Social Media – The Game Changer

FLO Mumbai Chapter had organized an interactive session about Social Media Platforms & their uses was discussed.

Session was taken by Pradnya Adhikari:
Pradnya holds a P.G. Diploma in Public Relations and Corporate Communication & is a Bachelor in Mass Media (B.M.M.) specializing in Advertising. She is handling social activities for some global brands like Intel, VISA, Nissan, Tourism Australia and Levi’s.

Coverage
Pradnya covered Facebook extensively
She touched upon Twitter and Instagram .
She informed:
There are millions of people on the Internet ~375 mn people
147 mn Indians on Facebook
65 mn on Twitter
9.6 mn on Instagram
33 mn on Linked

She added that these are the major and key social media platforms available to reach out to your audience and talk about your business/products/services
Use these platforms to connect with your audience, engage them and make them talk about your business. She also mentioned:

Mobile
Mobile is important – smart phones have become very popular due to fall in prices; most people use them. They are more popular than desktops. People are doing much more on their smart phones than on their desktops. Smartphone and 3G usage has doubled over the last year. On an average, people are spending about 6.1 hours a day on their mobile phones! This makes mobile phones important for marketing your business. 80% of the time, the advertiser reaches you on your mobile phone, and not on your desktop. About 102 minutes of your mobile time is used for calls and messages. You also use it to watch your TV episodes, shopping, reading news, listening to radio. In fact, people often use their phones while watching TV too – 69% of people on an average use their mobile phones while watching TV.
On an average people are spending 1 out of 5 mins of their time on Facebook and Instagram. These social media platforms have realized the importance of the mobile medium (you should too!)
You too would be using Facebook more on your phone, on the go… It’s more convenient.

The PMD tool
There is a PMD tool (PMD is Preferred Market Developer), which helps match the user’s TV and mobile experience. For example, if you see an Amazon ad on TV, you will also see offers on specific products available on Amazon on your mobile phone. The PMD tool is very versatile and helps advertisers reach users in innovative ways. For example, let’s say, it’s expected to rain tomorrow. An insurance company can advertise its health insurance plan during these weather updates. In other words, the PMD tool syncs your TV, mobile and desktop at the backend in order to offer relevant ads.

Advertisements
Your advertisements should be ‘snackable’; this means, it should be short, crisp, to the point. Avoid lengthy content. People’s attention spans are very short; they get bored easily; hence, content should be minimum. Content implies very short videos, gif images, etc; content should be attractively presented to get the user’s attention.
Event based ‘soft’ advertisements
You could use events (e.g. festivals such as Dassera, Diwali, etc.) to simply wish your audience without really hard selling. This helps enhance your goodwill.
Use a cue to engage your user – for e.g. ‘Can you be happy for 100 days?’ catchy lines; subtly weave in your product into this cue. E.g. when Game of Thrones season 6 was being launched, Micromax came up with a line – ‘Game of Phones’. – not hard selling its own phones but phones in general.

Using Hashtags
Hashtags (#)
Usage of hashtags is very popular
Hashtag is a word/phrase used with a hash (#) before the word
When you use hashtag, users will come across your post/advertisement when they do a search on the keyword you have used the hashtag with. For example, if you are in the jewellery business where you sell antique earrings, 18 carat gold jewellery, etc.
When you use hashtag in your search, your search gets more filtered i.e. you get more relevant search results. On Google+ though, the + sign works (e.g. to do a search for baby apparels, use baby+apparels).

Creating your company’s page on Facebook
You can create your company’s page on Facebook. However, you need to first have your personal profile on Facebook (which gives you a login – username and password). In order to create your company’s page on Facebook, you should log in to your Facebook account, on the top right of your page, you will see a downward facing arrow. Click it and then click ‘Create page’.
Remember, when you create a company page on Facebook, your friends who are linked to your profile page will not be automatically linked to your company page. You need to invite them to ‘Like’ your company page.
Differences between different social media platforms
Each social media platform is different; Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – all three have their own personalities. While Facebook is more personal, Twitter is more informational. Instagram is more creatively inspiring. To position your product in each of these platforms, you must use different creatives. People use Facebook to ‘see what’s happening’; Twitter has more tech-savvy audience; people visit Twitter for information/news. Instagram is good for fashion brands.