A study on how Business entities in India are using Facebook Fan Pages by Iffort

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals by Iffort Consulting

List of industries covered Media Consumer Durables Food Chains FMCG Telecom Online Portals Publishing

Page Suggestions iffort itemperance

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Executive Summary

Methodology Key Findings

According to Wikipedia, around 1.5 billion people 1 worldwide are active on social networks. Today Social Networking websites have become an inherent part of our life and are re-defining the ways in which we as users ‘Communicate’ and ‘Converse’. Perhaps the most revolutionary and the biggest name among the modern social networks is Facebook. With almost half a billion users worldwide 2 (source: Facebakers.com), people have adopted Facebook unlike any other social networking website. India is not far behind, with one in five Internet users

India

using

Facebook.

[India

has

10.5

Million 3

(source:

Facebakers.com) people on Facebook out of a total Internet population of 50 Million (Source: emarketer.com)] With changing times & trends, Facebook is no longer limited to just connecting with friends or playing games; businesses are increasingly using it as an interaction platform to engage with their target audience, identify prospects, market their products, provide customer support and handle customer grievances! Tapping on this need, Facebook smartly introduced Facebook fan pages to cater to the specific needs of businesses. Iffort Consulting selected and reviewed the Facebook fan pages of ‘25’ select brands from ‘7’ different industry verticals for over a one month period.

We analyzed these 25 brands on various criteria to understand

their efforts to build engagement with their target audience through Facebook. Our exercise also revealed that organizations are successfully using several tactics like poll contests, interesting apps and videos amongst others to drive participation, which would result in word-of-mouth and better engagement with the brand. An interesting aspect of the exercise was to understand the synchronization between the product category a brand was related to, and the nature of engagement the brand built with its community members. However, few questions remain unanswered and with time we hope firms would be able to streamline their activities in a more effective manner!!

Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network Facebakers.com: http://www.facebakers.com/countries-with-facebook/ 3 Facbakers.com: http://www.facebakers.com/countries-with-facebook/ 2

Page 2 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Executive Summary

Methodology

Methodology Key Findings

We identified 7 different prominent industry verticals (Fig. 1). The portfolio consisted of 4 service oriented verticals (media, telecom, online portals and food chains) and 3 product oriented verticals (FMCG, consumer durables and publishing). In our initial assessment we identified 31 brands that were most visible and famous amongst Indian consumers in their respective industry verticals and monitored them for a period of one month. However, as we didn’t notice adequate engagement levels in 6 brands, we dropped them and narrowed down our list to 25 brands. We followed an observation method, wherein we regularly visited the fan page of these 25 brands on daily basis and reviewed them on various quantitative and qualitative parameters (Table 1).

Figure 1: Industry verticals

Quantitative

Qualitative

• No. of fans of a page

• Primary purpose of the page

• Percentage growth of fans

• Methods of fan engagement

• Total discussion on a page

• Discussion type

• Activity on wall by page admin

• Admin Response • Content type

• Linkage with other social networks & company website

Table 1: Quantitative & Qualitative parameters

Page 3 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Key Findings

Executive Summary Methodology Key Findings

The leader-board is as follows:

Media

Most popular Brand: MTV-India [522,112 Fans on 28 July]

Consumer Durables

Brand with the highest growth in terms of fans: MTV-India [3846 +

Food Chains

Daily fan growth]

FMCG

Most active entity: Delhi Traffic Police [12.8 wall posts by admin each

Telecom

day]*

Online Portals

Most Discussed brand: MTV-India [2085+ Interactions each day]

Publishing Brand with least growth: Haldiram’s [0.66 new fans each day] Identified Inactive brands: Bisleri (Inactive since May 29, 2010), Haldiram’s (Inactive since Oct 15, 2009), Bharti-Airtel (Inactive since Oct 15, 2009)

Interactions per day 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

459.3

172.4 76.2

50.9

Industry Vertical Interaction 8.7

1.5

0.3

Figure 2: Industry Verticals – Daily Interaction Graph NOTE: Delhi Traffic Police ‘Facebook page’ activity was monitored from a comparison perspective and the primary idea was to compare its activity against the traditional business entities and brands. At the outset, it isn’t a business/brand entity and it lies outside the ‘25’ observed brands.

Page 4 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Top 5 Most Popular Brands

Executive Summary

522112

Methodology

357708

Key Findings

199014

Media

86702

64217

Idea

Videocon

Consumer Durables

MTV-India

Food Chains

Fast Track

TATA Docomo

FMCG Telecom Online Portals

Figure 3: Top 5 Most Popular Brands

Brands With Highest Fan Growth Rate

Publishing

ImagineTV

47.43

Videocon

55.3

61.3

Ixigo.com

147.9

Figure 4: Brands with Highest Fan Growth Rate

Most Discussed Brands 2085.1 555.53

MTV-India Delhi Traffic Police

444.43

226.06

200.3

Fastrack TataDocomo Ixigo.com

Figure 5: Most Discussed Brands

Page 5 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Key Findings – Media Executive Summary All the companies we analyzed from this vertical were fairly successful in

Methodology

attracting large enough fans.

Key Findings

Most of the brands had well maintained, active & responsive fan pages.

Media

Various forms of content – photos, videos, polls, events, applications (Little

Consumer Durables

Champs, Zee TV; Axe Ur Ex, Channel V) were used to attract attention of

Food Chains

fans and create engagement.

FMCG

Discussions

Telecom

infrastructure, events (CWG) etc. Some fan pages made wall posts on TV

varied

topics

involved

politics,

games,

weather,

shows that were aired on their channels (Zee TV and Imagine TV).

Online Portals

Channel V was the only brand to have integrated the Twitter account with

Publishing

its fan page. Our verdict: MTV was analyzed as the best performing among five brands from this vertical. They had better engagement with their community members, as they discussed varied topics that had relevance to various parts of the country. We think they are trying to pitch their channel to wider audience and hence have realized to make people from various parts of the country to participate in discussions, by floating youth-centric topics and other issues of general interest.

Brand

No. of posts (30 days)

Posts/day

MTV

No. of fans each day 3846.8

Interactions/day

1.2

No. of interactions (30 days) 62554.0

35.0

Channel V

173.0

64.0

2.1

2286.0

76.2

805.3

25.0

0.8

538.0

17.9

ImagineTV ZeeTV Average

12.8 41.0 975.8

5.0 0.0 25.8

0.2 0.0 0.9

2208.0 1302.0 13777.6

73.6 43.4 459.3

2085.1

Table 2: Findings – Media Vertical

Fan Growth Rate (% ) - Media ImagineTV

47.43

Videocon

55.3

61.3

Ixigo.com

147.9 1

100

1000

Figure 6: Fan Growth Rate – Media

Page 6 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Executive Summary

No. of Fans (28th July 2010)

Methodology Key Findings

Zee TV

Media

10142

ImagineTV

Consumer Durables

718

Food Chains

38133

MTV-India

FMCG

522112

Channel[V]

17855

Telecom

Online Portals

100

10000

1000000

Publishing Figure 7: No. of Fans

, a relatively new entrant (less than a year old) has a small fan base in comparison to other brands. Some key points are: NDTV Imagine has another fan page on Facebook, so the fans are distributed amongst the two pages. The assessment revealed absence of post filtering as indicated by spam comments. In addition, the queries & user concerns have not been addressed.

The fan page of HT has almost all its wall posts as links for news articles on HTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main website. The important point here is that each day only 2-3 articles are shared on the page; these articles are chosen to entice feedback from users in the form of likes, comments and discussions; unlike other newspaper & magazine brands where an automated stream of links for articles on the main website is posted on the wall.

Though, Zee TV is enjoying a decent fan base on Facebook courtesy the TV channelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s real world popularity, there has been a long period of in-activity last as indicated by the last post by administrator which was made in April. According to our analysis, Zee TV might like to relook its Facebook engagement strategy with a focus on talking to members and understanding their needs/preferences.

Page 7 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Key Findings – Consumer Durables Executive Summary Methodology

In this sector Fastrack leads all other brands by a large margin, though

Key Findings

Videocon is growing fast, thanks to its enhanced PR initiatives.

Media

Interesting applications like the “FT Girl”, “Store locator”, “Bikers”, &

Consumer Durables

“Kickass cards” exist on Fastrack page. All wall posts revolve around their products, offers, brand ambassadors, stores across country etc.

Food Chains

The first noticeable element on Videocon’s fan page is the title, it is named

FMCG

as “Home Appliances and Electronics” and no corporate brand name

Telecom

mention has been made (Fig 3.).

Online Portals Videocon has applications – “Abhishek Bachchan contest” and “BUY” (which

Publishing

directs the user to Edigiworld, an e-commerce site owned by Videocon) The wall posts on Videocon fan page with title VFAQ are published frequently that educate users about using their appliance and many other aspects - regarding their usage, safety, precautions etc.

Brand

No. of fans each day

No. of posts (30 days)

Posts/day

Interactions/day

0.9

No. of interactions (30 days) 2136

Videocon

1270.88

Samsung Corby

6.27

0.0

1.6

Fastrack

2928.1

0.8

13333

444.4

Average

1401.8

17.0

0.6

5172.0

172.4

71.2

Table 3: Findings – Consumer Durables

Fan Growth Rate (%) - Consumer Durables Videocon

55.33

Fastrack

17.28

Samsung Corby-India

2.94 1

100

Figure 8: Fan Growth Rate – Consumer Durables

Page 8 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

No. of Fans (28th July)

Executive Summary

Videocon

Methodology

64217

Key Findings

Fastrack

Media

357708

Consumer Durables

Samsung Corby-India

Food Chains

3955

FMCG

Telecom

100

10000

1000000

Online Portals Publishing

Figure 9: No. of Fans Applications on Fastrack page: Interesting apps on the Fastrack page like, FT Girl where in Fastrack selects a pair of shades for you in an interactive way or Bikers where in exclusive Fastrack accessories are presented in an interactive and appealing way. But the best app of the lot is Kickass cards in which crazy kickass cards are be sent to your lazy friends to make them stop procrastinating and start studying during exam time!

Such

apps

not

only

prop up the page

but

also make the user return to the page; thus increasing user engagement and aiding in development of a bond between the user and the brand.

Page 9 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Executive Summary Methodology Key Findings

Screenshot from Videocon fan page: Postings like these from Videocon not only create awareness among the users, but also generate a positive feeling about the brand, that it cares for its users.

Media Consumer Durables Food Chains FMCG Telecom Online Portals Publishing

Figure 10: Videocon Fan Page: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Home Appliances and Electronicsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Page 10 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Key Findings - Food Chains Executive Summary Methodology

Pizza Hut & Barista have maintained their fan page in an active manner,

Key Findings

ahead of other brands in this category.

Media

Pizza Hut has various interactive applications – “Hot on Dot”, “Hut locator”,

Consumer Durables

“VIP club”, which help community members in knowing new offerings, locating their store, and creating an identity.

Food Chains

Barista also has interactive applications – “happy hours” and “breakfast”,

FMCG

which help them in engaging with their community members.

Telecom

The administrator of Pizza Hut fan page handled discussions on varied

Online Portals

topics such as FIFA, the new hot on the dot plan by Pizza Hut, to the best

Publishing

getaway zones in the area. We observed typo errors like website name bug in the fan-page (info tab) of a popular brand in this category. On the other hand another brand in this category has adopted a transparent approach by sharing the name of its social media partner on its fan page. Our verdict: We feel strategy applied by Pizza Hut and Barista to create applications focused on their offerings, has helped the administrator to engage community members with other varied interest topics targeted at youth. This provides clutter-free exhibition of offerings. On the contrary, some other brands seem to have adopted a sales approach by having discussions around their offerings only.

Brand

No. of fans each day

No. of posts (30 days)

Posts/day

Interactions/day

0.3

No. of interactions (30 days) 310

Pizza Hut

35.88

McDonalds India

3.16

0.3

2.1

Barista Lavazza

17.8

1.6

413

13.8

Average

18.9

21.7

0.7

261.7

8.7

10.3

Table 4: Findings – Food Chains

Page 11 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Fan Growth Rate (%) - Food Chains

Executive Summary Methodology

Pizza Hut

Key Findings

3.28

Barista Lavazza

9.67

Media

McDonalds-India

Consumer Durables Food Chains

7.15 1

FMCG Telecom Online Portals

Figure 11: Fan Growth Rate â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Food Chains

Publishing

No. of Fans (28th July 2010) Pizza Hut

22377

Barista Lavazza

3640

McDonaldsIndia

854 1

100

10000

Figure 12: No. of Fans

Page 12 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Key Findings – FMCG Executive Summary Methodology

The brands selected in this category had almost negligible engagement

Key Findings

levels on their fan page.

Media

Although product related postings were made on the products, the

Consumer Durables

expected level of success with engagement was fairly low.

Food Chains

Our verdict: We feel because these products are low involvement in

FMCG

nature, customers are not exactly convinced about the specific reasons to join these fan pages. Learning from these brands provides strong indicators

Telecom

for other FMCG brands to re-think their Facebook presence strategy. It

Online Portals

could include adoption of a fresh out-of-box thinking to lure fans,

Publishing

understand their needs and build conversational activity.

Brand

No. of fans each day

No. of posts (30 days)

Posts/day

Interactions/day

0.1

No. of interactions (30 days) 30

Kurkure

3.3

Haldiram’s

0.66

0.0

Bisleri

2.16

0.0

Average

2.0

0.7

0.0

10.3

0.3

1.0

Table 5: Findings – FMCG

Page 13 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Key Findings – Telecom Executive Summary Methodology

The sector that has the fiercest competition in the Indian market does not

Key Findings

quite have the same competition when it comes to Facebook Fan Pages or social media marketing in general. As can be seen from the visuals TATA

Media

Docomo is leading the pack with a large margin.

Consumer Durables It was surprising to know that one of the largest telecom service provider

Food Chains

has had the least active fan page and moreover administrator hasn’t posted

FMCG

any message since October, 2009

Telecom

All brands in this category had their YouTube and Twitter accounts

Online Portals

integrated with the fan page, which is generally considered to be a wise

Publishing

strategy. Idea & Tata Docomo are the only two brands to have used photos and videos on their fan pages. Another popular brand in this category gives a clear message of acting as yet another sales point. They had special tab for promotions and they also had many links to their website regarding tariff plans for various purposes. There is one brand which seems to be saying upfront that they are here for customer support. They have 24 x 7 Chat applications, which they claimed was the first in the country on a Facebook fan page.

Brand

No. of fans each day

No. of posts (30 days)

Posts/day

Interactions/day

0.8

No. of interactions (30 days) 498.0

Uninor

34.1

25.0

Vodafone

35.9

8.0

0.3

227.0

7.6

Idea

454.6

5.0

0.2

3919.0

130.6

TataDocomo

2265.7

36.0

1.2

6782.0

226.1

Airtel

1.2

0.0

1.0

0.0

Average

558.3

14.8

0.5

2285.4

76.2

16.6

Table 6: Findings – Telecom

Page 14 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Fan Growth Rate (%) - Telecom

Executive Summary

Uninor

Methodology Key Findings Media

22.9

Vodafone

9.57

Idea

10.4

Consumer Durables

TataDocomo

Food Chains

25.77

Airtel-India

FMCG

15.94

Telecom

100

Online Portals Publishing

Figure 13: Fan Growth Rate â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Telecom

No. of Fans (28th July 2010) Uninor

3288

Vodafone

7401

Idea

86702

TataDocomo

199014

Airtel-India

160 1

100

10000

1000000

Figure 14: Total Fans

How they match up TATA Docomo that leads the pack has a very well laid out page with links for their services such as buddynet, online recharge, GPRS plans & mysongs. Moreover the page administrator is very active and has replied to almost each and every query or complaint. (Imagine replying to queries of almost 2 lakh people!) Although the other brands (except Airtel) are also doing this, but then compliment goes off to the Docomo guys for effectively managing a fan base of almost 2 lakh. Also brands like Docomo, Idea and Uninor have Facebook buttons or banners on their companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website to promote their Facebook page. The same is missing on the websites of Airtel & Vodafone-India. This we think could be one of the primary reasons for Airtel & Vodafone having less community members on their fan page.

Page 15 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals Moreover, Executive Summary Methodology Key Findings

brands like

Idea,

Docomo &

Uninor have

shared

many

interesting photos of offline contests that are regularly conducted by them. This not only increases a fans attachment with the brand but also increases the fan base as friends of the person in the picture also visit the page to view those photos. No such photos are shared on either Airtel or Vodafoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Media

page.

Consumer Durables

Moreover, presence of interesting apps on the page of Docomo further

Food Chains

pushes up its engagement with its users as can be seen from the graphs.

FMCG

Our verdict: There is no doubt that Tata Docomo is doing a great job.

Telecom

However, we feel that Uninor is also equally leveraging their fan page well.

Online Portals Publishing

Their target market of youth segment could be very well sensed by their wall posts and discussions. We feel as Uninor gradually makes inroads into the Indian telecom market, it would be interesting to note how they tweak their fan engagement.

Page 16 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Key Findings – Online Portals Executive Summary Methodology Key Findings Media

There are two brands in this category that are travel related online services. Both have well maintained fan pages, but when you have a look at the statistics, one brand is far ahead of the other with a growth rate of approximately 148%. It includes a bunch of activities like active wall posts

Consumer Durables

by the administrator and keeping community members busy with puzzles

Food Chains

on site-seeing places, animals, buildings, trekking spots etc. In addition,

FMCG Telecom Online Portals Publishing

there is a separate tab of “Contests & Promotions” on their fan page. Cleartrip too maintains the strategy of Ixigo by keeping members engaged with puzzles, however we noticed that administrator hardly responded to negative customer experiences, which we think could hamper the brand image of Cleartrip in the minds of community members. Similar to that of Ixigo, they too have a tab of “Offers” on their fan page.

The Pagalguy.com Fan page PaGaLGuY has a decently maintained fan page. Some insights from the page: •

All the wall posts are either links for articles on pagalguy.com or news and trivia related to MBA.

•

Photos seem to be the active content on the fan page and administrator

often

runs

contests

these

photos,

which

generates good engagement with community members.

The Indya.com Fan page Indya.com

Star

India’s

internet

initiative

and

fairly

popular

entertainment portal. But a low fan base of 2700 (low considering the scale of Star India’s network) and a low growth rate of 5 % suggests that the page is not being handled efficiently. The main purpose of the page is to share links for articles on the main website or on affiliated websites. Most such posts have received a poor feedback from the fans. Sometimes the admin has tried to be philosophical but has failed to raise user engagement. Fans are very active on this page as they have several queries and postings related to TV shows, actors and future episodes. However the sharing activity has been one-dimensional with lesser focus towards clearing spam and replying to fans.

Page 17 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Fan Growth Rate (%) - Online Portals

Executive Summary Methodology

Indya.com

5.2

Key Findings

Ixigo

Media Consumer Durables

147.9

Pagalguy

17.83

Food Chains

Cleartrip

FMCG Telecom

1.64 1

Online Portals

100

1000

Publishing Figure 15: Fan Growth Rate – Online Portals

No. of Fans (28th July 2010) Indya.com

2754

Ixigo

6878

Pagalguy

3760

Cleartrip

2714 1

100

1000

10000

Figure 16: Total Fans

Brand

No. of fans each day

No. of posts (30 days)

Posts/day

Interactions/day

2.7

No. of interactions (30 days) 687.0

Indya.com

7.6

80.0

Ixigo

228

295

9.8

6009

200.3

Pagalguy

31.61

0.5

655

21.8

Cleartrip

2.4

1.6

285

9.5

Average

54.1

87.6

2.9

1527.2

50.9

22.9

Table 7: Findings – Online Portals

Page 18 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Key Findings â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Publishing Executive Summary Methodology

These two publishing houses arrive from opposite varied business models, as Penguin India is a commercial publisher while Pratham Books is a non-

Key Findings

profit publishing house.

Media

Both the pages are being primarily used to notify the fans about new book

Consumer Durables

launches, events or seminars. The difference between the two is that, a lot

Food Chains

of spam is being generated on the Penguin India page by budding writers

FMCG

who are trying to promote themselves and their writings.

Telecom

Most of the posts on Pratham Books page are also related to social causes

Online Portals

being carried out and pictures from the same have been shared on a

Publishing

regular basis. Our verdict: We have compared the two fan pages even though there is a mismatch in the scale of operations of the two brands. Despite this fact, Pratham Books fan page has a larger following and a better growth rate in comparison to Penguin India. We feel the major reason for this is a responsive and conversational administrator and alert filtering of spam posts and comments from their page.

Brand

No. of fans each day

No. of posts (30 days)

Posts/day

Interactions/day

0.8

No. of interactions (30 days) 76

Pratham books

3.2

Penguin India

1.55

0.0

0.4

Average

2.4

11.5

0.4

43.5

1.5

2.5

Table 8: Findings â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Publishing Houses

Page 19 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Executive Summary

Fan Growth Rate (%) - Publishing Houses

Methodology Key Findings

Pratham Books

5.67

Media Consumer Durables

Penguin Books- India

3.28

Food Chains FMCG

Telecom Online Portals Publishing

No. of Fans (28th July 2010) Pratham Books

1098

Penguin Books- India

881 1

100

10000

Figure 17: Fan Growth Rate â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Publishing Houses & Total Fans

Page 20 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Conversations with Fan Page Administrators We had also connected with some of the firms and the people who manage these fan-pages. The idea was primarily to understand their experience and learning while managing Facebook fan pages. We had asked a common set of questions: 1] Idea – Behind starting a Facebook fan page 2] Plan – What did you plan to achieve through your fan page when you created it? 3] Assistance – The single biggest thing behind starting a Facebook fan page 4] Change - At any point of point have you ever had to change your strategy for your fan page? Have you gained anything from the change? 5] Competition – Do you review your competitor’s fan pages? How is your fan page different from your competitors? 6] Clients – Business from FB Fan Pages 7] Execution – Outsourced or in-house?

“

”

Gautam John – Pratham Books

Idea: The idea was to build a unique community around reading and our mission of a book in every child's hand. Plan: We had planned on achieving a small but strong community - I think we have fulfilled this. Assistance: Mostly feedback and opportunities that we would have otherwise missed. Strategy Change: Yes - in the early stages we treated it identically to our Twitter community and cross-posted - realized early on that this wasn't working and now curate content specifically for Facebook. Competition Check: Not really. Clients: Yes! Execution: We manage it in house and will continue to do that.

Page 21 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

“

Rohit Awasthi – PaGaLGuY.com

”

Idea & Plan – Despite having a thriving community on our website itself, we felt Facebook was needed for: a)

The feeds, which spread the word very fast and to the right networks.

Providing us better tools to share photos, events and notes.

People are most active on PaGaLGuY when they are in the "MBA aspirant" phase. Once they enter a B School the frequency of their visits to PaGaLGuY reduces. A Facebook page is a nice opportunity for them to stay connected.

Sharing mechanism, which helps us penetrate the individual networks.

Assistance – Sharing. Change - Per se, we never intended to have a strategy. We follow these simple guidelines a)

Do not misuse

Do not spam

Share very important material, links

No gimmicks, contests to gain fans/likes.

Think for the long run and provide quality content.

Competition – No. We prefer to create awesome experiences and products for our users in the time we save in not reviewing our competitors. Clients – Our website provides easy links to people who want to reach us. Since we belong to a niche industry, clients find out the way to reach us directly. Execution – In-house. Concluding Note - FB or twitter, they are at the end of the day platforms, which may or might not exist in years to come. Our basic philosophy is to keep on providing useful products to our community and these form the basis of all our communication.

Page 22 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Conclusion This comprehensive study has further emphasized the fact that the importance of social media usage for marketing & PR purposes is gaining momentum amongst Indian firms. The key learnings are: •

Fan Pages are public: As fan pages are indexed on search engines, any individual is able to view firm’s fan page, through a simple search action. So, an individual need not be a Facebook member, but still could visit firm’s fan page. Facebook.

•

Engagement: A Facebook fan page could be an additional touchpoint between a firm (brand) and its customers. The incremental cost of creating this touch-point is almost negligible compared to other alternative media. Fan page enables firms (brands) to engage with their current and prospective customers. We feel this should be the focus of firms in creating a Facebook fan page

•

Emotional Attachment: An engaging and an active fan page creates an emotional attachment between the brand and the fan.

•

Brand Evangelists: It is not necessary that each and every member of the community would be a present/prospective customer. Instead some members could play the role of a brand evangelist. These members could share their experience with the firm and product with their network members and play a role of brand evangelist.

•

Engagement Tools: Facebook fan page facilitates firms to build varied custom applications. These applications could be simply enlisting the offers and other sales promotions or could also take form of some games, puzzles, etc. that ensure engagement with the community members.

•

Integration with other social media platforms: A firm’s fan page could be integrated with other social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, TripIt, etc. Also, the RSS feed on firm’s website and blog posts on firm’s blog could be integrated with the Facebook posts. However, it doesn’t mean just automation of feeds would bring in engagement. Virtual medium users are very sound these days and could easily make out the source of the feed. Hence, it is essential for firms to bring in a human touch to the feeds and provide community members true engagement

•

Negative comment is not indeed negative for the firm: The fan page administrators should not behave in an offensive / defensive manner on viewing a negative comment. This should be looked upon as an opportunity to improve the shortcomings and create a base for future better customer experience.

Page 23 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals â&#x20AC;˘

Product category - Engagement match: We realized that it is very essential to execute right type of engagement with the customers depending on the product category a firm belongs to. This could be monitored based on criteria like frequency of posts, type of posts, type of apps, etc. A fan page administrator should take a call on whether contests and polls are going to benefit the firm in any respect.

Disclaimer This study is a 100% funded research by Iffort Consulting and is not sponsored or influenced by any brand and/or any third party agency / institution. All the logos and trademarks used in this study are the property of their respective owners. Information provided by Iffort Consulting is general in nature, has been compiled from freely available info on public domain and is meant for noncommercial purposes only. Links used in this report may lead to services or sites not operated by Iffort Consulting. No judgment or warranty is made with respect to such other services or sites and Iffort Consulting takes no responsibility for the same. Iffort Consulting shall accept no liability for any destruction or damage, loss, obligation or responsibility arising from the use or misuse of this report or any information contained on this report. Claims regarding damage caused by the use of any information provided, including any kind of information which is incomplete or incorrect, will therefore be rejected.

Page 24 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

Attribution and Further Information Any references or quotes pertaining to this document should be attributed to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;How are business entities in India using Facebook: Iffort Consulting Study.â&#x20AC;? Any questions or inquiries from the media should be addressed to Director and Co-Founder, Daksh Sharma, at daksh.sharma@iffort.com.

Credits Content Strategy for the Report We thank, Anandan Pillai for his vital inputs and direction on organizing the content and preparing this report. He is a doctoral student (Marketing area) with Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. His research interests involve brand communities on social media, social media strategy and consumer

behavior

virtual

mediums.

can

reached

anandan1982@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Anandan_Pillai.

Technology Partners Special mention goes to our technology partnersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; itemperance consulting. For

information

about

itemperance

consulting,

please

visit

www.itemperance.com or follow them on twitter at @itemperance.

Design Partners Color Code Software http://www.colorcodesoftware.com/

Our Questionnaire Respondents We thank the following teams for providing us vital inputs on their Facebook Fan page initiatives: Pratham Books, Pagalguy.com and Su-Kam Power Systems.

Page 25 of 26

How are business entities in India using Facebook? An in-depth study of 25 brands from 7 industry verticals

About Iffort Consulting is an India based people centric web-strategy & social media consulting firm that plans, creates and executes a thorough roadmap to deliver tangible value for its clients. Our ranges of services include full-spectrum web-strategy & social media consulting. For further information visit us at www.iffort.com E-Mail: contact@iffort.com Phone: 0120.4221295 | 0120.4355730 Facebook: facebook.com/iffort Twitter: twitter.com/iffort

Page 26 of 26