

d) become available/facilitate their decisions through tech access points

Conventional “social” media will not have access to a user at all of these points. Personalised content will be served in different forms at different points, and agencies like ours will need to help organisations understand that. That is where we see growth.

A day without Internet 

Would not be too bad. But just one day – and then you’d write a blog post the next day about what it was like.

Lastly, are you hiring?

We’re always looking for the right people to join our team. Please feel free to drop by our office, ask one of us out for a coffee or email us if you want to know more.