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Since joining Ernst & Young India to help establish the digital advisory stream, one of the projects we have been involved in was a study on how some of the biggest and most popular brands in India are conducting their social media initiatives. While as industry watchers and digital professionals, we had a lot of insights on social media users and usage, we wanted to get a collective feedback from organisations on their social media objectives, tactics, who all uses social media in organisations, measurement and the agency scenario.

While the study has taken bit more time than we initially anticipated, the results we got now are interesting. The study provides answers to some pertinent questions around social media marketing among social media-savvy organizations in India. We also added our perspectives and findings from E&Y thought leadership papers and secondary research to provide depth.

As you go through the study, you will realise that while answering some of the key questions, the study also highlights opportunities as well as areas where organisations need to work on. It sort of attempts to set a benchmark in the industry and will help organisations that want to leverage social media better. For social media savvy organisations, it also prompts a look inside to see where they stand and how they can go forward.

We just published the first edition of ‘Social Media Marketing – India Trends Study 2013’. These are the top findings. A detailed version of the study is available here at the E&Y website.

Why social media:

1. Most social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build communities

95.7% of the surveyed social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build communities and advocate usage while 76.1% use social media as a platform to highlight brand news. Around 16% of organizations, which use social media for both the above reasons also use it for customer service, lead generation, and research indicating high social maturity and moving toward getting business meanings out of engagements.

Which social media platform:

2. Facebook most important platform for marketers in India for engaging customers, followed by Twitter, YouTube and blogging

Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations are already using emerging platforms such as Pinterest, Google Plus, and Foursquare. More than half of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed regularly engage with bloggers or online influencers who have authority and strong following.

How does social media fit in with other marketing/communications campaigns:

3. Social media-savvy organizations in India have conducted campaigns where social media is the leading component

Social media-savvy organizations in India speed up processes or show special favor for online fans

Social media formed a leading component of campaigns of 87.5% of the respondents. More than half of the surveyed organizations have speeded up processes or have shown a special favour for their online fans and followers that they wouldn’t normally do for their offline customers.

How do organizations engage with their social communities:

4. Popular practices
a. Type of content: A majority of social media savvy organizations prefer to post generic updates instead of brand updates.
b. Frequency of updates and responses: Social media-savvy organizations posts multiple updates a day
Majority of social media-savvy organizations respond to fan queries within 30 to 60 minutes on Twitter and within 30 minutes to a few hours on Facebook.
c. Contests/promotions: Picture contests are the most popular contests among social media-savvy organizations in India — most contests are organized monthly.
d. Policies: Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India surveyed have social media guidelines for better governance and online monitoring programs to listen to conversations; however, less than half have crisis manuals.
e. Tools used: Many social media-savvy organizations in India use tools for online monitoring, response management, or managing social media platforms.
f. Social media for research: Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations in India have conducted research using social media tools to get customer feedback and understand more about customer behavior.
g. Mobile: Half of the social media-savvy organizations in India have created mobile phone apps and one-fourth plans to create one.

How do organizations use social media ads:

5. Majority of social media-savvy organizations use social media ads to promote online campaigns and brand awareness, and find them beneficial

83% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that they have used social media ads, with majority of the ads being used to promote a contest/promotion or for brand awareness. 88.6% said they find social media ads to be beneficial in achieving those objectives.

How do you measure social media success?

6. Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India measure social media efforts through platform-specific parameters

81% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that they measure their social media efforts through platform-specific parameters such as likes, people talking about this, etc. 46.7% of the organizations surveyed said they have not measured revenue from their social media efforts. On the positive side, some organizations are already measuring social media efforts through leads, sentiment, brand visibility and have seen increase in revenue from social media efforts.

Social media budget:

7. Almost half of social media-savvy organizations spend 1%–5% of their marketing budget on social media, most social media budgets are below INR10 million

41.5% of social media-savvy organizations said that around 1%–5% of their marketing budget in spent on social media. Three-fourths of the organizations surveyed have their social media budget below INR10 million, while a little above a quarter of the organizations surveyed have social media budgets exceeding INR 20 million.

Which department manages social media:

8. Majority of social media efforts in India are managed by marketing teams

76.7% of social media-savvy organizations said they have their marketing department handling social media with the rest being handled by a cross functional team/across functions or by the PR/communications team. Other than marketing, 34.6% said they use social media for thought leadership and 26.9% said they use social media for CSR. A majority (70.2%) said they have an in house social media expert in middle management.

Agency structure:

9. Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India use standalone digital agencies as compared to PR or ad agencies

73.8% of surveyed social media-savvy organizations have chosen standalone digital agencies as compared to PR, ad agencies, or freelancers. 59.1% of the organizations surveyed also said that they are happy with their current agencies while 40.9% responded with either a ”maybe” or a ”no.”

10. Future of social media:

Social media-savvy organizations in India are very optimistic about the future

Social media-savvy organizations are very optimistic about the role of social media in their organizations. Though measures such as sales and leads are not very evident for all organizations, they have realized that it plays an important role in generating insights and engaging with customers on a continued basis. Social media has helped organizations to create their own communities of fans, customers or prospects. In the future, organizations hope to focus more on social media and are looking forward greater adoption within their organizations.

I recently volunteered myself to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting’s Digital Volunteer Programme. According to the Ministry’s blog, the programme is aimed at creating volunteers to help spread the government’s schemes and programmes on their social networks.

While the intention is good, the programme runs a high risk of being perceived a free-publicity seeking programme and a state run network of people who will retweet anything and everything mindlessly in the name of volunteerism. In course of time, these volunteers’ tweets and updates will be seen with an amount of skepticism that is present when any brand manager, PR professional, an agency person, and a paid media outlet update or tweet about their brands or clients. In that process, the credibility of these people will be lost and the programme might end up into the bin. Finally, social media engagement will be seen as a failure and this will have its implications on the  government’s overall adoption of the medium.

As a volunteer and a digital professional, I’m concerned about this. How do we ensure that this does not happen?

This is not the first time organisations are reaching out to active social media users, prosumers, efluencers, early adopters, bloggers or called them what you like. Microsoft created the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional programme to acknowledge experts who share their passion and expertise of a Microsoft product. The programme has awarded many influencers and bloggers worldwide and in India too. It is considered good to have an MVP badge adorning your blog. Intel initiated the Intel Insiders programme in 2008 through which the organisation recruited influencers to form their social media advisory board. These two organisations were clients in my previous organisations and I have been lucky to be able to look closely at these programmes.

There are three suggestions I would like to make to ensure that the programme is successful. I’m not suggesting that the team managing the programme is not doing any of these, but since the programme just started, now is the best time to give all the feedback.

1. Respect the independence of volunteers: There is a certain line that comes out when I read about this programme in media stories i.e. volunteers will help assist in disseminating government initiatives and plans on the net. We need to remember that volunteers merely agreed to help spread word on matters of mass/national interest using their social networks. They may agree to the government’s initiatives or not. They may congratulate the government or even criticise it. They will add their opinions and make an interesting discussion. However, in no way, a sane volunteer will agree to become a Twitter bot to retweet whatever the @MIB_India tweets. The managers of the programme need to respect people’s independence and adhere to global guidelines such as the WOMMA code of ethics. Thankfully, the Ministry’s blog say ‘you can talk about government’s initiative’, so I presume that they know what I have just written on this matter.

1. Give them good ammunition: The media love exclusives. Every time a news channel broadcasts a news story before other news channels can get their hands on the news, they put in the word ‘exclusive’ in big bold fonts on the screen. Bloggers too love getting exclusive information. You would hardly see any blogger getting really excited about receiving a news release from an organisation. However, if they can fiddle around a new product themselves and discover something interesting that others might not have noticed, that’s a big kick. Volunteers need to be given exclusive information. It is not exciting to have a press conference, a news release, the Ministry’s social media channels repeating that same announcement, and finally asking volunteers to help spread the word. While there cannot be exclusives all the time, occasionally you need to give your volunteers information that nobody else knows. That way, there is some value in becoming a volunteer. Smart organisations sometimes even reveal their announcements on Twitter and Facebook first and see the news spreading to the mainstream media from the social media channels. They even give their volunteers access to senior management, facilities, and provide exclusive experiences.

1. Proactively build the community: Microsoft and Intel have organised a whole lot of events for their volunteers. A number of proactive activities are planned and taken throughout the year. That way, the community flame remains bright and the volunteers know that it is a live programme. There is nothing exciting about a dead community, whether online or offline. A dead community attracts spammers and makes members indifferent, but an active community encourage more advocacy and instil a feeling of belongingness and pride.  Only people then will tweet for Bharat Nirman and be a proud voluntweeter.

My best wishes to the team. Let’s hope this works out for social good.

Once upon a time before Facebook, there used to be contests by brands on newspapers or magazines, like ‘I love XYZ because____________’. You have to complete the slogan in 5 words and could win a prize. Other contests will include a question something like ‘Taj Mahal is in A) India b) Nepal, or c) Australia’. How many of us have participated in these contests? I haven’t at least. But guess there were many participants and these used to be favourite of marketers.

Now during this age of Facebook, those contests have their 2.0 versions. Upload a photo of yours and get likes. Tell us why you think you want to go to XYZ and win prizes. There will always be takers for such contests but I personally wont want to participate. Probably I think they are silly. None of my colleagues or friends, at least in the the working class, would participate. But still today you will see so many contests like this on many Facebook pages of brands. Even if the brands are for people in college, let’s say, I wonder if they don’t want more exciting contest than ‘uploading their pictures’?

So it was refreshing to see Flipkart’s a little different puzzle on its Facebook page called the ‘Six Degrees of Connection‘. As a digital marketer, the thumb rule was to always make easy questions to get many participation. Now here is the complete opposite. I don’t know how many people participate on this difficult puzzle but Karthik said the contest have grown well. Well if they want to engage their fans with meaning, maybe this will do the trick. I won’t mind myself seeing participating in this type of contest as there is some ‘challenge’ and some’ intelligence’ in it. What I think about Flipkart’s contest is though instead of vouchers, they should give some acknowledgement, online or offline, or souvenirs. Participants might want to show that off the souvenirs to their friends more than trying to win Rs.500 vouchers.

Months back, a movie blogger colleague, Shrey mentioned about a movie quiz of Flixter where they asked difficult movie questions. He said you really have to know a big deal and remember scenes from movies to answer those quiz questions fast. Sample this: In the movie “The parent trap” where did the two twins meet?

Saw any intelligent contests on Facebook that you want to share?

Similar to uninteresting and unintelligent contests, one type of engagement I think is in danger of losing steam is the cause related campaigns. Every brand is trying to gain a ‘like’ or ‘a share’ by caring for the environment or some other cause that I don’t know how much value these campaigns still hold. Unless it is very strong and genuine, like the Earth Hour, most of us are not going to be easily convinced.

Having put my 3 year old to nursery (she will be 3 & half by the time the classes start in April next year) and having gone through some research work and running around, I can share some insights/ tips that other parents might probably find useful:

1. Start planning when your child is 2 & half years: Start your nursery admission planning when your child is 2 &half years old. When you put her in a pre-nursery then, remember that some schools (eg. Mother’s International, Delhi and Step by Step Noida don’t take nursery admissions, at least this year). So if you want your child to be in a particular school, better you admit her in pre-nursery so that you don’t face rejection next year.

2. Refer to the top schools list to get a view of the good schools: Hindustan Times comes out with an annual top schools list. You can refer to this year’s stories below. You can refer to these to get your short-listed schools. However, remember you might not always want your child to be admitted to the top school always. There are various reasons like being far from your house, not liking the school’s culture or their way of teaching, the fee is too costly, your child’s age,  some facilities are not there, you like another school better, etc. etc. So one of the school in the list further down might actually be better off for your child. (In my opinion, this ranking of school is not a good idea. Like last year, we can have a list of schools without ranks. What are 3 year old children supposed to think or say, ’something like – my school is No. 1 and yours is No. 2′, just because one school is not at his/her locality? It gives unnecessary stress to parents when their kids just wants to learn A,B,C. It is sort of putting our kids on to the rat race when they should be enjoying and learning).

3. Remember age range are different for different schools: Various schools have different age criteria. And they are indeed funny. Your child might be eligible in one school and yet missed out in another school by a few days. For example, DPS Noida starts 2013 nursery admission for kids who were born on or after Oct 2, 2009. My kid was born on Oct 1, 2009. She is about the same age as everyone in that nursery class or in any nursery class, yet she was not eligible.

4. Prepare for the parents’ Q&A: Prepare yourself some nice questions and answers. You don’t need to prepare two dozens of them but few good ones that you can twist and answer every question will do. You will be asked these questions when you meet the school principal or in the admission form. Amity International Noida called up all the parents one Saturday morning and gave them around 10 -15 questions to fill up in half an hour. They are probably going to check the answers before they announce the short-list candidates. Some of the top questions are a) why do you think your child is unique? b) what kind of role will you play in his/her upbringing? c) what do you expect the school to provide to the child, d) what qualities would you like in your child, e) what if your child is not good in studies, etc.

5. Give your child some indication of what is going to happen: In your city, interviewing the child might not be allowed, but in others often the school teachers will give the child some toys and observe how he/she is doing with those toys. They might ask simple questions like what is the colour, what is the shape, etc. Probably if your kid has gone through a pre-nursery school, he/she would be familiar with these games. However it is good to just let him/ know the night before that ‘maam’ will ask some questions and he/she can answer like that.

6. Get ‘yourself’ smarten up too by dressing smartly for the interview: Probably I have spent too much time in client servicing and consulting, but I thought it was the least I could do when I’m meeting my child’s teacher for the first time and that meeting might probably decide whether she gets admitted or not. I saw some parents turning up looking like they haven’t washed their faces after waking up, with loose t shirts and chappals, and I was like ‘C’mon, your child deserves better’.

7. Try online: You can submit admission forms in many schools online. When you start admission hunting in starting September, visit the schools’ websites. That’s the obvious thing. But don’t rely completely on them too. Pick up the phones and call the schools. Watch out for the ads in the newspapers, which is often a small insert. Often forums like SchoolAdmissions.in can give you updates on email.

8. Chill: It is not as difficult as it is made out to be. Every child is bound to get admission somewhere or the other. What else are we supposed to do to get our kids admitted!!

Check out:

1. Top schools in Noida PDF
2.Top schools in Gurgaon PDF
3. Top schools in Faridabad PDF
4. Top schools in Ghaziabad PDF
5. Top schools in south west Delhi PDF
6. Top schools in south east Delhi PDF
7. Top schools in east Delhi PDF
8. Top schools of central Delhi PDF
9. Top schools of north Delhi PDF
10. Top schools in west Delhi PDF
11. Top international schools in Delhi and NCR PDF
12. Top schools in Delhi and NCR PDF, Parameter wise ranking PDF
13. Top schools in Mumbai PDF

Here is a quick link to my guest post at Lighthouse Insights where I wrote about 5 observations in the social media scene in India today – across social networking sites, the blogosphere, online forums, mobile, and social media marketing. Prasant Naidu wanted to include a quote in a story he was doing but eventually it ended up as a guest post too.

The recent incident in which Samsung asked its guest bloggers to wear their uniform or be sent back home is appalling. It shows how some people think they can buy influencers with tickets and free passes. In the course of my PR and digital marketing career, I have dealt with dozens of media persons, bloggers, and influencers. In every instance of engagement, we have always strived to treat them as our guests. We try to remember that they are doing us a favour not the other way round.

Expecting influencers to become your brand ambassadors is a threat to their credibility and in the long term does no benefit to either the bloggers or your organisation. We need to acknowledge the fact that the influencers are what they are because of their independence.

I have mentioned before that digital engagement teams need to adhere to WOMMA ethics. ArHowever, here the case is not just about not adhering to these ethics. It is also about being plain rude and having a lack of common sense, if those emails and phone calls actually happened. And knowing fully well that there is no copy desk editor and bloggers can tweet, write, post whatever they want.

Even the WOMMA guidelines are just common sense. The key guidelines say that we must disclose our identities and any payment being done. Also, to add to this, we can ask a blogger to review our product but cant dictate what is being written.

All the more reason for organisations to have strong digital managers and agencies who can stand up for what is right and wrong and not yield to pressure from above.

Maybe if the briefing document and invitation have been clearer, or if discussions were held prior with expectations agreed, it could have saved this mess.

We have interesting times in the auto sector. While there have been recent talks about slowdown, diesel tax issues, and cars not selling enough – either petrol or diesel; SIAM has also projected 9-11% growth of the industry. There are many car launches slated to happen this year that will make many car enthusiasts happy. Amidst all these, car manufacturers in India continue to focus on their social media initiatives to keep the engagement with customers and prospects high. It is encouraging to see Tata Nano opening up a merchandise store on ebay the other day. Global airlines have done it before to showcase their deals and it can be a good way to engage with customers. Car owners (at least some of the people I know and myself included) are always looking for some special deals or souvenirs of the car brands they owned or love. We have seen how strong and engaging are the car brand communities on Facebook. I won’t be surprised if Tata Nano and others start introducing more accessories with more online retailers. It is not as if the car owners are going to boost their revenues through this, but is a fun way of reaching out and providing value to customers. These matter when every player is out there doing the same thing in the social media space.

The auto sector is probably one of the top users of social media in India besides companies in other sectors like technology and lifestyle. Three years back, we would see just one or two experimenting online but now most companies are continuously keeping up with their engagements online. In the first Neilson McKinsey Social Media Brand Equity Rankings Index in early 2012, there were six auto companies in the top 20 list of companies with the best social media presence, and in the second report in Q3 2012, there were three. Ford was No. 2 in the first report and Maruti came up to No. 1 from 3 in the second report. Neilson said auto companies enjoy huge following on social media and there are a lot of reviews and multimedia sharing online. The first report saw a lot of car companies as their marketing initiatives peaked during the Diwali/ New Year time.

Obviously a lot of manhours, dedicated teams, and money are being pumped in to have a great online reputation. Why is this important? Are the car makers getting any sales online? More than direct sales, the online medium is used to create a favourable image of oneself – whether it be through creating communities and sharing unique/ interesting content, or addressing consumer complaint and queries. A 2011 Google report said that Indian consumers are ahead of US and Europe in using the Internet to research for car & bikes purchases and many Indian consumers use Internet as the first place to do their research before deciding on the vehicle of choice. So when somebody comes searching for information, the last thing you would want is a a list of negative publicity or unanswered complaints.

So what are our auto companies doing online? From what I have seen, these could be grouped into the following categories:

Social media platforms: Auto companies use social media platforms, particularly, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to build their own communities. Tata Nano, Maruti Ritz, Mahindra Scorpio, and Volkwagen India have some of the biggest fan pages on Facebook and obviously they are putting huge ad spends in building the communities. While the brands might have started these platforms to engage and converse the fans with ‘cool’ stuff, most of these have become customer redressal platforms, sort of a social CRM in other words. Not that there is anything bad in that. As a owner of a car of a particular brand, I wish to join a community where other owners are so that I can occasionally read up on their experience and share mine, and updates keep coming automatically on my news stream and I don’t have to have to go to their website.

Also another key point to note is how the auto players are trying to be innovative in the updates. There is so much you can talk about a car, so you now have to hook your fans interest in other ways viz. safety tips, driving tips, discussions around topical developments. The Maruti page has talked about our Olympic successes multiple times.

It is not just the hatchback and sedan manufacturers that are on Facebook. You wouldn’t have thought BMW might want to target the Facebook community and their clientele plays ‘likes’ and ’shares’, but they recently celebrated their 1 million fan milestone. In fact globally, BMW, just like Coca Cola, turned a fan created page into its official community.

Hyundai is already on Google Plus and Pinterest. I would love to watch how the company will effectively utilize these platforms in the long run. Talking about additional platforms, Foursquare is one platform that can be used effectively to target all car drivers. They can check into various places at highways, milestones, and other interesting locations throughout the country and keep leaving tips for other drivers, for examples.

Campaigns: Campaigns are integral to social media marketing. They provide the crests in one’s annual engagement calendar and without them fan excitement dims. Campaigns are of two kinds that I have seen of majorly in the auto sector – one that involves real experiences of cars and multiplied online and the other, an online campaign that a fan can just sit at home and participate. The latter one is something you can easily do and get a lot of participation. But they might not necessarily create user experiences of your car, something which is the foundation of social media. I liked the Tata Nano Drive and Ford Discover Smart Drive concepts well as they involve actual drive experiences of fans. The former kind of campaigns I mentioned helps in certain situations say a teaser campaign, a safety campaign, or when you want to make a simple point fast. An example is Maruti’s latest ‘Kitna Deti Hai’ contest. Participants can enter details of which Maruti car they drive, how many kilometers clocked, and average run monthly and the app tells them how many money they have saved. I participated and the app told me i have saved more than Rs. 40,000 by driving a Maruti car. Hard to believe! How? When? But many people would loved it. Maybe it is a simple time pass and something nice that reassures you that you might have probably brought a car with good mileage.

Campaigns can win fans anything from a small merchandise to iPads, cameras, watches, or even a car sometimes. These provide fun for the community and keep them hooked.

What would be really interesting to see is how more and more companies are integrating their online campaigns and contests with other marketing initiatives – TV ads, billboards, posters, road shows? Only when everything is fully integrated, then I think they can make enough people to take notice. When Volkswagen did the ‘Anything for Jetta’ or when Maruti did the ‘Ritz Moments’ campaigns supported by traditional media spends, they were the talk of the town then. Running just an online version might just limit it to Facebook fans and probably those coming though ad clicks.

Online launches: Today you will hardly see any major launch without a live video being streamed on the company’s Facebook page or microsite. Companies also share the video embed codes with bloggers and website owners so that they can share the livestreaming from their own visitors. Particularly thanks to an aggressive local livestreaming company, the trend has caught on and companies today are exploring various options on how to do this in an innovative manner and whether they can go the extra mile in answering questions from their online viewers live from the stage.

Influencer relations: Way back in 2009 – 2010, very few auto companies talk about blogger relations, but look at the scenario now. There are many auto portals, auto blogs, auto forums, and auto sites of mainstream media and each of these auto influencers are being reached out to by the auto companies. Car test drives, programmes specially designed for these influencers, and invitation to events are a common thing today. Why are these influencers so important? Today we are living in a time when less than half of us as consumers trust ads. In a survey by Neilson in April 2012, 92% respondents trust recommendations from people they know and 70% trust information from consumer opinions posted online. And since the content from these influencers have high search visibility, prospective car buyers who are researching online are going to read their content in all probability and get influenced by it. But engagement has its own rules. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association guidelines are the most respected and followed by the best social media practitioners worldwide. You can request an influencer to review you car but cannot ask them to write positive about it, for example, I have spoken to many influencers and realise that they prefer writing for those companies who respect their independence.

Influencers need not just be auto experts. They can be travel, lifestyle, women, and tech bloggers as well. The trend is catching up and you see auto companies engaging with bloggers from all arena.

Online sale: Does all these engagement lead to sales? Probably nothing that one can show as a result yet. Probably we will see a ‘Take a test drive’ form on Facebook. Like many other companies, auto companies too need to balance how they are directing their communication among the prospective buyers and current customers. If you put in too much of a sales promotion content, you are sure to bore the current customers. But while all the companies try to strive balance, social media can be a good source of lead generation. You might see comparison tools in the Chevy Facebook page or Ford promoting its Midnight Sale on Facebook. The idea in these two instances might not be to get a sale from Facebook, but create awareness about their promotion and spread the buzz.

Lastly, it would be interesting to see how the various departments in each auto company are starting to use social media. Social media has to be a way of life within the organization and not just a tool of the marketing department or the communications department. A comprehensive social business planning needs to be in place. The customer service has to be in sync with the marketing and communications to answer fan queries. Support from the leadership team is paramount in insuring good focus on social media initiatives. A good understanding and thought leadership from the top can go a long way to highlight the organisation’s social outlook in the media and right fora. Dealors can play an important role. I once read how Ford in the US played its ‘Fiesta Movement’ videos at their dealors. HR team can start using social media to engage with prospective and current employees and look at how current employers are engaging with customers and prospects.

Disclaimer: I used to lead the Ford India social media account at the agency earlier.

Mary Kom has been a 5 times World Champion already before the Olympics. Yet she was popular among only boxing enthusiasts and people from Manipur perhaps. Everything changed with the 2012 Olympics. She became a favourite of the media and the masses. I was observing the Mary Kom frenzy ever since she won her first fight and went to quarter finals. Perhaps it was that India was a losing spree for the 1-2 days (courtesy archery, hockey) before the boxing matches started and suddenly there was this Indian woman who came out all confident and seemed to won with so much confidence.

On the media front, for the first time, many media persons flown down to Manipur to capture live feed from her family members and home town. It was not just the Indian media but the international media had already done many documentaries on her even before the Olympics.

On the social media front, for the first time, Twitter was abuzz with tweets about her, with more than 20,000 plus tweets peaking during her matches. Overall, we can presume she had more than 50,000 tweets during the Olympics. See below.

Source: Topsy.com

Source: Hashtracking.com

Courtesy Mary Kom, there were multiple trending topics – Mary Kom and Manipur.

Many Facebook pages of brands in India wished her luck. Bollywood and sport celebrities wished her luck. Amul did their latest ad based on her.

The 2012 Olympics is gone and yet today the buzz continues. They are now making a film on her.

Mary Kom finally won what she deserved all along – thousands of fans in admiration, and in their own tweets: #salute #respect

We love  putting a ‘Twitter Trending Topic List’ as a measure of success in an online promotional activity. How does one do it? Simply throw a contest and add some attractive prizes. Soon enough if you get lucky, your contest #hashtag would surely get into the local city or country trend list.

Why do trends matter? Because as soon as you hit the trending topic list, your #hashtag gets exposed to a lot of people who are keeping watch on the trending topic list and visibility increases manifold.

Now here is the problem as I see it. The Twitter trending topic is defined by Twitter as …’topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the hottest emerging topics of discussion on Twitter.’ I often check the trending topic list to see popular conversations happening in the twitter-sphere.

So when someone throws a contest, it might not be necessarily something that becomes popular naturally, but made popular by offering a bait to Twitter users. A popular topic often can be superseded by a commercially led topic. Given the increasing number of brands throwing contests and promotions on Twitter, very soon the trending topic might be full of branded keywords.

Isn’t that actually a danger of the trending topic becoming redundant?

A sponsored hashtag or sponsored tweet is okay as people know they are sponsored. Just that the problem is people today don’t know many trending topics are sort of sponsored.

Of course Twitter contest rules today doesn’t forbid having contests, and so throwing a Twitter contest is the easiest thing to do. Facebook used to be easy like Twitter once upon a time and brands used to throw out questions out in dozens and ask  people to like or comment with their answers. Then Facebook realizes that all these affect the way how it ranks pages and came out with strict guidelines.

Watch out Twitter might just follow suit with more stricter rules soon.

Often I get asked by young colleagues and friends on how do they get themselves upto speed on digital. My simple tweet like answer would always be ‘start a blog’. They think I am probably too lazy to explain or care shit to answer. Truth is when you start a blog…

1.You check out platforms like Tumblr, Blogger and Wordpress, which give you a hang of how these platforms work and what others are doing there.

2.You will pretty soon enough want to have your own domain like www.miketyson.com instead of something www.miketyson201.wordpress.com and so you will search online for domain registrars. You will try to see which one offers you the best or the cheapest. Then when you try to book yourself one domain, buy webspace, set up a MySQL account, do the ftp transfers; believe me there is enough knowledge learnt for a start.

3.Then the whole process of setting up your blog on your new domain. If you are installing Wordpress, you are probably going to read up the whole Wordpress documentation multiple times before you can figure correctly how to do it.

4.Your blog needs to look good, right? Check out templates and themes. You will pretty much realise many themes are broken and you have spoilt your Wordpress setup beyond repair. Try again.

5.Customising the themes you finally decide on…color change, width, something in the theme that you want to change; you now need to learn html. There are good programmes lessons available online if you just search. There, you have become a newbie web designer.

6.Ok you have started writing and want to improve yourself? Start reading blogs like Copyblogger, Problogger, etc.

7.How do you get more traffic? Aha, lots of ebooks on SEO, tools and tips available online. Integrating your Facebook and Twitter with your blog….

8.Plugins…thousands of them…you will probably spend nights without sleep playing with them.

9.You want comments and want to get your blog seen? You start commenting on other blogs and start inviting people to your blog. Connections happens. People start seeing you. You have already started creating your own brand.

Ok so what have you learnt so far, basically many many things. Got the point?