2010 Social Media Predictions: Online Brand Communities Will Come of Age

Posted on 24. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Trends

I was recently quoted in two compilations of social media predictions for 2010, by TrendsSpotting and Junta42, along with social media influencers like Pete Cashmore, David Armano, Chris Brogan, Peter Kim, John Batelle, Drew McLellan, Jason Falls, Charlene Li, Robert Scoble and Paul Gillin.

I think the big social media trend in 2010 will be that online brand communities will come of age.

Brand marketers will create compelling micro-content to seed these communities, then run contests to invite consumers to interpret their brand, create their own content.

I also see brand marketers investing in communities that are built around a bigger social object: a lifestyle, cause or passion.

Here is the TrendsSpotting 2010 Social Media Predictions –

Cross-posted at Gauravonomics: Social Media and Social Change.

Three Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Activists

Posted on 14. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Announcements

My talk on three lessons entrepreneurs can learn from activists is becoming popular on the speaking circuit. After I first gave the talk at BITS Pilani, I have given versions of the talk at IIT Roorkee, TED India Fellows stage and Startup Saturday Delhi.

The three lessons are –

- Design for the next billion (perhaps a SMS-based social networking platform).
- Appeal to a social object (lifestyle, cause or passion) that is bigger than your product, brand, or organization.
- Build a volunteer and partner ecosystem and give more value than you take.

These are some of the same principles we use with our clients and in our own work at 2020 Social. For instance, Dave has been working hard to start chapters of Social Media Club in various Indian cities and the 2020 Social team has been busy seeding the Social Media in India Wiki to make it the most comprehensive resource on social media in India.

Here’s the video from my talk at BITS Pilani –

Here’s the latest version of the slide deck, from the talk I gave at Startup Saturday Delhi –

Here’s a shorter version of the slide deck, from my talk at the TEDIndia Fellows stage –

Every time I give this talk, it seems to strike a chord. For instance, I am still receiving emails from people who attended the Startup Saturday talk on December 12 telling me how much they liked the talk.

If you want me to give this talk at your event, or work with you to help you implement these principles in your own business, do drop me a note.

Cross-posted at Gauravonomics: Social Media and Social Change.

How to leverage Social Technologies to Build Online Talent Communities

Posted on 12. Dec, 2009 by Gautam in How To Guides

Some thoughts I put together – on how the Recruiting function can leverage Online Talent Communities to build a pipeline for future workforce.

I know there are no great examples of “real” Talent Communities – and that is why I think the first organization that gets it right would benefit the most!

Thoughts? Send me an email ! View more presentations from Gautam Ghosh

Social Media in India: International Software and services company review

Posted on 20. Nov, 2009 by Achintya in Reviews

Software and Services companies have been believed to be making good use of social media for their marketing and promotion. Our research on the Fortune 50 international companies in India not just confirms this but also shows that these companies have made special efforts for Indian customers. Hence in this blog we will review the social media efforts of these Fortune 50 international companies in India.

The Fortune 2009 lists IBM (#28) and Microsoft (#49) among the top 50 in the software and services sector. Interestingly both the companies have customized social platforms for the Indian consumers. While Microsoft targets the Indian social web with Mera Windows, IBM has an India Page for IBM Smartmarket to target the Indian SMBs (small and medium businesses)

IBM Smartmarket

IBM smartmarket is basically a social commerce platform targeted to SMBs. This platform is specifically designed as a one stop shop where SMBs can find vendors for their required software products, thereby reducing their research and purchasing costs. IBM smartmarket has an India website customised for Indian vendors and clients. Here members can research available software in their industry area and read product information, reviews, ratings etc. Members can also get their queries answered by other members regarding the specific product, compare different software, rate software products and write their own review. Smartmarket also gives access to online product trial and purchase. Moreover there are expert blogs, community forums and a separate blog for it’’s India webpage called India Insights to learn and discuss. That said however there are certain questions which still are to be figured out, like how do these vendors get on the social commerce platform? How does IBM make money from Smartmarket ( if it does) ?? How does one software gets listed above others in a search? (it does not appear to be sorted in terms of ratings)\n\nOverall IBM smartmarket is actually a smart move to engage SMBs on IBM platform. However a social commerce platform can be more than this. For example Xbox XNA community allows third party developers to develop applications which can then be curated and purchased by the community. Wishpot allows users to create their wishlists of the products they want to purchase in future and others can collaborate to suggest the best offers, places, products and prices etc.

Mera Windows

Mera Windows is Microsoft India’s effort in the social web. Presently this community is very actively being used for the promotion of Windows 7 in India. The community platform holds many interesting features like a blogroll of expert blogs and news feed which aggregates the latest updates on the homepage. There are also discussion forums with discussion ranging from ”12 common Windows 7 problems solved” to ”how healthy is your PC battery”.  The community recently hosted the launch party of Windows 7 where all community members were given free invites and a chance to get the RC version of Windows 7 uploaded on their notebooks, which is a good example to leveraging an existing social community platform for promoting an offline launch cum trial event.

We can see Microsoft India is on the right path and has made some right decisions in its social business strategies. However a community of Microsoft Windows in a market as important as India deserves more engagement from the consumers. Microsoft has already set many benchmark examples in social media like Microsoft Dynamics Community for an SMB network and Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) award for an advocacy program and hence in the near future we would like to see similar efforts from them for the Indian social web.

Social Media in India report: International automobile company review

Posted on 20. Oct, 2009 by Achintya in Reviews

This is the third post in a series where we will review performance of companies (and brands) using Social media to connect with Indian customers. As mentioned in our methodology post on soon to be published Social Media in India report, we are reviewing top Indian and International companies from the Forbes list for their presence in social media in India.  In the previous posts we had reviewed some of the Indian companies” ( like the Tatas, Airtel, Reliance Communications) presence on Social Media. In this post we will be reviewing the presence of some international automobile companies on the Indian social web.

The Forbes 2009 list features 4 automobile companies in the top 50 having an Indian market presence. They are Toyota (3), Volkswagen (15) , Mitsubishi ( actually the list ranks Mitsubishi UFJ Financial as the 21st company but since the parent company also has an Indian presence in the car & SUV market, we have considered it for this review ) and Honda (39). Out of these, we found Toyota & Mitsubishi doing something interesting specific to Indian consumers.

We begin with Toyota, the Forbes 2009 rank 3 company. The international automobile major has an Indian presence through cars like Corolla, Camry, Innova, Altis, Land Cruiser, Prado etc. Owing to its global positioning as a company that is concerned about environment, the company has partnered with NDTV ( an Indian news and media company ) for its ”Green Future” web platform. ”Green Future” is essentially an environment news platform which features many influencers speaking on environmental causes and supporting various campaigns conducted by the company and the news channel. However, this social platform is more than just environment gyan. It has many social applications which takes its readers across multiple levels of social engagement. Readers can read news, watch videos, post comments and opinions on various topics. There is also an ideation platform called ”24-hour green ideas” where members can pool in their creative ideas for an eco-friendly future. Moreover, there is a separate kid’’s platform called ”Kid’’s club” where the next generation is being guided to a cleaner environment by engaging them to share their stories and thoughts, poems etc on environment.

Overall, Toyota’’s ”Green Future” is an interesting social website built around a noble cause which the company has known to support for years. It is an impressive start as an environment news channels that features many influencers and celebrities talking about a greener earth. Perhaps in the future they would like to have these celebrities blogging and interacting with readers- something on the lines of Huffington Post- or adopt a user generated environment news aggregation model like ngopost.org. In the future we would also like to see Toyota leveraging its user engagement to promote trial and purchase of its products also.

Moving on to Mitsubishi; the Forbes international rank 21 company has presence in India through cars like Lancer, Cedia, Pajero, Montero, Outlander. The Japanese auto major recently launched an online reality contest called The Great Driving Challenge for the promotion of Mitsubishi Cedia. Contestants were shortlisted on the basis of votes from visitors/members who rated the contestant based on their testimonials, profile and uploaded online content like blogs, photos, videos etc. The final 3 contestants were then sponsored for a paid road trip on Mitsubishi Cedia sports car on their chosen circuit where they were supposed to post blogs, photos and videos based on their trip experiences. Finally the winner was decided on the number of posts, content quality, user votes and number of profile visitors.

The Great Driving challenge is a good example of an online reality show. It effectively integrates the product marketing with the social media campaign. Unfortunately many such campaigns die out after some time and so does the buzz around it. If such social media campaigns are kept alive all round the year, we think it would add a lot more value to the company. Young and Free Alberta is one such example of an online reality contest where members & participants are kept engaged all round the year.

Summarizing, we can see international car companies making special efforts in social media for Indian customers. This shows that these companies recognize the importance of engaging customers around their product or social object (lifestyle, passion or cause) as well as customizing social media campaigns for target markets. In the near future we would like to see companies like Toyota and others, which have excellent social platforms and applications for international markets ( e.g. togethergreen.org) , bringing their Indian counterparts to an equivalent level.

Social Media in India: Airtel Review

Posted on 29. Sep, 2009 by Achintya in Reviews

This is the second post in a series where we will review performance of companies (and brands) using Social media to connect with Indian customers. In the last post we had reviewed the Indian conglomerate Tata. For this post we will review the Indian telecom major Airtel. Airtel is currently the biggest telecom operator in India in terms of annual revenue and operates in businesses like mobiles networks, home phones, broadband, internet and conferencing services etc.

The most prominent presence of Airtel in social media can be seen through their community platform built around the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon (ADHM), which is to be held on 1st of November this year. The first interesting thing you will notice on the website is the runner’’s wall, where all ADHM community members can share their running stories. The platform also encourages discussions on the joy of running and you will see hundreds of registered ADHM community users discussing their running sagas on the discussion forums.With topics ranging from ”whom would you like to run with?” to ”how to improve your running stamina” the ADMH discussions not only keep the participants engaged but also encourage those who are still not sure of their participation. Interestingly, ADHM community also gets running and health experts to participate in the discussions, who impart valuable health and fitness related information to the community members.

Unfortunately, in the past it has been seen that such community platforms promoting a mega offline event die out post event completion. However we see ADHM community as a social platform designed around the passion for running and has the potential of retaining itself by building more user engaging models and applications.

Other than the ADHM, Airtel is also using social media to promote its multi-million dollar deal with Manchester United football club which would give access to ManU’’s football content over their mobile phones. The Airtel-ManU web platform takes you to a virtual Old Trafford stadium where you can book seats beside your friends and get virtual props. Interestingly, there is a well designed reward and recognition system which ranks you on your engagement on the platform. There are points associated with downloading ringtones, wallpapers and inviting/recommending friends and the highest grosser gets free tickets to Old Trafford. We feel that this platform is built around a very strong social object (lifestyle, passion, cause) which is the passion for Soccer and can be used to interact with users on multiple levels of engagement. Royal Challenge whisky is doing something similar for cricket in social media and we would await Airtel’’s similar feat for Indian soccer fans.

Finally, we talk about Airtel broadband services interactive social platform built around the ”fast life” lifestyle where impatience is considered the new way of living for the youth. It features some youth icons namely ”The Impatient Ones” with their blogs, favourite videos and tweet updates. The channel also holds contest for selecting the next ”impatient one”. Hence we see a platform where users are getting to interact with their icons and also getting a chance to become like them. In the near future we see this community using many other social applications to build more conversations around ”an impatient way of life” to engage their target audience.

Summarizing, it can be said that the Indian telecom major Airtel is making a significant online social media presence. It has chosen some very strong social objects (lifestyle, passion, cause) in all of its platforms like soccer, running & adventure, fast life etc. Hence they have got very good foundations to build  rewarding communities along their brand. It is just a matter of time that we see them reaching highers levels of engagement for the users

Social Media in India: Tata review

Posted on 19. Sep, 2009 by Achintya in Reviews

This is the first post in a series where we will review performance of companies (and brands) using Social media to connect with Indian customers.Here we will review a large Indian conglomerate – The Tata group. This 140 year old group of companies is currently headed by Ratan Tata and operates in a large number of businesses like software services, energy, materials to products like cars, watches, beverages etc. The group was lately in the news for acquisition of Cores, Jaguar & Land Rover and for launching the world’s most economic car – Tata Nano.  We researched the umbrella of Tata companies and found Tata Motors (especially Tata Nano), TCS, Tata Docomo, Tata Tea and Fast Track watches worth discussion in this review.

We begin with Jaagore.com ( meaning ”be awakened” in Hindi ) , the Tata tea and Janaagraha (a non profit NGO) initiative for awakening Indian youth. Jaagore.com ‘one billion votes’ is an online voter registration campaign with the mission of generating one billion votes in India. Launched around the time of 2009 general assembly polls in India, it created a lot of media hype. This social platform gave all the necessary information to the user on how to become a registered Indian voter along with registration status. Moreover the ‘awakened’ were encouraged to recommend the initiative to their friends and invite them to join the movement. The Jaagore volunteers took the initiative offline and went to colleges to talk about the campaign and get people registered on Jaagore.com. No doubt in the first year itself it had more than 600,000 registrations. Post the Jaagore success during the elections; Tata tea and Janaagraha have relaunched the Jaagore campaign to eradicate corruption in India. They are currently using the same web platform to publicize their TV advertisement and get members to pledge against corruption. Awakening the Indian citizen and making them aware are clearly an excellent choice of a social object for Tata tea. Also the current Jaagore platform shows excellent member engagement around content consumption, collaboration and recommendation. In the near future, we would like to see engagement building around other steps of the ladder of engagement like content curation, creation, trial, purchase etc.

A substantial social media presence can be seen for Fastrack, the Titan (Tata group Watch Company) brand targeting Indian youth. Impressively, although the company has a 140 year old brand heritage, yet it has a fresh and youthful appearance on social media for Fastrack. What we like most about their facebook and twitter outposts is that they are more than just official pages and we see them brimming with activity. There are genuine interactions on the platform and the brand participating in them, which is something you rarely see. For example, on Fastrack’s facebook page you see more than 90 brand to user and user to user interactions in the last 15 days, which is commendable given that most companies just post basic content without initiating any interactions. With 800 tweets and 7,500 facebook fans, Fastrack is making great use of social media. The Fastrack official website fastrack.in is a cool community platform which entertains users through comic strips, wall discussions, avatars and chill zone. What we love most is that it is concerned whether your internet connection is ‘Go-Kart’ or ‘Bullock-Kart’ ( broadband or dial-up in fastrack.in lingo). In the future, we would like to see more social applications that aid youth interactions to build a vibrant fastrack community.

Another Tata brand using social media for its marketing applications is Tata Docomo. The Indian conglomerate and the Japanese telecom major JV is making some news in the social web. Their web presence is limited to Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Bigadda and Youtube with no single dedicated community. However, the interaction levels are high and users feel a ‘personal’ touch in communications.

Other Tata entities like Tata Nano, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services: Tata’s software services arm) and Tata Motors also have a huge fan base on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. Similarly Tata Indicom interacts with consumers through its coporate blog.  We expect that these Tata companies will graduate from outpost pages and corporate blogs to cohesive communities built around strong social objects.

Summarizing, here is a conglomerate that has let each of its brands nurture its own social media identity. Most of their social media outposts are brimming with two way interactions. Not only have they touched civic social causes with jaagore.com but they have also developed youth centric engagement platforms like fastrack.in. In the future, Tata Group can bring people together around larger than life social objects to form strong communities with a shared purpose not only because that would mean more economic rewards for Tata but also because big corporations like them can do it with their resources and brand power.