Social Media Marketing | Indian Social Media Landscape - Part 8 Indian Social Media Landscape

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The Rise of the New Social Government

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

Social Media is pervasive of all industries and sectors in today’s information age. It is only imperative that the government and its agencies too, must make use of this medium to disseminate information and build a positive image about itself. In fact a lot of them on an international and domestic scale have already created a presence on the social platforms and beginning to get it right.

This article aims at looking at how various governments and agencies are setting the pace for others to follow in the new world. While some of them are already at it at various stages of governance, we reckon there’s a lot more to be done. Let’s take a look how:

Government (Political Parties) pre and post election:

The use of Social Media during the election stage has exploded since the early adapters started using the medium to connect with the larger audience and in the process attempt to convert them into voters. Politicians across the world have been running their electoral campaigns, fundraising programs, disseminating information about party ideologies etc. on social media with hopes of striking gold.

The presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter primarily along with a shot in the arm, YouTube, is often used to predict the outcome of the election. More often than not, they turn out to be true. Even though fans do not engage all the time, timely doling out of information on the page helps cement an individual/party’s commitment towards serving their goals.

While Facebook is being used to share information, engage prospective voters and voice concerns and opinions, Twitter is mostly used as a real-time progress report that lets followers know about the individual’s agenda through the process.

The US and the UK are at the forefront of using Social Media extensively for their run-up to elections and showcasing campaign objectives. A recent example closer home is that of the recent elections held for the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Akhilesh Yadav, the candidate for Samajwadi party was heavily promoted through the party’s Facebook page and a number of blog posts were made to highlight Akhilesh’s 800 odd rallies and his efforts to reach out to the people of the state. Sure enough, it generated a humongous buzz and Samajwasi Party won the election leaving the opposition to bite the dust.

Akhilesh Yadav’s victory in election is celebrated with a cover photo on SP’s page

Government Agencies going social to alter public perceptions:

The immediacy of the response is one of the biggest tools to measure public awareness and investigate matters important to public eye. Social Media has particularly been a boon to various government agencies such as law enforcement, disaster management, weather et al to take a preventive measure against any mishap and in case of an untoward incident, provide justice, comfort and instill hope to the public.

In 2009, during the PRIDE parade in Toronto, the Toronto Police encouraged the use of #PrideTO hastag on twitter to keep tabs on crime control during the LGBT event. This also spawned a dedicated page for PRIDE Toronto to communicate various event related news and info that the Police can keep tabs on.

PrideTo’s official page on Twitter

In 2010, the chief detective of the West Midlands Police in the UK used TweetDeck to keep an eye on the demonstrations involving two controversial and politically opposed groups. He also checked out Facebook rumours of stabbings and vandalism and posted on Twitter when the information was found out to be false. A real groundbreaking policing that most would agree with.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) along with a group of researchers from the City University London and Britain’s National Health Service are gearing up ahead of the 2012 London Olympics to develop strategy to tackle epidemics via Twitter.

On the home ground, Ministry of External Affairs, India, has an official presence of Facebook which has its fair share of gradually increasing fan base. Although less on interaction and exploiting the timeline feature, the page documents various happenings through the years in form of pictures, videos and links. It also provides timely information on developments from the inside. With a little deeper focus and interaction the page can really go places.

Ministry of External Affairs, India’s Facebook Page

In the recent past, the Prime Minister’s Office, India had also launched the official twitter handle. With close to 95,000 followers, this is a prime information decimation point for the Government of India. It is now also a tool for PMO to directly engage with the public, a task which was till now not so easy to do.

Prime Minister’s Office, India’s official Twitter page

Indian Air force is the air arm of the Indian armed forces under the government of India. Its Facebook page has a current fan base of a staggering 313k. The page is exemplary in engaging the audience and keeping them looking for more. The IAF page on Facebook gives out news regarding developments in the defense sector and provides photos and videos of fleet acquired along with various feathers in its cap that inspire bravery in a way one would expect from a defense organization.

At a much local level, the Mumbai traffic Police has about close to 12,000 odd fans on their Facebook page which is fairly simple in its core approach. The page gives out traffic updates from time to time and those following them appreciate that gesture. Also, the updates that go into that page talk about various sightings of rule violation on the streets that call for much engagement with city dwellers. Way to go Mumbai Traffic Police.

The Heritage foundation, a Washington D.C. based American think tank inspiring leadership with an already overwhelming Facebook presence of over 421k fans and over coupled with over 8000 subscriptions for its YouTube channel has an enviable audience engagement. The heritage foundation has now taken to Pinterest, the newest social media platform to furthermore extend its virtual footprint and get people to check out their boards and pins on various policies pertaining to education, family, healthcare etc. To reinforce credibility, there are boards that showcase charts and graphs. A move par excellence.

The YouTube Channel of The Heritage Foundation

The scope to expand and engage on Social Media:

It is evident from various international, predominantly, and domestic organizations that Social Media offers a much larger benefit in establishing trust and reinforcing core values of government that often has a shady and dodgy public perception. A strong presence on social platforms helps to shape up perceptions and bust myth while establishing a strong emotional and rational bonding with the people.

In India, as far as government agencies’ optimum use of Social Media is concerned, it is still latent. While a few of them have already created pages and handles, there is barely any interaction or measures taken to engage people positively. In this context, Indian Air force is something one could draw an inspiration from.

Tags:Election, Government, Government Agencies, Organisations, Politics, Reforms, Social Media
Posted in Brand Promotion, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »

Sporty and the Social

Monday, April 9th, 2012

Sports and sporting events have always been at the nerve centre of media attention. In current times we have seen the gradual transition of the media providing spotlight to various sports for mass entertainment to a whole gamut of revenue generating sports franchises cropping up that have relied on social media to reach out to their fan base. We will be taking a closer look at how the various league franchises are placed in the Social Media. Be it the English Premier League (EPL), National Basketball Association (NBA) or the one closer home, Indian Premier League (IPL), they have all been heavily present on various social networking platforms and engaging with their fans and prospects.

It is not only the immense reach and personalized communication that lures various teams and franchises to jump onto the Social Media bandwagon but also how it enables them to give back to their passionate and often rabid fans, for their unwavering support and contribution, what they deserve. From dissemination of information regarding athletes, game dates, merchandise sale and other salient bits of information to fan generated comments and content, Social Media provides it all. In fact it is an inherent nature of Social Media to influence behavior and decisions of users subjected to time and condition. Having said all this, when it comes to sports, a game is all it takes eventually that wins a franchise its coveted patronage.

Here’s a glimpse at how some of the top sports franchises around the world are scoring on Social Media:

International Franchises

Manchester United:

Manchester United Football Club – Logo

Considered to be the world’s largest franchise with over 23 million red devils (a MUFC aficionado) on Facebook and way over 200,000 twitter followers, MU football club has one of the most dominating presences on the social media. In November 2011, the club made a startling announcement of launching its very own social networking platform acknowledging its fan base of over 500 million globally. As of now, the Facebook and twitter pages are pretty much feeding the fodder for the red devils with contests, game schedules, exclusive photos and videos etc.

Highlight:

Sign for United – Facebook Tab

The club has created a unique ‘Sign for United’ app for its Facebook page where fans can sign in receive player’s bonus and an exclusive message from the coach, Sir Alex Ferguson.

Football Club Barcelona:

FC Barcelona – Logo

One of the most popular and revered franchises across the globe, Football Club Barcelona has a fan base that is enviable within most sporting communities. With a fan count of over 29 million on Facebook and about 4.3 million plus twitter fan following, FCB is arguably the heaviest player present on the Social Media. FCB has a strong connect with its fans and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they have a dedicated tab showcasing pictures of their fans on Facebook. Besides this, there are regular polls, contests, photo and video grabs and timely alerts so that one doesn’t miss out on a game that matters.

Highlight:

YouTube Channel of Football Club Barcelona

Football Club Barcelona’s YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/fcbarcelona has the most number of channel views till date with a surplus of 85 million views. The viewership alone stands to testify how FCB is placed on the Social media.

LA Lakers:

LA Lakers – Logo

The distinctive purple and gold team has a healthy count of over 12.7 million unique fans on its Facebook page while the twitter page has about 2.4 million followers. The Facebook timeline documents the illustrious history of the franchise right from their foundation with pictures, videos of the erstwhile players, coaches and achievements that connect with their fans who swear by them. At times it’s the simplest of things that holds the key to attraction and when it comes to Lakers’ fans, their twitter page does it like none other. Featuring Andrew Bynum’s 30 rebounds on their cover photo lets fans know how Lakers reward achievements.

Lakers Twitter Page – Cover Section

Highlight:

Lakers Memorabilia Collection – Online

Lakers currently hold the distinction of presenting world’s biggest memorabilia collection online at http://www.lakers.fanatics.com/

Indian Franchises

Mumbai Indians:

Mumbai Indians – Logo

Closer home, in India, Mumbai Indians lead the pack with a whooping fan count of over 2.5 million on Facebook and a steadily climbing twitter fan following of about 38,000. Mumbai Indians is one of the heavyweights the Indian Social Media space, when it comes to sports franchises and the lengths to which they go to engage their fans is pretty impressive. While their twitter page engages fans with real time game updates, discussions and information, their Facebook page has dedicated application tabs like the graffiti that is a collection of doodles made by fans and showcased on the page. This and all exclusive associated events and bite on their favourite players along with photos, videos and game highlights is what makes this franchise a top grosser.

Kingfisher East Bengal Football Club:

Kingfisher East Bengal Football Club

The Kingfisher East Bengal FC is a franchise under the wing of I-League. East Bengal FC has the most prominent presence amongst the 14 other franchises of the recently resurrected I-league on the Social Media front. It has a Facebook page fan following of about 330, 000 and a twitter follower base of about a little over 1000.

Highlight:

Kingfisher East Bengal Football Club – Facebook Page

It is the only club to have a noteworthy presence on Social Media and one of the pioneers from the Indian football arena.

The Road ahead:

Social Media has definitely played a pivotal role in launching franchises into stellar heights. So far it is not only Facebook and twitter that have essentially been targeted by major franchises. In fact, Pinterest, the latest platform that has been hogging a major chunk of limelight is also gradually becoming a subject of fancy for quite a few franchises. One such franchise is the NBA’s (National Basketball League), Boston Celtics.

There is no dispute to the fact that Social Media enables sports franchises around the world to gain and maintain a steady climb in terms of fan count and in turn push their top line. What appears is, although there are a lot many franchises that have got the mix of Social Media right and are delving more into it, there are still many others who need to recognise this exploding platform. In India, IPL franchises have already started cashing in on this goldmine of an opportunity. The advantage of having a highly engaged fan base is that the franchises can get more willing sponsors and in turn shoot up their business prospects. It’s just a matter of time that other burgeoning sports like football, hockey etc. would start exploring and engaging their prospective fans and further their chances of glory.

Tags:Basketball, Cricket, EPL, fan page, Football, I-League, IPL, NBA, Sports, Sports franchises
Posted in Brand Promotion, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | 1 Comment »

In the pink of health on social media

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

While medical marketing is something which needs to follow a lot of guidelines and regulations, health awareness and patient engagement are possible areas where social media can be employed. With exploding usage of social media, a time where your doctor’s twitter handle is part of your emergency kit is not far away.

A real case in point being that of a simple tweet from a user suffering a heart attack that led to hundreds of tweeter responding to it and guiding him on how to stabilize himself before paramedics could reach him. With unlimited resource available on the internet, help can be only a tweet away.

While internationally lot of pharmaceutical companies along with prominent hospital chains have taken to social media, in India the scene is little different. Not many pharmaceutical companies have really taken the plunge. Although it must be said that the legal aspect of pharmaceutical marketing could be a barrier yet there is still a lot of scope for them to explore social media like their multinational counterparts.

On the other hand, for super specialty hospital chains armed with a marketing plan like any other FMCG company coming up in India, the scope of using social media platform is good. In fact, Apollo Hospitals already has a Facebook page with more than 58000 people while Max Healthcare Hospitals group has some 57000 people on its page.

The areas where social media can be majorly playing a part are:

Awareness
Fund raising
Helpline and assistance

Building Awareness

With more and more people logging on to the internet in search of authentic information, social networking platforms are fast becoming the research center for any subject. Keeping this in mind, hospitals across the world have realized the need of educating people about primary healthcare methods hoping that this would build a loyalty towards the institution if and when the need arises.

An example of this can be seen on Max Healthcare fan page that utilizes videos to provide information about healthcare to be taken during pregnancy during late 30s. Such critical information might not be available directly, hence, the it becomes critical for an authentic source like Max Healthcare to provide it.

Max Healthcare Video Series

Internationally Johnson & Johnson has a YouTube network channel JNJHealth with a video library of over 500 videos and over 6 million views. The channel is sub categorized in to various aspects that dwell on better understanding of health issues. With user based stories forming a major part of the library, the emotional connect that the channel brings in is incredible.

Johnson and Johnson Healthcare YouTube network

Another route explored internationally for building awareness is the live tweeting of surgeries from prominent hospitals. While this may sound very frivolous to general audience, it is amazingly high value information sharing that the medical students can look towards in order to understand complex procedures.

TwitPic shared during an open hearth surgery at Houston Hospital

Organizing Fund Raisers

Medical fund raisers are always an issue. While many would spend thousands on a trip, few would come out to provide to the local hospitals. This is a problem not just in our country, but across the globe. UCSF Benioff children’s hospital in San Francisco came up with an innovative plan to get the community support in fund raising.

In association with University of California, it ran an eight week fund raising campaign in association with www.causes.com and Facebook. Several Silicon Valley stalwarts along with celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and MC Hammer, who used their twitter network to spread the word, lent their support.

Teams were made of followers and supporters, put together by selected leaders who formed the groups through their personal networks and then competed against each other for the grand prize of getting to name a prominent section of the hospital.

The UCSF Benioff Children’s hospital had already amassed $375 million towards the estimated $600 million when last reported. It not only shows that people are willing to help when approached in correct manner but also that find raising need not always be a pleading process. All one needs is a creative plan that is well executed through proper channels.

UCSF Facebook driving the fund raiser

Helping Handle

Like any other brand that has used twitter, hospitals and medical service providers are looking at using Twitter as a real time helpline that can address the patients’ emergency call. The idea can be extended in case of accidents where reaching doctors or hospitals would be difficult. In such case tweeting out for help and having a hospital respond to your call would act as a major assistance.

Although such a major helpline has yet not been setup, a rough estimate shows that already about 500 hospitals are on Twitter in United States of America alone. In India, major hospitals have setup their twitter accounts. With a little more planning and careful monitoring, a helpline setup can be easily put in place.

Getting healthy, socially

While another aspect that can be touched upon is the creation of online communities where people can come and share their experience, this is one area that many practitioners are not very keen on. The simple reason being that, while sharing your experience can give a lot of courage to someone going through the same illness, the conditions may be very different and hence the treatment plan. If not supervised properly this could well cause a complication. Although, if a monitoring and supervision module is put in place, this alone is one field that medical fraternity can look towards in order to raise awareness.

Social media is a way of life for most people in today’s date. It is not something that will fade away. If only, it will get more integrated in our lives and thus, leading to more and closer association to our everyday living. Thus, hospitals and medical institution should look at integrating this channel in their overall 360 degree marketing campaigns.

Tags:Awareness, Doctor, Fund Raising, Healthcare, Helpline, Hospitals, Social Media
Posted in Social Media, Social Media Marketing | 1 Comment »

Time to get in the line

Friday, March 9th, 2012

So the timeline for brands is finally here. After months of speculation about what all will it bring with it, we now know that the platform is all set to undergo another major shift in communication pattern. Emphasis will now be on visual creative and storytelling. We analyze the changes that the platform will see in this article.

Getting Covered

The most noticeable change that anyone would see is the huge space that is going to be available right on top of the page to put up a cover photo. The size of the cover photo is 810×350 pixels. In a way, this is the largest available space that Facebook has ever given a brand to reach out to their audience.

Cover Photo (click on the image to enlarge it)

While this is a big real estate for advertising, Facebook has not allowed brands to have any calls to action in your cover photo. You can’t tell people to like or share your page or have any contact information at all, including your web address, phone number or mailing address.

The highlight of the change

The timeline has also brought about a major alteration in content distribution. The content is now spread in to two columns rather than one single stack up. This means a side by side post will let you prolong your post life a little bit longer than before. Also, all post by people on the page gets segregated into one block which comes on the top most part of the right column.

Highlighted Post (click on the image to enlarge it)

Not only that, like with cover photos, Facebook has now given you the ability to emphasize your story telling with bigger picture. So now, if you want a particular post to garner more views and appear more striking on the page, simply highlight it and the image and the post will spread across the two columns of the page, giving you one big eye catching post.

On pins and needles without landing tab

Yes. You read that right. The landing tab has been eliminated from the new design. The face of the campaign pages, the launch page for competitions and application does not get a look in the new design. What you do get instead is a pinned post.

Pinned post is nothing but a normal post, ideally with a campaign launch creative, which can be pinned to the top of the page. Through this option, this creative will get the top post slot for a period of seven days. The idea is that while you may not be able to get people to land on a particular tab, you can make them notice the main campaign first up. The pinned post comes with a small orange tag on the right top corner.

Pinned Post

This could have been put up on the cover page but then with cover page restriction of no call to action and no communication, that idea gets tossed out. Thus, this makes the pinned post the only alternative for a landing tab.

Every milestone counts

Facebook has always wanted people to document their life by sharing posts, videos and photos. Even relationships and friendships are highlighted in the personal profile. That is what Facebook has brought to the brand timeline.

Documenting the progress of the brand through milestones. The day the brand came in to existence, that new office, the 100^th employee or the letter of appreciation from a famous customer. Facebook wants the brands to narrate those things to its audience. Make it more human than ever before. Audience of the page can directly navigate to a particular year via the timeline.

This is quite literally, Facebook’s way of telling the brand managers to stop worrying about the numbers on the page but building a strong brand. Bring out the history and the emotions associated with the brand before you go looking for the ROI.

Tab dancing

With the new two column layout, the new tab has lost out majorly. The list of tabs and application that was there below the profile picture now gets lost. And almost become invisible. Though they have been moved right under the cover photo, there is a restriction of only 4 tabs to be visible while the rest get demoted into a drop down.

Tabs

Amongst those 4 visible ones, the first one is always going to be that for photos. That leaves only 3 visible tabs for your competitions, applications, likes, notes and all that you want to do. So what will be needed is a more planned approach to launch of applications and campaigns. Making sure that there is no overlap so that each campaign can get a proper display in the tabs.

New Tab Size (click on the image to enlarge it)

Once on the tab, the creative space that the tab gets is now 810 pixels as compare to 510 before. This means there is a lot more space for you to put images and copy. A good brand would use this intelligently.

The Backend

Another change with the Timeline is the location of the Insights. You can now access them by clicking on the Admin Panel in the upper right corner. The Admin Panel has much different navigation than before, but everything appears to be there. From the Admin Page, you can also invite your email contacts, invite friends, share your page and create an ad from the Build Audience drop-down menu.

Insight (click on the image to enlarge it)

One of the capabilities will be to easily request a name change for your page. This name change is the title of your page, not the custom URL you may have set for your page. Great news for people who have changed their company branding, have had a misspelling in the name or have other tweaks they have wanted to make.

Messages

Pages will also have the ability to receive messages from fans. The Message feature can be turned on or off from the Manage Permissions area of the Admin Dashboard. Messages can only be initiated by a fan—they cannot be initiated by the page to a fan. The page can reply to the message sent.

Reaching Out

The ads have got a makeover. They will be larger and come in form of Reach Generator and Premium on Facebook. The Reach Generator is designed to reach more of your existing fans than you currently are reaching through the news feed. Premium on Facebook is designed to distribute your stories to new connections and will be shown on the right side of the home page, in the news feed, in mobile streams and when someone logs out of Facebook. Beta testing has shown that the reach for these products through in line feed push can go up to as high as 80 to 90% of total estimated reach.

With Reach generator, the posts on the wall will be used to reach the audience. That means a higher engagement can be expected through this paid mechanism. This makes the job of page admin that much more important as s/he would need to decide which post should be best used for such a campaign.

In the pipeline

While these are the major changes that have happened as of now, few more features would surely be added in the new system soon. This includes Facebook offers. Facebook Offers are like Facebook Deals on steroids. The post is sent through the news feeds of your fans, which is much more visible. There are easy ways to share the Offer, both through the post itself and then when the Offer is claimed. Fans get the Offer by clicking the Get Offer link

Fan Gating, another standard feature in pre timeline era used to get people to like the page, is currently missing. This is something most experts believe will soon be brought back since it forms a part of loyalty program.

Changes to Facebook have always made brands nervous along with their agencies. But this time around, the nervousness is more about the things that have been dropped out rather than the ones that have been added. But it is clear from all these changes that Facebook wants the brands to build brands on its real estate rather than sell.

Tags:Cover Photo, Facebook, Social Media, Timeline
Posted in Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | 1 Comment »

Sky is the limit with Social Media

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Aviation industry has always looked at doing things in their marketing plan that can match the service quality that they offer in their flights. With increasing cost of advertising and marketing, innovating in these areas would only add to the ever increasing cost of the industry. Social Media, hence, has emerged as a very feasible platform for the industry.

Getting your routes right

Social Media engagement has allowed airlines to create awareness about their flight route. Effective planning has not only made the brand come out with better recall but also enabled an increased awareness of its network.

Cathay Pacific used Facebook to build awareness about its network with an interesting yet simple ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ contest. Participants were invited to create their flight pattern across the world in 80 days using the airlines network and one lucky winner was rewarded with their plan. The contest not only generated a lot of buzz about the airlines but also helped in increasing the airlines recall value in previously unknown sectors.

Cathay Pacific ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ Contest

Friendly Flier

The idea of getting onto social media is to reach out to as many probable customers as possible and what better way to do that by crowd sourcing your customers. Cebu Pacific invited people on its page to fill an entire aircraft with friends and the ones who filled the aircraft in the shortest possible time were given a free flight to a chosen destination.

The campaign saw an exponential increase in the number of participants. And a sharp hike in the brand likeability quotient. What it also did in the process was give the airlines a lot of probable customers which was at the core of any campaign.

Cebu Pacific ‘Fly One, Fly All, Fly Free’ Campaign

Lift off before take off

KLM airlines realized that a flight experience starts way before the passenger boards the aircraft. The journey begins the moment the flier reaches the airport. The Dutch airline’s ‘Surprise campaign’ aimed at delighting passengers in a most unconventional way. Customers checking into the airport through either Foursquare or twitter were handed over surprise gifts ranging from champagne, city guides, travel related gifts etc. The ‘happiness album’ was later uploaded on Facebook for their friends to see.

KLM ‘Surprise’ Campaign

The result of this camapign was phenominal. ‎By reaching out to just 28 passengers in 3 weeks, over a million social media impressions were generated! The campaign was rated amongst one of the best social media campaigns of the year. It also propelled the image of airlines sky high.

In flight entertainment

While a lot of airlines decide to go the extra mile with their in-flight entertainment, few would have thought of the route taken by Finnair. On board their flight from Helsinki to New Delhi on 26^th January 2012, the flight attendants broke into an impromptu dance on a hindi song, dressed in indian costume and matching every step from a bollywood movie. A video was shot soon after take off was duly uploaded in no time on various social media platforms.

Celebrating Indian Republic Day on board Finnair

The result was an astonishing 4.4 million hits in less than a month. Now, that’s some mileage the airlines attained with the least possible investment. It also endeared the brands to many Indians traveling to Europe.

Ground Control

Lots of airports have also jumped onto the social media bandwagon. They realize the opportunity to interact with the fliers and getting crowd sourced information about the maintenance of the terminal was never so easy.

Delhi Airport Facebook Update

It also gave the terminals an opportunity to become a friendlier place than the earlier notion of a cold garish cube structure where people only came in to go out as quickly as possible. With the terminals changing in the way they operate, the platform provides these establishments a way to inform the travelers about all the possible luxuries and opportunities that await them while they are in the terminal.

Touch Down

With the aviation sector looking in every possible direction to cut cost, social media provides them with a tool that can help them reach out to a lot more customers at much lower cost. It also provides them with the opportunity to extend the brand association from just a few hours of flying to a much longer duration, thus, enhancing the brand recall.

Tags:Airlines, Airports, Aviation, Cathay Pacific, Delhi, Facebook, Finnair, Foursquare, KLM
Posted in Brand Promotion, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »

Very Pinteresting

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

This is 21^st century. Here, we pin our interests and how? Pinterest, one of the fastest growing social networking platforms in the recent times, boasts of acquiring close to 12 million unique users in a little over a month and is already creating shockwaves across the web.

Touted to be one of the hottest start ups, Pinterest that came into being in March 2010 has lots in its arsenal to be claiming so. As Wikipedia puts it across, ‘Pinterest is vision board -styled social photo sharing website and app where users can create and manage theme-based image collections.’

Let’s take a look at how this new social media sensation is stacked up.

Visual Treat

A visually dominant interface that it has, Pinterest provides a user with an experience that few can complain about. With features embedded into the interface that allows one to comment,like and/or repin on the photo itself, it is a one stop console that displays interactions as well as shares, right on the user’s homepage.

Pinterest Homepage

The moment one logs in with their username and password (currently by invitation only), one is greeted with the posts that have been recently submitted, which like mentioned earlier, are in an image board format. To the top left hand corner of the screen appears the recent activity, feeds/notifications that let the user know who has followed them, who has repined, commented on their pins and/or liked their pins.

Comfortable Navigation

The main controls of this page are on the bar at the top just underneath the logo. Aided by an uncluttered and easy to navigate drop down menu this is an all encompassing bucket of one’s interest fields. Everything (Image posts that are classified into various sub categories), videos, popular and gifts are the main tabs.

Navigation Bar

For the ease of navigation and maximizing the available space, the main bar on the top provides 3 tabs for instant post upload, knowing more about Pinterest and user profile access. They are as namely: Add+, About & <The User name>

Adding Mechanism

Add+ is one stop image or link uploader and a new board creator. About, hosts a gamut of information regarding the use of Pinterest. The policies, etiquettes, help, careers, team, privacy, copyright and terms are included in this section and acts as a ready reckoner. <The User name> allows one to invite or search for friends who are already present or there through linked facebook or twitter accounts.

Gift Store

Gifts, is one of Pinterest’s most promising offering that opens a world of delight to its users. Regardless of any occasion, one gets to scan a repertoire of items displayed in a similar manner depending on their interests. Each item is marked with a price tag at the top left hand corner and clicking upon them reveals the details of how they can be procured. Also, there is an option to repin/like it for future reference. One can comment and engage with the one who posted the item to know details about it in the comment section available right under the magnified view. The same feature is not visible in the thumbnail format.

A Gift on Display

By Popular Demand

On the lines of the gift section, the Popular tab provides the best of Pinterest in one place. This is the most amazing section of the platform. You get to see the images which have created the maximum buzz at one place. And these images can keep you glued for hours on.

Video Library

The Video section is a work in progress right now. Although it has the similar layout to the entire platform, the mere dumping of all videos, one after the other, is something that Pinterest will have to look into at some point of time. A category wise segmentation or a mechanism to add pages rather than an ever expanding scroll is much needed.

Video Pins

Mobile Madness

Any platform worth its salt today launches with a mobile application and Pinterest, too, has an iPhone version available as of now. Keeping with the web platform, the mobile version is also as easy and simple to use. The sections on mobile platform are:

Following Explore

Activity Profile

While the function of these tabs on mobile phone are same as the web version, it is the process of adding a pin via mobile that is a winner. With a tap and drag photo editing option, the image can be pinned with amazing corrections done with a touch.

Pinning for business glory

The platform looks an absolute winner. There are few glitches that need to be ironed out but this platform can be an absolute delight as a classified platform. The Gift section is already drawing in small business enterprise. It wouldn’t be surprising if big players jump in too and soon!

Tags:Board, Gifts, Photo Sharing, Pin, Pinterest, Social Media, Videos
Posted in Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Research | 1 Comment »

Banking on social media

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Banking sector has always been very careful of adopting new technology and rightly so. While technology will eventually make life convenient for the consumer, the banks need to venture in to new space only when they are absolutely sure that the financial data of the consumers are not compromised at any stage.

The Truth

While 800 million people may be on Facebook, it would be interesting to see how many of them would actually go ahead and use this platform or any other social media platform for that matter for actual banking transaction.

A good indicator of this comes from the Javelin Strategy & Research’s latest report that investigates consumer personal finance behaviors toward social media. According to their report, only one in ten consumers are comfortable using social media sites to review or check account balances.

What’s on offer?

But that doesn’t mean that the platform cannot be used by banks at all. In fact, nothing can be further from the truth. In the weeks of protest against Bank of America’s announcement and retraction of $5 debit card fees, Bank Transfer Day and Occupy Wall Street protests, Twitter volume jumped threefold at the customer service "handles" of most banks. Amongst them, Citibank was able to resolve almost 36% of its customer service conversations within Twitter.

So what all can banks look to do on social media? Well the answer is lots. Other than the usual customer service, new product information and lead generation, few banks have shown that the platform can transform a bank in to something most people come to Facebook and such platforms in search of, a friend.

Transcending the brand

Imagine a 150 year old bank trying to woo the youth of today that spends most of its time watching the twitter timeline or YouTube videos on Facebook. It would probably need some real soul searching and courage to be able to handle such a task. but that is exactly what Wells Fargo did. Considered to be one of the early adopters of social media, Wells Fargo realized that social media is the best way for the bank to learn the language that the youth speaks today. Once the decision was made, the bank went the whole hog. they even announced their new presence in Manhattan through a flash mob video which they posted on YouTube, which has garnered over 2 million views till date.

Click the image to watch the video

Creating a knowledge pool

Imagine a 28 year old trying to grapple with finance related problems and all that s/he can get is page after page of complicated terminology that would make zero sense to her/him. What would be the best way to address her/his concern? Let her/him relate to someone else’s story which is same/similar to her/his situation and give them the solution that would solve their problem. Once the bank is able to address the consumer’s simplest yet biggest problem, the connect is established. And one novel way of doing this is to create a shared knowledge pool. ING Direct, for example, publishes the "We the savers" blog to promote its savings products, specifically to attract young professionals. Customers are invited to comment on the blog and integrate savings tips into the search landing page. Thus, helping the readers relate to a situation and those solving their problem.

ING Direct Blog ‘we the savers’

Crowd sourcing for better service

Crowd sourcing is one of the best possible utility of social networking sites. Imagine tapping into 40 million responses without having to pay anything? This is the true power of platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And using these data to improve your reach and service is but a natural extension. Banks can use these platforms to conduct opinion polls/surveys on Facebook and also reward the participants. For example, Citibank has asked questions such as ‘Where would you like to see the next Citibank ATM in Bangalore?’ and ‘Which utility bill would you like to get cash-back on?’ The answers to these questions helps a bank understand customers’ requirements and act accordingly. This not only makes the bank reach to its clients but also give them exactly what they want.

Overcoming Fears

This is one of the most important aspect that needs to be addressed. For youth today, banking process is one of the most complicated things. Although they might be pros at handling multi processor super intelligent laptops, banking is still something that needs to be understood very carefully. It is not something one can do on a hit and trial basis. Social media is emerging as a cultural change, not a fad. And this is a positive tool that can be used to alienate their fear. This is the place where the bank can become the friend who helps them with their money. Example of this comes from HDFC Banks ‘Money Matters’ posts on its Facebook page. In these posts, the bank attempts at explaining complex banking and financial problems in simple manner.

HDFC Bank’s Money Matters Post on Facebook

Social media is the next frontier for financial institutions and consumer relationship. In ten years times, this platform will become as important as ATMs and Mobile banking system are today. But just like mobile and net banking had to be patient and adopt a wait and watch policy, so to must banks be with social media. Slow and steady will definitely win them the race.

Tags:Bank, blog, crowd sourcing, Flash mob, HDFC, ING Direct, Wells Fargo
Posted in Social Media, Social Media Marketing | 2 Comments »