Indian Social Media Landscape

Killing The Messenger

arjun — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:54:35 +0000

Over the past few months, the netizens have been irked about various developments surrounding the much talked about Anti piracy acts and censorship debate. Leading the pack are PIPA and SOPA. Various other issues have also cropped up on similar lines. Concerns pertaining to censorship of social media in India being one of them. For the ease of understanding let’s break them down and do a quick recap on what has been causing the stir in the cyber space.

Google Homepage Blackout in support of PIPA & SOPA

The PIPA-SOPA effect

PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) were both bills introduced in the US Congress. Introduced by Patrick Leahy on May 12, 2011, PIPA is a law enactment (awaiting a sanction) that aims at providing the US government and copyright holders with additional tools to combat websites that cater to infringement or counterfeiting goods, especially outside the US.

Support against PIPA & SOPA

The PROTECT IP Act says that an "information location tool shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order. In addition, it must delete all hyperlinks to the offending "Internet site"

The Stop Online Privacy Act was introduced by Lamar S. Smith on October 26, 2011 on the lines of the previously launched PIPA months ago. This bill was propounded with similar aims to fight online trafficking in contented Intellectual Property and counterfeited goods. Provisions include the requesting of court orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and search engines from linking to the sites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to the sites. The law would expand existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyright material, imposing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

What followed next and what’s lying ahead:

Aided by a visible support from entertainment related groups like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and National Music Publishers Association, major pharmaceutical corporations, etc. along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other law enforcement agencies, the PIPA and SOPA picked up steam. But was quickly opposed by a widespread opposition from the biggies of the internet namely, Wikipedia, Facebook, Google, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, Twitter et al.

In the weeks that followed, things seemed to have stalled for the activists. Wikipedia (English) called for a blanket ban on what the world would be like without access to free knowledge. Google also did their bit by creating a dedicated landing page (with a blackened logo) on 18^th of January, 2011, the day to be remembered in recent times as the day the internet went dark. Social networking giant Facebook voiced its concern over the Act considering the huge user base of Facebook and taking into account that majority of them are based outside the geographical boundary of USA. It stated it is a nearly impossible task to monitor what a single user is uploading. Facebook and many other social networking sites are platforms and not content filtering sites.

Wikipedia Blackout on 18th January as a support to ban PIPA & SOPA

A recent setback of sorts was Twitter’s (a youth oriented social networking platform that has in its basic fabric, promoting freedom of expression, 140 characters at a time) has now put a system in a place to have region specific censorship of its tweets. Considering the fresh infusion of US$ 300 million from a Saudi investment holding company one could only speculate why. This rather surprising move by twitter was opposed by major activists like those based out of Egypt and Libya where Twitter played a major role in ousting the then existing government tyranny just about a year ago. Also, a Twitter blackout day was observed on January 28^th, 2012 to protest against Twitters decision.

On the Indian shores

Closer home, In India, the limited but an ever growing internet audience is fighting its own battle against the government’s censorship policy that has proposals to add more clauses in the Information Technology (IT) Act specifically targeting the content that is posted online on social networking sites at large. This includes previously enlisted clauses like monitoring of digital signatures, security and hacking.

Following a string of posts that have surfaced up lately on various social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, ibibo etc. where strong sentiments are made vocal by exploiting various tools like pictures, videos, updates, notes, tweets etc. the government is looking to pull the chord on the social media platforms.

This has made some 80 million Indians very unhappy. With all the censorship and the unrest that has been going on with various people led campaigns and the support garnered through social media, this has been taken as a way of governments attempt at curtailing the fundamental right of freedom to expression. Many have suggested that such a step is like killing the messenger.

Social Media Censorship Ban

Cause for concern?

For any brand, such a step of preventing free speech or even an open platform for expression is a cause of concern. No other platform gives you such easy access to more than a billion people with such little investment. Although PIPA and SOPA acts have been put to rest for now, the fight in India is still going on. Many have said that the Indian government cannot take a totalitarian stand like China.

Also, the government of India would have better sense to go back to 80s when foreign MNCs were asked to leave the country. With Facebook IPO just round the corner, killing investment opportunities with such giants would eventually harm the country’s economics. Something which the government can’t afford.

Blogger of the Fortnight: Amit Anand

Mayur — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:30:34 +0000

Amit Anand from the capital of India, New Delhi, is an Independent Fashion blogger and fashion writer who is also a business consultant for Singapore/UK based management consultant firm. Amit’s blog Dreaming of Gucci specifically targets the menswear apparel line and various trends catering to the men’s style and fashion. He travels to various fashion shows held domestically/internationally and shares his opinions on them.

Amit’s blog is a hotspot for fashionistas and quite popular in the fashion circles. His posts are presented in a slick and smart manner, relevantly assisted with various supporting videos and photographs. His blog also contains updates and links to various events and trend forecasts from the industry.

With over a decade of experience in the field of management consultancy and having offered his invaluable inputs across various verticals like luxury retail, fashion, beauty and wellness, travel, media and entertainment etc., Amit started his own Hi-street fashion blog that he manages professionally alongside his role as a consultant.

To say if we might, his way of engagement, be it through his writing individual stories or actively responding to the ever increasing appreciative comment thread, is exemplary. In his own words, he intends to become a staff writer for a highly circulated global fashion magazine or a reputed online fashion website in the luxury/high street in the long run. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if one spots him on the editorial section of a hi fashion magazine or blog in the times to come. He deserves to be there and it’s about time all the hard work and passion bears some fruit.

An enterprising individual with such accomplishments and ambition makes it befitting for him to be featured as our Blogger of the fortnight.

For more of our Bloggers of the Fortnight, click here.

Banking on social media

Mayur — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:59:17 +0000

Banking sector has always been very careful of adopting new technology and rightly so. While technology will eventually make life convenient for the consumer, the banks need to venture in to new space only when they are absolutely sure that the financial data of the consumers are not compromised at any stage

The Truth

While 800 million people may be on Facebook, it would be interesting to see how many of them would actually go ahead and use this platform or any other social media platform for that matter for actual banking transaction. A good indicator of this comes from the Javelin Strategy & Research’s latest report that investigates consumer personal finance behaviors toward social media. According to their report, only one in ten consumers are comfortable using social media sites to review or check account balances.

What’s on offer?

But that doesn’t mean that the platform cannot be used by banks at all. In fact, nothing can be further from the truth. In the weeks of protest against Bank of America’s announcement and retraction of $5 debit card fees, Bank Transfer Day and Occupy Wall Street protests, Twitter volume jumped threefold at the customer service “handles” of most banks. Amongst them, Citibank was able to resolve almost 36% of its customer service conversations within Twitter.

So what all can banks look to do on social media? Well the answer is lots. Other than the usual customer service, new product information and lead generation, few banks have shown that the platform can transform a bank in to something most people come to Facebook and such platforms in search of, a friend.

Transcending the brand

Imagine a 150 year old bank trying to woo the youth of today that spends most of its time watching the twitter timeline or YouTube videos on Facebook. It would probably need some real soul searching and courage to be able to handle such a task. but that is exactly what Wells Fargo did. Considered to be one of the early adopters of social media, Wells Fargo realized that social media is the best way for the bank to learn the language that the youth speaks today. Once the decision was made, the bank went the whole hog. they even announced their new presence in Manhattan through a flash mob video which they posted on YouTube, which has garnered over 2 million views till date.

Click the image to watch the video

Creating a knowledge pool

Imagine a 28 year old trying to grapple with finance related problems and all that s/he can get is page after page of complicated terminology that would make zero sense to her/him. What would be the best way to address her/his concern? Let her/him relate to someone else’s story which is same/similar to her/his situation and give them the solution that would solve their problem. Once the bank is able to address the consumer’s simplest yet biggest problem, the connect is established. And one novel way of doing this is to create a shared knowledge pool. ING Direct, for example, publishes the “We the savers” blog to promote its savings products, specifically to attract young professionals. Customers are invited to comment on the blog and integrate savings tips into the search landing page. Thus, helping the readers relate to a situation and those solving their problem.

ING Direct Blog ‘we the savers’

Crowd sourcing for better service

Crowd sourcing is one of the best possible utility of social networking sites. Imagine tapping into 40 million responses without having to pay anything? This is the true power of platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And using these data to improve your reach and service is but a natural extension. Banks can use these platforms to conduct opinion polls/surveys on Facebook and also reward the participants. For example, Citibank has asked questions such as ‘Where would you like to see the next Citibank ATM in Bangalore?’ and ‘Which utility bill would you like to get cash-back on?’ The answers to these questions helps a bank understand customers’ requirements and act accordingly. This not only makes the bank reach to its clients but also give them exactly what they want.

Overcoming Fears

This is one of the most important aspect that needs to be addressed. For youth today, banking process is one of the most complicated things. Although they might be pros at handling multi processor super intelligent laptops, banking is still something that needs to be understood very carefully. It is not something one can do on a hit and trial basis. Social media is emerging as a cultural change, not a fad. And this is a positive tool that can be used to alienate their fear. This is the place where the bank can become the friend who helps them with their money. Example of this comes from HDFC Banks ‘Money Matters’ posts on its Facebook page. In these posts, the bank attempts at explaining complex banking and financial problems in simple manner.

HDFC Bank’s Money Matters Post on Facebook

Social media is the next frontier for financial institutions and consumer relationship. In ten years times, this platform will become as important as ATMs and Mobile banking system are today. But just like mobile and net banking had to be patient and adopt a wait and watch policy, so to must banks be with social media. Slow and steady will definitely win them the race.

Blogger of the Fortnight: Rhea Purnita Paine

Mayur — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:38:16 +0000

There are bloggers who try to do too many things and destroy their blog. Then there are bloggers who are so specific and niche that until they talk about matters you follow closely, you wouldn’t want to return to them. A good blog is one that can balance the need to be refreshing without doing too much. One such blog, Rheality Rings by Rhea Purnita Paine, is a classic example of a blog that reinvents itself with every post without losing its character.

Part rebel, part child, Rhea is a brilliant writer, photographer, doodler, sketcher and dreamer at large. Her interests are simply stated as ‘Living’ and live she does. It is for this reason that her blog also comes across alive. While you go through her pages, you feel a sense of life in each post. Be it the photo tour of India in ‘India on the move’ or the sketches in her ‘Arty Farty’ section, they all breath and come across with their individual stories.

It makes for a compelling reading. What it also does is makes you want to experience the thing you read about, yourself. And that is the true sign of a great blog. While you see the pictures from the gallery simply stated as ‘On way from the airport to Nandi Hills on a bike’ you would actually want to take that journey. The photographs are so alluring, it is impossible to escape the desire to experience the ride yourself.

Empty Ness
Vanessa do you know
they sold you an empty glass for a muse
An ashtray full of ruse
A pipe gone obtuse
Thought you’d be amused.
Instead you ended up used.
I knew her once
My Empty Ness of dreams
I knew her once
My Empty Ness in screams
I knew her once
My Empty Ness it seems

Even her writing is exemplary. The poems Rhea has penned are absolutely gripping. ‘Empty Ness’ is amongst one of her best written pieces. It tells a story that many would relate to, yet it brings out her experience in the simplest manner without losing the depth of the matter. Her command over the words make it that much more binding, compelling you to finish what you start reading. And that compels us to bestow the ‘Blogger of the Fortnight‘ title on her.

Click here for more interesting read from our blogger of the fortnight series.

Social Media Trends to look out for in 2012

arjun — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:47:00 +0000

The year 2011 has borne witness too many ups and downs and dynamism in the world of Social Media. Radical changes in the interface for two of the most ubiquitously popular Social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter, Klout’s remarkable drop in the ranks, Google+ and Facebook in close encounters, viral videos being recognised as a potent medium to catch eyeballs, augmented reality entering the Social Media Space et al.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which brands could maximize user engagement in the year to come.

Social Media as a 360° Brand Promotion Enabler:

Social Media platforms would be expected to aggravate and play a greater role in enabling a 360° communication. When efficiently integrated with outdoor activation and ATL communication it could lead brands to have a much enhanced user engagement with their potential consumers.

This could have a twofold approach. One, a campaign solely triggered on the social media platform supported by an ATL medium could be a building block to establish a much larger audience base. Two, campaigns initially launched on the mass media vehicles and later on reinforced by the social media. There are enough and more examples of brands that have been practicing these two strategies internationally. In India, the scope is huge considering that not many players are either not aware of the potency of combining SM with ATL or they are plain wary.

A look at Aviva’s ‘the big picture’ campaign where Aviva highlighted stories of their customers, partners and employees and brought alive the brand promise of individual recognition, gives us the idea of integrated campaigns that can be done. Entries were invited through Facebook where interested people could submit their photos and get a chance to feature on building facades of 6 big cities of the world. A classic campaign that that got triggered through the social media and supported by outdoor activation.

Aviva’s ‘Donate a Picture’ Outdoor Campaign

Another interesting campaign took place post the inflammatory tweet made by English cricketer Michael Vaughan about Vaseline. Vaseline spawned a campaign in defense of its brand identity and reinforced the message through facebook, where supporters were asked to tag themselves on the page. Needless to say, the campaign did steer in favour of Vaseline’s brand identity and generated a lot of positive reviews.

Print Facebook Ad

Google+ Hangout

Although relatively new in the arena of Social Media, Google+ Hangout, in all probabilities is a great platform that Google+ could provide brands to create a niche user engagement. Brands, businesses, movies, musicians etc. are always on a lookout to grow their fan base. Internationally Dell and Macy’s have already used Google + hangout successfully to provide customer service and engage with their target audience base face to face. The Muppets (movie) had collaborated with Google+ hangout to create a pre-release.

Characters from ‘The Muppets’ on Google+ Hangout with the makers

In the Indian context, Google+ hangout is still at a very nascent stage. Barring a few popular incidences like Shah Rukh Khan doing a Google+ hangout for his Ra.one, cricketer Virender Sehwag catching up with fans etc., for many brands Google + hangout is still a gold mine waiting to be explored.

Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor on Google+ Hangout with fans

Google+ hangout provides 2 options for hangout: private and public. Although it has limitations on the number of people in a group who could participate in a hangout (10), if carefully planned out, a brand could really build a relationship with its customer/potential customer/stakeholder.

Viral Videos as an Attraction Enabler:

Viral videos have been a talk of the town for many years now, including the year gone by. 2012 will only see it emerging further up the ranks of a marketer’s favourite way to garner attention.

Again, looking closely into the aspect of how many brands are actually doing it and creating enough buzz in the local scenario is important. Internationally brands have been using viral videos to develop pre-launch, launch time, post launch videos at regular intervals and provide exciting content for their consumers that can further grow with the word of mouth.

For example, T-mobile did a pre-planned flash-mob invade Liverpool St train station in London and made a crowd groove to some funky beats. The sheer number of views on their official channel itself were in the tune of 15 million+. Let alone other social networking sites. Closer home, HUL’s Dove evolution’s stop motion video that talks about having self-esteem and keeping it real went viral and in the first year itself it got around 12 million+ hits.

Click on the image below to check out the video:

The point is, there are many brands in India that have still not recognised the potential of a

video in either directly or subtly present the brand to its audience. The recent success of an

Insanely popular video, ‘why this kolaveri di’ is a proof how the film makers of the south Indian film, ‘3’ utilized social network as a pre buzz marketing tool and are soon to set the cash registers ringing.

Location Based sites as a Market Research tool:

Much has been talked about the efficacy of location based Social networking sites like Foursquare, Gowalla, BOOYA, Google Latitude etc. The year 2011 has seen a steady rise in the number of ‘check ins’ happening across platforms. In fact, despite not being able to take off as expected by all, Facebook places has also had a decent number of people checking in through this feature, introduced not so long ago. The point being, geosocial networking is growing fast and is expected to go full throttle in 2012 in all likelihood.

Considering that there is an ever increasing footfall on these LBSN sites, the possibility of using such platforms as a market research tool is quite huge. Tracking the usage and the check in patterns of users and the titles that they win when they check in is just the start. Recognise people’s check in patterns at various locations and earmark them to do related brand promotions.

For e.g.: Considering the demographic profile of a group of users who checks in at a TGIF at regular intervals could be potential customers for say an energy brand like a Red Bull or Cloud 9. Triggering a promo campaign at the POS could be one of the things that could be done. Organising contests, quizzes with a definite brand agenda in mind is just some of the other things what associated brands could look into.

Foursquare Check In

Augmented Reality integration into Social Media:

Augmented Reality has been quite a buzz word in the advertising circles lately. A lot many premium brands have already jumped on to the band wagon recognizing it as a key driver to brand communication and customer engagement. And coming from the understanding that most of them would mostly be live on mobile space in delivering relevant targeted content in a contextual environment, it makes more sense for us in India to tap into that.

Augmented reality has already been here in India and brands like Nike and Ford Figo have already demonstrated the use of quick response codes in their various print campaigns. AR essentially brings alive the dormant senses that usually are not quite active for traditional mass media dissemination channels.

AR for social media is to soon see a rise in 2012 based on the ever increasing presence of the target audience on various social networking sites. A simple .jpeg could contain coded information which when integrated with mobile applications could provide a much engaging experience for users.

For example, Volkswagen’s all new Beetles’ ‘Juiced up’ campaign where Augmented Reality was used to bring alive the spirit of car that was all over the hoardings. All one had to do was point their mobile devices enabled with a decoding app and see the all new Beetle do what it does best. Thrill.

Click on the image below to check out the video:

Although it cannot be said with surety how successful the aforementioned trends are going to be, riding high on the waves of last year’s success stories, they seemingly hold promise. A meticulous and timely dissemination of the message at the right time could spell wonder for brands.