MxMIndia

Tag: Bhuvi Gupta

  • … writes Bhuvi Gupta in a new fortnightly column on marketing and advertising

    Why Brands have a Responsibility to Step Up & Help in Economic Recovery

     

    By Bhuvi Gupta

     

    Bhuvi GuptaIndia has been under a full lockdown since March 24, 2020. After three subsequent extensions, a relatively unsuccessful Unlock 1.0 & 2.0 in June and July, spikes in positive cases are forcing many Indian cities to go under full lockdowns, again.

     

    As the economy degrows, unemployment rises and sales decreases and every subsequent FY21 GDP forecast is worse than the previous one, the future seems bleak and unlikely to bounce back soon.

     

    Basis a GroupM report released in June 2020, India’s GDP will contract by 3.7% and subsequently overall advertising spends will decline by more than 20% this year.  This follows, as advertising in current scenarios is an after-thought, with most companies focused on reviving production and distribution. The drop in advertising has led to unprecedented job losses in the ad-dependent media industry, so much so that industry body International Advertising Association (IAA) has been running a campaign, ‘Let’s Advertise’ to spur advertising, since June 2020.

     

    The campaign seems to have made some impact  – brands in the Health & Hygiene categories or those that can pivot their messaging to sound Covid-wise have started advertising. However, this is a small portion of the market, and for the economy to revive, brands which can afford to, should, play a bigger role in recovery.

     

    As Keynesian economics espouses, spending spurs consumption during times of economic downturns. If brands (which can) spend monies, this will spur demand, and the money will help the economy as a whole. In such pandemic times, the messaging of many brands is irrelevant, a great way to remain visible is by running Public Service Announcements (PSAs) campaigns.

     

    While a decade ago, PSAs were issued by govt bodies, with the advent of social media, brands regularly run socially relevant campaigns because they help the brand earn respect and hence brand equity while also doing social good. Due to their affirming messages, PSAs also have higher than average trend-worthiness, i.e. audiences share these ads more because it helps them feel good about themselves to do something socially relevant.

     

    With the notable exception of Mumbai Police PSAs, most PSAs released by government bodies in India, are pedagogical spiels, which are not engaging, even when starring celebrities.

     

    In March 2020, just as the lockdown was announced, the Maharashtra government released a pedagogical PSA on Covid-19 headlined by the biggest stars of Bollywood including Amitabh Bachchan, Ranveer Singh, Ayushmann Khurrana, Alia Bhatt, Akshay Kumar etc. A month later, Sony launched a PSA with a similar Bollywood lineup but a much better storyline. (The PSA can be viewed here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQk0VrL2I-w

     

    Short film – ‘Family’, conceptualised and virtually directed by Prasoon Pandey for Sony Network starring celebs from across the country used storytelling creatively to communicate the importance of staying at home. It was telecast in April 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju7ku–S6F4

     

    Hence, in Covid-stricken times, effective PSAs can help brands kill many birds with one stone  – create brand equity, earn public goodwill, spur good behaviour, meet annual CSR target spends as mandated by Indian law and, most importantly, help the economy recover.  Earned goodwill will also spur trials for those whose loyalties lie with competitors.

     

    Budget-struck brands can collaborate with other brands; conduct digital-only campaigns to give the push to the economy to help its recovery.

     

    As brands with diverse target audiences release PSAs, different strata of society will get targeted which will help in overall compliance. This is backed by research conducted by 2019 Nobel laureates in Economics, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. In a paper released last month, they have shown that frequent celebrity messaging, in addition to the existent large-scale government messaging on Covid-19, can positively impact behaviour by nudging people to follow best practices. The research also shows that there are spillovers of good behaviour in the entire community even when a few are targeted.

    In a CSR initiative, waiting to be replicated by national dailies, Kashmir ‘s Urdu newspaper Roshni, affixed a mask on the front page of the paper on July 20 to drive home the message about mask usage. Kashmir was under complete lockdown from 22-27 July, due to a rise in Covid cases.

    VIRALITY TO BEHAVIOURIAL CHANGE

    The challenge even for good PSAs is translating virality to behavioural change. The ease of communication brought on by social media has made armchair activists of the majority of the population. However, while these activists enable knowledge-sharing with other people they don’t bother much with acting upon the gained knowledge before moving on to the next trending topic. Which is why, despite the dangers of inobedience, many who wear a face mask, style it as a chin-guard.

     

    Hence, brands should be careful to create PSAs which are not just a retelling of facts, but facts communicated in way to appeal to their targeted audience, whether it is through high quality storytelling, a new ‘Hook Step’ or a ‘Challenge’ which is creative enough to warrant sharing.  Basis the research by Banerjee and Duflo, leveraging brand ambassadors signed on for lavish multi-year contracts will also help to drive behavioural change. So brands, any takers?

     

     

    Bhuvi Gupta is a marketer with over 10 years across industries, of which the last six have been in Media & Entertainment. She has been a part of many launch marketing campaigns – specifically at the Times of India group, Republic TV and the latest in marketing a Bollywood film. She will write on A&M (mostly marketing, but often on advertising too). Her views here are personal. She tweets at @bhuvigupta3

     

     

     

     

     

  • On Day 5 and the final day of the MxM Open Classroom series, Bhuvi Gupta focuses on social media networks on the fringe

    MxM Open Classroom | Digital Marketing Day 5 | Understanding the Social Media networks on the Fringe

    Bhuvi GuptaBy Bhuvi Gupta

     

    And so, we have come to day 5 of the Open Classroom series.  The focus of this series was to give readers a deep understanding of the social media networks which occupy the most mindshare currently  – TikTok, Facebook & Instagram, to windup the series, we will briefly discuss advertising on popular social media networks from two opposite spectrums. Firstly, those which have existed for the last decade and are used for reaching a specific, mostly urban demographic, that is YouTube, & Snapchat and secondly  those which are not more than 5 years old and targeting audiences in tier 2, 3 & 4 cities.  There are multiple social media platforms trying to capture mindshare in in tier 2, 3 & 4 cities, and while userbases differ, they offer more or less the same audiences & suffer from the same issues. Prominent platforms include, Likee, Bigo (both owned by Bigo) , Helo (owned by ByteDance) & Sharechat (an Indian VC funded startup).  In this article, we focus on Likee & ShareChat.

     

    As per the Kantar ICUBE 2019 report, rural India registered a 45% growth in monthly active internet users (MAUs) in 2019 to reach 264 million internet users, and is expected to grow 15 percent or reach 304 million users in 2020.

    The report also states that Video, Voice and Vernacular (3 Vs) are the underlying factors for the internet boom in rural India. The truth is vernacular penetration will define the next wave of growth for all social media platforms including Facebook, Youtube & Snapchat, and not only those focused on tier 2, 3 & 4 markets.

    Old but not yet established

     

    YouTube

    YouTube is an online video sharing platform which has 2 billion users globally, and a presence in more than 90 countries. YouTube as also the internet’s second largest search engine, after Google.

     

    While YouTube has enjoyed a steady presence in India, it is in the last 2 years that an Indian focus has lead to exponential growth. In 2019,  the number of channels with more than 1 million subscribers grew four-fold to reach 1200.  Regional language channels also grew. There are 94 Tamil channels 60 Telugu channels, 35 Bengali channels and 15 Malayalam channels with more than 1 million subscribers, today.

     

    Because of YouTube’s huge viewer base and granular targeting, it can play an effective part for reaching diverse audiences. Points of note –

     

    • Advertising on YouTube is especially relevant if TV is apart of the marketing mix.

    • Budgets allow advertising on the YouTube Masthead (price tag of 2 crore plus) is a high impact property which can help in 1 billion plus impressions & hence high awareness. While previously the banner was sold on a per day basis, YouTube now also sell the masthead banner space on a Cost per Impressions(CPM) basis for a few days every month.

    • Use Influencer Marketing – leverage channels aligned to the brand’s target audience to create branded content

     

    Quick Facts

    • User Base in India – 265 million Monthly Active Users

    • Demographic Profile – Age-agnostic. Regional and gender diversity (120+ channels with more than 1 million subscribers are run by women)

    • Ad formats – Video ads (Non skippable  & skippable), Display ads, Cards, Overlay ads, Masthead banner ad, influencer marketing

     

    SnapChat

    Snap Originals in India

    Snapchat , owned by USA headquartered Snap Inc. is a multimedia-messaging app which allows users to share static & video content called ‘Stories’. It also includes a Discover tab where content partners & brands show ad-supported short-form content. Snapchat has become known for representing a new, mobile-first direction for social media, for e.g. it was the first to introduce both Augmented reality filters & Stories on its platform, both of which have since got replicated in most other popular apps. India has been a focus market for Snap Inc., since 2018., which has lead to an 80% increase in DAUs (Daily Active Users) in the country. This growth is partly fueled by the integration of  four new Indian languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi and Marathi & partly by local partnerships across device manufacturers, telcos, content creators (Brut, HuffPost India, The Logical Indian, The Quint, VICE India, Pocket Aces,) etc.. These content partnerships have also been used by Snap for original content creation, branded as ‘Snap Originals’.  Brands should advertise on Snap primarily to reach the youth in metros, and definitely if they target women below 34 years in metros .  Snapchat also offers granular targeting options with low ad spends.

     

    • User Base in India – undisclosed, 229 million MAUs globally

    • Demographic Profile – Urban Youth, below 34 years of age, 55% of the audience being women

    • Ad formats – Sponsored Lenses , Sponsored filters,  Sponsored stories, ads in discover

     

    The platforms targeted at Rural India

    Most platforms which are targeting rural India have a few commonalties – firstly they are focused on regional languages, they are still focused on building communities and while have made inroads on revenue streams, they are not focus areas. Thirdly, most have come under some flak for objectionable content, whether pornographic or political. Marketers are hence, still wary of leveraging them, but as the platforms get more established in the coming few years, they will contribute to sizeable digital spends. We focus on two such platforms, which seem to be winning the numbers game in 2020 –

     

    Likee –  was the 7th most downloaded app of 2019 and has 115 million Monthly Active Users in India.

    Screenshot of Likee user’s profile, homepage & Live

    Likee (rebranded from Like) is a short video creation platform created by Singapore based firm, BIGO Technology in 2017. It offers  short video creation with a variety of creative Augmented Reality filters and effects, a news tab to catch up on current affairs & an option to go ‘Live’ where users are allowed to send virtual gifts and roses to their favorite creators. It offers support for 15 Indian languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu and Sanskrit.

     

    While similar to TikTok, the user interface is much simpler and filters are more creative. Its 115million+ user base is primarily concentrated in tier 2& 3 cities. Advertising options on its platform, are similar to those offered on TikTok i.e. branded filters, branded challenges & in-feed ads. Inventory on Infeed-ads are sold using the Google Ad Exchange & Facebook Audience Network

     

    Likee has been used for promoting many popular movies of 2019 such as Chhichhore, Dabangg 3 & Housefull4.  For e.g. For Housefull4, users  could transform into any of the characters they chose from the film using the Facemorph filter. Selected users were then invited for a meet& greet with the cast

     

    Sharechat

    Sharechat is a social networking service founded in 2015 in India which available both on mobile & web. It allows sharing of both video & static content, and is available in 14 languages including dialects like Rajasthani, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri. It also has a chat feature, which allows users to communicate with each other. The platform currently has a user Base in India of 60 million+ MAUs.  Rather than follow the strategy formulated by TikTok, as most platforms in the space are doing, ShareChat has managed to differentiate itself from other platforms  due to its multipronged strategy –

     

    • Advertising – Brand integrations through micro-influencers on the platform. Micro influencers help create unique brand experiences through UGC (User Generated Content). Coca Cola, Oyo, MTR, Airtel, Pepsi and the Future Group are some of the advertisers already working with ShareChat.

    • Community – it has focused on targeting users in tier2,3 & 4 cities only in Indian vernacular languages. It has recently launched several interest-based micro-communities on subjects such as commerce and religion, gaming and fantasy sports to drive user-engagement

    • Content Moderation – moderates content to global standards followed by Twitter ( who led a Series D $100 million investment round in 2019)

     

     

    Images courtesy indianexpress.com, qz.com, public feeds of apps

    Bhuvi Gupta is a marketer with 10 years of work experience, of which the last six have been in the media and entertainment industry. She has been a part of many launch marketing campaigns with experiences at the Times of India group, Republic TV and the latest in marketing a Bollywood film.

  • In the fourth and penultimate part of the classroom series on Digital Marketing, Bhuvi Gupta focuses on how Facebook can be leveraged effectively present

    MxM Open Classroom | Digital Marketing by Bhuvi Gupta | 10 Commandments of leveraging Facebook effectively

    Bhuvi GuptaBy Bhuvi Gupta

     

    Facebook, while not the first social media network, was the first social media network, which the world holistically adopted, because it evolved to keep itself relevant.

     

    Even today, with a plethora of new social media networks, Facebook with a subscriber base of over 2 billion users globally remains relevant and for marketers crucial to reach customers. In India, Facebook has, 300 million users, which means that which means that 60 percent of its online population (500 million) have a Facebook account. It remains the social media network with the highest subscriber base in India and the best platform for advertising (on social media networks) by far. Therefore, marketers cannot  and should not ignore Facebook.

     

    Most marketers would have used definitely Facebook both as a platform for content marketing  & for digital advertising.  Both have evolved considerably, due in part to the platform’s declining organic reach & changes in the product, over the last decade. Here are 10 Commandments for leveraging Facebook effectively in 2020 –

     

    Commandment 1 –Optimize your Profile

     

    The first commandment is necessary, as an optimized profile is the base for implementing strategy. Facebook allows brands considerable more space to detail information about their business, their objectives, mission, locations etc. These details often get missed on other social media networks, which focus on keeping profile bios short and sweet. Best practices are –

    Dharma Productions has  a business profile customized to its business of a film production house

    • Have an eye-catching profile picture & cover image or video, optimized for the correct sizes.

    • Create a Facebook Business page which helps  –

    :: Access to Facebook Audience Insights

    :: Running ads

    :: Allows page customization to suit business objectives i.e. you can shift or delete sections basis on what is important

    :: Allows you to create a shop front on the page

    • Fill out your profile with brand description, locations, visiting hours as applicable

    • Use ‘Call to Action Buttons’ aligned to business objectives.  This button shows on your page, right below the cover photo and is a trigger for A profile visitor to take action – ranging from browsing products, subscribing to updates, getting a discount code etc.

    • Pinned post– FB allows pages to pin 1 post to their profile. This post should be used to highlight any update, or the latest brand campaign.

    • Apply for page verification – on the ‘Settings’ tab

    • Link all other social media profiles to the page to benefit from cross promotion. This is especially beneficial for Instagram, and you can simultaneously post on Facebook & Instagram stories

    • Create a Vanity URL – Change the random URL assigned to you when you create a page to a URL, which is ideally your brand name and SEO friendly

     

    Commandment 2 – Create a FB Content & Community strategy

    Over the years Facebook has made considerable changes to its newsfeed algorithm. Today, Facebook prioritizes content from pages that enjoy high viewership, and quality engagement. Hence, focus on quality content, which inspires reaction.

     

    Organic reach on Facebook has reduced considerably, with posts reaching less than 5% of your page’s audience, earmarking budgets for boosting posts is necessary. Posts can also be geographically & demographically targeted so as to ensure effective reach.

     

    CONTENT

    • Use Facebook Page insights to understand the content has stickiness and the demographics of the followers who are returning to consume more content, so that you can create better and more engaging content

    • Diversify the content mix – images, videos, GIFs, polls, and User-Generated Content (UGC). FB prioritizes video over photos, and photos over status updates, hence that should be accounted for in the content mix

    • Adopt the 70-20-10 approaches: Post original material 70 percent of the time. Share existing content that’s relevant to your audience’s interests 20 percent of the time and -promotional content the remaining 10 percent of the time.

     

    COMMUNITY

    • Be responsive to people commenting on posts to increase engagement.

    • Don’t use ‘ Engagement bait’ as Facebook doesn’t count such posts as genuine engagement.  These are those posts that encourage responding with a single word or an emoji, or ask people to tag friends in the comments only to drive up engagement

    • Switch on profanity filters in Page Settings so that defamatory comments don’t show

    • Because of the sheer numbers of users and business pages on Facebook organic reach is low. Hence, it is important for Pages to ask followers to turn on post notifications so that they know every time the page posts. Before this request, pages should ensure that their page is active, with high quality and engaging posts so that followers are motivated to turn on post notifications.

     

    Commandment 3 – Leveraging Facebook Page Insights

     

    A snapshot of FB page insights

     

    Facebook offers very detailed page insights, as compared to other social media networks. Understanding these insights can help unlock the potential that Facebook with its large audience base has. Marketers should frequently use Page insights to help answer the following questions, and accordingly alter their page strategies-

    • What content performs best in terms of reach and engagement ?

    • What are the demographics of the people who interact with your page, and what time are they most active ?

    • What are the numbers of people interacting with your page and content and how is it relative to your competition?

    • What actions are people taking through your page; do they click the call to action button?

     

    Commandment 4– Granular targeting with Facebook Advertising

     

    Enough and more has been spoken about how advanced Facebook ad targeting is and it’s easy to measure and optimize campaigns to get the best possible ROI. Best practices are –

    • Use Custom Audiences (existing customers or followers) to retarget them with new products or updates

    • Use Lookalike Audiences to discover customers similar to people who have interacted or purchased products

    • A/B test ads to invest funds in better performing ads

    • Track ads performance regularly – Ads peak and then performance starts dropping, when the audience being targeted has been exhausted. Tracking ad performance can help marketers to pinpoint when this drop happens and modify the campaign accordingly

    • Different industries have different ad metrics and there is no average CPM or CPV, or CPA

    • Use Facebook audience insights – Facebook Audience Insights, (accessible from the Ads Manager) is a tool designed to help marketers gain better insights about their community, their custom audience (customers) and potential audiences, by studying aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more.

     

    Commandment 5 – Leverage Facebook Audience Network while Advertising

    An underused part of Facebook Advertising is the Facebook Advertising Network, (the Facebook equivalent of the Google Display Network). The FAN is a collection of websites and apps that allows advertisers to extend their Facebook and Instagram campaigns across their advertising real estate.

     

    The FAN is easy to use as using it uses the same targeting available for Facebook ads, including Custom Audiences, core audiences and lookalike audiences and features the same measurement tools marketers’ use for their Facebook ads. It takes only one additional click while creating ads.

     

    Basis a Facebook study, conversion rates were eight times higher amongst people who saw ads across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network than people who only saw the ads on Facebook.

     

    Commandment 6 – Leverage Facebook Pixel to optimize ROI

     

    Using the Facebook Pixel is a piece of code used on your website (where customer conversions take place) to optimize ad delivery to an audience is more likely to take an action like a purchase checkout for an ecommerce website, a subscribe for a media website, etc.

    The Pixel allows you to track visitor activity on your website. This way,  brands can track when a customer took an action and after seeing which Facebook ad. Tracked conversions appear in the Facebook Ads Manager and in the Facebook Analytics dashboard, where they can be used to measure the ad effectiveness of your ads, dynamic ads campaigns, retargeting, and to analyze that effectiveness of your website’s conversion funnels. This is called conversion optimization.

     

    Commandment 7 – Don’t forget the Power of Facebook Groups

    In the macrocosm of Facebook, Facebook Groups are a relatively untapped opportunity for brands to create new and leverage existing communities.

     

    Film Companion, a media company focused on reviewing content has their own FB group

    Groups, which  are a different asset to a FB page, are communities built around a certain common interest, and often geography. The format is that of a public forum, where members of the community are allowed to communicate with other members publically. The communication is managed by one or multiple Admins, who ensure that the group is communicating in line with rules defined by the Group owner.  Groups can be closed i.e. requiring approval to join or open.

    There are 2 ways to leverage FB Groups –

    1. Create a FB Group – Time consuming but a high quality community of brand loyalists will  be built. As groups offer communication even between followers, it will mean that a robust multi-way communication channel will get formed.  While this will require regular group management and even policing, this community is a high quality focus group that can be used in multiple ways

    2. Join Groups – relevant to your brand can help give access to a ready community that can then boost your page following, and even become customers. Ways of creating awareness in groups can be multiple, but must be done with prior Group Admin approval, as not all groups will be willing to let brands leverage them, but some may –

    • Content – sharing posts that utilize your brand rather than only promote it

    • Hosting exclusive competitions for group members which require using your products or services

    • Using the group’s real estate for advertising – this means the cover image, pinned post etc.

     

    Commandment 8 – Go Live on Facebook

    Facebook Live is a feature of that uses the camera on a computer or mobile device to broadcast real-time video to Facebook. Lives have become ubiquitous across social media. Since the launch of live in 2016, as per statistics shared by Facebook, more than two billion people have watched a Facebook Live video. Lives are a helpful tool and help brands to –

    • Provide access – Live streams of public events like press conferences and product launches

    • Provide engagement to the brand – The brand can respond to viewers in real time

    • Humanize the brand – showcase the behind-the-scenes functioning of the brand, your product, ad shoots, or the people behind your brand.

    Some best practices of using them –

    • Choose live topics on the basis of what your community wants more information on

    • Promote the date of you live for a few days, so that your community is aware of the Live taking place

    • Take questions and respond to comments from the viewers

    • Cross promote your Live on other social media

    • Ensure you post your Live as a video after the stream has ended, with an relevant description & video title

    • Ensure you data connection is strong, so that the video doesn’t lag or drop during the Live

    • Ensure you have a visible branding during the Live

     

    Commandment 9 – Consider using Chatbots on FB Messenger

    The chatbot launched by MyGovIndia to resolve queries on Corona virus

     

    Chatbots on Facebook messenger are a great tool to complement a Facebook page. Messaging enables businesses to pursue two-way conversations, which are personalized (users are greeted with their first name), customized (according to their purchase history or search history), simplified (only information relevant to the user’s query is given as opposed to a FAQ or a one-way post), responsive, (comments on Facebook posts can be responded to) fast, and documented.

     

    Hence, FB Messenger as a more intimate way to communicate with users for retargeting, customer sales support & communication, should be leveraged.

     

    As per a Facebook study, 79% of people in India say that being able to message a business helps them feel more confident about the brand

    While there are many companies which make Chatbots, popular companies include Mobile Monkey, ChatFuel, & ManyChat.

     

    Commandment 10 – Use360 Degree Photos & Videos

    The film Bhoot used 3D posters as a part of its marketing communicatons

     

    Facebook’s USP over other social media networks is that allows users to take, upload and view 360-degree photos. While Facebook supports 360-degree videos, they need to be shot using special cameras.

     

    3D photos can help create the wow factor, which can help brands to break the clutter – something which on Facebook is necessary.

     

    _______

     

    Facebook offers short and comprehensive courses and guides on how to use all their features. I recommend going through Facebook Blueprint, which is an e-learning platform that offers free, self-paced courses on Facebook and Instagram advertising for detailed guidance.

     

    Pictures taken from public feeds of users on  Facebook, Facebook newsroom & blog, hootsuite.com & pixabay.com

     

    Bhuvi Gupta is a marketer with 10 years of work experience, of which the last six have been in the media and entertainment industry. She has been a part of many launch marketing campaigns with experiences at the Times of India group, Republic TV and the latest in marketing a Bollywood film.

     

  • In Part 3 of the MxM Open Classroom focus on Digital Marketing, Bhuvi Gupta writes on how to maximise the power of TikTok

    MxM Open Classroom: Day 3 of Digital Marketing by Bhuvi Gupta | 10 Commandments to Max TikTok

    By Bhuvi Gupta

     

    Bhuvi GuptaTikTok is a short video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based company founded in 2012. It is used to create short dance, lip-sync, comedy and talent videos. Its mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. It can also be described as a bite-size version of YouTube, with videos ranging between five and 60 seconds in length. Users have access to an assortment of filters and effects, as well as a massive sound library with dialogues, popular songs, and other sounds.

     

    The app in the last one-year has seen massive growth in India. According to a report by data analytics firm App Annie, TikTok was the most engaging mobile application in India in 2019, and accounted for 44%, or 323 million, of Global TikTok downloads. As of December 2019, TikTok’s monthly active users were 81 million.

     

    That the app has taken over India’s mindshare is no exaggeration. The App Annie report also states that Indians spent 5.5 billion hours on the app, as compared to the 900 million hours in 2018.

     

    There are many reasons why TikTok has struck such a chord with people, across strata. Unlike other social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook, where you are expected to showcase your best self, TikTok encourages you to be whimsical and authentic. The content that is posted is short, and without possessing fancy video-editing skills, one can showcase their creativity due to the huge variety of augmented reality filters, and special effects. If being creative also takes too much effort, users can just lip-sync on a variety of trending videos to express themselves.

     

    Because of the sheer ease of using the app, it has been an equalising social media platform unlike Instagram & Facebook, which remained bastions of the urban communities in India.

     

    This stupendous growth which is a sign of things to come, means that brands should no longer ignore TikTok from their social media strategies. 10 Commandments to help brands navigate the platform are –

     

    Commandment 1 – Optimise your profile

    There are 6 key things to take care of when optimising your profile for a brand –

     

    • User Name– TikTok has two fields where one must fill their user names – the profile name at the top of the page and the unique user name. As profiles are searchable using both these names, they both should ideally be your brand name for better discoverability

    • Profile Pic– should be a bright logo or picture with high contrast. This is important as the profile pic, which is displayed in the middle of the right edge of every TikTok video, risks being missed unless it is eye-catching. The profile pic also has a small follow button on the post itself, so the more it stands out, the better it is.

    • Profile Bio– TikTok gives you 80 characters, for a bio. Bio should either be informative, entertaining or inspiring or a combination of the three, so as to inspire action.

    • Links– As TikTok allows direct links to Instagram & YouTube pages, hence these accounts should be linked. A robust YouTube or Instagram presence also gives credibility to brands new to TikTok.

    • Account Verification– TikTok doesn’t have any official application procedure for getting verified. Account verification happens organically when TikTok staff see a need or want to reward users

    • Pinned post– TikTok allows pages to pin upto 3 posts to their profile. These posts should be used to highlight videos that represent the brand or the latest brand campaign.

     

    Commandment 2 – Optimise Settings

    • Ensure that in your profile settings (Go to Manage Your Account), the setting is for a ‘Pro’ account, as that will give you access to analytics.

    • Ensure that your account is not set to private so that people can discover your content organically (go to Privacy settings)

    • Ensure that all the languages of regions aligned to the brand’s business objectives are selected (go to Content preferences). This is an important so that consumers in those markets can discover and engage with the brand.

     

    Commandment 3 – Engagement Hacking

     

    TikTok uses Artificial intelligence & Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand the content and context of each post. This helps the platform to understand which users to serve the content to. Its algorithm has been lauded for its exceptional machine learning which has enabled its far-reaching success.

     

    It is widely understood that every time a video is posted, TikTok will show the video to a sample set of 200-300 users. From this chosen audience, the algorithm uses the rewatch rate, completion rate, comments, shares & likes, new users gained as key factors among others, to evaluate every post’s engagement ranking. On the basis of this engagement ranking it will choose whether the video should be shown to how many other users or not. However, it must be noted that it is impossible to know the weights assigned to these and how best content can be optimised because that is proprietary to the TikTok algorithm.  Best practices to increase engagement, are as follows –

     

    • Completion rate & Rewatch rate are key metrics basis the current algorithm, and hence brands should create shorter but high quality videos, so that the completion rate metric is met and a viewer is motivated to rewatch the posted video, as it will barely take any time.

    • Engage with viewers interacting with your content – Turn on post notifications so that you can be responsive to your followers who engage with your content.  Engaging with people who react to the post, within the first few hours of posting it, will also help to increase the post’s engagement rate. In layman’s terms, the higher the engagement, the more the post will be shown to other users, which in turn creates a virtuous circle for more engagement

    • TikTok’s algorithm will down vote content which is extremely violent, dangerous, sexual, political or incendiary.  Accounts that frequently post such content also get shadow banned. In India, TikTok was banned for download, in early 2019, due to alleged pornographic content on it.

     

    Commandment 4 – Leverage the USP’s of TikTok

     

    • Post frequently as on TikTok as accounts use compounded growth metrics (Likes & Views), and hence profile benefits from frequent posting.

    • Brands should participate in some viral trends aligned to their brand, rather than only follow their marketing calendar to keep their TikTok community engaged.

    • Make your content basis the analytics – this means its best to have a content strategy, which is responsive to the brand’s community, so as to create content, which will drive the most engagement. Hence, brands should post when their followers are active, in languages spoken by most followers, etc.

    • Never delete content – Unlike other social media platforms, content on TikTok often enjoy what is knows as a ‘Delayed explosion’. This means, content posted on the platform may not go viral when its posted but see an upswing in discovery after weeks or even months.

    • Follow popular trends – The short video format survives on content that is current. Hence, creating content around news stories, such as Covid, cultural events like festivals & current TikTok trending hashtags & sounds, helps in increasing discoverability

    • Ensuring that content you post follows conventional how–tos of content marketing to create content with stickiness.

     

    Commandment 5 – Optimise Hashtags

    Ensuring that you keep the below n mind while using hashtags can help to increase the discoverability of your content –

     

    • Use 5-6 hashtags per post – if too many hashtags are used on TikTok, then the caption moves up and the vertical frame looks crowded  & unaesthetic. If too few hashtags are used then it means decreased discoverability.

    :: Use hashtags relevant  & popular to posted content

    :: Use trending hashtags – TikTok shows the highest trending hashtags on its ‘Discover’ button. Hence, using relevant trending hashtags increases discoverability

    :: Use hashtags related to popular keywords for which your brand is discovered.

    :: Use long tail hashtags – a long tail keyword is a phrase that is longer and more specific to search queries. Long tail keywords get lesser traffic but have higher engagement, as they are so specific. For example #howtobakechocolatecake is a long tail keyword as compared to #baking, which is a general keyword

    •  Add hashtags relevant to your brand, for e.g. competitor’s hashtags to ‘Favourites’ so that you can monitor them

     

    Commandment 6 – Using TikTok Music

     

    TikTok allows you to use a variety of sounds in videos. These sounds can be songs, dialogues, and variety of other sounds, which can be used as background music or audio tracks to lip-sync to.

     

    Music is key to TikTok videos. The more times the algorithm sees people using a particular audio track, the more it’ll feed your song to new viewers, thereby creating a virtuous circle of virality.

     

    This chain reaction has helped lots of otherwise overlooked songs go viral on TikTok. Music labels are now releasing snippets of songs on TikTok alongside their release, as it helps drive massive discovery and virality for original music. For example, the Baadshah and Jacqueline Fernandes song, Genda Phool, released in March 2020, amassed 250+ million views on YouTube, in a month of release, helped in part by its massive reach on TikTok. Brands can use music in the following ways

     

    • Use pre-existing and new audio tracks – As a brand, background scores, catchy brand jingles and witty repartee as dialogue form a key part of marketing communication. It is hence advisable to leveraging ads to create original content – Popular jingles & ads from the past, as well as new original audio tracks, when launching new campaigns. Creating engagement for the brand jingle can help to drive discovery for the campaign.

    • Use trending sounds  – they are a way to get your content discovered as they have a proven track record of getting engagement. As they use sounds which are already trending your content has a higher probability of being on the ‘For You’ page of users which have engaged with the sound

     

    Commandment 8 – Be creative

     

    Ideas are central to the TikTok experience. Videos can be uploaded or created in-app with stop and start recording, timers, and other tools. Live streaming is also an option. Users can add visual filters, time effects, split screens, green screens, transitions, stickers, GIFs, emoji, and much more.

     

    TikTok which initially started as a lip-sync app has evolved to house content across industries – for fitness enthusiasts, bakers, photographers, salsa dancer et al

     

    Hence brands should create content strategies accordingly.

    Branded Hashtag Challenges 

    These campaigns encourage users to create videos around a specific hashtag, often using a specific song or set of dance moves. in 2019, Pepsi used TikTok as their primary platform for promoting their new brand anthem with the tagline ‘Har Ghoont mein Swag’. The campaign anthem was sung by 2019’s most popular Bollywood Punjabi singer, ‘Baadshah’ and the music video starred popular Bollywood youth icons & social media influencers, Tiger Shroff & Disha Patani. The campaign required users to recreate the trademark dance move of the song which was called the  #SwagStepChallenge. The campaign was a huge success, with 240+ million views and over 15,000 user-generated videos within 24 hours of its launch. The campaign also naturally spilled over to Instagram, where it received 20+ million views. The campaign remains one of TikTok’s most successful brand campaigns in India.

     

    Branded lenses

    Brands can partner with TikTok to create 2D and 3D lenses for users to “try on” and share. Doing so also lands companies in the Trending section of the Discover tab for 10 days. Pepsi used branded lens in a followup campaign to the #SwagStepChallenge called #SwagSeSolo

     

    Commandment 7 – Get inorganic reach via Ads & Influencers

     

    As the TikTok platform is relatively new and nascent, both the popular modes of getting inorganic reach i.e. Advertising & Influencer Marketing give better ROI than more mature social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook & YouTube.

     

    Influencer Marketing on TikTok

    • Ensure the influencer’s audience demographics is aligned to you brand

    • Use cloutmeter.com to assess profiles. Typically, a good engagement rate is upwards of 5%

    • Influencers are relatively underpriced basis influencers with similar reach and followers on YouTube & Instagram, as the platform is still nascent

    • Accounts which can be categorized as ‘Influencers’ differ basis social media platforms, i.e. an Influencer on Instagram may not enjoy similar reach on TikTok, and hence influencers should be defined basis the platform

    • Leverage your existing PR & social media agencies for influencer marketing as many have started to offer these services as well. Specialist Influencer marketing agencies have also sprung up, but the industry us still nascent

    • Beware of fake influencers –

    • Likes to Followers ratio – On TikTok, as organic reach of quality content is a key feature of the app, the average Likes should always be a multiple of the Followers.

    • Check for genuine followers – scan followers to check if they are genuine or bots (typically have with no profile pictures and followers, but will be following a lot of people)

     

    Commandment 8 – Use developed social media communities from other platforms to drive growth

     

    Most brands have been using social media on other platforms and have invested considerable energies in developing robust communities. Developing synergies across their content and community can help jumpstart reach on TikTok via –

    • Repurpose content posted on other platforms – Brand having presence across multiple different social media platforms will already have a robust marketing calendar, and multiple pieces of original and quality content per platform. Repurposing the content o create short videos will help build a brand’s community on TikTok and utilize resources, effectively.

    • Share original content created for TikTok on Instagram – TikTok allows accounts to share their posts on Instagram using TikTok’s built-in “Share to Instagram” feature. This moves the TikTok watermark and crops the frame of the video to make it suitable to the Instagram user interface. Resharing such posts can help make your community on Instagram also follow you on TikTok.

     

    Commandment 9 – Don’t confuse TikTok for Instagram

     

    • Content discovery is central – TikTok’s default screen is the ‘For You’ page of trending videos customized basis a users’ browsing habits. The platform is customized for discovery of ‘viral’ content. This is similar to Instagram’s second tab of ‘Search & Explore’

    • Allows you to be whimsical – Mainstream platforms like Instagram & Facebook have focused on presenting a curated image of your brand persona. TikTok allows and celebrates brands, truly with #NoFilter, allowing the brand to showcase more whimsical content.

    • TikTok helps to reach audiences in tier 3 and 4 cities – generating content and going viral is easier than other social media applications. Even if you’re a new user or an inexperienced video maker with a low-quality phone camera, the world of TikTok embraces you.

    • As the platform is still at a nascent stage, it allows for easier and more organic discoverability and reach

     

    Commandment 10 – Underused features of TikTok – Lives  & TikTok coins

     

    TikTok like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook & Youtube also offers pages the option of going ‘Live’. This feature is accessible only when an account gets 1000 followers. Brands will soon start to leverage TikTok Lives as well. Livestreams can be hosted by users are older than 16 years. Only those aged above 18 years can purchase, send, or receive virtual gifts.

     

    Lives on TikTok, have an interesting feature, where viewers are allowed to give virtual gifts to the page. These gifts can be purchased using TikTok Coins. The price for these coins at the user’s end is approximately INR 100 for 80 coins.  Diamonds are a measurement of the popularity of the relevant. On the basis of the gifts, Content Provider receives, Diamonds get accrued to the content creator’s account at a rate of conversion determined by TikTok.  Users cannot purchase Diamonds. These ‘Diamonds’ are exchangeable for currency.

     

    Pictures taken from public feeds of users on TikTok, TikTok Newsroom & pexel.com

     

    Bhuvi Gupta is a marketer with 10 years of work experience, of which the last 6 have been in the media & entertainment industry. She has been a part of many launch marketing campaigns with experiences at the Times of India group, Republic TV and the latest in marketing a Bollywood film.

     

     

     

  • In the second ‘class’ of MxM Open Classroom, Bhuvi Gupta focuses on Instagram in the five-day series on Digital Marketing

    MxM Open Classroom: Day 2 of Digital Marketing ‘School’ by Bhuvi Gupta | The 10 Commandments of Instagram in 2020

    By Bhuvi Gupta

     

    Instagram is a photo and video-sharing app owned by Facebook, which as of March 2020 has over 1 billion monthly active users globally. India is one of Instagram’s top 5 markets with 86.4 million users with 41 million users (40%) belonging to the age group of 18 to 24 years. India is a focus market for Facebook, as we all know after the USD 6.4 billion investment that was made in Mukesh Ambani owned Jio Platforms. Amongst the many reasons, for this focus is the potential that India’s relatively unpenetrated digital population has.

     

    To put into perspective, there are 400 million smartphone users in India, & 86.4 million Instagram users in India. This means that four of every five people with a smartphone do not use Instagram. However, the one in five, which do still offer a sizeable opportunity for brands, especially when targeting the urban individual below 34 years of age. Facebook’s investment in Jio Platforms is a sign of how ubiquitous Instagram will become in the future for audiences across different strata. This means that understanding how the platform works to leverage it for maximum visibility for your brand is key, irrespective of who the target audience is.

     

    Instagram for the uninitiated, is a photo and video sharing app, which allows users to upload photos, and short videos, which can be edited with filters and organised with hashtags and location. Profiles can be either public or accessible only to pre-approved followers. Users can browse other users’ content by tags and locations, and view trending content. Users can like share and comment on content posted by people they follow.

     

    Other features also include messaging, stories, Explore tab and IGTV. Stories are 15 seconds of video or static content, which disappears after 24 hours, & IGTV is a YouTube competitor add-in app, that can be accessed from within Instagram. The Explore tab is a collection of trending content customized to each user by Instagram’s algorithm on the basis of his browsing habits. A users newsfeed is also customized according to their browsing habits. However, it contains content posted by people they follow.

     

    Instagram is an essential social media platform to understand today. It also has evolved and keeps evolving as new features are added. Below are the 10 Commandments of Instagram, understanding which; irrespective of the changes it may go throw will hold –

     

    Commandment I – Conduct a Basic Hygiene Check of your profile.

    To ensure that the page is primed for optimum performs its necessary to ensure that all the below are in place. –

    • Ensure that the profile name is the same as your brand name.

    • Apply for account verification (by going to ‘Business Settings’) as the blue tick against your brand gives the page extra credibility

    • Descriptor should include keywords & taglines for which your brand is most likely to be found when searched

    • Add a call to action in your profile to your website, your Amazon shop front, landing page for your current campaign etc.

    • Ensure that comments are switched on for all posts

    • Ensure profanity filters are switched on so as to filter out abusive comments

    • Ensure that the account is a ‘business account’ so that there is access to analytics. A business account makes it necessary for you to include the industry you function in. In this case, Jay Shetty, a popular Purpose coach has ‘Public Figure’ in his industy field,as he is an individual

     

    Commandment II – Optimise your content for Discovery –

    • Instagram allows discovery of content primarily via hashtags & location. Hence all content should be posted with related, and popular hashtags & geotags to increase discoverability.

    :: While it allows using up to 30 hashtags on each post, it is advisable to use at least 10 hashtags per post.

    :: Geotags, which are optional, should be used whenever applicable

    • Every posts should have a story announcing the post, as increasingly users view stories without viewing their content feed.

    • All content should be high quality & in correct dimensions

    • All content should be true to your brand personality.

    • Captions accompanying posts should be short

     

    Instagram Video  & IGTV preview –

    • Thumbnail– Ensure that you choose a thumbnail that communicates what the video is about. While thumbnails can also be screenshots from within the video, a best practice is to use a customized thumbnail with a descriptive click-bait title to increase clicks.

    • Aspect ratio –ensure the right aspect ratio is used for posted videos

    • A great rule of thumb to ensure that a video grabs attention for a user scrolling his newsfeed is to have a lot of action & bright colors during the first 3 seconds of the video.

     

    Commandment III – Optimise your content for virality & stickiness –

    It is key to ensure that while building a page organic reach and followers are a focus, as an engaged community will help to drive ROI. Jonah Berger’s book, ‘Contagious’ gives 6 concise principals which help define what will trend and what won’t, easily identifiable by the acronym STEPPS –

    • Social currency – people share things that make them look good, when they are the first to discover it, or it is for a noble cause

    • Triggers – products need to be put on the back of people’s minds via reminders. This helps in creating desire.

    • Emotion – people need to feel a strong emotion like awe, amazement, anger to feel motivated to share

    • Public – when people see other people engaging with a trend it creates a domino effect which helps to make it trend even further.

    • Practical Value – it has to be useful.

    • Stories – there has to be a story around your content. Stories make content easier to remember and humanize a piece of branded content

    • Many trends have been a combination of a few of the STEPPS. Case in point, Dalgona coffee recently can be associated with both the P’s – people saw their friends make the coffee with easily available ingredients and they made it themselves.

     

    Commandment IV – Optimise Stories for interactivity

    Instagram stories are ephemeral content, which have a lifespan of 24 hours. Stories are interactive and have entertainment value. They are a great way to showcase brand personality & to participate in trends & moment marketing. This is because they allow the usage of stickers and augmented reality filters.

    Stickers – Instagram has the option of adding multiple stickers on stories, which can help give your brand more personality.

    • Interactivity – The most popular stickers include polls, multiple choice questions, polls, emoji sliders etc. which help increase engagement with your community.

    • Brand Personality – music stickers, locations, gifs.

    • Add landing pages to stories to achieve other business objectives using the ‘Swipe Up’ feature.

    • Add hashtags as that makes stories discoverable

     

    Commandment V – Don’t forget to use Instagram Live & IGTV

    Instagram Live- is a video format of the AMA (Ask Me Anything) format, made popular by Reddit. ‘Lives’ as a format have gained prominence in the last 2 years and can also be hosted on Facebook, Twitter & YouTube.  Followers can tune in to the live, ask questions and interact with other members of the community on the ‘Live’. Instagram also allows you to invite viewers or a co-chair on the ‘Live’ via a screen share thereby adding to the interactivity. Can be used for product launches and announcements, tutorials, general Q&As, press conferences etc.

     

    IGTV is an app similar to YouTube. Its biggest USP is that it can be accessed from within the Instagram app, which allows you to leverage your Instagram community to discover longer content without leaving the platform. IGTV is a platform that is in the nascent stages of its growth; hence it is easier to build an audience on it as compared to YouTube.

     

    Commandment VI – Engage with your community

    The follower base that a page enjoys is the key asset for a brand or page on any social media platform. Followers can be present customers who are brand evangelists or future customers who relate to your brand personality. The community is a great way to build loyalty, as a follower becomes more engaged and loyal to you. Instagram’s algorithm uses the Page’s engagement rate, to decide how visible it makes your content, in feeds or in the ‘Explore’ tab. Visibility on ‘Explore’ tab can help exponentially boost your follower base. Best ways to engage with the community are –

    1. Reposting User Generated Content (UGC) mentioning or using your brand, keeps your community engaged, with you.

    2. Run contests so as to encourage your community to communicate with you. A caveat, ensure that giveaways linked to contests are aligned to your brand and not greed-inducing prizes like IPhones or IPads. This will ensure that reach achieved due to the contest is genuine.

    3. Responsiveness – Responding to post comments on especially those made in the first hour is how Instagram will decide the engagement rate of the post, which will in turn determine the post visibility. Being responsive also acts as encouragement for users to engage with the page on future posts, as they know that someone is listening and responding to them.

     

    Commandment VII – Supercharge your community base with Influencers

    Influencers enjoy loyal follower bases, which trust their recommendations. Hence, identifying accounts whose beliefs are aligned to the brand can help your page gain visibility & credibility in the right target audience. Influencer marketing can take many forms –

    • Posts reviewing your product and service offerings

    • A ‘Live’ recorded at a press conference or product launch or any other events

    • A page takeover, where the influencers interacts with your page’s followers all day long, answering the community’s questions about the brand, their experiences with the brand etc.

     

    Commandment VIII – Leverage analytics

    Analytics will help you understand how different content performs and give you insights about your community. Community insights include age splits, locations, gender splits, times when your community is most active.

    This should define, the content you post and the time at which you post.  Instagram analytics will give insights about –

    • Content: insights on your posts, stories, and promotions.

    • Activity: your profile, including Interactions (such as profile visits and website clicks) and Discovery (how many people see your content and where they find it).

    • Audience: about your followers and audience, including growth in follower count by day or week.

     

    Commandment IX – Instagram Advertising

    Using advertising to increase the reach of important posts, about launches, brand campaigns, upcoming events etc. is a key supplement to any digital campaigns. Instagram’s algorithm limits the visibility of posts, even when engagement rates are above average, so it is important to budget for advertising for visibility.

     

    Commandment X – Ensure frequency of posts to maintain engagement

    Last but definitely not the least; ensure that your page is active with frequent posts. This frequency may be twice daily or 4 times weekly, but it is key to ensure that regular posts are done to ensure that Instagram classifies your page as active. Even if there is limited content that you create, leveraging user generated content, leveraging moment marketing on trending topics should be done so that, during a crucial time of a launch or event, your community is active and engaged with you.

     

    Images taken from pixabay.com, later.com and currently running public pages on Instagram. Instagram definition source: Wikipedia

     

    Bhuvi Gupta is a marketeer with over a decade of work experience, of which the last six have been in the media & entertainment industry. She has been a part of many launch marketing campaigns with experiences at the Times of India group, Republic TV and the latest in marketing a Bollywood film

     

     

     

  • In the first of a five-day programme on digital marketing by Bhuvi Gupta, learn about the HOWs and WHYs of making trends

    MxM Open Classroom: Digital Marketing

     

    Why MxM Open Classroom: Upskill yourself!, That’s what one is told so as to make the extended lockdown work for us. But while doing one of the hundreds of free or paid courses sounds easy, in realit,  it isn’t. And going through the tests and quizzes that are contained in them can be quite daunting. Starting this week, we start a series of ‘open classroom’ sessions. Each week, we will have a five-part series – Monday through Friday that will tackle an important area of the media marketing services domain. We kick off our series with a focus on Digital Marketing with Bhuvi Gupta, a marketing specialist who has

     

    The HOWs and WHYs of making trends

     

    By Bhuvi Gupta

     

    According to a FICCI EY report, the Indian Media and Entertainment (M&E) sector grew 9% to reach INR 1.8 trillion in 2019.

     

    The rapid spread of mobile access is helping the growth of the digital media industry. With a population of 1.3 billion, 688 million internet subscribers and nearly 400 million smartphone users, quantitatively, India already has high numbers but also has high potential for growth. This means that the digital media industry which grew 31% to reach INR 221 billion in 2019 will continue growing and industry experts expect it to grow at 23% CAGR to reach INR 414 billion by 2022. Digital advertising grew 24% to INR 192 billion and is expected to follow a similar growth trajectory. As digital penetration increases, more advertising budgets will get diverted to digital, especially because digital advertising is easier to measure and to finely tailor target audiences.

     

    The biggest challenge with digital is the evolving landscape – changing algorithms of popular platforms, newer applications of Augmented Reality, new platforms with niche demographics (like Helo, ShareChat, Likee, Bigo), and newer forms of advertising like influencer marketing to only name a few. This makes it difficult to allocate digital budgets effectively because the ‘how’ of being effective is constantly in flux.

     

    This series is in a sense a cheat sheet to understand digital advertising better and to ease navigating this evolving landscape. In each article, we will evaluate how to best create virality by leveraging popular digital platforms. Key focus platforms will be Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, chosen because of the reach, they garner.

     

    To kickoff the series we focus on the objective of many if not most campaigns – ‘Virality’. Making a campaign ‘viral’ is the holy grail by which campaigns are measured & many awards given, today.

     

    Marketers know that in spite of how topical and relevant the communication it is impossible to guarantee campaign virality because there are too many variables.  However, what is attainable is ensuring that a campaign ‘trends’.

     

    The key difference between a campaign ‘trending’ and it ‘going viral’ are in longevity and organic reach. While a trend may last for a short period of time, may be paid for and limited to a particular target audience, a campaign going viral implies that it has had the longevity of a few days, substantial word of mouth and a high recall value that has surpassed its initial targeting. Hence, while all viral campaigns, trend, not all trending campaigns go viral. With the right strategy it is possible to make a quality campaign trend, which may be the push it needs to achieve virality.

     

    A quality campaign is one, which while espousing product benefits, is topical and evokes a strong emotional response so that it is prompts the viewer to share it to enable word of mouth. An easy test to determine shareability is to ensure that the messaging is entertaining, inspiring or informative or a combination of the three.

     

    Here are Five ways to make a quality campaign ‘trend’–

     

    I. Choosing 1 or 2 focus platforms

    Today every social media platform has a key age and socio-economic demographic. Depending on the messaging, the brand, and campaign budgets focus platforms should be defined. It is wise not to focus on more than two, even if budgets permit. Successful campaigns will spillover organically to other platforms, anyhow.  For e.g. in 2019, Pepsi used TikTok as their primary platform for promoting their new brand anthem with the tagline ‘Har Ghoont mein Swag’. The campaign anthem was sung by 2019’s most popular Bollywood Punjabi singer, ‘Baadshah’ and the music video starred popular Bollywood youth icons & social media influencers, Tiger Shroff & Disha Patani. TikTok was was aligned to the brand’s mass & youth focused targeting. The campaign was a huge success, with 240+ million views and over 15,000 user-generated videos within 24 hours of its launch. The campaign also naturally spilled over to Instagram, where it received 20+ million views. The campaign remains one of TikTok’s most successful brand campaigns in India.

     

    II. Challenges

    A campaign which requires the consumer to engage will automatically have higher recall value & will also allow for the network effect which will help it to trend organically. The messaging of the campaign is key to how it can have a challenge component.

     

    Challenges are especially relevant for TikTok, and Instagram. Hashtag challenges form a key component of TikTok and challenges typically trend for a week. Hence, hosting challenges aligned to brand campaigns on TikTok can help a campaign achieve virality.  Currently, a Challenge trending on both TikTok & Instagram is the #PassTheBrushChallenge, where different women, pass a makeup brush to each other while showing before & after images of themselves wearing makeup. The challenge has not been initiated by any brand, but has gone viral with different kinds of iterations being produced, including a male version with a hairbrush!

     

     

    III. Hashtags –

    A hashtag, which can be the campaign tagline in entirety or a part of it is a key component of a trending campaign, as it is an easy identifier when the post gets shared, or mentioned. A hash tag is easy to understand, catchy, and related to the brand. It should ideally be not more than 3-4 words, have a verb, and either the brand name or a keyword from the catch phrase.

     

    Hashtags are vital for discovery on Twitter& TikTok, while they serve as identifiers on Instagram, Facebook & YouTube. Along with the key campaign hashtag, it is advisable to use other aligned & popular hashtags with which the content can be discovered.

     

    For e.g. in the Pepsi ‘Har Ghoont mein Swag’ campaign the key hashtag used was the same as the tagline, #HarGhoontMeinSwag along with #SwagStepChallenge. The campaign was followed up by a follow up campaign, with a new single called ‘Swag Se Solo’ sung by 2019’s breakout Bollywood singer, Tanishk Bagchi, released in February 2020. This campaign used the hashtag #SwagSeSolo and re-used the hashtag #SwagStepChallenge.

     

     

    IV. Influencer Marketing –

     

    Today, to break the clutter, it is crucial to invest a part of advertising budget on influencer marketing. Influencers enjoy loyal fanbases, and due to their relatibility, are often more trustworthy and credible than celebrities. Targeting influencers aligned to target audiences can help get exponential reach and engagement.

     

    However, influencers per platform need to be defined because each platform has different influencers in the same niche. A beauty influencer on TikTok may not  enjoy the same following on Instagram & YouTube, and hence can not be used for a campaign with Instagram as the primary social media platform.

     

    Influencer marketing works on all platforms, but is especially relevant on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. It is especially effective for marketing new launches. Popular mobile phone brands often leverage influencer marketing while marketing their new launches – One Plus, gets influencers across industries to post videos highlighting the USP of the new launch. Google hosts parties with photo booths and gourmet food and, gifts influencers the latest ‘Pixel’ device. Photos of the party get shared on social media by all the attending influencers, thereby successfully creating a buzz.  One of the most successful examples of influencer marketing remains the selfie taken by Ellen DeGeneres at the2014 Oscar ceremony  (sponsored by Samsung) where Hollywood’s A listers posed for a selfie taken with a Samsung Galaxy Note 3. What remains ‘Note’-worthy is that the picture, which was shared, was not of the selfie but that of the stars taking the selfie so that the ‘Samsung’ logo was prominently displayed.

     

     

    V. Digital Advertising –

    For platforms such as Facebook, and now Instagram, which have attained maturity in their life cycle, the competition for organic reach is high. Hence, using advertising for discovery and amplification is necessary for virality. To enable speedier discovery it is advisable to use advertising on TikTok as well. Digital advertising used in conjunction with the above strategies, on the chosen platform (s) can effectively amplify the campaign. While it will definitely help a campaign to trend, it can often serve as a tipping point for creating virality.

     

    The gulf between a trend and virality is deep and often, a trending campaign that reaches relevant audiences is sufficient to earn ROI and achieve the brands marketing objectives. Virality is very often a vanity metric, which helps the brand create widespread awareness like traditional ATL marketing but may not aid in creating actual consumer intent.

     

    Bhuvi Gupta is a marketeer with over a decade of work experience, of which the last six have been in the media & entertainment industry. She has been a part of many launch marketing campaigns with experiences at the Times of India group, Republic TV and the latest in marketing a Bollywood film