May 2009: Twenty-seven-year-old Shashank Gupta, a brand manager with a leading telecom player, has a bright idea that can ensure the desired visibility for his brand. Without working on the execution part, he rushes to his boss’s cabin and announces ?we must start a Facebook page?. The boss, whose knowledge of Facebook is limited to hearing his daughter say that the social network enables her to keep in touch with 500-odd friends, gives the green signal stating how creating a brand page on the website is the current rage.
Cut to 2012. Gupta is summoned by his boss who is unhappy with the performance of the brand’s Facebook page and throws a volley of questions at him: ?Can you tell me what’s the objective behind our presence there?? ?Do you understand the metrics well?? ?Why are we not engaging the consumers properly??
While many brand managers in India may empathize with Gupta, some, over the years have learned, if not mastered, the art of consumer engagement on Facebook. And why not? While Facebook has more than 845 million users globally, the total number of users in India crossed 43 million by February end, growing by more than 88,84,400 in the last six months, according to social media statistics portal Socialbakers. Individuals from the 18-24 years age group comprise the largest chunk?close to 21 million?of Facebook users, followed by the users in the age group of 25 – 34 years. With advertisers chasing these two groups, Facebook is a very attractive platform for them.
Initially, the top priority was to get as many Likes (representing the number of fans) as possible for the brand page. Many brands did not shy away from buying fans or creating fake user ids. According to Nimesh Shah, co-founder of social media agency Windchimes Communications, in the initial years there was not enough understanding about social media and agencies did not advise correctly on metrics. ?This continues even now as some brands want the maximum number of fans in the shortest duration,? he says. It was only in 2009 that most brands woke up to the potential of Facebook as previously there was hardly any clarity on what could be achieved on the platform. These were brands with a mature outlook who decided to figure out the possibility of engaging fans.
Consumer products and services major Marico’s Kaya Skin Clinic started its journey on Facebook two and a half years back with two main objectives ? conversations and feedback. Currently, posts on its brand page include details of services, targeted messages for men and women, contests, answers for consumer queries, etc. Most of the posts start with things people can do on their own for a healthy skin, such as eating the right food followed by service plug-ins by Kaya. Every fan gets personal attention as a team of dermatologists and brand managers responds within 24 hours. ?The best part is that our FB page drives tremendous ROI (return on investment) for a high involvement category like ours,? says Suvodeep Das, marketing head, Kaya Skin Clinic.
Same is the story of telecom services brand Tata DoCoMo which started with its Facebook page soon after launching services in June 2009 only to become the most popular Indian brand page with 6.5 million fans in three years. ?Our first objective on Facebook was to introduce the brand and start connecting with the young audience,? recalls Gurinder Singh Sandhu, head ? marketing, Tata Teleservices. Thereafter, as the brand grew in size and stature, the company started building engagement with its target group, i.e. youth, through a mix of topical and life relevant interventions. Most of the posts on Tata DoCoMo?s Facebook page talks about current affairs that matter to the youth in a lighthearted manner. For instance, a recent post talks about how people should choose to ride bicycles to gain immunity against rising fuel prices. Some time back, the brand did a contest called Facebook Addiction Quotient on the social network giving an opportunity to fans to win a HTC ChaCha handset.
?Another corner stone of our efforts on Facebook, is to pick up customer complaints and queries and ensure that they are addressed by our customer service team. This itself drives huge traction for the brand and its position as a caring and refreshingly different service provider,? he adds.
As opposed to this, rival telecom services brand and market leader Airtel?s brand page is full of posts from users bashing the company for bad customer support. A post on February 12 said ?Talk to Riteish Deshmukh today at 12 pm and wish him a happy married life. Call 505050 on Airtel Mobile’s Talk2Me.? A majority of fans mocked the frivolity of the post.
Well, this is just one example of how things can backfire. The brand does not engage in conversations with users. At the same time, in a category like telecom, response cannot be taken as a resolution and consumers tend to go overboard with their opinions on poor customer service. Dealing with negativity is a part of social media and brands that will learn this early have a better chance of making it to the next phase of consumer engagement. ?We do not delete negative comments unless there?s a malafide intent,? says Kaya?s Das.
While surprisingly beverage major Coca-Cola has no Coke India page, the company has created pages around its initiatives like Coke Studio @ MTV and Sprite Gully Cricket. Says Atul Singh, president, India and South West Asia, Coca Cola, ?We use social media to talk about our initiatives. Building our presence on the digital front is part of our journey of reaching out to the consumers.?
Crazeal.com, the Indian unit of daily deals website Groupon gets around 4% of its sales from its brand page on Facebook. While that figure may not be impressive, the company has launched a Facebook shop where users are able to grab deals from Crazeal. Says Ankur Warikoo, CEO, Crazeal, ?Rather than fretting over how we can increase the number of fans on Facebook, our focus is to monitor how people respond to our updates.? Ask about innovative sales tricks and the brand knows exactly what to do. To encourage gifting on the eve of Valentine?s Day using the theme of Apocalypse, the brand asked fans on Facebook to shop as if this is the last time they are getting to celebrate the festival.
Personal accessories brand Fastrack known for its tongue-in-cheek commercials is today one of the top five brands on Facebook with a following of more than three million fans. The company let its Orkut communities (with user generated content) die in 2008 only to take charge of its brand page on Facebook.