Importance of Social Media Marketing For Business has become the number one priority for brands in India for complete customer engagement India, says a study. According to the annual Marketing Monitor study across the Asia-Pacific by a consultancy TNS, marketers & entrepreneurs across the Asia pacific and India ranked social media as the top element guiding their planning process as well as the top metric used to measure performance of campaigns.
Zoë Lawrence, Digital Director, APAC for TNS said: “It’s no secret that social has become an intrinsic part of our daily lives – 94% of connected consumers in India use social networks, switching between Facebook, Google + and Twitter as the top three channels. This mass adoption of social provides marketers with an array of sources when it comes to developing strategies and evaluating the effectiveness of their marketing activity. As the digital ecosystem evolves, we will continue to identify new ways to build insights. However, whatever the metric used, it’s important to ensure marketers are monitoring the indicators that contribute to sales.”
| India |
| Top five metrics informing planning |
| 1. Social media monitoring |
| 2. Brand tracking |
| 3. Market share data |
| 4. What the competition is doing |
| 5. Information from ad agencies |
| Top priority for marketing departments this year |
| 1. Customer relationship management |
| 2. Increasing brand awareness |
| 3. Transforming the marketing organisation in the digital world |
| 4. Identifying and converting new sales opportunities |
| 5. Marketing automation and programmatic |
| How marketers are using social media |
| 50%: Brand communications |
| 43%: Customer service |
| 36%: Sales channel |
| 31%: Providing insights to inform product development |
| 28%: Amplifying other marketing activity |
| 22%: Mining for customer intelligence |
| Social media and e-commerce |
| 51%: using social media advertising |
| 32%: using social media buy buttons |
| What departments are marketers collaborating with? |
| 43%: business development teams |
| 38%: digital team |
| 37%: customer service teams |
| 16%: wider sales team |
| 11%: insights team |
| % using social networks |
| 94% |
| Top three platforms used daily |
| 1. Facebook |
| 2. Google+ |
| 3. Twitter |
The study also highlighted the top priority for marketing departments this year – customer relationship management. The Marketing Monitor findings revealed that marketers’ sphere of activity has now broadened,Importance of Social Media Marketing For Business as they concentrate on how to deliver the best overall customer experience, ahead of the traditional aim of increasing brand awareness.
To achieve this, businesses are using social media across a range of disciplines. For example, half (50%) of marketers are using social media for brand communications, but in addition, (43%) are using it for to provide customer service. Social media appeared to be a big part of ecommerce strategy, with 51% using social media advertising and one in three (32%) using social media buy buttons.
Despite this approach to using social to support a variety of marketing goals, the results showed that businesses are not working as collaboratively as they could be, with only 37% of marketers partnering with customer service teams, 38% working with the digital team and a mere 11% working with the insights department.
According to S. Visvanathan, Managing Director, South India & Sri Lanka and Head of Brand & Communications practice, TNS India, businesses are typically overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data generated. “India’s online environment is developing very fast. As more consumers and customers start connecting to the internet through mobile and start accessing different digital platforms, the amount of data available will explode! It is important that marketers devise effective ways of extracting insight from this data before it is too late.”
Zoë Lawrence said: “With marketers using social for a range of marketing objectives, it is important that they are offering a consistent, coherent experience to the customer. Brands need to strive to break down the siloes in their organisations to ensure that they are realising the potential positive impact that an aligned, well-executed social strategy can deliver.”
