On the outlook of Social media strategy:
Marketeer:
Experience based socia interactivity happens for travel. MakeMyTrip keeps the user at the centre of marketing and media mix (TV, SEO, SEM, Social). You are talking to an individual and not an entity. Improve the product and strategy with the user interactions.
Agency View:
Earlier social was not taken seriously, now every marketing manager is concerned about the communication and messaging.
Thought Leader View:
Language and corporate outreach strategy will be the defining decision for India. If you don’t talk to the audience they understand, the marketing won’t work effectively.
Global strategy doesn’t work in India, local market and vernacular content has to be considered.
Global brands and listed companies play it safe. Crisis management guidelines are being setup with agency inputs.The concern is it only has a list of Don’ts. The solution is to find what is common worldwide and implement it as a social philosophy.
Striking the balance between execution of social and following global best practices can be achieved by educating users. The communication and response within compliance and corporate guidelines come into picture.
Social Media, there are no best practices. It can be a new experiment or a new pilot at one part of the world and can be replicated across markets worldwide. Local initiatives may go big not necessarily from the developed markets.
From negative outlook about brand to getting happy with the mentions is what companies experience after experimenting.
Localization in India for Indians on different languages is yet to evolve fully so marketers are restricted reaching a person and providing services and solutions. On Vernacular, agencies and brands are concerned about the effect and a bad name. Monitoring the conversations is the way agencies are currently a day to day activity.
Display on vernacular side, the response is great. NRI communities are being targeted through custom pages. Trademark issues do come in while expanding to new geographies. Content violations need more guidelines to specify the copy and share. Assets or content piece has become one of the biggest issue along with TradeMark violations.
Other than Internet industry, driving brand strategy via social media is hard to be accepted.
Creating communities language based can take the marketing to the next level.
Challenges ahead of Social Media in India:
– Fear of social as a channel
– A talent pool
– Showing conversions
– Social guys don’t get support from the Senior Management
ROI from Social Media:
– Budget allocation by Buckets (online – offline, Social)
– Creating thought leadership as an advisory based ROI
– Hear the customer right and improving the product offering
– Add value for the customer which will enhance Brand visibility and recall with long term engagement
– Sentiment analysis in a positive way
– Most people believe if I know someone they will give you special attention. Brands are not ready for the same.
– Concerns over Marketeer’s not opening the new channel as Social Media till they show it won’t affect the other channels negatively.
