Title of Paper

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: CURRENT SCENARIO OF INDIAN MARKET

Authors
P.A ANAWADE 1, PROF. DR. SHILPA K. BENDALE 2
1.

Research Scholar North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon, &

Assistant Professor, Department of Business Administration, College of Engineering &

Technology, Bambhori, Jalgaon-425001, Maharashtra.
email Id: anawade.pankaj@gmail.com
Contact: 8421757575
2. Professor & Head, Department of Management, KCEs College of Engineering &
Technology, Bambhori, Jalgaon-425001, Maharashtra.
email Id: skbendale@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT:
Social media is now a trend in marketing. Many of the busness requires the ease of the media to
connect directly to the customer. Social media creates the opportunity which helps to reduce the
chain of middleman and connects manufacturers directly with the ultimate customers. Similarly
trust and the goodwill is the key factors of the social media marketing. It creates the huge impact
to bridge the gap between the customers and the producer. Now a days Social media marketing
and the businesses become more refined. Because individuals cant afford to have no presence on
the social channels if the competitor is making waves with its products and services.
Worlds manufacturing companies is looking social media marketing as a potential marketing
platform and utilized them with innovations to influence their advertising campaign with social
media marketing. This paper discusses about the social media and impact of social media
marketing in FMCG marketing.

Keywords:
Social Media, role, policies of social media marketing, strategies, Benefits

Introduction:
Social media is now a days a big issue and a recent trend in marketing. It gives an opportunity to
many businesses and industry for growth and to stand in to the fast moving market.
This is the basic reason that many business in the world which are having large turn over to the
small scale business like retailers are taking the help of social media to explore their products
range and varieties for the customers.
Many huge industries like Intel, LG, SONY, REBOCK shoes HUL, NESTLE etc and small scale
like Indian local brands are taking the interest in social media marketing. Global companies have
recognized companies are using Social Media as a potential marketing platform and looks them
with innovations to improve advertising campaign with social media marketing. They force to
engage their audience through online networks o that the need is being highlighted and customer
at least decides to purchase the product in future. Trust and goodwill creates the healthy relations
between the customer and the company which encourages fool proof communication and
accountability among sellers as well as consumers.

About Social Media:

According to Wikipedia, Social media is online content created by people using highly
accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in
how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology
and technology, transforming monologues (one too many) into dialogues (many to many) and is
the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers.
Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online
world to form relationships for personal, political and business use.
Social media is nothing but the networking between company and consumer which further puts
trust among both parties and other communities involved. Any website which allows user to
share their content, opinions, views and encourages interaction and community building can be
classified as a social media. Now a days there are so many popular social media sites like
Facebook, YouTube, My space, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, OLX, Scribd, Quickr, Flickr etc.
Media generally refers to advertising and the communication of ideas or information through
publications/channels. Social implies the interaction of individuals within a group or community.
Taken together, social media simply refers to communication/publication platforms which are
generated and sustained by the interpersonal interaction of individuals through the specific
medium or tool. Wikipedia has a general definition of the term: Social Media is the
democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into content
publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in
conversations between authors, people, and peers.

Why Social media Marketing?

Social media is popular

First and foremost customer dont need to be a dedicated reader of tech blogs or an expert in
online marketing to know that social media is really popular among consumers. With over 1
billion people on Facebook, 200 million people on Twitter, and 200 million more on LinkedIn
social media will touch nearly every customer that walks through your door

Social media sites are free

Theres no catchgetting started on social media is completely free. Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest, and LinkedIn all offer free accounts to users and businesses and signing up wont
require anything more than an email address.
Social media reaches all ages and demographics
Social media has really broken down all of the age barriers that once accompanied the ways
people thought about social media.
Social media encourages two-way communication.
There is no marketing tool available to small businesses today, that provides the type of two-way
communication that comes with using social media. It has the power to take any of the feedback
you may receive from using a tool like email marketing and supercharge it letting customers
share their thoughts, questions, and ideas quickly and publicly without having to take the time to
write an entire email.
Social media is perfect for customer service
Providing stellar customer service is likely already a top priority for your small business. But
along with the two-way communication that social media provides, it also offers a unique
opportunity to step up your customer service game and provide instant gratification to your target
audience.
Social media lets you share a lot about the business
Social media sites are becoming the go-to place for consumers who want to learn more about a
business. Thats because these sites allow businesses to offer the most up-to-date information
about anything from products, services, or upcoming events.
Social media is everywhere.
Today, more than half of all Americans are smart phone users and more and more businesses are
offering mobile-friendly experiences. The benefit of the increased presence of mobile activity in
our daily lives is huge for small businesses. Every major social network (Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.) offer free mobile apps that let business owner manage their presence
on-the-go.

Social media strategy

Its important to have a new media strategy attached to your new media tacticsor youll find
yourself running around in circles and left with a sense that all this online networking stuff is a
big fat waste of time.
Here are some worthy marketing objectives where new media tactics can excel:

Do you want to spread your content and expertise to new audiences?

Do you want to network with like-minded individuals and companies?

Do you want to build a community of evangelists?

Do you want to involve your customers and prospects in co-creation?

Do you want to automate the process of repurposing content?

Do you want to reach new audiences in the exact way they choose to communicate?

Do you want to be seen as a thought leader in your industry?

Do you want ways to aggregate and filter content so you and your people can digest
it?

Do you want to easily hear literally everything thats being said online about your
brand, products, or industry in real time?

Do you want to be seen as a trusted source of information?

Development of Social Media Strategy:

Just like every startup should have some form of a business plan, every company embarking into
the world of social media should have some form of a social media strategy. While the tools used
to achieve results on social media are important, they are merely objects in a toolkit. Ultimately,
tricks and hacks for various social media tools are merely tactics to achieve a strategy; thats why
we start with the strategy and then dive into the tools.
The framework for developing a social media strategy consists of three potential functions:
public relations and marketing, sales, and customer services.

Public Relation
& Marketing

Customer
Service

Sales

Social media can be used to further goals within just one of these three functions, two these
functions, or a company could use social media to satisfy the needs of all three of these
functions. These three functions feed each other in a cycle, and companies can create a fairly
comprehensive social media strategy by taking each into consideration.
Scenario of use of Social Media Marketing in India:
Around 46% of web users looks towards social media when making a purchase. More and more
peoples are checking online for product and brand reviews. Following table gives an idea about
Social media adoption of top brands
Social Media

Adoption in %

Facebook

99%

Tweeter

97%

Google+

70%

Instagram

59%

Pinterest

69%

According to the online competitive intelligence service Compete.com, social media

growth continues to skyrocket.

The top three social networksFacebook, Twitter, and LinkedIncollectively received

more than 2.5 billion visits in the month of September 2009 alone.

Twitter grew by more than 600% in 2009, while Facebook grew by 210% and LinkedIn
by 85%.

The most recent count of blogs being indexed by Technorati currently stands at 133
million.

The online photo sharing site Flickr now hosts more than 3.6 billion user images.

Some worthwhile Statistics to look at:

60% of the social networking traffic come from Non Metro-Cities but the highest traffic
generating city still remains to be a Metro i.e. Mumbai

The highest number of active users are from the 15-24 age group but LinkedIn has a
different age group of active users i.e. 25-34 age-group

The male-female ratio shows consistency with the overall population break-up by gender
i.e. 80:20 in favor of males.

Social media in India reaches out to 60 per cent of the online Indian audience

Facebook and Orkut, together cater to about 90 per cent of the users in the social media
space.

Facebook is the only social network in India that has witnessed a tremendous growth,
almost doubling its users in the last 6 months.

Highest number of active social media audience in India are in the age group of 15-24
and are graduates who are looking for a Job or planning further studies

The maximum users come from the less than 2 lakhs p.a. income category. This is
because social networks are primarily driven by the youth

More than 45% of the users on Social Networks return during the day. Facebook tops the
list with users re-visiting more than 3 times during a day

Majority of the time spent by the Indian audience on Facebook is on Interactive

Games/Applications and then on viewing Photos

Hierarchy of Social Media Marketing:

Most small-business owners should look at the following progression or hierarchy as they move
deeper into social-marketing tactics. So, jump in, but do it in this order and dont move on until
you have the basics of each stage down and working for you.

1. Blogging: The foundation of the pyramid.

Read blogs, comment on
blogs, and then blog. This is the
doorway to all other social marketing.
2. RSS: Aggregate and filter content
around subjects and use RSS technology
as a tool to help you repurpose,
republish, and create content.
3. Social Search: This is often ignored in
this discussion, but I think its become very important for small-business owners. You can
participate and should stimulate and manage your reputation here.
4. Social Bookmarking: Tagging content to and participating in social bookmarking
communities can be a great way to open up more channels to your business as well as generate
extra search traffic. But it takes work.
5. Social Networks: Branching out to take advantage of the numbers of potential prospects that
you might find in sites such as Facebook or MySpace will frustrate, at least as a business tool, if
you dont have many of the above needs met. These networks take time to understand and thrive
on ideas and content. Youve got to have much to share if you wish to build a business case.
6. Micro: Platforms such as Twitter, Thwirl, Plurk, and Friend Feed have become a very
important part of the social media mix as they allow for quick tracking, joining, and engagement.
However, they still reside at the top of the pyramid because without content, such as that created
on a blog, the engagement on Twitter may not go very deep.

Conclusion:
It is almost worthwhile for all the levels of business to get the use of social media for marketing.
Because as we have the statistical background which suggest that around 50% population is in
regular use and search of the internet and websites. Also customers are now a days dont want to
waste their time in market shopping because of many problems like time schedule, late night
work, overtime, traffic in the market as well as on road etc. hence they prefer online shoping
which is now a days very popular and cost saving also.

References:

Social Media Marketing- a free & essential Ebook- SEOP, INC

Why Social Media Marketing? 10 ways social media can help grow your businessConstant Contact Inc.

LETS Talk-Social Media for small Business by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing

Wikipedia

http://www.go-gulf.ae/blog/businesses-social-media/

http://blog.digitalinsights.in/social-media-facts-and-statistics-2013/0560387.html

http://www.watconsult.com/2011/01/social-media-in-india-statistics-and-insights/