1. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Learnings from handling
social media products
for the Indian market:
An Internet marketer’s POV
Rohit Varma
Startup Saturday, Mumbai
Nov 13, 2010
rohit@interskale.in @rohitvarma

2. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Lessons from ..
When What
Pre 1999 FMCG marketer
1999-2005 Head of Marketing,
Rediff.com
2006-07 CEO, Yo4Ya.com
2007-10 Head, in-house digital arm,
Aptech
Sep 2010 on.. Founder, Interskale Digital
Marketing and Consulting

3. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Succeeding with social media
For any brand / product, the social media marketing
task =
 Getting sign-ups
 Getting users to ‘consume’ content
 Getting them create content too
in sufficiently large numbers

4. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Rediff Matchmaker (2003)
Learnings :
• Users not logging in
regularly to search for
profiles : so we sent
profiles by mail.
• ‘Reach’ is an issue in any
media, including Internet
and social media. Reach
your user first !

5. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Leading Social Networking sites (as
of 2005) : sign-up strategies
Learnings :
• Social networks which
restricted access, thereby
building ‘trust’, have won.
• Indian society is even more
heterogenous. The need
for ensuring trust in social
apps may be even greater
here.
Social
Network
Sign-up
method
Current
status
ORKUT Invite only Winner
MIXI
(Japan)
Invite only Winner
CYWORL
D (Korea)
Authenticate
with national
ID number
Winner
FACEBOO
K
.edu
address
Winner
MY
SPACE
Tom (friend) Loser

6. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Yo4Ya.com : Social networking for
Indian youngsters (2006)
Learnings :
• “Invite-only” site => took
time to ramp up.
Building trust can be
expensive.
• Strong interest by NRIs.
Despite zero targeting,
20% users were NRIs.
You never know where
your user segment with
great interest exists.

7. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Arena Animation Facebook page (2010)
Learnings
• Users (students) are passionate about animation, want to
showcase their portfolio (Interest)
• Faculty and staff volunteered to answer questions on FB
page (Content contribution)
• Arena Animation is a brand
of education company
Aptech
•Facebook page a success
with 7000+ student fans in
few weeks

8. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
•
LinkedIn (2010)
Learnings
• LinkedIn a success in
getting candidates.
Why ?
Product has built-in trust,
Has reach among an
interested audience ( 5
million career seekers in
India),and is now
increasingly augmented by
users’ content

9. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
What’s needed to succeed in social
media.. the examples so far
TRUST Orkut, Mixi, Cyworld, MySpace,
Facebook, Yo4Ya
REACH Rediff Matchmaker
INTEREST Arena Facebook pages, Yo4Ya
CONTENT CONTRIBUTION Arena Animation faculty contribution
In LinkedIn, trust, reach, interest & content
contribution all exist.

10. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Reach, interest
and content contribution..
let’s delve in a little more

11. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Reach.. a key social media marketing
task is getting reach, but..
 Only 1 in 60 Indians are on Facebook.
 3 of 5 Indian Internet users not on FB & may never* be
 Not all social media users are active
(e.g. 40% Twitter users had not tweeted even once**)
=> 1st
do your maths on what social media reach you can get
* Lower SEC, poor English skills
**Of 107 million users globally - May ‘10

12. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Getting reach in social media a challenge
for the big boys too :
Fortune 100 company study*
% with Twitter account = 65%
% with Facebook account = 54%
Avg. followers = 1489
Avg. FB fans = 40,884
* Recent Burston- Marsteller study

13. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Interest : Getting users interested
in your brand a challenge
 Managing social media is an editorial skill. Do you
have it or can you acquire it ?
 People, social media users are time starved. If you
can, target only your
- most involved existing customers &
- potentially most enthusiastic non-customers.
Do not target random non-customers

14. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Content creation keeps social
media healthy ..
 User-generated content (comments, posts, tweets..) is what
creates the interest
 But, in India, users not creating enough content*.
Why ? Could be a cultural thing, we are not accustomed to
writing nor good at English grammar
=>Make content creation simple e.g. let users
- choose between choices
- click on buttons
- send you SMS..
*E.g. India one of poorest countries in You Tube videos creation on a
per Internet user basis(informal chat with Google India team)

15. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Social media : killer apps for India ?
Can mobile photos, music, video (shared) be the next
killer apps for the Indian Internet market ?
(One can show that Trust, Reach, Interest, Content
creation is not a problem for above apps… this is
actually a separate topic altogether )

16. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Succeeding with social media
 T - accumulate sufficient trust capital
 R - first get reach among a core audience
 I - make sure your TA’s keenly interested
 C – make content creation a breeze

17. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
Succeeding with social media..
don’t miss a trick
 T - accumulate sufficient trust capital
 R - first get reach among a core audience
 I - make sure your TA’s keenly interested
 C – make content creation a breeze
 K - you may also call the K guys  (contact info on next
slide)

18. ………..…………………………………………………………………………………………..………….
THANKS
Rohit Varma
rohit@interskale.in
@rohitvarma
http://marketerskaleidoscope.com
linkedin.com/in/rohitvarma