Buying Facebook Likes? Paying for positive reviews? Purchasing Twitter Followers?

Just few days back I had tweeted about my declining interest in some of my favorite blogs. Reason? Posts on those blogs now are obvious enough to make out that they are paid and not the real ones. And yesterday I got to read this report, which states that paid reviews are gaining momentum as social media marketing trend.

As per this recent report by Gartner, by 2014 between 10% and 15% of all ratings and reviews on social networking sites will be fake or paid ones as against the current percentage of 1% to 2%. Due to increased consumer reliance on social media sites, companies are now spending more in order to get attention and build positive content on these channels.

“With over half of the Internet’s population on social networks, organizations are scrambling for new ways to build bigger follower bases, generate more hits on videos, garner more positive reviews than their competitors and solicit ‘likes’ on their Facebook pages,” said Jenny Sussin, senior research analyst at Gartner. “Many marketers have turned to paying for positive reviews with cash, coupons and promotions including additional hits on YouTube videos in order to pique site visitors’ interests in the hope of increasing sales, customer loyalty and customer advocacy through social media ‘word of mouth’ campaigns.”

The report also predicts that with the percentage of false social networking reviews increasing, chances of backlash will be more both in terms of media attention and Federal Trade Commission lawsuits. You can read the summary of the report here.

Fake reviews and paid likes? Considering the consumer presence and engagement with social sites it had to happen but my question is why? If you ask me, I still have not come across even a single such sensibly executed paid campaign that I can accept or appreciate either as a consumer or as a marketer. “Like us on Facebook and win prizes”, “Follow us on Twitter and get discount” – digital medium is flooded with such offers and promotions these days.

Offers and promotions to attract relevant audience are still understandable as once they are associated with your brand you can try to engage them in interesting ways but buying out random followers and likes just to project a huge fan following? OK, you bought likes, have a huge fan following on Facebook and large follower base on Twitter, then what? Are they reading your communication? Are they engaged with your brand? Are they interacting with you on these channels? In most of these cases, answer is no. Then what business objective is getting served with these randomly bought followers? Even for paid content, positive posts written with a balanced approach may help to boost your image to some extent but then if it is not backed up with product / service fulfillment then what? Your same post gets backfired with numerous negative comments and ratings. And this I’m speaking of “smart” paid content, let’s not even discuss the ones written in a way that self advertise those posts being fakes and not real ones loud and clear.

These gimmicks (or shall I call them modern day internet scam) may help you achieve your short-term goals but in the long run? Well, I have no idea! Not only these can lead to loss of brand credibility but can backfire as well in an uncontrolled negative way. To add to that, it would also impact the core essence of social media being i.e., engagement and interaction! So, what do you think of these campaigns? Do you think social media will also meet the same fate as email or sms marketing? Can you make out the difference between real and paid content? Have you liked any page for any incentive and if yes, did you unlike the page once you were incentivized? Would love to hear your views on these.

Social Media ‘Experts’! Really?

I had thought to write a post on this earlier too but for some or other reason never wrote one. But my last few interactions at different occasions made me think about this term Social Media “Experts” yet again. “Experts” and that too with 6-7 years of experience in Social Media! Like really? Every time I hear this term, I feel exactly same as when I hear about being Startup “Gurus” from the mouths of those who have never run or worked in a startup even once.

Was interacting with this one such so-called expert who is supposedly consulting many startups on marketing and social media strategies. Well, in the name of expertise all that he had to offer was ideas to increase “likes” on Facebook pages. To add to that, one of his ‘killer’ strategies for low cost marketing was make ‘viral’ films for clients. If I have to quote verbatim – “we make viral films for clients which will increase their fans on their Facebook pages”. Felt like telling – dude, being an expert the least you could have done is avoided using jargons like “make viral films”. I have no idea what does that really mean? I think you can only make films and expect it to go viral, how exactly can you “make a viral film” directly? Needless to mention that at least I have not come across any of the viral films made by them naturally on my FB or Twitter timeline.

Attended a small meet on flexi-working culture in India last weekend, intro round of marketing professionals and here it was – 7 out of 10 participants were “Social Media Experts”! Did a quick check, one of them was somewhat active on twitter, two had less than 200 followers and remaining four were not even present on twitter. While interacting with them, realized that either they never felt the need to join Twitter or they joined but didn’t find it to be interesting enough to pursue. Yes, they all knew Facebook and Twitter but that was all about it! Few likes on whatever and few tweets on whatever gave them sufficient confidence to call themselves as “Social Media Experts”.

In yet another incident, a close acquaintance who has joined a luxury travel company in India in a senior position needed some inputs on his products and marketing. I got to analyze the product and past campaigns of the company and to my utmost surprise the company whose founders are based of India had actually spent lakhs and lakhs of rupees in online campaigns every month. The campaign was run by some digital marketing expert and in the name of online campaign, all that he did was Google SEM. In that too, client has been charged on cost per lead basis with an explanation that Google charges it like that and with rates as high as… well no idea for reference point as in my experience I have never heard of such high lead rates ever! Don’t even want to go into details of campaign management rather mismanagement, as I think it has the potential to become an independent case study on what not to do in SEM campaigns. To just give you a sneak peak – neither the campaign was configured anywhere in analytics nor the campaign code was enabled on landing or any other page for tracking! And this was of course done by yet another “expert”, yes his Linkedin profile does contain the word expert prominently .

Not that the misuse of this term is anything new to us but I think with each passing day, there is a noticeable growth in the number of these so called experts around us. Having managed social media accounts for companies where I have worked and few other brands, I think I can share at least my views on evaluating any candidate for social media management in general. Well this post is long enough for now, I will be back with my thoughts in a subsequent post soon.

Calling all Women Entrepreneurs

This post is especially for women readers of my blog. Women’s Web team is conducting a survey on ‘Women and Entrepreneurship’ in India. The result of this survey would be shared freely on their website. The team feels that with more women in India starting businesses than ever before, it’s a good time to understand what are the factors challenging women as entrepreneurs, and what they need to succeed. This study will be useful to existing / aspiring women entrepreneurs, advisors and or anybody who works with entrepreneurs.

So, can I request all my women readers who are running their own businesses to take out few minutes of their busy schedules and respond to their survey here? The more the participation, the better the analysis. So, please support by responding to the survey as well as spreading the word. Thanks!

Quick Bytes: I’m back and with a ‘bharat bandh special offer’ :-)

I’m back and this time after a really looooong break from this blog. Phew five months into Mommydom already and it seems just like yesterday. Oh yes, in case you don’t know, then let me announce it here as well that I’m actually Mommy Kanupriya now . It’s my new phase of life that has been keeping me busy and away from many things including my love for blogging. But I ain’t complaining. Like most new moms say, this phase of life is indeed the most special one, something which I can’t put in words ever and all the changes or adjustments are actually worth it. With things settling down a bit, I’m now looking forward to revive this blog again. Though have been somewhat active on my personal blog but was not able to manage sufficient time at a stretch to concentrate and write any post suitable for Marketing Chit-Chat.

Thanks to those who dropped me an email asking about my whereabouts and reasons for this blog being inactive. I have lot to share and lot to learn from all of you, so look forward to posts and comments exchange once again in this space. For today just a “Quick Byte” – how many of you received this email from Indiaplaza today?

I did and for a moment I couldn’t believe it. “Bharat Bandh Special Offer” – are you serious? In the name of this Bandh, while some were busy burning buses and some ranting about it on social media, here came a gem of a communication from a brand like Indiaplaza from whom I didn’t expect something like this. I mean what was that – a #WTH, a #Facepalm or a #Fail? Well, looks like the email communication guys seriously misunderstood the holiday on account of bandh to be a festival special holiday , otherwise why on earth would you announce an offer especially for Bharat Bandh? You know as I always say a prompt “chance pe dance” marketing is smart but then you better know when and how to capitalize on the chance rightly. After seeing this I think even offers in name of potato/tomato days would have been ok but a bandh special promotion? What do you think?

RA.One Marketing: Was definitely needed but how much?

Just watched another program bashing up Ra.One marketing campaign and how the film has been a dud till now despite a very well planned campaign. Well, first of all I have not watched the movie till now, so I wont be the right person to comment on the actual content of the movie. I’m aware of the basic theme, the marketing campaigns, supposedly the superior effects, technological edge, the characters and songs of the movie. But beyond that no comments on whether it’s good or bad.

Possibly one of the longest marketing campaigns in the history of Indian movie marketing spanning over a period of approx 10 months & with a lavish budget of Rs. 40 crores, Ra.One had indeed one of the most discussed maniac marketing campaigns ever. From global tours, to graphic novels, to digital marketing, to brand alliances, to presence on reality shows, to innovative merchandises, to physical toys, to digital games for ipods / ipads, to youtube channel, to google plus pages… phew and yes, before I forget, to even have Akon for Chammak Challo and Lady Gaga for the premier… I mean you name it and the movie had got it. Yes, I agree the marketing campaign for Ra.One was nothing less than an attack on your senses! Words like overdrive or aggressive promotion would be understatement for a campaign of that magnitude.

But I still do not understand why link up a promotion campaign with the average or failed performance of the movie. Since when a good marketing has actually made a bad product successful in the market? Can’t recall even one case study where a crap product has been a hit because of strong marketing. Despite, all the criticism on the marketing strategies and the need for it, I for one at least think that a movie like Ra.One needed the promotion push in the market. Here’s why:

• Content: The movie tries to venture into a different zone, the sci-fi genre that is still primarily untouched by many in Indian film industry. A third of the film’s budget has gone into special effects and Ra.One boasts of some 3,500 VFX shots in the entire movie. Considering the digital bang and effort which has gone into creating this kind of content, it does make sense to me to back it up with relevant marketing and engagement tools like digital games, innovative merchandises and graphic novels etc. Two of my movie buff friends actually commented – “when it comes to special effects, the movie has been made marvelously well. Whatever said and done, the movie has set up a benchmark and standard for others to match up to in Indian Film Industry.”

• Character: It’s not a general Bollywood flick with a pre-decided story line. This movie is all about an Indian super hero and that too a new brand. More than the movie, a character G.One had to be introduced, defined and established in the minds of the TG. A brand different from legendaries like Spiderman or Superman of this world. Now whenever there has been a need of such introduction, promotion has to be done. Take the case of any famous Hollywood flick and you’ll see a trend.

• Target Audience: Apart from regular SRK fan base, the movie was also targeted towards kids and anything around kids these days has to be marketed with that special imagery or the zing factor to grab their attention. In fact if we speak of the TG, it was sort of a shift from that typical SRK imagery where instead of wooing the women audience or presenting a family melodrama, it was the first time when he has tried to entertain kids primarily. And trust me I have met three kids in last one week who actually liked the movie, loved the character of G.One and merchandises of Ra.One.

Considering the attempt at a different kind of content, need to establish a brand in form of a character and an attempt to target a completely different set of audience, I think this movie needed the marketing buzz for sure. Now, whether a budget as huge as this was needed or promotion as aggressive as this was required is something really debatable. In my views, its yet another classical case of “how much is too much” and “create the hype only if you have the potential to sustain it” with which the campaign needs to be reviewed or evaluated and not with a direct correlation or one-to-one relationship solely between marketing efforts and product performance.

P.S: Despite all the criticism, I think I do want to catch up on this movie sometime for sure and if at all my views change after watching this movie, I will update the post again.

100 million & counting: Internet users in India

It has happened. India crosses the 100 Mn Internet users mark this September. As per the latest report from IAMAI, there are 112 Mn claimed Internet users as on September 2011, out of which 88 million users belong to urban cities and 24 Mn to rural areas. Compared to last year, there has been a growth of around 13% and by December 2011 it is expected that there will be 121 Mn claimed Internet users.

Few other key insights from the report:

• Usage from home has increased whereas common access points like cyber café usage seem to be on decline as compared to previous years. Around 37 percent of users access the Internet from home, 23 percent from cyber cafes, 22 percent from office, 9 percent from mobile devices and rest from schools and other such places.

• Internet usage in smaller towns continues to spike its dominance over top 8 metros with a combined usage of more than 60 percent.

• Youngsters in India continue to drive Internet Usage in India and usage of school going kids has seen a substantial rise. This opens up the market for children aged below 18 year of age.

• While the usage by both college going kids and young men have taken a slight dip compared to 2009, school going kids have started using internet more than they’ve ever had in the past decade owing to the now existent e-learning services and educational information available on the Internet.

• Emails, Education, Social Networking, Music and Text chatting are the most popular activities amongst Urban Internet users whereas in Rural areas accessing music, videos, photos and general information search are the activities of prime usage.

  

So, users and usages have increased. What next for India Online? More e-commerce companies? Better e-learning services? Increased market for smart-phones and tablets? Growth in Mobile Internet Industry? Well, maybe all of these. Indeed a landmark figure has been reached, now interesting to see how it impacts the overall state of Indian Internet Industry and its position in Global competitive landscape.

Source: Report on Internet in India (I-Cube) 2011.

Customer Communication

E-commerce in India: From convenience to choice

And this time I was not surprised when this friend of mine from a far remote corner of the country informed me that her recent purchase was actually an original off the runway dress straight from a leading fashion event. By now I know that like many, even she is hooked on to a popular luxury e-commerce Indian site which not only gives her the chance to access the latest in fashion but has also made it absolutely simple for her to buy anything of her taste in just few clicks. This friend who had to relocate to a small town due to personal reasons always used to crib about lack of branded or in-vogue things at her place but since the day I had introduced her to few established e-commerce sites in India there has been absolutely no looking back. From books to apparel to accessories, she has tried it all and is thrilled at the way e-shopping has transformed her shopping experience. Not only is she herself convinced about it, she has also got few friends and colleagues of hers to log on to these sites and order stuffs which are not available in their vicinity.

As a consumer, her online buying behavior has moved on an up curve with time, she started with items like books where the chances of product damage during transit were less plus the purchase value was small. With positive experiences by one e-retailer and one courier company, she slowly started to order high value items from different sites and now is completely convinced about the benefits of e-commerce and reliability of online transaction in India. Yes, consumers like hers are not the majority and there are many who are still wary of transacting online but then the fact that she is ordering so many high value items from such remote corner is definitely some indicator.  In yet another similar incidence, there is this acquaintance of mine who is in a habit of changing his mobile phone every few months. During his last purchase, he managed to get a model of HTC delivered at his door far before than I could have bought it. He had pre booked it online from yet another popular Indian e-commerce site!

Isn’t it interesting to see such trends happening in India now? While for people like us e-commerce is not something new and by now we are quite habituated of transacting online but then the majority of Indian consumers still live in tier 2 and tier 3 cities who have enough reasons to not shop online, be it internet connectivity or lack of awareness in terms of using their cards online. While for us, convenience or price differentiation triggers our online behavior, for them it is the choice and availability of products.

Though not hugely upbeat, but there are enough statistics now which is directing towards the change in online buying behavior of Indians beyond metros. As per last e-commerce census by Ebay, 3,296 Indian cities shopped online in 2010 and of this, 2234 were Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities. Founder of naaptol.com, a best deal marketplace site says that 90% of his business comes from rural India. The company advertises its deals across product categories in newspapers and customers in the rural market are placing orders—not at the click of a mouse but by punching in the contact number given in the ads. As per the March 2011 data for online banking in India, 48% of users are from metros and 52% come in from non-metros, while last year the data was different with 57% from metro & 43% from non-metros. Yet another e-commerce site Letsbuy.com has sold LED TVs of as high value as Rs. 1 lakh and above in tier 2 and 3 towns where the product is not available through normal retailers.

From necessities like ticketing and banking to luxuries like fashion apparel and high end gadgets, consumers from different parts of the country are logging in and trying to buy these online. Not only the list of products being bought has expanded, even the ticket size of online transactions has increased now. There is need for convenience, an aspiration for luxury products and money to spend; lacking was the avenue to access such stuffs in remote towns which gets fulfilled by many big and reliable web shops now. The behavior is definitely changing but is it significant enough for all these e-commerce players to have a sustainable business model? Yet to see how many become revenue wise successful in long run, though few online players have already created a difference and made that impact!

*In case you would like to read the ebay e-commerce census of last year, you can download the same from here.

Café Coffee Day: First Indian Brand on foursquare

While having a cup of coffee yesterday at CCD next to my work place, I got to notice this. So, foursquare is in alliance with Café Coffee Day now:

Cafe Coffee Day has launched this offer on 17^th Feb 2011. Check in at foursquare and you can get a 15% discount on your 3rd check-in. If you are the Mayor, CCD will serve you a free coffee and 20% discount on every 3rd check-in. As of now this offer is only valid in Bangalore outlets, but they slowly plan to roll it out in other cities too. (via)

Finally foursquare has started tie ups with Indian brands too. With this offer, Cafe Coffee Day is the first Indian Brand on foursquare to have its own Brand Page –
http://foursquare.com/CafeCoffeeDay
! In fact it’s good to see this CCD offer, I had created an account on foursquare long back but have not been active there for some or other reason. Maybe it will influence users like me to finally be active with my check ins, after all who would not like to have a free coffee from an outlet where you end up going almost daily .

Location based customer targeting has been there in India for quite some time now. CCD itself had tied up with Nokia last year for a two month long location based advertising campaign where it was targeting consumers based on their location and then driving them to the nearest CCD outlet. Nokia users with models like N97 and above were served CCD ads on the weather or events page. Clicking on the ad gave users two options – click2web which took them to CCD’s Facebook page and click2route which directed users to the nearest CCD. Now with sites like foursquare which are specifically meant to keep a tab on customer’s location, marketers can leverage these better to serve ads or promotional offers at any particular spot. Even though the user base is not huge as of now and audience type is quite niche but this definitely seems to be one of the interesting newer ways to reach out to the consumers on the move. And you never know, when this niche will actually become mass esp. with promotion triggers from brands and acceptability of more similar services like Facebook Places which may pick up momentum in India as well.

Would be interesting to observe the future trend for this medium, as of now I must check in to foursquare whenever I’m visiting the CCD outlet next .

5 Twitter tools for your brand

You search for Twitter management tools and you get millions if not zillions of suggestions to try this or that. Though have been using few actively for my personal account for quite some time now but recently tried to look for some new ones for a project related to my company. Last when I had used these tools for brand tracking was for my earlier company but must say that with the phenomenal growth of twitter, this twitter tool and app market has also exploded quite vehemently. I mean you search for anything and there are hundreds of free utilities which can offer you any kind of solution in just one click. And when there are lots of good things around, it’s difficult to decide on the best .

Based on my recent usage and experience, here’s a list of 5 tools which I think can be very helpful for keeping an eye on the following 5 aspects which you need to track about your brand.

1. Tracking the brand mention: Social Mention – Though there are many alert and tracking options available but so far I liked Social Mention as the best one.  It’s been used by many and in one single dashboard it actually tells you the mention of your brand not only in Twitter but in almost all other social media channels. To add to that, statistics like sentiment, strength, reach and passion help you analyze some qualitative aspects of your mentions as well. You can further filter your search for different types of social media channels.
2. Measure your influence & reach: Twitalyzer – Twitalyzer is a combination of free and paid services. Free offerings include basic understanding of your scores for influence, reach, impact, engagement and velocity. To have further more detailed insights, you can always subscribe to their paid services and get detailed customized reports as per your needs.
3. Know other influencers in your industry: Klout – Apart from measuring your influence, Klout also allows you to measure other interesting aspects like who are you influenced by, who are the top influencers in your industry, how is your influence score vis-a-vis other influencers similar to you. You can use Klout not only for your Twitter score but also for other channels like Facebook & Linkedin.
4. Mapping against competitors: Twitter Counter – By far the best tool which I could get my hands on for comparison of your brand against your competitors. Not that more do not exist, but quite many are buggy or not with updated statistics. This one gives you a quick snapshot on weekly, monthly, 3 monthly and 6 monthly basis.
5. Managing your followers count: Friend or Follow - Well, don’t think anyone can zero on one such service, there are hundreds and thousands of follower management tools, right from some which alert you over email (Qwitter) when somebody stops following you, to some which tell you which tweet made people unfollow you at what point (Tweet Effect). But for basic follower management, I find Friend or Follow to serve my purpose both for the brand handle and my personal one. It gives a dashboard view for fans, following and friends at one place and can help you in managing the list quickly.

This is a list of tools which I have found useful and have performed consistently, otherwise there are instances where many such free services close down without even sending any notification email (e.g., Qwitter – this service is really inconsistent when it comes to performance). Many of you must have been using different other tools for your brands, so in case you have suggestion for  any better tool, please drop in a comment to this post.