Indian Social Media Landscape

I love Facebook.

There I said it. The reason I was having dilemma stating it openly was that till all this while I considered it as one more yuppie social networking site that will die a quick natural death. But I was wrong. And that only makes me happy. Having turned an entrepreneur, I have realized the kind of benefits I have reaped from its features.

So this post is to those features that each of you can use to promote your brand. Use them wisely and you will experience success whichever category your brand may be operating in. Here goes:

I am sure you must have read my first five predictions on the socio-economic changes that the world will see with use of social media. The next set of five predictions that I have written are  relevant in the realm of social media medium per se.

1. First time use of social media through Mobile:

Majority of people world over will surf the Internet and social media for the first time in their lives using mobile phones. Mobile phone penetration is increasing rapidly in most countries and along with the its value added features like streaming. In India, close to 10 million subscribers are being added every month. These small towns will skip landlines and opt for cell phones directly. These towns will take technology leap in a manner of speaking. Simultaneously, several companies are in the process of launching social networking sites for mobile. Put these two together and you could see this prediction come true.

I predict that in 2009 itself, several small towns and rural areas will experience Internet & social media for the first time through cell phones and not through computers.

Let’s play the word association game here. Tell me what comes to your mind when I say the word December. Of course, Christmas, shopping, holidays….Predictions!! Yup, predictions that’s the one this blog post will be all about. What will the year 2009 hold for us?

I have put down my 10 predictions. Five of these are on a more socio-economic level at large. Most of these changes that I am predicting will be huge leap jumps in their own way and will be possible only because of extensive use and acceptability of social media.

1. Thought Leadership as a Strategy:

These days, it is not uncommon to see people seek value out of everything. And by value, I am not restricting it to price equation alone. Value could be delivered in the form of information, education, better quality or even better service. One of the key principles of social media is to provide value to its consumer. For companies and in turn their brands to survive, they will have to provide value at all levels to their consumers. Social Media will prompt companies to adopt thought leadership as a value in their manifesto in their area of core competence.

Status updates are here for good. Love them or Hate them but if you are on social networking site, then you can’t ignore them. Status updates work by asking user the question – “what are you doing?” The user’s reply is the update that will appear in his or her profile.

There has been an ongoing debate on whether status updates should be qualified as form of micro blogging. Twitter, one the first micro blogging facility providing company, realized early on that people would want to write micro blog posts. Hence micro blogging allowed the user to answer that question in 140 characters. The appeal of status updates as important aspect of social media spread so quickly, that major social media companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google in Gtalk are offering it as a feature.  In fact Facebook even offered to buy out Twitter for that feature.

Mark Zuckerberg, opened up advertising on Facebook last year taking the approach of ‘social actions’ of its users. He explains it in his press release that “The core of every user’s experience on Facebook is their page and that’s where (all) businesses are going to start as well. Social actions are powerful because they act as trusted referrals and reinforce the fact that people influence people. Social Ads can appear either within a user’s News Feed as sponsored content or in the ad space along the left side of the site.” (Read: Are Facebook ads conversational marketing?)

If you become the ‘Fan’ of a product that has Facebook profile, then that product can insert your name and profile directly into their pitches. According to Facebook, a user has to take a “social action” in order to trigger the appearance of their name and picture in an advertisement. This is not restricted to only becoming a fan of any product. According to Facebook spokesperson Brandee Barker, that could be almost any activity that the user does on Facebook, “such as the download of an application and the acceptance of a friend request.” It could also include becoming a “fan” of a business by clicking a link on that company’s Facebook page.

Unless you have been living in the caves of Afghanistan, it is likely that you would have heard, if not become a registered member, of Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg, the 24 year old boss of Facebook opened up advertising on Facebook last year taking the approach of ‘social actions’ of its users. He explains it in his press release that “The core of every user’s experience on Facebook is their page and that’s where (all) businesses are going to start as well. Social actions are powerful because they act as trusted referrals and reinforce the fact that people influence people. It’s no longer just about messages that are broadcasted out by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends. Social Ads can appear either within a user’s News Feed as sponsored content or in the ad space along the left side of the site.”