chapter 9 gsmm-india

7/27/2019 Chapter 9 GSMM-India

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Global Social Media Marketing: India

Overview

Social media platforms and online networking has brought about a revolution of sorts forindividuals and businesses in newer, economically liberated markets across the globe.

And the subcontinent is no different. In fact, the dominant political, economic, and

demographic force in this part of the world India, has become the breeding grounds forsome of the most pioneering work in this new arena of unlimited commercial and

business possibilities. Outside the United States, India has been pegged as the biggest

field of play for digital marketing - both as a service provider, and as a potential market.

Indians have flocked to social media websites in massive droves, with several more

waves waiting in the wings. And this ballooning interest in the internet and social mediais being driven by four giants of the web Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

It wouldnt be an exaggeration to state that Google has captured the mind, and Facebook

the hearts, of the 121 million internet users in the worlds largest democracy. Going bycurrent numbers and projections for the near future, it looks like online social networking

services - Facebook in particular, has the real potential to become the third most uniting

factor for Indians, right behind Bollywood and Cricket.

Indias Internet and Social Media Demography

Internet is poised to become the multi media interface of choice in India, as it is well set

to overtake television. Although fixed line broadband internet penetration is still

relatively low at only about 10% of the total user base, India does have a reported mobilesubscriber base of over 700 million. A huge chunk of this population is based in the ruralparts of the country, and approximately 200,000 subscribers are jumping into the mix

every 24 hours.

Out of the 120 odd million web users in the country, almost two-thirds are active on at

least one social media website. There were more than 40 million netizens in India using

various social networking and social media websites by the end of 2011.


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In 2010, 45,000 fresh users were joining one such service every single day, with

Facebook seeing an unprecedented growth in the second half of that particular year,registering a 50% increment in its user base in the country. Another popular social

networking service Orkut, which had made an early debut in the sub-continent, still had

over 20 million users in the country at the turn of the decade.

A study by Forrester Research found that Indian internet users are amongst the most

engaged social media users on the planet. According to them, 80% of web social Indianswere found to be content creators, 83% critics, 79% conversationalists, and 57% willing

receivers of marketing communication.

The most active social media age group in the country is the one between 18 and 25 - notsurprising, India being the country with the youngest population on the planet. However,

Inside Facebook in one of its reports, states that older users are becoming much more

relevant as a user demographic here. They recorded a growth of around 20% in

September 2010 for users aged between 35 and 44.

The report also found that Indias Facebook user count rose by 8.7% in that same month,the fastest among 16 of its biggest markets tracked by the Facebook Global

Demographics Report. But the report also mentioned that given the countrys

population, penetration levels are still low.


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On an average, only about 20% of social media users in India are female, a fact that is

tough to explain. On the other hand, older users have been found to be following the

same trends as the younger demographic when it comes to choosing a social mediawebsite.

Studies suggest that the period between 6 to 10 pm sees the highest activity on socialmedia sites, Facebook and Orkut being the most popular of these. Looking at images

uploaded by users takes up the biggest chunk of the activity time. On a timed basis,

Facebook seems to be the most engaging, receiving 975 seconds as average time spent byeach user per visit to the site, much of which can be attributed to its additional apps. One

such app Farmville, a popular social game, has made a huge mark on Indians with more

than one million subscribers. Close on its heels is Mafia Wars, another gaming app.

In the words of online Journalist and TheGadgetFan.com co-founder Sriram Vadlamani,In essence, India is searching on Google, hiring on LinkedIn, liking on Facebook, and

cribbing on Twitter.

The Facebook Storm

Realizing the huge potential this region has on offer, both Google and Facebookestablished their localised operations in India not so long ago. Both have included and

integrated regional Indian languages in their scheme of things. They are sending Internet

enabled buses to the hinterlands of the country to expand there presence even further.


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India was quick to become the second largest demographic for Googles fresh offering -the Google+ network. On its launch, it built up a user base of 3.5 million in just a matter

of months. But Google+ did not come even close to the kind of attention and success thatFacebook is still witnessing here - despite the concerns regarding Facebooks privacy

settings and the frequent changes to it, against Google+s advanced privacy options.

One way to explain this would be the fact that people already had established connectionsand friends on Facebook, and it was just a matter of resistance in giving up that

convenience or, it could be Facebooks ease of use.


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In fact, as of January 2012, in terms of number of users, India managed to surpass

Indonesia in becoming the top Facebook using country after the US. It now has over 45million users against Indonesias 43 million. Although this is a slender lead, statistically,

India is poised not only to maintain it, but in all probability increase it further in a short

span of time.

Of the total internet users in India, at least 40% of them are on Facebook as of now. This

is no mean achievement for a solo website without the support of other auxiliary or sisterservices. Indeed, Facebook is now becoming almost synonymous with the internet in this

country.

Some studies suggest that Facebook might even overtake web-based e-mail services in

the subcontinent. In a recent survey, Nokia was pronounced the top brand in India aheadof the likes of Tata. But that study only considered companies listed in the share market.

Now with Facebook in the mix, what with its huge IPO offering, Facebook might well be

crowned one of the top brands in India in the coming years.

However, Indias Facebook success story gets underlying assistance from a source whichmost do not consider. The worlds social networking service of choice is censured in its

biggest socio-economic and demographic rival in Asia if not in the world - China. If thatchanges, it would only be a matter of time before Indias second position on Facebook is

lost. But it is not expected to slip any further, thanks to its 120 million strong, and

growing, online population.


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Twitter in India

Twitter too, has experienced an extraordinary rise in popularity after being introduced tothe country by the likes of Mallika Sherawat, a well known actress, and further

popularized by parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor and Lalit Modi, the erstwhile chairman of

the countrys largest sporting extravaganza, the Indian Premier League a crickettournament of international proportions. Twitter now boasts of over 13 million users here,

with 16,000 more joining on a daily basis.

Professional & Matrimonial Social Networking

Apart from Facebooks 45 plus million and Orkuts 20 plus million users, over 10 million

were on LinkedIn - the professional networking platform, by the end of 2010.

There are 20 million monthly online job hunters in India, and human resource

consultancies in the country have plans to source 35% of their hiring from profiles ononline platforms such as LinkedIn.com.

54 million Indians are expected to go online to review products and services, and 21

million to look for life partners through social networking. Of the total online community

using social media sites in the country, 50 to 60% do not belong to the major


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metropolitans. This serves as a significant indicator of the rising popularity of social

media in smaller towns and the hinterlands of the country.

The State of Mobile Internet Access

Indian mobile phone usage has travelled far beyond making mere calls and sending shorttexts. In addition to the 120 million internet users, more than 250 million Indians have

already experienced the online world, especially sites such as Googles Orkut, Facebook,

Twitter and Youtube, on their mobile phones. These numbers can only go up from hereon, what with the newer 3G and 4G technologies and smart phones swarming the retail

space in every nook and corner of the country.

According to some estimates, India is poised to generate 40 million users each year forthe foreseeable future that will engage in social networking activities from their mobile

devices. As more and more Indians prepare to invest greater time and money into smart

phones, social media is becoming pivotal in keeping them engaged.

This is verified by the fact that for the current Indian consumer, internet and 3G has

become a top priority while purchasing a cell phone or a mobile telephony service. Thereis also an ever increasing desire amongst upwardly mobile urban classes to keep

upgrading their handsets constantly.

Social media has become such a huge draw, that cell-phone companies are marketing

their products riding on Facebook and Twitter apps as their primary selling points.

Facebook itself has started a huge campaign to get its mobile version on every phone that

is being used in the country.

The Social Media Wars

In the last few years, Facebook has completely overshadowed and digested the erstwhile

top social network in India Googles Orkuts. Google on the other hand, has done

nothing concrete to curtail this trend. The mass migration of users from Orkut toFacebook carries on unabated. Facebook has even come up with features such as Find

your Orkut friends to aid and abet this massive exodus.


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62% Orkut users in India now have Facebook accounts, and the rest can be found by

using the aforementioned Facebook feature, thereby reducing Orkuts relevance evenfurther. What is perplexing is the fact that Google has allowed Facebook to log into Orkut

and siphon away its subscribers.

This trend is being seen as a threat by watchers to the survival of other providers as well,

especially the indigenous ones, like iBibo, one of the fastest growing Indian social

network with a subscriber base of 3 million plus.

On the other hand, Facebook has launched a full frontal attack on Googles flagship

service Gmail, with its own web based e-mail project that has been christened Titan.

While it isnt a novel internet idea by any stretch of the imagination, what gives it anedge over other e-mail services is its cross-compatibility with Facebooks social

networking site, one that will include image and event sharing facilities.

The fact that Facebook has the largest user base in the entire online world, works just asan added weapon in its arsenal. As of now, there are armies of web dwellers who leave

Facebook only when they have to check their mail. Once that comes to Facebook, theconsequences could be debilitating for the rest.

For Indias own social networking sites such as BharatStudent.com which already had 3million users in 2010, but has since experienced massive stagnation, things are looking

bleak. SMSGupShup is an Indian startup that used to have 22 million subscribers in

India, way more than Facebook, Twitter and Orkut combined. Yet very few people will

recognize it as a brand in mainstream India today. Says Beerud Sheth, the founder ofWebaroo, which owns SMSGupShup, in India, the approach is firangi, not tirangi,

roughly meaning, given a choice, the average Indian will always go for the western

product over an indigenous one.

Indigenous social media service providers are concerned that if such a massive internet

success story does not get the kind of recognition it deserves, either domestically orinternationally, and fails to become a top of the shelf product for the world to use, then it

becomes really tough to be optimistic about future local entrepreneurship in the field of

online social media in the country.

The Larger Impact of Mass Social Networking

Indians are increasingly coming to terms with the true magnitude and scope of internetbased social networking in regards to mass cultural and political movements in the urban

centres of the country.

The recent anti-corruption drive in the country, touted as the Arab Spring of India, was

largely driven by social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. It resulted in the

formation of new political forces such as the India Against Corruption movement,


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which later went on to become a bona fide political party with a manifesto to dethrone the

ruling alliance in the next general elections.

Then there are web based entertainment phenomena such as the Why This Kolaveri Di

music video, which went viral on YouTube, achieving 40 million views by the end of

January 2012.

While most of the Indian government structure and administrative machinery still carries

a reputation for being unresponsive and slow to adopt new technology and practices,some agencies have taken measures to change this perception by choosing to adopt

digital social media as a platform to engage with the citizenry at large.

Delhi Traffic Police for instance, has started one such initiative with a stated objective ofbuilding better trust and dialogue with the city communities. This includes maintaining

Twitter and Facebook pages to regulate and resolve traffic issues in the city. During the

2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games, Delhi Police made an appeal to citizens to take

pictures of traffic offenders using their mobile phone cameras and post them on theirFacebook fan page. This lead resulted in a massive response from the locals. Legal

follow-ups are being duly carried out on each case.


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Instances like these indicate that online social networking has already started playing a

crucial role for mass movements in urban Indian society, and is acting as a catalyst for

bringing in greater credibility and accountability for government and its agencies at boththe regional and national level authorities that have traditionally evoked an

unfavourable opinion, particularly amongst the urban middle classes.

One must also take due note of the fact that there is a blooming contingent in the urban

classes and some sections of both the alternative and mainstream media, which does not

take kindly to this critique-less mass use of online networking platforms. There areconcerns that citizens can be mislead on issues of national importance with the misuse of

these digital tools for proliferating mass propaganda in the country. Some critics even

believe that the youth of India might soon start getting tired, bored, or disillusioned by

the leading social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The Challenges and Opportunities for Online Marketers

For most Indians, the internet is becoming synonymous with social networking, apart ofcourse from the search engine utilities. Not surprisingly, individual users are not the only

ones on these websites in India. Most big brands in the country have already taken tomarketing their products and services on social networking websites, albeit with varied

degrees of success. Even the most interactive of marketing programs are now exploring

means other than traditional and organic marketing tactics in order to sustain and furtherdevelop a strong niche for themselves in this massive market.

At the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference held in New Delhi on the 15th November,

2011, Brad Smallwood, Facebooks Global Head of Insights and Measurement laid deepemphasis on the role and relevance of social media platforms in brand marketing in this

cyber age. Also discussed was the importance of measuring and quantifying the same, so

that the performance of the brand on these platforms can be assessed accurately.

Smallwood also laid a lot of stress on listening to the online community and drawing

important lessons so that a campaign evolves into an effective value addition, anddelivers long term bottom-line benefits. The most crucial point made by him however,

was the need to focus on the community that is not a fan, the logic being a fan is

already a customer. The like button is only an opportunity, not an end. he said.

Here is an interesting fact - only 6 brands in India had more than 300,000 fans on their

Facebook pages till some time back. These were Vodafones Zoozoo campaign, MTV

India, Fastrack, Axe Angels Club, Facebook India, and FlipKart.com. However, someexperts argue that these numbers are not of any substantial significance when it comes to

judging a particular brands overall social media program. They are however an

important indicator of the brands magnitude of intent in utilizing the online and socialmedia platform.

Indian consumers expectations from brands on social media platforms are hardly any

different from the rest of the global markets. According to Neilsen, 53% of social media


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users here are looking for shopping sales and discounts online, 50% are in for

information on industry trends, and 48% are looking for advice on products and services.


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Brands will also benefit by the availability of affordable mobile handsets and devices,

such as the Akaash II tablet, which in June 2102 was announced to be retailed for justover GPB 26, targeting the vast rural landscape in India. Marketing campaigns targeting

the sub continent therefore, must factor in mobile adaptation to be successful here.

One of the key challenges that brands and digital marketers face in India is an acute

shortage of syndicated statistics and authenticated data that can be used to benchmark the

success or failure rates of online commercial campaigns in the Indian market. Socialmedia marketing analysis in India is maturing however, and more and more relevant data

is now being floated on a regular basis now for academic dissection.

Smaller Brands Have the Right Idea

Online marketing trends and results in India are proving that on the internet, the world is

flat. The size of the brand seems to be irrelevant if the focus is on building bridges with

the targeted community through innovative interest generation, rather than trying to hardsell a product or service. One could surmise that the standardised practices of online

marketing do not hold as much water in a nation as culturally, linguistically, andethnically diverse as India.

In a study conducted by Kapil Ohri of Afaqs, it has been established that a range ofsmaller brands are making far better use of the social media platforms in India, as against

their bigger counterparts. Brands such as Wildcraft and Cocoberry are doing way better

than the likes of Reebok, KFC India, Parle Agros Hippo, ITCs Bingo, or even the

extreme niche brands such as the Big Chill Caf, which are way less active on theirrespective Facebook pages. Even the biggest corporate names in India such as Airtel,

Chevrolet India, and Tata Photon, have not been able to generate much interest in their

promotional campaigns on online social networks.

This phenomenon is being attributed to the fact that smaller brands are being much more

adventurous in their online marketing approach by incorporating unusual and sometimestaboo ideas to engage their fans, who in turn are bringing in more traffic to their pages on

social media websites.

Conclusion

When it comes to digital marketing, India has already emerged as a market of immense

possibilities for brands of all shapes and sizes. The need of the hour is to understand theonline demography better by building up a bigger body of data that can be analysed and

applied to marketing strategies for online social media spaces such as Facebook, Twitter,

LinkedIn, and YouTube, in order to create more innovative and customized mechanismsthat are fine-tuned for the Indian cultural and social context.

What is important for brands at this juncture is to make a start and have an online

presence as soon as possible, so as to avoid losing out to the oncoming competition.


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References:

Neha Chandok -

www.indiasocial.in/facebook-grows-among-older-age-groups-in-india-inside-facebookwww.indiasocial.in/small-brands-are-making-big-on-social-media

Sriram Vadlamani -www.asiancorrespondent.com/41653/top-6-social-networks-in-india

www.asiancorrespondent.com/41932/did-facebook-hit-the-final-nail-on-orkut-in-india

www.techwireasia.com/1472/indias-digital-media-not-a-fad-its-just-getting-started

Malavika Varma -

www.indiasocial.in/a-larger-social-media-community-doesnt-equate-consumer-

engagement-nielsen-consumer-360-india

S Swetha -

www.indiasocial.in/government-bodies-use-social-media-big-daddy-smells-the-coffee

IndiaSocial.in -

www.indiasocial.in/social-media-marketing-in-india-%E2%80%93-brands-active-on-facebook

Images:

The Growth of Social Sites in India:

www.labnol.org/india/social-sites-india/18649

Facebook India Statistics September 2010 by Adheeth, September 2, 2010:

www.adheeth.com/facebook-india-statistics-september-2010

State Of Social Media (World Statistics) by Rajiv Dingra, March 16, 2010:

www.socialtrakr.com/2010/03/16/state-of-social-media-world-statistics

2012: Taking Over the World by Priit Kallas:

www.dreamgrow.com/facebook-statistics-2012-taking-over-the-world

Internet and Social Media in India: Latest Trends and Statistics by Indrashish Ghosh,

June 20, 2011:

www.indrashishghosh.com/social-media-in-india

Finding your target audience on social media - A quick primer, July 14, 2010:

www.blog.adityarao.name/finding-your-target-audience-on-social-media-%E2%80%93-

a-quick-primer
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Social Media in India by Ankit, September 24, 2011:

www.hungrynfoolish.com/social-media-in-india

Social Media Statistics of Facebook & YouTube for brands in India - January 2012:

www.socialbakers.com/blog/372-social-media-statistics-of-facebook-youtube-for-brands-in-india-january-2012

Social Media India - Facebook India Statistics:www.omllion.com/blog/2011/03/social-media-india-facebook-india-statistics

Social Media India - Linkedin India User Statistics:

www.omllion.com/blog/2011/03/social-media-india-linkedin-india-user-statistics
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chapter 9 gsmm-india

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