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Social Media Marketing

India Trends Study 2013


Insights from social media-savvy organizations in India
Foreword
According to media reports, Indian organizations use
social media much more than the global average and
those of their counterparts in emerging economies.
While we have a number of case studies, awards and
online tools to gather insights, we wanted to explore
how social media-savvy organizations in India are using
the medium. We wanted to understand social media
objectives, tactics, departments that manage social
media, how do organizations use social media ads,
social media measurement, budget, and the agency
environment among others.
With this objective in mind, in the last quarter of 2012
and early 2013, we reached out to various organizations
in India. We received a total of 48 participations from
professionals who are responsible for managing the
digital outreaches of their respective organizations or
brands.
As we expected, the study has thrown up some good
insights. This study represents the views of several
organizations in India that have comparatively invested
more in terms of money, resources, or initiatives than
their counterparts, and we think it will help in creating
standards across the industry and in promoting the
medium among many more organizations in the country
that want to scale up on using the medium.
We have added our perspectives and secondary research
to augment the findings and provide depth and context.
We would like to thank all our participants and industry
experts who have shared their input generously.

Dinesh Mishra
Customer Practice Leader (India)
Ernst & Young LLP
4 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Participating
organizations/brands
The methodology
Bajaj Finserv Lending MTV India
Bharti Airtel Ltd. Network18
BMW India Pvt. Ltd. Pepsi India As part of the study, we asked our
Café Coffee Day Panasonic India participants a set of 40 questions
Citi India Plan India regarding the use of social media in
Cleartrip Pvt. Ltd. P&G India their organizations. Input was collected
Cocoberry Rajasthan Royals online, on email, or through telephonic
Flipkart.com Royal Challengers Bangalore interviews. Responses to each question
Ford India Pvt. Ltd. SAP India Pvt. Ltd. have been quantified and reflected in
Hasbro Clothing Shoppers Stop Ltd. the charts that appear in this report.
Harley-Davidson India Tata Motors Ltd.
Honda Cars India Ltd. Wildcraft
We also reached out to various industry
Lifestyle International (P) Ltd. Vadilal Industries Ltd
experts and bloggers to provide their
Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd.
perspective on various topics around
Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. Yatra.com
their specialty areas, which is also
being covered in this study. Their
inputs are meant to provide depth
And 18 other organisations
to the report, and not to be seen as
endorsements to survey findings.
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 5

Content

Key findings

1. Why social media?

2. Which social media platform?

3. How does social media fit in with other types of campaigns

4. Engaging social communities popular practices

5. Use social media ads

6. Success measurement

7. Social media budget

8. Department managing social media

9. Agency structure

10. Future of social media in organizations


6 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Key findings
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 provides answers to
some pertinent questions around social media marketing among social
media-savvy organizations in India:

Why social media How do organizations engage with their


social communities
1. Most social media-savvy organizations in
India use the medium to build communities 4. Popular practices
a. T
ype of content: A majority of social media savvy organizations
95.7% of the surveyed social media-savvy organizations in India
prefer to post generic updates instead of brand updates.
use the medium to build communities and advocate usage while
76.1% use social media as a platform to highlight brand news. b. F
requency of updates and responses: Social media-savvy
Around 16% of organizations, which use social media for both the organizations posts multiple updates a day. Majority of social
above reasons also use it for customer service, lead generation, media-savvy organizations respond to fan queries within 30 to
and research indicating high social maturity and moving toward 60 minutes on Twitter and within 30 minutes to a few hours on
getting business meanings out of engagements. Facebook.

Which social media platform c. C


ontests/promotions: Picture contests are the most popular
contests among social media-savvy organizations in India —
most contests are organized monthly.
2. Facebook most important platform for
marketers in India for engaging customers, d. P
olicies: Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India
surveyed have social media guidelines for better governance
followed by Twitter, YouTube and blogging
and online monitoring programs to listen to conversations;
however, less than half have crisis manuals.
Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations are already
using emerging platforms such as Pinterest, Google Plus, e. T
ools used: Many social media-savvy organizations in India
and Foursquare. More than half of the social media-savvy use tools for online monitoring, response management, or
organizations surveyed regularly engage with bloggers or online managing social media platforms.
influencers who have authority and strong following.
f. ocial media for research: Almost half of the social media-savvy
S
How does social media fit in with other organizations in India have conducted research using social
media tools to get customer feedback and understand more
marketing/communications campaigns about customer behavior.

3. Social media-savvy organizations in India g. M


obile: Half of the social media-savvy organizations in India
have created mobile phone apps and one-fourth plans to
have conducted campaigns where social media create one.
is the leading component

Social media-savvy organizations in India speed up processes


or show special favor for online fans
Among the leading 87.5% said they have conducted campaigns
where social media was the leading component. More than half of
the surveyed organizations have speeded up processes or have
shown a special favour for their online fans and followers that
they wouldn’t normally do for their offline customers.
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 7

How do organizations use social media ads Which department manages social media

5. Majority of social media-savvy organizations 8. Majority of social media efforts in India are
use social media ads to promote online managed by marketing teams
campaigns and brand awarenesss, and find
76.7% of social media-savvy organizations said they have their
them beneficial
marketing department handling social media with the rest being
handled by a cross functional team/across functions or by the PR/
83% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that
communications team. Other than marketing, 34.6% said they
they have used social media ads, with majority of the ads being
use social media for thought leadership and 26.9% said they use
used to promote a contest/promotion or for brand awareness.
social media for CSR. A majority (70.2%) said they have an in
88.6% said they find social media ads to be beneficial in achieving
house social media expert in middle management.
those objectives.
Agency structure
How do you measure social media success?
9. Majority of social media-savvy organizations
6. Majority of social media-savvy organizations
in India use standalone digital agencies as
in India measure social media efforts through
compared to PR or ad agencies
platform-specific parameters
73.8% of surveyed social media-savvy organizations have chosen
81% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that
standalone digital agencies as compared to PR, ad agencies,
they measure their social media efforts through platform-specific
or freelancers. 59.1% of the organizations surveyed also said
parameters such as likes, people talking about this, etc. 46.7%
that they are happy with their current agencies while 40.9%
of the organizations surveyed said they have not measured
responded with either a ”maybe” or a ”no.”
revenue from their social media efforts. On the positive side,
some organizations are already measuring social media efforts Future of social media
through leads, sentiment, brand visibility and have seen increase
in revenue from social media efforts.
10. Social media-savvy organizations in India
Social media budget are very optimistic about the future

7. Almost half of social media-savvy Social media-savvy organizations are very optimistic about the
role of social media in their organizations. Though measures such
organizations spend 1%–5% of their marketing
as sales and leads are not very evident for all organizations, they
budget on social media, most social media have realized that it plays an important role in generating insights
budgets are below INR10 million and engaging with customers on a continued basis. Social media
has helped organizations to create their own communities of
41.5% of social media-savvy organizations said that around fans, customers or prospects. In the future, organizations hope
1%–5% of their marketing budget in spent on social media. Three- to focus more on social media and are looking forward greater
fourths of the organizations surveyed have their social media adoption within their organizations.
budget below INR10 million, while a little above a quarter of the
organizations surveyed have social media budgets exceeding
INR20 million.
8 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

1. Why social media

Most social media-savvy


organizations in India use the
medium to build communities
Way back in 2010, a Harvard Business Review study found in its
survey that the biggest benefit businesses think they derive from
using social media was increased awareness of their brands or
products.1 While this continues to be a key reason for social media
adoption even today, the top-most reason why organizations
are using social media has shifted to building communities. An
overwhelming 95.7% of social media-savvy organizations in India
that we surveyed said they use the medium to build communities
and advocates to directly or indirectly help in creating positive
word of mouth.
It is interesting to note that till two years back, organizations put
a one-way metric such as awareness as the top reason for social
media usage. Today’s shift is likely to be in part due to the almost
overwhelming Facebook phenomenon, nevertheless when the
power of social networks is realized by service providers, the
consumers stand to benefit the most.

What is the objective of your social media engagement?


Tick all that is relevant.

Research 41.3%

Platform to
highlight brand 76.1%
development
/news
Customer
58.7%
service

Generate
43.5%
leads

Build
community/
95.7%
advocates
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 9

A key fact to remember is that building communities is not the Around 16% of the surveyed organizations said they use social
end goal. A community provides a platform for brands to reach media not just for one reason but to build community, generate
out to a number of potential customers at one go for marketing leads, customer service, highlight news and research. This
or promotional initiatives. It helps customers bond, bolster the indicates that some social media-savvy organizations in India
brand experience stories, and create stronger word of mouth. seemed to be moving toward utilizing the medium much more
In the long run, it helps in creating increased customer loyalty, than connecting with customers and prospects but leveraging
better and speedier resolution of customer queries, lowering business meanings out of those engagements.
of marketing and service costs, and flow of innovative ideas. In this context, it is important to remember that while
As organizations’ use of social media grows, they should start organizations find social media a good platform to interact with
looking at identifying and measuring these benefits. Some customers and build communities, for most consumers, social
organizations from among those we reached out to are already on media is about connecting with friends and families, accessing
the way to doing this. From among those organizations who said news, reviews and entertainment, as well as sharing opinion and
they use social media to build communities, half of them also use not so much about interacting with brands.2 Organizations need
it to highlight news, 39.5% also use it for customer service, 31% to ask themselves about the value they are providing to their fans
for research, and 25% to generate leads. and followers on their channels or communities.
10 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

2. Which social media platforms

Facebook most important platform


for marketers in India, followed by
Twitter, YouTube and blogging
Being the most popular social media platform in India with more than
62 million users,1 Facebook is the favorite playground for social media-
savvy organizations in India to banter in everyday conversations
and organize engaging promotions and contests for fans. 89.6% of
all surveyed organizations placed Facebook as the most important
platform for engagement. Interestingly, there were more than 100
Facebook campaigns in India in 2012, which translates to more than 8
campaigns running simultaneously per month.2

Which are the platforms you used for your social media
marketing efforts?
Eg. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog, etc. Can you rank them? 1 being
the most important/ priority area.

89.6%
8.3%
2.1%
Facebook
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
4.2%
56.3%
22.9%
Twitter
0.0%
2.1%
8.3%
0.0%
29.2%
39.6%
YouTube
2.1%
0.0%
4.2%
6.3%
2.1% 10.1%
Blog 22.9%
6.3%
2.1%
29.2%
0.0%
2.1%
4.3%
Pinterest
19.1%
14.9%
44.7%
0.0%
0.0%
2.1%
Foursquare
23.4%
6.4%
68.1%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
1 2 3 4 5 6 N/A
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 11

With social media marketing campaigns being Facebook heavy, According to a story in The Economic Times, advertising agencies
some organizations are looking at other platforms to differentiate today have started to create YouTube specific ads as against re-
themselves. More than half of the organizations surveyed placed purposing TV commercials.4 One of the most successful company
Twitter as the second-most important channel. With a majority of produced viral hit last year was a video from Finnair in which a
Indian sportspersons, movie actors, artists and politicians active team of cabin crew performed a flash dance to celebrate India’s
on Twitter and enjoying huge number of followers, the platform Republic Day.5
has its own sphere of influence. A trending topic on Twitter for Blogging followed YouTube as the most important platform
a good reason is perhaps one of the most coveted benchmarks. for organizations. Blogging particularly is important when
However, featuring there for the wrong reasons is a big crisis in organizations want to share thought leadership or trends in
the making. an area of mass interest. For instance, a fashion blog, a movie
blog or technology blog. Blogging is also popular among B2B
organizations for thought leadership purposes.
Which are the platforms you used for your social media While majority of the organizations have placed least importance
marketing efforts?
Eg. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog, etc. Can you rank them?
on emerging platforms such as Google Plus, Pinterest and
1 being the most important/ priority area. Foursquare, many of them are already experimenting with the
platforms and many plans to start using them. Recently, Pepe
Jeans India asked fans to follow its profile and repin apparels that
6
they like for a chance to win them. In 2013, we will continue to
5.07
5 4.73 see more of this type of experiments.6

4 3.50
3.00 Are you using any of the following emerging platforms?
3 2.43

2 100%
1.13
1 26.8% 28.6%
80% 41.2%
0
Facebook Twitter YouTube Blog Pinterest Foursquare
60%

(Average values) 46.3% 42.9%


40% 32.4%

YouTube comes third in terms of preference among the


organizations surveyed. While creating a good video is much 20%
more difficult and resource intensive than creating a Facebook 26.8% 26.5% 28.6%
update or a tweet, its success is equally unpredictable.
0%
Nevertheless, brands are investing on the medium to make an
Pinterest Foursquare Google Plus
equivalent to the next “Kolaveri Di” or ”Gangnam Style”.3
No plans Already using Will use in the next one year
12 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Prasant Naidu
Founder of Lighthouse Insights, a popular blog on social media news.

“Social media marketing for brands is all about Having said that, there are a few brands who have
Facebook and Twitter currently. Brands in India tried investing on different networks like Pinterest,
are walking the safe path and they are hardly Instagram, etc. Since the user adoption from
trying out new networks. One of the reasons India on these networks has not been remarkable,
being user adoption. Facebook being the biggest brands are trying to integrate and drive traffic
social network in India is the tried and tested one. from the Facebook or Twitter community to
Not only that the network has been around for networks like Pinterest and Instagram. I believe
some time and has matured enough. Along with integrating networks over social media is the
running contests brands have the option of trying future for Indian brands.”
out well targeted ads today. Twitter, on the other
hand, is being used as a reach mechanism and
that is being achieved by getting certain hashtags
trended.

While choosing which channels are important based on where


your customers are, organizations should remember that being Do you regularly engage with bloggers/influencers?
social is not only about opening up a profile on a social media
site. Social media adoption should be seen as a cultural and
50% 47.9%
behavioral shift within the organization to transparently engage
with customers who are not afraid to voice their opinions and
are big influencers to their connected networks. Social media 40% 37.5%
adoption should not mean a tactical short term means to promote
the organization or brand in the most popular websites of today.
As technology is evolving at a fast pace, organizations require the 30%
ability to constantly evolve and adopt platforms that consumers
are shifting to. Popular websites of today will be overtaken by new 20%
websites tomorrow. Facebook overtook Orkut in the Indian market 14.6%
in 2010. There are already few media stories today of Facebook
users finding the site to be not as “cool” as before.7 10%

0%
Yes No Sometimes

Yes No Sometimes
Indiblogger, an Indian blog directory, lists close to 30,000 engage with them through product reviews, tours, or contests.
blogs on its site.8 Many bloggers in India, like their counterparts Advanced organizations have involved bloggers in reputed
globally, enjoy good readership and has significant authority. programmes and have created prestigious blogger specific
Some of the most popular blogging topics are technology, properties. For example, the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
auto, food, travel, movies, parenting, and marketing. Bloggers Award that recognizes experts who share their passion and
nowadays are not limited to creating content on their blogs, but expertise of a Microsoft product with others, has awarded many
have wide circles of friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter, bloggers globally and in India.9
etc. thereby becoming creators of influential content on these Not only bloggers, organizations are regularly reaching out to
platforms too. popular social media users. Recently, popular YouTube users and
47.9% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said they Twitter users have featured in the TV commercials of a brand.
regularly engaged with bloggers and other online influencers, Done right, blogger relations can help create a discussion around
while 37.5% said they engage with bloggers sometimes. relevant topics among influencers. Organizations are realizing the
Bloggers are not necessarily looking for organizations to contact need to respect blogger independence and adhere to guidelines
them. Most of them can be just passionate individuals who like to such as the WOMMA Code of Ethics.10 In the last few years, often
share their views on their area of expertise or interest. However, engaging bloggers or online influencers in an inappropriate
as their influence grow and their views on brands and products manner or trying to control their independence have led to
are seen far and wide online, organizations felt the need to backlashes.

Amit Agarwal
Personal technology columnist and founder of Digital Inspiration,
a widely-read tech and how-to blog since 2004.

“Blogs are mostly seen as credible sources of That said, other than the tech category, there has
information and consumers are increasingly been a shift in the blogging landscape in India in
referring to blogs while researching products recent years. The first-generation bloggers have
online. Because their opinion matters, brands, either quit the space or they have turned their
big and small, now actively engage with bloggers attention to microblogging and social media. What
across domains at par with the mainstream would otherwise have been a 500-word opinion
media. piece now gets squeezed into 140 characters
but it still enjoys a similar level of influence and
reach.”
14 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

3. How does social media fit in with


other types of campaigns

Social media-savvy organizations


in India have planned campaigns
where social media is the leading
component
Social media-savvy organizations in India
speeds up processes or show special favor for
online fans

Social media-savvy organizations in India are already integrating


social components into their traditional marketing and
communications campaigns. 83% of the surveyed organizations
said they include information about their social media campaigns
in their print and TV advertising campaigns. Also, 87.5% of the
surveyed organizations have run campaigns using only social
media or where social media has been the leading component.

Do you include information about your social media


campaigns in your print/TV advertising campaigns?

16.7%

83.3%

Yes No
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 15

It is important to mention that while there is integration, the


quality of integration is what matters the most. It is up to
organizations to decide social media’s level of involvement. Have you organised any exclusive deals/promotions
Adding a link to social channels on TV or print ads can also be for online fans online?
called integration.
Sometimes, social media is an after-thought and used as a 20.8%
medium to further spread the advertising message. To illustrate
this, if an organization runs a TV advertising campaign on the
camera features of its latest mobile phone, a typical social media
support could be a contest on the Facebook fan page asking fans
to upload their best pictures. However, this type of integration is
shallow. Removing the social media component does not affect 14.6%
64.6%
the campaign at all, except for minimizing the online buzz.
Smart social media marketing professionals in organizations
look at integrating social media as a part of the campaign DNA.
The social media team participates in the ideation stage. The
engagement structure is woven with social being a part of the
Yes No Maybe we will organise in the future
campaign process and the social media component cannot be
removed.

Have you speeded up processes, or shown a special


favour to any of your online fans, followers that you would
Have you run a campaign using only social media or has
normally not do for your customers who are not online?
social media been the leading component in any campaign?

12.5%

41.7%

58.3%

87.5%

Yes No Yes No
16 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

As social media becomes a key component, the need to placate


online fans becomes a natural extension. Deals and exclusive
promotions only for online fans are increasingly being organized.
64.6% of the surveyed organizations said they have organized
exclusive deals for online fans and 20.8% said they are likely
to organize in the future. More than half of the surveyed
organizations said they have speeded up processes or have shown
a special favor for their online fans and followers that they will
not normally do for their offline customers. As more customers
realize the benefits of going online rather than approaching a
traditional customer service channel such as the phone, the
demand for more focus on customer service in the social media
space will grow.
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 17

Engaging social communities -


popular practices 4.
More social media-savvy
organizations prefer to post What is the percentage of topics related to your brand
that you post on your Facebook page vis-à-vis totally
generic updates instead of brand unrelated topics?

updates
More than 75% 27.1%
Rather than using brand posts (e.g., brand news, product
descriptions, or updates promoting the brand directly), almost 50% -75% 39.6%
half of the organizations surveyed prefer posting generic updates.
Generic updates are updates related to the values of the brand 25% -50% 18.8%
(e.g., a car manufacturer talking about driving safety, road tips)
and totally unrelated updates (e.g., cricket match highlights,
festival greetings, an unrelated news but of mass interest). 43.8% 10 -25% 14.6%
of the surveyed organizations said that brand posts form less
than 30% of their overall content calendar while 35.4% said they 0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
use brand posts more than generic updates.
While brand posts attract customers, loyalists and advocates —
Among the generic updates, topics related to the values of the
generic posts help in attracting a wide audience set and even
brand are preferred more than totally unrelated topics. 66.7% of
those customers who might be using a competitor’s product. For
the surveyed brands said that topics related to the brand values
example, a consumer products company posting generic tips and
form more than half of the posts on their Facebook pages.
how-to’s are likely to attract people who would want to come and
benefit from reading those tips. This shows that while social media-savvy organizations are willing
to post generic updates to fans, these generic updates are more
or less related to the values of the brands. Types of updates that
On your content calendar, what is the percentage of social media-savvy organizations find the most engaging include
your brand posts vis-à-vis generic updates interesting pictures, videos, factoids, quiz, and industry news.
(topics related to your brand plus unrelated topics)? Pictures are the most engaging type of content with one report
50% saying that pictures represent 89% of a brand’s most engaging
43.8% posts on Facebook.1
40% Not surprisingly, the top-three most engaging Facebook posts
35.4%
in India in January 2013 are all pictures updates.2 Two of the
updates were Republic Day wishes from Vodafone featuring
30%
their brand mascot “Zoozoos” and from Cadbury Celebrations
20.8% featuring a cake. The third one from Tata Docomo featured their
20%
brand ambassador, Ranbir Kapoor, from his latest film, Barfi.
The first and second are generic updates related to the brand.
10% The third one is a totally unrelated generic update, though the
brand (chocolate) and the item in picture (cake) are in the same
0% category (food).
Less than 30% Around 50% More than 50%
18 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Sriram Ravi
Head Digital Marketing, Hasbro Clothing

Our social media channels are information hubs on men’s fashion and grooming not just brand
communication pages. Social media is about giving back to the consumers. We try to put content that
is relevant, useful and worthy of social sharing.

Social media-savvy organizations More than half of the social media-savvy organizations in India,
posts multiple updates a day who participated in the survey, post two to three updates on their
Facebook pages in a day. 25% of organizations surveyed said that
While frequent updates can be a sign of being active, it can also they post one update per day on their Facebook pages.
be of inconvenience to your fans. There is always a struggle
between quality and quantity. More posts do not always mean
increased engagement.

What is the frequency of updates you have on your


What is the frequency of updates you have on Twitter profile?
your Facebook page? 33.3%
35%
6.3%
12.5% 28.9%
30%

25%
20.0%
20% 17.8%
25.0%
15%

10%

5%

0%
56.3% 1 post every 1 post a day 2-3 posts More than
1-2 days a day 3 posts a day
2-3 posts a day 1 post a day
1 post every 1-2 days More than 3 posts a day
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 19

On Twitter, 33.3% of surveyed organizations said that they post According to Lighthouse Insights study, in
more than 3 tweets a day while 28.9% said they tweet two to
the period from 1 January –31 May 2012,
three times a day. For organizations using Twitter for customer
service, the number of tweets (or replies) is likely to be much out of Airtel’s 34,991 tweets, 33,928 were
higher. replies. For Vodafone, out of 1,015 tweets,
On the speed of response, one-fourth of the surveyed 1,013 were replies.3
organizations respond to fan queries on Facebook, on an average,
within half an hour of the query being posted, which indicates a Out of Airtel’s 22,893 replies, 19,593 replies
robust monitoring and response structure being put into place.
were executed in less than 15 minutes.
On the flipside, more than one-fourth of social media-savvy
organizations surveyed still take more than six hours on an
average to respond to a fan query on Facebook.

What is your average response time with which you attempt to


reply to a fan query on Facebook?

13- 24 hours 12.5%


6-12 hours 12.5%
3-5 hours 16.7%
1-2 hours 18.8%
31-60 mins 14.6%
21-30 mins 16.7%
11-20 mins 2.1%
6-10 mins 4.2%
3-5 mins 2.1%
1-2 mins 0.0%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

On Twitter, 28% of the organizations surveyed respond within


half an hour to fans and followers. However, 14% of the surveyed
organizations also take 13–24 hours to respond to fans.
20 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Putting up generic updates, considerable number of


pictures, responding fast to fans — are these enough to
What is your average response time with which you attempt to
reply to a fan query on Twitter? build a good community?

13- 24 hours 14.0% We asked the founder of popular auto forum Team-BHP,
6-12 hours 7.0%
Rush Parekh, on why Team-BHP has been able to remain
so successful over the years in creating a close knit
3-5 hours 9.3%
community. According to him, the reason that Team-
1-2 hours 7.0%
BHP (and other focused communities) has an active
31-60 mins 34.9%
member base is because of the following reasons:
21-30 mins 0.0%
11-20 mins 4.7%
• Not only there are like-minded people onboard, but
they are also experts in their domains.
6-10 mins 9.3%
3-5 mins 14.0% • No ”corporate” environment onboard — it is very
1-2 mins 0.0% personal and friendly. They have worked very hard to
get to a level of camaraderie.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
• They say it like it is. They call a spade a spade.
• Their articles, topics and discussions are more
While speed of response plays a crucial role in keeping the focused. Basically, specialist vs. generalist.
interest of fans, smart social media professionals realize that it On how brands can improve their interaction quality on
cannot take precedence over quality of response. Acknowledging
their communities, Rush offered some pointers:
a query quickly and taking time to figure out the issue and
responding with an informed view later is also a preferred • Minimizing the PR tone/corporate speak when
method. Consistency is also key. This is not a medium where you communicating with an individual.
can come alive only while running campaigns. You have to be
active throughout. • Talk specifics. If every interaction will be answered
with “please lodge your query/complaint on this
Smart social media professionals understand the type of queries
and type of fans posting those queries and know how to respond
contact us form” or ”we don’t comment on rumours”,
appropriately. Responding to a “discount/coupon seeker” or a well, what value that interaction has?
“‘I hate your product evangelizer” will be completely different • Have an individual to handle the interaction. Example
to a “legitimate question seeker” or a “’I hate your product’ “Loken Mehra” could be interacting as a company
evangelizer”.4 Creating a bucket list of questions and answers
rep, instead of a main account called “XYZ Company
helps in responding to a large majority of queries fast.
India”. It’s just a lot more personal.
• Keep the communication grounded. Overtly sweet,
exaggerated messages are boring in this age of
information overload.
• At the end of the day though, for business and
legal reasons, brands are limited by what they can
communicate on an open platform.
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 21

Picture contests are the most pop- said once a fortnight. Social media users in India have never had
brands placating for their attention like this ever. They have a
ular contests among social media- plethora of choices to participate in brand campaigns. For brands

savvy organizations in India, most and organizations , the challenge in creating an engagement that
will stand out among the lot has never been as pertinent today
contests organized every month than ever.
Social media-savvy organizations conduct various contests
and promotional programs in their social communities to keep
excitement level high among fans and followers. While we have What is the type of contest you have found to be the most
successful on your social media platform?
seen a number of Facebook contests last year, increasingly we are
seeing a number of Twitter-led contests. 15.0%
25.0%
2.5%
On Facebook and Twitter, how often do you think is necessary
to have contests/giveaways, promotions for fans, besides the
regular day to day interaction?

Once in six
0.0%
months

Once in a
32.5%
quarter
57.5%
Every month 42.5%
Picture contest Quiz Game Video contest

Every fortnight 10.0%


People love sharing pictures on Facebook. Brands love sharing
Every week 15.0% pictures on Facebook and the site today has the biggest collection
of pictures than any other photo sharing site in the world. It is no
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% surprise that more than half of the organizations surveyed said
that they find picture contests to be the most successful contest
on their social communities. Other types of contests that are
Almost half of the organizations surveyed said that they think popular are quizzes and games.
organizing a contest on Twitter and Facebook once a month is
While some organizations have conducted video contests, it is
necessary while 32.5% said once a quarter should be fine. To
not one of the most popular engagement medium. Perhaps the
put this in perspective, around 20 organizations from this study
reason is that in India, majority of the YouTube videos sought
are likely to come out with a contest every month. Add to it the
are premium content, TV show and movies rather than user-
contests that might come from say 100 more brands from India
generated content.5 Also in video contests, there more effort is
on Facebook. Additionally, 15% of organizations in this study
required for participants than in picture contests or quizzes.
said that they prefer organizing contests once a week and 10%
22 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Last year, some fan pages in India of prominent More than half of the organizations surveyed put the average
value of their prizes to individual winners below INR5,000. 36.4%
brands were suspended by Facebook over
of organizations put the average value of their prizes between
violation of guidelines. While the wall itself seems INR 1,000–5,000 and 34.1% put the value of their prizes below
to be the easiest place to run a contest, smart INR1,000.
organizations today do realize that it violates Almost a quarter of organizations surveyed put the average value
Facebook promotion guidelines and the need of their prizes between INR10,000–50,000. It is interesting to
note that some organizations are investing considerable amounts
to adhere to guidelines set up by platforms is
in contests and have put the average value of prizes above
important. Facebook and Twitter both provide INR50,000. High prize money makes contests more attractive
their guidelines on running promotions and and is likely to bring in more participation.
campaigns on the platforms.6 With so many free goods to be won, there are interesting side
effects. Brands are becoming more aware of the new crop of
contest participants among their communities. A number of
active online users are taking active interest in participation in
What has been the average value of the prize you have offered
brand campaigns, almost in a planned and professional manner,
ever for your online contests? This is the prize that one
for the prizes, without any interest in the brand at all. If one
individual winner get, and not the overall amount.
of these users participates in 10 contests in a month and wins
consolation prizes in one or two of them, the prize money is
40% still attractive enough. The need to identify and engage with
36.4% true fans vis-à-vis contest mongers is proving to be another key
34.1% challenge for brands and organizations. Contests that involve an
experience vis-à-vis a simple quiz or a picture contest tend to get
30% more passionate fans, but it also decrease the overall number of
participation.
22.7%

20%

10%

4.5%
2.3%

0%
Below Between Between Between More than
Rs. 1000 Rs. 1000 Rs. 6000 Rs. 10,000 Rs.50,000
– 5000 – 10000 – Rs. 50,000
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 23

There are organizations that sometimes take the unconventional route and create unusual and highly
engaging content for fans. One example is Flipkart’s ongoing “Six Degree of Separation” contest
where fans are shown three to four seemingly unrelated pictures and are asked to find one common
thread between them. This is what Ravi Vora, Sr. VP - Marketing, Flipkart, had to say about the
initiative:

“Flipkart’s social media identity has always been witty and clutter-breaking content – so we don’t
one that has tried to go beyond the corporate just talk about our products but also look at
façade. Our Facebook/Twitter avatar is that of fun, engaging properties that add to the brand
a friend who hangs out with you, someone you personality.
can swap jokes and have intelligent conversations
with. An example of this is our Six Degrees of
Connection contest on Facebook and Twitter.
As a result, we have always consciously stayed While the contest is reasonably simple in this
away from focusing on content purely for the Google-age, we try and up the ante to ensure
sake of basic metrics such as retweets, likes that our fans have to put their thinking caps on.
and shares. We rarely ever ask for our fans and It is our most in-demand property and we have
followers to endorse us on social media. We had people asking about it if we delay posting the
believe in building that virality through smart, clues/results in the expected time.”
24 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Majority of social media-savvy


In addition to your Facebook, Twitter engagements,
organizations in India have social do you have the following? Please tick all relevant.
media guidelines and monitoring 100%
87.8%
program, but less than half have 80%
78.0%

crisis manuals
60%
While engagement is crucial for any social media team,
39.0%
possessing a sound base of guidelines protects an organization 40%
from various legal and social risks. Similarly online monitoring
programs allow organizations to listen to customer conversations 20%
and determine an appropriate way of responding with them. An
engagement strategy not based on a sound monitoring program 0%
is akin to trying to mingle at a party without knowing what that Social media guidelines Crisis manual Online monitoring
party is about or who have come to that party. Crisis manuals programme
help organizations to turnaround swiftly when a crisis breaks out.
We asked social media-savvy organizations in India if they have
Several companies that were caught on the wrong foot for not
these basics in place. It is good to know that 87.8% of social
being prepared for quick, thoughtful and decisive action regarding
media-savvy organizations have social media guidelines, and 78%
social media, suffered material and long-lasting corporate injuries
have an online monitoring program in place.
to their market share, customer confidence levels, stock prices
However, only 39% have a crisis manual ready with them. It is and overall market reputation.7 Other companies around the
important to create sample scenarios of various crisis scenarios world are moving fast to protect their corporate brand at a critical
that can happen and know how to deal with them. Some examples time when brands have become fragile and vulnerable to millions
of crisis for a consumer food product can be a consumer finding of newly empowered consumers coming online every day.
an unwanted particle inside the food packet, a consumer falling
Organizations with an integrated, holistic strategy and solid
sick after consuming the product, rumors around the ingredients
governance are better prepared to not only survive rampant
of the food product and possibly their health impacts, etc. It
change, but flourish in it. Effective strategy and accompanying
can be a car catching fire in the case of an automobile company
governance helps to protect the brand and strengthen it.
or a consumer experiencing a skin burn in case of a cosmetic
Companies armed with the understanding of where social media
company.
fits into larger corporate objectives will do better than those
that are not. Organizations that effectively build and manage
social media strategies and governance frameworks will have a
competitive advantage over companies that do not.
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 25

Questions to ask
Analysis and
monitoring


Are all social media sites relevant to all major aspects of my business monitored?
Is there a risk analysis regarding incidents on social media channels? Is there an incident response
process focused not only on customer feedback and interaction, but also on IT-related security and
privacy-related issues?
Assessment • Is the social media strategy inclusive, bringing in all impacted corporate departments and functions,
such as marketing, legal, HR, IT, operations and logistics?
• Are risks related to the use of social media platforms clearly identified? Does my view of the landscape
include unique sector-specific perspectives?
Strategy and • Does my organisation have a social media strategy?
compliance • Are my social media policies compliant with any relevant national, international or industry-specific
rules and regulations?
Governance • What governance systems with measurable criteria (KPIs) do I have in place?
• Have policies and guidelines been defined?
• Are there mechanisms in place to leverage the customer insights and lessons learned from social
media monitoring?
Awareness • Are the employees aware of the policies and guidelines? Have they been trained?
26 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Knowing how the social media governance situation looks like within your organisation comes with
many benefits such as:
• ecognising strategic opportunities
R
• Enhanced competitive advantage
• Efficient recruitment
• Cost reduction
• Generate revenue
• Valued relationships
• Control strategic, operational, reputational, legal, and confidentiality risks

Social Media
Excellence

Social Media
Social Media
Monitoring
Monitoring
Controls, Tools
Controls, Tools

Social Media
Social Media Social Media
Awareness
Awareness Awareness
Trainings
Trainings Trainings
Social Media
Social Media Social Media Social Media
Governance
Governance Governance Governance
Framework
Framework Framework Framework
Policies , Guidelines
Policies, Guidelines Policies, Guidelines Policies, Guidelines
Social Media
Social Media Social Media Social Media Social Media
Strategy
Strategy Strategy Strategy Strategy
Vision, Goals, KPIs
Vision, Goals, KPIs Vision, Goals, KPIs Vision, Goals, KPIs Vision, Goals, KPIs

Social Media Social Media Social Media Social Media Social Media Social Media
Assessment Assessment Assessment Assessment Assessment Assessment
SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis SWOT Analysis

0 - None 1 - Initial 2 - Repeatable 3 - Defined 4 - Managed 5 - Optimized

Ernst & Young Social Media Governance Maturity Model


Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 27

Many social media-savvy


organizations in India use tools
for online monitoring, response
management, or managing social
media platforms
There are many monitoring, channel management, and analytics
tools in the market today and using them can be beneficial in
speeding up processes, getting better insights, or in freeing up
resources.
We asked social media-savvy organizations if they use any one
of such tools, and 52.6% of the organizations said they use tools
for online monitoring and response management. Another 47.4%
of the organizations said they use tools for managing their social
media platforms. Few of them said they used both, while few
others said they also use analytics tools.

Do you use online tools to streamline your social media efforts?

For managing
social media
platforms like 47.4%
Facebook and
Twitter pages

For online
monitoring 52.6%
and response

0% 20% 40% 60%


28 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Almost half of the social media- Revlon conducted a series of poll on their
Facebook page recently for two weeks to
savvy organizations in India learn more about customer’s knowledge
have conducted research to get about make up foundation. Out of 75,000
customer feedback and understand Indian women who participated, 80% said
more about customer behavior they use their fingers to apply foundation,
40% spend less than 15 minutes applying
Organizations have been conducting research to understand their their makeup, and 80% touch up their
performance in the market. They have also ventured into taking makeup only once a day.8
social media research initiatives for several reasons.
40.6% of social media-savvy organizations surveyed have
conducted research to get customer feedback and another 34.4%
to understand more about their customer behavior. 25% of the As socially matured organizations move toward finding tangible
organizations surveyed have conducted research for competitive results from their social media initiatives, they will try to seek
benchmarking. more facts and insights that can help them assess possibilities
of the medium. For instance, understanding online behavior of
customers by interacting with them in person can throw up many
Have you conducted any social media research for interesting insights and organizations can tweak their social
your organisation? Can you share what kind of media initiatives based on what their consumers actually want
research have you conducted? or what digital channels and behavior they go through before
making a purchase.
50%
Similarly analyzing consumers’ online conversations and seeking
40.6% their relevance to various departments such as HR, Finance,
40% Compliance, Legal, R&D, and supply chain, organizations can
34.4%
better equip themselves and facilitate increased adoption of social
30%
25.0%
media.
However, organizations also need to consider the pros and cons
20% of doing research online. While social media can provide real-
time and organic feedback, there can be ethical questions on
10% conducting research without explicit consent from the customers.
Being observers, it is often difficult to go back to the customers to
0% ask further questions.
To understand Competitive To get
customer behavior benchmarking customer
feedback
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 29

Half of the social media-savvy


Have you created any mobile app?
organizations in India have created
mobile phone apps
28.3%
Social media, along with heavy digitization, has invigorated
the usage of mobile apps. Smartphone users in India use their
phones to browse the internet, access social networking sites,
play games, etc. About one-third of the Facebook users in India
50.0%
access the site using their mobile devices.9 Facebook recently tied
up with mobile operators in India to offer free or discounted data
access.10 To capture the attention of the smartphone users, social
media-savvy organizations are extending their engagement on to
mobile. Half of our surveyed organizations have created mobile
phone apps, while more than a quarter plans to create one. 21.7%

Yes No No, but plan to

Vinay Bhatia
Senior Vice-President, Marketing & Loyalty, Shoppers Stop Ltd.

“We have used Quick Response (QR) and app, which is available on Android, iphone and BB
Augmented Reality (AR) codes to digitally enliven allows users to swipe their card without actually
all marketing communications. Augmented having the card, and our GiftBot app provides
Reality in India is still nascent and Shoppers Stop gifting ideas based on certain criteria such as M/F,
is the first Indian large-format retailer to have budget, age, etc.”
created an augmented reality set-up for its End of
Season Sale campaign. The First Citizen mobile
30 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

5. Use social media ads

Majority of social media-savvy


organizations use social media ads Have you used Facebook advertising/sponsored tweets, etc.?

for promoting online campaigns


and brand awareness, and find 17.0%

them beneficial
Early last year, General Motors created quite a stir when it
announced that it is pulling off its Facebook ad budget of US$10
million a year.1 Many organizations and experts debated for and
against using social media ads.
In India, we have seen the ads of e-commerce companies on
Facebook2 displaying a branded shoe with a discount or a sale.
83.0%
According to case studies from Facebook, Kaya Skin Clinic
attributes 20% and Myntra.com attributes 25% of their sales to
Facebook. Yatra.com generated INR1.5 million per month from
Facebook.3 Yes No

While this was the case, we were curious to know how social
media-savvy organizations in India feel about social media
advertising. If yes, what was the objective?
From the study, it is clear that majority of organizations surveyed
(83%) have used social media ads.
Brand
34.2%
awareness

Promoting an offline
campaign/promotion 5.3%

Promoting an online
campaign/contest 42.1%

Product
18.4%
leads/sale

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%


Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 31

The reasons for using social media ads are various. Three-quarter
of the organizations surveyed said they have used ads to promote Are you finding social media advertising to be beneficial?
an online campaign or for brand awareness. When organizations
look at Facebook, they seem to equate the platform with fan
6.8%
engagement and perhaps this is the reason behind putting in
4.5%
money to boost up their engagements. Even on Twitter, most of
the promoted tweets or accounts that we see today are either to
promote an ongoing contest or to promote a profile and increase
followers.
While promoting campaigns seems to be the major reason for
using social media ads, 18.4% of the organizations surveyed
said they use ads for product leads or sales. We can see more
organizations experimenting with Facebook apps for referral
sales and integrating payment systems on their product apps on
Facebook. When this happens, there will be more sales related to 88.6%
spending on the platform.
There are interesting social commerce developments, e.g.,
Yes No Maybe
Facebook Gifts and Facebook Want buttons. We are yet to see
how many Indian brands sign up for Facebook Gifts and utilize this
opportunity. All of these will lead to more sales-related spending
on Facebook, if not ads. More so, users coming to a site such as
Facebook Gifts are more likely to have a purchase inclination, and
therefore, sales related ads might be more acceptable here than
those on the main Facebook page where people come to share
and discuss stories and experiences. Similarly, a user with a list of
”want” items is likely to explore more products similar to his/her
”wants.”
Few of the organizations surveyed said they have used ads
to increase their fan base or for all the above reasons. There
will always be a section of organizations in India that will use
Facebook ads for many more reasons besides marketing or sales.
Nevertheless, either for sales or engagement the reason might
be, there is a positive hope as a majority of the organizations
surveyed (88.6%) said they find social media ads to be beneficial.
32 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

6. Success measurement

Most social media efforts are As organizations mature in social media usage, there will be
more experimentation and inclination to learn more about ROI.
measured through platform- Interestingly, a small percentage of organizations are already

specific parameters starting to measure social media efforts in terms of leads/sales,


change in sentiment, and brand visibility. 19.9% of organizations
today have already seen increase in revenue from social
Return on investment (ROI) on social media spend has been a media efforts.
million dollar question with numerous discussions and books
having been written around the topic.
In India, among the social media-savvy organizations surveyed,
platform-specific parameters continue to be the leading metrics
while business-specific measurements from social media activities
are yet to be tapped. 81% of the social media-savvy organizations
said they measure their social media efforts through platform-
specific parameters including ”likes” and ”People Talking About
This.” Almost half of the organizations surveyed said they have
not measured revenue from their social media efforts, while
31.1% said maybe there is an increase in revenue from their
social efforts.

Deeptie Sethi
Head of Corporate Communications, Ford India Private Limited

“In October 2010, just six months after Ford Figo and participation before the kickoff and during the
launch, we organised a pan India drive called drive. We leveraged our social channels big time
‘Discover Smart Drive’ for young couples that and engaged with online influencers.
represented our TG, in a special Ford Figo with Apart from many impressive wins like increasing
objective of expanding our Figo footprint in Tier 2our fan base and creating hundreds of positive
towns, rekindle the excitement among consumers media stories and fan conversations reinforcing
and community fans, and reinforce Figo’s ‘smart’ ‘smart’ with Figo, a big business benefit we
association. achieved was that the monthly average of 35,000
While it was a complete 360 degree integrated enquiries of Ford Figo jumped to 60,000 and our
campaign involving on ground events, advertising, sales peaked in that month”.
and PR; social played a lead role in creating buzz
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 33

How do you measure your success/ ROI on social media?

7.1%
4.8%

7.1%

81.0%

Platform specific parameters Leads/Sales goals


viz. Likes, People Talking about this, Change in sentiment
Comments, Impressions, views, etc. Brand visibility

Are you able to see increase in revenue from


your social media engagements?

Above 50% 4.4%

26%-50% 0.0%

11%-25% 4.4%

1% -10% 11.1%

Maybe 31.1%

No 2.2%
Haven’t
46.7%
measured
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
34 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

7. Social media budget

Almost half of the social In India, traditional media continues to be where the big spending
is. Especially for big spenders, TV spots and print media spreads
media-savvy organizations spend continue to be the focus. Social media campaigns are sometimes

1%-5% of their marketing budget just an afterthought to support the ad campaign. However, with
increasing social media success story emerges and ROI gets
on social media clearer, we will see more appetite among large organizations to
take on large social media initiatives and spend.
Most social media budgets are below INR10 Almost half of the social-media savvy organizations said that
million around 1%–5% of their marketing budget is spent on social media.
36.5% of organizations said 6%–10% of their marketing budget
In 2009, PepsiCo in the US skipped the sponsorship of the Super is spent on social media. 7.3% of organizations surveyed said
Bowl for the first time in 23 years and spent US$20 million in a around 20%–30% of their marketing budget is spent on social
large social media-led campaign called the Pepsi Refresh Project. media.
The campaign was about inviting people to share and vote on
ideas that will help make the world a better place. The campaign
garnered 1 billion media impressions in the first 3 months and What is your social media budget in a year?
more importantly, it created a movement for social good.1
30% 28.6%
How much percentage of your marketing budget do you spend
on your social media initiatives?
50%
20.0%
41.5% 20%
17.1%
40% 36.6%
14.3%
11.4%
30%
10% 8.6%

20%
14.6%

10% 7.3% 0%
Below INR1.1 - INR2.6 - INR5.1 - INR10 - Above
0.0% 0.0% INR1 million 2.5 million 5 million 9.9 million 20 million INR20 million
0%
1-5% 6-10% 11-15% 16-20% 20-30% More
than 30%
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 35

Compare the less than INR10 million social


media budget of top social media savvy
organizations today with the INR1070 million
advertising budget of Godrej Consumer
Products in December 2012 quarter or the
INR990 million advertising budget of Colgate
Palmolive in 2012.2
The annual social media budget has a mixed response with
28.6% of organizations placing it at INR1.1–2.5 million,
20% below INR1 million, and 17% above INR20 million.
It is interesting to note that almost three quarter of the
organizations surveyed have their social media budget
below INR10 million, while a little above a quarter of the
organizations surveyed have social media budgets exceeding
INR20 million.
However, the silver lining is that many marketers believe that
there would be an increase in social media spends in 2013.3
36 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

8. Department managing
social media

Majority of social media efforts in While the big budgets of marketing departments are doing well
for the growth of social media, it can also predominantly equate
India are managed by marketing social media efforts with reaching out to prospects or for sales.
Which department handles social media among the social-media Organizations need to evaluate if social media rests within
savvy organizations in India? Is there an expert in-house or is the marketing, are departments such as Customer Service, Sales, and
social media function delegated to an intern as we have often read R&D missing an opportunity?
about? These questions were critical to the growth of social media Organizations, as they grow in the social maturity ladder, will find
marketing in India. more acceptances of social media in more departments other
We found that currently among the social-media savvy than marketing. Some of the advanced organizations in India
organizations in India, marketing departments manage most of already have cross functional teams using social media. Some
social media efforts. 76.7% of the social-media savvy organizations Customer Service departments are already using social media
said they have their marketing department handling social media to listen to conversations and engage with customers on their
with the rest being handled by a cross functional team/across queries. Smart PR/communications departments have already
functions or by the PR/communications team. adopted social media as a means to reach out to their public
directly and not limit themselves to media relations. There are
discussions around social chain management, and crowdsourcing
for R&D purposes.
Which department manages social media in your
organisation? A majority of the social media-savvy organizations (70.2%)
said they have an in-house social media expert in the middle
2.3%
7.0% management. This spells well for improved adoption of social
7.0% media in organizations and for the industry as a whole. Earlier
0.0% there were stories about social media roles being delegated
2.3% to trainees, but having a senior professional specializing
0.0%
0.0% in social media in the organization will have an influence
4.7%
on communication planning. Social media capabilities and
specializations will also lead to more insights and innovation.

76.7%

Marketing HR
PR/communications Senior leadership
Customer Care Sales
Cross functional team Across functions but coordinated
Across functions uncoordinated
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 37

Do you have an in-house digital expert? If yes, what is his/her level at your organisation?

10.6% 0.0%

21.6%
19.1%

70.2%
78.4%

Yes No No, but plan to hire


Middle management Junior executive (Executive, Associate)
Senior management (VP, Director, etc.)

Sridhar Iyer
Head, Digital Banking, Citibank India

Social media is increasingly becoming a


key component in the digital marketing and
communication mix for Financial Services.
As a channel for multidimensional and real-
time communication, FS organizations will
use social media to engage consumers and
obtain valuable insights. However, given the
transparency of social media and the sensitive
nature of financial transactions, organizations
must take necessary precautions while growing
this medium.
38 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Social media is being increasingly used for thought leadership


and internal communications, recruitment, and CSR in addition Do you use social media for any other reason in
to marketing. 34.6% of the social media-savvy organizations addition to connecting to your customers?
said they use social media for thought leadership and 26.9% said
they use social media for CSR. Increasingly the HR department
is leveraging social media for internal communications. Close 34.6%
groups on Facebook, or company-specific networking sites are 26.9%
gaining prominence today. Professional networking sites such as
LinkedIn are increasingly being leveraged for recruitment.

Point to ponder:
As social media gets more and more adopted in
different departments of an organization, does it 19.2%
make sense for the social media expert to sit in
one particular department, or should the social 19.2%
media expert be an independent department
altogether such as the IT department, not silo Thought leadership CSR Internal communications
but integrating social in every department? Recruitment

Gautam Ghosh
Social Business and HR Consultant

“While most companies are using social networks social networks to facilitate such discovery.
to recruit – but we’re still in the very beginnings Knowledge that would have been locked up
of how this can be used by companies. Social inside people’s heads are now being shared in
is not just about media, it is changing the way conversations for others to read and comment
that people connect and share together. As this also. But that’s not all. Companies are also
dynamic changes in people’s other aspect of lives realizing that training and empowering their
– family, politics, commerce – it will also impact employees to connect with customers socially
their work also. The old management paradigm is in their own interests. Employees are seen
of command and control is an anachronism of the as credible and trusted people by customers
industrial age. Today and tomorrow’s knowledge and prospective customers. More and more
workers want to connect with internal experts, companies are moving from the ‘don’t do this’
collaborate wherever and whenever. Companies social media approach to ‘here’s how you use
that understand these are implementing internal social media’ for their business.”
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 39

Agency structure
9.
Majority of social media-savvy What is one thing you expect from your
digital consultant that is lacking now?
organizations in India use
standalone digital agencies as • “Understanding of business and aligning
compared to PR/ad agencies social media to business.”

Among the surveyed social-media savvy organizations 73.8% • “Innovation, speed, and quality”
have chosen standalone digital agencies as compared to PR, ad
agencies, or freelancers. The reason behind this can be due to • “Social media agencies are currently
the specialized skills, development capabilities, and wide array of
transactional in nature. They need to
services under one roof that comes along with digital agencies.
mature and provide advisory services
That said, PR and ad agencies also handle social media
initiatives of some of the big organizations in the country. Some specific to each sector.”
organizations find better synergy by giving their communication
mandates to one organization instead of multiple ones. • “Thought leadership”
Big organizations often work with multiple agencies for their
digital work depending on expertise and specialization (mobile, (Responses from survey respondents)
website, SEO, app development, social media engagement,
blogger outreach, etc.) and often work with different agencies for
different campaigns.

What is the type of agency you currently have?

4.8% 2.4%

19.0%

73.8%

Standalone digital agency Ad agency PR agency Recruitment


40 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

59.1% of the organizations surveyed also said that they are happy
with their current agencies while 40.9% responded with either a
“maybe” or a ”no.” Organizations expect their agencies to provide
more insights, be more creative, and provide faster execution.

Are you happy with your current digital agency?

27.3%

59.1%

13.6%

Yes No Maybe
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 41

There is a lot of young and creative talent among They have long recognized the need to integrate
the digital agencies environment today, who social media in communications programs.
come out with impressive ideas and campaigns Smart PR and ad professionals today also do
that we see today. Digital agencies should focus not see online fan and influencer engagement
on the career growth of these young digital as a separate specialization but rather as part
professionals; provide them a vision of where of their core work function. As more PR and ad
they can reach up to and training programs to agencies begin to integrate social components
compliment their knowledge in technical skills, in their campaigns with delivery capability, and
soft skills, and better understanding of business more global agencies establishing their offices in
and management functions. For example, India introduce global social media capabilities,
a digital campaign manager might benefit they are bound to give more competition to the
from a better understanding of cyber laws, IT traditional digital agencies.
processes, or even design and development
skills. A professional equipped with the Creating investments in three key areas could be
knowledge of Customer Service and supply chain key to increased client recognition of their digital
management will be better able to integrate strength:
social media elements into those functions. 1. T
hought leadership: Barring a few that have
Secondly, digital agencies can benefit from better established themselves well, many PR and
institutionalization of best practices and creating advertising firms can invest more in thought
industry standards. leadership. Social media is an area where
insights and innovative thinking are required
While the future looks bright in the digital not only to establish oneself in the market, but
marketplace and leading agencies have already for the growth of the overall industry.
started investing in thought leadership and
adhere to ethical ways of leveraging social, there 2. Resources and tools: By early 2008, key
are others who look at digital from a “likes” or agencies had already started to hire digital
”fans acquisition” standpoint. experts and partnered with digital firms to
start digital practices in their organizations.
There is also an eruption of digital shops across However, the need of the hour today is to
the country today, because of the demand of increase in-house specialists and invest in
organizations with limited budgets that are development, design, and content capabilities.
looking out for small outfits to manage Facebook 3. Not positioning social as a complimentary
or Twitter profiles. As social savvy organizations service: Often PR and ad agencies look at
continue to mature and invest more in quality social media as complimentary services to
and value, the agency environment in India will their traditional PR and ad campaigns. The
get streamlined and we can see some of the need to look at social media holistically and
agencies closing down, mergers and acquisitions engage with other business divisions has
happening, and few good names to emerge become important when organizations are
finally. looking to adopt social media across functions.
There are some PR and ad agencies that have
established digital practices in their organizations
well and to create market thought leadership.
42 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

10. Future of social media


in organisations

Social media-savvy organizations Increase in sophistication


in India are very optimistic about • As organizations target ROI from social media, they will

the role of social media in future try to seek more clarity and demand more than likes and
comments. In such an environment, they will invest more
in research and insights to seek more answers to be able to
Social media-savvy organizations are very optimistic about the define measurable outcomes.
role of social media in their organizations. Though measurements
• The increasing need to deliver value and ROI will demand
around sales and leads are not very evident for majority of
more insights and innovation and there will be more
organizations today, they realize social media plays an important
specializations.
role in generating insights and building communities.
• Social media initiatives will become more integrated with
In future, the growth of social media within organizations will be
marketing programs, Customer Service efforts, or with
marked by both an increase in scale and sophistication. Over the
internal communications programs and running social media
last few years, organizations have experimented with various
programs in silo will be experiments of the past.
social media activities, platforms, and tools. The knowledge
gained will help bring sophistication in the engagement programs
that we will see in the near future and
they will have much larger scale. So currently if a Trending Topic
on Twitter was the maximum bang an average program can
achieve, tomorrow, it will be the talk of the town or creating a
movement that organizations will seek to achieve through their
social media efforts.

Increase in scale
• More functions across departments will see usage of
social media. Not only customer-facing departments, but
departments such as legal, R&D, and supply chain will start
experimenting with social media.
• Organizations will tag along the growth of emerging
platforms and try to leverage the users that these new
platforms will attract.
• Budgets on social media marketing will increase as a result of
increased sophistication in marketing programs and adoption
in other departments.
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 43

Dina Mehta
Researcher, ethnographer, & social media observer

“One imminent development is the growth of than just being respondents or subjects, users or
the mobile internet. Particularly for purposes customers. More experienced users will look for
of communication and sociality - both needs more meaningful engagements and opportunities
are increasingly being met by social networks to co-create value with companies.
accessed on the mobile. Byte-sized pre-paid cards
and connections will spur this on, and content Another aspect that will drive people to adopt
will flow in and out. This will bring in many new social media driving usage is that top-level
users not just from large connected metro cities, management is finally beginning to see the
but from smaller towns and rural areas too. business value of social media in three areas -
productivity, marketing, HR. Social media skills
We are all researchers today. The tools are in our will be a part of your resume now.”
pockets. Companies will need to begin thinking
of customers or TG as their researchers rather
Five key characteristics of ”socially
44 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

adaptable” and successful brands

In 2011, Ernst & Young conducted a quantitative and qualitative


research on 36 UK and international flagship brands with the
aim to address these questions.1 Through the research, we have
identified five key characteristics of ”socially adaptable” and
successful brands, which we believe all organizations can adapt
and learn:
• Facilitate open dialog
• Engage proactively
• Connect beyond product
• Deliver integrated experiences
• Collaborate and co-develop

Companies need to make organizational changes in order to


fully embrace the ”new game” of social media. The three critical
areas companies need to focus on to support a coherent and
sustainable social media strategy are:
• Spotting the ”golden nuggets” of data and generating value
from them coordinating social and traditional channels
• Coordinating social and traditional channels
• Empowering employees to engage with communities
How to get the best Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 45

out of this study

1. Forward this study to various people within your organization


and discuss how social media is relevant to various
departments within your organization and how they can
effectively utilize the medium if they are not doing so
already.

2. Compare your organization’s use of social media with


that of social media-savvy organizations discussed in this
study. Check the level of social media maturity within your
organization.

3. Discuss what needs to change or worked upon within your


organization — whether it is about developing a social
media ROI model, creating a more robust monitoring and
analytics system or a social media governance policy,
familiarizing your key employees on usage of social media,
or understanding your customer’s behavior more to better
engage with them and deriving more benefits from your
social media efforts.
46 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Ernst & Young


Ernst & Young works with forward thinking social media professionals and organizational
leaders to answer key questions to accelerate the social transformation process within
their organizations.

Insights
• How do we know what we are doing is the best for our fans
and customers? Are they in sync with their expectations?
How do we benchmark this against competition?
Services that are
• What are the best practices or global standards that we
should be aware of and can learn from?
appropriate to your
maturity and needs
Strategy
• How do we familiarize the various departments in our
organization with digital and how do we make digital relevant
for them?
• We have established our social media communities and have
done great campaigns for fans online. Now what is the next Agnostic advice
stage that we should take our organization to? that is not tied to a
• We have leaped into digital, but do we have the guidelines particular outcome
in place for our teams and employees? How do we identify
digital risks and steps to mitigate them? What is our social
media governance maturity level?
• How do we identify the digital service providers and how
do we bring all of them together to create a comprehensive
digital strategy for us?
Cross-functional
Analytics thinking, skills and
project teams
• What is the state of digitization in our organization? How
do we assess the digital maturity across dimensions such as
customers, suppliers and partners, investors, employees and
leadership?
• How do we develop a practical ROI model for our
organization from our digital efforts beyond platform-specific
parameters?
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 47

Ernst & Young social


media analytics services
The power of social media Social media tools

As consumers and their customers become more empowered to Most social media monitoring tools make the flawed assumption
discuss online, if managed correctly, social media can become that users speak in perfect American English. They rely on SMM
an essential source of strategic information for key areas such tools, translation engines, natural language processing tools
as corporate risk, regulatory compliance, HR, marketing, R&D, and human intervention to try and cut out the ”noise.” Accuracy
trade distribution and availability, crisis management and quality is notoriously low (25%–40%) and many only output positive/
control. negative/neutral sentiment, ignoring the opinions and root
causes. Users are skeptical about accuracy levels, and therefore,
The challenge of social media actionable insights become highly unlikely.

Getting digital operations and governance right is therefore Ernst & Young social media analytics services
crucial. But the challenge does not end with the correct
technology in place — it is about effectively using the data it Ernst & Young has developed the capability to support our clients
gives you. Without the tools to collect it, companies are unable to listen, filter, and analyze’ and interpret and report social media.
to use the wealth of consumer and customer insight they have We have the capability to listen to any online publically available
at their disposal. And even if they do, they often do not have the conversation in any language, across any stakeholder and any
capacity, the skills or the processes to shift through it and see topic and generate a report in three days with 97% accuracy that
what it means. can give you insights and can augment your offering or protect
your business from the boardroom to in-market functions. We are
able to immediately listen to more than 30 different languages
through our Social Media Analytics hub based out of Zurich,
Switzerland and have access to a network of 150,000 plus
professionals who are able to provide local business context to the
issues being explored.
48 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Read other EY reports


and papers on digital
For more studies, please visit www.ey.com/GL/EN/home/library

http://bit.ly/13kxo3r http://bit.ly/WTBkHD http://bit.ly/VxRVRX

http://bit.ly/YD4GJw http://bit.ly/YI86JY http://bit.ly/YogrBF

http://bit.ly/YD3Ix3 http://bit.ly/Xr0paU http://bit.ly/YD3Ix3


Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 49

Contact us
Dinesh Mishra
dinesh.mishra@in.ey.com

Dinesh has 17 years of experience in corporate


development, product and customer strategy, operating
from India, Singapore and the UK.
He has developed and designed digital strategies for
clients, developed digital as a channel to market and
additional revenue streams, worked on the creation
of early digital market places, and designed complete
customer experiences for online retailing businesses.
Dinesh leads the Customer Practice for Ernst & Young India.

Palin Ningthoujam
palin.ningthoujam@in.ey.com

Palin has been actively blogging and experimenting with


online technologies since 2006. He founded the erstwhile
popular blog, India PR Blog (now merged with Advocable.
com), reviewed online tools for top social media blog
Mashable, and contributed offbeats to blogs such as
Desicritics and youth magazines.
He has led award-winning digital marketing campaigns and
helped clients become top social media brands in India. He
has more than a decade of experience in corporate reputation management and
digital marketing and was the prime mover in successfully setting up the digital
practices in his last two organizations. He has conducted training sessions for
young digital champions.
Palin leads the digital advisory stream at Ernst & Young India within the
Customer Practice.
50 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

End notes

Why social media 7. “Is Facebook Losing Its Cool? Some Teens Think So,” Time,
http://business.time.com/2013/03/08/is-facebook-losing-
1. “ The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to its-cool-some-teens-think-so/, accessed on 11 March 2013.
Action, Harvard Business Review analytic Services,” Harvard 8. “Indian Blog Directory,” Indiblogger, http://www.indiblogger.
Business Review, 2010, http://hbr.org/hbrg-main/resources/ in/directory.php, accessed on 1 March 2013.
pdfs/comm/sas/16203-hbr-sas-report-r3.pdf, accessed 28
February 2013. 9. “Microsoft Most Valuable Professional,” Microsoft website,
http://mvp.microsoft.com, accessed on 1 March, 2013.
2. “From social media to social CRM: What customers want,”
IBM Institute for Business Value, ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/ 10. “Womma Code of Ethics,” Womma website, http://www.
common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03391usen/GBE03391USEN.PDF, womma.org/ethics/womma-code-of-ethics, accessed on 1
accessed on 01 April 2013. March 2013.

Which social media platform Popular practices


1. “India Facebook Statistics,” Social Bakers, http://www. 1. “On Facebook, Photos Represent 89% of Brands’
socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/india, accessed 1 April Most Engaging Posts,” Marketing Charts, http://www.
2013. marketingcharts.com/wp/direct/on-facebook-photos-
represent-89-of-brands-most-engaging-posts-25330,
2. “39 Best Indian Facebook Campaigns Of 2012,” accessed 1 March, 2013”
LighthouseInsights.in, http://lighthouseinsights.in/39-best-
indian-facebook-campaigns-of-2012.html, accessed 1 March 2. “January 2013 Social Media Report: Facebook Pages in India
2013 – UPDATE,” Socialbakers website, http://www.socialbakers.
com/blog/1373-january-2013-social-media-report-facebook-
3. “Gangnam Style,” Wikipedia website, http://en.wikipedia.org/ pages-in-india-update, accessed 1 March 2013.
wiki/Gangnam_Style, accessed on 28 February 2013, “Why
This Kolaveri Di,” Wikipediawebsite, http://en.wikipedia.org/ 3. “@Airtel_Presence Most Responsive Telecom Brand
wiki/Why_This_Kolaveri_Di, accessed on 28 February 2013 On Twitter [Report],” Lighthouse Insights, http://
lighthouseinsights.in/airtel_presence-most-responsive-
4. “How do brands gain from videos? Danielle Tiedt, CMO, telecom-brand-on-twitter-report.html, accessed 1 March
YouTube gives us some answers,” The Economic Times, 2013.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-20/
news/37200405_1_brands-gain-ads-psy, accessed on 28 4. “The 5 types of people who post on brand pages,” Ragan’s
February 2013. PR Daily website http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/
The_5_types_of_people_who_post_on_brand_pages_10502.
5. “Surprise dance on Finnair Flight to celebrate India’s Republic aspx#, accessed 28 February 2013.
Day,” Finnair YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mEsnb3kUDAw 5. “What India watched: 2012 YouTube rewind,” Live
Mint website, http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/
6. “Pepe Jeans India Engages on Pinterest with ‘Pin It to Win TqPt0GUTdJ5Mj6nbMicDdJ/What-India-watched-2012-
It,” Lighthouse Insights website, http://lighthouseinsights.in/ YouTube-rewind.html, accessed 28 February 2013.
pepe-jeans-india-engages-on-pinterest-with-pin-it-to-win-it.
html, accessed on 28 February 2013.
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 51

6. “Facebook Page Terms,” Facebook, https://www.facebook. 3. “Yatra: Initiating and engaging in conversations with
com/page_guidelines.php, accessed 4 March, 2013. customers,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/
“Guidelines for Contests on Twitter,” Twitter, https://support. advertising/success-stories/yatra, accessed 4 March, 2013.
twitter.com/articles/68877-guidelines-for-contests-on-
twitter#, accessed 4 March, 2013.

7. “Protecting and strengthening your brand,” Ernst & Young


report, http://bit.ly/YI86JY
Social media budget
8. “How Revlon India Leveraged Social Media to Gain Insights 1. “Pepsi to Skip Super Bowl Ads in Favor of $20M Social
for a Product Launch,” Lighthouse Insights, http:// Media Campaign,” Mashable website, http://mashable.
lighthouseinsights.in/how-revlon-india-leveraged-social- com/2009/12/23/pepsi-super-bowl, accessed 4 March
media-to-gain-insights-for-a-product-launch.html, accessed 2013; John F. Dwight, “Pepsi Refresh Project,” http://www.
on 04 March 2013. johnfdwight.com/Pepsi-Refresh-Project, accessed 4 March
2013.
9. “Facebook: In India, 30 Percent of Users Are Mobile-only,”
PCWorld website, http://www.pcworld.com/article/257849/ 2. “India Inc sees a spurt in Oct-Dec ad spends,” The Times of
facebook_in_india_30_percent_of_users_are_mobileonly. India website, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/
html, accessed 4 March 2013. india-business/India-Inc-sees-a-spurt-in-Oct-Dec-ad-spends/
articleshow/18521804.cms, accessed 4 March 2013.
10. “Facebook ties up with Airtel, Reliance Communications; to
offer free data access for chat users,” The Economic Times 3. “The state of social media spends in India,”IndiaSocial
website, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/ website, http://www.indiasocial.in/social-media-investments,
facebook-ties-up-with-airtel-reliance-communications-to- accessed 1 April 2013.
offer-free-data-access-for-chat-users/articleshow/18783523.
cms, accessed 4 March 2013.

Five key characteristics of


How do organizations use social ”socially adaptable” and
media ads successful brands
1. “Social Media: New game, new rules, new winners,”
1. “General Motors Pulls Advertising From Facebook
Ernst & Young, http://bit.ly/YD4GJw, accessed 28
[REPORT],” Mashable website, http://mashable.
February 2013.
com/2012/05/15/general-motors-pulls-facebook-ads,
accessed 4 March 2013.

2. “E-commerce fashion retailer generates 25% of revenue


from Facebook,” Facebook, http://fbrep.com/collateral/
Myntra_CaseStudy.pdf, accessed 4 march 2013. “Kaya Skin
Clinic: Generating walk-ins through the Page,” Facebook,
https://www.facebook.com/advertising/success-stories/kaya,
accessed 4 March 2013,
52 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Team behind the report


Palin Ningthoujam Aditi Joshi
Palin.ningthoujam@in.ey.com Aditi.joshi@in.ey.com

Aseem Madan Ramprasad V


Aseem.madan@in.ey.com Ramprasad.v@in.ey.com

Follow E&Y India @EY_India


Let’s discuss this report at #EYstudy

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© 2013 Ernst & Young LLP Published in India. All Rights Reserved.

This publication contains information in summary form and is therefore


intended for general guidance only. It is not intended to be a substitute for
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