Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing never made sense to me initially. The term Social has always conjured up images of socialism/do more for others,etc etc.

The next I knew, it was The Term being tweeted the most around, even by my closest friends abroad. My initial reaction: What a waste of time!!! Those were the days in which I had active accounts on Facebook,Linkedin and even a twitter account (hence, the tweets), and had come to the stage where in all of them, at least to me, were a total and utter waste of time.

And then a few experiences, few pieces of information about people/events hit me through this medium. And I was hooked!!

So today, Social Media has started to finally make sense to me, and am amazed at The Power of the various tools in helping a product/brand/person connect and engage with the target audience. As a marketer, the opportunities represented by this media are intimidating and exciting in the same breath. The chance to reach across directly, to understand and subsequently engage is breathtaking literally.

Since I am part of the largest Mobile operator in India, I have been fortunate to actually see the impact, small though it is, first hand. The jump in sales of GPRS enabled handsets, the craze for smart phones and the even bigger hype around 3G services just makes the imminent impact of Social Media all the more exciting for marketers.

Mobile Companies have been instrumental in getting to the masses and helping in attaining mass for the social media penetration (check out the basic handsets also offering facebook/twitter), but the connection/engagement pieces are still in their nascent stages. We are still in the stage where in we push links across and love the number of hits we get. The community building, the engagement, specifically with the majority still leaves gaps.

But while there are gaps, there are certain companies who have actually utilised this quite effectively.

I came across a few amazing articles on the impact of social media marketing which I am sharing here. Starbucks and the 4 lessons from their social media efforts are worth replicating (specifically the point of starting,albeit in a small manner). Then we have the exceptional and popular piece on the Egypt/Tunisia revolutions, and the way it is almost akin to a brand/product launch. Closer back home, one should check out the Dominos Community (an amazing 4,00,000 people like/follow this) on facebook, to actually see how community building can actually expand the reach of a business. Even the airtel twitter page has shown immense growth with 6,500 followers.

So, can Social Media marketing actually achieve the scale and penetration and become a preferred way for marketers in India??

I strongly believe so.

There are quite a few learnings yet to be assimilated, but as the Starbucks example states, one has to begin, even with small steps.

The best part is that there is virtually an information overload on the Internet for an organization to kick off the engagement. Quoting the Starbucks example again, scale engagement is the only way and that is one thing we are great at...numbers (population/math, you name it!)

So, here's to Social media marketing, and pardon me for incessantly repeating myself, but boy, am i hooked!!!