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Learnings From Handling Social Media Products For The Indian Market: An Internet Marketer's POV

Presentation made by me at Startup Saturday,Mumbai, a forum for entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs, on Nov 13,2010. Draws on my experience of the Indian Internet market. I suggest 4 things a social media marketer needs to get right to suceed in the Indian market.

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Rohit Varma
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247 views

Learnings From Handling Social Media Products For The Indian Market: An Internet Marketer's POV

Presentation made by me at Startup Saturday,Mumbai, a forum for entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs, on Nov 13,2010. Draws on my experience of the Indian Internet market. I suggest 4 things a social media marketer needs to get right to suceed in the Indian market.

Uploaded by

Rohit Varma
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Learnings from handling

social media products


for the Indian market:
An Internet marketerƞs POV
Rohit Varma
Startup Saturday, Mumbai
Nov 13, 2010

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rohit@interskale.in @rohitvarma
Lessons from ..

x  x 
˜re 1999 FMCG marketer
1999-2005 Head of Marketing,
Rediff.com
2006-07 CEO, Yo4Ya.com
2007-10 Head, in-house digital arm,
Aptech
Sep 2010 on.. Founder, Interskale Digital
Marketing and Consulting

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Succeeding with social media
For any brand / product, the social media marketing
task =
- Getting sign-ups
- Getting users to Ɲconsumeƞ content
- Getting them create content too

in sufficiently large numbers

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Rediff Matchmaker (2003)

Learnings :
 Users not logging in
regularly to search for
profiles : so we sent
profiles by mail.

 ƝReachƞ is an issue in any


media, including Internet
and social media. Reach
your user first !

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Leading Social Networking sites (as
of 2005) : sign-up strategies
  
 

    
Learnings :
ëRKUT Invite only Winner  Social networks which
MIXI Invite only Winner restricted access, thereby
(Japan) building Ɲtrustƞ, have won.
CYWëRLD Authenticate Winner
(Korea) with national
ID number
 Indian society is even more
heterogenous. The need
for ensuring trust in social
FACEBëëK .edu address Winner
apps may be even greater
MY S˜ CE Tom (friend) Loser
here.

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Yo4Ya.com : Social networking for
Indian youngsters (2006)
Learnings :
 ƠInvite-onlyơ site => took
time to ramp up.
Building trust can be
expensive.

 Strong interest by NRIs.


Despite zero targeting,
20% users were NRIs.
You never know where
your user segment with
great interest exists.
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rena nimation Facebook page (2010)

 rena nimation is a brand


of education company
ptech

Facebook page a success


with 7000+ student fans in
few weeks

Learnings
 Users (students) are passionate about animation, want to
showcase their portfolio (Interest)
 Faculty and staff volunteered to answer questions on FB
page (Content contribution)

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LinkedIn (2010)
Learnings
 LinkedIn a success in
getting candidates.
Why ?

˜roduct has built-in trust,


Has reach among an
interested audience ( 5
million career seekers in
India),and is now
increasingly augmented by
usersƞ content


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Whatƞs needed to succeed in social
media.. the examples so far

Î Î ërkut, Mixi, Cyworld, MySpace,


Facebook, Yo4Ya
 Rediff Matchmaker
Î Î rena Facebook pages, Yo4Ya


ÎÎ
Î Î
 rena nimation faculty contribution

—  — 


        
  
 m  

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Reach, interest
and content contribution..
letƞs delve in a little more

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 .. a key social media marketing
task is getting reach°but..
- ënly 1 in 60 Indians are on Facebook.

- 3 of 5 Indian Internet users not on FB & may never* be

- Not all social media users are active


(e.g. 40% Twitter users had not tweeted even once**)

=> 1st do your maths on what social media reach you can get

* Lower SEC, poor English skills

**ëf 107 million users globally - May Ɲ10


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Getting reach in social media a challenge
for the big boys too :
Fortune 100 company study*
% with Twitter account = 65%

% with Facebook account = 54%

vg. followers = 1489

vg. FB fans = 40,884

* Recent Burston- Marsteller study


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 : Getting users interested
in your brand a challenge
- Managing social media is an editorial skill. Do you
have it or can you acquire it ?

- ˜eople, social media users are time starved. If you


can, target only your
- most involved existing customers &
- potentially most enthusiastic non-customers.

Do not target random non-customers

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  keeps social
media healthy ..
- User-generated content (comments, posts, tweets..) is
what creates the interest

- But, in India, users not creating enough content*.


Why ? Could be a cultural thing, we are not accustomed to
writing nor good at English grammar

=>Make content creation simple e.g. let users


- choose between choices
- click on buttons
- send you SMS..
*E.g. India one of poorest countries in You Tube videos creation on a
||| per Internet user basis(informal chat with Google India
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||team)
Social media : killer apps for India ?

Can mobile photos, music, video (shared) be the


next killer apps for the Indian Internet market ?

(One can show that Trust, Reach, Interest, Content


creation is not a problem for above appsƦ this is
actually a separate topic altogether ƒr

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Succeeding with social media
- Î - accumulate sufficient trust capital

- R - first get reach among a core audience

- I - make sure your Î  keenly intereted

- C ƛ make content creation a breeze

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Succeeding with social media..
dont miss a trick
- Î - accumulate ufficient trut capital

- R - firt get reach among a core audience

- I - make ure your Î  keenly intereted

- C ƛ make content creation a breeze

- K - you may alo call the K guy ƒ (contact info on next


lider
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ÎH NKS

Rohit Varma

rohit@interskale.in
@rohitvarma
http://marketerskaleidoscope.com
linkedin.com/in/rohitvarma

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