By Samar Singh Sheikhawat
Senior VP, Marketing, United Breweries Limited
Recent reports indicate that 80% of social media users prefer to connect with brands through Facebook. Though I was not surprised at the statistics, it got me thinking as to how much the scenario has changed since the birth of social media. I am tech-savvy and though I can understand the latest trends and nuances, there are times when I look back and marvel at how technically advanced we have become.
Until a few years ago, a wall was a place where you would draw graffiti and Twitter was just a bird’s chirp. Now, the sentence “information at your fingertips” sounds more literal and less embroidered. Our mornings don’t just start by listening to the chirping of birds, but with tweeting decks on our phones. Yes, social media and the online platform have changed lives. On a larger scale, social media has impacted the way brands determine their reach.
Apart from fundamentally changing the way marketers have been interacting with their consumers, it has also helped bridge a direct relationship between a brand and its consumers. To give feedback, one can just post a comment on one of the many social media fan pages a brand may have. The focus has now shifted from communication to conversation with real time exposure to a brand.
While the suggestion box has been thrown out of the window, brands have taken a step forward and have built a virtual, permeable relationship with their consumers by using social media effectively and creatively.
I read a quote: “Social networks aren’t about websites. They’re about experiences”. That is what brands are seeking to do. There are online activations, videos being shared, games and apps designed and content being generated that provide instant consumer gratification. To give you an example, at Kingfisher we came out with a Twitter-led activation called #KFBeerup which is a tweet-up for beer lovers in India. This initiative brought people from the virtual world together on a real life stage and gave fans ample reason to become brand advocates. By humanizing the brand through social media, we are not only building brand enthusiasm, we are also engaging them actively and letting consumers know that social media is a serious platform.
The prospect of one-on-one marketing that social media brings to the table is both exciting and challenging for new age marketers. The medium allows a brand to listen to what its consumers have to say and use those conversations/insights in every aspect of marketing. Going forward, the social media scenario will be far more overarching and the way brands use it will be far more advanced. I will not be surprised to see experiential marketing taking a turn where products can be sensed, tasted or tried online. The visual medium will play a larger role than it is doing now where gratifying brand consumers through engaging video content will be the norm. Face to face/direct marketing using the online social media platform will be something to reckon with as it will make lives a lot easier and brands more accessible.
Social media is not only the new suggestion box, it is also being considered as the little box of treats and ideas, where brands will start putting their money, for that is where the future lies.
Feedback: samar@ubmail.com
