There’s been an awakening in how effectively social media can be used to engage with consumers and stay connected with them after they’ve gone through the “awareness” phase through offline marketing that many businesses still spend massive parts of their budgets on. It seems almost everywhere I look, brands are connecting their online and offline efforts well really implementing the concept of “Social CRM”.

It’s understandable that you can’t reach everyone online and traditional advertising and marketing channels like television, newspapers, magazines, events and more are still going to be a part of the marketing mix especially in the Indian context where the web market is still growing but not all-inclusive. However, brands are realizing that the offline channels mentioned above are strong in creating awareness, but then a lot of the research, comparison, deliberation and final decisions are made after moving online and the two need to work seamlessly together to get results.

Moreover, offline marketing is still considerably more expensive and buys less attention time with consumers so how do you keep them in the loop after they’ve heard about you?

Send them online!

Scenario 1

The 2012 Delhi Auto Expo is a classic example of an offline marketing channel that brings over a 1000 automobile manufacturers and brands together. They showcase their cars, unveil new launches, measure customer reactions and interact. Needless to say, it doesn’t come cheap and not every consumer that brands connected with that day are going to make an instant decision and become customers at the location itself. However this year, you will notice many manufacturers and brands have prominently displayed their social media locations asking consumers that have visited their stalls to go ahead and connect with them on their Facebook page, join their online communities or follow them on Twitter.

This enables them to stay engaged with those consumers much after the event is over and the tents are packed away, remaining connected with them and potentially see more of them turn customers at a much later date.

Scenario 2

I passed by a large billboard for a new shopping mall that’s opened not too far away. Unlike some hoardings which try to cram as much of a message into space one gets a few seconds to look at most while driving by, this one had the mall and invited passers by to come find out more about what they had in store directing them to join their Facebook page. Almost literally what you could remember in those moments when you glance at something and drive by.

Awareness through the billboard and engagement via social media. A perfect combination.

This process of awareness -> capture -> engage -> convert while moving from offline to online media has been evolving rapidly. From having static website addresses displayed asking people to read more about the company or brand some time ago, we now have more Twitter handles, Facebook page addresses and social media locations printed across on shopping bags, signboards, television commercials, shouted on radio, splashed across billboards…

The key difference?

We’re no longer asking consumers to come read some information about the organization or brand on the website. We are now asking them to come engage with us in a two way dialog, talk to us and keep in touch!

…. and that is a whole new dynamic in the relationship between organizations and consumers!

Overview

Volkswagen has been standing out in peoples mind when it comes to their innovative and often striking marketing campaigns both offline and online. Their marketing activity in India where they have grown very quickly into one of the most desired car brands has covered everything from The VW Polo Cup racing series to newspaper advertisements that had people drop their coffee and jump back. Remember when you opened the newspaper and it started talking about the VW Vento? From talking newspapers to some of the funniest viral videos, Volkswagen is one to watch when it comes to creative marketing ideas.

With the new launch of the 2011 Volkswagen Jetta, the VW brand has set the social media grapevine buzzing with another engaging and fun social media outreach campaign which has everyone on the social web talking about the new Jetta.

Challenge

The Indian car market has been very active with new launches with several manufacturers and and equal number of hot new launches taking place in the last three months with every model vying for attention both from the consumers and media. Car sales is a very aspirational space and the more people talk about a car, the more you want it! So just how did Volkswagen India get people online to talk to talk about the all new Jetta and capture attention?

Strategy – What Volkswagen Did

They launched the Anything4Jetta campaign and got people to talk about what they would be willing to do to get their hands on the all new VW Jetta! The online campaign is centered around a micro-site http://www.anything4jetta.com/ which is primarily Twitter centric…or in other words, you can login directly with your Twitter account.

Simplicity is key and the anything4jetta.com website gets straight to the point on the home page. As a visitor that would like a chance to win the new Jetta, all you have to do is Tweet what you would do for the new Jetta along with the hash tag #anything4jetta and your witty tweet may qualify you for a range of monthly prizes and eventually the grand prize of a brand new Jetta.

So that would get users thinking up smart tweets and tweeting but there is more. A clever point system explained here within the site would point out you get points for following @volkswagenindia, SMS tweets, voice tweets, uploading photos, uploading crazy videos of what you’re willing to do, retweets and other activity. THAT is what makes this a complete social media experience exploiting all channels to create buzz around the Jetta and the incentive… points (and the grand prize of possibly winning a car of course).

As a result Twitter is buzzing with chatter over the new Jetta, videos are being added, photos shared and ….they have out attention.

(The Anything4Jetta Online Campaign & Contest – Click Here To Visit)

(The Facebook Component – Click Here To Visit)

(The YouTube Component)

What’s Cool About This Campaign?

- It gets you to talk about the car by offering you a chance to win something you desire (the car) which instantly makes you an online ambassador for the product and has you saying good things about it

- It get’s users to do a lot of the creative work and come up with fun, catchy tweets that could draw further attention

- Very low entry barrier to get started with the campaign and competition. All you need is a Twitter account and add a hash tag to your tweet and you are in the running

- Great incentive system to drive more social activity like sharing videos, photos, voice recordings through the point system

- A smart system of having monthly prizes and a leader board to keep users involved and keep talking about the product till the winner of the grand prize is announced

- Doesn’t directly advertise the product since the campaign itself is fun and about coming up with crazy things you would do to win a Jetta. Yet the product is well placed everywhere, showcased on the anything4jetta.com site

- Integrates Facebook, Twitter well

To sum up, the Anything4Jetta campaign is just a very fun and engaging campaign which still gets people buzzing about the car. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

(The Facebook Page – Reaching Out To A Community)

Overview

For any guitar player, the Gibson Guitars brand needs no introduction whatsoever. Their guitars are legendary as is the brand with guitar players such as Slash, Joe Perry, Zakk Wylde and several other musicians endorsing the brand. Just about every guitar player and aspiring guitar player would want to own a Gibson if finances permit. Gibson as a brand has a global appeal on just about every continent but when they decided to formally launch their range of products in India more recently and connect to the growing music community there with an online web presence, they appear to have paid a lot of attention to adding a local flavor to their campaign and creating an identity in the local rock music circles across Indian cities.

Indian rock culture has been growing among the youth and both musicians and music lovers across the country are constantly tuned in to what is happening in the music circuit, where the next gigs are happening, what the most popular bands are up to. A very tight community that’s actively involved with staying in tune with the music scene via the web and…the perfect market for a brand like Gibson.

Challenge

For Gibson, the challenge would be to create awareness in a completely new market which has a more or less ‘underground’ or non-mainstream rock circuit consisting of a few hundred active bands and tens of thousands of fans that attend rock concerts, buy albums and tunes released by prominent local bands and form the larger group of buyers and influencers for the Gibson brand. Guitar purchases are highly influenced by guitar heroes that use and  endorse a particular brand of guitars. Gibson would need to help audiences in India identify bands and prominent guitar players (local guitar heroes) that use their guitars and make a connection with them.

Strategy – What Gibson Guitars Did

Local community & content driven website – www.gibsonguitar.in The website not only has a product listing and information about the line of products available now for the Indian market but prominently features the “News & Lifestyle” section as well as the “Community” section which is all about making a social media connection with the audience that matters for the brand.

(A Website Focused On Delivering Engaging Content To The Music Community)

The “News, Features & Events” section is virtually the blog component of the campaign with daily multiple articles, news posts, events, interviews with really well written pieces pertaining to the Indian rock music circuit. Covering practically all the interesting happenings, topics and news that musicians and music lovers would like to keep in touch with, the content does a great job of keeping fans updated and very intelligently features bands, interviews and artists that use Gibson guitars.

The “Community” section features a forum which is a great platform to drive the musician community to the site and get them talking about their products. What’s very commendable is the Facebook page and community which gets it’s feed of content and updates largely from the blog / news section of the website but really adds that ‘interactive’ and ‘two way conversation’ component with fans actively commenting on updates, sharing event updates, replying to articles and features. It’s interesting to note, this is not Gibson Guitars, creating a Facebook page where they talk only about their guitars. This is a Facebook page where Indian rock music enthusiasts get great updates to upcoming events, reviews of shows, albums, interviews and keep in touch with the Indian rock music scene. It’s branded by Gibson guitars.

Although the Gibsonguitar.in website has a YouTube component, it’s linked to the Gibson Guitars international YouTube channel and we would have liked to have seen a more local flavor with branded coverage videos of interviews, concert clips and more. However, what they do very well is sharing new music videos, concert clips and YouTube videos directly from other sources on their Facebook wall which means as a fan, you get to watch the latest on YouTube via their feed.

(Gibson Guitars India On Twitter – Always Interesting Tweets)

(YouTube Videos That Really Push The Product Well)

What’s cool about this campaign

- The strategy offers fans a music publication with quality articles and news on the music scene

- It doesn’t come across as a blatant attempt to market or sell although you can’t ignore the branding or knowing that you’re on the Gibson Guitars site or Facebook page

- The product is very well represented and it’s very clear the people interviewed or the bands reviewed and so on use Gibson Guitars. If they don’t, they are still included but more subtly than those who do represent their brand

- Great word of mouth / social sharing component built in since fans on Facebook love to talk about the guitars featured in the content, are happy to spread the word about them, share event updates and articles with their friends and become advocates for the brand

- The content rich main site fuels the engagement on Facebook and Twitter too providing regular updates and keeps followers interested

- Great use of contests, free guitar giveaways to build more followers, engage people and build more word-of-mouth reach integrating Facebook and Twitter

All in all…a great way to make a connection with those that will eventually become your brand advocates!

Social media as an effective marketing channel has been around for a while now and at times it seems the word has been thrown around so much that some businesses fail to really understand what it means before deciding they want to “use social media” to “increase traffic”, “increase sales” and demand “ROI”.

Among the Indian business fraternity, this divide in understanding how social media is used to build a presence or a brand is seems ever so prevalent after speaking to several business development executives in charge of using the social web in their marketing mix. There some Indian businesses that have used social media “brilliantly” to carve themselves a niche on the web using innovative and authentic ways to engage an audience. They’ve been able to make a connection with their target audiences by giving them something new, something useful, using blogging as a medium to communicate effectively engage their community.

These are often the companies who have said:

- We’d like to try something fresh, we need to communicate to our audience in a way that’s not direct selling or pushing people to buy from us but rather letting them know we’re here in this space and we’d like to connect with others who are interested too

- Let’s plan this right, take the time and invest in building a strong relationship with people online via quality content and engagement

- Of course we need ROI but we’re in it for the long haul and we want our online audiences to “like us” so we won’t jeopardize our brand, reputation or values as a business by crossing (invisible) boundaries that exist in the social web world.

These are the kind of companies you will see:

- Blogging with  a personality and a genuine voice

- Developing content that audiences will find useful

- Using Twitter not just on auto pilot to advertise a single link or two from their website but share, have conversations and open a communication channel with others there. You’ll notice their followers may grow more gradually but they have relationships with these followers and a genuine following.

- Using Facebook to build communities while understanding that peoples privacy and online space also needs to be respected

Lesson : – Everybody Loves Elmo As Well As Businesses That Understand And Respect The Social Web Environment

Then there are companies who see the social web as another marketing channel not very different from a large telemarketing or email list which needs to be pounded, messaging needs to be pushed out in front of people as possible and the objective is use all means to drive sales fast! These are businesses (And sadly a large number of so called SEO / Web Marketing / Social Media / Content Generation firms) that end up not using…but abusing the social web and effectively pollute it with a lot of the unwanted or spam content that you and I see and ignore out there.

These businesses have said:

- We need rapid link building to our website… we don’t care how you do it but we need to see 4000 links every month. Use auto commenters, leave multiple comments on anyone else’s sites,   publish hundreds of posts with links to our sites….we don’t care what the posts say as long as they have our keywords.

- Our objective is to go from 0 visitors to 100,000 visitors in the first month. We don’t care who they are or how they come to our site….just make it happen.

- If we spend $X for the first 2 weeks, we would like to see $X into 10 in sales by the end of these two weeks otherwise it means social media doesn’t work.

- We’ll create a Facebook account and Twitter account, link them to an auto sharing tool that lifts feeds from rss and then get someone to add 500 random followers everyday so they follow our advertising links and we get clicks that convert

- If you have a few hundred followers on Facebook and Linkedin, lets direct message each one with a bulk message and measure the results

- Create 20 profiles on each social bookmarking and networking site to promote our website.

- Post 30 Facebook updates on the page daily so all that a follower sees in their feed is us….doesn’t matter if it’s useful for them or not.

- Have all our content and links to the site replicated on all social sites like Squidoo, Article marketing tools, article distribution sites, Blogger and every other site.

- Join forums and we’ll post several great reviews of our own business under fake names

It’s these businesses and companies that claim these are genuine social media marketing tactics that are responsible for automated junk comments, tonnes of irrelevant articles and posts, spam email campaigns, spam messages in your Facebook, Linkedin and social accounts, shares that annoy you in your content sharing accounts, un related ping backs and links to your blog and sites, spam discussions in your forums or discussion groups and all that’s polluting the otherwise awesome social web environment.

It’s possible that with the sheer number of people these campaigns are pushed at that it could result in some short term benefits. However, do you really develop a positive vibe about a business that does this to you and ruins your social web experience? Would you really want to buy from or connect with them?

Nobody Likes Darth Vader Or Businesses That Pollute And Disrespect The Social Web For Profit

There’s a fine line between using and abusing social media. Each business needs to respect that the social web world exists on it’s own terms and to fit in, you need to be a part of that experience and contribute something constructive to peoples experience while respecting that they get to choose whether they want to engage with you or not. One needs to understand how to build a presence there gradually developing your influence and not try and get there with brute force like the offline marketing and advertising world.

The social web is not kind to those who use “corporate might” and “hard selling”. Take the time to understand what people want, what they don’t mind, how they interact in this online environment and  you’ll make a place for yourself there that will be yours for a long time to come.

If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen! In fact, don’t walk into the kitchen in the first place.

If you’re pulling out the stops and taking the leap into social media …be aware that you are opening pandora’s box and you need to be prepared to take on anything that comes out of there!

This is what any experienced online community or social media manager would tell you based on their experience if you’re still watching by the sidelines and wondering whether to engage with your market via social media channels or opt for the safer traditional one-way marketing communications medium where “control” is possible. Taking the social media leap involves being ready to jump into a new world where people don’t give a hoot about the traditional rules of engagement that many business have shielded themselves with. Expecting old school PR and marketing communications methods to be applied to your social media interactions will get you nowhere soon. You see that form of PR and marketing communications had the following attributes:

• Every message that went out to the public was carefully crafted and engineered to strike a certain nerve or reaction.
• The image of the business is always portrayed in good light. Messages always portray how good things are, how well the organization is doing, how nothing is our fault, how there is always only good news etc
• Negative feedback, events, bad news, weaknesses should be hidden from the public eye and anyone catching sight of such aspects would see vulnerability.
• Messages need to be diplomatic so that they don’t come across too direct. There are a list of things which simply can not be said.
• Whatever goes out on behalf of the organization needs to be analyzed, edited, re checked, re-edited, follow a long drafting cycle and then be released for everyone outside.

Social media may be a new medium of PR and marketing communications but it works on a different set of rules contrary to the old ones:

• It’s anything but a one-way communication channel. It’s always a conversation so if you put something out there expect honest and free feedback, comments, love and hate in equal amounts. Be prepared for replies because they will follow anything you say via the free web.
• It’s not about crafty messages that took months to draft. On the social web, the audience appreciate honesty, human interactions, transparency, openness and all those other things that were taboo with traditional business communications. If you can’t openly express the good, the bad and the ugly and feel the need to filter and suppress every message that goes out from those within the organization, then social media is not a good option for you.
• Be spontaneous and be yourself. Web audiences are not fond of ‘official statements’ from the organization nor do they connect with those messages your specialists took 3 months to release. They connect with the business via people within your organization who can express themselves freely and seem accessible and human online whether it’s on the blog, Facebook page, Linkedin, Twitter or anywhere else.
• People rule the web. Give them the benefit of the doubt and let them decide what they think about what you’re trying to express as a brand or organization. There will be those who appreciate you and those who don’t. The key lies in being able to address the concerns of those who don’t and leverage the support  of those who do.

In short social media has it’s own rules which need to be understood well before you take the leap. When you do take the leap, embrace this new web culture and don’t hang on to the old policies and you’ll do just great! You’ll eventually see the pros far outweigh any fears you may have had going in. As long as you go in with a flexible mindset and keep the ‘human’ persona of an organization at the forefront you’ll take on anything thrown at you with ease.

The problem is many people who are charged with the task of turning their website into a successful marketing channel take these two metrics and set them as their primary objectives losing sight of the big picture. Back links, increasing your page rank, maximizing page-views, reducing bounce rates although considered metrics for successful websites should actually be secondary outcomes which result from going after a primary goal which is far more important “creating a high quality engagement with your online audience“. If you do this, the rest will follow and you’ll end up having more than just a website with impressive traffic figures but doesn’t do wonders as far as your key objectives go. You’ll have a long term online asset which works for you.

Here is what we’re talking about:

Super Holiday Hotels sets up a brand new website for their new property in Male, Maldives. They decide they want some aggressive traffic building activity for their new site with tonnes of unique visitors and back links from the top travel websites with high page ranks to increase their own page rank. They set out to hire a few freelance article writers who can deliver bulk posts 500 words in length at a steal, hire more freelance guys who do link submissions to directories and promise 250 plus back links to your website in a month and another set of guys who will comment on other blogs (some of whom will use bots) and pay them for every 100 comments posted. In 8 months the Super Holiday Hotels has 35,000 unique visitors a month! A success! Oh… and they also get an average of 3 visitors who fill in their online reservation form and book rooms with them each month.

The Beachfront Hotel sets up a brand new website for their new property in Male, Maldives. They decide they want to turn their website into a source of inbound reservations and bookings for the long term so that most of their sales will come through the website. They know the way to do this is build a reputation online, reflect their own hospitable personality and love for their island nation online through their social media channels and create relationships with online travelers so that some day they may arrive at the property as guests. They engage BuzzFactory.net! (…just kidding) They create an resource for people traveling to the Maldives irrespective of where they plan to stay. They deliver great content which carries their personality as a business while also ensuring what they publish is information that readers can rely on and help them on their travels there. They work steadily at building a publication which is invaluable to anyone who plans to visit Male, creates a community of those interested in the island around their site, creating communities on Facebook, Twitter while answering questions for those communities keeping them updates on what happens on the island and the property. In 8 months The Beachfront Hotel has reached 10,000 visitors a month. Disappointment? Not really… they will eventually get to 35,000 in a few months time and keep climbing. More importantly, with just 10,000 visitors a month, they have averaged 20 bookings and reservations a month through their website which accounts for 50% of their occupancy each month. It’s working!

Quality! Quality! Quality!

Quality of your objectives and plan + Quality of your execution = Quality of your results

The Beachfront Hotel was not blinded by the numbers of back links and unique visitors. The visitors to their website were not a flow of traffic from some irrelevant high traffic website as a result of clever traffic building schemes, they were people searching for travel information in Male and found a reliable online personality by the name of The Beachfront Hotel which offered it. They interacted with them on Facebook, decided to explore the website a bit further and made a decision to stay there during their visit. In the long run…chances are…other high ranking travel websites will see The Beachfront Hotels online publication as a great resource for that destination and link them anyway.

Traffic and back links are a by-product of having a really great website which others consider a “great resource” or “important website” with your domain. With the right direction, right objectives and metrics to measure your online marketing success by, you’ll be on your way to building a really great web asset.

In an early stage business the situation is very different. There isn’t a steady base of customers you can already rely on and the challenge isn’t really growing it, the challenge is to create that customer base. Social media marketing or online marketing is really about engaging people through conversation, content and building a brand through which audiences will start recognizing you through and eventually, approaching you. It’s inbound and pull based but it’s not instant and needs time to develop. Time is something in short supply in the early stages and closing customers is a priority. This should mean…. focusing completely on sales will help you go after targeted set of prospects and close customers slow and steady to build the revenue stream. However, there is a conflict in this strategy.

Given a hypothetical situation where you employee a 3 person sales team using email and telephone campaigns to pursue and close new customers, the progress over a few months is likely to appear like the blue line above. There will be a more or less steady line with some good months, some bad ones but the only way to increase sales in future is to increase the size of the sales team and invest more into sales. Great way to start business development but no long term benefits for growth.

It’s like hunting for your food. The more you need, the more hunters you need and it’s not a sustainable strategy.

Given the same situation where you employ a team of 3 for social media marketing and outreach, you are likely to see something similar to the red line. You may not see much progress over the first few months but as the ecosystem of content and buzz around your business grows, you’ll find an increasing flow of prospects towards your site which with time can be closed as customers. The process starts slow but consistently grows with the same amount of work put in every month. This means, though in the short run it may seem slow, in the long run you can grow your customer base without increasing your investment in the process. Not a great start but great future benefits perfect for high growth.

It’s like farming for your food. You cultivate a customer base by sowing content. It’s highly sustainable in the long run. As the content and buzz around your business increases each month, so does your business development.

Ideally you need both. Some amount of direct sales to kick start the customer base since you can’t completely rely on social media marketing to reap immediate results. At the same time, you need to start your social media and content marketing campaigns as early as possible so that in the later stages you don’t find yourself in a situation where your business development growth has just flat-lined because you were not thinking long term.

Our advice is start cultivating your social content farm as early as you possibly can. It’s sustainable, will grow and provide you more in time through a steady process than the hunting strategy which is effective but will make you work just as hard for every customer you intend to close and eventually, won’t work towards scaling your business. Hope that helps!

The truth is there is no real shortcut to developing long term inbound search traffic and steady business through a website. The few overnight successes that you hear of where traffic suddenly spikes is often just that….a temporary spike because something you posted really took off and became viral. The effects of these one time spikes are also more often than not….temporary. Social marketing is a process that needs very engaging content creation and a lot of activity on several social sites (where your target customers are) consistently and every single day. It’s often this commitment in terms of time which many find they are not able to do as much as they would like to and in that process, there is no daily activity and the social marketing efforts stagnate.

If your experience is similar, drop us a line and explore how we may be able to help you maintain that daily activity required while you focus on strategy and other areas of importance. In effect, this may just be the shortcut you need.

Reading has rapidly moved to the web. I personally do a lot of reading online every single day across a variety of personal interests from aquascaping, music theory, travel to social media, marketing and more. Even if i’m experimenting with dishes in the kitchen I have a recipe open on my netbook nearby. It’s only natural that we’re all going to take to e-readers and tablets sooner or later. From the current buzz, my guess would be sooner. So the question to start asking is not “should I go in for the iPad or Kindle? The question that urgently needs to be answered is “is my business publishing online and is it ready for the tablet boom?”

Online magazines, blogs and online publications are bound to be consumed that much more. If currently most reading is done while at your pc or at work, e-readers are simply going to ensure reading happens on the bus, on the subway, at airport waiting lounges and in bed. In marketing terms, it just opens a wider window of opportunity to have wider audiences discover your business. Online publications with compelling content will be key to engaging consumers and the earlier you can establish a leading publication within your industry space, the better prepared you can be for the inevitable boom. So how ready is your business on the online publication front?

On it’s own freshly published original content can drive some amount of search traffic on a more established site but for most sites it makes sense to give every newly published piece of content a jump start by sharing it with as many relevant users as possible. For example, if  you’ve just finished publishing a new blog post for your business website it may generate some views from regular readers and subscribers to your website and blog but to reach out to a wider audience and drive the most out of your content you need to go a step further. Submitting and sharing it with your network on social sites like Digg, Mixx, Stumbleupon, Reditt and others can draw a wider readership and allows the online community to further promote the ones they enjoyed reading. Posting them to social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin and others also could create some amount of traction for your post. Besides the more generic social sites, almost every industry and vertical has it’s own social networks, communities and sites where quality content can be shared with peers and audiences from within the industry giving your content the right kind of exposure and drawing more visitors towards your website.

While many are aware that they can leverage all these social sites to promote their content time and shedules often get in the way causing one to overlook this and a lot of well written, well created fresh content doesn’t get promoted and read to it’s full potential in the process. What is needed is a disciplined process of publishing + online promotion activity to push your content to users as soon as it’s published and build as much momentum from each post, article or piece of content. Once you have that in place you should see a marked improvement in how well distributed your content is and how much more effectively you can market your website. Simple!