Indian Social Media

How many of the Social Media strategists think about identifying problems first, rather than setting up objectives. My suggestion would be, always consider problems as the objectives for the brand.

I have been working with many brands now and some were successful and some were unsuccessful. But, with every unsuccessful brand, I have earned experience of not been able to identify their core problems in getting into Social space. However, my clients have been always over-demanding There had been instances, where I could not convince them et’ all. But, I realized lately, that many a time we end up following the objectives which are set by the client for us and always fail to realize many other facts which leads to majority of the failures in Social Media space. My advise  to every agency is to set their own set of Objectives on behalf of clients.

So what are these objectives actually in Social Media. These objectives are actually problems that every one faces while engaging with the Brand, but fail to verbalize or rather realize it  ;)

Let’s take it up gradually. How many of us face the problem of gathering fans / followers on Facebook & Twitter? I am sure everyone of us. May be that’s the top most priority for most of the marketers in India . They think getting random users as fans & followers would serve their purpose and they can literally sell stuff to them, but they tend to forget their target audiences should be their customers first Plan to target them first.

To enable any successful long term Social Media strategy:  I would rather say there are 4 problems than would consider as objectives to be addressed. Many of us intentionally or unintentionally tend to ignore these problems. However, I would consider these problems as my core objectives for any successful metric.

• How do we make people to talk to each other(i.e. word of mouth problem)
• How do we generate that instant buzz about the brand/product/service among people/consumers (i.e. awareness problem)
• How do we handle multiple communications or multiple target audiences (i.e. communication complexity)
• How do we reach out targeted audience sometimes who are not present on Social Platforms or fundamentally they don’t need to be online (i.e. connecting the end users)

For me this is a “Social Media Blue Print” Though I have been inspired by one of the best books in Social Media i.e. “Groundswell”. I have used this Social Media Blue Print in my daily Analysis of Conversations, Strategies and even Social Media Implementation. Logically, it is exactly one should look at it and not just beating the bush around by creating multiple profiles, pages, posting marketing messages, push marketing and what not!

However, to make it happen, one needs to go through the basics. If there is a word of mouth problem, that means your own customers are not talking to each other or they are not aware that you are alive in the Social Media space. Or rather integrate your social media efforts in the offline space and enable them to share their experiences, opinions. You need to start opening doors for such interactions to happen. This will certainly enable your customers to talk to you and as well as trigger conversations within “consumer to consumer”. This would be the best way to even drive influence towards new customers. Let us make this happen first and all you need to do is to manage those conversations and identify opportunities to participate and propose newer services. However, most of the Social Networking platforms are designed in that way which would drive the influence of a consumer to consumer interactions to newer consumer circles.

Similarly, how do we solve the problem of awareness for newer brands: If they are consumer facing brands, then the best way is to retain all their offline interactions on Social Networks or enable such features on the website for the brand to utilize those interactions for future opportunities. Or create some unique, crazy content and seed them in right networks, or push it via online influencers so that it can travel across various networks and build that instant buzz. Please don’t ask me what that content would be. You guys are smart enough to decide on it

what about…Communication Complexity, what if you have 2 different audiences, for eg: take up safari Tour operators. How do we identify or rather target these audiences. The first one would be the end users, who are adventurous and would be experiencing it and other would be wild life enthusiasts who make opinions of those experiences, possibly (wild Life Photographers, wild life Bloggers, Photo bloggers etc)

Finally, how to establish a niche product / brand in Social Media space. I have an opinion here. How about targeting people who can influence these end users. Take an example of  MRI scanning machine. The end users who would be utilizing it are not expected to be on Social Networking platforms or specifically online, the best way is to identify influencers who would connect them in either ways.

However, Social Media interactions itself is all set to be explored deeper and deeper  to identify where is your audience, how do he/she behave or what do they like and where do they interact.

Hence, by addressing these problems, one can easily achieve success in the Social space. Remember, all this is a process and cannot take place overnight.

I am sure, one of you would definitely implement these in your overall Social Media Programs. Hence, would request your opinions and experiences and together we would analyse and conclude newer insights and newer ways to address it.