Social Media | Indian Social Media Landscape - Part 21 Indian Social Media Landscape

Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Statistics on Indian Social Media Landscape – Part 2

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

This is the second section of the research that we have carried out on social media with respect to India. Do read the first section.

Part 2 – To map out the current usage pattern of social media of Indians

Q5) How much time do you spend everyday on blogs, social networking and uploading photos and videos?

It is really surprising to note that more than 1/3rd of the respondents spend more than 30 minutes everyday on social media sites.

Q6) What do you do when you are online?

Distinctly, people have started engaging in active forms of engagement. From reading and commenting on blogs, to creating profiles, to uploading photos and videos – all signs of people moving away from passive to active forms of engagement. There is a need to involve them if brands want to retain their attention.

Q7) What do you write about in the communities and groups?

: © Windchimes Communications Pvt Ltd

When it came to participating in conversation and discussions online, majority preferred associating with a cause or cause led approach by a brand. Next in line were the celebrities or movies that people preferred commenting and talking about.

Part 3 – To study the impact it has in our purchase behaviour

Q8 Do the comments left on blogs and in communities influence your purchase decision?

Q9) For which categories will you online reviews before doing actual purchase?

The replies for Q8 and Q9 clearly highlight that people are more prone to reading reviews online before carrying out actual purchase. They would carry out the first leve of research – fact finding and opinion seeking – on social media platforms to narrow down their choice.

The categories most influences by this behaviour are:

1. Travel

2. Consumer Durables (I am including Cell Phones in this category too)

3. Automobiles – Both cars and bikes

To Summarize the survey:

1. Surfing Internet scored as the 2^nd most medium to be used in spare time overtaking reading newspapers or listening to music.

2. Internet and social media sites are the first places to seek news, products and services related information and to find out about latest trends. In that sense, instead of being afraid of social media, marketers must embrace it.

3. Social media is becoming a part of daily lives. Even if it means just updating profile on social networking site or reading blogs. It is more involving and will eat into the time that was earlier being spent on other entertainment mediums. There are already youtube meet ups being organized where in group of people play their favourite online videos.

4. There is a distinct preference over getting associated with a cause when online. Possibly another reason why online activism is becoming so apparent in modern times. Besides that its entertainment and brands that take the next two slots. The important thing to notice is that if brands or companies adopt the role of thought leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) approach, then they are much more likely to succeed.

5. The most critical aspect of the survey is the impact of social media in our purchase behaviour. It is clearly evident that comments left on the blogs, review sites and discussion forums impact the manner of purchase. Lot of brands are make it in the consideration set of the consumers while others are dropped out on the basis of those reviews. It is important for brands to reach out to those users – be present where they are. They will have to build a dialogue with them in those forums and get them to review their product or service.

6. Another fallout for the companies is to track what people are talking about them. They will have to maintain their reputation online. It will be important to listen to what people have to say and act accordingly. That will start by first tracking the social media platforms and then analyzing the information to take strategic decisions.

The objective of this research was to give a peek inside the Indian users understanding and usage of social media. The role it plays in his life and how it will impact companies who want to reach out to them

You can download this research paper by clicking on to Scribd link given below

[scribd id=9690008 key=key-w7frnk7p3pzjlfjbxxv]

Tags:data, Essentials, Facebook, India, Indian social media, nimesh shah, research, Sandhya Sadananda, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, startistics, survey, Twitter, windchimes communications, windchimes research
Posted in Essential Series, Social Media, Social Media Research | 14 Comments »

Statistics on Indian Social Media Landscape – Part 1

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

Windchimes wishes its readers a very exciting and adventurous 2009

There is absolute dearth of statistics on social media with respect to India or Indians. It is important to understand the prevalence of social media in our lives. There are studies indicating that close to 40 mn Indians are online. But really nothing beyond that!!

So what are these people doing online? How important is social media to them? How do they consumer social media? How is social media impacting the purchase behavior? How can marketers leverage social media platforms to reach out to their potential consumers. We carried out research to find out answers to these questions to help us understand and give an insight from an Indian context.

The research data that we are presenting is representative of 3 Indian cities; Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. While we have received responses from people from other cities but they weren’t statistically significant. The responses have been collated as whole and not individually of 3 cities.

Details of the respondents:

Total respondents – 105

Cities:

Mumbai – 40

Delhi – 40

Bangalore – 25

Gender:

Males – 60

Females – 45

Age groups

18-24 yrs group – 40

25-35 yrs group – 65

Objective of the research:

1.To understand the significance and role of Social Media in current scenario

2.To map out the current usage pattern of social media of Indians

3.To study the impact it has in our purchase behavior

Part 1: Significance of social media in current scenario:

Q1) If you had 30 minutes of time, which activity would you be most likely to do?

Surfing Internet scored as the 2^nd most medium to be used in spare time overtaking reading newspapers or listening to music. Even when the users have only 30 minutes, they would rather go online than put on their MP3 players or read a newspaper, clearly indicating that Internet / Social media is highly involvement and captures the imagination.

Q2) Which medium do you use when you want to get ””””news””””?

Q3) Which medium do you use when you want information on new products or services?

Q4) Which medium would you use to find out about latest trends?

The replies to Q2, Q3 and Q4 clearly indicate the significance online medium has in our lives. Websites, Blogs, Social Networking Sites, Wikis etc clearly are becoming the places to look first – whether it is about new products or about new trends.

Companies and brands will need to have significant online presence to ensure that users find them when they are searching or researching online. Mere website presence won””””t be enough – but it will require presence in communities, discussion forums, blogs, networking sites etc.

The presence will have to be genuine, value adding and continuous. There is no end date to it. Also it has to be value adding for user to referring and recommend it to his friends. Companies will have to indulge in the social media marketing

Click here to go the second part of the study.

Tags:Indian social media landscape, nimesh shah, number, research, research tools, results, Sandhya Sadananda, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, statistics, surveys, Windchimes communication
Posted in Essential Series, Social Media, Social Media Research | 18 Comments »

Social Media Reinventing itself in 2009

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

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.

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.

2. Online reputation management:

As our conversations move online, it will be imperative for brands and corporate to participate in them. Not only that, they will have to track those conversations to understand how their brands stand with the consumers. Are their brands in the consideration set or if they are they being spoken about in positive tone? These are very important questions for companies to get answers to as their marketing spends will be determined accordingly. There will be specialized agencies that will provide these services to the companies.

I predict that in 2009 online reputation management will be big business and most corporates will turn to it in a big way.

3. Facebook will become a paid site:

So will any social networking site that wishes to survive the next year. There have been enough and more articles written on SNS not being able to monetize on the huge subscribers that they have got for themselves. Venture capital funds can’t sustain them forever. Also purely by advertisements alone, they will not be able to break even or advance on their business plans.

I predict that in 2009, Facebook will turn a paid site. Facebook can charge $10 (Rs. 500) from every user for a year-long membership. Even if out of the 150 million users that Facebook boasts of, 2/3rd drop out, we talking of $500 mn (50m users X $10 per user) of revenue that it can generate in one year.

4. Twitter will become a verb i.e ‘To Tweet’:

Unofficially it already has. But in 2009, the importance of Twitter will grow so dramatically, that Oxford will be forced to accept it as part of our normal parlance. The role that micro blogging has played was fairly evident from the recent Mumbai terror attacks.

I predict that in 2009 twitter will become so important that at least one Indian company will use it to tweet important announcements being made in their Annual General Meeting (AGM)

5. Online videos will be most important marketing tool:

In the social media sphere, online videos will gain prominence over other marketing ploys. I had written in my earlier post that online videos will gain popularity even more in times of economic slowdown. In fact some brands like Kaya have already started using it. Other companies will soon follow and attempt to reach out to their potential consumers and collaborate with them to produce user generated content.

I predict that in 2009, social media agencies and production houses like Common Craft will have to specialize in providing online video solutions for corporates.

My friend, Gaurav Mishra who genteelly pushed me into writing these predictions has his written his seven predictions on social media. Peter Kim has compiled his predictions along with 13 other social media gurus that really makes a good reading.

I hope my predictions have given you some food for thought to start off your own set of predictions for the next year. Do mention them and comment on this post.

Tags:2009, cell phone, Facebook, Kaya, mobile phones, Online Reputation Management, Online Videos, Predictions, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter
Posted in Facebook, Online Videos, Predictions, Social Media, Twitter | 28 Comments »

Social Media Predictions for 2009

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

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.

I predict that in 2009 most companies will use thought leadership as a strategy in their respective categories by educating consumers to win potential consumers and retain existing ones.

2. Online activism:

World over, we are witnessing increase in online activism from citizens. People are reaching out to each other across the country or world either for peace rallies or prayers or candle light vigils or to form groups to decide on action steps. Social media is providing a platform to like-minded people to connect with each other and come forward to participate in events. It is being used to educate citizens to become more alert and aware about their surroundings.

I predict that in 2009 there will be a lot more of government and citizen collaboration to fight not just terrorism but also for better governance. And the mode of collaboration and reaching out will be through social media.

3. Traditional media will rediscover itself:

There is a lot of talk on how traditional media will lose its sheen in the coming years. I believe it will continue to do so if it keeps following social media principles without reinventing itself. Take the case of citizen journalism. A couple of TV channels have started running segments where the citizens report in news to the people at large. As a subscriber I am not paying TV channels money to hear news from the common man. I am expecting a thorough analysis done by the reporters and journalists on the events before it being presented to me. I want an unbiased, complete perspective which an untrained citizen cannot provide. For citizen based reports, I always have social media platforms to go to.

I predict that in 2009 channels adopting practices like these will die. Traditional media is still very important in our lives and it has to discover and operate from its own strengths rather than borrow principles of social media.

4. Rise in Entrepreneurship:

The coming year will see a surge in employees turning entrepreneurs. Two of the key barriers for any entrepreneur are sourcing and marketing. They do not know how to reach out to their potential customers or their relevant suppliers and secondly do not have big marketing budgets to do so. With social media coming into play, both the barriers will be tackled for good. Armed with a profile in social networking sites like Facebook and Linked in, an entrepreneur can reach out to his potential customers and vendors at practically no cost. I have several of my friends who have leveraged SNS to their advantage. One is running a store called Attic and the other is promoting himself as a photographer. Several others have networked themselves on Linked In and reached out to their potential clients. This is no to say that they do not need a great idea and passion to implement the same.

I predict that in 2009, several people will turn to entrepreneurship as social media will facilitate them in their process.

5. We will turn into listeners:

Let’s admit it, most of us if giving a choice would rather speak than listen. It’s a sort of conditioning that as happened to us over the years as the media we used facilitated only one way communication. With social media increasing its presence, we will have to get used to receiving feedback. Our consumers, investors, employees will have the opportunity to talk to us directly and we will have to listen. If we want to continuously seek and retain their attention, we will have to start listening and accepting feedback.

I predict that in 2009, we as individuals and corporate will definitely change and start listening to each other more often.

Click here to read the remaining five predictions for the year 2009.

Tags:2009, Citizen Journalism, December, education, entrepreneurship, Facebook, journalists, Linked In, Predictions, Social Media, Windchimes Comm
Posted in Facebook, Predictions, Social Media, Target Audience | 26 Comments »

Indian Case Study of online Videos: Kaya Skin Clinic

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

In one of our earlier blog post, we had explained the use of online videos for the brand. The post explained the distinct benefits this medium provides for each brand. We shall illustrate that with a case study of an Indian Client – Kaya Skin Clinic.

Indian Case Study:

Kaya Skin Clinic offers specialized and customized skin solutions (products & Services) to its consumers. They were pioneers in their field as they introduced scientific approach towards skin care treatments. Today, Kaya skin clinics are present all across India and in key Middle East markets.

One of their service offerings is Kaya Bridal. We had decided as part of social media strategy to engage with its consumers by creating visual content. It was important for the customers to understand the process and benefits of it especially during their special occasion of marriage.

Do have a look at the video that was created for Kaya Bridal service

[youtube=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=YEYKv7fZ8Gg]

Kaya decided to create videos only for online medium as it was a perfect fit with its target group. The video was then uploaded on several Indian and International video sharing sites for user viewing.

On conducting research, following aspects stood out distinctly:

1. The viewers were able to recall most of the steps involved in the Bridal Glow process and that too with just one viewing.

2. They were able to relate better to the terms like ‘microabrasion’ that they hear from dermatologists but were not able to visualize it.

3. The video helped Kaya in building the brand value of ‘skin expert’. Kaya is about scientific processes, trained professionals and detailed understanding.

4. A lot of respondents cited that they saw value for the price that they were paying for Kaya bridal service thereby helping Kaya in overcoming one of it’s key barrier – expensive place to visit.

Is that it?

Just creating the video and uploading is not the answer. The video has be a part of the over all social media strategy. The next important steps are people aware about it and reach out to the relevant people. This is the most critical stage. There have been several times even in the case with most websites that are made beautifully but besides the clients and agency no one really visits it!!

Social Media Marketing plan helps in planning the other social media platforms that the brand has to be present in. It helps in creating content relevant to that medium and help reach out to the influencial bloggers of that category. All these help in increasing visibility.

In Conclusion:

Experiment with the online videos as they provide business solutions for the corporate. But ensure that you have got a complete social media marketing plan in place for that.

Online videos in times of Economic Slowdown

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

Videos are an integral part of our communication. The impact of Audio Visual content is far more effective than Print or Radio or Outdoor as a medium. The problem lied in the cost of making videos and importantly airing them on TV channels.

All that underwent a change thanks to YouTube that first introduced a platform for user generated videos to get uploaded online. Users found a channel for themselves to express their thoughts, opinions or just their most memorable moments. Working on the basic human premise of ‘15 minutes of fame’, the concept caught fancy and soon there were millions uploading their videos for people to watch. As on Mar 2008, there were close to 200,000 videos being uploaded every day!!!

Like every concept, the users and the medium matured with time. The videos moved away from purely being ‘fun stuff’ to ‘educational’ in nature. People explained concepts, technologies and processes with the help of videos. YouTube provided people the medium to express themselves, teach others and use individual expertise for benefit of all. Google spotted the opportunity and bought youtube for a price that every entrepreneur turns an entrepreneur for.

As users increased (as on Mar 2008, there were 78.3 million users on youtube alone and by then there were several video sharing sites up), brands started realizing the opportunity the medium provided. Many cult brands like Nike, Dove, Coke nature of videos that got high consumer engagement and leveraged the medium to their advantage. Unfortunately in India, most marketers have restricted the use of this medium to uploading their TVCs on it (a rather traditional approach). No problem with that too as whatever hits that came that way can be treated as bonus!! But there are so many more benefits this medium can provide:

Duration: There is no more 30 sec bondage that the Brand Manager or creative guy needs to live with. The average youtube videos are 2.46 minutes long.

Odd video secondage: With the way media channels operate, most TVCs have to be made in jumps of 5 seconds. So the TVCs are either 15 sec or 20 sec or 30 sec or 45 sec or 60 secs film and never 28 sec or 37 sec. There have been innumerable times when the marketer is struggling to cut those extra secondage to put his TVC in the required time slot. In online videos, your brand video could be 1.07 sec and it wouldn’t matter.

Educational in nature: Online videos can be good medium to educate the consumer about ‘New to the World’ kind of product or any new product or service introduced by the company where there is a ‘process to be explained’.

Free to air: There is absolutely no airing costs online. The ads can be uploaded on all the active video sharing sites which screen that ad when the user clicks the play button any number of times. Obama’s videos got close to 20 million hits on his Youtube channel.

Costs: The production costs are far lower for shooting online videos. Small brands can optimize on this and produce several ads in a year to communicate fresh message to its viewers

Real views: The no of views captured by all the video uploading sites are calculated only if the viewer watches the video. Unlike television, where you can never be sure whether the viewer has changed the channel during the break or walked away to get chips from the kitchen.

The presence is forever: Unlike a TVC, the brand video once uploaded on Internet stays forever. It operates on the 24 X 7 X 365 X ‘Until that site shuts down’ formula.

Customization: As the production costs are low and airing costs practically zilch, brand managers can make several ads catering to wide section of audience. In the traditional media, the marketer has the play the same ad on a niche channel like Discovery as well as mass general entertainment channel like Star Plus

Indian Case Study:

An Indian Skin Care Clinic called Kaya experimented with creating online videos and met with success for their Bridal Glow package. Read the case study here.

Read more about Social Media and Social Media Marketing for marketing function

Tags:Coke, Dove, Kaya Skin CLinic, Nike, Online vidoes, TVC, Videos, Windchimes communication, YouTube
Posted in Brand Promotion, Online Videos, Social Media | 10 Comments »

Media lessons in times of terror

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

Manoj ‘Night’ Shyamlan when asked how does he heightens the frightful experience in his films, replied that it was about evoking the basic human emotion – fear of unknown. It’s this fear of unknown which creates panic in terror situations like the one witnessed in Mumbai. And knowledge (information in this case) is the antidote to it. It is important that while on one hand we have National Security Guards planning a detailed and thorough rescue operation, the communications wing (don’t know if anything like this exists currently) of the government provides correct and timely information to common man.

While watching the brutal and cowardly acts of the terrorists on TV and Internet, I strongly felt that social media could have been put to better use by the official agencies. It is as much important to give out news to people as it is to evict those terrorists especially when people from all over the world have been held hostage. Mind you, by giving out news, I am not even for a second hinting at giving out NSG’s operational details!!

Social media has been blamed for spreading rumours and incorrect information. Also for sensationalizing event coverage. That’s rather unfair. Firstly there are couple of things that everyone must appreciate as a given of changing times.

Firstly, social media is here to stay. Condemning it is not the solution. Using it to your advantage is. Secondly, Internet is as important a medium as others for capturing information. The younger audience especially in Mumbai attacks was glued on to the Internet as much as their TV sets.

So what are some of the things that we could have done differently for news dissemination in times of terror?

1. Appoint a Media Manager:

The person appointed as Media Manager will be sole spokesperson for the entire crisis. For the traditional and social media he should be the one point contact for all information, queries, clarifications, requests etc. This will reduce the chaos considerably as all reporters will not run around interviewing every officer on site.

Create a separate enclosure for TV crews and if possible a section for the media manager to address the press. This will ensure that the TV cameramen don’t have to lift their tripods every time there is an update to be given. This would of course be dependent on the area and kind of terror attack. While viewing telecast of events yesterday I saw the chaos that happened when DG of NSG wanted to give a statement. All the press crew ran towards him and there was so much commotion that his address to the nation got cancelled.

2. Use social media:

I don’t want to devote too much space in this blog post on how much of social media has been used. Reports indicate that there were 80 tweets happening every five seconds on this topic in the last 3 days!! Bloggers played a key role in providing missing links to information got from TV.

The Media manager in this case would have his team who will use social mediums effectively to give out information.

Official Blog:

The official government blog could have had continuous updates on the developments on each of the 3 terrorists sites where commando operations were on.

Being an official blog, even the traditional media will check on it before voicing unconfirmed reports thereby reducing rumours.

There would be sanctity to number of casualties being quoted. Because there was no official source, bloggers updated information that they presumed was correct which in its own way added to more panic.

Several international media agencies will take information from there. By subscribing to blog feeds, whenever that blog is updated, the subscribers get an automatic update informing them on the same.

Photo and Video Sharing Sites:

The blog analogy applies over here too. Distinctly there was a need for footage to be screened out to people. During the entire coverage, each news channel claimed some sort of exclusivity of sorts. That really baffled me coz all of them were lined up together outside all the 3 terror locations. Guess it’s an attempt to gain those extra TRPs. By uploading video snippets and pictures on the official site and community, you satiate that need of the people to see what is happening. The journalist at the site can do quality reporting if the pressure on that person is reduced to show exclusive shots only.

Microblogging:

Or rather plainly put tweets as it’s become insanely famous in the last 3 days. Twitter is just one of the companies providing it. There The official tweets could have been good announcement boards to keep people abreast with the developments. For example, when the rumour of CST firing started again spread, instead of banning cable everywhere these official social media tools could have helped in informing people and press that it is a false story.

Social Networking Sites:

Along with blog, the communities created on the social networking sites could be used to give out valuable information like hospitals which require blood donation, emergency helpline numbers, donation drives, information about important institutions being closed for that period etc

Some might say that there is no time to set up all these platforms. I don’t agree. For one you just have to register only once in all these platforms. And second people who are using these will agree with me that updating information is not a more time consuming process than filming, editing and screening it on channels is!!

Also this is not about social media against traditional media. The role that the reporters performed in coverage of the terror incident is exemplary. They stood there day and night without fearing for their lives and in a lot of ways built pressure on the government for quick act. My post is more about leveraging social media along with traditional media to gain maximum advantage.

Giving out information on social media will create some sort of order and hopefully stop rumours as official version will be available for people to read. Of course one is assuming that the updates will be timely and accurate from the government side. I am sure we all agree that the family members of the hostages are way too worried to be psyched out further with misleading information.

Tags:government blog, media agencies, News Channels, Social Media, terrorism
Posted in Blogs, Social Media, Traditional Media | 12 Comments »