A report carried by Beyondbrics last week indicated how social media was increasingly being used for campaigning for the upcoming Indian elections. Indeed, social media networks have become potential routes for political parties to woo the country’s young, urban voters. Most of the parties have also started using these networks for public debates. However, it is to be noted that while Indian politics has just found out about the incredible potential of the social media, India Inc is using the latter for quite some time now.
Reports by Ernst and Young indicate that in the last year alone, Indian organizations used social media networks more than other companies did on a global scale. Nearly 90% of these Indian companies produced campaigns in which social media played significant roles. The report by EY revealed that while Facebook was the most used social media site, other sites like Twitter and YouTube were not far behind. Companies that had accounts and were active in these networks managed to reply to their customers promptly (a few hours via Facebook and just an hour via Twitter), thereby indicating the increasing focus of India Inc. on digital marketing.
Head of digital media at The Practice, Shane Jacob revels that social media has become very popular in the country over the past few years. She also indicated that while the core idea of reaching out to customers using social media remains the same, the idea of pushing social media in a country where a large part of the communications are still carried out via newspapers and radios would be tough.
Digital marketing teams today are on the lookout for newer ways to cater to the young and urban audience. For instance, the popular jewelry brand Tanishq went one-step ahead of posting messages in social media networks by inviting prospective brides to share unusual stories of their dream wedding. The organization’s website was flooded with stories, some of which were fulfilled, thereby increasing the brand’s reputation among its clients.
India Inc. also makes use of social media to track online debate. Digital marketing groups would scour the World Wide Web to track and monitor client reputation by finding out what social media users are saying about the client and his/her products/services. Many companies are turning to digital marketing companies in order to stay on track with their client’s thoughts and expectations.
Social media is also used for online conversations. A company having trouble with its phone line can easily respond to customer queries and complaints online, thereby retaining the former’s brand name and reputation. All these factors show the importance India Inc. has been giving and will continue to give to social media and digital marketing campaigns.
Summary
Of late, India has started using the social media for its political campaigns. It is to be noted though that social media happens to be a very popular platform for Indian companies which use these networks to advertise their products/services, interact with customers, woo more young, urban clients and track their reputation in the market. As such, digital marketing is growing rapidly in India, with measures taken to display the importance of the social media even in rural areas.
