Tuesday, November 30, 2010

FaceBook Marketing in India for the Starters

The first thing that comes to our minds (agencies) when we plan a face book marketing campaign is numbers/figures… let us look at a few of them below:

Figure number 1. Total number of face book users
Figure number 2. How many can I get as fans or likes?
Figure number 3. How many will contribute?
Figure number 4. How many resources will I have to dedicate to moderate the content on my fan page or wall?
Figure number 5. How much content do I need to put in as a brand to make my page be used by / engaged with by the user?

With all these numbers in mind I think the starting point is often completely missed.
The user… (ME and YOU)
I believe the best in class fan pages are those that have the following three C’s in place
  1. Content
  2. Care or let me say Careful
  3. Character
Let me explain

Content: Your product features are important but what is more important to the social media audience are the following pieces of content:
  1. What is in it for me?: Usage, brand value, celebrity quotient, usage benefits etc
  2. What difference does it make to me?: Will I be liked by my peers by being associated with the product or will I be considered different or cool?
  3. “Visual Pleasure” is also another important factor in the content piece.We all like good things in life.
Anecdote: I am what I am at home but want to be perceived as an improved / enhanced version of the same on the social media side.

Care: “I hate you !!” is a strong statement to be made in a social networking environment as it carries a lot of weight both for the person who says it and to whom it is said. Following things have to be taken care of while marketing on a social platform:
  1. Social marketing will allow people a platform to rate / inform / ridicule / engage with you as a brand or product. So beware and watch out!
  2. What matters is user engagement directly with the product or brand to ensure direct feedback! And we all know that not all feedback would be good, so you have to ensure that negative feedback is handled with utmost care from the perspectives of both the brand and the commenter.
  3. How much moderation? This is useful as long as you keep the focus of your moderation within permissible limits (lewd / demeaning / sexual comments are a complete no no). Every feedback should be responded to promptly and if possible with a thank you or a corrective recourse.
  4. Free for all: I don’t want my comments to be edited/modified as long as what I am saying is not indecent or demeaning towards the brand or its values.
The reasons for this could be as follows if we look at it from the perspective of the user’s psychology:
  1. I share because I care …
  2. Freedom of speech in India. (“mera janam sidh adhikar hai”) i.e. My birth right
  3. “Teri shirt meri se safed kaise?”. i.e. Self Ego
  4. I will have the last laugh or word
Character : or the Characteristics of a Social Marketing Campaign: From my perspective as a user a Social Marketing Campaign MUST have the following characteristics:
  1. Lively: the fuel that keeps the fire running. The fuel for any successful social gathering is a cumulative focus of the group towards one idea or objective and that only happens when the person at the sound box keeps the audience focused on that goal. In an Internet gathering (social media) I believe the same rule applies.
  2. EQ or Emotional Quotient: This is what drives the audience to achieve the desired objective for a social media campaign, ensuring the character of the social media campaign affects the audience on an emotional playground.
  3. Together we can move the world: Common goals are important and the shorter they are, the better.
  4. Some more characteristics that need to be in line with the brand communication: Smart/ Intelligent / Forthcoming / Problem solving also need to be highlighted as a part of the social media activity w.r.t to the following .
  • Landing page
  • Banner communication
  • Content gathering
  • Response to users
Anecdote: Emotions are not always sad .. There are a whole lot of them like fun / happy / excited / love etc… you just have the explore them.

Numbers … Numbers… Numbers...
Coming back to numbers: 90:9:1 Social Behaviors Rule

90% Lookers (maybe fans)
9 % Contributors ( one contribution every two-three days)
1 % Serious Contributors (one contribution a day)

If the above rule has to be followed in the Indian context, then a matrix for a successful campaign would look like this.

100,000 fans
9,000 Contributors
900 serious contributors

This I believe is completely wrong in the Indian perspective. One also needs to understand that as a country we are mass followers and with very high free user density.

I believe a brand in India would aspire to see the following.

100,000 fans
4500 contributors
450 serious contributors.

In the light of the above data analysis a serious campaign for a year on the social media side would involve monies in the range of 8-10 Million INR . Here is the breakup.
  1. Setup Cost of fan page : INR 100,000 or less
  2. Any application development on the fan page : INR 100,000- 500,000 or less[a lot depends on the creative input.
  3. Content editor (per month ) : INR 25,000
  4. Moderator (per month) : INR 25,000
  5. Original Content gathering and user engagement (per engagement executive ): INR 15,000
And then there are the usual media costs

User aggregations is available on the following models in India

Most popular:
  1. Cost per Fan: INR 20- INR 30 depending on target audience for the product or Brand
  2. Cost per visitor or Cost per Click with in facebook: Between INR 5-12 depending upon audience preferences
  3. Cost per visitor or Cost per Click from Google Content network: Between INR 4-8 depending upon genre of keywords being targeted
Other Options.
  1. Cost per visitor or Cost per Click from Google Search: Between INR 5-25 depending upon search terms being targeted
  2. On the display side on large Indian portals the price on CPM basis varies from INR 20-INR 450 so this would depend on the media planner and the targeting he is able to bring to the campaign.
  3. Viral Based on contest: Media 1,000,000/-, contest giveaways 200,000/-
In all face book is a great medium. But how you use it keeping in mind your next campaign is most important.

Note : cost indicated above are indicative and not a defacto but the headers are important.