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  • 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 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