It is indeed very heartening to see several Indian brands take to social media. Surely, that was the result of the party attended by the marketing head last evening where he found his peers talking about their brands being already present on social networking sites! Having said that, there are those that have penned down clear objectives that they want to achieve from this medium and are committed to being present for the long haul.
It has already been said that social media is about engaging the users with the brand in the form of having conversations. So the impact should also be seen from that construct. More often than not, firms wrongly seek their ROI (return on investment) on the number of fans that the brand has acquired. The focus should, however, be on what the brand should do with the users that are its fans. How does the brand go about conversing with its users, thereby introducing them to its proposition, without alienating them? How does it get them to participate in its activities? How can the brand monetize from the users who have ?liked? it on its Facebook page?
There are some interesting examples of brands having walked that extra mile to connect with their end consumers. Fashion and lifestyle brand Tommy Hilfiger got on to Facebook to promote its children?s wear range that it launched late last year. The brand strived at building engagement with mothers as they would be the final purchasers. So, Tommy Hilfiger invited moms to share pictures of their kids on Facebook. The idea resonated with the mothers and the brand got pictures in droves. They then went on to give out gift vouchers to mothers to convert them into their customers. Again, Future Generali aimed at targeting the male audience to generate interest in its insurance products. It conceptualized a 360-degree campaign around the idea of ?Mukti Pao? (Liberate yourself). In their week-long campaign, the brand created a Guinness record by releasing maximum number of balloons in the air, symbolic of the souls it had set free. It created a similar experience on its Facebook page by allowing users to release the balloons online and be a part of the brand experience.
I also came across brands that have leveraged their Facebook presence into business generation. An interesting example is Ginger Hotels (part of the Taj group). Guests can check room availability in any of the Ginger properties across the country on their Facebook page.
Loop Telecom, a Mumbai based telecom subscriber, has made it easy for its subscribers to opt for its various VAS (value added services) through its Facebook page. The company has tried to leverage the MNP (mobile number portability) feature to by facilitating users to contact it directly through Facebook.
There are various platforms on social media but Facebook stands out the most. This is because Facebook has the highest number of Indian subscribers (22 million at the last count). However, there are interesting campaigns that brands have built using other platforms too, such as Foursquare, blogs, video sharing sites such as YouTube and document sharing sites such as Slideshare.
Hotel chain ITC Hotels has used Foursquare, a location based social tool, for increasing walk-ins to its nectar lounge at its Bangalore property. During the ICC World Cup, ITC set up a huge screen in its nectar lounge and invited people to watch matches there. To attract its online fans, it invited users to check in at nectar lounge on Foursquare and get a free drink. Buoyed by its success here, it is now taking this initiative forward to its restaurants and bars at its other properties.
To promote its car rally Women?s Drive and attract participants, real estate brand Lavasa identified various women bloggers and got them interested in it. These women bloggers participated in the drive to creating awareness about breast cancer in Mumbai and Pune, all the way to Lavasa. They carried posts before the event inviting readers to participate in it. After the event, these women bloggers wrote about it on their Facebook and Twitter profiles and on their blogs. Lavasa, in turn, covered the entire event on its corporate blog and linked all the bloggers? posts to it thereby generating a lot of buzz.
Again, Tourism Australia came out with their ?Best Job in the World? campaign where they invited entries from users to make their own videos on why they were most suitable candidate for this dream job. Their videos on YouTube garnered millions of views and ensured word of mouth advertisement for their campaigns. Or take Ching?s Secret ? Ready To Cook Chinese products ? the brand has made branded videos that teach housewives how to cook Chinese food, obviously using Ching?s products. The 30-odd videos have garnered a lot of eyeballs for the brand that has built itself more on social media than mainstream advertising.
I still believe that this is just the beginning of what is to come in this exciting social media space. With time, brands that are committed to this space will start developing campaigns specifically for social media. There will surely be many more case studies on videos being used by brands and more user generated content being used as endorsement!!
The author is head maven of Windchime Communications, a social media marketingagency.