Social Media (minus) Marketing

Most companies in India view social networks/media as another channel of marketing. Does social media have a scope wider than as a channel to deliver marketing messages targeted at the youth?

There is a lot of excitement about social media in marketing and advertising circles. Finally, they have something new to pitch to clients. Something beyond print, outdoor, television and online advertising.

But are they limiting the use of social media by making it synonymous with marketing. Isn’t there a huge potential for the use of social media beyond just brand building and connecting with customers?

For instance, any service company that needs to send short messages/updates to its customers can use Twitter. But I haven’t seen too many companies doing it in India. The value is very apparent. It can send these messages in a non-intrusive, automated way without worrying about managing a subscription system or a newsletter. The messages are instantly visible and if they are relevant and useful, the possibilities of them being further broadcast is much greater.

Why can’t they have a twitter feed that publishes trading calls during market hours?

A good example would be a stock broker (especially an online broker) who needs to send time-sensitive information to customers: buy/sell calls, trading ideas, market commentary and other updates. Why can’t they have a Twitter feed that publishes trading calls during market hours? or a feed for Investment Ideas that long-term investors subscribe to? or an open-to-all feed with market commentary?

Obviously, the number of your existing customers who use Twitter would be very low. But if you are targeting young, first-time investors through their advertising, doesn’t it make sense to create service features that appeal to this audience rather than selling them the same service you sold their parents?

Other comapanies that can meaningfully use Twitter include newspaper classifieds (subscribe to rent2BHK feed to find a house!), bookstores (new business books at Andheri store) and many other services. [A little disgression, but check the Twitter feed of S M Krishna (http://twitter.com/smkrishnacong), potential congress candidate from Bangalore. It is surprisingly authentic, even endearing!

Internationally, thousands of companies have already caught on to it and are using Twitter as a tool to keep customers posted (and also market their products/services). A good example is Dell. They announce discounts and deals on used product at http://twitter.com/DellOutlet. This is extremely useful to keep sending short updates to customers without bombarding their mail boxes or seeming intrusive. However, they also run a lot of other feeds which aren't that useful [http://www.dell.com/twitter]

Social Media will start to make sense and seem relevant when it is viewed as more than just a channel for marketing messages and Customer Relationship Management

In India, most old ‘new economy’ companies are on the ball when it comes to expensive implementation of technology, multi-year development projects and making efforts to build communities in their own little silos. But they are rarely seen embracing free, open and easy to implement/operate solutions like Twitter. Why?

I read an interesting summary of the recently held Indian Social Media Summit at sampadswain.com. Apart from the usual fantastic anecdotes (taxi driver marketing himself on YouTube :-D coming from the Social Media executives, some of the issues bothering executives from service companies are all centered around the reach and depth of social media

“how much is the target market reachable through this medium is the basic question?”
Ajay Kakkar, CMO, Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group

“80% of the audience spends 3 hours on TV and just 3% spend 80% of their time on Internet.”
Sandip Tarkas, President, Cusomer Strategy, Future Group

What I gather from the current discussions about social media is that almost everyone views it as just a new marketing channel to target the youth. I believe that Social Media will start to make sense and seem relevant when it is viewed as a channel of service delivery, as another touchpoint for a service… not just as an avenue to reach customers with marketing messages.

In fact, as a marketing medium, social networks are very demanding and difficult to take advantage of. Users are much more in control of what they see. Unless you have a contextual, relevant and useful value proposition, your message won’t really get much attention.