Indian Social Media Landscape

The year 2011 has borne witness too many ups and downs and dynamism in the world of Social Media. Radical changes in the interface for two of the most ubiquitously popular Social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter, Klout’s remarkable drop in the ranks, Google+ and Facebook in close encounters, viral videos being recognised as a potent medium to catch eyeballs, augmented reality entering the Social Media Space et al.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which brands could maximize user engagement in the year to come.

You would have had to be living in a different country to have missed the Kolaveri Di rage. Over the last couple of weeks, everything and anything seems to have led to this one piece of music video. From brand ads to political uproar and even a famous singer’s son making his version of the same, Kolaveri Di has had the spotlight firmly fixed on it. So what are viral videos? What purpose do they cater to? Here is an insight in to those videos that make the world catch a fever!

Click on the image to see the video

Prescription for a viral video

Viral videos are user generated content events, acts or largely ideas, made using a mobile device or any other video camera for simple consumption. The idea is to share the work on the web but the outcome is a huge buzz. This generally happens via multiple shares across various social networking platforms like the Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. thereby giving the content a cult status.

For most part, these are videos that are made without any direct intention of promotion. Many viral videos are simple homemade videos with animals, kids or even text and graphics. The insanely famous video ‘charlie bit my finger’ and the sequel, ‘charlie bit my finger – again’ that spawned off based on the popularity of the original one that was released on May 22, 2007 rose to the charts with an astonishing number of views (389 million as of November 2011) and people are still viewing that.

Click on the image to see the video

But a lot of these videos are brand backed. Although, while launching the video, the brand is generally underplayed. It is only when the buzz builds up and has caught enough eyeballs that the brands start claiming their success.

Click on the image to see the video

What’s making the temperature rise?

For any 21^st century marketer, it becomes crucial to tap onto any medium that assures the brand presence is reverberated across various target groups. An increased visibility or mind-space is the first step towards selling any product/service today. With an increasing number of people who are getting added to the digital world each passing minute, the database of prospective buyers are on a parallel rise.

Traditional mediums like TV and radio are not just making a cut primarily because a major chunk of those who used to spend time on these mediums have migrated to the virtual world. The average time an urban dweller (not only restricted to metros) spends on internet today is much higher than what he spends in front of a TV or while listening to the radio. Also the cost of making such videos would be a fraction of what an ATL campaign would cost.

An incredibly successful viral video campaign is that of ‘The old spice man (Perez Hilton)’. The video has the main character talking to women about, ‘the man their man could smell like’. Within no time it started going viral and it reached to such heights that the same concept was carried forward as commercials.

Click on the image to see the video

Season for viral

In most cases there is no definite time when a video should be uploaded. The thing about a video going viral is that if it’s properly edited with enough good content to keep eyes glued to it, chances are that it will in due course gather decent views. Of course there are few videos which are event and time specific that are released to maximize the benefit of prevailing crowd sentiment.

A clear example of the same was the video leaks of the chammak challo song from the film RA.One. People were already waiting to see how international superstar Akon would sound singing a Bollywood song when the video hit the social media platforms. And within hours, the video had garnered thousands of views. The fact of the matter is that although there is no foolproof time that can assure a video going viral, carefully releasing one in tandem with a stirring event can spell wonder for brands.

Click on the image to see the video

It’s getting hotter

Although there is no hard and fast way to determine what will become viral, a simple idea that lets the viewer have an insight to some really interesting, entertaining or unseen footage will make the cut. There is no upper limit to the viewership that a viral video can achieve as compared to the ad spends that a brand is restricted to.

Combine this with the number of people who are getting on to these platforms and the further rise in users through mobile phones presents an incredible scope for brands to invest in viral videos. They not only come across as spontaneous but also are far more entertaining than a typical tvc.

While the fact remains that not everyone who uses internet would have plausibly view it, chances are that they would’ve heard a mention or two. That’s what internet does right? Spreads information like a wildfire.

After much anticipation, Google finally allowed brands to create their pages on Google+ social network earlier this month. With lots of pre-launch speculation as to features, functionality and the impact Google+ Pages for brands could have on search and on Facebook pages, many brands will surely be very very excited to make their presence felt on the latest social media platform. An early adoption may boost the brand numbers in short run but a close look is a must before diving in.

While it will be essential that brands make the most of the functionalities and features available to add something new and fresh to their social media user experience, emphasis will also be on the way they integrate their approach to social media and SEO which would be a very important element of Google+ pages.

Impact on brand search

Knowing Google, it would have been hard to believe that they would not have used their core product to jump start the Google+ page promotion. Google search is the single largest provider of information on the net today and not using it to its benefit would simply not make sense. Thus, the new Direct Connect feature – a feature that will enable users to search for brand pages within the Google search page by simply adding ‘+’ before their search has been established. This not only gives a great boost to the brand page but also thumps Facebook page search abilities which are far more complex.

Google Search for a Google+ page of Pepsi

Also, the tie-in between +1′s and brand page content will be a very important search engine optimization tool now. It is widely thought that content receiving +1′s, whether this is inside the Google+ platform or indeed on a brand’s own website, will appear considerably higher in organic searches. Additionally, when a user is logged-in to their Google+ account, Google also takes the +1′s of both the user and their connections/circles into account when delivering the search results it serves to users. Essentially, Google is assigning weight to social recommendations through Google+ as a metric of content quality and relevance to the user, making search results more personalized in a way we have not seen before.

The clean and clear advantage

The Google+ page retains a very bright, big colorful layout. It feels less “narrow” than Facebook, and one does not have to scroll down so much to see previous conversations. This makes photos a lot easier to view, also, with an easy-to-spot conversation bubble to notify which photos had comments attached to them. There’s just something about that clean design that is a breath of fresh air from the ad-and-content-cluttered Twitter and Facebook.

A clean and crisp page layout

On first look, Google+ brand pages may look remarkably similar to the layout we have come to know and love on Facebook. However, it is in the additional visual features available beneath the surface where things start to come to life on Google+. Like the dynamic profile pic option that changes every time you click on it or the animated header profile picture gallery, Google has added stuff that are nice and pleasant on the eye.

Another Wave

Google wave may have died but Google has introduced Ripples! It shows, in a web diagram, how a content piece has been shared, who are the main influencers on the page, and other fascinating statistics that one can’t find anywhere else.

Google Ripple

This helps in making the page a lot more convenient and easier to interpret. Add to this, the Hangout feature will surely help bring down the gap between the brand and the people who follow it. A direct interaction with those who run the brand will only serve to establish a better relationship.

Not yet there

While a direct connect and a straight link to YouTube will add to Google+ pages advantages, the lack of APIs will hurt as much. Facebook was not just a standalone platform. It was a ground to work on. It has helped make industries out of game makers and application developers. How Google+ pages counter that is yet to be seen.

Also, the strict policy of not allowing and contest or promotion on the page is a hurdle. One cannot ignore the fact that promotions and offer are key to social media marketing in our region. Thus, while it makes sense to give Google+ a thought, a wait and watch approach may give a clearer picture to the brand managers.

Click here to read more about Google +

If you have seen the film, The Social Network, you would know that Facebook was not looking at putting any advertising on its clean image. Unfortunately, with time and growth, advertisements have crept into the website.

However, Facebook is now making the ads part of the page. Early this year, they launched a new advertising mechanism that promises to make ad units more social and in fact become a true word of mouth promotion rather than pure advertising.

A story to tell

Sponsored Stories, a new advertising technique launched by Facebook, takes news feeds and converts it in to a display unit. This display unit pops up on the right side of your page as you navigate through Facebook. Interestingly, Facebook has placed these stories above ad units. Just goes to show what Facebook hopes to do in the future.

Sponsored Story Placement

What Facebook Sponsored Stories does is that it highlights the activity of a user’s friends who have interacted with a given brand on the site. For example, if your friend checked into an ITC Hotel’s on Facebook, the hotel could buy an ad that highlights that fact on the right hand side of your page layout.

Feed the need

People are naturally interested in things their friends care about. That’s why the News Feed is such a central part of Facebook. News Feed stories give friends an easy way to show each other what they like. Now with Sponsored Stories, you can increase the visibility of these powerful News Feed stories when they relate to your organization or business.

The dynamic nature and unique algorithm behind each person’s News Feed means that each person’s experience is different on Facebook. For Page owners, this means that some of your fans do not see your valuable Page posts (status updates, videos, photos) in their News Feed. Sponsored Stories for Page Posts allows Page owners to ensure your fans see the content that your Page publishes.

If an individual has liked or interacted with Yardley of London, it may carry more clout [among his friends] than if they see an ad that simply says Yardley of London is releasing new fragrance. Sponsored Stories seem to be driving the most engagement for verticals where word of mouth works the strongest in the real world, like sports, entertainment, and music. (Engagement is defined as a user taking some action on the ad: clicking on it, Liking it, entering a comment when a comment field is available.)

Typical Sponsored Story Layout

And in real sense, this is true word of mouth promotion. Sponsored Stories promote the organic interactions between people and your business. This new ad format takes social content and turns it into a marketing message, blurring the lines between content and advertising, but doing so in a way that’s still transparent to users.

A different story

While setting up a sponsored story and the bidding process is similar to Facebook ads, there is a remarkable difference between the two. While advertisement is targeted to an unknown audience whose numbers can only be approximated, sponsored stories goes to every page member and their friends. It is more direct and more personal. And it has a definite number gauging mechanism associated.

While this may be the critical differentiator, it also makes the Sponsored Stories a more effective and true representation of word of mouth promotion through paid mechanism. With seven different types of stories to choose from, brands and page owners can now look for organic growth via a paid model.

Types of Sponsored Story Feeds

Effective Story Telling

One Facebook advertising platform provider has found that Sponsored Story ad units have click-through rate that’s 46% higher than standard Facebook ads, according to a post on Inside Facebook. TBG Digital conducted a test over the course of ten days and 2 billion ad impressions, which showed that the Sponsored Story ads performed better in terms of click-through rate and cost per click.

These results aren’t all together shocking. Since people tend to trust their friends more than they do marketers, it’s no surprise that tying the two together would be more effective than other forms of advertising. Granted, this is only one study and with three advertisers participating, it wasn’t a huge sample but these early data suggest that there may be a future for the Sponsored Stories ads.

According to Vice President of Advertising and Global Operations David Fischer, the units, which cost the same as standard Facebook ads, are performing, on average, twice as well. "The key reasons it works is that it is engaging, it is social, and it is reflective of what brings people to Facebook overall, which is to share and connect," Fischer said.

Sponsored stories are allowing us all to become marketers by default of our Facebook actions. It’s influential and a natural referral based type of advertising as well. It will be interesting to see what new forms of social influence type marketing Facebook comes out with in the future.

In last one month, there has been a major development on Facebook. Brand pages in India have found their page disappear without any notice. Brands like Pizza Hut India, FCUK India, Cadbury Bournvillie and few others went missing for quite some time from Facebook. Apparently, the pages were not confirming to the promotion guidelines as stated by Facebook.

Not only has this made everyone sit up and go over their own pages, it has also highlighted the need to have the right people handling the brand pages. This incident is another instance which will necessitate companies to engage with established social media partners to manage their brands. As a continuous process of educating right social media, we bring to you the Facebook guidelines that the brands have to follow from here on, at least for now.

Simply Put

In its current format, the Facebook promotion guidelines simply bar any page to run a promotion campaign where you wish to select a winner via its page or the wall. This means brands are not allowed to collect entries in form of picture, videos or comments, conduct a draw, judge entries or notify winners through its mechanisms.

Avoid

In order to administer any kind of contest, you have to use an application or risk having Facebook come down on you. While liking the page and restricting the contest to the fans of the page is allowed, liking the contest entry or making it the only criteria to select a winner is not.

Ginger Hotel Contest Application

Nor can a winner be selected randomly to be given a prize, without any show of talent or ability. That would imply administrating a sweepstake, which is not allowed by Facebook. You cannot have a contest running which would make a purchase of a product a necessity to participate in a contest either.

A Sweepstake is not allowed

Also, you cannot contact winners inside Facebook at all—via email, chat or posting on their wall—nor can you post winners on your page wall. What you can do though is, select a fan at random and feature him or her in your page photo. Or possibly feature chosen fan(s) on a custom tab (link). As long as you don’t have other fans vote or submit nominations, etc. A good example of this is the current Toys R Us tab.

Featured Fan Profile Picture and Tab

Any predefined application of Facebook can also not be used for administrating any contest. This would mean, you cannot ask people to upload photos to a page album. You can have a photo gallery contest administered via a third party application.

Utilize

You CAN, although, provide a giveaway and even collect names and emails from fans and visitors to your page via a third party application and can be used develop an email management system. You can also use a piece of “fan only” reveal code to give away a coupon code or special gift to everyone who likes your page.

While it may seem that Facebook cannot possibly check each and every page to see if they adhere to promotion guidelines, it is not a risk worth taking. If the page does get pulled down, the PR disaster it will create is way greater than anything a brand would gain by flouting these guidelines.

Focus

Also, as much as people would like to believe that Facebook is trying to bully brands or promote application developers, this whole episode should only be seen as a reminder that promotions on Facebook is not about gaining numbers but building relationships via engagement, just like Facebook would want us to believe.

It also points to a more serious question of who should be allowed to handle the image of a brand like FCUK and other brands that suffered. People who are not aware of promotion guidelines, rules and regulations, agencies that pop up like wild mushrooms would only cause more grief.

A proper structure utilization and knowledge of the platform is a must for anyone handling the page. This is the time that the so called experts of social media will be separated from those who truly are evolving along with Facebook.