Summer Internship Project Report

On

Understanding Social Habits of Young India

At
OgilvyOne, Gurgaon

In Partial Fulfillment of
PGDM – Batch XXV

Submitted to
Prof. Sunny Arora

By Gul Rukh Siddiqui

Roll No. 251088

FORE School of Management

June 2017
 Declaration by the Student

I, Ms. Gul Rukh Siddiqui, Roll No. 251088, have completed my summer

internship at OgilvyOne Worldwide, 7th Floor, Global Business Park, MG Road,

Gurgaon, Haryana- 122002 and have submitted this project report entitled

“Understanding Social Habits of Young India” towards partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the award of the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (FMG-25)

2016-2018.

This Report is the result of my own work, no part of it has earlier comprised any other

report, monograph, dissertation or book.

Signature:

Gul Rukh Siddiqui

2
 Certificate

This is to certify that Ms. Gul Rukh Siddiqui, Roll No. 251088, has completed

her summer internship at OgilvyOne Worldwide, 7th floor, Global Business Park,

MG Road, Gurgaon, Haryana- 122002 and has submitted this project report entitled

“Understanding Social Habits of Young India” towards partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the award of the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (FMG-25)

2016-2018.

This Report is the result of her own work and to the best of my knowledge, no part

of it has earlier comprised any other report, monograph, dissertation or book.

This project was carried out under my overall supervision.

Date:

Place:

————————————

Prof. Sunny Arora

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 Acknowledgment

“If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.”

I would like to thank OgilvyOne, Gurgaon for giving me the wonderful opportunity to

have been able to apply my theoretical knowledge in the practical domains of my work.

The learnings I received there shall remain forever embedded in my heart.

The success of any project is the result of hard work & endeavor of not one but many

people and this project is no different. I take this as an opportunity to appreciate that it

was an achievement to have succeeded in my final project, which would not have been

possible without the guidance of :

Dr. Sunny Arora - Internal Project Guide and Coordinator

Ms. Namitha Koshy - Associate Vice President, Social Media, OgilvyOne

Mr. Ankit Mathur - Account Director, OgilvyOne

Mr. Nikhil Negi - Account Director, OgilvyOne

Mr. Shubham Shobhit - Account Director, OgilvyOne and Industry Mentor

Finally, I am thankful to the entire Ogilvy team who has given me full support in

collecting the required information and provided continuous help during the project.

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 Table of Contents

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................... 6

Chapter 1 - Introduction ................................................................................................ 7

A) Background ......................................................................................................... 8

B) Relevance ......................................................................................................... 14

C) Literature Review .............................................................................................. 16

D) Objectives ......................................................................................................... 29

Chapter 2 - Methodology ............................................................................................ 32

A) Project Design ................................................................................................... 32

B) Data Collection Methods ................................................................................... 34

C) Sampling ........................................................................................................... 35

Chapter 3 - Results and Discussion .......................................................................... 36

Chapter 4 - Conclusions and Recommendations ..................................................... 45

Chapter 5 - Limitations ............................................................................................... 48

Chapter 6 – Further Scope of Study .......................................................................... 50

Annexure ...................................................................................................................... 52
A) Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 52

B) References ........................................................................................................ 53

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 Executive Summary

Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social

media sites. It is done mainly to build brand awareness, highlight brand news, and build

a community and customer engagement. As told by an article in The Hindu, India is a

young country, every third person in an Indian city today is a youth. In about seven

years, the median age of Indians will be 29 years, making it the youngest country in the

world. Indian youth also dominates the social media platforms of the country, making

the brands realize how important it is to build a connect with them.

The main objective of this project report was to study how various brands can facilitate

in maximizing their reach and engagement online by functioning as per the social media

habits of the youth in India, and affect their buying behavior.

The results of the study show that a lot of people agree that they are attracted to

posts that are attractive, that they can relate to, visually appealing posts and posts

with pictures. In line with the key trends, a majority (40%) of the respondents is

active on social media from 2 to 3 hours in a day and the social networking sites

mostly used are Instagram and Facebook. With the findings, it can be concluded

that 80% young respondent agree that Social Media Marketing affects their buying

behaviour more than Traditional Marketing.

The most important recommendation for all brands is to optimize their content on social

media as per the likes and needs of the youth in India.

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 Chapter 1- Introduction

This chapter talks about Social media, a term used in abundance these days. As per an

article on the site Search Engine Land, “It can be described as the interaction between

groups or individuals in which they produce, share, and sometimes exchange ideas

over the internet and in virtual communities.”

This study was conducted because social networks can act as invaluable tools for

professionals. Having worked in the social media marketing department at OgilvyOne

for two months, one realizes that social media impacts consumer buying behavior no

less, if not more, than traditional media. Brands achieve success through social media

marketing by assisting young professionals to market their skills and seek business

opportunities. Social networking sites may also be used to network professionally.

Brands these days constantly rely on social media for the marketing of their existing as

well as upcoming offerings. As per Sorav Jain, founder of echoVME (a digital marketing

consultancy), 93% of B2B marketers were using content marketing over traditional

marketing in 2016. They showcase campaigns, host contests, announce winners, etc. to

keep their customers updated and engaged in their latest happenings. Not only this,

social networking platforms allow organizations to improve communication and

productivity by disseminating information among different groups of employees in a

more efficient manner.

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 1. A) Background

About OgilvyOne Worldwide:

Ogilvy & Mather is a New York City-based advertising, marketing and public relations

agency. It started as a London advertising agency founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather,

which in 1964 became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City

agency that was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy. It is part of the WPP (Wire and

Plastic Products) Group, which is by revenue one of the largest marketing and

communications companies in the world. The agency is known for its work with Dove,

American Express, and IBM.

David Ogilvy knew that engaging with customers individually was the most effective way

to help clients grow their business. He called it his “first love and secret weapon” when

he founded Ogilvy & Mather Direct in 1972.

David’s vision today is called “Customer Engagement”. As Ogilvy & Mather Direct has

grown into OgilvyOne, they have continued to embrace new channels, devices, data

and technologies.

Ogilvy helps its clients grow their businesses by helping them get to know their

customers better, because “Customer Engagement isn't about moments, it's about

relationships.” Better data and deeper insights reveal opportunities. Then creative and

analytics turn insights into measurable success and logical next steps.

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Ogilvy & Mather has always looked for innovative and effective ways to create highly

personalized connections with customers and prospects. They marry data with creativity

to remain at the forefront of the industry as the undisputed leader in Customer

Engagement (as ranked by eminent analyst Forrester Research).

STP, Ogilvy:

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SWOT Analysis, Ogilvy:

Some Learnings at Ogilvy - Social Analytics Tools

At Ogilvy, we learnt the use of two social analytics tools that help companies like Ogilvy

analyse the actions of their clients’ competitors and their strategies and give useful

insights about their target audiences. More on these tools is as follows:

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  Crimson Hexagon

This social analytics tool helps brands understand their audience, identify growth

opportunities and improve their campaign strategies. It gives access to the biggest

social data library in existence, turns data into insights with the help of its very powerful

analysis platform and also gives a combined text and image analysis along with insights

on audience interests and sentiment analysis - what the audience liked about a brand

and what it didn’t by capturing positive and negative conversations made about it on the

internet over the asked span of time.

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A Snapshot of Crimson Hexagon Analysis Results:

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  Unmetric

This is another social analytics tool that enables brands to analyse their social media

content performance, discover creative inspiration for their content and track the social

media contents of competing brands. Unmetric plugs into leading marketing products to

complement and enhance existing data insights. It has partnered with Oracle,

Brandwatch, Percolate, KantarMedia, Hootesuite and Salesforce.

A Snapshot of Unmetric Analysis Results:

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 1. B) Relevance

The impact of social networks on young people is significant. Children are growing up

surrounded by mobile devices and interactive social networking sites which have made

the social media a vital aspect of their life. Social network is transforming the manner in

which young people interact with their parents, peers, as well as how they make use of

technology.

More and more students are shunning newspapers, books and magazines and

consider social media as the best platform to find latest happenings, trends and new

information. Social Networking has changed the way the youth lives, socializes and

shares. It is a socially networked life. It has occupied an important place in our lives

which is obvious from our gestures of enquiring social networking IDs like Facebook ID,

Twitter handle, etc. and also mentioning some on our visiting cards as well. The bonus

of using these websites are a plenty, the youth recognizes those and uses it to its

potential. The evaporation of boundaries between friends and distant family, staying

connected at minimal extra cost, sharing your opinion and spreading it, (so many

successful online protests bear a testimony to that) and hence not being on a social

networking site is considered queer. The holiday’s people go to, the parties people

attend, etc. have become more of a page 3 life for all.

The benefits of social networking platforms vary based on platform type, features and

the company itself.

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Some of the advantages of social media use by workplaces are that it:

 Facilitates open communication, leading to enhanced information discovery and

delivery.

 Allows employees to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions and share links.

 Provides an opportunity to widen business contacts.

 Targets a wide audience, making it a useful and effective recruitment tool.

 Improves business reputation and client base with minimal use of advertising.

 Expands market research, implements marketing campaigns, delivers

communications and directs interested people to specific web sites.

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 1. C) Literature Review

One of the main components of digital marketing is social media marketing which the

companies use to spread their message to a large mass of people. Digital marketing

differs from traditional marketing in a sense that it makes use of the channels and

methods that help the organizations to analyze marketing campaigns and understand

what is working and what isn’t, and all of this in real time.

History of Social Media

Technology began to change very rapidly in the 20th Century. The first recognizable

social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. It enabled users to upload a profile

and make friends with other users. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular,

creating a social media sensation that’s still popular today.

After the invention of blogging, social media began to explode in popularity. Sites like

Myspace and LinkedIn gained prominence in the early 2000s, and sites like

Photobucket and Flickr facilitated online photo sharing. YouTube came out in 2005,

creating an entirely new way for people to communicate and share with each other

across great distances.

By 2006, Facebook and Twitter both became available to users throughout the world.

These sites remain some of the most popular social networks on the Internet. Other

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sites like Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Spotify, Foursquare and Pinterest began

popping up to fill specific social networking niches.

Today, there is a tremendous variety of social networking sites, and many of them can

be linked to allow cross-posting. This creates an environment where users can reach

the maximum number of people without sacrificing the intimacy of person-to-person

communication.

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Differences between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing:

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Awards and Recognition:

Few of the awards won by Ogilvy & Mather are:

 DMA ECHO Awards

Over a three-round process, judges choose the ECHO Award–winning direct marketing

campaigns based on total points received for overall creative concept, marketing

strategy and response results.

 Cannes Lions

The Cannes Lions Awards are a benchmark for creative excellence, rewarding the best

work and brightest thinking.

 Effie Awards

Awarded by the nonprofit company Effie Worldwide, the Effie Awards honor the most

effective marketing communications and are dedicated to promoting the art of

professional marketing.

 DMA Createffect Awards

(Including Agency of the Year and Diamond Effectiveness Award)

The DMA Createffect Awards, brought to Asia by DMAi, honors the world’s best

response marketing campaigns — campaigns that have raised the bar in terms of

strategy, creativity and results.

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  DMA UK Awards

Judges choose the DMA UK Award–winning direct marketing campaigns based on total

points received for overall creative concept, marketing strategy and response results.

 Caples Awards

Named after noted copywriter John Caples these awards honor the best in direct and

interactive marketing and celebrate the most creative marketing solutions around the

world.

Industry Overview:

The Advertising Industry is divided into two types of marketing services companies:

large international ad agency groups and other domestic-focused entities. While the two

types are quite different, they share a few characteristics. All of them help clients sell

products or services using one or more media of communications.

Marketing through traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio, and television) is a

mature activity, and spending usually increases around 4% in an average year.

Expenditures through newer media, the Internet for example, have grown much faster

as clients shift ad outlays away from older methods. But, in time, each new medium

eventually matures, prompting ad executives to seek other emerging channels.

The industry is not particularly capital intensive, since it contracts out what

manufacturing is required and leases necessary office space. In general, capital

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expenditures are less than annual depreciation costs. Though, occasionally, there may

be some controversy over, for instance, a suggestive ad copy, spending to comply with

government regulation is not significant. Competitive conditions in the ad industry are

not especially outrageous, permitting some companies to garner wide margins.

As only a few of the companies pay dividends, the group is generally not for income

seekers. But some of the stocks, from time to time, might offer above-average share-

price appreciation potential and appeal to aggressive investors. Those looking for

favorable long-term total returns may want to consider the largest international

companies.

Ogilvy & Mather was the first agency to experiment with digitally-driven Customer

Engagement when they formed the Interactive Marketing Group in 1983. They were first

to make serious investments in technology, mobile, digital media, a product

development lab and much more.

Competitors:

 DDB Mudra

DDB Mudra is among the top advertising agencies. It is the part of DDB Worldwide

Communications group. The company is owned by Omnicon group. The company has

founded the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad. It is the first institute of

India imparting education on advertising and communications. The company has all the

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major clients like Volkswagen, Castrol, Future Group, etc. The first campaign of DDB

Mudra was for the brand Vimal. It has done various other successful campaigns for

Rasna with Tagline “I Love You Rasna”, LIC with tagline “Zindagi ke saath bhi, zindagi

ke baad bhi” and many more.

 Dentsu Communications Pvt Ltd

Dentsu Inc as the name suggests is a Japanese PR and advertising agency. The

headquarters of the company are located in the Shiodome district of Minato, Tokyo. It

was founded as a Telegraphic service called Japanese Advertising Ltd by Hoshiro

Mitsunaga.

 FCB Advertising Agency

FCB is among the top 10 advertising agencies. In 2006, major changes took place when

the company merged with Draft Worldwide. The company is owned by the Interpublic

group which also holds other advertising agencies including Publicis, Omnicom and

WPP. Since its inception, the company is doing successful advertising campaigns and

winning many awards.

 GroupM

GroupM is among the India’s top advertising companies. The headquarters of the

company are located in New York City. It has 400 offices worldwide. The company

provides advertising and media services in different departments- Media Buying, Media

Planning, Digital Media, Consumer Research, Social Media Marketing, etc.

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  Havas Worldwide

Formerly called as Euro RSCG, Havas Worldwide is the biggest integrated marketing

communication agency. It provides a wide array of services including corporate

communications, advertising and marketing. It is a globally recognized agency

headquartered at New York. The company is working with the world’s largest brands

including The Humane Society of the United States, Unilever, LVMH, Lacoste, IBM,

Citigroup, Danone Group, Air France etc.

 JWT

JWT is holding its strong position among top ten advertising agencies since the last

many years. It is also referred to as J..Walter Thompson. It is an international

advertising company. Its head office is located in New York City. The company is

present in 90 countries with 200 offices. It has made a remarkable presence in the

advertising sector.

 Madison Communications

Madison Communications is a 27 year old communication group. It provides a wide

array of services related to communications. The key person of the company is Sam

Balsara.

 McCann Erickson India Pvt Ltd

McCann is among the top notch advertising companies. The advertising agency has

presence in 120 countries through its offices. It has created various popular campaigns

which are still fresh in the minds of audiences. It is behind the coco-cola popular slogan

“It’s the real thing”.

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  Rediffusion – Y&R Pvt Ltd

Rediffusion – Y&R Pvt Ltd comes into the list of the top 10 advertising companies in

India. It is serving major companies. It has always done remarkable work in the field of

advertising.

Digital Marketing trends

Jank and Kannan (2005) elaborate on the understanding of the online customers’

preferences and choices that vary across geographical markets. This paper talks about

these choices that give useful insights of a product mix and the pricing decision as well.

The author explains how purchase rates vary across geographical markets and that the

customers should be targeted through direct marketing, cross-channel promotion, and

local marketing advertising.

Vien (2015) talks about the future of digital marketing and how several firms are

evaluating their marketing strategies. The organizations are moving towards having

digital techniques including online video, social media and content marketing.

Rad, Ghorabi, Rafiee and Vahid (2015) discuss about the ECRM that has emerged with

the evolution of traditional CRM. The article talks of finding market opportunities which

includes better communication and interaction with the customers in the form of ORM

as well. ECRM also offers customer storage data which benefits the firms and they gain

24
competitive advantage. It also talks about the challenges that the firms face while

implementing ECRM.

Effectiveness of Digital Marketing

Vien (2015) emphasizes on the impact of digital marketing on the firms present in the

U.S. The focus is on re-evaluating the marketing techniques and to incorporate digital

marketing techniques such as online video, social media, and content marketing.

Comparison between the traditional and current marketing techniques is also made in

order to improve the relation between the two.

Yasmin, Tasneem and Fatema (2015) talk about the impact of digital marketing on both

the marketers and consumers as well as the challenges and opportunities faced by the

marketers. The article talks about the importance of digital marketing and how is it used

to promote the products and services of an organization.

They conclude by saying digital marketing is evolving and is becoming an important

element for many companies.

Gould (2016) focuses on internet marketing strategies and the plans that the

organizations need to make in order to utilize internet marketing. Internet usage is

growing day by day because the information nowadays is easily available on the

internet. The cost of doing business related to internet marketing has also reduced. The

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author explains how consumers feel comfortable with online purchasing due to which

internet marketing has become a major part of the companies’ advertising strategies.

The communication through internet marketing spreads so fast that even the companies

find it a good medium for marketing. There are many opportunities for Internet

Marketing that have been explained in the article such as companies getting a global

market. The companies can also analyze the products and people’s behavior towards

their products. The article also explains marketing tools which are direct marketing,

advertising, and public relations. The author also tells about the features of internet and

also its benefits which the user can enjoy. He concludes that internet marketing has still

not completely taken over traditional marketing and that it has its own place in the

market.

Kreshel, Lancaster and Toomey (2013) talk about recent developments in media

planning theory and how they suggest that an important element of the media decision-

making process should be the evaluation of reach and frequency in terms of advertising

exposures or communication effects (rather than vehicle exposures). The extent to

which these theoretical extensions are practiced by leading U.S.-headquartered

advertising agencies is the topic of the article. Over 90 media directors provide

information concerning a number of media planning practices. These include the extent

to which communication effects data used in evaluating media plans, the adequacy of

various commercial sources of such data, and whether communication effects data

used to weight media vehicle audiences to estimate potential advertising audiences or

impact.

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The relative impact of brand communication on brand equity through social media, if

not lower, is almost as much as that of traditional media. Both of the communication

instruments have an impact on consumer‐based brand equity; one can be called the

effects of firm‐created communication and the other as user‐generated social media

communication.

Social media marketing is a topic of increasing interest to firms in the era of

Facebook and Twitter. Companies see their brand marketing power devolve to the

consumer through social media platforms. Along with that, it offers valuable insights

to marketing practitioners and academics.

Affiliate Marketing

In this type of marketing, a business rewards its affiliates for each registration/lead of

affiliate brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. There are four important parts in

affiliate marketing namely, retailer, network, publisher, and the customer. ‘Networks’ is

used as an intermediary and it has multiple publishers which are used to send out

campaigns for an organization. These publishers are the affiliates.

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Some terms related to Social Media Marketing:

Reach: the number of people who see a brand’s content.

Impressions: the number of times its content is displayed.

Engagement: the number of interactions people have with its content (i.e.: likes,

comments, shares, retweets, etc.)

User Generated Content

User Generated Content (UGC) is the term used to describe any form of content such

as video, blogs, discussion form posts, digital images, audio files, and other forms of

media that was created by consumers or end-users of an online system or service and

is publically available to others consumers and end-users, according to Webopedia.

User-generated content is also called consumer generated media (CGM).

Topicals

A topical reference or story applies to something specific, focusing on

a topic that's currently in the news. TV comedians often use topical humor,

making jokes about a currently popular movie or the latest political scandal-if

possible, one that just broke that same day. Topical humor has a short lifespan,

though, because the news keeps changing and the new hot topics just keep

coming.

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Online Reputation Management

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is the practice of crafting strategies that shape

or influence the public perception of an organization, individual or other entity on the

Internet. It helps drive public opinion about a business and its products and services.

It is another important tool of social media and typically means taking control of the

online conversation. Its techniques and strategies ensure that people find the right

materials when they look for brands on the Internet. Done well, online reputation

management creates a balance, counteracts misleading trends, and allows brands to

put their best feet forward.

A snapshot of ORM being conducted for Canon India:

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Despite the popular use of social media by consumers and marketers, there hasn’t been

much research conducted in this regard. This research was conducted to study the

impact of social media marketing on brands’ popularity or the number of impressions it

makes online. Community contents from consumers (user-generated content, i.e., UGC)

and marketers (marketer-generated content, i.e., MGC) both help brands increase their

popularity. Informative and persuasive nature of UGC and MGC coupled with relevant

factors such as online promotion, social network attributes, and consumer

demographics, etc. affect consumer purchase behavior as well, apart from traditional

advertising and promotion methods.

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 1. D) Objectives

The objectives of this project report were:

i) to study how various brands facilitate in maximizing their reach and

engagement online by functioning as per the social media habits of the youth

in India,

ii) to see how brands gain competitive advantage by talking about what matters

to the youth and society,

iii) to understand how brands carry out their campaigns effectively using social

media by knowing the ongoing trends,

iv) to know how brands use various tools in order to analyze their competitors’

reach and campaigns to extract the key takeaways for themselves,

v) to observe how the buying behaviour of young consumers is influenced by

brands with the use of social media, and,

vi) to understand the impact of influencers (influencer videos, tutorials etc.) on

the consumer buying behavior.

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 Chapter 2 - Methodology

This chapter deals with collecting data and consists of the following sub-sections:

Project design, data collection methods, sampling and analysis. Methodology helps us

to conduct a survey and then the analysis of findings to come to a conclusion which is

based on various questions related to the organization and its use of social media, and

consumer behaviour.

The research methodology adopted is to undertake a profile study of customer data.

The research is also done on how one of the three main pillars of digital marketing, i.e.,

Social Marketing has grown and impacted digital marketing.

2. A) Project Design

A project design could be either Exploratory or Descriptive or Experimental.

i) Exploratory design is conducted about a research problem when there are

few or no earlier studies to refer to. The focus is on gaining insights and

familiarity for later investigation or undertaken when problems are in a

preliminary stage of investigation.

ii) Experimental design is needed for rigourous analysis. If one doesn't spend

time thinking about the types of observations to be made, the likely outcomes,

and how one can evaluate the data to differentiate statistically between

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 outcomes, one might fail to carry out experiments that can actually provide

informative data.

iii) Descriptive research is a study designed to depict the participants in an

accurate way. More simply put, descriptive research is all about describing

people who take part in the study. There are three ways a researcher can go

about doing a descriptive research project, and they are:

 Observational, defined as a method of viewing and recording the

participants.

 Case study, defined as an in-depth study of an individual or group of

individuals.

 Survey, defined as a brief interview or discussion with an individual

about a specific topic.

This study was based on the Descriptive Research (Survey) method. The sample size

surveyed consisted of 50 people, belonging to various demographics.

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 2. B) Data Collection Methods

Data for any study can be collected in two ways, which are as follows:

(i) Secondary Research

Secondary research has been conducted on the basis of the research papers and

articles that have been written on digital marketing, social media marketing campaigns

and ORM.

(ii) Primary Research

A questionnaire was constructed in order to successfully carry out the primary research.

A survey was conducted and the sample size was 50. Most of the target group for the

research was between the age group of 18-25 years, followed by 26-40 years.

For this study, data sets were generated using a standardized online‐survey. The

analysis of the data obtained was then conducted to investigate the interplay of

social media and traditional media. The online questionnaire was sent to 50

respondents belonging to different strata of age groups, both male and female, and

students, working professionals as well as homemakers. The responses generated

were then analyzed to come to a reasonable conclusion.

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 2. C) Sampling

The method of sampling followed was convenience sampling. This sampling

technique is useful in documenting that a particular quality of a substance or

phenomenon occurs within a given sample. Such studies are also very useful for

detecting relationships among different phenomena.

Friends, relatives, neighbors or acquaintances were all asked to fill the questionnaire.

4 people, i.e. 8% belonged to the category of less than 18 years. 36 (72%) belonged to

the age-group between 18-25 years and 10 (20%) were from the category of 26-40.

60%, i.e., 30 were male while 40% (20) were female. While 64% belonged to the

student category, 26% were working professionals, 8% were into business and 2%

others. The results and findings shall be discussed in the further sections.

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 Chapter 3 - Results and Discussion

In this section, the results of the study shall be discussed. Conducting a survey on

Social Media Marketing has given us a more or less complete understanding of the

key trends going on in the current world of internet. Discussed below are some of

the major results of the research.

Q1.

A majority of the respondents (40%) spent between 2-3 hours on an average on

social media everyday, while another 24% spent between 3-5 hours. 20% of the

respondents spent less than one hour. Moreover, 16% of the respondents spent

more than 5 hours on the social media.

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Q2.

An astounding 88% of the respondents used Instagram frequently while 76% were

Facebook users. 40% also used LinkedIn and only 12% were active on Twitter. Only

6% of the respondents i.e., 3 people were frequent on Pinterest.

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Q3.

When asked whether Traditional media affected their buying behaviour more or

Social media, 30% went with Traditional media while 80% agreed with Social Media.

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Q4.

78% respondents said they had purchased products or services after coming to

know about it on social media while 22% said they hadn’t.

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Q5.

Whereas 72% respondents did use social media to know more about a product

before buying it, 28% said they did not use social media for the same.

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Q6.

More than 30 people out of 50 strongly agreed that articles and posts that are

creative and related to their field of interest grab their attention the most. A good

number of people were neutral towards contests.

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A high number of people were generally neutral to posts that appeared on top of

their Newsfeeds. People also liked engaging, easy to understand posts and posts

that ignite curiosity.

A lot of people also agreed with posts that were attractive, that they could relate to,

visually appealing posts and posts with pictures.

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Respondents were mostly neutral towards posts that involved tagging or asked for

their involvement, with some even showing disapproval towards the same.

People showed a lot of interest in posts related to current events or news. People

also liked pages that posted frequently.

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Posts with videos were also appreciated, while one of the respondents strongly

disagreed to them.

Finally, the results tell us that in order for brands to understand which social media

channels are most effective for reaching their market segment, they need to first explore

how they use social media. Social Media is a powerful weapon, if companies utilize it

effectively to its maximum potential, it can give them an idea about the magnitude of

their brand followers, the visibility of their products which they have introduced in the

market, and TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness) as today’s youth is majorly involved in

Social Media. We can also say that the more a brand is visible and active on social

media (by way of its campaigns and other activities), the more can the audience

remember and recall it and its products/ services easily. Lack of a brand’s presence on

social media puts it at a threat of it being substituted by its competitors, leading it to lose

its target audience. As social media is getting increasingly popular with millions of users

connecting within and beyond the platforms, it is important for brands to understand the

effects of social media to identify its potential benefits and the costs it has on them.

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 Chapter 4 – Conclusions and Recommendations

In India, most of the audience on Social Media consists of the youth. As per

Livemint, an E-Paper, College students (33%) form the largest demographic of active

social media users in India. They are the drivers of social media campaigns carried

out by companies. For many connected users in India, access to the Internet is

primarily for accessing social media networks. According to a report by the Internet and

Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), 66% of the 180 million Internet users in urban India

regularly access social media platforms. The most popular activities on social media

include maintaining one’s own virtual profile on the likes of Instagram, Facebook and

Twitter, posting and sharing an update as well as replying to something a friend has

posted.

The results of the study show that both traditional communications and social media

communications have a significant impact on brand equity. While traditional media

has a stronger impact on brand awareness, social media communications strongly

influence brand image. This study also refutes the belief that only traditional media

affects the consumers’ decision to purchase.

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Interactive posts help brands in increasing their engagement by as many as three -

folds. An example would be that of a Honda post on Facebook, as shown below.

This Honda post proves all the points talked about in the findings and results

section. It was creative, unique, engaging, ignited curiosity, attractive, visually

appealing and also featured a picture. And because of these attributes, it got liked

almost 30,000 times on Facebook and was shared nearly 150 times. This post was

so engaging that the number of Honda’s Facebook page followers doubled within

two weeks of this post going public.

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The success of any social media campaign depends on its execution- which varies

from company to company based on a firm’s target group (TG), platform used and

the objective of the campaign. Both brand equity and brand attitude have a positive

influence on purchase intention as per Schivinski and Dąbrowski (2013).

With this conclusion in place, it is recommended that brands keep in mind that most

of their audience here India comprises the youth and their content should be youth

oriented if they wish to reap the maximum benefits of Social Media Marketing.

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 Chapter 5 - Limitations

Social media marketing, too, isn’t without its flaws. Just as quickly as users can share a

brand’s content on social media, they can choose to share an unflattering story about it

as well.

Some limitations of Social Media Marketing are:

 Negative Feedback

This is the biggest drawback of Social Media Marketing. Good reviews travel fast but

bad reviews travel much faster. Social media users have free rein to post whatever they

want. This means that satisfied customers can leave glowing reviews on brands’ pages,

but it also means that unhappy ones can leave angry rants about a business. This

negative feedback can sometimes even come from within an organization. Disgruntled

employees have been known to vent on social media about work and their bosses,

which makes the entire company look bad.

 Potential for Embarrassment

It’s easy to get caught up in social media and post whatever comes to mind, which can

have huge consequences for any business. For companies with a large audience,

mistakes don’t go unnoticed. Thanks to social media users’ quick reactions and

tendency to share, the brand’s reputation can go down in minutes.

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  Time Intensive

It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain an interactive social media presence. If a

company has a small team or limited resources, it is sometimes difficult to devote the

needed resources to social media. People have to monitor each social network,

respond to questions and feedback, and post valuable updates. While some people

may view this as a drawback, investing time into social media can help a business

create lasting relationships with customers that will keep them coming back for years to

come.

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 Chapter 6 - Further Scope of Study

Social media has fundamentally changed the way businesses interact with customers

and the public at large. What started as an innovative way to approach the marketplace

has become an essential tool for marketing, public relations, and customer service.

 The scope of Social Media Marketing in India is tremendous, coupled with that,

the pace and understanding of the domain is low which means the firms which

are quick to act and adapt it in their marketing strategies would gain a

competitive edge over others.

 Marketing managers still need to realize the potential of social media over

traditional media as it has a magnitude of advantages as explained earlier in

this report.

 Marketing and brand managers need to understand social media beyond

Facebook and Twitter - as in its utility in form of social applications, online

communities, social campaigns and many more.

 A lot of questions are being asked about ROI and that is holding them to make

significant investments. Marketing managers need to be comfortable with the

social media metrics like active users, engaged users, etc.

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 However, India is a market, which once convinced, adopts newer technologies

and business models very fast. Hence once marketing managers are

convinced about this new media, there will be a tremendous change in

initiatives and outlook. Even till today a lot of brands have done some exciting

things for Indian audiences on social web like jaagore.com, and “Sunsilk Gang

of Girls”.

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 Annexure

A) Questionnaire (Next Page)

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 B) References

 http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-social-media-marketing accessed on

June 15, 2017.

 http://www.mbaskool.com/brandguide/media-and-entertainment/6447-ogilvy-a-

mather.html accessed on June 12, 2017.

 http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-social-media-marketing-india-

trends-study-2014/$FILE/EY-social-media-marketing-india-trends-study-2014

accessed on June 8th, 2017.

 http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/UGC.html accessed on May 20th, 2017.

 http://www.livemint.com/Politics/FqcL24fK5aQ68qC6KzohJO/Social-media-in-

India.html accessed on June 20, 2017.

 http://study.com/academy/lesson/descriptive-research-design-definition-

examples-types.html accessed on June 18, 2017.

 Schivinski, Bruno; Dąbrowski, D. (2016). "The effect of social media

communication on consumer perceptions of brands". Journal of Marketing

Communications. 22 (2): 189– 214.

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