Tata Motors small car is making a big web in the online space. For, 19,50,000 entries is what you get if you do a Google search for Nano. And it throws up 18,10,000 image entries in just 0.08 seconds. In the blogosphere too, there is frenzied activity. In the past week alone, there have been 1,414 blog postings that have sprung up and 1,37,759 new blogs have been created on Nano.
While Ratan Tata?s People?s Car is breaking new ground in the brick and mortar world, it could also be navigating new frontiers in the virtual world. The company too is pushing Nano on the Web. There is an Orkut community and a Facebook profile, a Tata Nano Forum and company administered blogs. Senior Tata Motor officials have been interacting with potential buyers and Nano fans in their attempt to catch the pulse of customers and car lovers.
Social networking is a new tool that Tata Motors has put to use for selling Nano. The Nano campaign, few hours before its release, has been intensified through its extension to networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut, making the ?world?s cheapest car? known to a larger mass.
The official Tata Nano Orkut Community has 51,300 members and Orkut on its own has 378 communities. On Facebook there are 44 groups that keep discussing Nano. The official Tata Nano Facebook profile says ?good, bad and ugly, all comments are welcome?. The Tata Motors Forum has 22,763 users who have till now covered 31 subjects related to Nano.
Interestingly, several Nano fans have responded from across the globe and were keen to see the car in their country?from Australia to Serbia?but the company has responded saying there were no immediate plans for exports.
On its own website, Tata?s marketers also discuss sales strategies. There have been several queries for online buying and the company has responded stating that this would be difficult at this stage. Buyers have expressed their desire to buy the car on-line and are even willing to transfer funds pronto. Instead, the company has offered options ranging from contests to building your own Nano on the Web.