Microreviews

Is Social Media actually working in India? Is Social Media Marketing the only facet of social media? Can you help your business through social media in India ? What should you be doing if you want to market yourself , or your brand for that matter, on social media? These are my views on what you need to be doing to undertake a successful social media campaign in India . Please add on to the list by way of comments.

• Facebook fan page: A Facebook fan page is something we all have seen. Once a person becomes a fan on your fan page, your updates appear on his profile. Obviously, until he decides to remove himself from the fan page. A number of custom applications can be built on the fan page. Companies have even started using the fan page for e-commerce and competitions for promoting their brands. This can be done very easily using the static-FBML application and writing some very simple mark up. By the way, Facebook now is the 4^th most popular site in India, overtaking Orkut. Check out the facebook fan page of Coca Cola to see how the brand has used it beautifully.

• Facebook applications: A facebook application can be viral. Some companies in India have already started using the facebook applications to brand themselves. The Complete the zoo-zoo story application by Vodafone is a case in point.

• Orkut : Although, Orkut(5^th most popular site in India) is a dying social medium, it still remains a major social network as far as India is concerned. It still has the highest number of user accounts for a social network in India. Make sure you monitor the discussions going on about your brand. If you really think your brand could leverage Orkut, you can even go for Orkut applications.

• Twitter: Everybody seems to have a twitter account these days. Companies like Dell have used twitter to do some good business. Yahoo India seems to be running huge contests on Twitter to get the word of mouth going for them.

  

  India is number 2 as far as twitter usage goes

  However, there are still a lot of small companies which are trying to figure out how this thing works. My advice to them would be just try it out first. The only way to learn what is happening on twitter is to get busy using it. The small businesses using twitter have to understand that twitter’s reach is truly global. Find out twitter audience in your vicinity using services like Nearby Tweets and target them. Also make sure you have information going out continuously on twitter, or else your tweet will be nowhere to be seen on your follower’s wall. As a matter of fact, i read somewhere that Indian companies have still not deciphered Twitter. I must say that it’s high time they start understanding the concept of two-way communication on Twitter. Twitter is now the 12^th most popular site in India. India, now is at number 2 as far as number of twitter users is concerned. US has 37% presence on twitter,India has 8% and I bet Indians will out number Americans very soon. No wonder every time the Indian cricket team is playing, one of the Indian cricket players is a trending topic.

• Blog: Try to understand the focus of your blog. Some companies try to put up quality information about the industry they are in. This gives them an edge and leaves the audience thinking that your brand understands what it is doing. Other companies however, have used their blogs to show the human side of the company. With a number of their own employee’s blogging about the fun they are having working in your company helps the audience relate to your brand in a human way. Companies like Zappos have done this very well. Although, a tougher medium to use, the ROI is very high. I don’t see any Indian company showing off their consumer-sensitive side through a blog. The microsite of pampers which is covered in one of our previous posts can be good example to look at.

• LinkedIn: LinkedIn is more of a professional social networking platform. To embrace LinkedIn, create an account and try to see how everyone else is getting involved in it. LinkedIn already has 3.4 million users in India and now the Mumbai office.

  

  LinkedIn has opened its office at Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai

  LinkedIn, in the years to come can be a major replacement for the job finding and posting sites. You even have facilities to upload your resumes, create groups and polls. Most of the alumni meets these days happen through LinkedIn. For business networking, LinkedIn is the way to go. Now that your twitter account can also be integrated with your LinkedIn account, there is a little bit of conversation going on there too. Make sure your LinkedIn account is very neat, whether you are a company or an individual. Outlook 2010 will have LinkedIn integration.

• Wikipedia: Wikipedia may not seem a social medium but it is in fact one of the most important mediums to monitor. Make sure the information out there is correct and try to edit if you feel the information has been tampered with.

• Leave comments on other people’s blogs: This is one part of social media which most people, even the so called *social media evangelists* miss out. This however is the most important thing, if you are trying to establish yourself as an expert in a field. It doesn’t happen overnight but after certain amount of time, people in your field start knowing you and can even go on to refer business to you. People don’t even mind a small back link to your blog.

• The Q & A sites and forums: There are a lot of Q and A sites on the internet. Yahoo Answers and Wiki Answers being the major ones. Make sure you answer all the queries people have about your brand in the various Q & A sites. There are also some Q & A sites which are specific to your sector. Make sure you take a look at them. The forums are also a major source of Buzz about a brands positivity or negetivity. Forums like Indiabroadbandforum, consumercomplaints etc. ,must be monitored very closely to monitor your brand. Answer people if they have any queries about your brand at such places.

• Mobile Social Networks: Mobile social networks haven’t yet taken off in India but they will soon. Networks like Foursquare have been doing very well in the United States. I personally believe mobile Internet will do better in India than normal broadband has. Mobile users in India outnumber broadband users by a huge margin. Mobile Social Network, Mozat, formerly Morange has reported over 10 million registered users (mostly in Asia). The number of mobile internet users in China is more than the population of United States. Indian brands need to understand that Mobile Phone is the future and at least register their names out there. Whether mobile social networks work for you completely depend on the nature of your business. A real estate agent would benefit immensely from this media.

• Monitor: Start listening. It would do you a good deal of help to understand what is being said about you or your brand. For a small brand, there a set of basic things which they can do are: A) Set up Google alerts ; so that whenever your name gets mentioned in any of the searches or on blogs, you get to know about them. B) Use twitter search once a day and see what people have to say about you. C) Even Facebook has the search facility these days and should be monitored periodically. If you are a big brand, however, and really want to invest a good amount of money, you can go for professional services which monitor your brand. You can even use freebies like Social Mention, Trendrr etc. For a comprehensive list of some of the free services click here . Services like Radian6, Trackur etc. are okay and there are some very good upcoming services which we will let you know shortly. For a good list, check here.

• Video and Photo Sharing sites: Remember the video “Where the hell is Matt”?. YouTube and Flickr are surely a part of the social media revolution which has taken place over the years. A simple video says what a long blog cannot and it says it all in a much more effective way. A look at the youtube channel of dell shows how effectively youtube is being used by Dell. Also, make it a point to check the beautiful photo sharing profile of Dell called Digital Nomads. Before you go for a channel like youtube(it is costly to make videos) make a check if your target audience is there on youtube. Picasa photo sharing may return more to you if you are targeting the Indian audience.

• Combining your social media campaign with some social cause: Some of the companies in India who have taken up social media campaigns have been pretty much throwing their brands information on the users. Tata Docomo almost reached levels of hash tagging where people started feeling spammed by their social media campaign. Indian brands can learn from the way Jimmy choos has taken up their social media campaign with the name jimmychoo72 . The money they make from this campaign goes to the Elton John AIDS Foundation. In this way, Jimmy choos is able to combine its Social media campaign with CSR activities and hence create beautiful branding around itself. I would dearly love to see an Indian brand doing some similar work.

One of the most important thing, however, is that your social media campaigns in different mediums must go on in a synchronised manner. If you want to know what I mean by a synchronised manner, check out a previous post on microreviews here. All your social medium should connect to each other. The facebook profile must be able to update your twitter feed. The twitter feed in turn can update your LinkedIn profile if it has a #in attached. Your website must have a place where all your social media activities are listed the way dell has done at http://www.dell.com/twitter and http://www.dell.com/facebook

• Try using Social Media as your first level of feedback.

• Listen to people and answer them.

• Show the human face of your brand through social media.

• Donot over do it, the way Tata Docomo did for a while and pissed of many people completely.

• If you are extremely clueless about Social Media take professional help. I know some people who do it extremely well. Contact them here.

Most of the stuff you see above(except for the youtube videos or facebook applications) comes for free and can be taken up by small brands themselves. Also, a decent facebook application costs you in the range Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 200,000 ( unless you are looking for a Farmville or Mafia Wars). I have come across a decent set of guys who do some cool facebook application development. Get in touch with them here.

These were some of the basic things which can be undertaken by small/big brands to leverage social media in India.Make sure your brand’s name is not already taken on the social mediums at http://knowem.com/ or http://namechk.com/ and register them as soon as possible. I can assure you social media in India will be bigger than it has been in the United States. India, after all is the biggest democracy in the world.

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Related posts:

1. Social Media – The Dell Way
2. Consumer and Influencer engagement through Social Media
3. Dell-Twitter-Money
4. Social Media – The Power Unleashed
5. Social Media Presence of Indian Telecom Majors- Part 3- Website and Blog

Tags: cost of facebook application development, facebook application development in India, Social Media, social media in India, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Marketing in India