Indian Social Media Landscape

It all started gaining proportion with continuous onslaught of protests against President Bush’s war with Iraq under the pretext of finding Weapons of Mass Destructions. Apart from taking to the street, several individuals got vociferous with their protests in the social media space. Twitter, blogs, networking sites all become mediums of protest. Unfortunately the republicans didn’t believe in building their presence online (which become more evident during the election campaign between Obama and Mc Cain) and hence couldn’t gauge the mood of the people which costed them the election!

Let’s take the Iran Elections. A country that doesn’t support freedom of speech and which finds it fair to order 100 lashes to anyone reporting against the ruling party. In a state like that too, Iranians openly protested about how elections were conducted in an unfair manner in various parts of their country. Iran elections was a trending topic for a very long period on Twitter. For the first time the world got an inside perspective of an election process in Iran! The tweets and messages were bold, provocative and most times anti-establishment. This was unheard off for a country like Iran. What was surprising was that People commented through their real online profiles. They didn’t mince words.

Move to closer home. The current war of words between Shiv Sena (a local party which enjoys a reputation of hooliganism most times) and various other parties of the country. Shiv Sena insisted that Mumbai belonged only to Maharashtrians (local people from the state of Maharashtra). This was countered by all stating that Mumbai belonged to all Indians and that everyone was free to stay wherever they wished. The protest was more evident on again social media. Apart from blog posts and status updates on networking sites, twitter was used extensively. Several Bollywood stars started trending their thoughts with #MyNameIsIndia saying that Mumbai belongs to all.

The hash tag was in conjunction with the forthcoming film of Shah Rukh Khan (a popular Bollywood star) that was titled My Name Is Khan. SRK and Shiv Sena too had got into a verbal dispute to the extent that Sena refused to let his film get released in Mumbai. The support for SRK grew immensely online but not on ground. The irony, however, was that none of their stars protested on other media like print or television. A leading television critic observed that several news channels contacted those bollywood stars as their panelists to talk pro SRK but they all declined. Even the press journalists haven’t been able to get direct quotes from anyone who would criticize the Sena’s veiled threat openly.

This behavior leads me to question what happens to us as individuals when we are using social media platforms to express our opinions. Why is it that, barring few exceptions, the individuals becomes politically correct when confronted on the Television show or leading Daily but fiercely inflammatory on social media platforms. Reading some of the tweets against Shiv Sena ( a party that has fierce grip over the city and its people) astonished me about this bold and gutsy attitude. The nature of tweets were earlier seen only during anti-national activity!

Anonymity? Hardly. Most individuals have an updated twitter or facebook profile clearly revealing out their identity. Most of them have pictures with their real names and even links to their blogs or websites.

Misinterpretation by mediaperson?  Not really.  Most television shows follow a debate format so there is no room for misinterpretation. The individual can express his or her point of view just as clearly as on social media.

Safety in numbers? Maybe. The individual’s tweets or updates are one more in the sea of protest so the chances of being singled out are drastically reduced. As a panelist on TV, you are isolated and conspicuous and more likely to face ire of individual or body whom you are commenting against.

Tweet not as impactful as TV Remark? Possible. A remark on TV has more visual impact or lasting impression that a series of tweets or updates! Again raising the case of being easily identified and singled out!

These are just few of the reasons that I could delve on. I am sure that there could be many more – after all the human mind plays up its own share of permutations and combinations and doesn’t always take the logical route. Whatever it is, it sure has provided an outlet to all to pour out their concerns, feelings and above all else their opinions!

This post is being re-blogged from Microreviews. The Indian Telecommunication Industry is considered one of the most competitive as well as most marketed industries in the world. Cheap rates and brilliant advertisement campaigns have become synonymous to Airtel, Vodafone and Tata Docomo. So, with all this in mind Microreviews set out to check the social media (the in thing as they say) presence of the major telecom players in India.

Microreviews starts this journey with Facebook.

• Bharti Airtel : There are apparently three or four facebook pages which Airtel has. One of these has around 10000 fans which is a big number by Indian Social Media standards. The page seems to have quite a few details of the offers coming out and stuff but doesn’t seem well maintained at all. The display image is of a person, who I really don’t know and I expected to see the Airtel Logo at the place of that pic. Going to the information section gives you a shock. It is apparently the page of Airtel Srilanka. The other pages of Airtel India also fail to impress and can be found here. Coming to facebook groups of Airtel now, they seem to be dominated by Airtel Srilanka again. The facebook group of Airtel Srilanka can be seen here and here. Both seem quite active. However, when I apparently go in for the Airtel India’s facebook group, they have got their website wrongly stated as http://www.airtel.co.in . It suddenly seems that this facebook group does not belong to Airtel at all. There are a couple of other groups, which may or may not belong to Airtel and can be seen here. I did find out a facebook game by name Airtel Special 5 and did not feel like taking it. Airtel Srilanka, overall seems to be doing better than Airtel India as far as facebook presence goes.

I love YouTube. I think it is a brilliant concept and has given an avenue for self expression like no other. A random search on YouTube will reveal videos ranging from the truly useful to the sincerely bizarre. Some of my all time fave videos on YouTube include Where is Matt, everything from Common Craft and Bridal Skincare (what can I say… I am partial!). Infact Where is Matt with hits to the tune of 20,057,638, has got so big that Visa used it for their traditional TV campaign! Three cheers to the power of online video…

In India too one can see companies making the shift, with brands like Fevicryl owning a vault of over 50 DIY videos, each serving the purpose of helping a consumer understand how to use the product.

Now that marketers are increasingly planning to invest on online videos to reach out to their consumers, they also need to understand how to get more people to watch these videos.

Windchimes blog recently earned official badge of achievement as ‘Successful and Outstanding Blogger’. Liz Strauss describes in detail the idea behind running the successful and outstanding blogger program in detail and how you can earn it too.

She states on her blog that this badge is awarded to bloggers who “take the conversations to their readers, contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger”.

Successful and Outstanding Blogger Badge

You can view the directory of all the blogs that have been awarded the badge. As Liz says, “Good Conversation shared can only improve the blogging community”. We couldn’t agree with you more Liz!!

An announcement.

Sally Hooton, editor of the DMI magazine, approached us recently to write an article on social media. It was our privilege to be associated with DMI, the world’s only global business title for direct and interactive marketers based out of United Kingdom. The article talks about social media in relevance to India in conjunction with our research on social media.

The article can be viewed in the online format on Page 36.

If you would like to download the article then do click on the Scribd Link given below.

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: