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Through the Looking Glass

Sunday, December 25th, 2011

This article of ours was first published in Business Today”s 20th Anniversary edition

It was only in 2008 when social media took its fledgling steps in India. 2011 was the year social media got truly established with Indian corporates as 20 million Indians went social! In 2015, we foresee, an exponential growth and significant innovations as 500 million Indians log on given the high mobile penetration and $35 tablets!

With so much happening, social media promises to be like the plot of a Bollywood blockbuster in the coming years – full of drama, triumphs and twists. Let’s take a quick peek into some of the future trends.

Emergence of Rural Social Media:

Airtel believes that 700 mn rural Indian Internet users exist that remain untapped. Given that, Indian businesses will have to think rural in all aspects – social communication strategies, customized content as media consumption will be drastically different from urban centers, and rural workforce. Companies will have to divert advertising resources into creating content that is both captivating, relevant and ultimately building brand affinity with the users – be it in the form of videos, applications or plain text. Also companies will need to educate and nurture rural workforce. After all a 24-year old executive in Gurgaon will not be able to write content for a farmer in Warangal!

Community Development:

There already is a shift in advertising spends as more monies are being diverted to BTL activities. This trend will see as significant boost as going forward companies will have to start investing in creating and maintaining social ecosystems for their brand. Ecosystems would involve building community of individuals who will spend their time and effort by being not just customers for the brand but also product innovators and ideators! Brands especially those operating in passion-led sectors like photography, bikes, etc will need to identify these individuals and panelize them to seek their ideas from product development stage to marketing and distributing it!

Few brands in India that have taken first steps in this direction are Royal Enfield and Canon. Both companies have built a social ecosystem that helps them leverage it not just for sales but also engage in a more profitable and wholesome manner! By doing that, they are betting that the collective social presence of this group will endorse and influence a much wider and larger audience towards their products as close to 40 million Indians today base their purchase decision based on online reviews.

Profiles of brand managers:

The biggest change that we anticipate will be a change in the profile of the brand manager. Today, several corporates have global brand teams that manage the larger nuances of brand building and the local teams are involved with execution and activation work around the brand. The profile of the local brand activation team will undergo a drastic shift as social media gains significance. In order to operate successful online communities as mentioned in the previous point, corporates will seek out individuals who exhibit and follow their hobbies & interests that are in sync with their business. A clear case in point is Red Bull that has individuals on board with specific skill sets and inherent passion who lead their various sports & cultural initiatives! Hence an employee list that boasts of former cricketers and sports journalists!

Social Media for Senior Leadership:

As Indian companies go global, it will be imperative for the senior leadership to build their presence in the social space. Global media would want to know more about the company and its team and would look at social media presence for the same. It is not uncommon today to read CEO tweets as newspaper headlines.

Also senior leadership will have to address other stakeholders – employees, customers and shareholders to help build connect with the company, receive direct feedback on their brands and assure safety on the monies invested respectively. Few good examples of this that come to mind are Mr. Anand Mahindra’s Twitter presence, HCL’s Mr Vineet Nayyar’s blog and GE India’s CEO Mr. John Flannery’s internal blog meant for employees.

Individual Celebrities:

Brand endorsers will change completely. Gone will the days where the Bollywood and Sports brigade lapped up everything! Brands will sign up more real life individuals to bring in relevance and connect with their customers. These real life celebrities will be specialists in their own field and hence influencers on social media platforms. Offlate, various writers such as Chetan Bhagat (Revolution 20-20), Ashwin Sanghi (Chanakya Chants) and Sidin Vadukut (Dork & God Save the Dork) have successfully leveraged social media to gain celebrity status! Given that, Huawei India signed Chetan Bhagat so that they could connect with his fan base for their mobile and tablet offerings.

Tags:Business Today, Future Trends, nimesh shah, Sandhya Sadananda, Social Media, windchimes communications
Posted in Corporate Communications, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Windchimes Comm | No Comments »

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 »

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