MxMIndia

Tag: Social Wavelength

  • On the shortlists announced on Sunday, there was a no show from India on any of the categories, except Press – which fetched them 18 shortlists – and Direct, which got TBWA a shortlist

    @CannesLions15: Day 1 report: With 945 entries, India eyes bagful of Lions

    By Shephali Bhatt

     

    Delegates of the 62nd Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity were yet to start making their plans for the day via the Cannes app when the awards committee announced shortlists for the Press, Mobile, Innovation, Direct and Promo & Activation categories.

     

    No show from India on any of the categories, except Press — which fetched them 18 shortlists — and Direct, which got TBWA a shortlist.

     

    How many entered in the category? 132 and 74, respectively. A 13 per cent conversion rate in Press and 1.3 per cent in Direct but the percentage doesn’t matter as long as the shortlists go on to win big, says KV Sridhar, chief creative officer of SapientNitro. “People will remember that one great campaign that won across categories and not the number of entries you’d sent,” he adds, citing the example of Duracell’s positive negative stories campaign that won a handful of Lions last year.

     

    With mobile replacing digital in the ‘digital is the future’ prophecy, one would’ve expected some shortlists in the mobile category. “Maybe we are actually not doing enough exciting work in the space just yet. And perhaps rightly so,” says Sanjay Mehta, joint CEO of Social Wavelength and one of the Mobile jurors at the festival. “Whatever got shortlisted, I have truly not seen anything of that calibre in India,” he says.

     

    The total number of entries has also come down this year, marginally so, from 979 to 945. Sridhar, also one of the Press jurors for Cannes Lions this year, attributes this to the declining agency participation in domestic awards. “Only if I play well at domestic cricket do I stand a better chance at excelling at international cricket,” he says.

     

    Advertising isn’t very different in this regard. Agencies like Ogilvy and Lowe have started inhouse awards and Leo Burnett has stopped entering awards with the enthusiasm it used to. “All this comes through in the craft and quality of the work that’s entered at international awards,” he Sridhar. The pressure for validation isn’t the same anymore.

     

    “A lot of work entered to win at Cannes isn’t mainstream work anyway,” notes Grey’s Dheeraj Sinha. Only a matter of 24 hours (until the awards ceremony) before we find whether India is on its way to equalling or topping a great run last year.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2015, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

  • Proceeds from a panel discussion on Content Marketing held at MICA, Ahmedabad with Sanjay Tripathy, Kunal Jeswani and Sanjay Mehta

    Welcome, Content Marketing

     

    By Tanushree Bhatia

     

    It’s one of the biggest buzzwords in the media these days: content marketing. Advertising agencies are being forced to look beyond traditional ads to also include this new form of messaging in their offerings. And marketers have had to rejig their teams to be able to manage the new challenges thrown up by this new form of outreach. These and other issues were touch upon at a panel discussion at premier marketing and communications school MICA last Friday. The discussion was part of MICA’s annual marketing management festival Micanvas at its campus in Ahmedabad. The panellists were: Sanjay Tripathy, Senior EVP-Marketing, Product, Digital and e-Commerce, HDFC Life,  Kunal Jeswani, Chief Digital Officer, Ogilvy India, and Sanjay Mehta, Joint CEO, Social Wavelength and the proceeds were moderated by Pradyuman Maheshwari, Editor-in-Chief and CEO, MxMIndia and Consulting Editor, dna of brands.

     

    Sanjay Tripathy, Senior EVP-Marketing, Product, Digital and e-Commerce, HDFC Life

    Content was always a one-way communication. We then moved to blogs, social media and now there are multiple channels. It has increased manifold. It is very important to understand how the generation is changing. The readership of blogs has diminished over time. It is a checklist generation for example: 5 things to do, 10 things to do. It is all about instant gratification. Nowadays, constant monitoring and responding to user-generated content is more important than content creation.

     

    You can allocate 5 percent of the spends pie on digital and that can do a great job. I feel our social space is like personal space. Our social spaces are very segregated. You have to have a strategy as to what this strategy is best suited for.

     

    It’s not easy – but the age-old principle holds true: know your audience. For many companies, that audience is the always-on generation, which represents both their current (and future) customers, so smart marketing with them now can yield invaluable loyalty later on. If one is able to accurately target a few words or phrases that resonate with them, they will conjure a positive memory around your company, and, hopefully your product – so stay ahead of their game.

     

    Kunal Jeswani, Chief Digital Officer, Ogilvy India

    It’s about push/pull communication. Communication strategy focuses on push whereas content is around pull. It thus need not be created but can be sponsored. The content is designed to be either entertaining or add some value to the consumer. In the process of consuming the content, the consumer makes a brand association.

     

    My job didn’t exist five years ago. Things are changing and capabilities are being built. The digital medium plays a very important and large role in telecom, finance and auto sector.

     

    We have started to see things differently and the British Airways ad is the best example. The producer of the ad is not an ad filmmaker in fact he used to make expensive wedding videos. But the characters are real and none of the interactions are scripted. When you start capturing that kind of stuff is what I mean by content and not advertising.

     

    Consumers are very intelligent that way. No one can be fooled into it. Everything is usually branded example the Google ad. It’s clearly a Google film and no one is misleading you. But you still watch it like a piece of entertainment. What digital does is that it lets you do visuals. The only issue is how interesting you can make each element with a push.

     

    Sanjay Mehta, Joint CEO, Social Wavelength

    Today every company is a media company and they have a huge onus of creating tens of thousands of pages of content. A dilemma that is often faced by companies is the short attention span of a consumer. Gone are the days when there used to be long stories. We have shifted from emails to Whatsapp from SMS. And now there’s the Yo app. First the companies need to create content and then create content of interest. And who is the competitor? Everyone is a potentially great content producer. The world is rich with the quantity of content that gets created each day. Content has to align the agendas of both the brand and the user.

     

    There are question marks on user-generated content, but there are enough genuine reviews on the sites. There is a rating of the reviewer also for example in when I go to a Zomato, I see reviews by my connections first.

     

    This report first appeared in the dna of brands issued dated November 17, 2014

     

  • JWT makes its 2nd digital acquisition after Hungama. Interviews with Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT S Asia & Sanjay Mehta, co-founder and Joint CEO, Social Wavelength

    JWT acquires majority stake in Social Wavelength

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    Leading marketing communications agency network JWT has agreed to acquire a majority stake in leading social media agency Social Wavelength.

     

    Social Wavelength is a Mumbai-headquartered full-service social media agency specialising in social media offerings right from strategy to execution that includes social media marketing, online reputation management, social CRM and social media for HR.

     

    “JWT’s acquisition of Social Wavelength is a logical confluence of social media and mainline expertise, coming together to create integrated communication for brands. The rich experience of five years that we have, in this young industry of social and digital media, will find the next leap of growth, through this partnership,” said Hareesh Tibrewala and Sanjay Mehta, Joint CEOs and promoters of Social Wavelength.

     

    Established in 2009, the agency now has over 170 professionals servicing over 50 brands across their offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.

     

    “We want to be a critical resource partner across the many solutions we provide to our clients. As we continue to relentlessly transform our offerings, Social Wavelength adds a huge dimension to our existing clients and the brands we steward,” said Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT South Asia. This is JWT’s second digital agency acquisition in India, the first being Hungama in June 2012.

     

    Acquisition part of JWT plan to be future-ready: Colvyn Harris 

    A quick chat with Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT South Asia on the Social Wavelength acquisition and whether he is looking at any more buys in the future.

     

    01. This is the second digital agency that JWT has acquired in India. Would you be looking at acquiring any more soon? Or is this it?

    We are transforming the JWT group of companies to be future-ready. And digital is an important part of the mix. We have a definite roadmap on digital and while Hungama has been doing well, when it came to social media, we were looking at a good agency and Social Wavelength was the answer. So, in future, if something good comes along and if we find that we are unable to develop skills and build capabilities and if we think it’s better to acquire, we will do that.

     

    02. Social Wavelength is known more for work on the implementation and execution than strategising for brands and corporates. Will it stay that way?

    If you look at a specialised space like social media, the strategy that you develop is what you need to execute. Typically, the creative agency will look at the brand and its personality, while Social Wavelength will look at the social media implementation. Now that it is part of JWT, if we identify opportunities for our clients, Social Wavelength will definitely be able to deliver on that proposition. Also, they have their own clients for which they have been doing work and will continue to do so.

     

    03. Would you see India becoming a hub for servicing digital deliveries for other JWT offices?

    Across the globe, JWT has many digital offerings. In fact there’s a major global push that we have on digital. On being a hub, it all depends on what are the skills we can offer and if there is a requirement for then from within the JWT or WPP fold…

     

    04. With digital in most agency set-ups being a full-service activity, we now have creative agencies doing media work and vice versa. As an advertising industry veteran, do you think we are headed in the direction where all agencies will turn full-service?

    That may not happen. Media agencies have gone far ahead of the curve. Both media and digital agencies have developed and invested a fair deal expertise. But the client is central to our work so if it means working within the JWT or within the WPP fold, we work very seamlessly.

     

    05. You acquired Mindset in Hyderabad two years back, Hungama after that and now Social Wavelength. Would JWT be looking at any other acquisition? Any other business – new or old – that you would like to be looking at growing inorganically?

    In JWT, we believe in planning and we have considerable depth in that. Encompass is part of JWT which takes care of activation and big events. But yes, there are areas like mobile and analytics which are growing. We put the client’s business at the centre of what we do and where we identify a gap, we will definitely try and close that gap.

     

    		 ‘The JWT structure enables us to continue to be entrepreneurial and reasonably independent: Sanjay Mehta
     

    Q&A with Sanjay Mehta, co-founder and Joint CEO, Social Wavelength

     

    01. One more homegrown digital firm gets gobbled up. Wouldn’t it have been nicer for you to have stayed independent rather than become a part of a large global advertising network?

    Well, that’s always a dilemma for any entrepreneur. We weighed the pros and cons of the two options, and found it more exciting to join hands with a global major and grow faster.

     

    The WPP / JWT structure enables us to continue to be entrepreneurial and reasonably independent, and yet derive the benefits of a larger agency network. That looked like a good option for us.

     

    02. Is this (getting acquired by an international biggie) the only way to go for digital independents?

    Certainly not. One can remain independent and grow. Will there not be a Madison in the digital world? Why not? There would be one (or more) and it could be maturing even as I write this.

     

    03. From when did you start looking towards getting acquired? And how did the entire process start and how much time did it take?

    We were not consciously looking to get acquired. In the sense that we never mandated someone to find us an acquiring prospect, etc. We did have a few conversations which were all proactive and direct. We were prepared to look at opportunities that came our way, without being in any rush of any kind, as we were growing well, on our own steam. But we were open to strike a deal, if we found the proposal interesting. This one turned out to be that type.

     

    As for the process, it has taken several months, and we believe it was worth the time. As any relationship involves the getting-to-know-each-other phase, and the time was well utilised for the same.

     

    04. Is the choice of JWT a case of whoever gave the best price or is there also a fitment of cultures?

    We were genuinely very happy with the chemistry we saw with the folks at JWT. And that was the driving force. There are many other factors, including what the association can create together, and how it can yield benefit to us, over time. And sure, there was a factor of the right price too.

     

    05. What happens now with Social Wavelength being part of JWT?

    First of all, Social Wavelength remains an independent unit and continues to run its business completely independently. Operationally, some processes of WPP / JWT do get into place, but for most parts, we run the business like we have been doing. Quite independently.

     

    What we do get is the benefit of JWT’s local and global reach of clients, the best practices, the knowledge resources, etc. Which we reckon, will propel us to higher levels of growth, rapidly.

     

    06. Will there be synergies with the Hungama part of the business?

    Yes, there are plans to have a great working set up between JWT, Hungama and Social Wavelength. Details will be figured out as we run the course over the next few weeks.

     

     

  • Social Wavelength Joint CEO Sanjay Mehta on what Facebook's achievement of one billion users means for marketers and all those reaching out to the masses

    Jaldi 5 with Sanjay Mehta: 1 billion users strong, Facebook can influence elections

    Sanjay Mehta

    When Facebook gently proclaimed that it now had touched the magical one billion users figure, most of us just dismissed it as a milestone. But it’s an accomplishment that cannot be ignored by not just individual users – but also marketers, sociologists, governments and all those who need to reach out to the masses.

     

    We asked Sanjay Mehta, Joint CEO, Social Wavelength some very fundamental questions on this achievement including whether there is any reason to fear the platform being abused of destabilizing nations.

     

    1 Would it be right to say that a good reason for the Facebook users reaching 1 billion would be thanks to the growth in recent years in India?

    LOL… no. We cannot take too much credit considering the Indian userbase, at this time, being a nominal 50 mn in FB’s total of 1 bn. So while the Indian user base has contributed to the overall numbers, it has been a nominal percentage.

     

    Would you say that Facebook is the single biggest marketing development of the 2000s?

    Well, I would say Social Media is the single-biggest marketing development. And Facebook is a key player in that social media space. Also though, I would also not claim this to be the greatest development of 2000s. That is a long period, and we have had other key developments including search engine advertising, which have been impactful. But in the last 2-3 years, it has been a clear emergence of social media as a marketing platform, and Facebook is its most significant component!

     

    With one billion users, Facebook users constitute the single largest community of individuals after China and India? Do you think it’s right for it to be seen like that?

    Well, yes, sure. So let’s take that analogy ahead.  What does a single group – be it citizens or China or India, or registered users of Facebook – mean?  That they do share some characteristics (citizenship in case of countries, Facebook in the latter case), but there are enough differences amongst them too. All citizens are not the same kind of people, nor are all registered users of Facebook. Likewise, there is no easy way for a marketer to reach “all Indian citizens” (wouldn’t THAT be a dream?!), and so also, there is no easy way to reach the billion Facebook users.

     

    Except perhaps, for the governments and for Facebook!! But the citizens and Facebook users do constitute a ‘group of sorts’ and there are opportunities built in there, for marketers.

     

    2 Do you think marketing in the present day can be done without a Facebook strategy in the media plan?

    All marketing plans may not need Facebook. So there IS a possibility for a few marketing campaigns to not include Facebook However, Facebook is making constant changes to become interesting for more and more brands and perhaps over time, most campaigns will have a Facebook extension! Or a Facebook core!

     

    But is there a lot of abuse of Facebook – fake likes, fictitious users and various strategies adopted to alter perception by marketers. Is there reason for skepticism when people refer to success thanks to ‘Facebook marketing’?

    The scepticism is with a few people only, and it is also misplaced. The number of fake accounts or fake likes is a small percentage again, and the matter has been exaggerated. There is also an extent of click fraud in Google ads. But due to good algorithms, this is controlled to a small level. Same is the case with fake profiles and fake likes. It is a small percentage. Facebook does not like these. Recently it identified about 80+ mn fake accounts and went about deleting those.

     

    Can Twitter be put in the same basket as Facebook for marketers?

    Well, it depends on what you’d call the basket. So yes, it is also part of the social media space, and in a sense, the marketer will reach the social media active user, via Facebook or Twitter. But within that framework, there is a difference between the two platforms. Not just that, within Facebook or Twitter usage also, there are different patterns of usage and user profiles. So marketers cannot just “go to Facebook or Twitter”. There is a further science in terms of what they want to achieve, whom they want to reach, etc., and based on which campaigns are planned and executed.

     

    3 Just as Orkut was a rage once upon a time and faded out eventually, do you think Facebook could see the same eventuality soon? What do you think is the next big idea?

    If I have learned something in the last 10-15 years observing the tech space, it is that, ‘nothing is permanent’ or ‘no platform / brand / service remains on the top for very long’. Facebook could be the exception to this rule, or it could also fall out of favor in sometime.

     

    However, at the present moment, stock price apart, Facebook is extremely well-entrenched as a powerful leader in the space.

     

    If something or someone can displace it from its position, I do not have the crystal ball to gaze into and tell you, what that may be! It could be a platform that is currently present and becomes larger, or it could be something that is being developed in some garage or lab in some part of Silicon Valley or Israel or even Mumbai or Bangalore!

     

    Let’s keep watching the space and discover when it happens!!

     

    4 Do you see social media like Facebook being used by politicians to influence public opinion?

    Absolutely! Politicians are also brands that need to be sold, no disrespect meant here! So like any other brand that uses the medium to influence its target market, a politician also needs to do the same, for their communication messaging.

     

    Whether social media will impact an election result or not, just yet, it hard to say. But it will definitely influence few votes!

     

    5 Can there ever be a fear of Facebook being misused to destabilize countries… just as there is a fear of various media vehicles?

    We live in interesting times. Many of us are logged into our Gmail accounts all day. There is a decent amount of our web behavior that Google knows about.

     

    We use applications like Whatspp or Truecaller, and we share our contact lists with these applications. And a lot of us do so, and the applications then, know a lot of our cross connections and relationships.  Likewise we use Facebook, where we share our relationships, we talk about our vacations, put our photos and videos, and let people know our political preferences or movies that we like.

     

    There is truly a lot of information about us, out there.  And this is with a variety of sources, whom we consciously trust, or sometimes do not realize, but end up giving our trust!  Just as data stored and flowing through electronic pipes is always susceptible to leaks like Wikileaks, so also our personal data is always susceptible to being abused.  Either by means of hackers exploiting some holes, or worse, if the sources that we trust, turn rogue!

     

    We live in hope that these guys don’t turn rogue, and there is no major abuse of our privacy. Each morning, along with the prayers for your health, wealth and prosperity, you must also pray that Google, Facebook, Whatsapp and other such applications do not turn rogue ever!!

     

  • Marketers talk about the large number of fans they have acquired on FB, so what do these number of fans mean to them and how are the marketers leveraging these fans?

    The Crucial Social Media Question: Have fans? Now what?

    By Tuhina Anand

     

    Every marketer worth his salt wants his brand to have a presence on social media. However, the truth is that the marketers are still trying to figure how to navigate this medium.

     

    Having heard that it’s a ‘cost effective medium, can be tracked and is ‘the’ medium’ where the customers hang out, the marketer obviously wants to be there too. But the social media still has a long way to go before it is seen as the ‘vehicle of choice’ and not just as an afterthought.

     

    Yes, one agrees that marketers are warming up to the medium but they are still testing waters barring a handful who have taken the medium wholeheartedly.

     

    Once a marketer decides to go on social media, the next move is to create a presence on Facebook and maybe on Twitter. We have often heard the marketers talking about the large number of fans they have acquired on FB, so what do these number of fans mean to them and how are the marketers leveraging these fans to engage effectively with consumers?

     

    Chhaya Balachandran Aiyer, Founder and Managing Director, BC Webwise agrees that there is peer pressure to acquire more fans and clients often bow to that demand: “The number of fans and likes is a visible number, hence one can’t write it off completely even though many of the numbers could be dormant fans. These numbers are an opportunity to engage those fans in a meaningful way to create brand loyalty and brand recall.”

     

    She added: “Two years back, the common demand of a client was to be on Facebook, but we have seen a shift now where they have realized that it’s not the ultimate answer but social media too needs a 360 degree approach.” So it’s clear that there are different kinds of marketers and the early adopters are clearly asking the right kind of questions.

     

    Some of the brands that have effectively used the communities on FB are Fastrack, Café Coffee Day, Sunsilk while more are getting on the engagement bandwagon. Explaining the significance of the numbers, Rajiv Dingra, CEO, WATConsult, said: “While all readers of an ad do not become buyers of the product, similarly with FB, the marketers become a publisher of its page to reach out to the consumers. The aim is not always conversion to transaction for all people on its FB page, but with a large fan base the number of potential buyers definitely increases.”

     

    Mr Dingra is clear that there is no replacement for good content. He added that the numbers might reflect various objectives of a brand at different points, but if the content is good, the engagement with brands will become only much more involved and meaningful.

     

    Vineet Gupta

    Vineet Gupta of 22feet has been relentlessly engaging with brands to enable them to use their social media tools effectively. He explained: “We have brought out exclusive sale for Fastrack fans on FB and the brand has been doing a lot of stuff exclusive to the community. Scale has its own benefit and one can’t deny that. With people becoming familiar with social media, there are lots of activities happening which take people beyond the likes and the fans.”

     

    The agency has recently done activation for Lee titled ‘Shadows of City’, where people were encouraged to present their photographs of the city and the shadows they create which would then be put up in the stores.

     

    CCD is another brand that has been using FB to listen to its customers and also engage them via the medium. Ramakrishnan K, President- Marketing at CCD elaborated: “At CCD, we not only have numbers, but also a high level of engagement. Our fan base is 2.6 million and our monthly engagement level is 60 per cent, i.e. 60 per cent of our fans interact in some form with our page every month.”

     

    He added: “At CCD, we use social media base for regular tailor-made communication on happenings in CCD. We have a direct consumer feedback on cafes across the country which gives us instant information that keeps us on our toes. Most importantly, we use the fan base for co-creating many of our offerings – be it new menu, suggestions for improvement, live tasting of new introductions, choice of music among others. We engage fans to co-create their brand. As a result, we drive a very high level of consumer engagement, which in turn helps us drive sales.”

     

    One concern is that many fans on FB might be dormant, so then do the numbers really mean anything? Sanjay Mehta, Joint CEO at Social Wavelength explained: “I think that the key is to deliver message to interested people. If people receive the message but not respond, that is not a concern, but if they do not get the message in the first place, then it’s a bigger challenge. I think one should not be dismissive of the dormant numbers, but focus more on getting the right kind of messages that will get them to engage.”

     

  • Lots and lots of social networking site logos and lots and lots of URLs. Does this really help?

    Follow us at F-T-Y-B: Hareesh Tibrewala

    By Hareesh Tibrewala

     

    While on a business trip to Delhi last week.  I happened to find myself in the midst of a traffic jam (so what’s new?) and while patiently waiting for the car to start crawling, my eyes fell on a large advertising hoarding. It was a well-designed hoarding for a luxury brand with some superlative creatives and the company web URL printed in the lower left hand corner. While everything on this 200 square meter hoarding looked perfect, what triggered my discomfort were four small colourful boxes in the bottom right corner, preceded by the words “Follow us on”.

     

    The colourful boxes were the single character brand logos for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Blogger, and quite obviously the brand manager was trying to invite the reader to engage with the brand on these social networks. What I saw on this billboard is a representation of what one sees in others forms of communication as well. Lots and lots of social networking site logos and lots and lots of URLs. Does this really help?

     

    Here are my thoughts

     

    • Simply putting colourful boxes with logos of social networking sites (without the full brand URL eg www.facebook.com/yourbrand) does not add any value to your communication. If at all, it only contributes to promoting the brand value of that social networking site.
    • Putting a half a dozen URLs in a communication serves no purpose either. No one has time to visit a single URL or click on a single link, leave alone click on half a dozen links. When I see a communication which has lots “Follow us on ..” links, frankly it is a bit intimidating
    • Just because you ask someone to “Follow” you is no reason to believe that that person is actually going to follow you.

     

    So what should be done ?

     

    • Sure, social networking sites are now the default place where consumers engage with brands. Also the days when consumer went to content are over. Now content has to reach the consumer. Thus continuing the engagement with the consumer, from your bill board onto a social networking site makes all the sense
    • If your brand is present on multiple social networks, choose one where you think you have the best chance of building a community or engaging with the consumer. Promote just this one link. When the consumer reaches this page, you can always provide links to your other social media presence.
    • Display the link in full (www.Youtube.com/yourbrandname). Chance of a brand recall is much higher compared to just saying : Find us on YouTube
    • Finally if you are putting out a link, see if you can build in a strong call to action. Try to answer the question, “why should the consumer follow my link”. And use that answer to trigger a strong call to action.

     

    Hareesh Tibrewala is Joint CEO, Social Wavelength. You can engage with him socially at linkedin.com/in/hareeshtibrewala

     

  • Far from being a casual youth-centric online hangout place, Facebook is increasingly becoming the focal point for all things digital, including businesses, writes Hareesh Tibrewala.

    Comment: Is Facebook the new centre of the digi universe?

    By Hareesh Tibrewala

     

    Legend has it that the digital universe, as we know of it today, evolved from ARPANeT. And a lot of websites, portals, directory sites and search engines lay claim to the ownership of this digital universe in its early days, until Google came along and put a method to the madness. It became the de-facto gate-keeper of this world. If Google did not know of you, for all practical purposes, you were just some digital litter in some corner of this universe!

     

    For the past few years, Facebook is challenging Google’s role as the gate-keeper of this universe. Already the total number of minutes spent on Facebook by netizens equals the number of minutes spent on Google. And Facebook’s understanding of relationships, and of likes and dislikes in the cyberworld is by far deeper than what Google can ever achieve.

     

    And now, with the launch of “Timeline” feature for brand pages, Facebook is signalling perhaps its strongest intent to move to the centre of this digital universe. Here are some interesting features that implementation of timeline gives to brands:

     

    Brand pages on Facebook are now no longer pages, they actually become a brand website anchored in Facebook.

     

    The new timeline feature gives huge real estate on the brand Facebook page, for a brand to communicate its message. Once upon the time, the only real estate that the brand had was a very small display picture (DP) and a small left hand aligned banner. Pretty much all Facebook pages looked the same!

     

    But now there is a complete masthead that stands out and fills almost 1/3rd of the screen, all of it screaming ‘brand’. We will see very creative uses of this real estate, in time to come, which will enable brands to communicate their differentiation to the audience.

     

    Brands can pin a story of their choice to the top of the fan page, thereby ensuring that page visitors definitely view that story. Again some more opportunity for brand communication Fans always had the facility to communicate with the brand using the wall. But this was a one-to-all kind of communication. Now a fan can send a message to the page and do a one-on-one communication, almost like a “contact us” kind of communication.

     

    With the entire tab navigation now moving prominently to the masthead, and with a compressed drop-down list, a brand can create a complete website with these tabs (with individual tabs for about us, products, services, testimonials etc).

     

    So now a brand can have its complete digital presence as well as its community… both at one place. And as more and more of us depend on ‘referral’ based inputs for our decision making process, rather than ‘information’ driven inputs (that Google offers), we might see both consumers and brands finding the Facebook eco-system more conducive than the current Google dominated ecosystem.

     

    So is www.mybusiness.com now passe and www.facebook.com/mybusiness the new norm? And is Facebook now going to be the new centre of the digital universe? What is your opinion?

     

    Hareesh Tibrewala is Joint CeO, Social Wavelength.

     

  • With brands benefiting much from the buzz created digitally, social media is now part of almost every seller's toolkit

    How (and why) marketers love social media

     

    By Rishi Vora

     

    There is sooooo much happening in Social Media. Every brand – no matter how big or small, every media and entertainment company, especially film and television content (where YouTube has become such a rage!), even a local mall or a retail outlet owner in a small district is looking to be on Social Media, where he feels he should be before his neighbourhood rival is, and win more customers.

     

    Although this might sound as if Social Media is a disparate measure for brands, the fact is that the market is responding to the rise of a new medium which is a just about a three-year-old phenomenon; one which promises to change the game as far as marketing is concerned.

     

    There are many cases of brands benefiting from the social space, be the whacky Old Spice videos that did the trick in 2010 – yes, they were a set of videos, but became most popular on Social Media or Kolaveri Di, which became an online sensation. Or whether it is the case of Megan Fox meeting Rose Boy back in 2009, thanks to Kodak that took the initiative of taking it to the masses, through Social Media of course, offering the winner a handsome $5,000. There are many more stories where brands have recognised the opportunity and made the most of it. Celebrities have now become a key asset to the marketing strategies for many online brands.

     

    Traditional Media:

    Even the radio channels and newspapers danced to the tune of Social Media, a rare case of digital beating traditional media hands down. But the TV Channels and content companies are the ones taking the most advantage of the new medium.

     

    Akash Chawla, Marketing Head – National Channels, Zee is of the opinion that the percentage spends on digital has seen an increase and social media is one direction where most channels are putting their focus on. “We’re not the only ones to have entered the social space. It’s important to be there. But, the fact is that being on social media is also a fad. It is stylish and fashionable. The medium is highly measurable, and you get real time responses from consumers.”

     

    Even participants of Zee TV’s flagship reality show Dance India Dance Season 3 claim that watching videos on YouTube has encouraged participation in the show.

     

    Star Network too has been fairly active in the space, promoting all of its entertainment channels on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And so as Viacom 18, MSM Group.

     

    Social Commerce:

    Yet another aspect of the social media – social commerce- as a trend started last year, and as experts believe that 2012 is going to be a year when Social Commerce will take off in a big way. Three of the most upcoming and prominent social commerce platforms are: Facebook (f-commerce), Twitter (t-commerce) and GuruLike.

     

    F-commerce or f-comm refers to the buying and selling of goods or services through Facebook, either directly or through the Facebook Open Graph. Experts forecast that F-commerce transactions on Facebook will overcome Amazon’s annual sales ($34 Billion) over the next five years.

     

    The emergence of social media has resulted into a sea change as far as the marketer’s psyche is concerned; who a couple of years back was unsure how the medium fare for the brands. He has now realised the true potential and as a result has started to appoint specialists for the job. This has resulted in the rise of specialist social media agencies- people who evangelised the medium three to four years back and who’re now well-equipped to handle marketing problems, using the power of social media.

     

    Social Wavelength and Windchimes are the two most popular pure play social media agencies, while there are other digital agencies that offer 360 degree digital solutions (where social becomes one part of the offering). And then there are PR agencies that have now expanded into offering social media services to existing clients. Hanmer & MSL Group, Ketchum Sampark, AdFactors and many others. Though these agencies pitch for social media businesses separately, they have the added advantage of an existing PR clientele.

     

    Sanjay Mehta
    Sandhya Sadananda

    Social media and creativity:

    Though different agencies follow different processes, there is a misconception which plays in the minds of many that Social Media does not need creativity; there is not much of strategy involved, as against other forms of advertising.

     

    Sanjay Mehta, Jt. CEO, Social Wavelength clarified: “Executing a good social media strategy is a mix of two disparate skill sets: One is creativity, like that of an ad agency, to differentiate the social media activity of the brand, and second: processes, of the kind that one usually associates with KPOs, as social media is not a campaign, but virtually a day-to-day, minute-to-minute business process.”

     

    Sandhya Sadananda, who prior to launching Windchimes, was a PR professional, explains how Social Media is not an extension of PR. “Unlike the US and the UK, PR in India is still a media-led activity. When you are in Social Media, you need to rethink the way you look at communication. Social Media cannot be seen as an extension of PR. Unlike PR, here you have the direct control in terms of the content you want to put up. At the end of the day, it is about adding value to the brand. And that could be in terms of content, the creativity, the number of fans and so on.”

     

    The nuts and bolts:

    So how do Social Media campaigns run? How different the approach needs to be? What are the systems and procedures that need to be followed? How does a social media agency scale the operations?

     

    Mr Mehta explains: “The starting point is to create a ‘character’ for the brand on social media. All communication, tonality and so on has to be in sync with the brand positioning and the brand’s character. For a TV channel, a social media campaign will typically have one set of conversations centred around the brand, and the other additional set of conversations to go closer to the interests of the target group.”

     

    From the standpoint of the marketer, however, the question which most often arises is: ‘Does social media help clients improve bottom lines’. This is also one reason why spends on social media are way too less in comparison to other media. Yes, these are early days, but pure play social media agencies have to grow and that is seen as a big challenge.

     

    Ms Sadananda affirms: “One needs to look at social media, not from a bottom line perspective, but from the point of view of qualitative engagement. The ROI in this business is so much number driven (number of fans, interactions) that people started to equate that with the bottom line. If you’re expecting increase in sales after a social media campaign – that’s not going to happen. One needs to have a different sort of mindset when it comes to social media.”

     

    She adds: “It’s very easy for marketers to make this just another medium. Agencies need to step in and help them understand the true nature of the medium.”

     

    Challenges:

    On the challenge for agencies to scale up their businesses, Mehta reckons that one needs to visualise the scale, in terms of the opportunity. And then investigate into various ways of creating an organisation, bringing in leadership levels and correcting/ tweaking the model as business grows to ensure smooth sailing.

     

    But, broadly, it is content that will decide the fate of specialist agencies. And, that in experts’ mind, is a bigger challenge. Adaptation will be the key as platforms evolve, users evolve. It is an age of e-commerce, and Social Commerce is not far behind.

     

  • Mr. Sanjay Mehta and Mr Hareesh Tibrewala, co-founders of Social Wavelength, were awarded 'Social Media Entrepreneurs Of The Year 2012'

    Social Wavelength wins 2 Biggies at WAT Awards, 2012

    By A Correspondent

     

    SocialWavelength,India’s leading social media agency, has been awarded the ‘Social Media Agency of The Year 2012’ for the outstanding all-round work done in the Social Media space at the recently concluded WAT Awards 2012.

     

    To make the evening more special, Mr. Sanjay Mehta and Mr Hareesh Tibrewala, serial Internet entrepreneurs and co-founders of Social Wavelength, were also awarded ‘Social Media Entrepreneurs Of The Year 2012’.

     

    WAT Awards is an initiative of WAT Blog to recognize and felicitate agencies and professionals who have done ground breaking work in the Indian digital media space.

     

    “The ‘Social Media Entrepreneur Of The Year’ award is a recognition by our peers, for the passion and hard work we have put in to build the organization thus far. It also serves as an inspiration to scale greater heights”, said Hareesh Tibrewala, Joint CEO, on receiving the ‘Social Media Entrepreneurs Of The Year’ award.

     

    “The double success of being ‘Social Media Agency Of The Year’ and also the ‘Social Media Entrepreneurs Of The Year’ makes for a fabulous start to 2012. Coming as it does after the Red Herring Asia 100 win, it puts us in the perfect mind frame and motivation to make 2012 a big year for us,” added Sanjay Mehta, Joint CEO.

     

    Mihir Karkare, AVP, said: “Being recognized as the ‘Social Media Agency of the Year’ is a proud moment for our entire team. It makes all the sleepless nights and the hard deadlines worth their while.”

     

    Social Wavelength is a social media agency, headquartered at Mumbai. It’s suite of services include social media monitoring, online-reputation management, online PR, social media management and building online communities. Social Wavelength has a client portfolio of more than 50 Indian and international brands.