IndiBlogger needs to be more professional!

What can I say? I am waiting patiently, patiently, patiently for that S4 :( How many more days?!?

I beleive it is less to do with Indiblogger and more to do with sponsors. A blogging contest is not among the top priority for the operations department of companies..as an operational consultant you would know that ;). Indiblogger  is merely a platform .

Nevertheless, one great thing that indiblogger has done is "In Dispatch", where you can track what all has been sent to you.

Not sure how much indiblogger can help in this. As an when bloggers start becoming powerful, companies would take us more seriously 

I am surprised that there is an open ignorance on the operational aspects for an "FMCG" company. And the comment poster, operational consultant, would definitely know how important it is to set things right at the back to make it look fancy in the face.

Also, I am suprised with the comment that blogging is not considered on top priority specifically when you know its one of the best sources for mass communication these days. 

Indiblogger should be more transparent and more strict with its policies as its clients are not the sponsors but the bloggers!

LOL. I fell on the floor laughing. Nice debate Madhur, but i said I can help indiblogger not sponsors. 

A lot of things goes into getting a organizing a contest.. and many of most is on the end of the sponsor. IB already has a platform. Those who participated in the Reliance Digital blitz already have a first hand feeling about how sponsors behave. 

Being a witness myself, it is really appling to see how sponsors react. More than the sponsors, its the lower level management that faces the brunt. In Reliance Digital event, it was a disaster since the stores did not have any idea about this happening. Many had to wait for several hours to even get some sort of interest in them... the store personnel were not ready for bloggers.. some were given iPods instead of gift hamper.. 

So, it is not IndiBlogger who has failed.. its the sponsors. In a way, IndiBlogger can get strict with them about delivery of prizes. Apart from that, there is hardly any thing that IndiBlogger can do to these sponsors. 

Maybe IB can take responsibility of shipping those things? It makes sense to me.

I get what you are trying to say. 

IB does that if the Sponsors hand over the gifts to them, with of course the money needed for courier. 

Q) Hemal, If I submit a post 85 days after the deadline, will Indiblogger (oops sponsors) will be ok with it?

Also, suppose if I buy a shoe, and the laces are torn, you expect me to blame lace manufacturer or contact the shoe seller?

In this case, my point of contact is indiblogger, they contracted with sponsors, and its their duty to manage their supplier/logistics. 

If you guys didn't get the giveaways, why don't you guys just blog about it, share it via social media sites and tag the sponsors, maybe?

But honestly, since bloggers are blindly hooting a brand name and becoming an advertising billboard, at the very least they should get their contest wins in time. For some reason, practically all companies hosting contests, etc. for anything in general- not just via indiblogger- prefer to dispatch the giveaways from their end. I don't know why, maybe because they can get contact details of the winners so that they can host blogging meets on their own without anyone in the middle. It would be a lot more convinient if Indiblogger could insist on giving the giveaways to them and then dispatch it. BTW, a small warning: there is a group similar to Indiblogger sold the entire blogger contact userbase along with email, phone numbers and sometimes even physical addresses.

@sorc which group?

blogadda ? or blogjunta?

that i won't say, because I dont have solid evidence that no1 can deny it. someone hosted a meet in mumbai for some shitty app and it was some event management whom I never been in touch with. they said that they have a blogger contact list based on the information that we collected from '...'. Considering that a lot of people do name-throwing around in PR/Event management, unless I have solid evidence I won't mention that name- or give a clue who it is. then again, some people don't mind- since it makes them feel 'important' and boosts their arrogance :P. I am not shocked of this happening, considering most bloggers promote their blogs with each other and not the odd crowd.

Yeah, this is highly unprofessional. I applied for Ambipure sample, I still have to receive it. I applied for books to review but no books or email about the status of that request. I wrote for Ring The Bell, no mug...I wonder if IB can mess it up more

You know, once it so happened that a shipment was sent to me, but it was not delivered. Someone in the middle stole it, signed and sent a the courier POD slip back to the sender. So, when we blame, we better have the right infomration. 

It could be IndiBlogger, it could be the sponsors or it could be the courier company or the courier boy/girl.

Hemal, I don't care about it. The bottom line is, I didn't get it. Period.

True - Start up companies don't give sufficient attention to operational excellence. It is only the product, marketing and finance that interests them. Only bigger companies think seriously about operatioanal excellence. Guess it has something to do with Indian culture too. Most Indians care only about price and are highly tolerant to poor service. 

True that TF - I can see many such things happening with start ups

I don't care how IB functions or how rude the sponsors are. I just want my S4! 

Don't worry, you will have it.  .. Patience.

you'll get it.................................................eventually

My HTC ChaCha has been giving touchscreen troubles for over a month now. And I have been using an old forgotten cell phone of mine, hoping every day that it would be the last for that phone. 

The best way to get back to is send an email to Renie (indi@indiblogger.in) and ask what situation it is right now. I know after winning, waiting for your win is really a bad experience. But it will be worse for the sponsor. 

@hemal- I did. And just got a reply.

Apparently, there was a delay in getting an NDA from WeChat as IB has to give them our addresses. That was done today. The prizes should be out by Thursday. #FingersCrossed

I see delay in getting NDA in best interests of Bloggers. NDA is of course the Non-Disclosure Agreement, with the sponsor for protection of our information. 

It could have been done earlier, but still in best interests of bloggers. 

@Divya

Yes , we would be kidding ourself if we think that Blogging is the top priority for these companies. It s perhaps just one small activity among its vast humungous campaign. Blogging is still neither Big in terms of money spent or time and effort spent or the results shown or even reach. It just creates some buzz and may or maynot hit the jackpot.Also depends entirely on the type of company. It may be more appropriate for whatsapp.

Do we really think a company like Dove with marketing budget running into 10s of crores really would give too much priority to a couple of lakhs spent on some bloggers? It is just another medium for them. TV, Radio,print and even  perhaps online adverstisement ..all trump Blogging

Blogging was supposed to be dead a few years ago, now it is just picking up . 

There is no "just" another medium. If it is a medium so it is and the sponsors need to be professional about handling their advertising strategies. For instance, you are a common man earning 10Lacs per annum. Alongwith you, there is another big shot earning 1Cr who is stuck in the same jam as you are. Will you let him go just because he is of higher value?? 

Dove should still treat the bloggers with dignity because they are not only the advertisers but also potential customers.  

is dove still owing any prizes???

Owning to the amount of Paid media we see in the news these days, a lot of people are moving to blogs to read more. This is where people are seeing the next wave of growth. 

Bloggers have turned themselves (not universally) into some group that these companies cannot ignore. Most of the times, it is not the company that is directly invovled. It is the event management/marketing companies that get in touch with IndiBlogger or other platforms, strike a deal with both and arrange the event / contest. 

But how compaines treat Bloggers is an open for debate. For them, all they want is their brand takes precedence. 

@ Madhur Chadha

And my point is - instead of placidly considering "blogger" group as not so significant in the company's lion's share, we should rather demand for what is rightfully ours.

It's high time to think how bloggers should be treated and not how/ why the company undermines the blogging community

Dove has been used as a response to Madhur's example :-)

I never said What ought to be done, My main point was that this is not as important as we think it is.

Companies are not in it for social service but for profit. Companies regularly treat customers differently based on their profitability. 

Similarly when we talk about priority , blogging is not the top priority is what i want to say.

I joined IB just 2 months ago and I have heard this so many times. I think it may not be the sole mistake of IB but there's a lot that they can do to improve a blogger's experience!

I don't bother about how much time they take as long as they deliver my prizes ( in months and not years  ) 

As everyone said, even I think that IB can do very little in this matter, except replying to support tickets at which they do a good job.  And if IB forces too many conditions on the sponsors, won't they run away? ( I'm not sure how these real world things work, so don't argue with me that they won't run away  )

True Ranjith. When we sit across the table for negotiation, how we deal depends on how we present ourselves. If thigns get too tight, the other party may want to refrain from doing so, depending upon what they think is the best for them. 

Each for their own best.

Hehe. No offense, but i totally disagree with you. They should have better policies to manage such contests, when since months people have been facing this issue. Its not the first occurance, so I guess they can learn from their experiences. 

I guess Indiblogger team consists of wise people, who would know how to negotiate, atleast on this regard.

I second you Ranjith! I am ready to wait coz i trust IB! My Mac will be home soon!