Social Media Marketing - India Trends Study 2013

Social Media MarketingIndia Trends Study 2013Insights from social media-savvy organizations in India

Foreword

According to media reports, Indian organizations use social media much more than the global average and those of their counterparts in emerging economies. While we have a number of case studies, awards and online tools to gather insights, we wanted to explore how social media-savvy organizations in India are using the medium. We wanted to understand social media objectives, tactics, departments that manage social media, how do organizations use social media ads, social media measurement, budget, and the agency environment among others. With this objective in mind, in the last quarter of 2012 and early 2013, we reached out to various organizations in India. We received a total of 48 participations from professionals who are responsible for managing the digital outreaches of their respective organizations or brands.As we expected, the study has thrown up some good insights. This study represents the views of several organizations in India that have comparatively invested more in terms of money, resources, or initiatives than their counterparts, and we think it will help in creating standards across the industry and in promoting the medium among many more organizations in the country that want to scale up on using the medium. We have added our perspectives and secondary research to augment the findings and provide depth and context.We would like to thank all our participants and industry experts who have shared their input generously.

Dinesh Mishra Customer Practice Leader (India) Ernst & Young LLP

Participating organizations/brands

Bajaj Finserv Lending

Bharti Airtel Ltd.

BMW India Pvt. Ltd.

Café Coffee Day

Citi India

Cleartrip Pvt. Ltd.

Cocoberry

Flipkart.com

Ford India Pvt. Ltd.

Hasbro Clothing

Harley-Davidson India

Honda Cars India Ltd.

Lifestyle International (P) Ltd.

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.

Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd.

MTV India

Network18

Pepsi India

Panasonic India

Plan India

P&G India

Rajasthan Royals

Royal Challengers Bangalore

SAP India Pvt. Ltd.

Shoppers Stop Ltd.

Tata Motors Ltd.

Wildcraft

Vadilal Industries Ltd

Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd.

Yatra.com

As part of the study, we asked our participants a set of 40 questions regarding the use of social media in their organizations. Input was collected online, on email, or through telephonic interviews. Responses to each question have been quantified and reflected in the charts that appear in this report.

We also reached out to various industry experts and bloggers to provide their perspective on various topics around their specialty areas, which is also being covered in this study. Their inputs are meant to provide depth to the report, and not to be seen as endorsements to survey findings.

The methodology

4 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

And 18 other organisations

Content

Key findings

1. Why social media?

2. Which social media platform?

3. How does social media fit in with other types of campaigns

4. Engaging social communities popular practices

5. Use social media ads

6. Success measurement

7. Social media budget

8. Department managing social media

9. Agency structure

10. Future of social media in organizations

Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 5


How do organizations engage with their social communities

4. Popular practices

a. Type of content: A majority of social media savvy organizations prefer to post generic updates instead of brand updates.

b. Frequency of updates and responses: Social media-savvy organizations posts multiple updates a day. Majority of social media-savvy organizations respond to fan queries within 30 to 60 minutes on Twitter and within 30 minutes to a few hours on Facebook.

c. Contests/promotions: Picture contests are the most popular contests among social media-savvy organizations in India — most contests are organized monthly.

d. Policies: Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India surveyed have social media guidelines for better governance and online monitoring programs to listen to conversations; however, less than half have crisis manuals.

e. Tools used: Many social media-savvy organizations in India use tools for online monitoring, response management, or managing social media platforms.

f. Social media for research: Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations in India have conducted research using social media tools to get customer feedback and understand more about customer behavior.

g. Mobile: Half of the social media-savvy organizations in India have created mobile phone apps and one-fourth plans to create one.

Key findings

Why social media

1. Most social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build communities

95.7% of the surveyed social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build communities and advocate usage while 76.1% use social media as a platform to highlight brand news. Around 16% of organizations, which use social media for both the above reasons also use it for customer service, lead generation, and research indicating high social maturity and moving toward getting business meanings out of engagements.

Which social media platform

2. Facebook most important platform for marketers in India for engaging customers, followed by Twitter, YouTube and blogging

Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations are already using emerging platforms such as Pinterest, Google Plus, and Foursquare. More than half of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed regularly engage with bloggers or online influencers who have authority and strong following.

How does social media fit in with other marketing/communications campaigns

3. Social media-savvy organizations in India have conducted campaigns where social media is the leading component

Social media-savvy organizations in India speed up processes or show special favor for online fans

Among the leading 87.5% said they have conducted campaigns where social media was the leading component. More than half of the surveyed organizations have speeded up processes or have shown a special favour for their online fans and followers that they wouldn’t normally do for their offline customers.

Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 provides answers to some pertinent questions around social media marketing among social media-savvy organizations in India:


Which department manages social media

8. Majority of social media efforts in India are managed by marketing teams

76.7% of social media-savvy organizations said they have their marketing department handling social media with the rest being handled by a cross functional team/across functions or by the PR/communications team. Other than marketing, 34.6% said they use social media for thought leadership and 26.9% said they use social media for CSR. A majority (70.2%) said they have an in house social media expert in middle management.

Agency structure

9. Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India use standalone digital agencies as compared to PR or ad agencies

73.8% of surveyed social media-savvy organizations have chosen standalone digital agencies as compared to PR, ad agencies, or freelancers. 59.1% of the organizations surveyed also said that they are happy with their current agencies while 40.9% responded with either a ”maybe” or a ”no.”

Future of social media

10. Social media-savvy organizations in India are very optimistic about the future

Social media-savvy organizations are very optimistic about the role of social media in their organizations. Though measures such as sales and leads are not very evident for all organizations, they have realized that it plays an important role in generating insights and engaging with customers on a continued basis. Social media has helped organizations to create their own communities of fans, customers or prospects. In the future, organizations hope to focus more on social media and are looking forward greater adoption within their organizations.

How do organizations use social media ads

5. Majority of social media-savvy organizations use social media ads to promote online campaigns and brand awarenesss, and find them beneficial

83% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that they have used social media ads, with majority of the ads being used to promote a contest/promotion or for brand awareness. 88.6% said they find social media ads to be beneficial in achieving those objectives.

How do you measure social media success?

6. Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India measure social media efforts through platform-specific parameters

81% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that they measure their social media efforts through platform-specific parameters such as likes, people talking about this, etc. 46.7% of the organizations surveyed said they have not measured revenue from their social media efforts. On the positive side, some organizations are already measuring social media efforts through leads, sentiment, brand visibility and have seen increase in revenue from social media efforts.

Social media budget

7. Almost half of social media-savvy organizations spend 1%–5% of their marketing budget on social media, most social media budgets are below INR10 million

41.5% of social media-savvy organizations said that around 1%–5% of their marketing budget in spent on social media. Three-fourths of the organizations surveyed have their social media budget below INR10 million, while a little above a quarter of the organizations surveyed have social media budgets exceeding INR20 million.


Most social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build communitiesWay back in 2010, a Harvard Business Review study found in its survey that the biggest benefit businesses think they derive from using social media was increased awareness of their brands or products.1 While this continues to be a key reason for social media adoption even today, the top-most reason why organizations are using social media has shifted to building communities. An overwhelming 95.7% of social media-savvy organizations in India that we surveyed said they use the medium to build communities and advocates to directly or indirectly help in creating positive word of mouth.

It is interesting to note that till two years back, organizations put a one-way metric such as awareness as the top reason for social media usage. Today’s shift is likely to be in part due to the almost overwhelming Facebook phenomenon, nevertheless when the power of social networks is realized by service providers, the consumers stand to benefit the most.

95.7%

43.5%

58.7%

76.1%

41.3%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Build community/

advocates

Generateleads

Customerservice

Platform to highlight brand

development/news

Research

What is the objective of your social media engagement? Tick all that is relevant.

1. Why social media


Around 16% of the surveyed organizations said they use social media not just for one reason but to build community, generate leads, customer service, highlight news and research. This indicates that some social media-savvy organizations in India seemed to be moving toward utilizing the medium much more than connecting with customers and prospects but leveraging business meanings out of those engagements.

In this context, it is important to remember that while organizations find social media a good platform to interact with customers and build communities, for most consumers, social media is about connecting with friends and families, accessing news, reviews and entertainment, as well as sharing opinion and not so much about interacting with brands.2 Organizations need to ask themselves about the value they are providing to their fans and followers on their channels or communities.

A key fact to remember is that building communities is not the end goal. A community provides a platform for brands to reach out to a number of potential customers at one go for marketing or promotional initiatives. It helps customers bond, bolster the brand experience stories, and create stronger word of mouth. In the long run, it helps in creating increased customer loyalty, better and speedier resolution of customer queries, lowering of marketing and service costs, and flow of innovative ideas. As organizations’ use of social media grows, they should start looking at identifying and measuring these benefits. Some organizations from among those we reached out to are already on the way to doing this. From among those organizations who said they use social media to build communities, half of them also use it to highlight news, 39.5% also use it for customer service, 31% for research, and 25% to generate leads.


Facebook most important platform for marketers in India, followed by Twitter, YouTube and bloggingBeing the most popular social media platform in India with more than 62 million users,1 Facebook is the favorite playground for social media-savvy organizations in India to banter in everyday conversations and organize engaging promotions and contests for fans. 89.6% of all surveyed organizations placed Facebook as the most important platform for engagement. Interestingly, there were more than 100 Facebook campaigns in India in 2012, which translates to more than 8 campaigns running simultaneously per month.2

Which are the platforms you used for your social media marketing efforts? Eg. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog, etc. Can you rank them? 1 being the most important/ priority area.

89.6%

4.2%

0.0%

6.3%

0.0%

0.0%

8.3%

56.3%

29.2%

2.1%

2.1%

0.0%

2.1%

22.9%

39.6%

22.9%10.1%

4.3%

2.1%

0.0%

0.0%

2.1%

6.3%

19.1%

23.4%

0.0%

2.1%

0.0%

2.1%

14.9%

6.4%

0.0%

8.3%

4.2%

29.2%

44.7%

68.1%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

Blog

Pinterest

Foursquare

1 2 3 4 5 6 N/A

2. Which social media platforms


According to a story in The Economic Times, advertising agencies today have started to create YouTube specific ads as against re-purposing TV commercials.4 One of the most successful company produced viral hit last year was a video from Finnair in which a team of cabin crew performed a flash dance to celebrate India’s Republic Day.5

Blogging followed YouTube as the most important platform for organizations. Blogging particularly is important when organizations want to share thought leadership or trends in an area of mass interest. For instance, a fashion blog, a movie blog or technology blog. Blogging is also popular among B2B organizations for thought leadership purposes.

While majority of the organizations have placed least importance on emerging platforms such as Google Plus, Pinterest and Foursquare, many of them are already experimenting with the platforms and many plans to start using them. Recently, Pepe Jeans India asked fans to follow its profile and repin apparels that they like for a chance to win them. In 2013, we will continue to see more of this type of experiments.6

Are you using any of the following emerging platforms?

26.8% 26.5% 28.6%

46.3%32.4%

42.9%

26.8%41.2%

28.6%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Pinterest Foursquare Google Plus

No plans Already using Will use in the next one year

With social media marketing campaigns being Facebook heavy, some organizations are looking at other platforms to differentiate themselves. More than half of the organizations surveyed placed Twitter as the second-most important channel. With a majority of Indian sportspersons, movie actors, artists and politicians active on Twitter and enjoying huge number of followers, the platform has its own sphere of influence. A trending topic on Twitter for a good reason is perhaps one of the most coveted benchmarks.However, featuring there for the wrong reasons is a big crisis in the making.

Which are the platforms you used for your social media marketing efforts? Eg. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog, etc. Can you rank them? 1 being the most important/ priority area.

1.13

2.433.00

3.50

4.735.07

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Facebook Twitter YouTube Blog Pinterest Foursquare

(Average values)

YouTube comes third in terms of preference among the organizations surveyed. While creating a good video is much more difficult and resource intensive than creating a Facebook update or a tweet, its success is equally unpredictable. Nevertheless, brands are investing on the medium to make an equivalent to the next “Kolaveri Di” or ”Gangnam Style”.3


While choosing which channels are important based on where your customers are, organizations should remember that being social is not only about opening up a profile on a social media site. Social media adoption should be seen as a cultural and behavioral shift within the organization to transparently engage with customers who are not afraid to voice their opinions and are big influencers to their connected networks. Social media adoption should not mean a tactical short term means to promote the organization or brand in the most popular websites of today. As technology is evolving at a fast pace, organizations require the ability to constantly evolve and adopt platforms that consumers are shifting to. Popular websites of today will be overtaken by new websites tomorrow. Facebook overtook Orkut in the Indian market in 2010. There are already few media stories today of Facebook users finding the site to be not as “cool” as before.7

Do you regularly engage with bloggers/influencers?

47.9%

14.6%

37.5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Yes No Sometimes

Yes No Sometimes

Prasant Naidu Founder of Lighthouse Insights, a popular blog on social media news.

“Social media marketing for brands is all about Facebook and Twitter currently. Brands in India are walking the safe path and they are hardly trying out new networks. One of the reasons being user adoption. Facebook being the biggest social network in India is the tried and tested one. Not only that the network has been around for some time and has matured enough. Along with running contests brands have the option of trying out well targeted ads today. Twitter, on the other hand, is being used as a reach mechanism and that is being achieved by getting certain hashtags trended.

Having said that, there are a few brands who have tried investing on different networks like Pinterest, Instagram, etc. Since the user adoption from India on these networks has not been remarkable, brands are trying to integrate and drive traffic from the Facebook or Twitter community to networks like Pinterest and Instagram. I believe integrating networks over social media is the future for Indian brands.”

engage with them through product reviews, tours, or contests. Advanced organizations have involved bloggers in reputed programmes and have created prestigious blogger specific properties. For example, the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award that recognizes experts who share their passion and expertise of a Microsoft product with others, has awarded many bloggers globally and in India.9

Not only bloggers, organizations are regularly reaching out to popular social media users. Recently, popular YouTube users and Twitter users have featured in the TV commercials of a brand.

Done right, blogger relations can help create a discussion around relevant topics among influencers. Organizations are realizing the need to respect blogger independence and adhere to guidelines such as the WOMMA Code of Ethics.10 In the last few years, often engaging bloggers or online influencers in an inappropriate manner or trying to control their independence have led to backlashes.

Indiblogger, an Indian blog directory, lists close to 30,000 blogs on its site.8 Many bloggers in India, like their counterparts globally, enjoy good readership and has significant authority. Some of the most popular blogging topics are technology, auto, food, travel, movies, parenting, and marketing. Bloggers nowadays are not limited to creating content on their blogs, but have wide circles of friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter, etc. thereby becoming creators of influential content on these platforms too.

47.9% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said they regularly engaged with bloggers and other online influencers, while 37.5% said they engage with bloggers sometimes.

Bloggers are not necessarily looking for organizations to contact them. Most of them can be just passionate individuals who like to share their views on their area of expertise or interest. However, as their influence grow and their views on brands and products are seen far and wide online, organizations felt the need to

Amit AgarwalPersonal technology columnist and founder of Digital Inspiration, a widely-read tech and how-to blog since 2004.

“Blogs are mostly seen as credible sources of information and consumers are increasingly referring to blogs while researching products online. Because their opinion matters, brands, big and small, now actively engage with bloggers across domains at par with the mainstream media.

That said, other than the tech category, there has been a shift in the blogging landscape in India in recent years. The first-generation bloggers have either quit the space or they have turned their attention to microblogging and social media. What would otherwise have been a 500-word opinion piece now gets squeezed into 140 characters but it still enjoys a similar level of influence and reach.”


Social media-savvy organizations in India have planned campaigns where social media is the leading component

Social media-savvy organizations in India speeds up processes or show special favor for online fans

Social media-savvy organizations in India are already integrating social components into their traditional marketing and communications campaigns. 83% of the surveyed organizations said they include information about their social media campaigns in their print and TV advertising campaigns. Also, 87.5% of the surveyed organizations have run campaigns using only social media or where social media has been the leading component.

Do you include information about your social media campaigns in your print/TV advertising campaigns?

83.3%

16.7%

Yes No

3. How does social media fit in with other types of campaigns


Have you organised any exclusive deals/promotions for online fans online?

Yes No Maybe we will organise in the future

64.6%14.6%

20.8%

Have you speeded up processes, or shown a special favour to any of your online fans, followers that you would normally not do for your customers who are not online?

Yes No

58.3%

41.7%

It is important to mention that while there is integration, the quality of integration is what matters the most. It is up to organizations to decide social media’s level of involvement. Adding a link to social channels on TV or print ads can also be called integration.

Sometimes, social media is an after-thought and used as a medium to further spread the advertising message. To illustrate this, if an organization runs a TV advertising campaign on the camera features of its latest mobile phone, a typical social media support could be a contest on the Facebook fan page asking fans to upload their best pictures. However, this type of integration is shallow. Removing the social media component does not affect the campaign at all, except for minimizing the online buzz.

Smart social media marketing professionals in organizations look at integrating social media as a part of the campaign DNA. The social media team participates in the ideation stage. The engagement structure is woven with social being a part of the campaign process and the social media component cannot be removed.

Have you run a campaign using only social media or has social media been the leading component in any campaign?

Yes No

87.5%

12.5%


As social media becomes a key component, the need to placate online fans becomes a natural extension. Deals and exclusive promotions only for online fans are increasingly being organized. 64.6% of the surveyed organizations said they have organized exclusive deals for online fans and 20.8% said they are likely to organize in the future. More than half of the surveyed organizations said they have speeded up processes or have shown a special favor for their online fans and followers that they will not normally do for their offline customers. As more customers realize the benefits of going online rather than approaching a traditional customer service channel such as the phone, the demand for more focus on customer service in the social media space will grow.


What is the percentage of topics related to your brand that you post on your Facebook page vis-à-vis totally unrelated topics?

14.6%

18.8%

39.6%

27.1%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

10 -25%

25% -50%

50% -75%

More than 75%

Among the generic updates, topics related to the values of the brand are preferred more than totally unrelated topics. 66.7% of the surveyed brands said that topics related to the brand values form more than half of the posts on their Facebook pages.

This shows that while social media-savvy organizations are willing to post generic updates to fans, these generic updates are more or less related to the values of the brands. Types of updates that social media-savvy organizations find the most engaging include interesting pictures, videos, factoids, quiz, and industry news. Pictures are the most engaging type of content with one report saying that pictures represent 89% of a brand’s most engaging posts on Facebook.1

Not surprisingly, the top-three most engaging Facebook posts in India in January 2013 are all pictures updates.2 Two of the updates were Republic Day wishes from Vodafone featuring their brand mascot “Zoozoos” and from Cadbury Celebrations featuring a cake. The third one from Tata Docomo featured their brand ambassador, Ranbir Kapoor, from his latest film, Barfi. The first and second are generic updates related to the brand. The third one is a totally unrelated generic update, though the brand (chocolate) and the item in picture (cake) are in the same category (food).

More social media-savvy organizations prefer to post generic updates instead of brand updatesRather than using brand posts (e.g., brand news, product descriptions, or updates promoting the brand directly), almost half of the organizations surveyed prefer posting generic updates. Generic updates are updates related to the values of the brand (e.g., a car manufacturer talking about driving safety, road tips) and totally unrelated updates (e.g., cricket match highlights, festival greetings, an unrelated news but of mass interest). 43.8% of the surveyed organizations said that brand posts form less than 30% of their overall content calendar while 35.4% said they use brand posts more than generic updates.

While brand posts attract customers, loyalists and advocates — generic posts help in attracting a wide audience set and even those customers who might be using a competitor’s product. For example, a consumer products company posting generic tips and how-to’s are likely to attract people who would want to come and benefit from reading those tips.

On your content calendar, what is the percentage of your brand posts vis-à-vis generic updates (topics related to your brand plus unrelated topics)?

43.8%

20.8%

35.4%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Less than 30% Around 50% More than 50%

4.Engaging social communities - popular practices


More than half of the social media-savvy organizations in India, who participated in the survey, post two to three updates on their Facebook pages in a day. 25% of organizations surveyed said that they post one update per day on their Facebook pages.

What is the frequency of updates you have on your Twitter profile?

17.8%

1 post every 1-2 days

1 post a day 2-3 posts a day

More than 3 posts a day

20.0%

28.9%

33.3%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Social media-savvy organizationsposts multiple updates a dayWhile frequent updates can be a sign of being active, it can also be of inconvenience to your fans. There is always a struggle between quality and quantity. More posts do not always mean increased engagement.

What is the frequency of updates you have on your Facebook page?

2-3 posts a day 1 post a day1 post every 1-2 days More than 3 posts a day

6.3%

25.0%

56.3%

12.5%

Sriram Ravi Head Digital Marketing, Hasbro Clothing

Our social media channels are information hubs on men’s fashion and grooming not just brand communication pages. Social media is about giving back to the consumers. We try to put content that is relevant, useful and worthy of social sharing.


On Twitter, 33.3% of surveyed organizations said that they post more than 3 tweets a day while 28.9% said they tweet two to three times a day. For organizations using Twitter for customer service, the number of tweets (or replies) is likely to be much higher.

On the speed of response, one-fourth of the surveyed organizations respond to fan queries on Facebook, on an average, within half an hour of the query being posted, which indicates a robust monitoring and response structure being put into place. On the flipside, more than one-fourth of social media-savvy organizations surveyed still take more than six hours on an average to respond to a fan query on Facebook.

What is your average response time with which you attempt to reply to a fan query on Facebook?

0.0%

2.1%

4.2%

2.1%

16.7%

14.6%

18.8%

16.7%

12.5%

12.5%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

1-2 mins

3-5 mins

6-10 mins

11-20 mins

21-30 mins

31-60 mins

1-2 hours

3-5 hours

6-12 hours

13- 24 hours

On Twitter, 28% of the organizations surveyed respond within half an hour to fans and followers. However, 14% of the surveyed organizations also take 13–24 hours to respond to fans.

According to Lighthouse Insights study, in the period from 1 January –31 May 2012, out of Airtel’s 34,991 tweets, 33,928 were replies. For Vodafone, out of 1,015 tweets, 1,013 were replies.3

Out of Airtel’s 22,893 replies, 19,593 replies were executed in less than 15 minutes.


What is your average response time with which you attempt to reply to a fan query on Twitter?

0.0%

14.0%

9.3%

4.7%

0.0%

34.9%

7.0%

9.3%

7.0%

14.0%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

1-2 mins

3-5 mins

6-10 mins

11-20 mins

21-30 mins

31-60 mins

1-2 hours

3-5 hours

6-12 hours

13- 24 hours

While speed of response plays a crucial role in keeping the interest of fans, smart social media professionals realize that it cannot take precedence over quality of response. Acknowledging a query quickly and taking time to figure out the issue and responding with an informed view later is also a preferred method. Consistency is also key. This is not a medium where you can come alive only while running campaigns. You have to be active throughout.

Smart social media professionals understand the type of queries and type of fans posting those queries and know how to respond appropriately. Responding to a “discount/coupon seeker” or a “‘I hate your product evangelizer” will be completely different to a “legitimate question seeker” or a “’I hate your product’ evangelizer”.4 Creating a bucket list of questions and answers helps in responding to a large majority of queries fast.

Putting up generic updates, considerable number of pictures, responding fast to fans — are these enough to build a good community?

We asked the founder of popular auto forum Team-BHP, Rush Parekh, on why Team-BHP has been able to remain so successful over the years in creating a close knit community. According to him, the reason that Team-BHP (and other focused communities) has an active member base is because of the following reasons:

• Not only there are like-minded people onboard, but they are also experts in their domains.

• No ”corporate” environment onboard — it is very personal and friendly. They have worked very hard to get to a level of camaraderie.

• They say it like it is. They call a spade a spade.

• Their articles, topics and discussions are more focused. Basically, specialist vs. generalist.

On how brands can improve their interaction quality on their communities, Rush offered some pointers:

• Minimizing the PR tone/corporate speak when communicating with an individual.

• Talk specifics. If every interaction will be answered with “please lodge your query/complaint on this contact us form” or ”we don’t comment on rumours”, well, what value that interaction has?

• Have an individual to handle the interaction. Example “Loken Mehra” could be interacting as a company rep, instead of a main account called “XYZ Company India”. It’s just a lot more personal.

• Keep the communication grounded. Overtly sweet, exaggerated messages are boring in this age of information overload.

• At the end of the day though, for business and legal reasons, brands are limited by what they can communicate on an open platform.


Picture contests are the most pop-ular contests among social media-savvy organizations in India, most contests organized every monthSocial media-savvy organizations conduct various contests and promotional programs in their social communities to keep excitement level high among fans and followers. While we have seen a number of Facebook contests last year, increasingly we are seeing a number of Twitter-led contests.

On Facebook and Twitter, how often do you think is necessary to have contests/giveaways, promotions for fans, besides the regular day to day interaction?

15.0%

10.0%

42.5%

32.5%

0.0%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Every week

Every fortnight

Every month

Once in a quarter

Once in six months

Almost half of the organizations surveyed said that they think organizing a contest on Twitter and Facebook once a month is necessary while 32.5% said once a quarter should be fine. To put this in perspective, around 20 organizations from this study are likely to come out with a contest every month. Add to it the contests that might come from say 100 more brands from India on Facebook. Additionally, 15% of organizations in this study said that they prefer organizing contests once a week and 10%

said once a fortnight. Social media users in India have never had brands placating for their attention like this ever. They have a plethora of choices to participate in brand campaigns. For brands and organizations , the challenge in creating an engagement that will stand out among the lot has never been as pertinent today than ever.

What is the type of contest you have found to be the most successful on your social media platform?

25.0%

57.5%

2.5%

15.0%

Picture contest Quiz Game Video contest

People love sharing pictures on Facebook. Brands love sharing pictures on Facebook and the site today has the biggest collection of pictures than any other photo sharing site in the world. It is no surprise that more than half of the organizations surveyed said that they find picture contests to be the most successful contest on their social communities. Other types of contests that are popular are quizzes and games.

While some organizations have conducted video contests, it is not one of the most popular engagement medium. Perhaps the reason is that in India, majority of the YouTube videos sought are premium content, TV show and movies rather than user-generated content.5 Also in video contests, there more effort is required for participants than in picture contests or quizzes.


Last year, some fan pages in India of prominent brands were suspended by Facebook over violation of guidelines. While the wall itself seems to be the easiest place to run a contest, smart organizations today do realize that it violates Facebook promotion guidelines and the need to adhere to guidelines set up by platforms is important. Facebook and Twitter both provide their guidelines on running promotions and campaigns on the platforms.6

Below Rs. 1000

Between Rs. 1000

– 5000

Between Rs. 6000 – 10000

Between Rs. 10,000 – Rs. 50,000

More than Rs.50,000

What has been the average value of the prize you have offered ever for your online contests? This is the prize that one individual winner get, and not the overall amount.

34.1%36.4%

2.3%

22.7%

4.5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

More than half of the organizations surveyed put the average value of their prizes to individual winners below INR5,000. 36.4% of organizations put the average value of their prizes between INR 1,000–5,000 and 34.1% put the value of their prizes below INR1,000.

Almost a quarter of organizations surveyed put the average value of their prizes between INR10,000–50,000. It is interesting to note that some organizations are investing considerable amounts in contests and have put the average value of prizes above INR50,000. High prize money makes contests more attractive and is likely to bring in more participation.

With so many free goods to be won, there are interesting side effects. Brands are becoming more aware of the new crop of contest participants among their communities. A number of active online users are taking active interest in participation in brand campaigns, almost in a planned and professional manner, for the prizes, without any interest in the brand at all. If one of these users participates in 10 contests in a month and wins consolation prizes in one or two of them, the prize money is still attractive enough. The need to identify and engage with true fans vis-à-vis contest mongers is proving to be another key challenge for brands and organizations. Contests that involve an experience vis-à-vis a simple quiz or a picture contest tend to get more passionate fans, but it also decrease the overall number of participation.


There are organizations that sometimes take the unconventional route and create unusual and highly engaging content for fans. One example is Flipkart’s ongoing “Six Degree of Separation” contest where fans are shown three to four seemingly unrelated pictures and are asked to find one common thread between them. This is what Ravi Vora, Sr. VP - Marketing, Flipkart, had to say about the initiative:

“Flipkart’s social media identity has always been one that has tried to go beyond the corporate façade. Our Facebook/Twitter avatar is that of a friend who hangs out with you, someone you can swap jokes and have intelligent conversations with.

As a result, we have always consciously stayed away from focusing on content purely for the sake of basic metrics such as retweets, likes and shares. We rarely ever ask for our fans and followers to endorse us on social media. We believe in building that virality through smart,

witty and clutter-breaking content – so we don’t just talk about our products but also look at fun, engaging properties that add to the brand personality.

An example of this is our Six Degrees of Connection contest on Facebook and Twitter. While the contest is reasonably simple in this Google-age, we try and up the ante to ensure that our fans have to put their thinking caps on. It is our most in-demand property and we have had people asking about it if we delay posting the clues/results in the expected time.”


Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India have social media guidelines and monitoring program, but less than half have crisis manualsWhile engagement is crucial for any social media team, possessing a sound base of guidelines protects an organization from various legal and social risks. Similarly online monitoring programs allow organizations to listen to customer conversations and determine an appropriate way of responding with them. An engagement strategy not based on a sound monitoring program is akin to trying to mingle at a party without knowing what that party is about or who have come to that party. Crisis manuals help organizations to turnaround swiftly when a crisis breaks out.

We asked social media-savvy organizations in India if they have these basics in place. It is good to know that 87.8% of social media-savvy organizations have social media guidelines, and 78% have an online monitoring program in place.

However, only 39% have a crisis manual ready with them. It is important to create sample scenarios of various crisis scenarios that can happen and know how to deal with them. Some examples of crisis for a consumer food product can be a consumer finding an unwanted particle inside the food packet, a consumer falling sick after consuming the product, rumors around the ingredients of the food product and possibly their health impacts, etc. It can be a car catching fire in the case of an automobile company or a consumer experiencing a skin burn in case of a cosmetic company.

In addition to your Facebook, Twitter engagements, do you have the following? Please tick all relevant.

87.8%

39.0%

78.0%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Social media guidelines Crisis manual Online monitoring programme

Several companies that were caught on the wrong foot for not being prepared for quick, thoughtful and decisive action regarding social media, suffered material and long-lasting corporate injuries to their market share, customer confidence levels, stock prices and overall market reputation.7 Other companies around the world are moving fast to protect their corporate brand at a critical time when brands have become fragile and vulnerable to millions of newly empowered consumers coming online every day.

Organizations with an integrated, holistic strategy and solid governance are better prepared to not only survive rampant change, but flourish in it. Effective strategy and accompanying governance helps to protect the brand and strengthen it. Companies armed with the understanding of where social media fits into larger corporate objectives will do better than those that are not. Organizations that effectively build and manage social media strategies and governance frameworks will have a competitive advantage over companies that do not.


Analysis and monitoring

• Are all social media sites relevant to all major aspects of my business monitored?

• Is there a risk analysis regarding incidents on social media channels? Is there an incident response process focused not only on customer feedback and interaction, but also on IT-related security and privacy-related issues?

Assessment • Is the social media strategy inclusive, bringing in all impacted corporate departments and functions, such as marketing, legal, HR, IT, operations and logistics?

• Are risks related to the use of social media platforms clearly identified? Does my view of the landscape include unique sector-specific perspectives?

Strategy and compliance

• Does my organisation have a social media strategy?

• Are my social media policies compliant with any relevant national, international or industry-specific rules and regulations?

Governance • What governance systems with measurable criteria (KPIs) do I have in place?

• Have policies and guidelines been defined?

• Are there mechanisms in place to leverage the customer insights and lessons learned from social media monitoring?

Awareness • Are the employees aware of the policies and guidelines? Have they been trained?

Questions to ask


1 - Initial 2 - Repeatable 3 - Defined 4 - Managed 5 - Optimized

Social Media AssessmentSWOT Analysis

Social Media StrategyVision, Goals, KPIs

Social Media GovernanceFrameworkPolicies , Guidelines

Social Media AwarenessTrainings

Social Media MonitoringControls, Tools

Social MediaAssessmentSWOT Analysis

Social MediaStrategyVision, Goals, KPIs




Social Media GovernanceFrameworkPolicies, Guidelines




Social MediaAwarenessTrainings




Social MediaAwarenessTrainings

Social Media MonitoringControls, Tools

0 - None

Ernst & Young Social Media Governance Maturity Model

Social MediaExcellence

Knowing how the social media governance situation looks like within your organisation comes with many benefits such as:

• Recognising strategic opportunities• Enhanced competitive advantage• Efficient recruitment• Cost reduction• Generate revenue• Valued relationships• Control strategic, operational, reputational, legal, and confidentiality risks


Many social media-savvy organizations in India use tools for online monitoring, response management, or managing social media platformsThere are many monitoring, channel management, and analytics tools in the market today and using them can be beneficial in speeding up processes, getting better insights, or in freeing up resources.

We asked social media-savvy organizations if they use any one of such tools, and 52.6% of the organizations said they use tools for online monitoring and response management. Another 47.4% of the organizations said they use tools for managing their social media platforms. Few of them said they used both, while few others said they also use analytics tools.

Do you use online tools to streamline your social media efforts?

52.6%

47.4%

0% 20% 40% 60%

For online monitoring

and response

For managing social media

platforms like Facebook and Twitter pages


Revlon conducted a series of poll on their Facebook page recently for two weeks to learn more about customer’s knowledge about make up foundation. Out of 75,000 Indian women who participated, 80% said they use their fingers to apply foundation, 40% spend less than 15 minutes applying their makeup, and 80% touch up their makeup only once a day.8

Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations in India have conducted research to get customer feedback and understand more about customer behaviorOrganizations have been conducting research to understand their performance in the market. They have also ventured into taking social media research initiatives for several reasons.

40.6% of social media-savvy organizations surveyed have conducted research to get customer feedback and another 34.4% to understand more about their customer behavior. 25% of the organizations surveyed have conducted research for competitive benchmarking.

To understand customer behavior

Competitive benchmarking

To get customer feedback

Have you conducted any social media research for your organisation? Can you share what kind of research have you conducted?

34.4%

25.0%

40.6%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

As socially matured organizations move toward finding tangible results from their social media initiatives, they will try to seek more facts and insights that can help them assess possibilities of the medium. For instance, understanding online behavior of customers by interacting with them in person can throw up many interesting insights and organizations can tweak their social media initiatives based on what their consumers actually want or what digital channels and behavior they go through before making a purchase.

Similarly analyzing consumers’ online conversations and seeking their relevance to various departments such as HR, Finance, Compliance, Legal, R&D, and supply chain, organizations can better equip themselves and facilitate increased adoption of social media.

However, organizations also need to consider the pros and cons of doing research online. While social media can provide real-time and organic feedback, there can be ethical questions on conducting research without explicit consent from the customers. Being observers, it is often difficult to go back to the customers to ask further questions.


Have you created any mobile app?

50.0%

21.7%

28.3%

Yes No No, but plan to

Half of the social media-savvy organizations in India have created mobile phone apps Social media, along with heavy digitization, has invigorated the usage of mobile apps. Smartphone users in India use their phones to browse the internet, access social networking sites, play games, etc. About one-third of the Facebook users in India access the site using their mobile devices.9 Facebook recently tied up with mobile operators in India to offer free or discounted data access.10 To capture the attention of the smartphone users, social media-savvy organizations are extending their engagement on to mobile. Half of our surveyed organizations have created mobile phone apps, while more than a quarter plans to create one.

Vinay BhatiaSenior Vice-President, Marketing & Loyalty, Shoppers Stop Ltd.

“We have used Quick Response (QR) and Augmented Reality (AR) codes to digitally enliven all marketing communications. Augmented Reality in India is still nascent and Shoppers Stop is the first Indian large-format retailer to have created an augmented reality set-up for its End of Season Sale campaign. The First Citizen mobile

app, which is available on Android, iphone and BB allows users to swipe their card without actually having the card, and our GiftBot app provides gifting ideas based on certain criteria such as M/F, budget, age, etc.”


Have you used Facebook advertising/sponsored tweets, etc.?

Yes No

83.0%

17.0%

If yes, what was the objective?

18.4%

42.1%

5.3%

34.2%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Product leads/sale

Promoting an online campaign/contest

Promoting an offline campaign/promotion

Brand awareness

Majority of social media-savvy organizations use social media ads for promoting online campaigns and brand awareness, and find them beneficial Early last year, General Motors created quite a stir when it announced that it is pulling off its Facebook ad budget of US$10 million a year.1 Many organizations and experts debated for and against using social media ads.

In India, we have seen the ads of e-commerce companies on Facebook2 displaying a branded shoe with a discount or a sale. According to case studies from Facebook, Kaya Skin Clinic attributes 20% and Myntra.com attributes 25% of their sales to Facebook. Yatra.com generated INR1.5 million per month from Facebook.3

While this was the case, we were curious to know how social media-savvy organizations in India feel about social media advertising.

From the study, it is clear that majority of organizations surveyed (83%) have used social media ads.

5. Use social media ads


The reasons for using social media ads are various. Three-quarter of the organizations surveyed said they have used ads to promote an online campaign or for brand awareness. When organizations look at Facebook, they seem to equate the platform with fan engagement and perhaps this is the reason behind putting in money to boost up their engagements. Even on Twitter, most of the promoted tweets or accounts that we see today are either to promote an ongoing contest or to promote a profile and increase followers.

While promoting campaigns seems to be the major reason for using social media ads, 18.4% of the organizations surveyed said they use ads for product leads or sales. We can see more organizations experimenting with Facebook apps for referral sales and integrating payment systems on their product apps on Facebook. When this happens, there will be more sales related to spending on the platform.

There are interesting social commerce developments, e.g., Facebook Gifts and Facebook Want buttons. We are yet to see how many Indian brands sign up for Facebook Gifts and utilize this opportunity. All of these will lead to more sales-related spending on Facebook, if not ads. More so, users coming to a site such as Facebook Gifts are more likely to have a purchase inclination, and therefore, sales related ads might be more acceptable here than those on the main Facebook page where people come to share and discuss stories and experiences. Similarly, a user with a list of ”want” items is likely to explore more products similar to his/her ”wants.”

Few of the organizations surveyed said they have used ads to increase their fan base or for all the above reasons. There will always be a section of organizations in India that will use Facebook ads for many more reasons besides marketing or sales.

Nevertheless, either for sales or engagement the reason might be, there is a positive hope as a majority of the organizations surveyed (88.6%) said they find social media ads to be beneficial.

Are you finding social media advertising to be beneficial?

88.6%

4.5%6.8%

Yes No Maybe


Most social media efforts are measured through platform-specific parametersReturn on investment (ROI) on social media spend has been a million dollar question with numerous discussions and books having been written around the topic.

In India, among the social media-savvy organizations surveyed, platform-specific parameters continue to be the leading metrics while business-specific measurements from social media activities are yet to be tapped. 81% of the social media-savvy organizations said they measure their social media efforts through platform-specific parameters including ”likes” and ”People Talking About This.” Almost half of the organizations surveyed said they have not measured revenue from their social media efforts, while 31.1% said maybe there is an increase in revenue from their social efforts.

As organizations mature in social media usage, there will be more experimentation and inclination to learn more about ROI. Interestingly, a small percentage of organizations are already starting to measure social media efforts in terms of leads/sales, change in sentiment, and brand visibility. 19.9% of organizations today have already seen increase in revenue from social media efforts.

6. Success measurement

Deeptie Sethi Head of Corporate Communications, Ford India Private Limited

“In October 2010, just six months after Ford Figo launch, we organised a pan India drive called ‘Discover Smart Drive’ for young couples that represented our TG, in a special Ford Figo with objective of expanding our Figo footprint in Tier 2 towns, rekindle the excitement among consumers and community fans, and reinforce Figo’s ‘smart’ association.

While it was a complete 360 degree integrated campaign involving on ground events, advertising, and PR; social played a lead role in creating buzz

and participation before the kickoff and during the drive. We leveraged our social channels big time and engaged with online influencers.

Apart from many impressive wins like increasing our fan base and creating hundreds of positive media stories and fan conversations reinforcing ‘smart’ with Figo, a big business benefit we achieved was that the monthly average of 35,000 enquiries of Ford Figo jumped to 60,000 and our sales peaked in that month”.


How do you measure your success/ ROI on social media?

Platform specific parameters viz. Likes, People Talking about this, Comments, Impressions, views, etc.

Leads/Sales goalsChange in sentimentBrand visibility

81.0%

7.1%

4.8%7.1%

Are you able to see increase in revenue from your social media engagements?

46.7%

2.2%

31.1%

11.1%

4.4%

0.0%

4.4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Haven’tmeasured

No

Maybe

1% -10%

11%-25%

26%-50%

Above 50%


Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations spend 1%-5% of their marketing budget on social media Most social media budgets are below INR10 million

In 2009, PepsiCo in the US skipped the sponsorship of the Super Bowl for the first time in 23 years and spent US$20 million in a large social media-led campaign called the Pepsi Refresh Project. The campaign was about inviting people to share and vote on ideas that will help make the world a better place. The campaign garnered 1 billion media impressions in the first 3 months and more importantly, it created a movement for social good.1

6-10% 11-15% 16-20% 20-30% More than 30%

How much percentage of your marketing budget do you spend on your social media initiatives?

1-5%

41.5%

36.6%

14.6%

0.0%

7.3%

0.0%0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

In India, traditional media continues to be where the big spending is. Especially for big spenders, TV spots and print media spreads continue to be the focus. Social media campaigns are sometimes just an afterthought to support the ad campaign. However, with increasing social media success story emerges and ROI gets clearer, we will see more appetite among large organizations to take on large social media initiatives and spend.

Almost half of the social-media savvy organizations said that around 1%–5% of their marketing budget is spent on social media. 36.5% of organizations said 6%–10% of their marketing budget is spent on social media. 7.3% of organizations surveyed said around 20%–30% of their marketing budget is spent on social media.

Below INR1 million

INR1.1 - 2.5 million

INR2.6 -5 million

INR5.1 - 9.9 million

INR10 - 20 million

Above INR20 million

What is your social media budget in a year?

20.0%

28.6%

14.3%

8.6%

11.4%

17.1%

0%

10%

20%

30%

7. Social media budget


Compare the less than INR10 million social media budget of top social media savvy organizations today with the INR1070 million advertising budget of Godrej Consumer Products in December 2012 quarter or the INR990 million advertising budget of Colgate Palmolive in 2012.2

The annual social media budget has a mixed response with 28.6% of organizations placing it at INR1.1–2.5 million, 20% below INR1 million, and 17% above INR20 million.

It is interesting to note that almost three quarter of the organizations surveyed have their social media budget below INR10 million, while a little above a quarter of the organizations surveyed have social media budgets exceeding INR20 million.

However, the silver lining is that many marketers believe that there would be an increase in social media spends in 2013.3


While the big budgets of marketing departments are doing well for the growth of social media, it can also predominantly equate social media efforts with reaching out to prospects or for sales. Organizations need to evaluate if social media rests within marketing, are departments such as Customer Service, Sales, and R&D missing an opportunity?

Organizations, as they grow in the social maturity ladder, will find more acceptances of social media in more departments other than marketing. Some of the advanced organizations in India already have cross functional teams using social media. Some Customer Service departments are already using social media to listen to conversations and engage with customers on their queries. Smart PR/communications departments have already adopted social media as a means to reach out to their public directly and not limit themselves to media relations. There are discussions around social chain management, and crowdsourcing for R&D purposes.

A majority of the social media-savvy organizations (70.2%) said they have an in-house social media expert in the middle management. This spells well for improved adoption of social media in organizations and for the industry as a whole. Earlier there were stories about social media roles being delegated to trainees, but having a senior professional specializing in social media in the organization will have an influence on communication planning. Social media capabilities and specializations will also lead to more insights and innovation.

Majority of social media efforts in India are managed by marketing Which department handles social media among the social-media savvy organizations in India? Is there an expert in-house or is the social media function delegated to an intern as we have often read about? These questions were critical to the growth of social media marketing in India.

We found that currently among the social-media savvy organizations in India, marketing departments manage most of social media efforts. 76.7% of the social-media savvy organizations said they have their marketing department handling social media with the rest being handled by a cross functional team/across functions or by the PR/communications team.

Which department manages social media in your organisation?

MarketingPR/communicationsCustomer Care

HRSenior leadershipSales

Cross functional team Across functions but coordinated

Across functions uncoordinated

76.7%

4.7%0.0%0.0%2.3%0.0%

7.0%

7.0%2.3%

8. Department managing social media


Do you have an in-house digital expert?

70.2%

19.1%

10.6%

Yes No No, but plan to hire

Sridhar Iyer Head, Digital Banking, Citibank India

Social media is increasingly becoming a key component in the digital marketing and communication mix for Financial Services. As a channel for multidimensional and real-time communication, FS organizations will use social media to engage consumers and obtain valuable insights. However, given the transparency of social media and the sensitive nature of financial transactions, organizations must take necessary precautions while growing this medium.

If yes, what is his/her level at your organisation?

Middle management Junior executive (Executive, Associate)Senior management (VP, Director, etc.)

0.0%

78.4%

21.6%


Do you use social media for any other reason in addition to connecting to your customers?

Thought leadership CSR Internal communicationsRecruitment

26.9%

19.2%

19.2%

34.6%

Social media is being increasingly used for thought leadership and internal communications, recruitment, and CSR in addition to marketing. 34.6% of the social media-savvy organizations said they use social media for thought leadership and 26.9% said they use social media for CSR. Increasingly the HR department is leveraging social media for internal communications. Close groups on Facebook, or company-specific networking sites are gaining prominence today. Professional networking sites such as LinkedIn are increasingly being leveraged for recruitment.

Point to ponder: As social media gets more and more adopted in different departments of an organization, does it make sense for the social media expert to sit in one particular department, or should the social media expert be an independent department altogether such as the IT department, not silo but integrating social in every department?

Gautam Ghosh Social Business and HR Consultant

“While most companies are using social networks to recruit – but we’re still in the very beginnings of how this can be used by companies. Social is not just about media, it is changing the way that people connect and share together. As this dynamic changes in people’s other aspect of lives – family, politics, commerce – it will also impact their work also. The old management paradigm of command and control is an anachronism of the industrial age. Today and tomorrow’s knowledge workers want to connect with internal experts, collaborate wherever and whenever. Companies that understand these are implementing internal

social networks to facilitate such discovery. Knowledge that would have been locked up inside people’s heads are now being shared in conversations for others to read and comment also. But that’s not all. Companies are also realizing that training and empowering their employees to connect with customers socially is in their own interests. Employees are seen as credible and trusted people by customers and prospective customers. More and more companies are moving from the ‘don’t do this’ social media approach to ‘here’s how you use social media’ for their business.”


9.Agency structure

Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India use standalone digital agencies as compared to PR/ad agenciesAmong the surveyed social-media savvy organizations 73.8% have chosen standalone digital agencies as compared to PR, ad agencies, or freelancers. The reason behind this can be due to the specialized skills, development capabilities, and wide array of services under one roof that comes along with digital agencies.

That said, PR and ad agencies also handle social media initiatives of some of the big organizations in the country. Some organizations find better synergy by giving their communication mandates to one organization instead of multiple ones.

Big organizations often work with multiple agencies for their digital work depending on expertise and specialization (mobile, website, SEO, app development, social media engagement, blogger outreach, etc.) and often work with different agencies for different campaigns.

What is the type of agency you currently have?

Standalone digital agency Ad agency PR agency Recruitment

2.4%

19.0%

73.8%

4.8%

What is one thing you expect from your digital consultant that is lacking now?

• “Understanding of business and aligning social media to business.”

• “Innovation, speed, and quality”

• “Social media agencies are currently transactional in nature. They need to mature and provide advisory services specific to each sector.”

• “Thought leadership”

(Responses from survey respondents)


59.1% of the organizations surveyed also said that they are happy with their current agencies while 40.9% responded with either a “maybe” or a ”no.” Organizations expect their agencies to provide more insights, be more creative, and provide faster execution.

Are you happy with your current digital agency?

Yes No Maybe

59.1%

13.6%

27.3%


There is a lot of young and creative talent among the digital agencies environment today, who come out with impressive ideas and campaigns that we see today. Digital agencies should focus on the career growth of these young digital professionals; provide them a vision of where they can reach up to and training programs to compliment their knowledge in technical skills, soft skills, and better understanding of business and management functions. For example, a digital campaign manager might benefit from a better understanding of cyber laws, IT processes, or even design and development skills. A professional equipped with the knowledge of Customer Service and supply chain management will be better able to integrate social media elements into those functions. Secondly, digital agencies can benefit from better institutionalization of best practices and creating industry standards.

While the future looks bright in the digital marketplace and leading agencies have already started investing in thought leadership and adhere to ethical ways of leveraging social, there are others who look at digital from a “likes” or ”fans acquisition” standpoint.

There is also an eruption of digital shops across the country today, because of the demand of organizations with limited budgets that are looking out for small outfits to manage Facebook or Twitter profiles. As social savvy organizations continue to mature and invest more in quality and value, the agency environment in India will get streamlined and we can see some of the agencies closing down, mergers and acquisitions happening, and few good names to emerge finally.

There are some PR and ad agencies that have established digital practices in their organizations well and to create market thought leadership.

They have long recognized the need to integrate social media in communications programs. Smart PR and ad professionals today also do not see online fan and influencer engagement as a separate specialization but rather as part of their core work function. As more PR and ad agencies begin to integrate social components in their campaigns with delivery capability, and more global agencies establishing their offices in India introduce global social media capabilities, they are bound to give more competition to the traditional digital agencies.

Creating investments in three key areas could be key to increased client recognition of their digital strength:

1. Thought leadership: Barring a few that have established themselves well, many PR and advertising firms can invest more in thought leadership. Social media is an area where insights and innovative thinking are required not only to establish oneself in the market, but for the growth of the overall industry.

2. Resources and tools: By early 2008, key agencies had already started to hire digital experts and partnered with digital firms to start digital practices in their organizations. However, the need of the hour today is to increase in-house specialists and invest in development, design, and content capabilities.

3. Not positioning social as a complimentary service: Often PR and ad agencies look at social media as complimentary services to their traditional PR and ad campaigns. The need to look at social media holistically and engage with other business divisions has become important when organizations are looking to adopt social media across functions.


Social media-savvy organizations in India are very optimistic about the role of social media in futureSocial media-savvy organizations are very optimistic about the role of social media in their organizations. Though measurements around sales and leads are not very evident for majority of organizations today, they realize social media plays an important role in generating insights and building communities.

In future, the growth of social media within organizations will be marked by both an increase in scale and sophistication. Over the last few years, organizations have experimented with various social media activities, platforms, and tools. The knowledge gained will help bring sophistication in the engagement programs that we will see in the near future and they will have much larger scale. So currently if a Trending Topic on Twitter was the maximum bang an average program can achieve, tomorrow, it will be the talk of the town or creating a movement that organizations will seek to achieve through their social media efforts.

Increase in scale

• More functions across departments will see usage of social media. Not only customer-facing departments, but departments such as legal, R&D, and supply chain will start experimenting with social media.

• Organizations will tag along the growth of emerging platforms and try to leverage the users that these new platforms will attract.

• Budgets on social media marketing will increase as a result of increased sophistication in marketing programs and adoption in other departments.

Increase in sophistication

• As organizations target ROI from social media, they will try to seek more clarity and demand more than likes and comments. In such an environment, they will invest more in research and insights to seek more answers to be able to define measurable outcomes.

• The increasing need to deliver value and ROI will demand more insights and innovation and there will be more specializations.

• Social media initiatives will become more integrated with marketing programs, Customer Service efforts, or with internal communications programs and running social media programs in silo will be experiments of the past.

10. Future of social media in organisations


Dina Mehta Researcher, ethnographer, & social media observer

“One imminent development is the growth of the mobile internet. Particularly for purposes of communication and sociality - both needs are increasingly being met by social networks accessed on the mobile. Byte-sized pre-paid cards and connections will spur this on, and content will flow in and out. This will bring in many new users not just from large connected metro cities, but from smaller towns and rural areas too.

We are all researchers today. The tools are in our pockets. Companies will need to begin thinking of customers or TG as their researchers rather

than just being respondents or subjects, users or customers. More experienced users will look for more meaningful engagements and opportunities to co-create value with companies.

Another aspect that will drive people to adopt social media driving usage is that top-level management is finally beginning to see the business value of social media in three areas - productivity, marketing, HR. Social media skills will be a part of your resume now.”


In 2011, Ernst & Young conducted a quantitative and qualitative research on 36 UK and international flagship brands with the aim to address these questions.1 Through the research, we have identified five key characteristics of ”socially adaptable” and successful brands, which we believe all organizations can adapt and learn:• Facilitate open dialog

• Engage proactively

• Connect beyond product

• Deliver integrated experiences

• Collaborate and co-develop

Companies need to make organizational changes in order to fully embrace the ”new game” of social media. The three critical areas companies need to focus on to support a coherent and sustainable social media strategy are:• Spotting the ”golden nuggets” of data and generating value

from them coordinating social and traditional channels

• Coordinating social and traditional channels

• Empowering employees to engage with communities

Five key characteristics of ”socially adaptable” and successful brands


1. Forward this study to various people within your organization and discuss how social media is relevant to various departments within your organization and how they can effectively utilize the medium if they are not doing so already.

2. Compare your organization’s use of social media with that of social media-savvy organizations discussed in this study. Check the level of social media maturity within your organization.

3. Discuss what needs to change or worked upon within your organization — whether it is about developing a social media ROI model, creating a more robust monitoring and analytics system or a social media governance policy, familiarizing your key employees on usage of social media, or understanding your customer’s behavior more to better engage with them and deriving more benefits from your social media efforts.

How to get the best out of this study


Insights

• How do we know what we are doing is the best for our fans and customers? Are they in sync with their expectations? How do we benchmark this against competition?

• What are the best practices or global standards that we should be aware of and can learn from?

Strategy

• How do we familiarize the various departments in our organization with digital and how do we make digital relevant for them?

• We have established our social media communities and have done great campaigns for fans online. Now what is the next stage that we should take our organization to?

• We have leaped into digital, but do we have the guidelines in place for our teams and employees? How do we identify digital risks and steps to mitigate them? What is our social media governance maturity level?

• How do we identify the digital service providers and how do we bring all of them together to create a comprehensive digital strategy for us?

Analytics

• What is the state of digitization in our organization? How do we assess the digital maturity across dimensions such as customers, suppliers and partners, investors, employees and leadership?

• How do we develop a practical ROI model for our organization from our digital efforts beyond platform-specific parameters?

Ernst & Young

Services that are appropriate to your maturity and needs

Agnostic advice that is not tied to a particular outcome

Cross-functional thinking, skills and project teams

Ernst & Young works with forward thinking social media professionals and organizational leaders to answer key questions to accelerate the social transformation process within their organizations.


The power of social media

As consumers and their customers become more empowered to discuss online, if managed correctly, social media can become an essential source of strategic information for key areas such as corporate risk, regulatory compliance, HR, marketing, R&D, trade distribution and availability, crisis management and quality control.

The challenge of social media

Getting digital operations and governance right is therefore crucial. But the challenge does not end with the correct technology in place — it is about effectively using the data it gives you. Without the tools to collect it, companies are unable to use the wealth of consumer and customer insight they have at their disposal. And even if they do, they often do not have the capacity, the skills or the processes to shift through it and see what it means.

Ernst & Young social media analytics services

Social media tools

Most social media monitoring tools make the flawed assumption that users speak in perfect American English. They rely on SMM tools, translation engines, natural language processing tools and human intervention to try and cut out the ”noise.” Accuracy is notoriously low (25%–40%) and many only output positive/negative/neutral sentiment, ignoring the opinions and root causes. Users are skeptical about accuracy levels, and therefore, actionable insights become highly unlikely.

Ernst & Young social media analytics services

Ernst & Young has developed the capability to support our clients to listen, filter, and analyze’ and interpret and report social media. We have the capability to listen to any online publically available conversation in any language, across any stakeholder and any topic and generate a report in three days with 97% accuracy that can give you insights and can augment your offering or protect your business from the boardroom to in-market functions. We are able to immediately listen to more than 30 different languages through our Social Media Analytics hub based out of Zurich, Switzerland and have access to a network of 150,000 plus professionals who are able to provide local business context to the issues being explored.


Read other EY reports and papers on digital

http://bit.ly/13kxo3r

http://bit.ly/YD4GJw

http://bit.ly/YD3Ix3

http://bit.ly/WTBkHD

http://bit.ly/YI86JY

http://bit.ly/Xr0paU

http://bit.ly/VxRVRX

http://bit.ly/YogrBF

http://bit.ly/YD3Ix3

For more studies, please visit www.ey.com/GL/EN/home/library


Dinesh Mishra [email protected]

Dinesh has 17 years of experience in corporate development, product and customer strategy, operating from India, Singapore and the UK.

He has developed and designed digital strategies for clients, developed digital as a channel to market and additional revenue streams, worked on the creation of early digital market places, and designed complete customer experiences for online retailing businesses.

Dinesh leads the Customer Practice for Ernst & Young India.

Palin Ningthoujam [email protected]

Palin has been actively blogging and experimenting with online technologies since 2006. He founded the erstwhile popular blog, India PR Blog (now merged with Advocable.com), reviewed online tools for top social media blog Mashable, and contributed offbeats to blogs such as Desicritics and youth magazines.

He has led award-winning digital marketing campaigns and helped clients become top social media brands in India. He

has more than a decade of experience in corporate reputation management and digital marketing and was the prime mover in successfully setting up the digital practices in his last two organizations. He has conducted training sessions for young digital champions.

Palin leads the digital advisory stream at Ernst & Young India within the Customer Practice.

Contact us


Why social media1. “The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to

Action, Harvard Business Review analytic Services,” Harvard Business Review, 2010, http://hbr.org/hbrg-main/resources/pdfs/comm/sas/16203-hbr-sas-report-r3.pdf, accessed 28 February 2013.

2. “From social media to social CRM: What customers want,” IBM Institute for Business Value, ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03391usen/GBE03391USEN.PDF, accessed on 01 April 2013.

Which social media platform1. “India Facebook Statistics,” Social Bakers, http://www.

socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/india, accessed 1 April 2013.

2. “39 Best Indian Facebook Campaigns Of 2012,” LighthouseInsights.in, http://lighthouseinsights.in/39-best-indian-facebook-campaigns-of-2012.html, accessed 1 March 2013

3. “Gangnam Style,” Wikipedia website, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnam_Style, accessed on 28 February 2013, “Why This Kolaveri Di,” Wikipediawebsite, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_This_Kolaveri_Di, accessed on 28 February 2013

4. “How do brands gain from videos? Danielle Tiedt, CMO, YouTube gives us some answers,” The Economic Times, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-20/news/37200405_1_brands-gain-ads-psy, accessed on 28 February 2013.

5. “Surprise dance on Finnair Flight to celebrate India’s Republic Day,” Finnair YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEsnb3kUDAw

6. “Pepe Jeans India Engages on Pinterest with ‘Pin It to Win It,” Lighthouse Insights website, http://lighthouseinsights.in/pepe-jeans-india-engages-on-pinterest-with-pin-it-to-win-it.html, accessed on 28 February 2013.

7. “Is Facebook Losing Its Cool? Some Teens Think So,” Time, http://business.time.com/2013/03/08/is-facebook-losing-its-cool-some-teens-think-so/, accessed on 11 March 2013.

8. “Indian Blog Directory,” Indiblogger, http://www.indiblogger.in/directory.php, accessed on 1 March 2013.

9. “Microsoft Most Valuable Professional,” Microsoft website, http://mvp.microsoft.com, accessed on 1 March, 2013.

10. “Womma Code of Ethics,” Womma website, http://www.womma.org/ethics/womma-code-of-ethics, accessed on 1 March 2013.

Popular practices1. “On Facebook, Photos Represent 89% of Brands’

Most Engaging Posts,” Marketing Charts, http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/direct/on-facebook-photos-represent-89-of-brands-most-engaging-posts-25330, accessed 1 March, 2013”

2. “January 2013 Social Media Report: Facebook Pages in India – UPDATE,” Socialbakers website, http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/1373-january-2013-social-media-report-facebook-pages-in-india-update, accessed 1 March 2013.

3. “@Airtel_Presence Most Responsive Telecom Brand On Twitter [Report],” Lighthouse Insights, http://lighthouseinsights.in/airtel_presence-most-responsive-telecom-brand-on-twitter-report.html, accessed 1 March 2013.

4. “The 5 types of people who post on brand pages,” Ragan’s PR Daily website http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/The_5_types_of_people_who_post_on_brand_pages_10502.aspx#, accessed 28 February 2013.

5. “What India watched: 2012 YouTube rewind,” Live Mint website, http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/TqPt0GUTdJ5Mj6nbMicDdJ/What-India-watched-2012-YouTube-rewind.html, accessed 28 February 2013.

End notes


6. “Facebook Page Terms,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php, accessed 4 March, 2013. “Guidelines for Contests on Twitter,” Twitter, https://support.twitter.com/articles/68877-guidelines-for-contests-on-twitter#, accessed 4 March, 2013.

7. “Protecting and strengthening your brand,” Ernst & Young report, http://bit.ly/YI86JY

8. “How Revlon India Leveraged Social Media to Gain Insights for a Product Launch,” Lighthouse Insights, http://lighthouseinsights.in/how-revlon-india-leveraged-social-media-to-gain-insights-for-a-product-launch.html, accessed on 04 March 2013.

9. “Facebook: In India, 30 Percent of Users Are Mobile-only,” PCWorld website, http://www.pcworld.com/article/257849/facebook_in_india_30_percent_of_users_are_mobileonly.html, accessed 4 March 2013.

10. “Facebook ties up with Airtel, Reliance Communications; to offer free data access for chat users,” The Economic Times website, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/facebook-ties-up-with-airtel-reliance-communications-to-offer-free-data-access-for-chat-users/articleshow/18783523.cms, accessed 4 March 2013.

How do organizations use social media ads1. “General Motors Pulls Advertising From Facebook

[REPORT],” Mashable website, http://mashable.com/2012/05/15/general-motors-pulls-facebook-ads, accessed 4 March 2013.

2. “E-commerce fashion retailer generates 25% of revenue from Facebook,” Facebook, http://fbrep.com/collateral/Myntra_CaseStudy.pdf, accessed 4 march 2013. “Kaya Skin Clinic: Generating walk-ins through the Page,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/advertising/success-stories/kaya, accessed 4 March 2013,

3. “Yatra: Initiating and engaging in conversations with customers,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/advertising/success-stories/yatra, accessed 4 March, 2013.

Social media budget1. “Pepsi to Skip Super Bowl Ads in Favor of $20M Social

Media Campaign,” Mashable website, http://mashable.com/2009/12/23/pepsi-super-bowl, accessed 4 March 2013; John F. Dwight, “Pepsi Refresh Project,” http://www.johnfdwight.com/Pepsi-Refresh-Project, accessed 4 March 2013.

2. “India Inc sees a spurt in Oct-Dec ad spends,” The Times of India website, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/India-Inc-sees-a-spurt-in-Oct-Dec-ad-spends/articleshow/18521804.cms, accessed 4 March 2013.

3. “The state of social media spends in India,”IndiaSocial website, http://www.indiasocial.in/social-media-investments, accessed 1 April 2013.

Five key characteristics of ”socially adaptable” and successful brands1. “Social Media: New game, new rules, new winners,”

Ernst & Young, http://bit.ly/YD4GJw, accessed 28 February 2013.


Team behind the reportPalin [email protected]

Aseem [email protected]

Aditi [email protected]

Ramprasad [email protected]

Follow E&Y India @EY_India Let’s discuss this report at #EYstudy

Watch us on www.youtube.com/ErnstandYoungGlobal

You can also access this report online at www.ey.com/India/socialmedia

Ernst & Young LLPAssurance | Tax | Transactions | AdvisoryAbout Ernst & YoungErnst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. Worldwide, our 167,000 people are united by our shared values and an unwavering commitment to quality. We make a difference by helping our people, our clients and our wider communities achieve their potential.

Ernst & Young refers to the global organization of member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit www.ey.com

Ernst & Young LLP is one of the Indian client serving member firms of EYGM Limited. For more information about our organization, please visit www.ey.com/india.

Ernst & Young LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership, registered under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 in India, having its registered office at 22 Camac Street, 3rd Floor, Block C, Kolkata - 700016

© 2013 Ernst & Young LLP Published in India. All Rights Reserved.

This publication contains information in summary form and is therefore intended for general guidance only. It is not intended to be a substitute for detailed research or the exercise of professional judgment. Neither EYGM Limited nor any other member of the global Ernst & Young organization can accept any responsibility for loss occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of any material in this publication. On any specific matter, reference should be made to the appropriate advisor.

EYIN1305-035

EDNone RiS

Social Media Marketing - India Trends Study 2013

Business

Transcript of Social Media Marketing - India Trends Study 2013