Social Media Agency Feature: ESquared

Who are we?

We are bunch of social media junkies, addicted to the online world. We love giving brands their face and voice, and we’ve done just that in the last 5 years. The ESquared team is bizarrely diverse; CAs, published authors, senior journalists, filmmakers, students, corporate ladder-climbers from top-notch B-schools like ISB etcetera, spread out across the globe.

What's in the name?

Everything!

We have always fancied ourselves as Engagement Experts; that’s EE or ESquared.

What we do?

Online PR, content creation, design, recruitment, corporate engagement, search engine optimization, social media management…. You name it and we do it!

Why we do it?

Because we find reality boring, and like to escape into our creative zones, letting our creative juices flow. Because we have given up pretending that we enjoy doing anything else apart from being online all the time.

Because Companies are too lazy-busy to manage their digital lives and the team at E-Squared are a bunch of Facebook-addicts, compulsive bloggers, and twitter-junkies. So we happily manage the company's online stuff. It's actually a win-win situation.

And finally….

Because we have been so successful in the past doing things we didn’t enjoy, that we wanted to be even more successful at doing things we actually enjoy.

How we evolve?

Subconsciously.

We learn daily from the massive information stored in the browsing world. We learn from each and every member of the team.

We learn from the job-aspirants, from the prospective client/s, from the white-board hanging in the ‘Brainstorming Room’, from the ‘Creative Wall’, from the ‘Desk Graffiti’, from team parties and failed assignments.

We evolve at the same crazy speed with which social media evolves; it’s the only way we can stay ahead of ourselves.

Social responsibility in social media

We respect what we do, so we stick to the rules.

We do not push forward incorrect facts and figures; we do not buy fans/ use fake profiles. We loathe deleting negative reviews and we operate with maximum transparency possible in the trade. We do not mince words in front of our clients and graph them their ‘true to life’ position in the social media.

We know that we operate within a very sensitive domain therefore we remain true to our audiences, boosting healthy conversations and keeping trolls at bay.

Need of the hour

It is high time that Social Media is treated as ‘Social’ and then ‘Media’. What’s with the crazy rush of numbers? Just Hype and isn’t it important to be seen, be read, make sense, and then network?

Moreover, the privacy to information should be dealt with more carefully. It is time that the consumer gains control and gets to call the shots.

We learned the hard way

This one could go on and on…

As pioneers in the field, with no footprints to follow, the ‘hard way’ was the only way we could learn. Here are some of these pearls of wisdom:

• Love thy clients: Especially the ones who gave you the hardest time ever. They taught you the most.
• Sleep well before every client meeting; you never know who’s had a bad day.
• Your designers are like demigods. Give them the best space, best chair and best light accessories to work with. They have the key to the surprise/ the shock factor. They can make or mar the day.

Did we just share that?

A Director of a Business School- “This Facebook, Twitter, Blog are all useless. Anyway, when are we starting?”

Also, once in a client meeting our monthly retainer fee was mistaken as an annual one. We’ve now figured out smarter ways of conveying it. ;)

They work with us

We have worked with a number of clients including Institute of Management Technology (IMT) groups, Kirloskar Group, DLF Pramerica, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Nyenrode (Netherlands), Woodsvilla Resort, Usha Martin, Birla Institute of Management Technology, Audencia Nantes (France) et cetra.

We can’t name the rest, but we have as many clients as we can handle right now.

Industry as we foresee

The Industry is all set for a bull run!

More and more organisations are looking to build movements and brands on Facebook… looking to attract millions of members to a community.

Vibrant ‘New Media’ agencies that can help corporates houses, government institutions, and social bodies optimise their advertising budget to achieve maximum return on investment, will soon outrun conventional mass media completely.

The most valuable companies of the world today, weren’t in existence 40 years back. Our industry has just been born, and we as pioneers are 5 years old. No marks for guessing where we think we’ll be 35 years down the line.

A day without Internet

Is a day from the black-and-white era.

Is a practical joke that an unsuspecting new joinee at ESquared is subjected to on ‘April fool’ day.

Infact, one of the weirdoes at ESquared (a gem of a talent) refuses to communicate face-to-face or even on the mobile phone. All communications with him are only on the Internet.

To be honest, it’s been so long since we last saw him that we no longer remember whether he’s a ‘he’ or a ‘she’.

Lastly, are you hiring?

We’ve been hiring ever since we started.

We are always on the prowl for:

 (a) The right talent that can handle and build rapport with academicians, entrepreneurs, and corporate honchos with great aplomb, and - even better - earn their respect.

(b) Designers! Designers! And more designers! The types who can understand our wide-eyed, incoherent explanations of our fanciful imaginations; and show us that designs can be even more wilder, intuitive, and imaginative.

(c) Writers, who don’t just have a flair for writing, but have a deep understanding of varied businesses. Even better if they are creative geniuses, and can innovatively brand and market organisations on desired lines. All in all, writers who can create distinct digital footprints.