Does social media marketing work

Does social media marketing work

Cartoon by Tom

Marketing will always be social; there are no two ways about it. We are social beings and social media is just a tool to enable marketing the social way, it is not a voodoo. In addition to being Indian which is also about being connected - connected to family, friends, peers,etc., unlike in the  West. Thus marketing in India works best within social networks and brands need to embrace it fast.

Will social media work for me and how much moolah will it bring for my business? These were the on-going queries at the Social Media Marketing Excellence Summit by Gripel, where we had helped arrange for  speakers. In a roomful of traditional marketers - with a campaign plan, budget mindset and an eye on the ROI, we could sense the skepticism towards Social Media Marketing (SMM). Heres a basic gist of what it means...

SMM is about Word of Mouth

Supposing you need to buy some shares. Which shares would you invest in? The company that has a well-crafted creative team or the one which has an excellent year-on-year report card or the one that your dad has  been investing in over the years? Chances are that you will go by your dad�s word! Now many such dad�s along with family, friends and peers form a trusted community.  And such a community makes decisions based  on word of mouth recommendations. Every day consumers are bombarded with a host of advertising messages. With so many ads being displayed in almost every place or medium one can imagine, consumers are  moving towards user reviews to find honest feedback/opinions on products/services. A Wednesday! by Neeraj Pandey could have easily been missed given its little promotional budget. But its popularity grew over  time with basic word of mouth publicity to garner a cool Rs. 34 crores at the Box Office!

SMM is about Engagement, not Selling

�Try our product, you could lose 20 kgs in 3 months� � how many of us actually fall for this? Well, none really. So you could spend thousands on your print and online ads and still not get anyone to buy your product. A  short 140-charactered fitness tip on your twitter page could do wonders though � Studies have shown that brisk walking for 15 mins daily helps keep you in shape along with a hyperlink to the study. You are building  trust and consumers prefer to buy from trusted sources. This will definitely be taking a long time from engagement to selling, but once they do buy, they are yours to keep! The MTV India Facebook page is a great study about genuine engagement.

SMM is about Building Communities

Anybody can create a Twitter page for your business, but keeping your followers glued in on you is the real test of social media. Just as it takes time and patient effort to bring up your child, so does it take to build  your community. Create interest in your product, throw in news and offers about your product along with things happening around the world. If you are a travel company and you find a tweet Been a hectic month...need  a vacation badly, do reply with nice places to vacation at, rather than sending your tour package brochure! And be wary of agencies who promise to bring you thousands of followers in just a few months. Fans and followers are just numbers if they do not have a voice.The Kingfisher Airlines Twitter page is an excellent study  in community building. Notice how feedback and complaints are being addressed promptly along with offers/contests updates.

SMM thrives on Honesty

So you make a product and now you want to sell it. Go on and build your community. Try giving away your products for trial and let the community talk about it. If your stuff is real good, it will reflect in the sales, but if  it is bad, then good luck to you as the community will rip it off! Take it as a scope for improvement and let the community know, you will be respected. Instead, you get done a �paid� review of your product and your  decline in sales has only just begun. It is unfortunate when some marketers misunderstand user reviews to be just another medium for advertising. Consumers will eventually boycott reviews or worst still get you busted.

SMM is about human beings, not demographic sectors

All the statistics and all the number crunching in the world will not get you sales. Simply put, you are dealing with human beings which are as complex in their composition as they are unique. They just don�t become  numbers made up of male, female, young, old,etc.They are social beings that interact, share and act according to the tribe they belong to. A human connection powered by technology is all that is required. Devesh  Mishra, a taxi driver operating in North India has managed to get this simple equation just right. His business is growing and how!