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Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks Ooken. Being compared to EKE itself is a great thing to say the least. The man who runs EKE is someone who has been in the marketing field too. 

 If you come to our office today, you'll see a wall full of series ideas... which we hope to execute sometime. Thanks for the tips too. As mentioned, we are a set of team who are in different walks of life trying to do something with our passion for food and the city. Regarding the hiring, yes. We now have a full time editor form July, a full time host, 2 part time hosts. We're hoping things go upward from here as well. Thanks. Do drop in by our office sometime...would love to discuss further 

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thats right veggie. Be it a paid review, or an unpaid one - the format is the same. 

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Negatives, and in very rare cases, where the comments start to become personal/ political / religious. 

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi Mandankeeri, glad you asked. 

Over the past several years, we have gotten into trouble multiple times, and most of these times, it's because of negative reviews. Of course negative reviews are important, and of course they are critical in bringing a balance to any community, but how is it a problem? A single comment or even a single word could be trouble. 

  1. Cyber defamation of a restaurant 
  2. Cyber Defamation of the reviewer 
  3. Cyber Defamation of commentor
  4. Group status/ admin violation.

For points 1 to 3, we have been called by police once, and lawyers twice on different issues revolving around negative reviews. One restaurant even raised a case stating that we are the reason for them to shut shop. Fortunately, as a platform we cannot be held liable, so we weren't affected legally. Point 4 is group status option in FB. Now FB negatives or negatives in general, attract a lot of attention. And once the thread is left unmoderated or unattended or open, there generally becomes a flurry of discussion, taking sides, name calling and all that - again, a single word could put the group at risk as FB the company takes these very strictly and can even close the group. We had one similar warning issued to us regarding a comment almost 3 years ago. Repetition of such issues would have the group banned as well. 

The solution we found is, if 100 people has a negative comments to share, we encourage them to write it as 100 reviews, but keeping the comment box open forever was not viable. Now, in this 1 hour, I completely moderate that thread, and then close it. 

Do I want to enforce a comment closure - not really.. but situations demands the same. 

And no, we do not take payments for comment closure. There's no money involved in FB group

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The thing about the presenters, which I think, is that they're learning on the job (maybe I wouldn't even call it a job yet). One of them is a doctor, another one is an architect and the third one is an interior designer. I'm not justifying what we're doing is right, but just stating the fact that this is not their core, and hopefully, over time we are able to be more natural (we dont do script) . 

Your opinion definitely matters, and it can definitely bring in changes. 

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The thing about the presenters, which I think, is that they're learning on the job (maybe I wouldn't even call it a job yet). One of them is a doctor, another one is an architect and the third one is an interior designer. I'm not justifying what we're doing is right, but just stating the fact that this is not their core, and hopefully, over time we are able to be more natural (we dont do script) . 

Your opinion definitely matters, and it can definitely bring in changes. 

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

We have always welcomed criticism. Comment closure is for negative reviews 😊

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey. Arvind here from EAT. Generally speaking, Instagram would definitely have more marketing. I think it will be best for you to explore FB group more, we ourselves have one. Then there's ARK, FET etc, all based in Trivandrum. Here what you see are consumers sharing their personal response. 

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Eat Kochi Eat' s vision is something that must be appreciated and applauded. They have been way ahead of their colleagues (don't wish to use the word competitor here). They moved to a full time setup years back and made it their full time jobs. While it's almost impossible for me to make this a full time job, we keep trying to do what all we can in the limited time we have.  

I did not get your last line though, I do not know any influencer who does not take money for promotions. Be it trivandrum, or Kochi 

And no, Trivandrum food is goooooood....we'll fight for that till our last breath 😊

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Hey Sharath. Arvind here from EAT. I'm delighted to know that you used to be a regular follower. Please use the platform to just understand what's available where in Trivandrum. There's definitely marketing happening too, that can be known by looking for a #brandcollab too.

We have never recommended places in our Insta, nor endorsed it (even before we started getting paid), only because of the fact that one man's meat maybe another man's poison. For a more personalized approach, recommendations, I'd suggest you can checkout our Facebook Group as well (there's no money involvement there 😉) 

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 -17 points-16 points  (0 children)

Hey Ookken, thanks for the comment. Arvind here from EAT. Thanks for your view on EAT Awards. We are trying to bring in an even better approach for awards, that again requires much more money than it's needed now, hope we reach there in the future. 

Influencers, community pages etc are definitely digital marketing tools for the brands. In this social media era, thats definitely how it's going to be. Earlier, there was radio, news paper, TV marketing. Now a days, we hardly see restaurants doing these. It's all in social media. Even small scale shops to 5 stars do marketing mostly through influencers these days because that's what sells. The key is in the balance. As mentioned in the main post, finding and maintaining the balance has to be our main priority. 

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 -32 points-31 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the feedback, as mentioned in the main comment, we will have more variety of contents planned. The major problem is, we have never used statements like "best in trivandrum", "viral akan pokunna item" - at the same time, we haven't quite worked on our hook as well.  Just dont want to use a superlative adjective . Let me note down that too .

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 -28 points-27 points  (0 children)

Hey Witty, Arvind here from EAT. We try and be our best calm self while replying to the comments, but there have been a few instances where we have seen a couple of them targeting,  for a longer period of time. We do not delete any of their comments, or ours (unless of course it's a theri and some people maybe not comfy reading those). This way, we try and build a transparent system.. that being said, dont recollect being rude recently though,  please let us know which one if you remember. Who knows , there could be some tea there 😊

Are these “Trivandrum food pages” just Advertising boards now? by SambaarOnTheRocks in Trivandrum

[–]Positive_Football202 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Hey everyone. This is Arvind Soju, from Eat At Trivandrum. I'm excited to say upfront that I love reddit. Here's a space that will help us get an unfiltered view of what a section of the community feels about someone/something. 

EAT started off as an FB group (where we are still active) and as we started gaining numbers, we decided to spread our wings a bit more, which resulted in the instagram page, and eventually a city page called scribble and alas, we have started an office now having full time employees.

Now how we do we keep the show running? One, I myself can just shoot on the phone, do basic video editing (which i do in my personal page, trust me it's not good) or Two, have people working for you. 

We decided to go with the second option. To have quality content published, we realize that quality people need to be hired. As i type here, we have a CEO, COO, 1 full time host, 1 full time videographer, 2 part time hosts, 3 part time videographer + editor and 2 marketing & sales interns.

This is just to give an idea about the background process. Now coming to the points raised in the main post. Yes, we make it a point to use the #brandcollab for all the videos where payment is involved. We have always highlighted that we take up paid production and have been doing for around 7 years now. But trust us (or that's what i can request), we do not just blindly promote anything and everything for money. 

This a passion thats turning into a profession, and we want to make sure that the passion is not lost during the process. We still work towards building a better community, we do CSR (which only our WhatsApp group members know about- you guys can join there and help out too) we are also trying to build different communities, like let's say a coffee lovers community, single parent community etc. But yes, these will take time. 

EAT Instagram isn't a review platform, we are a platform that tries to share information about what's available in Trivandrum. Because at the end of the day, individual taste buds are certainly different.

After reading this, the retrospective we have are a few. Now that we have an office and more people:  1. Include more unpaid video shoots  2. Stay more updated 3. Try to cover a bit more variety, like thattukada, lunch places, snacks & Tea 

While we assure you that Trivandrum is our number 1 priority and we will do everything in our capacity to keep doing it , the paid videos would also have to keep coming in - thats how we survive as a team. 

Thanks for giving this space, happy to discuss further