Social media marketing - India trends study

Social Media Marketing
India Trends Study 2013
Insights from social media-savvy organizations in India

Foreword

According to media reports, Indian organizations use
social media much more than the global average and
those of their counterparts in emerging economies.
While we have a number of case studies, awards and
online tools to gather insights, we wanted to explore
how social media-savvy organizations in India are using
the medium. We wanted to understand social media
objectives, tactics, departments that manage social
media, how do organizations use social media ads,
social media measurement, budget, and the agency
environment among others.

With this objective in mind, in the last quarter of 2012
and early 2013, we reached out to various organizations
in India. We received a total of 48 participations from
professionals who are responsible for managing the
digital outreaches of their respective organizations or
brands.
As we expected, the study has thrown up some good
insights. This study represents the views of several
organizations in India that have comparatively invested
more in terms of money, resources, or initiatives than
their counterparts, and we think it will help in creating
standards across the industry and in promoting the
medium among many more organizations in the country
that want to scale up on using the medium.

We have added our perspectives and secondary research
to augment the findings and provide depth and context.
We would like to thank all our participants and industry
experts who have shared their input generously.

Dinesh Mishra
Customer Practice Leader (India)
Ernst & Young LLP

4 | Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013

Participating
organizations/brands
Bajaj Finserv Lending

MTV India

Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Network18

BMW India Pvt. Ltd.

Pepsi India

Café Coffee Day

Panasonic India

Citi India

Plan India

Cleartrip Pvt. Ltd.

P&G India

Cocoberry

Rajasthan Royals

Flipkart.com

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Ford India Pvt. Ltd.

SAP India Pvt. Ltd.

Hasbro Clothing

Shoppers Stop Ltd.

Harley-Davidson India

Tata Motors Ltd.

Honda Cars India Ltd.

Wildcraft

Lifestyle International (P) Ltd.

Vadilal Industries Ltd

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.

Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd.

Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd.

Yatra.com

And 18 other organisations

The methodology
As part of the study, we asked our
participants a set of 40 questions
regarding the use of social media in
their organizations. Input was collected
online, on email, or through telephonic
interviews. Responses to each question
have been quantified and reflected in
the charts that appear in this report.

We also reached out to various industry
experts and bloggers to provide their
perspective on various topics around
their specialty areas, which is also
being covered in this study. Their
inputs are meant to provide depth
to the report, and not to be seen as
endorsements to survey findings.

Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 | 5

Content
Key findings
1.

Why social media?

2.

Which social media platform?

3.

How does social media fit in with other types of campaigns

4.

Engaging social communities popular practices

5.

Use social media ads

6.

Success measurement

7.

Social media budget

8.

Department managing social media

9.

Agency structure

10. Future of social media in organizations


Key findings
Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013 provides answers to
some pertinent questions around social media marketing among social
media-savvy organizations in India:
Why social media
1. Most social media-savvy organizations in
India use the medium to build communities
95.7% of the surveyed social media-savvy organizations in India
use the medium to build communities and advocate usage while
76.1% use social media as a platform to highlight brand news.
Around 16% of organizations, which use social media for both the
above reasons also use it for customer service, lead generation,
and research indicating high social maturity and moving toward
getting business meanings out of engagements.

Which social media platform
2. Facebook most important platform for
marketers in India for engaging customers,
followed by Twitter, YouTube and blogging
Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations are already
using emerging platforms such as Pinterest, Google Plus,
and Foursquare. More than half of the social media-savvy
organizations surveyed regularly engage with bloggers or online
influencers who have authority and strong following.

How does social media fit in with other
marketing/communications campaigns
3. Social media-savvy organizations in India
have conducted campaigns where social media
is the leading component
Social media-savvy organizations in India speed up processes
or show special favor for online fans
Among the leading 87.5% said they have conducted campaigns
where social media was the leading component. More than half of
the surveyed organizations have speeded up processes or have
shown a special favour for their online fans and followers that
they wouldn’t normally do for their offline customers.

How do organizations engage with their
social communities
4. Popular practices
a. ype of content: A majority of social media savvy organizations
T
prefer to post generic updates instead of brand updates.
b. requency of updates and responses: Social media-savvy
F
organizations posts multiple updates a day. Majority of social
media-savvy organizations respond to fan queries within 30 to
60 minutes on Twitter and within 30 minutes to a few hours on
Facebook.
c. ontests/promotions: Picture contests are the most popular
C
contests among social media-savvy organizations in India —
most contests are organized monthly.
d. olicies: Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India
P
surveyed have social media guidelines for better governance
and online monitoring programs to listen to conversations;
however, less than half have crisis manuals.
e. ools used: Many social media-savvy organizations in India
T
use tools for online monitoring, response management, or
managing social media platforms.
f.

S
ocial media for research: Almost half of the social media-savvy
organizations in India have conducted research using social
media tools to get customer feedback and understand more
about customer behavior.

g. obile: Half of the social media-savvy organizations in India
M
have created mobile phone apps and one-fourth plans to
create one.


How do organizations use social media ads

Which department manages social media

5. Majority of social media-savvy organizations
use social media ads to promote online
campaigns and brand awarenesss, and find
them beneficial

8. Majority of social media efforts in India are
managed by marketing teams

83% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that
they have used social media ads, with majority of the ads being
used to promote a contest/promotion or for brand awareness.
88.6% said they find social media ads to be beneficial in achieving
those objectives.

76.7% of social media-savvy organizations said they have their
marketing department handling social media with the rest being
handled by a cross functional team/across functions or by the PR/
communications team. Other than marketing, 34.6% said they
use social media for thought leadership and 26.9% said they use
social media for CSR. A majority (70.2%) said they have an in
house social media expert in middle management.

How do you measure social media success?

Agency structure

in India measure social media efforts through
platform-specific parameters

in India use standalone digital agencies as
compared to PR or ad agencies

81% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that
they measure their social media efforts through platform-specific
parameters such as likes, people talking about this, etc. 46.7%
of the organizations surveyed said they have not measured
revenue from their social media efforts. On the positive side,
some organizations are already measuring social media efforts
through leads, sentiment, brand visibility and have seen increase
in revenue from social media efforts.

Social media budget
7. Almost half of social media-savvy
organizations spend 1%–5% of their marketing
budget on social media, most social media
budgets are below INR10 million crore
41.5% of social media-savvy organizations said that around
1%–5% of their marketing budget in spent on social media. Threefourths of the organizations surveyed have their social media
budget below INR10 million, while a little above a quarter of the
organizations surveyed have social media budgets exceeding
INR20 million.

73.8% of surveyed social media-savvy organizations have chosen
standalone digital agencies as compared to PR, ad agencies,
or freelancers. 59.1% of the organizations surveyed also said
that they are happy with their current agencies while 40.9%
responded with either a ”maybe” or a ”no.”

Future of social media
10. Social media-savvy organizations in India
are very optimistic about the future
Social media-savvy organizations are very optimistic about the
role of social media in their organizations. Though measures such
as sales and leads are not very evident for all organizations, they
have realized that it plays an important role in generating insights
and engaging with customers on a continued basis. Social media
has helped organizations to create their own communities of
fans, customers or prospects. In the future, organizations hope
to focus more on social media and are looking forward greater
adoption within their organizations.


1.

Why social media

Most social media-savvy
organizations in India use the
medium to build communities
Way back in 2010, a Harvard Business Review study found in its
survey that the biggest benefit businesses think they derive from
using social media was increased awareness of their brands or
products.1 While this continues to be a key reason for social media
adoption even today, the top-most reason why organizations
are using social media has shifted to building communities. An
overwhelming 95.7% of social media-savvy organizations in India
that we surveyed said they use the medium to build communities
and advocates to directly or indirectly help in creating positive
word of mouth.
It is interesting to note that till two years back, organizations put
a one-way metric such as awareness as the top reason for social
media usage. Today’s shift is likely to be in part due to the almost
overwhelming Facebook phenomenon, nevertheless when the
power of social networks is realized by service providers, the
consumers stand to benefit the most.

What is the objective of your social media engagement?
Tick all that is relevant.
Research

41.3%

Platform to
highlight brand
development
/news

76.1%

Customer
service

58.7%

Generate
leads

43.5%

Build
community/
advocates
0%

95.7%
20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


A key fact to remember is that building communities is not the
end goal. A community provides a platform for brands to reach
out to a number of potential customers at one go for marketing
or promotional initiatives. It helps customers bond, bolster the
brand experience stories, and create stronger word of mouth.
In the long run, it helps in creating increased customer loyalty,
better and speedier resolution of customer queries, lowering
of marketing and service costs, and flow of innovative ideas.
As organizations’ use of social media grows, they should start
looking at identifying and measuring these benefits. Some
organizations from among those we reached out to are already on
the way to doing this. From among those organizations who said
they use social media to build communities, half of them also use
it to highlight news, 39.5% also use it for customer service, 31%
for research, and 25% to generate leads.

Around 16% of the surveyed organizations said they use social
media not just for one reason but to build community, generate
leads, customer service, highlight news and research. This
indicates that some social media-savvy organizations in India
seemed to be moving toward utilizing the medium much more
than connecting with customers and prospects but leveraging
business meanings out of those engagements.
In this context, it is important to remember that while
organizations find social media a good platform to interact with
customers and build communities, for most consumers, social
media is about connecting with friends and families, accessing
news, reviews and entertainment, as well as sharing opinion and
not so much about interacting with brands.2 Organizations need
to ask themselves about the value they are providing to their fans
and followers on their channels or communities.


2.

Which social media platforms
Facebook most important platform
for marketers in India, followed by
Twitter, YouTube and blogging
Being the most popular social media platform in India with more than
62 million users,1 Facebook is the favorite playground for social mediasavvy organizations in India to banter in everyday conversations
and organize engaging promotions and contests for fans. 89.6% of
all surveyed organizations placed Facebook as the most important
platform for engagement. Interestingly, there were more than 100
Facebook campaigns in India in 2012, which translates to more than 8
campaigns running simultaneously per month.2
Which are the platforms you used for your social media
marketing efforts?

Eg. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog, etc. Can you rank them? 1 being
the most important/ priority area.
89.6%

8.3%
2.1%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
4.2%

Facebook

Twitter

0.0%
2.1%
8.3%
0.0%

YouTube

Blog

29.2%
39.6%

2.1%
0.0%
4.2%
6.3%
2.1%

10.1%

6.3%
2.1%

Pinterest

Foursquare

0.0%
2.1%
4.3%

19.1%
14.9%

0.0%
0.0%
2.1%

0%
2

22.9%

29.2%

44.7%

23.4%

6.4%

1

56.3%

22.9%

68.1%

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
3

4

5

6

N/A


With social media marketing campaigns being Facebook heavy,
some organizations are looking at other platforms to differentiate
themselves. More than half of the organizations surveyed placed
Twitter as the second-most important channel. With a majority of
Indian sportspersons, movie actors, artists and politicians active
on Twitter and enjoying huge number of followers, the platform
has its own sphere of influence. A trending topic on Twitter for
a good reason is perhaps one of the most coveted benchmarks.
However, featuring there for the wrong reasons is a big crisis in
the making.

According to a story in The Economic Times, advertising agencies
today have started to create YouTube specific ads as against repurposing TV commercials.4 One of the most successful company
produced viral hit last year was a video from Finnair in which a
team of cabin crew performed a flash dance to celebrate India’s
Republic Day.5

Which are the platforms you used for your social media
marketing efforts?

While majority of the organizations have placed least importance
on emerging platforms such as Google Plus, Pinterest and
Foursquare, many of them are already experimenting with the
platforms and many plans to start using them. Recently, Pepe
Jeans India asked fans to follow its profile and repin apparels that
they like for a chance to win them. In 2013, we will continue to
see more of this type of experiments.6

Eg. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blog, etc. Can you rank them?
1 being the most important/ priority area.
6
4.73

5
4
3.00

3
2
1
0

5.07

Blogging followed YouTube as the most important platform
for organizations. Blogging particularly is important when
organizations want to share thought leadership or trends in
an area of mass interest. For instance, a fashion blog, a movie
blog or technology blog. Blogging is also popular among B2B
organizations for thought leadership purposes.

3.50

Are you using any of the following emerging platforms?

2.43

100%

1.13

80%
Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

Blog

Pinterest Foursquare

26.8%

28.6%

60%
42.9%

46.3%

(Average values)

32.4%

40%

YouTube comes third in terms of preference among the
organizations surveyed. While creating a good video is much
more difficult and resource intensive than creating a Facebook
update or a tweet, its success is equally unpredictable.
Nevertheless, brands are investing on the medium to make an
equivalent to the next “Kolaveri Di” or ”Gangnam Style”.3

41.2%

20%
0%
No plans

26.8%

26.5%

28.6%

Pinterest

Foursquare

Google Plus

Already using

Will use in the next one year


Prasant Naidu
Founder of Lighthouse Insights, a popular blog on social media news.
“Social media marketing for brands is all about
Facebook and Twitter currently. Brands in India
are walking the safe path and they are hardly
trying out new networks. One of the reasons
being user adoption. Facebook being the biggest
social network in India is the tried and tested one.
Not only that the network has been around for
some time and has matured enough. Along with
running contests brands have the option of trying
out well targeted ads today. Twitter, on the other
hand, is being used as a reach mechanism and
that is being achieved by getting certain hashtags
trended.

While choosing which channels are important based on where
your customers are, organizations should remember that being
social is not only about opening up a profile on a social media
site. Social media adoption should be seen as a cultural and
behavioral shift within the organization to transparently engage
with customers who are not afraid to voice their opinions and
are big influencers to their connected networks. Social media
adoption should not mean a tactical short term means to promote
the organization or brand in the most popular websites of today.
As technology is evolving at a fast pace, organizations require the
ability to constantly evolve and adopt platforms that consumers
are shifting to. Popular websites of today will be overtaken by new
websites tomorrow. Facebook overtook Orkut in the Indian market
in 2010. There are already few media stories today of Facebook
users finding the site to be not as “cool” as before.7

Having said that, there are a few brands who have
tried investing on different networks like Pinterest,
Instagram, etc. Since the user adoption from
India on these networks has not been remarkable,
brands are trying to integrate and drive traffic
from the Facebook or Twitter community to
networks like Pinterest and Instagram. I believe
integrating networks over social media is the
future for Indian brands.”

Do you regularly engage with bloggers/inﬂuencers?
47.9%

50%

37.5%

40%
30%
20%

14.6%

10%
0%
Yes

Yes
No

Sometimes

No

Sometimes

Indiblogger, an Indian blog directory, lists close to 30,000
blogs on its site.8 Many bloggers in India, like their counterparts
globally, enjoy good readership and has significant authority.
Some of the most popular blogging topics are technology,
auto, food, travel, movies, parenting, and marketing. Bloggers
nowadays are not limited to creating content on their blogs, but
have wide circles of friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter,
etc. thereby becoming creators of influential content on these
platforms too.
47.9% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said they
regularly engaged with bloggers and other online influencers,
while 37.5% said they engage with bloggers sometimes.
Bloggers are not necessarily looking for organizations to contact
them. Most of them can be just passionate individuals who like to
share their views on their area of expertise or interest. However,
as their influence grow and their views on brands and products
are seen far and wide online, organizations felt the need to

engage with them through product reviews, tours, or contests.
Advanced organizations have involved bloggers in reputed
programmes and have created prestigious blogger specific
properties. For example, the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Award that recognizes experts who share their passion and
expertise of a Microsoft product with others, has awarded many
bloggers globally and in India.9
Not only bloggers, organizations are regularly reaching out to
popular social media users. Recently, popular YouTube users and
Twitter users have featured in the TV commercials of a brand.
Done right, blogger relations can help create a discussion around
relevant topics among influencers. Organizations are realizing the
need to respect blogger independence and adhere to guidelines
such as the WOMMA Code of Ethics.10 In the last few years, often
engaging bloggers or online influencers in an inappropriate
manner or trying to control their independence have led to
backlashes.

Amit Agarwal
Personal technology columnist and founder of Digital Inspiration,
a widely-read tech and how-to blog since 2004.
“Blogs are mostly seen as credible sources of
information and consumers are increasingly
referring to blogs while researching products
online. Because their opinion matters, brands,
big and small, now actively engage with bloggers
across domains at par with the mainstream
media.

That said, other than the tech category, there has
been a shift in the blogging landscape in India in
recent years. The first-generation bloggers have
either quit the space or they have turned their
attention to microblogging and social media. What
would otherwise have been a 500-word opinion
piece now gets squeezed into 140 characters
but it still enjoys a similar level of influence and
reach.”


3.

How does social media fit in with
other types of campaigns
Social media-savvy organizations
in India have planned campaigns
where social media is the leading
component
Social media-savvy organizations in India
speeds up processes or show special favor for
online fans
Social media-savvy organizations in India are already integrating
social components into their traditional marketing and
communications campaigns. 83% of the surveyed organizations
said they include information about their social media campaigns
in their print and TV advertising campaigns. Also, 87.5% of the
surveyed organizations have run campaigns using only social
media or where social media has been the leading component.

Do you include information about your social media
campaigns in your print/TV advertising campaigns?
16.7%

83.3%

Yes

No


It is important to mention that while there is integration, the
quality of integration is what matters the most. It is up to
organizations to decide social media’s level of involvement.
Adding a link to social channels on TV or print ads can also be
called integration.
Sometimes, social media is an after-thought and used as a
medium to further spread the advertising message. To illustrate
this, if an organization runs a TV advertising campaign on the
camera features of its latest mobile phone, a typical social media
support could be a contest on the Facebook fan page asking fans
to upload their best pictures. However, this type of integration is
shallow. Removing the social media component does not affect
the campaign at all, except for minimizing the online buzz.
Smart social media marketing professionals in organizations
look at integrating social media as a part of the campaign DNA.
The social media team participates in the ideation stage. The
engagement structure is woven with social being a part of the
campaign process and the social media component cannot be
removed.

Have you run a campaign using only social media or has
social media been the leading component in any campaign?

Have you organised any exclusive deals/promotions
for online fans online?
20.8%

14.6%

Yes

64.6%

No

Maybe we will organise in the future

Have you speeded up processes, or shown a special
favour to any of your online fans, followers that you would
normally not do for your customers who are not online?

12.5%

41.7%

58.3%
87.5%

Yes

No

Yes

No


As social media becomes a key component, the need to placate
online fans becomes a natural extension. Deals and exclusive
promotions only for online fans are increasingly being organized.
64.6% of the surveyed organizations said they have organized
exclusive deals for online fans and 20.8% said they are likely
to organize in the future. More than half of the surveyed
organizations said they have speeded up processes or have shown
a special favor for their online fans and followers that they will
not normally do for their offline customers. As more customers
realize the benefits of going online rather than approaching a
traditional customer service channel such as the phone, the
demand for more focus on customer service in the social media
space will grow.


Engaging social communities popular practices
More social media-savvy
organizations prefer to post
generic updates instead of brand
updates
Rather than using brand posts (e.g., brand news, product
descriptions, or updates promoting the brand directly), almost
half of the organizations surveyed prefer posting generic updates.
Generic updates are updates related to the values of the brand
(e.g., a car manufacturer talking about driving safety, road tips)
and totally unrelated updates (e.g., cricket match highlights,
festival greetings, an unrelated news but of mass interest). 43.8%
of the surveyed organizations said that brand posts form less
than 30% of their overall content calendar while 35.4% said they
use brand posts more than generic updates.
While brand posts attract customers, loyalists and advocates —
generic posts help in attracting a wide audience set and even
those customers who might be using a competitor’s product. For
example, a consumer products company posting generic tips and
how-to’s are likely to attract people who would want to come and
benefit from reading those tips.
On your content calendar, what is the percentage of
your brand posts vis-à-vis generic updates
(topics related to your brand plus unrelated topics)?
50%

43.8%

40%

35.4%

30%
20.8%

20%
10%
0%

Less than 30%

Around 50%

More than 50%

4.

What is the percentage of topics related to your brand
that you post on your Facebook page vis-à-vis totally
unrelated topics?
More than 75%

27.1%

50% -75%

39.6%

25% -50%

18.8%

10 -25%

14.6%
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

Among the generic updates, topics related to the values of the
brand are preferred more than totally unrelated topics. 66.7% of
the surveyed brands said that topics related to the brand values
form more than half of the posts on their Facebook pages.
This shows that while social media-savvy organizations are willing
to post generic updates to fans, these generic updates are more
or less related to the values of the brands. Types of updates that
social media-savvy organizations find the most engaging include
interesting pictures, videos, factoids, quiz, and industry news.
Pictures are the most engaging type of content with one report
saying that pictures represent 89% of a brand’s most engaging
posts on Facebook.1
Not surprisingly, the top-three most engaging Facebook posts
in India in January 2013 are all pictures updates.2 Two of the
updates were Republic Day wishes from Vodafone featuring
their brand mascot “Zoozoos” and from Cadbury Celebrations
featuring a cake. The third one from Tata Docomo featured their
brand ambassador, Ranbir Kapoor, from his latest film, Barfi.
The first and second are generic updates related to the brand.
The third one is a totally unrelated generic update, though the
brand (chocolate) and the item in picture (cake) are in the same
category (food).


Sriram Ravi
Head Digital Marketing, Hasbro Clothing
Our social media channels are information hubs on men’s fashion and grooming not just brand
communication pages. Social media is about giving back to the consumers. We try to put content that
is relevant, useful and worthy of social sharing.

posts multiple updates a day
While frequent updates can be a sign of being active, it can also
be of inconvenience to your fans. There is always a struggle
between quality and quantity. More posts do not always mean
increased engagement.
What is the frequency of updates you have on
your Facebook page?
12.5%

6.3%

More than half of the social media-savvy organizations in India,
who participated in the survey, post two to three updates on their
Facebook pages in a day. 25% of organizations surveyed said that
they post one update per day on their Facebook pages.

What is the frequency of updates you have on your
Twitter proﬁle?
33.3%

35%
28.9%

30%
25%
25.0%

20%

17.8%

20.0%

15%
10%
5%
0%

56.3%
2-3 posts a day

1 post a day

1 post every 1-2 days

More than 3 posts a day

1 post every
1-2 days

1 post a day

2-3 posts
a day

More than
3 posts a day


On Twitter, 33.3% of surveyed organizations said that they post
more than 3 tweets a day while 28.9% said they tweet two to
three times a day. For organizations using Twitter for customer
service, the number of tweets (or replies) is likely to be much
higher.
On the speed of response, one-fourth of the surveyed
organizations respond to fan queries on Facebook, on an average,
within half an hour of the query being posted, which indicates a
robust monitoring and response structure being put into place.
On the flipside, more than one-fourth of social media-savvy
organizations surveyed still take more than six hours on an
average to respond to a fan query on Facebook.
What is your average response time with which you attempt to
reply to a fan query on Facebook?
13- 24 hours

12.5%

6-12 hours

12.5%

3-5 hours

16.7%

1-2 hours

18.8%

31-60 mins

14.6%

21-30 mins

16.7%

11-20 mins

2.1%

6-10 mins

4.2%

3-5 mins

2.1%

1-2 mins

0.0%
0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

On Twitter, 28% of the organizations surveyed respond within
half an hour to fans and followers. However, 14% of the surveyed
organizations also take 13–24 hours to respond to fans.

According to Lighthouse Insights study, in
the period from 1 January –31 May 2012,
out of Airtel’s 34,991 tweets, 33,928 were
replies. For Vodafone, out of 1,015 tweets,
1,013 were replies.3
Out of Airtel’s 22,893 replies, 19,593 replies
were executed in less than 15 minutes.


What is your average response time with which you attempt to
reply to a fan query on Twitter?
13- 24 hours

14.0%

6-12 hours

7.0%

3-5 hours

9.3%

1-2 hours

7.0%

31-60 mins

34.9%

21-30 mins

0.0%

11-20 mins

9.3%

3-5 mins

14.0%

1-2 mins

0.0%
0%

10%

We asked the founder of popular auto forum Team-BHP,
Rush Parekh, on why Team-BHP has been able to remain
so successful over the years in creating a close knit
community. According to him, the reason that TeamBHP (and other focused communities) has an active
member base is because of the following reasons:
• Not only there are like-minded people onboard, but
they are also experts in their domains.

4.7%

6-10 mins

Putting up generic updates, considerable number of
pictures, responding fast to fans — are these enough to
build a good community?

20%

30%

40%

• No ”corporate” environment onboard — it is very
personal and friendly. They have worked very hard to
get to a level of camaraderie.
• They say it like it is. They call a spade a spade.

While speed of response plays a crucial role in keeping the
interest of fans, smart social media professionals realize that it
cannot take precedence over quality of response. Acknowledging
a query quickly and taking time to figure out the issue and
responding with an informed view later is also a preferred
method. Consistency is also key. This is not a medium where you
can come alive only while running campaigns. You have to be
active throughout.
Smart social media professionals understand the type of queries
and type of fans posting those queries and know how to respond
appropriately. Responding to a “discount/coupon seeker” or a
“‘I hate your product evangelizer” will be completely different
to a “legitimate question seeker” or a “’I hate your product’
evangelizer”.4 Creating a bucket list of questions and answers
helps in responding to a large majority of queries fast.

• Their articles, topics and discussions are more
focused. Basically, specialist vs. generalist.
On how brands can improve their interaction quality on
their communities, Rush offered some pointers:
• Minimizing the PR tone/corporate speak when
communicating with an individual.
• Talk specifics. If every interaction will be answered
with “please lodge your query/complaint on this
contact us form” or ”we don’t comment on rumours”,
well, what value that interaction has?
• Have an individual to handle the interaction. Example
“Loken Mehra” could be interacting as a company
rep, instead of a main account called “XYZ Company
India”. It’s just a lot more personal.
• Keep the communication grounded. Overtly sweet,
exaggerated messages are boring in this age of
information overload.
• At the end of the day though, for business and
legal reasons, brands are limited by what they can
communicate on an open platform.


Picture contests are the most popular contests among social mediasavvy organizations in India, most
contests organized every month

said once a fortnight. Social media users in India have never had
brands placating for their attention like this ever. They have a
plethora of choices to participate in brand campaigns. For brands
and organizations , the challenge in creating an engagement that
will stand out among the lot has never been as pertinent today
than ever.

Social media-savvy organizations conduct various contests
and promotional programs in their social communities to keep
excitement level high among fans and followers. While we have
seen a number of Facebook contests last year, increasingly we are
seeing a number of Twitter-led contests.

What is the type of contest you have found to be the most
successful on your social media platform?
15.0%
25.0%

2.5%

On Facebook and Twitter, how often do you think is necessary
to have contests/giveaways, promotions for fans, besides the
regular day to day interaction?
Once in six
months

0.0%

Once in a
quarter

32.5%
57.5%

Every month

42.5%

Every fortnight

Picture contest

Quiz

Game

Video contest

10.0%

Every week

15.0%
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Almost half of the organizations surveyed said that they think
organizing a contest on Twitter and Facebook once a month is
necessary while 32.5% said once a quarter should be fine. To
put this in perspective, around 20 organizations from this study
are likely to come out with a contest every month. Add to it the
contests that might come from say 100 more brands from India
on Facebook. Additionally, 15% of organizations in this study
said that they prefer organizing contests once a week and 10%

People love sharing pictures on Facebook. Brands love sharing
pictures on Facebook and the site today has the biggest collection
of pictures than any other photo sharing site in the world. It is no
surprise that more than half of the organizations surveyed said
that they find picture contests to be the most successful contest
on their social communities. Other types of contests that are
popular are quizzes and games.
While some organizations have conducted video contests, it is
not one of the most popular engagement medium. Perhaps the
reason is that in India, majority of the YouTube videos sought
are premium content, TV show and movies rather than usergenerated content.5 Also in video contests, there more effort is
required for participants than in picture contests or quizzes.


Last year, some fan pages in India of prominent
brands were suspended by Facebook over
violation of guidelines. While the wall itself seems
to be the easiest place to run a contest, smart
organizations today do realize that it violates
Facebook promotion guidelines and the need
to adhere to guidelines set up by platforms is
important. Facebook and Twitter both provide
their guidelines on running promotions and
campaigns on the platforms.6

What has been the average value of the prize you have offered
ever for your online contests? This is the prize that one
individual winner get, and not the overall amount.

40%

36.4%
34.1%

30%
22.7%
20%

10%
2.3%
0%

Below
Rs. 1000

Between
Rs. 1000
– 5000

4.5%

Between
Between More than
Rs. 6000 Rs. 10,000 Rs.50,000
– 10000 – Rs. 50,000

More than half of the organizations surveyed put the average
value of their prizes to individual winners below INR5,000. 36.4%
of organizations put the average value of their prizes between
INR 1,000–5,000 and 34.1% put the value of their prizes below
INR1,000.
Almost a quarter of organizations surveyed put the average value
of their prizes between INR10,000–50,000. It is interesting to
note that some organizations are investing considerable amounts
in contests and have put the average value of prizes above
INR50,000. High prize money makes contests more attractive
and is likely to bring in more participation.
With so many free goods to be won, there are interesting side
effects. Brands are becoming more aware of the new crop of
contest participants among their communities. A number of
active online users are taking active interest in participation in
brand campaigns, almost in a planned and professional manner,
for the prizes, without any interest in the brand at all. If one
of these users participates in 10 contests in a month and wins
consolation prizes in one or two of them, the prize money is
still attractive enough. The need to identify and engage with
true fans vis-à-vis contest mongers is proving to be another key
challenge for brands and organizations. Contests that involve an
experience vis-à-vis a simple quiz or a picture contest tend to get
more passionate fans, but it also decrease the overall number of
participation.


There are organizations that sometimes take the unconventional route and create unusual and highly
engaging content for fans. One example is Flipkart’s ongoing “Six Degree of Separation” contest
where fans are shown three to four seemingly unrelated pictures and are asked to find one common
thread between them. This is what Ravi Vora, Sr. VP - Marketing, Flipkart, had to say about the
initiative:
“Flipkart’s social media identity has always been
one that has tried to go beyond the corporate
façade. Our Facebook/Twitter avatar is that of
a friend who hangs out with you, someone you
can swap jokes and have intelligent conversations
with.
As a result, we have always consciously stayed
away from focusing on content purely for the
sake of basic metrics such as retweets, likes
and shares. We rarely ever ask for our fans and
followers to endorse us on social media. We
believe in building that virality through smart,

witty and clutter-breaking content – so we don’t
just talk about our products but also look at
fun, engaging properties that add to the brand
personality.
An example of this is our Six Degrees of
Connection contest on Facebook and Twitter.
While the contest is reasonably simple in this
Google-age, we try and up the ante to ensure
that our fans have to put their thinking caps on.
It is our most in-demand property and we have
had people asking about it if we delay posting the
clues/results in the expected time.”


Majority of social media-savvy
organizations in India have social
media guidelines and monitoring
program, but less than half have
crisis manuals
While engagement is crucial for any social media team,
possessing a sound base of guidelines protects an organization
from various legal and social risks. Similarly online monitoring
programs allow organizations to listen to customer conversations
and determine an appropriate way of responding with them. An
engagement strategy not based on a sound monitoring program
is akin to trying to mingle at a party without knowing what that
party is about or who have come to that party. Crisis manuals
help organizations to turnaround swiftly when a crisis breaks out.
We asked social media-savvy organizations in India if they have
these basics in place. It is good to know that 87.8% of social
media-savvy organizations have social media guidelines, and 78%
have an online monitoring program in place.
However, only 39% have a crisis manual ready with them. It is
important to create sample scenarios of various crisis scenarios
that can happen and know how to deal with them. Some examples
of crisis for a consumer food product can be a consumer finding
an unwanted particle inside the food packet, a consumer falling
sick after consuming the product, rumors around the ingredients
of the food product and possibly their health impacts, etc. It
can be a car catching fire in the case of an automobile company
or a consumer experiencing a skin burn in case of a cosmetic
company.

In addition to your Facebook, Twitter engagements,
do you have the following? Please tick all relevant.
100%

87.8%
78.0%

80%
60%
39.0%

40%
20%
0%

Social media guidelines

Crisis manual

Online monitoring
programme

Several companies that were caught on the wrong foot for not
being prepared for quick, thoughtful and decisive action regarding
social media, suffered material and long-lasting corporate injuries
to their market share, customer confidence levels, stock prices
and overall market reputation.7 Other companies around the
world are moving fast to protect their corporate brand at a critical
time when brands have become fragile and vulnerable to millions
of newly empowered consumers coming online every day.
Organizations with an integrated, holistic strategy and solid
governance are better prepared to not only survive rampant
change, but flourish in it. Effective strategy and accompanying
governance helps to protect the brand and strengthen it.
Companies armed with the understanding of where social media
fits into larger corporate objectives will do better than those
that are not. Organizations that effectively build and manage
social media strategies and governance frameworks will have a
competitive advantage over companies that do not.


Questions to ask
Analysis and
monitoring

Assessment

•
•

•

•

Strategy and
compliance
Governance

•
•

Are all social media sites relevant to all major aspects of my business monitored?

Is there a risk analysis regarding incidents on social media channels? Is there an incident response
process focused not only on customer feedback and interaction, but also on IT-related security and
privacy-related issues?
Is the social media strategy inclusive, bringing in all impacted corporate departments and functions,
such as marketing, legal, HR, IT, operations and logistics?
Are risks related to the use of social media platforms clearly identified? Does my view of the landscape
include unique sector-specific perspectives?
Does my organisation have a social media strategy?
Are my social media policies compliant with any relevant national, international or industry-specific
rules and regulations?

•

What governance systems with measurable criteria (KPIs) do I have in place?

•

Have policies and guidelines been defined?

•

Awareness

•

Are there mechanisms in place to leverage the customer insights and lessons learned from social
media monitoring?
Are the employees aware of the policies and guidelines? Have they been trained?


Knowing how the social media governance situation looks like within your organisation comes with
many benefits such as:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

R
ecognising strategic opportunities
Enhanced competitive advantage
Efficient recruitment
Cost reduction
Generate revenue
Valued relationships
Control strategic, operational, reputational, legal, and confidentiality risks

Social Media
Excellence

Social Media
Monitoring
Controls, Tools
Social Media
Awareness
Trainings

Social Media
Awareness
Trainings

Social Media
Awareness
Trainings

Social Media
Governance
Framework
Policies, Guidelines

Social Media
Governance
Framework

Social Media
Governance
Framework

Social Media
Strategy
Vision, Goals, KPIs

Social Media
Strategy
Vision, Goals, KPIs

Social Media
Strategy
Vision, Goals, KPIs

Social Media
Strategy
Vision, Goals, KPIs

Social Media
Assessment
SWOT Analysis

Social Media
Assessment
SWOT Analysis

Social Media
Assessment
SWOT Analysis

Social Media
Assessment
SWOT Analysis

Social Media
Governance
Framework
Policies , Guidelines
Social Media
Strategy
Vision, Goals, KPIs
Social Media
Assessment
SWOT Analysis

Social Media
Assessment
SWOT Analysis

0 - None

1 - Initial

Social Media
Monitoring
Controls, Tools

2 - Repeatable

3 - Deﬁned

4 - Managed

Ernst & Young Social Media Governance Maturity Model

5 - Optimized


Many social media-savvy
organizations in India use tools
for online monitoring, response
management, or managing social
media platforms
There are many monitoring, channel management, and analytics
tools in the market today and using them can be beneficial in
speeding up processes, getting better insights, or in freeing up
resources.
We asked social media-savvy organizations if they use any one
of such tools, and 52.6% of the organizations said they use tools
for online monitoring and response management. Another 47.4%
of the organizations said they use tools for managing their social
media platforms. Few of them said they used both, while few
others said they also use analytics tools.

Do you use online tools to streamline your social media efforts?

For managing
social media
platforms like
Facebook and
Twitter pages

47.4%

For online
monitoring
and response

0%

52.6%

20%

40%

60%


Almost half of the social mediasavvy organizations in India
have conducted research to get
customer feedback and understand
more about customer behavior
Organizations have been conducting research to understand their
performance in the market. They have also ventured into taking
social media research initiatives for several reasons.
40.6% of social media-savvy organizations surveyed have
conducted research to get customer feedback and another 34.4%
to understand more about their customer behavior. 25% of the
organizations surveyed have conducted research for competitive
benchmarking.

Have you conducted any social media research for
your organisation? Can you share what kind of
research have you conducted?
50%
40%

40.6%
34.4%

30%

25.0%

10%

To understand
customer behavior

Competitive
benchmarking

As socially matured organizations move toward finding tangible
results from their social media initiatives, they will try to seek
more facts and insights that can help them assess possibilities
of the medium. For instance, understanding online behavior of
customers by interacting with them in person can throw up many
interesting insights and organizations can tweak their social
media initiatives based on what their consumers actually want
or what digital channels and behavior they go through before
making a purchase.
Similarly analyzing consumers’ online conversations and seeking
their relevance to various departments such as HR, Finance,
Compliance, Legal, R&D, and supply chain, organizations can
better equip themselves and facilitate increased adoption of social
media.
However, organizations also need to consider the pros and cons
of doing research online. While social media can provide realtime and organic feedback, there can be ethical questions on
conducting research without explicit consent from the customers.
Being observers, it is often difficult to go back to the customers to
ask further questions.

20%

0%

Revlon conducted a series of poll on their
Facebook page recently for two weeks to
learn more about customer’s knowledge
about make up foundation. Out of 75,000
Indian women who participated, 80% said
they use their fingers to apply foundation,
40% spend less than 15 minutes applying
their makeup, and 80% touch up their
makeup only once a day.8

To get
customer
feedback


Half of the social media-savvy
organizations in India have created
mobile phone apps
Social media, along with heavy digitization, has invigorated
the usage of mobile apps. Smartphone users in India use their
phones to browse the internet, access social networking sites,
play games, etc. About one-third of the Facebook users in India
access the site using their mobile devices.9 Facebook recently tied
up with mobile operators in India to offer free or discounted data
access.10 To capture the attention of the smartphone users, social
media-savvy organizations are extending their engagement on to
mobile. Half of our surveyed organizations have created mobile
phone apps, while more than a quarter plans to create one.

Have you created any mobile app?

28.3%

50.0%

21.7%

Yes

No

No, but plan to

Vinay Bhatia
Senior Vice-President, Marketing & Loyalty, Shoppers Stop Ltd.
“We have used Quick Response (QR) and
Augmented Reality (AR) codes to digitally enliven
all marketing communications. Augmented
Reality in India is still nascent and Shoppers Stop
is the first Indian large-format retailer to have
created an augmented reality set-up for its End of
Season Sale campaign. The First Citizen mobile

app, which is available on Android, iphone and BB
allows users to swipe their card without actually
having the card, and our GiftBot app provides
gifting ideas based on certain criteria such as M/F,
budget, age, etc.”


5.

Use social media ads

organizations use social media ads
for promoting online campaigns
and brand awareness, and find
them beneficial

Have you used Facebook advertising/sponsored tweets, etc.?

17.0%

Early last year, General Motors created quite a stir when it
announced that it is pulling off its Facebook ad budget of US$10
million a year.1 Many organizations and experts debated for and
against using social media ads.
In India, we have seen the ads of e-commerce companies on
Facebook2 displaying a branded shoe with a discount or a sale.
According to case studies from Facebook, Kaya Skin Clinic
attributes 20% and Myntra.com attributes 25% of their sales to
Facebook. Yatra.com generated INR1.5 million per month from
Facebook.3

83.0%

Yes

No

While this was the case, we were curious to know how social
media-savvy organizations in India feel about social media
advertising.
From the study, it is clear that majority of organizations surveyed
(83%) have used social media ads.

Have you used Facebook advertising/sponsored tweets, etc.?

Brand
awareness
Promoting an ofﬂine
campaign/promotion

34.2%

5.3%

Promoting an online
campaign/contest

42.1%

Product
leads/sale
0%

18.4%
10%

20%

30%

40%

50%


The reasons for using social media ads are various. Three-quarter
of the organizations surveyed said they have used ads to promote
an online campaign or for brand awareness. When organizations
look at Facebook, they seem to equate the platform with fan
engagement and perhaps this is the reason behind putting in
money to boost up their engagements. Even on Twitter, most of
the promoted tweets or accounts that we see today are either to
promote an ongoing contest or to promote a profile and increase
followers.

Are you ﬁnding social media advertising to be beneﬁcial?
6.8%
4.5%

While promoting campaigns seems to be the major reason for
using social media ads, 18.4% of the organizations surveyed
said they use ads for product leads or sales. We can see more
organizations experimenting with Facebook apps for referral
sales and integrating payment systems on their product apps on
Facebook. When this happens, there will be more sales related to
spending on the platform.
There are interesting social commerce developments, e.g.,
Facebook Gifts and Facebook Want buttons. We are yet to see
how many Indian brands sign up for Facebook Gifts and utilize this
opportunity. All of these will lead to more sales-related spending
on Facebook, if not ads. More so, users coming to a site such as
Facebook Gifts are more likely to have a purchase inclination, and
therefore, sales related ads might be more acceptable here than
those on the main Facebook page where people come to share
and discuss stories and experiences. Similarly, a user with a list of
”want” items is likely to explore more products similar to his/her
”wants.”
Few of the organizations surveyed said they have used ads
to increase their fan base or for all the above reasons. There
will always be a section of organizations in India that will use
Facebook ads for many more reasons besides marketing or sales.
Nevertheless, either for sales or engagement the reason might
be, there is a positive hope as a majority of the organizations
surveyed (88.6%) said they find social media ads to be beneficial.

88.6%

Yes

No

Maybe


6.

Success measurement

Most social media efforts are
measured through platformspecific parameters
Return on investment (ROI) on social media spend has been a
million dollar question with numerous discussions and books
having been written around the topic.

As organizations mature in social media usage, there will be
more experimentation and inclination to learn more about ROI.
Interestingly, a small percentage of organizations are already
starting to measure social media efforts in terms of leads/sales,
change in sentiment, and brand visibility. 19.9% of organizations
today have already seen increase in revenue from social
media efforts.

In India, among the social media-savvy organizations surveyed,
platform-specific parameters continue to be the leading metrics
while business-specific measurements from social media activities
are yet to be tapped. 81% of the social media-savvy organizations
said they measure their social media efforts through platformspecific parameters including ”likes” and ”People Talking About
This.” Almost half of the organizations surveyed said they have
not measured revenue from their social media efforts, while
31.1% said maybe there is an increase in revenue from their
social efforts.

Deeptie Sethi
Head of Corporate Communications, Ford India Private Limited
“In October 2010, just six months after Ford Figo
launch, we organised a pan India drive called
‘Discover Smart Drive’ for young couples that
represented our TG, in a special Ford Figo with
objective of expanding our Figo footprint in Tier 2
towns, rekindle the excitement among consumers
and community fans, and reinforce Figo’s ‘smart’
association.

and participation before the kickoff and during the
drive. We leveraged our social channels big time
and engaged with online influencers.

Apart from many impressive wins like increasing
our fan base and creating hundreds of positive
media stories and fan conversations reinforcing
‘smart’ with Figo, a big business benefit we
achieved was that the monthly average of 35,000
While it was a complete 360 degree integrated
enquiries of Ford Figo jumped to 60,000 and our
campaign involving on ground events, advertising, sales peaked in that month”.
and PR; social played a lead role in creating buzz


How do you measure your success/ ROI on social media?
7.1%
4.8%
7.1%

81.0%
Platform speciﬁc parameters
viz. Likes, People Talking about this,
Comments, Impressions, views, etc.

Leads/Sales goals
Change in sentiment
Brand visibility

Are you able to see increase in revenue from
your social media engagements?
Above 50%
26%-50%
11%-25%

4.4%
0.0%
4.4%

1% -10%

11.1%
31.1%

Maybe
No

2.2%

Haven’t
measured
0%

46.7%
10%

20%

30%

40%

50%


7.

Social media budget

Almost half of the social
media-savvy organizations spend
1%-5% of their marketing budget
on social media
Most social media budgets are below INR10
million
In 2009, PepsiCo in the US skipped the sponsorship of the Super
Bowl for the first time in 23 years and spent US$20 million in a
large social media-led campaign called the Pepsi Refresh Project.
The campaign was about inviting people to share and vote on
ideas that will help make the world a better place. The campaign
garnered 1 billion media impressions in the first 3 months and
more importantly, it created a movement for social good.1
How much percentage of your marketing budget do you spend
on your social media initiatives?

In India, traditional media continues to be where the big spending
is. Especially for big spenders, TV spots and print media spreads
continue to be the focus. Social media campaigns are sometimes
just an afterthought to support the ad campaign. However, with
increasing social media success story emerges and ROI gets
clearer, we will see more appetite among large organizations to
take on large social media initiatives and spend.
Almost half of the social-media savvy organizations said that
around 1%–5% of their marketing budget is spent on social media.
36.5% of organizations said 6%–10% of their marketing budget
is spent on social media. 7.3% of organizations surveyed said
around 20%–30% of their marketing budget is spent on social
media.

What is your social media budget in a year?

50%
41.5%
40%

28.6%

30%

20%

20.0%
17.1%

36.6%

14.3%
11.4%

30%

10%
20%

14.6%
7.3%

10%
0%

8.6%

0.0%
1-5%

0.0%

6-10% 11-15% 16-20% 20-30% More
than 30%

0%

Below
Rs.11 - Rs. 26 lac - Rs. 51Rs.1 Rs. 10 lac Rs.25 lac Rs. 50 lac Rs.99 lac 2 crore

Above
Rs.2 crore


Compare the less than INR10 million social
media budget of top social media savvy
organizations today with the INR1070 million
advertising budget of Godrej Consumer
Products in December 2012 quarter or the
INR990 million advertising budget of Colgate
Palmolive in 2012.2
The annual social media budget has a mixed response with
28.6% of organizations placing it at INR1.1–2.5 million,
20% below INR1 million, and 17% above INR20 million.
It is interesting to note that almost three quarter of the
organizations surveyed have their social media budget
below INR10 million, while a little above a quarter of the
organizations surveyed have social media budgets exceeding
INR20 million.
However, the silver lining is that many marketers believe that
there would be an increase in social media spends in 2013.3


8.

Department managing
social media

Majority of social media efforts in
India are managed by marketing
Which department handles social media among the social-media
savvy organizations in India? Is there an expert in-house or is the
social media function delegated to an intern as we have often read
about? These questions were critical to the growth of social media
marketing in India.

While the big budgets of marketing departments are doing well
for the growth of social media, it can also predominantly equate
social media efforts with reaching out to prospects or for sales.
Organizations need to evaluate if social media rests within
marketing, are departments such as Customer Service, Sales, and
R&D missing an opportunity?

Organizations, as they grow in the social maturity ladder, will find
more acceptances of social media in more departments other
than marketing. Some of the advanced organizations in India
We found that currently among the social-media savvy
already have cross functional teams using social media. Some
organizations in India, marketing departments manage most of
social media efforts. 76.7% of the social-media savvy organizations Customer Service departments are already using social media
to listen to conversations and engage with customers on their
said they have their marketing department handling social media
queries. Smart PR/communications departments have already
with the rest being handled by a cross functional team/across
adopted social media as a means to reach out to their public
functions or by the PR/communications team.
directly and not limit themselves to media relations. There are
discussions around social chain management, and crowdsourcing
for R&D purposes.
Which department manages social media in your
A majority of the social media-savvy organizations (70.2%)
organisation?
said they have an in-house social media expert in the middle
2.3%
7.0%
management. This spells well for improved adoption of social
media in organizations and for the industry as a whole. Earlier
7.0%
there were stories about social media roles being delegated
0.0%
2.3%
to trainees, but having a senior professional specializing
0.0%
0.0%
in social media in the organization will have an influence
4.7%
on communication planning. Social media capabilities and
specializations will also lead to more insights and innovation.

76.7%

Marketing

HR

PR/communications
Customer Care
Cross functional team

Senior leadership
Sales
Across functions but coordinated

Across functions uncoordinated


Do you have an in-house digital expert?

If yes, what is his/her level at your organisation?

10.6%

0.0%
21.6%

19.1%

70.2%

Yes

No

78.4%

No, but plan to hire
Middle management Junior executive (Executive, Associate)
Senior management (VP, Director, etc.)

Sridhar Iyer
Head, Digital Banking, Citibank India
Social media is increasingly becoming a
key component in the digital marketing and
communication mix for Financial Services.
As a channel for multidimensional and realtime communication, FS organizations will
use social media to engage consumers and
obtain valuable insights. However, given the
transparency of social media and the sensitive
nature of financial transactions, organizations
must take necessary precautions while growing
this medium.


Social media is being increasingly used for thought leadership
and internal communications, recruitment, and CSR in addition
to marketing. 34.6% of the social media-savvy organizations
said they use social media for thought leadership and 26.9% said
they use social media for CSR. Increasingly the HR department
is leveraging social media for internal communications. Close
groups on Facebook, or company-specific networking sites are
gaining prominence today. Professional networking sites such as
LinkedIn are increasingly being leveraged for recruitment.

Point to ponder:
As social media gets more and more adopted in
different departments of an organization, does it
make sense for the social media expert to sit in
one particular department, or should the social
media expert be an independent department
altogether such as the IT department, not silo
but integrating social in every department?

Do you use social media for any other reason in
addition to connecting to your customers?

34.6%
26.9%

19.2%
19.2%

Thought leadership
Recruitment

CSR

Internal communications

Gautam Ghosh
Social Business and HR Consultant
“While most companies are using social networks
to recruit – but we’re still in the very beginnings
of how this can be used by companies. Social
is not just about media, it is changing the way
that people connect and share together. As this
dynamic changes in people’s other aspect of lives
– family, politics, commerce – it will also impact
their work also. The old management paradigm
of command and control is an anachronism of the
industrial age. Today and tomorrow’s knowledge
workers want to connect with internal experts,
collaborate wherever and whenever. Companies
that understand these are implementing internal

social networks to facilitate such discovery.
Knowledge that would have been locked up
inside people’s heads are now being shared in
conversations for others to read and comment
also. But that’s not all. Companies are also
realizing that training and empowering their
employees to connect with customers socially
is in their own interests. Employees are seen
as credible and trusted people by customers
and prospective customers. More and more
companies are moving from the ‘don’t do this’
social media approach to ‘here’s how you use
social media’ for their business.”


9.

Agency structure
organizations in India use
standalone digital agencies as
compared to PR/ad agencies
Among the surveyed social-media savvy organizations 73.8%
have chosen standalone digital agencies as compared to PR, ad
agencies, or freelancers. The reason behind this can be due to
the specialized skills, development capabilities, and wide array of
services under one roof that comes along with digital agencies.
That said, PR and ad agencies also handle social media
initiatives of some of the big organizations in the country. Some
organizations find better synergy by giving their communication
mandates to one organization instead of multiple ones.
Big organizations often work with multiple agencies for their
digital work depending on expertise and specialization (mobile,
website, SEO, app development, social media engagement,
blogger outreach, etc.) and often work with different agencies for
different campaigns.
Do you use social media for any other reason in
addition to connecting to your customers?
4.8% 2.4%
19.0%

73.8%
Standalone digital agency

Ad agency

PR agency

Recruitment

What is one thing you expect from your
digital consultant that is lacking now?
• “Understanding of business and aligning
social media to business.”
• “Innovation, speed, and quality”
• “Social media agencies are currently
transactional in nature. They need to
mature and provide advisory services
specific to each sector.”
• “Thought leadership”
(Responses from survey respondents)


59.1% of the organizations surveyed also said that they are happy
with their current agencies while 40.9% responded with either a
“maybe” or a ”no.” Organizations expect their agencies to provide
more insights, be more creative, and provide faster execution.

Are you happy with your current digital agency?

27.3%

59.1%

13.6%

Yes

No

Maybe


There is a lot of young and creative talent among
the digital agencies environment today, who
come out with impressive ideas and campaigns
that we see today. Digital agencies should focus
on the career growth of these young digital
professionals; provide them a vision of where
they can reach up to and training programs to
compliment their knowledge in technical skills,
soft skills, and better understanding of business
and management functions. For example,
a digital campaign manager might benefit
from a better understanding of cyber laws, IT
processes, or even design and development
skills. A professional equipped with the
knowledge of Customer Service and supply chain
management will be better able to integrate
social media elements into those functions.
Secondly, digital agencies can benefit from better
institutionalization of best practices and creating
industry standards.
While the future looks bright in the digital
marketplace and leading agencies have already
started investing in thought leadership and
adhere to ethical ways of leveraging social, there
are others who look at digital from a “likes” or
”fans acquisition” standpoint.
There is also an eruption of digital shops across
the country today, because of the demand of
organizations with limited budgets that are
looking out for small outfits to manage Facebook
or Twitter profiles. As social savvy organizations
continue to mature and invest more in quality
and value, the agency environment in India will
get streamlined and we can see some of the
agencies closing down, mergers and acquisitions
happening, and few good names to emerge
finally.
There are some PR and ad agencies that have
established digital practices in their organizations
well and to create market thought leadership.

They have long recognized the need to integrate
social media in communications programs.
Smart PR and ad professionals today also do
not see online fan and influencer engagement
as a separate specialization but rather as part
of their core work function. As more PR and ad
agencies begin to integrate social components
in their campaigns with delivery capability, and
more global agencies establishing their offices in
India introduce global social media capabilities,
they are bound to give more competition to the
traditional digital agencies.
Creating investments in three key areas could be
key to increased client recognition of their digital
strength:
1. hought leadership: Barring a few that have
T
established themselves well, many PR and
advertising firms can invest more in thought
leadership. Social media is an area where
insights and innovative thinking are required
not only to establish oneself in the market, but
for the growth of the overall industry.
2. Resources and tools: By early 2008, key
agencies had already started to hire digital
experts and partnered with digital firms to
start digital practices in their organizations.
However, the need of the hour today is to
increase in-house specialists and invest in
development, design, and content capabilities.
3. Not positioning social as a complimentary
service: Often PR and ad agencies look at
social media as complimentary services to
their traditional PR and ad campaigns. The
need to look at social media holistically and
engage with other business divisions has
become important when organizations are
looking to adopt social media across functions.


10.

Future of social media
in organisations

in India are very optimistic about
the role of social media in future
Social media-savvy organizations are very optimistic about the
role of social media in their organizations. Though measurements
around sales and leads are not very evident for majority of
organizations today, they realize social media plays an important
role in generating insights and building communities.
In future, the growth of social media within organizations will
Over the last few years, organizations have experimented
with various social media activities, platforms, and tools.
The knowledge gained will help bring sophistication in the
engagement programs that we will see in the near future and
they will have much larger scale. So currently if a Trending Topic
on Twitter was the maximum bang an average program can
achieve, tomorrow, it will be the talk of the town or creating a
movement that organizations will seek to achieve through their
social media efforts.

Increase in scale
•

•

•

More functions across departments will see usage of
social media. Not only customer-facing departments, but
departments such as legal, R&D, and supply chain will start
experimenting with social media.
Organizations will tag along the growth of emerging
platforms and try to leverage the users that these new
platforms will attract.
Budgets on social media marketing will increase as a result of
increased sophistication in marketing programs and adoption
in other departments.

Increase in sophistication
•

•

•

As organizations target ROI from social media, they will
try to seek more clarity and demand more than likes and
comments. In such an environment, they will invest more
in research and insights to seek more answers to be able to
define measurable outcomes.
The increasing need to deliver value and ROI will demand
more insights and innovation and there will be more
specializations.
Social media initiatives will become more integrated with
marketing programs, Customer Service efforts, or with
internal communications programs and running social media
programs in silo will be experiments of the past.


Dina Mehta
Researcher, ethnographer, & social media observer
“One imminent development is the growth of
the mobile internet. Particularly for purposes
of communication and sociality - both needs
are increasingly being met by social networks
accessed on the mobile. Byte-sized pre-paid cards
and connections will spur this on, and content
will flow in and out. This will bring in many new
users not just from large connected metro cities,
but from smaller towns and rural areas too.

than just being respondents or subjects, users or
customers. More experienced users will look for
more meaningful engagements and opportunities
to co-create value with companies.

Another aspect that will drive people to adopt
social media driving usage is that top-level
management is finally beginning to see the
business value of social media in three areas productivity, marketing, HR. Social media skills
We are all researchers today. The tools are in our will be a part of your resume now.”
pockets. Companies will need to begin thinking
of customers or TG as their researchers rather

Five key characteristics of ”socially
adaptable” and successful brands

In 2011, Ernst & Young conducted a quantitative and qualitative
research on 36 UK and international flagship brands with the
aim to address these questions.1 Through the research, we have
identified five key characteristics of ”socially adaptable” and
successful brands, which we believe all organizations can adapt
and learn:
•
Facilitate open dialog
•

Engage proactively

•

Connect beyond product

•

Deliver integrated experiences

•

Collaborate and co-develop

Companies need to make organizational changes in order to
fully embrace the ”new game” of social media. The three critical
areas companies need to focus on to support a coherent and
sustainable social media strategy are:
•
Spotting the ”golden nuggets” of data and generating value
from them coordinating social and traditional channels
•

Coordinating social and traditional channels

•

Empowering employees to engage with communities

How to get the best
out of this study
1. Forward this study to various people within your organization
and discuss how social media is relevant to various
departments within your organization and how they can
effectively utilize the medium if they are not doing so
already.
2. Compare your organization’s use of social media with
that of social media-savvy organizations discussed in this
study. Check the level of social media maturity within your
organization.
3. Discuss what needs to change or worked upon within your
organization — whether it is about developing a social
media ROI model, creating a more robust monitoring and
analytics system or a social media governance policy,
familiarizing your key employees on usage of social media,
or understanding your customer’s behavior more to better
engage with them and deriving more benefits from your
social media efforts.



Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young works with forward thinking social media professionals and organizational
leaders to answer key questions to accelerate the social transformation process within
their organizations.
Insights
•

•

How do we know what we are doing is the best for our fans
and customers? Are they in sync with their expectations?
How do we benchmark this against competition?
What are the best practices or global standards that we
should be aware of and can learn from?

Strategy
•

•

•

•

How do we familiarize the various departments in our
organization with digital and how do we make digital relevant
for them?
We have established our social media communities and have
done great campaigns for fans online. Now what is the next
stage that we should take our organization to?
We have leaped into digital, but do we have the guidelines
in place for our teams and employees? How do we identify
digital risks and steps to mitigate them? What is our social
media governance maturity level?
How do we identify the digital service providers and how
do we bring all of them together to create a comprehensive
digital strategy for us?

Analytics
•

•

Services that are
appropriate to your
maturity and needs

What is the state of digitization in our organization? How
do we assess the digital maturity across dimensions such as
customers, suppliers and partners, investors, employees and
leadership?
How do we develop a practical ROI model for our
organization from our digital efforts beyond platform-specific
parameters?

Agnostic advice
that is not tied to a
particular outcome

Cross-functional
thinking, skills and
project teams


Ernst & Young social
media analytics services
The power of social media

Social media tools

As consumers and their customers become more empowered to
discuss online, if managed correctly, social media can become
an essential source of strategic information for key areas such
as corporate risk, regulatory compliance, HR, marketing, R&D,
trade distribution and availability, crisis management and quality
control.

Most social media monitoring tools make the flawed assumption
that users speak in perfect American English. They rely on SMM
tools, translation engines, natural language processing tools
and human intervention to try and cut out the ”noise.” Accuracy
is notoriously low (25%–40%) and many only output positive/
negative/neutral sentiment, ignoring the opinions and root
causes. Users are skeptical about accuracy levels, and therefore,
actionable insights become highly unlikely.

The challenge of social media
Getting digital operations and governance right is therefore
crucial. But the challenge does not end with the correct
technology in place — it is about effectively using the data it
gives you. Without the tools to collect it, companies are unable
to use the wealth of consumer and customer insight they have
at their disposal. And even if they do, they often do not have the
capacity, the skills or the processes to shift through it and see
what it means.

Ernst & Young social media analytics services
Ernst & Young has developed the capability to support our clients
to listen, filter, and analyze’ and interpret and report social media.
We have the capability to listen to any online publically available
conversation in any language, across any stakeholder and any
topic and generate a report in three days with 97% accuracy that
can give you insights and can augment your offering or protect
your business from the boardroom to in-market functions. We are
able to immediately listen to more than 30 different languages
through our Social Media Analytics hub based out of Zurich,
Switzerland and have access to a network of 150,000 plus
professionals who are able to provide local business context to the
issues being explored.


Read other EY reports
and papers on digital
For more studies, please visit www.ey.com/GL/EN/home/library

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http://bit.ly/YD4GJw

http://bit.ly/YI86JY

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http://bit.ly/Xr0paU

http://bit.ly/YD3Ix3


Contact us
Dinesh Mishra

dinesh.mishra@in.ey.com
Dinesh has 17 years of experience in corporate development, product and
customer strategy, operating from India, Singapore and the UK.
He has developed and designed digital strategies for clients, developed digital
as a channel to market and additional revenue streams, worked on the creation
of early digital market places, and designed complete customer experiences for
online retailing businesses.
Dinesh leads the Customer Practice for Ernst & Young India.

Palin Ningthoujam

palin.ningthoujam@in.ey.com
Palin has been actively blogging and experimenting with online technologies
since 2006. He founded the erstwhile popular blog, India PR Blog (now merged
with Advocable.com), reviewed online tools for top social media blog Mashable,
and contributed offbeats to blogs such as Desicritics and youth magazines.
He has led award-winning digital marketing campaigns and helped clients
become top social media brands in India. He has more than a decade of
experience in corporate reputation management and digital marketing and was
the prime mover in successfully setting up the digital practices in his last two
organizations. He has conducted training sessions for young digital champions.
Palin leads the digital advisory stream at Ernst & Young India within the
Customer Practice.


End notes

Why social media
1. The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to
“
Action, Harvard Business Review analytic Services,” Harvard
Business Review, 2010, http://hbr.org/hbrg-main/resources/
pdfs/comm/sas/16203-hbr-sas-report-r3.pdf, accessed 28
February 2013.
2. “From social media to social CRM: What customers want,”
IBM Institute for Business Value, ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/
common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03391usen/GBE03391USEN.PDF,
accessed on 01 April 2013.

7. “Is Facebook Losing Its Cool? Some Teens Think So,” Time,
http://business.time.com/2013/03/08/is-facebook-losingits-cool-some-teens-think-so/, accessed on 11 March 2013.
8. “Indian Blog Directory,” Indiblogger, http://www.indiblogger.
in/directory.php, accessed on 1 March 2013.
9. “Microsoft Most Valuable Professional,” Microsoft website,
http://mvp.microsoft.com, accessed on 1 March, 2013.
10. “Womma Code of Ethics,” Womma website, http://www.
womma.org/ethics/womma-code-of-ethics, accessed on 1
March 2013.

Which social media platform

Popular practices

1. “India Facebook Statistics,” Social Bakers, http://www.
socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/india, accessed 1 April
2013.

1. “On Facebook, Photos Represent 89% of Brands’
Most Engaging Posts,” Marketing Charts, http://www.
marketingcharts.com/wp/direct/on-facebook-photosrepresent-89-of-brands-most-engaging-posts-25330,
accessed 1 March, 2013”

2. “39 Best Indian Facebook Campaigns Of 2012,”
LighthouseInsights.in, http://lighthouseinsights.in/39-bestindian-facebook-campaigns-of-2012.html, accessed 1 March
2013
3. “Gangnam Style,” Wikipedia website, http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Gangnam_Style, accessed on 28 February 2013, “Why
This Kolaveri Di,” Wikipediawebsite, http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Why_This_Kolaveri_Di, accessed on 28 February 2013
4. “How do brands gain from videos? Danielle Tiedt, CMO,
YouTube gives us some answers,” The Economic Times,
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-20/
news/37200405_1_brands-gain-ads-psy, accessed on 28
February 2013.
5. “Surprise dance on Finnair Flight to celebrate India’s Republic
Day,” Finnair YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mEsnb3kUDAw
6. “Pepe Jeans India Engages on Pinterest with ‘Pin It to Win
It,” Lighthouse Insights website, http://lighthouseinsights.in/
pepe-jeans-india-engages-on-pinterest-with-pin-it-to-win-it.
html, accessed on 28 February 2013.

2. “January 2013 Social Media Report: Facebook Pages in India
– UPDATE,” Socialbakers website, http://www.socialbakers.
com/blog/1373-january-2013-social-media-report-facebookpages-in-india-update, accessed 1 March 2013.
3. “@Airtel_Presence Most Responsive Telecom Brand
On Twitter [Report],” Lighthouse Insights, http://
lighthouseinsights.in/airtel_presence-most-responsivetelecom-brand-on-twitter-report.html, accessed 1 March
2013.
4. “The 5 types of people who post on brand pages,” Ragan’s
PR Daily website http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/
The_5_types_of_people_who_post_on_brand_pages_10502.
aspx#, accessed 28 February 2013.
5. “What India watched: 2012 YouTube rewind,” Live
Mint website, http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/
TqPt0GUTdJ5Mj6nbMicDdJ/What-India-watched-2012YouTube-rewind.html, accessed 28 February 2013.


6. “Facebook Page Terms,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.
com/page_guidelines.php, accessed 4 March, 2013.
“Guidelines for Contests on Twitter,” Twitter, https://support.
twitter.com/articles/68877-guidelines-for-contests-ontwitter#, accessed 4 March, 2013.

3. “Yatra: Initiating and engaging in conversations with
customers,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/
advertising/success-stories/yatra, accessed 4 March, 2013.

7. “Protecting and strengthening your brand,” Ernst & Young
report, http://bit.ly/YI86JY

Social media budget

8. “How Revlon India Leveraged Social Media to Gain Insights
for a Product Launch,” Lighthouse Insights, http://
lighthouseinsights.in/how-revlon-india-leveraged-socialmedia-to-gain-insights-for-a-product-launch.html, accessed
on 04 March 2013.

1. “Pepsi to Skip Super Bowl Ads in Favor of $20M Social
Media Campaign,” Mashable website, http://mashable.
com/2009/12/23/pepsi-super-bowl, accessed 4 March
2013; John F. Dwight, “Pepsi Refresh Project,” http://www.
johnfdwight.com/Pepsi-Refresh-Project, accessed 4 March
2013.

9. “Facebook: In India, 30 Percent of Users Are Mobile-only,”
PCWorld website, http://www.pcworld.com/article/257849/
facebook_in_india_30_percent_of_users_are_mobileonly.
html, accessed 4 March 2013.
10. Facebook ties up with Airtel, Reliance Communications; to
“
offer free data access for chat users,” The Economic Times
website, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/
facebook-ties-up-with-airtel-reliance-communications-tooffer-free-data-access-for-chat-users/articleshow/18783523.
cms, accessed 4 March 2013.

How do organizations use social
media ads
1. “General Motors Pulls Advertising From Facebook
[REPORT],” Mashable website, http://mashable.
com/2012/05/15/general-motors-pulls-facebook-ads,
accessed 4 March 2013.
2. “E-commerce fashion retailer generates 25% of revenue
from Facebook,” Facebook, http://fbrep.com/collateral/
Myntra_CaseStudy.pdf, accessed 4 march 2013. “Kaya Skin
Clinic: Generating walk-ins through the Page,” Facebook,
https://www.facebook.com/advertising/success-stories/kaya,
accessed 4 March 2013,

2. “India Inc sees a spurt in Oct-Dec ad spends,” The Times of
India website, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/
india-business/India-Inc-sees-a-spurt-in-Oct-Dec-ad-spends/
articleshow/18521804.cms, accessed 4 March 2013.
3. “The state of social media spends in India,”IndiaSocial
website, http://www.indiasocial.in/social-media-investments,
accessed 1 April 2013.

Five key characteristics of
”socially adaptable” and
successful brands
1. “Social Media: New game, new rules, new winners,”
Ernst & Young, http://bit.ly/YD4GJw, accessed 28
February 2013.


Team behind the report
Palin Ningthoujam
Palin.ningthoujam@in.ey.com

Aditi Joshi
Aditi.joshi@in.ey.com

Aseem Madan
Aseem.madan@in.ey.com

Ramprasad V
Ramprasad.v@in.ey.com

Follow E&Y India @EY_India
Let’s discuss this report at #EYstudy
Watch us on www.youtube.com/ErnstandYoungGlobal
You can also access this report online at www.ey.com/India/socialmedia

Ernst & Young LLP
Assurance | Tax | Transactions | Advisory
About Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax,
transaction and advisory services. Worldwide, our
167,000 people are united by our shared values and an
unwavering commitment to quality. We make a difference
by helping our people, our clients and our wider
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Ernst & Young refers to the global organization of
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which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global
Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not
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Ernst & Young LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership, registered under the
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at 22 Camac Street, 3rd Floor, Block C, Kolkata - 700016
© 2013 Ernst & Young LLP Published in India. All Rights Reserved.
This publication contains information in summary form and is therefore
intended for general guidance only. It is not intended to be a substitute for
detailed research or the exercise of professional judgment. Neither EYGM
Limited nor any other member of the global Ernst & Young organization
can accept any responsibility for loss occasioned to any person acting or
refraining from action as a result of any material in this publication. On any
specific matter, reference should be made to the appropriate advisor.
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