Indian Social Media Landscape

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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

With the rise of Facebook, advertising on the platform is bound to become a major marketing tool. The sheer number of users on the site has so far made the ad model a very lucrative option for marketers. The ROIs are comparatively higher than any other advertising platform and, thus, a good bet.

Facebook Ads

Numerical Advantage

With near 600 million users to target from, Facebook provides for a very large collection of interested audience. Along with a very precise targeting tool, this interested audience could be easily and effectively engaged by a brand. All one needs to do is feed the desired set of combinations and Facebook does the rest. With past experience, it can be said that a budget as low as Rs. 20,000 can get an audience of about 3000 and total impression going as high as 60, 00,000 (In normal CPM language, it is Rs. 3.84). That is a lot of viewing for an advertisement.

Facebook Advertising Targeting

Hence, keeping in mind the benefits that can be derived from Facebook Advertising, it is very important that we are aware of what are the basic guidelines of the same. The following guidelines apply to all adverts appearing on Facebook, including adverts within canvas pages of Facebook Platform applications.

The Basic Guidelines for Facebook Advertising

Facebook reserves the right to reject or remove advertising that they deem contrary to their advertising philosophy. These guidelines are subject to change at any time and Facebook may waive any of these guidelines at its discretion.

Following these basic do’s and don’ts would help us put up better advertisements quickly and easily.

Do’s:

1. Link the Adverts that contain a URL or domain in the body to that same URL or domain.

2. Clearly represent the company, product or brand that is being advertised

3. Products or services promoted in the advert must be directly available on the landing page

4. Target adverts with adult themes, including contraception, sex education and health conditions to individuals at least 18 years old. Platform adverts should do this via demographic restrictions, not by obtaining user data.

5. All ads must comply to the legal standards of the region it has to be displayed in

6. All intellectual property right should be with the advertiser.

Don’ts:

1. Do not use multiple Facebook accounts for advertising purposes unless given permission by Facebook to do so.

2. Do not automate the creation of accounts or adverts unless given permission by Facebook to do so.

3. Do not put unsubstantiated claims, including but not limited to prices, discounts or product availability.

4. Do not insult, harass or threaten a user or put audio that plays automatically, without a user’s interaction. Any automated animation must cease after 15 seconds and must not replay.

5. Do not use "fake" close behaviour (ie. when a user clicks the ‘close’ icon on the page, the page should close down and no other behaviour should result) on the landing page

6. Do not utilize "mouse trapping" whereby the advertiser does not allow users to use their browser "back button" and traps them on their site and/or present any other unexpected behaviour (for example, navigation to another advert or page).

7. Do not ask to submit Personally Identifiable Information (such as name, date of birth, phone numbers, social security number, physical addresses or email addresses) on the landing page or in the advert, except to enable an ecommerce transaction and where the advert and landing page clearly indicate that a product is being sold.

8. Do not imply any endorsement of the product, service or advert destination by Facebook or should mention that Facebook endorses the ad or the product.

9. Adverts on controversial topics, products or prohibited content shall not be allowed

10. All targeting should be in line with the laws of the country the advert is being targeted and not violate any copyrights.

We hope these simple guidelines gives you an insight to how Facebook Advertising works and what are the promotions you can do and which one you have to avoid.

You can also read more about Facebook Advertising in one of our earlier post, Advertising Goes Social. 

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.”