20 ways in which Indian Companies and Startups don’t get Social Media

I remember walking into a swanky office, one of those glass and concrete edifices created to reflect a company’s (alleged) status. I had been called for a chat by one of the deputies of the Sales and Marketing Head. He thought I knew a little bit about an issue he had been trying to wrestle around with and felt some outside insight might make his final presentation to the Sales and Marketing Head, razzle & dazzle.

As we started with small talk, I could see him set up his laptop and projector, to present something to me. Naturally I was filled with (vain) pride that a guy 20 years senior to me, wanted to show the draft presentation of Marketing Strategies of his company and take my view on them.

He said that he wanted me to have a look at the Social Media (SM) section of the Presentation and tell him what I thought about it.

It was, to put it mildly, horrendous. Their strategy was based on bad understanding, old paradigms and a total disconnect with their TMS. As I started rattling out about 10 points a minute of mostly criticism, the Marketing Deputy kept nodding his head with pursed lips and rising impatience.

Slowly I realised that I might have been bruising a rather large and well experienced professional sitting across me and I decided to let it be after the 56^th point or so.

After a couple of minutes of silence the Marketing Deputy said “Thanks for the feedback but I just wanted to know if the ‘Presentation’ looks good. Not the content”.

Luckily, he smiled after that.

I spent the next 3 hours explaining various facets of SM, as I understood them, based on like a million questions that were asked of me. I was later told that the presentation to the Sales and Marketing Head was postponed and a new one was given once the marketing deputy got a handle on SM.

The above anecdote is mostly representative of the state of SM understanding by Indian Companies and Brands. While there are a number of notable exceptions and things are getting better, what troubles me most is that even startups end up being bamboozled by the basics. If I had a dime for every aspiring entrepreneur whose ‘low-cost high-impact’ marketing plan included SM (like it was a band-aid), I would probably be able to fund some of them.

 

Here is a list of 20 ways in which Indian Companies and Startups don’t get Social Media (SM)

Disclaimer: I am not a SM Expert (just like 99% of SM experts). I am just a conscientious objector to stupidity, an upholder of common sense and a keen observer.

1. People Online are different Offline – The moment you understand this, you will start looking to answer the question. How? This is very important because no definitative or exhaustive model of customer behaviour exists for the SM space. At least for India.

2. The Online and Offline are connected – Most of us treat these two realms as separate and mutually exclusive. But that is just not true. What happens online affects the offline environment of a business and vice versa. So one should plan offline events to seamlessly flow online and online events to have offline rewards or results.

3. SM is not a Low/No-Cost Alternative – Yes, its costs way lesser than TV, Radio and Newspaper. But if you go in thinking that this is going to be low cost stuff, then fugged-aboud-it. To make SM work a number of resources have to be put to work and while it may cost lesser, it will take up more of your time to maintain and develop. So go in knowing that you will need a dedicated person, if not a team, to handle SM.

4. SM is NOT equal to Virality – Just because you put it up on Facebook does not mean that a million people will instantly get engaged. Virality is created by amazing content (video, pictures, material, games etc), people who pass this on and some other stuff which we haven’t been able to pin down. Not by the medium. The medium just supports and promotes virality. And with millions of others pushing the same buttons, fantastic stuff no longer makes it viral, it has to be mind-blowing.

5. Content made for Print and TV can’t be CCP’d to SM – CCP (Cut copy paste) worked in college and even in the company you worked for. But with SM, people interact with content in a very different way. More Videos will be opened on FB than using twitter. More news flash info will be shared on twitter than on Facebook. If your TMS is generally Smartphone totting, the proportion of people responding to your tweets will increase as will the number of blog reads.

6. There is NOT only Twitter and Facebook – This one is usually a surprise for most. If you have decided to be active online and are serious about it, then presence on other platforms like youtube, wordpress, linkedin, pinterest, foursquare, flickr, Google+, myspace, tumblr etc is important. While you may not have the ability to be present on all, figure out where your TMS is and be there.

7. Content for all Social Networks can’t be the same – If their formats, purpose and communities are different. So should your content.

8. SM is 24/7/365 – Yup, it never sleeps. If someone posts Happy New Year on your wall on the 30th and you reply back on the 2nd (because your team is too drunk to care) then believe me, you arn’t making him or the others very happy. Pushing content when most people are active makes a lot of sense but having conversations at your convenience (and not theirs) makes no sense.

9. You won’t make a sale anytime soon – It’s like a dinner party or a sponsored event. You are on SM because you want to engage existing customers to be loyal and convert potentials. SM helps you get this done. But the final sale will probably be made by your existing sales process. Unless your SM activities are ingrained into ecommerce.

10. SM is not the same as traditional media, it’s more like a customer service centre – You are there to talk to people and to engage them. Make sure your SM team knows how to do both.

11. No one wants to only talk/know about your company and your products – Big folly by most brands and companies. People don’t follow or like FB pages because you will tell them about every small detail of your product and will inundate them with company happenings. There is Google for that. You customers will appreciate it, if you engage them and let them know about stuff that matters to them, while still staying true to your brand position. Like a kitchen appliances brand talking about food recipes and offering cooking class discounts to followers.

12. SM is a small important part to a 360^o approach to Marketing and Sales – SM is only a part of your S&M activities. Hence each process and activity must flow into the other to ensure that everyone talks the same language, communicates the same message and creates a concerted brand image/position.

13. You HAVE to measure you SM impact – This is a major sticking point, where most SM purists feel that you should not or can not measure the impact of SM and the Traditionalists say that if you can’t measure something, then it doesn’t exist. It’s worth noting that while both are extreme (and hence wrong) views, they also have some truth in them. No one has been able to offer definitative metrics for SM let alone measure it effectively. But just because the system isn’t perfect doesn’t mean that you should not measure its impact. This helps keep your SM goals and teams in line. Oh and please do measure your ROI as a part of your SM impact.

14. SM involves a big element of “Word of Mouth’ – It does. The old offline rules still apply to this one.

15. SM should Engage – Not just Talk – Engaging through conversations, games, quizzes, polls, offers etc makes sure your customers keep coming back for more and hence create greater attachment to your brand/products. Only talking makes them feel nice, but doesn’t stick. Just like when we discovered Yahoo Chat Rooms.

16. Management needs to be as connected to SM as they are to PR – SM has in a way, taken up a PR role, just that it doesn’t speak to the media as much as it speaks to people individually while others listen in. This means that management must understand the ramifications of decisions and information being communicated. Especially since, chances are that if something makes a mark on SM it will become a PR issue soon enough.

17. You Need an SM plan that fits into the overall corporate plan – You need a plan. With goals, objectives and execution plan. This has to be in line with you corporate plan or very soon, your company, brand and SM positioning may be out of line. For SM activities to be effective not only do you need great ideas but you need good timely execution. A defined plan goes a long way in ensuring that.

18. You Need to be good at listening – Till now companies have gotten away with not listening to their customers due to a variety of reasons. On SM you can no longer run or hide. Doing so is just going to blow up in your face. If you don’t listen you can’t create conversations or give relevant feedback. Engagement then, becomes a real issue.

19. Taking your time – Take your time in developing your SM presence. Most people jump in and then enthusiasm or content tapers off. Developing SM presence is a to &  fro activity based on feedback from stakeholders and customers. That doesn’t mean you reveal your FB page with nothing written on it. It means that introducing 100 games on day one without knowing how your customers will behave to them, is probably a bad idea and a waste of resources.

20. Not having the ability to manage a crisis – Now that you are online, do you know how you will deal with a PR crisis? Have you set up a team to defuse the situation? Are there enough people talking between PR and Marketing to make sure that there is a coherent response during a crisis? Even a small crisis, whether online or offline can unravel years of carefully cultivated online presence and brand management.

Saying ‘Bye Bye’ to Customers!

Ever since the first day I stepped into the marketing class of an exceptionally caustic professor, I was told that ‘A Customer is God’. In fact Peter Drucker, The Grand Father of Modern Marketing explicitly states that “The Purpose of a business is to create a customer”. Now that is all good and nice. In fact it’s one of those ideal, lofty ambitions which get lapped up by newbie B-School babas.

To be fair, it makes intrinsic sense to not only increase the number of customers but also revenue per customer, to increase overall revenue and profitability. Once we get to Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) we find it to be just one of those obvious universal truths. If you want to make more money and more profits, sell more to existing customers and create new ones. Basically aim for a bigger piece in the pie of market share. Or better yet, increase the pie.

But just like all ‘Universal Truths’ this one is simple… and yet complicated.

Customers aren’t only those who pick up soaps and toothpaste at the store. They are also those who subscribe to services, become clients and (in a way) are those serviced by social businesses or NGOs.

So our relationship with customers isn’t just based at the moment of transaction. It’s a much longer (and complicated) relationship since products and services have longer lasting benefits and effects than just the moment of transaction.

Sooner or later, your customers will demand more. Which is good since that’s the fuel for great innovation. Unfortunately all customers don’t want the same thing. They all want new features, services, add-ons, discounts etc but since our individual needs are different; our wants from our products/services are different too.

By the classical definition of Peter Drucker, a business should then go ahead and fulfil these demands to get new customers. Sounds a little difficult, if not absurd. Your costs of production, servicing, marketing etc will go through the roof. But the biggest hit will be on the image of your brand and your company. Because now no one knows what you stand for.

You are now Brand Confused. Diluted. Spread Thin. On your way down.

So what can startups do now?

1. Remember the 80/20 rule. 20% of customers lead to 80% of profits and revenues. My advice is to get rid of the last 20%. They are pulling you down.

2.  Take a Stand. Understand the future. Make products/service based on a good understanding of what people want and what they may want. Take a stand and refuse to go in any other direction, unless heavy evidence suggests otherwise.

3. Listen but don’t lose sleep. It takes a certain kind of entrepreneur to listen to criticism and take judgement on what to do and what not to. Sometimes it’s easy to get overwhelmed by a hundred people telling you that they want a hundred different things. But it’s important to take a call on what you feel is right. Just remember, a carriage runs well only when all horses are pointed in the same direction.

4. Your top 10 list. Conventional wisdom states that one should make the top 10 customers by revenue as the top 10 most important people in the world for a company. I think while one should treat them well, it’s essential to talk to those 10 customers (potential or real) who are creating businesses for the future rather than just now. Your chances of creating a better product/service based on your goals increase drastically when you listen to them.

5. Analyze. Create systems and processes that let you analyze the true cost of doing business with your customers. You could be spending great resources on your customers without making much money. Hell, in most cases you could be losing money. Constantly analyze and try to revive unprofitable relationships. But if they are on the way down. Abort.

6. Don’t hesitate to say Bye. There is a certain hesitation in letting go of a source of income. These customers are usually the ones who give you a migraine and don’t pay you so much for it. What this does is that it takes the 2 most important resources of your company and makes them inefficient. Focus and Time. If there is more you can do with these finite non-scalable resources then one must learn to lose such customers.

7. Be Nice. Now that you are ready to make more revenues, profits, products etc after getting rid of dead weight customers, please note. Be nice to them even after they are no longer your customers. Not because you want to stay in their good books, your reputation might get sullied and that shifting executives may lead to major accounts not coming your way. This is all desirable. You do this because they deserve it and you should genuinely be nice to people who have ever done business with you.