Casebook1

© IndiaSocial
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 Casebook1 CONTENT
Evalueserve – Using LinkedIn
6 Foreword 41 for lead generation and brand building

Guest Article - Doing Good in the NASSCOM – Acting as a catalyst for growth of
Digital Age - Prema Sagar 8 emerging & start-up companies 45

Breakthrough: Ringing the Bell Guest article - Communities will be

11 Against Domestic Violence the next big thing in
49 Marketing - Jessie Paul

Blank Noise: Raising voice against

sexual harassment 16 Guest article - Creating Raving Fans Through
Social Media - Toby Bloomberg 55

Pratham Books: Engaging the community to

24 bring a book in every child’s hand Fastrack: Capturing the imagination of youth
59 online

Dr. Mani Children Heart Foundation – the Heart

Kids Tweetathon and how Twitter helps save lives 30 Hard Rock Café India – live in concert
on social media 64

WWF – Getting India to switch

34 off their lights for Earth Hour Axe Angels Club – building virtual engagement
73 via ‘real’ personas

Guest article – Social Media: Reinventing the Guest Article – Why social media can be so
4
rules for B2B players - Hari V. Krishnan 38 unsocial - Anurag Batra 77
CONTENT Casebook1

Viewspaper: Creating and strengthening the

81 voice of the youth
121 Nokia- email with ease campaign

Nokia – Reaching out to the influencers in

Bollywood Buzz - Assessing the effectiveness of 125
86 “Search for N”
UTV movies’ online advertising

Guest Article - Dear Brands, Let’s Get Social -

MTV – Using social media to narrowcast
89 129 Faisal Farooqui
to the Indian youth

Cleartrip – How the brand “travels” through

© IndiaSocial
Channel [V] – Building buzz using Twitter and 132
mobile social networking around the re-launch 93 social media

Mahindra Homestays – engaging travelers

Guest Article - Doing the math on social media… 136 and enabling owners
101 - Karthik Nagarajan

Jiyo Life Movement –

Guest Article - Are you missing the digital
103 using content as the honey 141
revolution? - Ramanujam Sridhar

Mitsubishi Cedia Sports –

TATA DOCOMO – Fighting the telecom
106 146 the Great Driving Challenge
incumbents on social media front

Samsung Corby Color Wars on Twitter –

Generating Buzz 113 5
 Amita Malhotra
Lead Community Manager
IndiaSocial.in
amita.malhotra@indiasocial.in

“ Revolution’s
Foreword
When we announced the launch of IndiaSocial TM in 2009,
this was the headline of our inaugural post. That social media
had become mainstream was beyond any doubt. However,

well set, there were many a questions being asked about the impact of
social media, its ROI, relevant metrics to evaluate success and
more.

now for the“ There was also a sense that while some good work was
happening, but information about learnings, case studies, best

evolution
practices was dispersed and not easily available. This would
often come in the way of vigilant marketers who could see
these changing trends but would struggle in the absence of
‘empirical data’ to align their internal stakeholders to brace up
and strategise more effectively.

IndiaSocial evolved from this need to bring together

stakeholders in the Indian social media eco-system for
engagement, sharing, learning and collaboration in a vibrant
space – physical and virtual. We have created it as a neutral
industry platform to showcase best practices, case studies,
expert views and a strong repository of knowledge around
social media in India.

In Feb 2010, we invited brands and organisations to showcase

their work and over 35 of them participated sharing some
excellent work undertaken across various sectors.

It made logical sense to compile existing case studies and some
exciting new ones alongside expert views in one single location
which would be easy to download, consume as well as share
with others. The release of IndiaSocial CaseBook 1 sponsored
by HP, in association with NM Incite is a key milestone on this
journey of evolution.
Here are 5 reasons why the IndiaSocial Casebook is a great
resource for marketers and all those seeking to understand
social media usage and impact in India –
qq One stop shop for case studies, best practices around
social media across verticals ranging from not-for-profit,
B2B, lifestyle, telecom, travel, and more.
qq Straight from the horse’s mouth - These case studies are
in the voice of people behind these campaigns - they have
been authored by brands, organisations and their partners
themselves.
qq Right questions to get the right answers – we didn’t make
it any easy for the brands and organisations to be featured
as a case study. An exhaustive set of questions on the
objectives, reasoning, approach, impact and measures
of success were built-in to ensure that the outcome was
of very high quality. Many wrote to us how the form
compelled them to ‘think through’ their own initiatives and
understand the gaps.
qq Experts Speak – we have tried to amalgamate diverse
views from stakeholders across the spectrum of
marketing communication in India. Prema Sagar, Principal
& Founder of Genesis Burson Marsteller speaks about
how social media’s reach and speed of delivery impacts
corporate social responsibility (CSR) and on the other
end, leading branding consultant and Founder Brand-
Comm, Ramanujam Sridhar talks about the challenges
around clients experimenting with social media much like
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the radio in nineties without going the whole hog. Hari V
Krishnan, Country Manager, LinkedIn India speaks about
how companies are using social networks effectively to
find and acquire new customers and Karthik Nagarajan,
Head of Nielsen Online India shares how discussion forums,
message boards and review sites are the most underrated
social segment.
There are many more interesting insights and perspectives
by Anurag Batra (‘Why Social Media can be so unsocial’),
Jessie Paul (‘Communities Next Big Thing’), Toby
Bloomberg (‘Social Media Strategy – 10 steps to create
raving fans” and Faisal I. Farooqui (‘Dear Brands, Let’s Get
Social’)
qq Know where you are - this resource will hopefully set you
on your path of social media discovery; if you are already
© IndiaSocial
on one – it will enable you to benchmark your initiatives
and if you are already a pioneer – it will hopefully inspire
you to set higher targets.
We would like to thank all the brands and organisations who
have shared their insights and learnings through their case
studies and helped us create this wonderful resource. We
would also like to thank our lead sponsor HP and associate
sponsor NM Incite for their support and encouragement.
‘We are grateful to George Skaria, Founder, ThoughtSpring
and Former Editor, Indian Management for all his guidance
and inputs on the Casebook. A special word of thanks for
my team at IndiaSocial and Blogworks - Neha Chandok, S.
Swetha, Megha Talwar and Rajesh Lalwani who have all helped
from conception, editing, production and marketing of the
IndiaSocial Casebook.
We would love to hear your feedback on this edition of the
Casebook and suggestions on how we can produce an even
better one next time. Also, we would be soon announcing the
IndiaSocial Case Challenge 2. Stay tuned!
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 Using the power of the social media,
a company can multiply the effects of
its CSR efforts
In the hustle of business, we often forget that the wealth we
create means nothing unless it leads to positive change in
the lives of people. People—individuals, who together form
society, who together build economies, who together create
movements. Corporate organizations have the means to

“ the
effect positive change in the lives of these people. When they

Doing Good in “ speak, they are heard. And when they speak on popular digital
platforms, the potential for that change increases exponentially.
This makes social media a catapulting mechanism for corporate

Digital Age social responsibility (CSR) efforts.

As CSR evolves, it is becoming less about companies donating

a certain amount to NGOs and more about becoming directly
involved in a sustainable way as facilitators or even conveners
for social change. This means that companies need to up the
level of engagement with all the stakeholders for an initiative—
the people who the initiative targets, the implementers, the
fund providers, and the potential facilitators. And the pace of
this engagement has to be swift, almost constant. So what,
then, could be better than social media platforms for this?

Given social media’s reach and speed of delivery, a multiplier

Prema Sagar
Principal & Founder
Genesis Burson-Marsteller.
effect spreads the message that a CSR initiative wants
to push. Here is a sample. In May, social responsibility
organization (RED) that supports people with HIV/AIDS,
released a documentary on the effects of antiretroviral drugs
on these people, and since then, more than one million people

have seen it on YouTube. Susan Smith Ellis, the CEO, recently
announced their next goal at the Mashable and 92Y Social
Good Summit: Ensure—using the social media—that no child
is born with HIV/AIDS by 2015. Given that this goal needs a
high level of social engagement, Susan says, “Social media will
be the engine of our success.” This confidence comes from
having leveraged social media effectively since the initiative’s
inception in 2006, enabling them to raise $150 million since
then.
Susan and (RED) aren’t alone in their realization of the power
of social media for change. MTV, Nike, PepsiCo, Intel, and
several other organizations have integrated social media into
their CSR strategy. There aren’t many examples of Indian
companies doing this, though. The efforts in CSR and the
efforts towards harnessing the digital media are in two different
silos. So while they may be using social media, it somehow
doesn’t include their CSR efforts.
NGOs, on the other hand, who bridge the gap between
corporate organizations and the beneficiaries of their CSR
initiatives, are increasingly realizing how powerful a tool social
media can be. The Bell Bajao campaign against domestic
violence is a case in point. Given the limited funds they have
access to, NGOs realize that they have a constant need to
innovate if they want more people to join hands with them.
And so they are naturally drawn towards the digital media
space.
Genesis Foundation, which treats children in the areas of
cancer, heart, thalassemia, organ failure or extreme deformities,
uses unique events for fund-raising to meet their objective – to
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save the lives of critically ill children who are either orphans
or from less privileged families. The foundation focuses on
communicating through viral marketing, its website, Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube and Picasa, besides traditional media. The
traditional media is in turn multiplied via the digital channels.
Digital has been a great enabler for the not-for-profit sector
particularly due to the lack of the ability to use traditional
routes easily.
Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook, realizes
the influence of digital media for social good, perhaps more
than anyone else. Chris is the man behind Barack Obama’s
phenomenal popularity on the Internet during his campaign.
After his success as Obama’s digital campaign manager, Chris
decided to use his learnings in the social sector. Today, he is
© IndiaSocial
building a social network specifically for this sector.
In most large organizations, however, the challenge is to make
social media a part of the overall vision. It usually enters
through the marketing or public relations route and only then
goes into the CSR space. It is an organic transfer—as the
company spreads word about its offerings and achievements’,
‘doing good’ enters the conversation somewhere down the line.
But the real leverage of social media will come only when it is
conceived as a part of the CSR strategy from the beginning.
That is because social good needs engagement that goes
beyond conversations and raising awareness—though these are
important as well.
The success of an initiative depends on converting the
conversations into a call for action. The floods in Leh were
a recent example of this. After the initial emotional reaction
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 Casebook1
to the calamity on the social networks, the discussions soon
moved to mobilizing relief funds and material for the region.
While this is not an example of a CSR initiative, the same
principles can be applied there. The idea is to tap into the
emotional energies of the most number of people and help
them channelize it towards the common social goal.
Once an idea is out there, its ownership remains only partially
in the hands of the company. In the social media realm, the
idea is absorbed by the individual and made his or her own.
And that is how it should be, since this sense of individual
responsibility is the ultimate tool for any social initiative to
be successful. If I feel I want to save the tiger, I will not do it
for Aircel. I will also not do it just because Mahendra Singh
10
Dhoni wants me to. I will do it because I feel for the tiger,
and because I want my friends to see me as a person who
goes beyond daily ‘selfish’ pursuits to care about larger issues
concerning the world. And that is when I ask my friends to join
in the efforts. The role of Aircel was to initiate the idea and to
make sure it is visible in the places that I frequent—including
the digital space.
Ultimately, every person believes he or she is capable of
greatness—if only their voice could be heard. Social media
does that for them. If a company can harness these disparate
voices, they can become advocates of the initiative and amplify
its effects. And for both, the company and the individual,
it instills a sense of satisfaction that they were able to do
something for the greater common good.
 Company Details:
Name : Breakthrough

Number of
Employees : 11 to 50

Category : Not for Profit organization

Case
submitted by : Sanjukta Basu, Program Coordinator
– Internet and community outreach

Website : http://bellbajao.org

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/BellBajao

Twitter : http://twitter.com/bell_bajao

“Ringing
Breakthrough:
the Bell
Against Domestic
“
Violence
 Casebook1

Breakthrough is an innovative, international

human rights organization, working to
transform public attitudes and advance
equality, justice, and dignity using
the power of popular culture, media,
leadership development and community
education. Through initiatives in India and
the United States, Breakthrough addresses
critical global issues including violence
against women, sexuality and HIV/AIDS,
racial justice, and immigrant rights.

Background
Bell Bajao is a 360 degree campaign, covering TV, radio, press,
Mobile video vans, with internet as one of the most exciting
Executive Summary media.

One of the main reasons that make the Bell Bajao campaign
special is that it has been able to sustain interest amongst
the Social Media users even after a year of its launch via TV
and Radio. The Bell Bajao blog has become one of the few
platforms created by an NGO for user generated content.
The online activities carried on by the Bell Bajao team are
interactive, responsive and attentive of what others are
saying. The campaign does not merely use the online space
to showcase its work but sees it as a place to share, connect
learn and reach out.
Domestic violence is one of the most recurring, yet least
spoken issues in not just India, but all over the world.
qq Because of the unique nature of internet as a medium it
is possible to act, share and learn about various sensitive
issues very easily without much resource spends. So, we
wanted to create this online space for conversations on
the issue. Prior to our site, there was no such space in the
Indian context where people could talk about domestic
violence, where people could share and learn and reach out

12

qq Also India is a young country; with many enthusiastic and
dedicated young people out there accessing the internet.
We wanted to catch their attention and channelize them
towards this pertinent cause
qq Thirdly, we realized that the radio and TV ads were for a
limited period of time, so we needed a space which could
keep the campaign alive, so the interactive online space.
Stakeholders
Our main stakeholders were the youth present on the internet,
which are capable of bringing a change in their respective
homes and neighborhood. We wanted to appeal to the youth
by breaking out of the traditional image of an NGO and use
latest cutting edge technology to spread the message.
Approach
Objectives: Initially, our main objective was to create an online
space for people to discuss this issue. A huge number of young
people facing violence, particularly in their homes and families,
have no space in the Indian context to even talk about it, let
alone take action. So, we felt that there had to be an online
iteration of the Bell Bajao campaign.
Strategy: Breakthrough strategy, in all its campaigns, is to
change human hearts and minds to build peace, achieved by
using pop culture, community building, unique partnerships
and shared learning. In the Social Media arm of the Bell Bajao
campaign too, we applied the same formula. We created online
presence on popular Social Media platforms like Facebook,
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Twitter and YouTube. Instead of a traditional website, we
decided to create a more dynamic user generated site. We
continuously partner with popular bloggers to create content.
At the same time, we learn from the blogosphere – we keep a
keen eye on what youth are writing, understanding what their
problems are, how they articulate them and what solutions do
they look for. We also integrated our offline activity with the
online space, in order to bridge the digital gap. So, we used
tools like Twitter to live-blog a training workshop in Lucknow.
Budgets: We never had any resources or budget dedicated to
the project to begin with. We are a small non-profit with limited
resources, every penny we spend is spent strictly according to
the terms of the grant.
© IndiaSocial
Planning & Outreach
We started with background research and due diligence. We
saw a lot of other websites that were operational in this
field and we looked at those websites to see how they were
handling similar issues. We looked at what was available in the
Indian context and went through the process of seeing what
we wanted to communicate on our website. We wanted to
make the site engaging and youthful.
Then we started creating the content. We had never done
any activity in the online space before Bell Bajao website, so
everything was a learning process for us. While we created
content in-house, we approached a website designer for the
design/ development.
The online content was very different from the offline content.
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Quick Tips:
Strategic partnership with key players is very
important.
Outline your purpose - One of the challenges
we faced was that we didn’t know how to
collate offline online components, activities,
resources on the site and yet keep it simple.
We went for a redesign within 8 months of
launch. This time, we started by outlining the
main purpose of the website.
Be clear about sought action - one of the first
things we wanted from our visitors was to
take some action. So we have put things like,
‘Be a virtual rights activist’ ‘download tool’,
‘contests’ right at the front.
For mass media, we created traditional media products
like flyers, brochures etc. But on the website, we had a
downloadable tool kit, which had information on how net users
can become virtual rights advocate (an online version of our
training program), hosted contests, polls etc.
We post informative, engaging and stimulating news, links,
videos, blogs, articles and photographs pertaining to violence
against women on a daily basis for our audience to engage
intellectually.
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Impact – Outcome
It was received with great success, people just loved the
campaign. Since we were on Social Media, they could directly
connect with us via our blog etc.
qq 80 percent of the blog traffic we got in the first 8-10
months came from directly typing ‘bellbajao.org’ or from
direct search results with ‘Bell Bajao’ as the key words.
qq The campaign has sustained itself well online- our blog sees
at least two posts a week from users. The blog continues
to remain an interactive and dynamic space, with users
eager to comment and share their experiences.
qq Many women shared stories of violence sometimes faced
by themselves, sometimes by their friends and family.
We ensured, and continue to do so, that we reply to all
messages, give out all information sought by them and
extend all other possible help to our stakeholders
qq We have been successful in collecting voices and views
from various men,
celebrities and
otherwise, for our
initiative, ‘Bell
Bajao-Champion
Voices’ – this was
launched with
the second phase
of the Bell Bajao
campaign. The
 Casebook1

champions are mostly men and boys from various walks
of life who are seen as great youth role models capable of
inspiring change
In Social Media, measuring the impact has always been a
challenge. We earlier thought the more hits our google analytics
show the higher the success, but then does it really work that
way? Blog traffic only show how many people visited the site,
it doesn’t reflect how many people took any action!
Testimonials
Here’s a list of all the press coverage we have received.
Besides, every other day we receive emails from friends around
the world who want to collaborate with us and create a similar
campaign in their country. Many bloggers have written about
the campaign and linked to our blog. Here are a few of them:
qq Indsight.org

qq So, we also measure number of people are using the qq Anneofcarvesville.com

downloadable tool kits or number of people are spreading
the Bell Bajao message in their communities qq Indiaoutsideindia-Devayani

qq We received emails and testimonials where people shared qq Blog.Dawn.com

how they have benefited from the site
Cesar Robles, Communication Officer of PyD Vietnam, emailed
us on how they found the information on the site, particularly
the FAQs extremely useful and therefore used them in their
campaign against domestic violence in Vietnam.
Strategy and Execution
© IndiaSocial
Awards and mentions
Our social media efforts have been recognized worthy of
forming case studies- for India Social and Tactical Technology
Collective (http://www.tacticaltech.org/- in progress). We have
also been honoured as one of the thirty youth icons of South
Asia by Kindle Magazine

Blogworks helped us pro-bono in the background research; What Next

there were other friends too who helped with overall strategy.
The main campaign Bell Bajao was created pro-bono by Ogilvy
& Mather. For the Social Media initiatives, we got pro-bono
support from various people. To name some, Rajesh Lalwani of
Blogworks helped us pro-bono with research and due diligence
prior to the launch of the Bell Bajao website. A list of all the
media partners and supporters is here.
Bell Bajao is now a popular site with fairly good blog traffic but
we still have a long way to go. The Bell Bajao campaign itself
is going to enter its second phase, with that there will be some
changes in the site. We want to make it simpler, with even
more cutting edge interactive pieces and more action items
for visitors. We also hope to add language dimensions (blog in
Kannada, Hindi).
15
 Casebook1 Company Details:
Name : Blank Noise
Number of Employees : N/A
Category : Not for Profit (Other)
Campaign Duration : Long Term
Case submitted by : Jasmeen Patheja, Founder
Member, Facilitator
Blog: http : //blog.blanknoise.org/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
blank.noise
Twitter : http://twitter.com/BLANK_
NOISE

Blank Noise:
Raising voice against
sexual harassment
16
 Casebook1

discussions are impacting the way different stakeholders in the

Blank Noise is issue of street sexual harassment are organizing their practice
which in turn creates space for collaboration.
a volunteer led
collective that was Blank Noise as an idea that transferred via several events and
set up in 2003, campaigns!
seeking to address
street sexual Background
harassment/ violence.
Blank Noise is a volunteer led collective seeking to address
street sexual harassment/ violence.

It intends to:

qq Change the perception of ‘eve teasing’ as something which

© IndiaSocial
is a joke or prank, to one which the public takes seriously
and assumes responsibility for
Executive Summary
qq Explore, define, question, trigger debate on the boundaries
When Blank Noise began work in 2003, ‘eve-teasing’ was between wooing, flirting, violating, ‘teasing’, approaching,
largely considered a non-issue, which would often elicit a harassing in public spaces
smirk or gesture of vague sympathy. Over the years we have
witnessed, and perhaps participated, in the increasingly qq Attempt definitions around intangible elements that
mainstreaming of the issue of street harassment and violence could be considered to
against women which has now attained enough significance constitute harassment:
to have become a major poll issue during the current General for instance ‘looking’
Election campaigning in Bangalore and to be consistently
covered by national and local media through reportage, comic qq Define and emphasize
strip and targeted campaign. those acts and processes
which are very tangible
Dialogue occurs on the internet and in public spaces. The and clear-cut rights
internet based dialogue creates a resonance with women and violations
men from across the world. Ideas that emerge from these

17
 Casebook1

Build a relationship between women and cities: to imagine and safety pins, chilli powder)and yet
enable us to see the city as a place to which we belong as these everyday decisions were
citizens with rights rather than the often touted constructs of never discussed. The issue of fear
Image Courtesy: Blank Noise us as someone’s mother/sister/ experienced by women in public
daughter/ on the street spaces was never seen as an issue.
It was always just ‘eve-teasing’,
qq Bring into focus street sexual harassment as an issue that something to be dismissed as
concerns both men and women trivial.
qq Bring women to question their notion of fear and threat I remember day dreaming while
thereby also bringing into debate notions of class and taking a walk in my neighbourhood
caste- i.e. who do we fear? Why do we perceive a certain and then suddenly being grabbed
person as a ‘threat’? Which person becomes threatening? by an unknown, unidentified man.
When do we feel threatened? I yelled back in rage and shock and
began to walk after him. Along
qq Generates research with public participation and equally
the way I asked people at the auto
emphasizing on information dissemination, thereby building
rickshaw stand for help and was
knowledge with appropriate forms of media – internet
simply told ‘he ran away’.
(Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot, Orkut), posters, videos, street
actions. I remember sharing this incident
with friends at college and the
Blank Noise was initiated in 2003. One of the earliest
responses ranged from:
responses I received was :“Why talk about ‘eve-teasing’? Why
not something more serious?” ” It happens, ignore it.”
I arrived in Bangalore at the age of 18 to study fine art. Over “How come it happens only to
time I realized that I moved through the city hyper-alert, you?”
cautious, with a clenched fist, a ‘don’t come near me’ attitude.
My friends would only go out in groups, or with a male friend. “What were you wearing? Be more
If they went out they knew exactly where they were going, careful!”
how they were going, what they were going to wear and most
importantly how they were getting back home, what they were Another incident , another day,
carrying in their bags as weapons of defense(pepper spray, walking in my neighbour and a

18

cyclist spat over me. It was humiliating. I remember throwing
away those clothes. I couldn’t understand what I had done to
be at the receiving end of this irrational, sudden attack, and I
couldn’t understand how people around me weren’t recognizing
this as an issue. I was aware that women in varying degrees
feared public spaces but were not talking about it.
There was a need to form a collective that would address the
issue of street sexual harassment. Blank Noise was created
when I was in my final year at art school (Srishti School of Art
Design and Technology) with a group of 9 students who were
willing to go through a process that would involve them, their
personal accounts and testimonials. As an art student I was
deeply interested and motivated by art practice that could work
with communities, that could exist in public, that could heal,
provoke, question. I was interested in work that could be built
via participation, that could be a dialogue or collaboration.
Stakeholders
Every volunteer is a stakeholder. Blank Noise volunteers, who
are almost equally both male and female, come from varied
backgrounds and cities/towns and, since many campaigns are
conducted on the Internet, tend to be urban, English-speaking
and largely within the age group of 16-35 years. They find
Blank Noise through social media events, college workshops,
media reports and friends.
Blank Noise tries to introduce the idea of a volunteer as an
agent. Each volunteer (also called an ‘action hero’) has a
local network that he/she can influence and interact with,
Casebook1
initiating conversations, events and ideas about street sexual
harassment.
Approach
The various projects initiated under Blank Noise are-
qq I never ask for it: I never ask for it has evolved through
various stages since the first idea in 2006. I never ask for it
attempts to seize the notion of ‘she provoked’ or ‘she asked
for it’. No woman of any age, colour, or character ever
deserves to be sexually violated or what is lightly dismissed
as ‘eve-teased’.
qq Twitter announced: Tweet what you wore when you
© IndiaSocial
experienced any kind of sexual violence and add
#ineveraskforit Women and men from across the globe
retweeted the message and as a result hundreds such
tweet testimonials have been gathered. Tweeters have been
provided image options for their twitter page.
qq Facebook announced: I NEVER ASK FOR IT. The event
ask people on Facebook to change the Facebook
status message to what they were wearing when they
experienced any kind of sexual violence and add ‘I NEVER
ASK FOR IT’.
&& Change the display photo to an image from Blank Noise,
&& Take a photo of the garment worn at the time of
experiencing any kind of sexual harassment,
19
 Casebook1
&& Message to your friends/ family/ colleagues/ male or
female and get them involved.
Both Twitter and Facebook events were used for virality
spreading the message of questioning the notion of blame. In
parallel this campaign is also being directed towards organizing
clothes collection drives. A nationwide campaign asking
women to send in one garment they wore at the time they
experienced street sexual harassment. Each garment was a
witness and a testimonial to the experience. The garments
were installed on the streets of various cities in the form of a
travelling exhibition. Blank Noise has been receiving an entire
range of garments from saris, salwar kameez, school uniform,
swim suit etc. This campaign is to challenge the assumption
that ‘women ask for it’; ask for harassment/ violation because
of the clothes they wear. We are seeking to state that all kinds
of women, all kinds of socio eco backgrounds, all age groups,
at all times of day and in any kind of garment have experienced
violated and that there is no such thing as ‘asking for it’.
Twitter and Facebook have led to interest from women across
the world and we are working towards have clothes collection
drives across cities not only in India but across the world.
qq Things to do at home on a hot summer
afternoon/ I never ask for it (year 2009
medium. Internet): collects proverbs
statements and sayings in different languages
that imply women ‘ask for it’. E.g.: jithe gur
uthe makhi/ ‘where there is sugar there will
be a fly/ if you are a girl guys will be after
you.’
20
qq Museum of street weapons of defense (year 2008.
Medium. Internet. Blogspot. Facebook): This project
examines fear and defense mechanisms or tools women
adopt to deal with the city. The museum of street weapons
is a compilation of weapons and confessions ; everyday
objects that have become weapons of defense such as
safety pin, Baygon spray, talcum powder, a heavy bag.
qq Excuse me? Compilation of misdirected terms. Build it like
you heard it: (year 2007 medium. Internet/ BlogSpot) is a
compilation of food names, objects, statements, songs, that
women have been called or referred as while out on the
streets.
qq Step by Step Guide to Unapologetic Walking (year
2008. Medium poster + t shirt): is a compilation of
things to remember while walking; to ensure the walk is
unapologetic.
qq Blank Noise blogathon (2006): Blog event asking bloggers
to share their experiences of street sexual harassment. As
a result hundreds of bloggers participated leading to a mass
online catharsis. The viral transfer of testimonials went
from one blog to another and the anonymity of the medium
created a space for people to speak fearlessly.
This event established street sexual harassment /
violence or ‘teasing’ as that which is experienced
almost every day and is seen as ‘normal’ but
as that which alters one’s relationship with the
body and the city. This event established ‘eve
teasing’ as an urgent issue. While the event took
place on the internet, the testimonials spread

because the mainstream press hugely supported it. This
event brought emails from volunteers from across the
country wanting to have Blank Noise chapters in their cities.
This event made ‘eve-teasing’ an urgent instead of a ‘trivial’
one.
Impact – Outcome
With Blank Noise our aim was to build a collective and to have
street sexual harassment be recognized as every person’s
issue, irrespective of their gender.
It is challenging to measure the impact of Blank Noise and we
are still grappling with methods that would help us understand
it.
qq If impact is measured solely by the number of people in the
Blank Noise community Orkut (2000+) Facebook (3063+)
Google groups (3000), Twitter (600+)and the stat count
blog hits per day, it excludes information such as how many
individuals started thinking about street sexual harassment
as an issue that concerns them?
qq How many men and women took the conversations
from the internet to their personal lives, to their home
and friends? Individuals who participate in Blank Noise
push their own notion of fear, comfort, boundaries thus
bringing about a change in them. This personal shift makes
a volunteer an ‘Action Hero’. Action Heroes challenge
themselves in public. They walk the streets without apology
and do not believe it was their fault, or that they deserved
to be sexually assaulted/ ‘ask for it’ if they experience
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street sexual violence
qq 2 years ago a known person emailed us saying she was
at ladies satang in Calcutta and she overheard a group of
women discuss the project and its ideas. We would never
know of this kind of impact, which reaches a non-internet
audience and how it influences them. Each person engaging
with the project brings a unique dimension to Blank Noise
and takes away something that is meaningful for the
concerned individual
qq Blank Noise has been built by hundreds and perhaps
thousands of people. There are those who have blogged
about it, spoken about it, tweeted about it. Individuals
have contributed both online and on the streets of various
© IndiaSocial
cities. The collective itself is multitudes of conversations,
conversations that exist amongst a group of friends,
random people in public, on Facebook, twitter, blog posts.
qq The press has supported Blank Noise through the
years. The press takes the project to another audience/
participant.
Credits – Strategy
Volunteers/ action heroes who proposed strategies and ideas
Credits – Execution
Jasmeen Patheja has been supported by the following
institutions for Blank Noise: Srishti School of Art Design and
Technology,(2004-2005), Sarai CSDS Fellowship (2005),
21
 Casebook1

Akademie Schloss Solitude Germany, Ashoka Innovators for the
Public.
Testimonials
Founder member Jasmeen Patheja was made a fellow of
Ashoka Innovators for the Public for work towards Blank Noise.
Blank Noise was commissioned by the Bronx Museum of Art,
to participate in a retrospective show looking at public art
practice. Blank Noise was selected as a new project working in
this art practice. The show was titled Street Art Street Life, and
Blank Noise was commissioned to create a video installation
based on street interviews with men and women across 5
cities in India; Moments of a Long Pause.
What Next
Blank Noise has been fluid and organic since its start but now
needs another kind of structure as issues of sustainability
emerge. At this point Blank Noise is moving getting registered
as a non profits organisation. While it would continue to work
with volunteers it will also now focus on employing staff.
At Blank Noise we have events planned that need a certain
scale for its public engagement, it needs a generous budget
as well. Blank Noise has survived on enthusiasm and spirit
from hundreds and thousands of individuals, but we also need
to be able to sustain ourselves and are grappling with these
questions. We hope to get registered by April 2010.

22
Click here to go to IndiaSocial

Company Details:
Name : Pratham Books
Number of Employees : 1-50
Category : Not for Profit Institution
Campaign Duration : Long term
Case submitted by : Maya Hemant, Content Manager
Website : http://www.prathambooks.org
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/prathambooks
Twitter : http://www.twitter.com/prathambooks
YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/
prathambooks
Blog : http://blog.prathambooks.org/
IndiaSocial Case Challenge -
Winner of Position #1, Long
term initiative
Pratham Books –
Engaging the community
to bring a book in every
child’s hand
Executive Summary
In its simplest, what we seek to do is create a social
publishing strategy for Pratham Books. We began with
content and context in the form of our published content
and the cause which we used to initiate a conversation
around the subject of reading and children. Over time,
we have been able to establish some sort of authority, as
it may be, in this space and with time, we hope to build
trust within the little community we curate. And this, over
time, translates to engagement and loyalty. Have we been
successful? It’s too soon to tell but we’d like to think
we’ll get there because we have an awesome community.

Pratham Books
was established as a not-for-
profit Public Charitable Trust to
enable children whom the market
ordinarily would not reach, and
therefore to democratize the joy of
reading. Pratham Books’ mission
is “to see a book in every
child’s hand”.
We’d like to think that we spread the love, so to speak, but
realistically, we’re going to have to build a platform sometime
soon to engage our community to co-create and do so much
more to contribute to the cause of a book in every child’s hand
Background
The background to this was to find a way to share our work,
internally at first, and then externally. The need was to
document and discuss internal and external strategies and
later on, to create a community around the cause. The reason
to do this is because we cannot put a book in every child’s
hand alone - we needed help to locate, distribute and co-create
content.
Stakeholders
The stakeholders, when we began, were all internal. Now that
we have a community being built, we are always listening as to
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how we can improve. It has, we hope, been received well and
even enthusiastically.
Approach
We followed a very unstructured approach to our social
media efforts. It really did begin as an internal experiment
to document the work we do and highlight work that others
do in the same space. It’s been far more successful than we
imagined it would ever be.
The initiative had its roots in an internal need to highlight work
done within the organization and work being done in this space
externally. It has not been driven by a strategy or any clearly
defined goals and objectives. However, we now have these in
© IndiaSocial
place.
Objective: The objective is to catalyse the creation of content
for children’s reading and to find and fill gaps in the current
market structure.
Strategy: The strategy is simple – it’s to be a clear, authentic
and community voice for reading as a social good.
Goal: The goal is ultimately to put a book in every child’s hand.
Duration: The duration is open ended – we’ll be doing this as
long as we exist.
Budget and resources: The resources and budgets are not
formal – we all contribute to the efforts internally and we
have one person who anchors this effort both internally and
externally.
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 Casebook1
The technology resources are all free and as below:
qq Blog: A resource which talks about publishing, reading,
literacy, kidlit, learning, non-profits, events and more.
qq Twitter: A space where we can engage with the
community, share ideas, ask for help, get feedback, listen
to complaints, participate and mobilize people to help us
with our vision of ‘a book in every child’s hand’.
qq Scribd: Uploading our books frequently so that they can
be read by more people. Also, for our Creative Commons
licensed books to be remixed/ repurposed by the
community in whatever way they wish to.
qq Facebook: Updating information from the blog and
information about the events we do and communicating
with the community
qq Flickr: Documentation of the work we do and also to upload
our Creative Commons licensed illustrations so that they
can be remixed/ reused.
qq YouTube: Documentation of our work and to inform people
about some of the initiatives we are participating in. Also to
inform people about our books through book trailers.
Planning & Outreach
qq Skype reading sessions: This project started after a few
tweets were exchanged with a librarian from Central
Manor, Pennsylvania. We started off by people from our
organization having Skype reading sessions with a few
26
children and then moved onto having sessions with entire
classes. On 20th March, 2009, we managed to hold a
Skype storytelling session between kids from Akshara
Foundation’s community library and a class from Central
Manor. The purpose is to go beyond being just a publisher.
Through these activities we are encouraging reading,
learning and connecting children from different communities
and backgrounds. Channels used: Twitter, Skype, Blog
qq Inviting people to remix/repurpose our content: As a
publisher, we have a lot of content available which we want
people to access as easily as possible. In our attempt to do
so, we have managed to license some of our books under
Creative Commons licenses. Now, if we can’t publish a
book in Assamese, but a teacher in Assam wants to do so,
she doesn’t have to worry about copyright infringement.
We have also put up some of the illustrations of our books
so that people can remix or repurpose them. Channels
used: Scribd, Blog, Flickr
qq Facilitators/connecting organisations and people:
@Anorakmagazine found us on Twitter and asked if they
could send us some back issues of their magazines to share
with kids in India. Once the books arrived, they were sent
to the community libraries run by Akshara Foundation.
We also helped coordinate a drawing project that Anorak
Magazine wanted to involve the children with. Now, some
of the kids have their work published in an international
children’s magazine. Channels used: Twitter
qq More access to our books: We frequently upload several
of our books on Scribd so that they can be read and
downloaded by people. Channels used: Scribd

qq Audio books for the National Association of Blind : This
project started off because of another blog post (on the
Helen Keller Talking Library project) that got automatically
updated to our Twitter account. @owos then messaged us
to tell us about a similar initiative Radio Mirchi had started.
Then another tweep (@barkhad) told us that she had
registered with Radio Mirchi but they didn’t get back to her.
So, we got in touch with Radio Mirchi to talk about a blog
post and while we were talking, she asked if we would be
interested in having our books recorded by Radio Mirchi for
the National Association of the Blind. We also requested if
@barkhad could record one of our books and they agreed.
So, our Twitter friend went offline and recorded a book in
their Delhi studio! Channels used: Blog, Twitter
qq Passing it on – the book edition: We read about a bunch of
kids in Kolkata who went around with a van full of books to
reach kids who didn’t have access to books and even went
on to teach the kids how to read. After reading about this
initiative, one of our trustees volunteered to sponsor some
Bengali books if we could find these kids. We mailed the
news bureau which published the article, but were unable
to get a response. So, we decided to see if the Twitter
community could help us. Within half an hour of sending
out a tweet, we had a volunteer who said he would get us
the information and by the next day we had an address and
contact number. Within a few days, Bengali books were
sent by us to these kids. From this story, we decided to
start an initiative which would allow our online community
to participate…to help these kids as well as other kids.
Channels used: Twitter, Blog, Facebook
Casebook1
qq Participatory community: Through our social media efforts,
more people are aware of our work and several authors,
illustrators and translators have offered to work with us.
Channels used: Blog, Twitter, Facebook
Impact – Outcome
We measure our impact solely by points of serendipity
catalysed.
qq Skype Reading Sessions: Increased interest in reading.
The Skype session held in the community library was
even attended by some of the parents and they were very
excited that their kids could chat with children in another
continent. The project continues to evolve as we are now
© IndiaSocial
looking forward to more Skype sessions between the kids,
creating learning projects which encourage creative thinking
and writing amongst the children at an Akshara library and
a group of children at Central Manor
qq Inviting People to Remix/ Repurpose Our Content: It has
taken some time for people to start experimenting with our
content, but we are getting more queries about how people
can help us translate/review books/create more content,
etc. Microsoft approached us to repurpose our content into
a DVD format. The project is currently being tested with
two NGOs (Nanubhai Education Foundation and Akshara
Foundation). OLPC (One Laptop per Child) has used our
content in Nepal. An advertising agency in Brazil wanted to
use one of our photographs and we’ve had another enquiry
about using our photographs on a website. We’ve also
seen a creative interpretation of our illustrations and our
27
 Casebook1
Quick Tips:
Be patient, authentic and
transparent to see the results of
social media. It takes time for
people to listen, trust and engage
with your cause but once you
manage to gain their trust, they are
willing to be your spokesperson,
recommend you to other people,
help with initiatives you start, etc.
Be frequent with communication
and reply to positive as well as
negative comments. Transparency
is the key and people will always
appreciate it.
illustrations were also used by an organization as part of a
fun activity of creating stories from the images
28
qq Facilitators/ Connecting Organizations and People: We are
trying to see if there are more activities that can involve
children and Anorak Magazine. Anorak Magazine also wants
to send more books to be reviewed by the kids which can
then be kept in their library… thus adding to the reading
culture we want to build
qq More Access to Our Books : Measure impact through the
number of reads and downloads registered for each book
qq Audio Books for National Association of the Blind : Radio
Mirchi has finished recording some of our CC books and
have now offered to record more of our books (in multiple
languages) for National Association of the Blind
qq Passing it On – The Book Edition: The initiative is in its
initial stages and we are still getting opinions from people,
but as we gather more information about people who have
books and people who need books, we are slowly and
steadily building a useful resource which will ensure that
books reach more kids.
Credits Strategy
The awesome community we have, the writings of Gaurav
Mishra, and Gautam John (from Pratham Books)
Credits – Execution
Manisha Chaudhry, Mala Kumar, Sandhya Taksale, Purvi Shah,
Gautam John and Maya Hemant
 Casebook1

Testimonials
qq http://www.boingboing.net

qq Beth Kanter (SlideShare deck)

qq http://globalvoicesonline.org

qq http://beth.typepad.com

qq http://www.desipundit.com

qq http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2010/02/
social-media-and-the-bottom-of-the-pyramid.
html

© IndiaSocial
What Next
We’ll keep at it – do more, attempt greater
transparency and create more touch points.
We’re also building a social publishing platform
and hope to create more content to put a book
in every child’s hand.

29
 Company Details:
Name : Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation

Number of Employees : 1-10

Category : Not-for-profit institution

Campaign Duration : Short term

Case submitted by : Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian, Chairman

Website : http://www.chdinfo.com

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
pages/DrMani-Children-Heart-
Foundation/113480708677410

Twitter : http://twitter.com/drmani

IndiaSocial Case
Challenge - Winner
of Position #2, Short
term initiatives
Dr. Mani Children Heart
Foundation – the Heart Kids
Tweetathon and how Twitter
helps save lives

The Dr.Mani Children Heart
Foundation is a non-profit trust
that raises awareness about
Congenital Heart Disease
in children and funds
expensive, yet life-saving
heart operations for
children born with
heart defects.
Casebook1
Executive Summary
In an innovative use of social networking site Twitter, Indian
heart surgeon Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian does an annual event
to raise awareness and funds for children born with congenital
heart defects – by staying awake for 24 hours non-stop in a
day-and-night Twitter marathon – the Heart Kids Tweet-a-thon.
The 2008 event raised just under $9,000. And even in the
midst of a deep recession, the 2010 event held on February
14th, brought in close to $5,000. As the Foundation’s cost to
sponsor a child’s operation is around $1,250 the Tweetathon
alone will be responsible for healing more than 10 little hearts!
Background
© IndiaSocial
Starting out as a “Heart Kids Blogathon“, the blogging
marathon for CHD awareness has been an annual event since
2003 and a mainstay in efforts that have helped raise over
$130,000 for the Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation and
already sponsored 63 heart surgeries for Indian children from
under-privileged families.
Stakeholders
A large network of small business owners, entrepreneurs, social
workers and generous, caring donors has supported Dr. Mani’s
work for ten years, and rallies behind the fundraiser.
Approach
Each year’s event starts out with an ambitious target – and the
31
 Casebook1
aim is to both build awareness about the deadly problem posed
by heart birth defects, and to get concerned supporters to join
a “47 Hearts Group” and make a contribution to help fund a
child’s heart operation.
Many donors continue to support the effort and remain as
regular contributors, allowing the project to grow and scale
steadily, even if slowly, over the years. The non-profit trust has
been in existence for 7 years, and is growing in visibility and
impact.
32
As word-of-mouth is the main vehicle of promotion, the
costs to run the program are negligible, with over 97% of the
funds raised, going directly to cover the expenses of a child’s
treatment
Planning and Outreach
Conducting the annual blogathon/ Tweetathon involves a
sequence of activities that rope in ‘influencers’ who have
the attention of large audiences, as well as loyal supporters
who have been active in helping spread word about the CHD
awareness effort.
Early notification of the event is spread to this core group
through email messages. Other social media channels are used,
like You Tube videos, Twitter itself, Facebook (through a fan
page), blogs and networking with a community of bloggers and
discussants on message boards.
During the 24 hours of the event, Dr.Mani tweets (posts
messages on Twitter) every half hour – and engages in
discussions with others on his Twitter list, all the while
focusing the chat on the topic of congenital heart defects and
what they can do to help.
Impact – Outcome
The Heart Kids Tweetathon raised $9,000 in 2008 and $5,000
in 2010 in 24 hours (or shortly within that time frame). Each
year the event reached around 500,000 people through Twitter
networks, some of whom became supporters, sponsors and
donors.

Quick Tips:
Relationships with influencers is the key to
Success - People are more likely to help and
support those they know, like and respect
– so the focus must be on becoming that
person before asking for help!
The impact also continues for much longer than the one-
day event, as people who have heard about the effort and
remember later on about it, do come back to make a donation
or help spread word.
For the Foundation, the bottom-line metric is the amount of
funds raised, the number of operations sponsored, and the
extent the message of CHD awareness spreads among the
community we are trying to reach.
Testimonials
qq Fast Company magazine: http://www.ezinemarketingcenter.
com/DrMani-FC.pdf
Casebook1
qq Seth Godin, in “99 Purple Cows”: http://www.b–different.
com/purplecow.htm
qq Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/dr-mani-
sivasubramanian-is-a-linchpin
qq http://www.niche2.com/testimonials.php
What Next
The Heart Kids Tweetathon is just one channel of awareness
building that the Foundation is engaged in. Other aspects
include getting corporate sponsorships, putting in place
“business with purpose” initiatives where business owners
commit to sharing a part of their revenues for funding a child’s
© IndiaSocial
operation, getting larger organizations like the Rotary and
Lion’s Club to sponsor some operations, and growing “47
Hearts Groups”, each of which will be responsible for adopting
and raising enough funds to cover the cost of one child’s
surgery.
The short term target is to fund 47 heart operations in 2010.
The longer term target is to do 47 operations every month!
33
 IndiaSocial Case
Challenge - Winner of
Position #3, Short term
Name
Company Details:
: WWF India
initiatives
Number of Employees : N/A

Category : Not-for-profit institution

Case submitted by : Prashant Deorah, Puretech Internet

Private Limited

Campaign Duration : Short term

Website : http://www.earthhour.org/

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
OfficialEarthHourIndiaPage

Orkut : http://www.orkut.co.in/
Main#Community?cmm=60087030

WWF – Getting India to switch

off their lights for Earth Hour
 Casebook1

Executive Summary Background

Earth Hour is a global awareness programme
by WWF to create awareness on climate
change and fight global warming. People
participating in the Earth Hour voluntarily
choose to switch off their lights of their
homes and offices for one hour to make their
stand against climate change. For the first
time in 2009, WWF India took the initiative
to bring this campaign to India.
WWF India is one of
the largest conservation
organisation engaged
in wildlife and nature
conservation in the
country.
Earth Hour is a global awareness program by
WWF to create awareness on climate change
and fight global warming. It was initiated in
Sydney in the year 2007 when 2.2 million
homes and businesses turned their lights
off for one hour to make their stand against
climate change. In 2009, the need was felt
to promote the concept of Earth Hour in India
and WWF India took up the responsibility.

The task was to spread awareness about this

programme in India and encourage people to
Approach
participate. The overall objective of the campaign was to

An interactive and informative Earth Hour
India site was created asking people to
register themselves. Social media channels
on Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, YouTube, and
Flickr were created and these were used to engage with people
and direct them to the site. Within 18 days, the Earth Hour site
got 1,23,704 visitors; 28,484 people registered on the website
to participate in the Earth Hour event; the Earth Hour Facebook
Cause got 19,059 members; the Orkut Community got 4,547
members; the Flickr photostream received 1,700 views; the
Twitter channel got followed by 321 followers. Earth Hour
2009 was a huge success and the programme is on its way to
another successful year in India now.
© IndiaSocial
create awareness about global warming and
get people to participate in the Earth Hour
initiative by switching off their lights on 28th
March 2009.
Our approach to achieve this goal was to create an India
specific site for Earth Hour and get people to register
themselves to support the campaign. In order to drive people
to the site, various social media channels were created and a
sponsored online ad campaign was undertaken.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders we engaged were the general public who were
online.

35
 Casebook1

Planning & Outreach
qq Create an India site of the Earth Hour campaign where
local content was added and made interactive to encourage
participation and exchange of opinion. The site asked
people to register themselves in support of the campaign.
Interactive features like a quiz and a ‘Share Your Idea’ were
added to engage the users.
qq To raise awareness about the site and the campaign, we
undertook a paid online ad campaign on the Google site and
its network sites.
to 0.88%. The average CPC for the campaign (Rs. 6.25) was
also much lesser compared to the average CPC paid by Indian
advertiser (Rs. 16.20).
The interactive elements like the quiz got 3,732 visits and
‘Share you Ideas’ got 535 visits.
What Next
Earth Hour 2010 is coming up in March 2010 and WWF India is
again gearing up to make Earth Hour a tremendous success in
India.

qq An Orkut group, Flickr photostream, Twitter account, and

a YouTube channel were created to engage with people
on these platforms and share interesting information and
multimedia.

qq A Facebook Cause page was created.

Impact – Outcome
Within 18 days, the Earth Hour site got 1,23,704 visitors;
28,484 people registered to participate on the website; the
Earth Hour Facebook Cause got 19,059 members; the Orkut
Community got 4,547 members; the Flickr photostream
received 1,700 views; the Twitter channel got followed by
321 followers. Earth Hour 2009 was a huge success and the
programme is on its way to another successful year in India
now.

The paid advertising CTR beat the industry average of 0.55%

36
Click here to visit HP
“ Reinventing
Social Media:
the
rules for B2B
“
players

Hari V Krishnan
Country Manager LinkedIn India

To understand the way in which social media is fundamentally altering
the way in which B2B marketers operate, we need to first examine the
evolution of the internet from an essentially open world wide web to a
connected but distinct group of “walled gardens”.
While the open web provided an ideal platform for ubiquitous
information access and proliferation, it also built up the need for
closed forums where like-minded individuals could focus more
on the quality dimension of content sharing and creation. Forums
such as LinkedIn Groups have resulted in incredible value creation
opportunities for marketers and in particular B2B marketers.
Traditionally, B2B organizations have relied on trade publications and
events to engage with stakeholders to drive business development
and customer engagement efforts. The emphasis has always been
on a controlled, quality experience with the implicit need for these
platforms to help them scale of course. They have traditionally shied
away from the large scale “Above the line” marketing channels and
used them more for over-arching branding needs.
For these B2B marketers, platforms which provide a controlled quality
experience while still achieveing massive scale can be the perfect
solution. It is therefore no surprise that social media has proven to be
wildly popular in the more developed economies for B2B marketers. In
India too, early signs are promising.
According to a recent survey, 2 out of every 5 companies globally have
successfully used professional social networks to find and acquire new
customers. In India, 52% of the respondents claimed new customer
acquisitions through social media. In addition to these findings, the
importance of content is visible from the 64% of respondents, who
have audio or visual animations on their company’s profile.
B2B marketing spending on social networking sites is predicted to rise
Casebook1
43.3% in 2010 with 39.2% of B2B marketers say they plan to boost their
marketing budgets in 2010. As B2B marketers begin to increase online
marketing spends, a full 60.3% plan increased spends on social media.
The ability of social media platforms to reach out to and engage with
stakeholders irrespective of geographic barriers can create a multitude
of opportunities for the B2B industry. In an eMarketer article it was
found that 45% of North American B2B companies have acquired
a customer from LinkedIn after using it for marketing. In India too,
social media platforms have enabled businessmen to find partners
in international markets to source and sell products. Rajeev Gangal,
a LinkedIn member wanted to know what professionals in the niche
molecular discovery field, pay for an insilico physio-chemical property
lead optimization service. An activity like this would have been near
impossible for him using traditional channels and the cost would have
© IndiaSocial
been significant. Instead, he activated a poll on LinkedIn asking fellow
professionals for their insights. This helped him decide the right price
for his service for a nominal cost, while also providing him with an
attractive list of “warm leads”.
So how can B2B professionals benefit from social media platforms? For
one, the core of social media platforms is about creating engagement
opportunities for members, whether it is in a social or a professional
setting. Whether it is LinkedIn , Twitter or B2B marketplace AliBaba.
com, as a professional seeking to showcase market expertise, it
is essential to engage with fellow users and showcase thought
leadership where possible. As users post queries and seek advice, your
response can be seen and valued as having knowledge about your
industry. Engaging in forums and groups by asking and answering
queries will fuel professional growth but also helps develop yoru
sphere of influence. Some of the most valuable business insights can
be gleaned through engaging in these forums.
39
 Casebook1
Apart from sharing insights, social media platforms can be used to
drive business development efforts. This is evident from the fund
raising activity conducted by Viedea Capital Advisors who first looked
to LinkedIn when they needed to find investors for a Mumbai based
digital media firm. With the help of LinkedIn’s network, they identified
investors from Europe for the media firm while sitting in their office
in Bangalore. Today they use LinkedIn to drive more than 50% of their
business development efforts.
As a B2B professional looking to establish your expertise on a social
media platform, content can play a large role in driving your company
image. High-impact and shareable content can help establish you as a
leader among peers. The high impact of multimedia coupled with the
40
multiplier nature of social media, allows simple webinars and podcasts
to take your message to a large audience in a cost-effective manner.
Your content needs to be relevant since B2B professionals comprise
of niche audiences. File sharing services like Box.net or Huddle-Space
when integrated with your LinkedIn account enables you to share
white papers and presentations highlighting your proficiency in a
particular subject and showcase thought leadership.
As social media usage in India increases, the potential of this platform
will only grow. As B2B professionals continue to increase their
presence and engagement levels, we believe the online channel will
help create a phase of scalable, sustained growth for them in India.
 Company Details:
Name : Evalueserve

Number of Employees : 1001-5000

Category : B2B (For profit corporation)

Campaign Duration : Long term

Case submitted by : Sandra Winkler, Global Head,

Marketing Communications

Website : http://www.evalueserve.com/

Evalueserve –
Using LinkedIn for
lead generation and
brand building
 Casebook1
Evalueserve provides knowledge services to
a global client base, including Investment,
Commercial and Retail Banks; Insurance
Companies; Private Equity Firms;
Corporates; Consulting and Research Firms;
Law Firms; and Intellectual Property Firms.
Evalueserve’s expertise covers areas, such
as Financial and Investment Research,
Business Research, Market Research,
Intellectual Property, Data Analytics and
Knowledge Technology Services.
Executive Summary
The virtual nature of Evalueserve’s business model called for
the use of web-based technologies to support our sales and
marketing efforts across the globe. Using LinkedIn, a team
member in India can initiate contact or create awareness
about Evalueserve with prospective clients, adding comments
to forums, asking or answering questions, etc. Clients also
proactively approach us with queries, as they see our activities
on the network. Viewing profiles of existing and potential
clients helps in the client research process. LinkedIn helps the
sales teams to identify key contacts and gauge their interests
by viewing their forum posts or the events they attend. Most
42
consumers realize
that LinkedIn is their
professional profile of
record.
The result is a notable
increase of sales
leads together with
a better image of the
Evalueserve brand
and the individuals
working at Evalueserve.
Background
Evalueserve has a global Sales and Marketing team. Client
Engagement Managers in client locations are supported by the
Sales Support teams in our India, China, Chile and Romania
centres. Identifying the key contacts at organisations for the
initial al contact and scheduling meetings with these contacts
has been a challenge. Cold-calling without the right background
information has not proven to be successful over the years.
Reaching clients through traditional media (press releases,
white papers, etc.) has been useful in general brand building,
but to create greater impact for our present and prospective
clients, and get them to recognise us as a large knowledge
services firm we required a more direct approach, which
LinkedIn provided.
Evalueserve certainly is not the first company to use online
networking for business development and marketing purposes.
But as Evalueserve is a global company that works virtually
 Casebook1

in many ways, it is a good case of how modern business is

developed and large networks are built without face-to-face Quick Tips:
meetings.
Lead generation: An effective keyword search
Stakeholders can be used to reach out to the right people.
A useful tip for lead generation is to check
Sales team, Sales Support team and Marketing the list of people who have viewed our profile.
Communications team This lets us know who is interested in the
company, and the prospects thereafter are
Approach more than cold calls.
Many of our Sales Support team members had started using
Confidentiality: A key challenge was to ensure
LinkedIn in 2007 and many of Evalueserve’s Client Engagement
Managers in Europe and the US had already been using
the confidentiality of our clients and project.
LinkedIn Therefore, a Social Media section was added

© IndiaSocial
to the global Media Communication manual,
qq For branding, the Marketing Communications (Marcom) and an e-learning module was developed to
team has been encouraging the controlled use of forums create greater awareness on the subject.
for the distribution of white papers, articles, etc. or for

answering questions asked by members, researching events

and more

qq New white papers are systematically posted (excerpts or

links) in relevant groups or forums.

qq Selected professionals of Evalueserve regularly browse

LinkedIn forums to post advice on queries

qq The Marcom team also regularly checks forums and

questions, and arranges answers/forum posts to be
43
 Casebook1
published. Guidelines for Social Media have been included
in the global Media Communication manual.
Planning & Outreach
The Sales team carries out classic research of profiles to
identify key contacts within the client organisation or targeted
organisations. Client information is also gathered from LinkedIn
to prepare for meetings. InMails are sent or connections
through groups or forums are established. For branding
purposes, managers or subject-matter experts post or answer
questions, or are active in LinkedIn groups. Groups and forums
are used to post company links or excerpts of white papers/
articles
Impact – Outcome
Lead generation: The Sales team gains direct access to C-Level
people without having to go through numerous rounds of
calls with secretaries. Using LinkedIn, one gets to know the
focus of the profile being contacted and can customise the
pitch accordingly to garner maximum interest. This helps us in
reaching the right audience, saving a lot of time and improving
our success rate. Brand building: By posting white papers on
LinkedIn, we have received several requests from traditional
media or blogs. Several Client Engagement Managers have
also received messages through LinkedIn about their posts.
We have also noticed the influx of external recommendations
on LinkedIn. Using LinkedIn for marketing has helped us to
improve our visibility and catch the attention of our target
audience; traditional media is still used as a tool to reach out to
a more general audience.
44
The table below shows the percentage breakup on Lead
generation and Brand building for 5 key target verticals from an
India perspective.
Vertical Percentage Break Up
Healthcare 30
BFSI 25
IT Telecom 20
Automotive Logistics 15
Energy/Chemicals 10
Strategy and Execution
Self
What Next
LinkedIn is now an intrinsic part of Evalueserve’s sales and
marketing strategy. In addition, we are also leveraging other
social media networks in Germany/Europe like Xing. The Sales
and Marketing teams use LinkedIn on a daily basis for business
development and brand building.
Our next step will be to increase the use of LinkedIn across
the organisation and to add the use of online social and
business networking tools to the tool kit of each employee
and increase training and awareness (an update on the Media
Communication manual and training is currently underway).
 NASSCOM
– Acting as
a catalyst
Name
Company Details:
: NASSCOM
for growth
Number of Employees

Category
:

:
51-100

B2B (Not-for-profit institution)

of emerging
Campaign Duration : Long term & start-up
companies
Case submitted by : Avinash Raghava,
Regional Director

Website: http : //www.communities.

nasscom.in/

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
nasscomemerge
 Casebook1
NASSCOM® is the
premier trade body and
the chamber of commerce of the
IT-BPO industries in India. NASSCOM is
a global trade body with more than 1200
members, which include both Indian and
multinational companies that have a
presence in India. NASSCOM’s member
and associate member companies are
broadly in the business of software
development, software services, software
products, consulting services, BPO services,
e-commerce & web services,
engineering services offshoring
and animation
and gaming.
46
Executive Summary
The NASSCOM EMERGE Community website is a private
meeting place where NASSCOM members and non-members
can interact and work together with each other. The purpose
of the NASSCOM EMERGE Community is to help senior
management/thought leaders of SME organizations with a
forum to exchange ideas, learn from other decision and opinion
makers and use the key takeaways to improve their businesses.
We all gain when we all contribute.
Background
As NASSCOM, we have been very limited to connect with only
members of NASSCOM. We were looking at how we can build
a community for start-ups and non-members of NASSCOM.
There was a need to create a community where we could
leverage the strengths of some of the established players and
contribute to the eco-system.
Stakeholders
Predominantly meant for the burgeoning SME community
which is growing stronger by the day. Their exponential growth
obviates the need to share insights and best practises. Of
course, other stakeholders who do not fall under this category
can also join the forum and participate. In a nutshell, it is a
platform for management practitioners who feel the need to
communicate with one another and be aware of what’s going
on. We have been able to reach out to our members, non-
members, academicians, the VC community and the student
community.
 Casebook1

site has become an indispensible meeting place for members

to partner with each other and also share feedback on our
initiatives. The community has helped us to put together
3 conferences (EMERGEOUT conclave) and initiatives like
EMERGE 50, EMERGE Product Showcase and help us plan in
our global delegations.

Credits Strategy
qq Groupsites.com & Iridium Interactive

Approach Quick Tips:

Earlier, NASSCOM was considered to be a “big boys” club and
that we were not doing enough for our SME members. We
started exploring ideas on how we could build a community
for start-ups and non-members of NASSCOM. The members
of this community would leverage on the strengths of some
of the established players and contribute to the eco-system.
This is how this initiative took shape and today we boast of a
community of 3200 members who are just a click away.
© IndiaSocial
Find your evangelisers - build a core group who
believe in contributing and helping the eco-
system partners
Organise off-line meets – this helps companies
to build a comfort factor with each other
Take a buy-in from the senior management

Impact – Outcome Use an off-the-shelf product rather than

building a customised solution based on our
The community site has been live for almost 18 months now.
requirements.
We have been able to get participation from 3200 members, to
be part of the community site. Presently, there are more than Recognise key people from the community at
780+ discussions running simultaneously. So wide a reach
regular intervals.
at a throwaway annual price of 25000 INR. The community

47
 Casebook1

Credits Execution What Next

qq The Evangelisers team for EMERGE community We are looking at getting the buyer community involved in
our discussions. We are keenly looking at identifying some
Testimonials partner associations overseas who can help in enabling some
partnerships. Building a consortium approach and making sure
A story in Outlook business – http://nasscom-emerge.groupsite. that we have enough mid-sized companies who come together
com/link/go/65155926 and work with each other. Also, to have a deeper engagement
with the student and the start-up community. Providing some
Another set of testimonials can be accessed at:
essentials which are like a tool-kit for them. EMERGE Partner
qq http://nasscom-emerge.groupsite.com/discussion/topic/ eXchange is a trusted collaboration network. It is a platform
show/110497 to collaborate and complement with like minded companies.
Companies can partner with each other on technology, sub-
qq http://nasscom-emerge.groupsite.com/discussion/topic/ contracting of projects, post leads, seek help and outsource.
show/149405

qq http://nasscom-emerge.groupsite.com/discussion/topic/
show/166559

qq http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/2009/07/the-nasscom-
emerge-50-listing-announced/ (Refer to the comments
section)

48
“
Communities
will be the next
big thing in “
Marketing

Jessie Paul
Managing Director
Paul Writer

Padmaja Nagarur
B2B Marketing Evangelist
Paul Writer
 Casebook1
“…the aim of marketing is to
make selling superfluous. The
aim of marketing is to know and
understand the customer so well
that the product or service fits
him and sells itself
- Peter Drucker
In the past, marketers have had to invest time and research
effort to gather information about what customers wanted.
But the growth of community platforms has made it much
more convenient for marketers to engage with customers
directly and generate business insights. Marketers have always
used paid and earned media, and there is now a third one,
“owned”. Paid media comes as a privilege to marketers with
generous budgets and earned media promises credibility. But
today’s successful marketers have realized that there is an
opportunity to narrow down the space you want to own and
own it creatively using sophisticated digital tools/social media.
Communities belong to the category of “owned” media which
comes at little or no cost.
Firms such as LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, Groupsite and the
likes have realized the emerging power of communities and
are actively looking for ways to monetize them. Hari Krishnan,
50
Country Manager - India, LinkedIn says, “We are big believers
in communities being the source for the richest business
insights.” With over 7 million professionals in India alone, Hari
believes that LinkedIn provides them with tools to engage in
meaningful business development and brand building activities.
Salesforce.com is tapping into its customers for new product
ideas through IdeaExchange (it has already generated over
10,000 ideas as of Sep 2010). “Why can’t all enterprise
software be like Facebook?” asks Jeremy Cooper, RVP-
Marketing (APAC), Salesforce.com. Chatter is doing just that
allowing users to form a community within their business for
secure collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
India offers commendable examples of early adopter B2C
brands like Flipkart, Ching’s secret, MTV - India to name a few,
who continue to leverage the power of social media. But B2B
stories in India seem to be few and far between though there
are significant references available globally - Dell, IBM, Cisco,
and Salesforce.com. While the common belief is that B2B is
about selling to an organization, one must remember that the
end-buyer is always an individual. Therefore the fundamentals
of community building are the same for B2B and B2C (Source:
No Money Marketing, by Jessie Paul, Tata McGraw-Hill, 2009)
Here’s an easy-to-remember framework (CRISP) to help one get
started.
Coherence: Communities are held together by a common
interest. It maybe something that the members are passionate
about, a common goal, a common project, or merely the
preference for a similar lifestyle or profession. Communities
must address the common interest and maintain consistency in
 Casebook1

topics posted and discussed across platforms.
Relevance: People join communities because they either have
the urge to contribute or intend to learn from their peers
of similar interests. So, it’s only fair for the members to
expect that the content is kept as relevant as possible. Well
orchestrated contributions and moderated discussions always
helps.
Interactive: Communities tend to have their own life cycle (ref
image below). And until the point that the community becomes
self-sustaining, members will continue to rely on its founders
to keep the dialogue on. Therefore, what matters is not just
presence but the promptness and quality of the interaction.
Simple: Information is cheap and abundantly available but
insight is rare. So the focus of the community’s efforts
must be on providing insights which are crisp and simple to
comprehend.

Pervasive: If you build

it, they will come - is
the biggest fallacy of
community building. You

© IndiaSocial
have to make an effort
much more than just
building a community. Be
present across platforms
and communities where
you think your audience
could potentially be.
Participate in a quality
conversation to lure them
into your community
(follow the Hub-and-Spoke
model).

Some of the few active

communities in India who
are doing well on the
CRISP guidelines include
Source:How To: Manage a Sustainable Online Community by Rob Howard (www.mashable.com)
51
 Casebook1
Nasscom Emerge, CIO Association of India and Dell SMB.
Nasscom Emerge, which started as a blog, has grown to
be a 3000+member community with active presence
across relevant social media platforms. The community was
initiated and is driven by Avinash Raghava (Regional Director
- NASSCOM North) who set out to build an ecosystem to
fuel the SME growth. They have also introduced an annual
conference, awards and a mentorship program to sustain
the momentum of community’s engagement. (More about
Nasscom Emerge’s success story is available here).
CIO Association of India is another example which has
managed to build India’s largest member-driven network of
CIOs (over 1900 CIO members), offering a niche platform
to address the career, technical and organizational needs of
today’s IT leaders. It isn’t surprising that Cisco has tapped into
this vibrant community to form the CIO Human Network Club.
52
Dell is one among the few corporates in India who
understands, that businesses respect peer advice to help
solve problems and learn new strategies for success. Early
this year, Dell took the Take Your Own Path campaign to the
next level and started a Business Trailblazers community, an
online destination where entrepreneurs from all over the world
can share their own stories, connect with other experts to get
advice on how technology helps them grow their companies.
Dell doesn’t intend to actively sell but they’re the only ones
who are currently addressing this community.
If you’re still wondering why we haven’t made a reference to
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others, it’s because we believe
that the next big thing are not the social media tools but
communities built using these tools. And organizations who fail
to realize that, will be left friendless.
Creating Raving
Fans Through
Social Media

Toby Bloomberg
 Casebook1

Toby Bloomberg
is a widely recognized for
her expertise in combining
social media with traditional
marketing values while maintaining
the authenticity of digital
conversations. Toby’s blog Diva
Marketing, launched in 2004, is
listed on the Forbes list of the
20 Marketing and Social Media
Blogs By Women.
It seems to me the more “high tech” we become, the more we
long for “high touch.”
Interestingly, that personalized interaction extends to how
people are making purchase decisions. Findings from a July
2009, Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey indicate that
70% of consumers trust online peer recommendations more
than advertising. http://ht.ly/2GF48
daily lives who hold the credibility. The oxymoron is that many
of those discussions are taking place online within social
networking communities.
The challenge for marketers is how to authentically become
part of that trusted circle. Brand managers are beginning to
discover the secret that entertainers have always known. The
more an artist can provide a behind the curtain experience
the more people will become loyal customers who attend
movies, watch TV shows, see concerts, buy books and bring
their friends. The same holds true for business. In fact, many
customer loyalty programs use the term “raving fans” to
identify heavy users.
Social media initiatives can support your business and
marketing goals in multiple ways from creating awareness
to increasing the value of your brand. From a marketing
perspective, it offers a unique way to build trust by connecting
with customers and prospects in the social communities where
they “live.” As important is how social platforms encourage
peer-to-peer interaction where raving fans, on their own
volition, help you extend your grass roots marketing efforts.
Benefits include:
qq The brand telling its own stories, when it wants, how it
wants without the filter of the media

In a world where marketing messages are overwhelming and qq Developing authentic relationships without the guise of
ubiquitous, it’s not a surprise that our customers are gravitating commercial hype
to finding information way they always have - - by asking
people who have experience with the product or service. It is qq Creating digital word of mouth buzz about issues important
the people who bring your brand into the moments of their to your customers

56
 Casebook1

qq Building a broader digital foot print on search engines --
making it easier for people to find the information about
them that they want to share
qq Providing avenues for your “raving fans” to tell their stories
about your product/services and in doing so influence their
networks
Experience has taught us that while a step into the social web
may initially increase awareness the challenge of consistently
extending and maintaining the goodwill of an organization’s
online reputation through digital conversations is based on how
well the details are managed. This ten step overview will help
guide you in the process.

Social media is often thought of as a young person’s media.

However, it is not just your teenager’s world any longer.
There are people from all age groups who are active in social
networks including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs.
According to Pew Research the fastest growing segment is
Baby Boomers.

© IndiaSocial
On the surface, social media appears fairly simple to
implement. Since it is frequently part of our daily lives
managers, who have not studied its business impacts, often
delegate the development to junior staff or even interns. Big
Mistake.

Leveraging social media, as a business strategy, goes beyond

a simple status update or a series of tweets. To be successful
social media demands the same respect that you would give
any marketing initiative. It requires a sophisticated strategic
approach that is integrated, monitored and flexible to respond
to market opportunities. For the most part, this takes a
combination of skills and experience in: strategy, marketing,
customer care, your brand values/promise, an understanding of
how social media impacts the brand and the enterprise on a
long-range (and short-range) basis and excellent communication
skills.

57
 Casebook1
10 Steps To Create Raving Fans With Social Media
qq Identify which social networks your target audience is most
engaged e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Live Journal, etc.
qq Determine your target audience’s expectations of how it
wants to interact with your brand in the social web
qq Understand the culture of each “community” where you
intend to participate.
qq Ensure social media tactics are integrated and supportive of
business goals/objectives
qq Set expectation including determining what is success.
Keep in mind it will involve some nontraditional tracking.
qq Ensure the entire enterprise’s social media direction is
aligned and cross business unit internal communication
processes are in place
58
qq Approach all social media initiatives from the point of view
of the Social Media Values Mantra: Ethics, Authenticity,
Transparency and Passion
qq Understand it is the people who work for your brand who
should be telling brand stories
qq Encourage your customers, and make it easy for them, to
tell their stories
qq Identify a social media champion who has experience in
marketing, social media, with excellent communication
skills who understands your brand value and promise
Social Media may be a new way of marketing which goes
beyond traditional messaging to adding value to the customer.
However, at its core, it’s simply one more way of bring a
personal connection to how we have always conducted
commerce. Done well it can create raving fans who lend their
credibility and extend awareness of your brand to networks you
may not have considered.
 Company Details:
Name : Fastrack
Number of Employees : 1001-5000

IndiaSocial Case Challenge - Category

Campaign Duration
:
:
Lifestyle (Brand)
Long term
Winner of Position #2, Case submitted by : Anshul Nanda,
Assistant Brand Manager
Long term initiatives Website : www.fastrack.in
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/

Fastrack: Capturing the Twitter :

pages/rack/22353108376
http://www.twitter.com/

imagination of youth online

fastrack
YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/
fastrackworld
Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/
photos/20714224@N02/
Mobile : http://www.smsgupshup.com/
communities/FT
 Casebook1

Fastrack, launched
in 1998 is a brand of watches
from the house of Titan Industries
Ltd which is the market leader in
the watches category in India. It
was spun off as an independent
brand of watches targeting the
urban youth in 2005.

Executive Summary Background

Moving from outsourcing our social media initiative to an in-
house program has allowed us to engage and really connect
with our audience in typical Fastrack fashion and style. Having
college-interns run this Fastrack initiative has been a great step
in being able to speak the language of our customers/fans.
The essence of the brand being communicated in real-time
and in a manner that is acceptable and easily understood by
our customers is our constant thought as we go through daily
customer queries, feedback, comments, suggestions & brand
announcements. Our initiative is focused around the experience
we deliver to the fans and both current and potential, driving
them toward a better, and more personalized connection with
the brand.
Fastrack is essentially a youth brand, and what better way to
get in touch with our target audience of 15-25 year-olds (SEC
A,B) than having a presence on the very platforms that they
use daily? Social networking is a big part of today’s youth
and we have made it a big part of us, extending all our online
initiatives to incorporate our social networks and com munities.
With this step forward we worked on tapping the pulse of the
youth by answering queries, getting feedback about the brand
and our collections and campaigns, engagement, resolving
complaints & doubts and interacting with ‘Fastrack Fans’ daily,
24/7.
At the beginning we jumpstarted our initiative by linking all
our existing properties to the new social media platforms we

60

joined. Facebook, Flickr and Youtube were the first networks
added to our consumer outreach. The great response we
received pushed us to integrate even more and we created the
URL re-direct http://www.fastrack.in/facebook to take fans
directly to our fan page. Since its inception, this link has been
used across our billboards, take-ones, contest forms, emailers
and all offline forms.
A major component of success for this fan page was the use
of Facebook social ads to create awareness of the brands
presence on Facebook. In the larger picture we have led all our
campaigns, both offline and online with social media links on
our microsite and landing page, previews on our communities
& applications dedicated to display our latest collections. We
Casebook1
even create unique profile pictures and tabs on our Facebook
fan page for every scheme and campaign.
We then jumped right into Twitter allowing us to connect with
fans on a more individual basis, answering queries directly,
solving customer issues, giving out store addresses and the
like. On the flip side, we have also taken offline activities
and brought them into the world of social media with a fine
example being our Twitter Contest where we asked fans tweet
pictures of our billboard signs announcing the launch of our
latest accessories segment.
Stakeholders
Our entire social media initiative is geared toward our existing
© IndiaSocial
and potential customers. As one of the 1st Indian brands to
take on social media in a big way, we have endeavoured to stay
ahead in terms of what we do for our fans and the experience
we give them. They whole-heartedly embrace this as organic
conversations burst onto our communities, fans upload pictures
with our products, share our celebrations & store launches and
a host of other social media activities.
Approach
Fastrack was one of the first brands to use social media to
engage with potential and existing consumers. We started
with two communities on Facebook and a Twitter account
in September 2007. We worked closely with Blogworks to
create relevant content and monitor conversations. From
April 2009, we started to get all the work done in-house and
worked with college interns to create relevant, engaging and
61
 Casebook1
Quick Tips:
Speak in same voice as the customer -
It’s essential that the person in charge of
social media is in touch with both the brand
and the people it is trying to communicate to.
They need to be someone who understands
the essence of the brand, yet speaks the
language of the fans/followers
Build a hub - it is good to have a hub from
which most of your activities and updates are
localised so as to have a better reach, focus
and maximise participation. This is what we
have with Facebook being our main platform
and centering our communications with the
fans on it. On the same Facebook note, it was
a good idea to move from Facebook Groups to
Facebook Pages where we have a lot
more tools to analyse data about fan
interactions and additions.
more importantly, unique content – such as origins of the
Fastrack logo, behind the scenes working of the brand coupled
with innovative contests (myexbox) and campaign/collection
updates. The presence of the brand on the digital sphere –
both in terms of reach and budgets – has only been getting
larger and given the relevance of this medium to our audience
62
(15-25 year olds), we will continue on our way to engage with
our audience in as fun, entertaining and rewarding way as we
have done so far.
Planning & Outreach
What we’ve done best is turn the social media marketing on
its head, so that instead of out-sourcing the work, we have
shed that layer so that we can deal with our fans on a much
more personal and real-time basis. To do this we have taken on
college interns who walk in the shoes of our TG and talk their
lingo. This allows for two things.
qq One, the essence of the brand is better communicated from
an in-house person
qq Second, we are able to talk with our customers from the
same level as them rather than as a big company. The sheer
growth of our communities, the numbers of interactions
with the brand and appreciation we have received for our
timely responses to queries and updates/previews stands in
testimony of this.
Another sizeable chunk of our time goes into gearing our
campaigns around our social media communities, whether it be
by releasing ads a few days in advance on YouTube/Facebook
or putting up an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at our Bikers
photo shoot, putting up sketches of our watches before they
launch or linking back contests to our communities as done
with myEXbox. Working our campaigns this way has allowed
us to expose not only ourselves, but our current fans/followers
to the other like-minded Fastrack-loving youth out there.

Impact – Outcome
Our main objective was to reach out to all the existing Fastrack
customers/fans and allow them a closer interaction with the
brand.
qq In less than a year we have grown from approximately
2,100 fans on Facebook in April ’09 to over 47,500 fans
as of Feb ’10 – that’s a 2262% growth in 10 months!
Updated- In September, 2010 Fastrack are 5,97,659 fans
qq Not only has our fan count increased but so have the
interactions, going up from about 10-20 a week to almost
700-800. Comments on our posts have touched the 150
mark at times.
Casebook1
Most of our pre and post-analysis is measured through online
tools such as the built-in ‘Insights’ for Facebook pages,
tweetreach.com and twitteranalyzer.com for our Twitter
account. From Insights we can discern the numbers of fans we
add per day, the interactions per week, the number of views for
pictures (on Facebook & Flickr) and videos. For Twitter we get
details such as number of followers online at a time so we can
maximise how many people we reach with our messages, and
the growth of our follower-base to coincide with campaigns/
collections.
Strategy and Execution
Blogworks – Oct 2007 – Apr 2009
© IndiaSocial
What Next
One of the initiatives we need to quickly close is Ecommerce
which would be a great avenue for us to delve into, working
out linking direct customer queries to sales and closing the
loop in terms of connecting online interactions with retail
transactions. This would take the social media exposure of
Fastrack to reach new levels once we introduce an online retail
experience to our fans & followers
Currently we’re on Facebook with 5,97,659 fans , Twitter with
2,200+ followers, Mobile community (via SMS GupShup) with
19803+ members and Youtube and Flickr. What we are aiming
at is not just the numbers, but engaging better with our fans,
be it through Ecommerce, more engaging, insightful content or
even linking online interactions to an offline format.
63
 Company Details:
Name : Hard Rock Cafe
Number of Employees : N/A
Category : Lifestyle (For Profit Corporation)
Campaign Duration : Long term
Case submitted by : Adhvith Dhuddu; Founder and CEO,
AliveNow
Website : http://www.hardrock.com/
Blog : http://www.hardrockindiablog.com/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
HardRockDelhi
Twitterq : http://twitter.com/HRCIndia
YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/
hardrockcafeindia

Hard Rock Café India

– live in concert on
social media
Click here to visit Blogworks
 Casebook1
Hard Rock Café is a chain of
theme restaurants in present
globally and present in 5
locations in India. Its unparalleled
memorabilia collection, which
consists of more than 70,000
pieces that are rotated from
restaurant to restaurant, provides
the world’s most comprehensive
“visual history” of rock ‘n’ roll.
Executive Summary
This case submission is a brief overview of how AliveNow
helped five Hard Rock Café’s across the country (Mumbai,
Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi) leverage the social
media space in the most optimal way to connect, communicate
and engage with the avid audience and fans of Hard Rock café.
Background
Hard Rock India wanted to leverage the social media space in
an optimal way to engage, communicate and converse with
their ardent fan base. With five Hard Rock’s in India, close to
40 events every month across the country and thousands of
foot-falls every week, there was tremendous opportunity to
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connect and engage with Hard
Rock’s audience. Also, there
were scattered and unorganized
groups/pages on Facebook touting
the Hard Rock brand and talking
about events. Many of these
were unofficial, unprofessional,
inconsistent and not properly
maintained. There was no
centralized social media strategy
for the five Hard Rock Café’s
across the country, whether it was Facebook, twitter, a blog
or any other social media space for that matter. Therefore, we
put a plan together to help Hard Rock leverage the social media
space in an organized, professional and consistent way but
also make sure that the tone, voice and engagement was fun,
interactive and conversational.
Stakeholders
The three primary stakeholders in this project were
qq Hard Rock Café the organization-Hard Rock because it
is their brand we were managing social media and our
performance would be measured by how well we could
leverage the social media space for Hard Rock.
qq The fans/audience of Hard Rock-The fans and audience of
Hard Rock because it’s their response to our initiatives that
primarily determines how successful our strategies were
both in envisaging them and executing them. The response
from the fans has also been very supportive.

qq AliveNow, the social media agency managing the Hard Rock
account - as a social media firm, the best way to prove to
anyone that we are good at what we do is to do the best
we can for our clients.
Approach
Facebook: We started off by creating individual fan-pages
on Facebook in the most professional manner, and each fan
page now can boast of high following, a crisp look and active
engagement. With a cumulative total of approximately 25,000
fans (or Likes) in less than a year, the Facebook presence is a
success.
qq We continue to add hundreds of fans (or Likes) every day
as many migrate from unofficial groups/pages and as
more individuals discover Hard Rock’s active social media
presence on Facebook
qq We also made it much more easier for Hard Rock patrons
across the country to discover their social spaces by
including the Facebook, twitter and blog URL information
on all Hard Rock posters, Hard Rock menu’s, and many
other off line ads and promo’s. This significantly helped in
increasing the fan base
qq Individuals who are most likely to become fans or followers
of your brand online are the ones who visit your cafe and
are familiar and accustomed to the brand. So translating
cafe customers to online followers is crucial, which is
why we made sure that information about these spaces is
shared in the cafe via posters, menu’s, standee’, etc.
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The Facebook page started off as a portal for information
dissemination about the regular events at Hard Rock, and after
a substantial fan base was built, we started engaging the fans
through contests, feedback, questions, etc. With the click of a
mouse we had a reach of close to 30,000 Hard Rock fans in
India via the different social sites.
qq This was leveraged for many purposes, for example: to get
feedback from fans about what international artists they
would like to watch live at Hard Rock Cafe, what prices
they would be willing to pay, what time of the year would
be ideal for them, etc.
qq Besides listening to them, about what bands they want to
hear at their local Hard Rock, we also regularly conducted
© IndiaSocial
contests on Facebook and gave away food vouchers,
free entries, etc both to engage with the fan and to help
increase the fan base.
Our overarching social media strategy on Facebook for
Hard Rock India was to engage fans on a continuous basis,
communicate to them about events every week, and to help
increase foot-falls in the Café during live band performances
which are Hard Rock’s signature events.
These Facebook pages were built with many best practices. To
name a few:
qq They were URL optimized (i.e., Facebook.com/
HardRock”YourCity”) - For example, Hard Rock Mumbai’s
Facebook page is located at www.facebook.com/
HardRockMumbai.
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 Casebook1
qq They had regular and customized FBML tabs - With the use
of these FBML tabs, we were able to communicate to fans
about special events using posters, calendars and promo’s.
qq The audience was kept up to date about event info and any
other relevant info. Besides having an updated standard
Events tab on Facebook, we also had an FBML tab called,
“July Events” where we designed an awesome calendar
with details of each event of that month. This calendar was
image mapped and if a user clicked on any of the events,
it would redirect them to the blog which had a detailed
overview of the band and the event.
qq Photos of all events were regularly updated on Facebook
in a professional format. We also encouraged fans to tag
themselves in those photos if they spotted themselves in
the event.
qq The audience’s feedback/grievances/suggestions were all
taken very seriously and communicated/passed on to the
right person inside the organization at Hard Rock.
qq The Facebook page was integrated with the twitter page,
the blog, mailing list sign up page, and many other Hard
Rock India social portals.
qq We tried to actively communicate to the fans of existing
groups/pages (which were all unofficial) to migrate to the
official page for accurate info, etc. (This activity continues
even today.)
qq Custom left-hand sidebars with links to relevant events
were created for the Facebook page. NOTE: As Facebook
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discontinued support for “Boxes” the left hand sidebars are
no longer displayed on the pages.
qq Spam control: as the number of fans on different Hard
Rock Facebook pages increased, they became targets for
spammed posting and uninvited advertisements. Because
these pages are actively managed, spam was usually
removed within 2-3 days and many users have been deleted
as we’ve noticed they just become fans to spam the wall
and comment boxes.
qq They adhered to certain high standards set by Hard Rock
International.
qq All Facebook pages (and even other social media sites)
were search engine optimized.
qq Fans were kept engaged: we regularly ran contests, asked
interesting questions, conversed with fans, conducted
surveys and feedbacks, and did much more.
Twitter: Alongside, we created a single twitter page for all the
five Hard Rock’s in India to make sure all updates on the blog
and Facebook are mirrored on Twitter. With close to 1,300
followers on Twitter, and regular re-tweets, and @mentions,
Hard Rock India’s presence on Twitter is very conversational.
We regularly reply to all queries on Twitter, which is extremely
important. There are also a large number of @HRCIndia
mentions with exciting and optimistic messages about how a
follower had an amazing time at a particular Hard Rock Cafe.
As we regularly tweet about events, contests, surveys, etc, we
follow best practices to tweet with hash tags so that followers

can use those hash tags when they tweet. For example, there
are standard hash tags for all cafe’s, i.e., #HardRockPune for
Hard Rock Pune and so on.
Blog: The Hard Rock India blog which is also designed,
developed and maintained by us is located at www.
hardrockindiablog.com. The blog was a critical part of the
strategy because this was the only space with a high level of
maneuverability in terms of content, design and placement.
The blog served as a central source of information for
everything happening at all the five Hard Rock’s across the
country. Because we expected significant traffic on the blog,
we had to make sure this blog was integrated with and
connected to all the other social media spaces. Here are a
few things we did to enhance the blog’s connectivity and
appearance.
qq The blog had icons with links to Facebook, twitter, YouTube,
LinkedIn, Mailing list and RSS feeds in the right hand
sidebar.
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qq A live twitter feed was integrated into the blog in the right
hand sidebar.
qq Fanboxes for all five Facebook pages were integrated with
the blog in the right hand sidebar.
qq We designed a custom wibya widget which appears are the
bottom of the blog with a welcome message and links to
many of Hard Rock’s social media portals.
qq Every post/article displayed was “ShareThis” enabled,
so visitors could share the post/link on various social
networking and social bookmarking sites.
qq Every post/article also had the Facebook Like button
integrated with it. This way anyone who visits the blog
© IndiaSocial
could “Like” the article and simultaneously share it on their
profile. We definitely saw a good spike in traffic after we
included Facebook like buttons for each article as fans were
sharing these posts on their personal Facebook profiles.
We also regularly emailed all the band managers about the
coverage of their band in the blog so that they could share
it with their fans too.
qq Sidebar tabs with Facebook recommendations box and
Facebook recent activity box was also incorporated. This
helped visitors who have logged into Facebook get an idea
of what type of content their friends were browsing on the
Hard Rock India blog.
qq There are tabs on top to city-specific events. So if anyone
browsing the blog just wants to know what’s happening in
Hard Rock Mumbai, they could click on Mumbai on the top
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 Casebook1
tab and the list of events at Hard Rock
Mumbai would show up.
qq We focused quite a lot on the blog
design and article design. Every post/
article has a custom header designed
with details of the band playing, the
Hard Rock location and the date.
qq All posts/articles on the blog were very
well tagged. So any visitor just looking
coverage about just a particular band
could easily find their coverage by
clicking on the band’s name under tags.
qq Tagging of articles and optimizing them
also helped tremendously to search
engine optimize the blog. Our analytics
also showed that we were receiving significant amounts of
traffic from Google and other searches, and this is because
of our continued efforts to search engine optimize the blog.
qq Many links on the blog were also Apture enabled.
E-mail list/E-mail marketing: What started off as a small part
of the online media strategy mushroomed into something
significant and relevant. Hard Rock already had someone
designing their mailers and another vendor handling the
distribution to the database. But because we wanted to get
fans on Facebook, followers on twitter and visitors to the blog
on the mailing list, we created a simple form which served
two purposes for the fans: For them to give feedback directly
to Hard Rock managers about anything they wanted and to
70
subscribe to the mailing list. This turned
out to be a great success as we collected
close to 700 unique email ids, and some
amazing feedback right from the fans. For
a brief period of one month, we also had a
small contest going where every individual
who joined the mailing list enjoyed a free
beverage at Hard Rock! So, of all the email
ids collected, close to 70 percent was
through this promotion.
Integrating social media with on-ground
marketing/strategies: This was and
continues to be one of the most critical
parts of our Social Media strategy for Hard
Rock. We realized very early on that running
ads was an “easy way out” method to get
fans to join Hard Rock Cafe. Not only was it another financial
commitment for Hard Rock, but it would also be unwise on our
part not to leverage the existing network of Hard Rock’s five
café’s and the hundreds of customers they touch each week.
It was important for us to convert foot falls into followers
on social media and convert those followers back in to foot-
falls every week and every month. We’ve clearly achieved
this because Hard Rock’s social media presence is robust and
continues to grow from strength to strength without a single
Rupee spent on advertising. Just to repeat that, not a single
Rupee has been spent in advertising for Hard Rock’s social
portals but we’ve got a healthy base of close to 25,000 fans
(or likes) on Facebook, about 1,300 followers on twitter and
close to 5,000 hits on the blog every month.

Comprehensive social media analytics: Easily, the most
important part of the social media strategy was to measure
the success of our initiatives. We preach to our clients that
we cannot improve something that we cannot measure. So
analytics for social media was tracked very closely and more
details about the numbers, etc, are shared in the Impact/
Outcome question given below.
Impact – Outcome
As mentioned in the Approach/Strategy section, quantifying
the social media initiatives is very important to analyze the
success of a social media strategy.
The first achievement was in terms of sheer numbers.
qq With no ads and no separate marketing budget to promote
Hard Rock’s social media space, we were able to populate
close to 25,000 fans on Facebook over 1 year period
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qq The average traffic on the blog is about 4,000-5,000
unique visits per month with about 8,000-9,000 page
views per month, and these numbers are only going up
qq On Twitter the HRC India account has close to 1,300
followers with many of our tweets being regularly re-
tweeted.
The second was our ability to successfully create a
professional and well maintained presence on vital social
media channels. Awareness in branding and marketing is very
important and a huge majority of the Hard Rock fans are now
aware of Hard Rock India’s active presence on social media.
The numbers are sufficient to say that the audiences now visit
these pages regularly for information and updates.
© IndiaSocial
Besides this, the impact and the outcome can be seen on
the Facebook pages, the blog and twitter itself. With regular
engagement, contests, information updates, we were able to
achieve what we initially envisioned for the Hard Rock brand in
India on social media.
Testimonials
“Although we have all known that social media is and will be
playing an important role for marketing, there has never been
clarity on how to make it an organized effort. Until AliveNow
approached us all our initiatives were on an ad hoc basis, now
since we have outsourced this piece of to them we have a
plan and a vision which is to increase our following and ensure
we deliver the right content which is relevant to our brand
and hence increase awareness which ultimately is the goal
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 Casebook1

Quick Tips:
Never make competitions or contest
too complicated - Even if a complicated
contest sounds very creative and
interesting, people don’t have all the time
in the world for a social media contest. So
keep it simple and make sure it’s fun and
engaging.
Don’t just disseminate - Trying to use
the social media channel purely to push
events, push sales, spread information,
etc will only make the platform boring
and mundane. It’s critical to engage, ask
questions, listen to feedback,
converse, etc.
What Next
In the first year of Hard Rock Cafe’s social media presence, we
established the brand on the social space and have built a good
fan base. Over the next 6 months we’ve planned a lot of new
initiatives for the Hard Rock brand on social media in addition
to improving their existing portals.
Some planned initiatives include:
qq Increase activity on twitter, with more engagement. We’ve
been having quite a few Facebook campaigns, so we plan
to increase the number of twitter contests too.
qq Integrating Hard Rock’s social media presence with the
social media presence of different rock bands in India. We
have begun this activity but will be focusing more on this in
the coming months.
qq Activity on YouTube and some other video sites will begin.
qq More co-ordination on integrating on-ground and online
strategies.

when starting any marketing initiative. We know we have only qq And lots more.
hit the tip of the iceberg and over time we will innovate and
with AliveNow’s experience, and hope to be leader’s in our
industry.”

- Amit, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, JSM Corp. (JSM

Corp is the holding company for the Hard Rock brands across
India)

72
 Company Details:
Name : Axe
Number of Employees : N/A
Category : Liefstyle (For-profit
Corporation)
Campaign Duration : Long term
Case submitted by : Ekalavya Bhattacharya -
Sr. Manager – Product /
Social Media
Website : http://www.axetwist.
zapak.com/
http : //www.axeplay.zapak.com/
http : //axemusicstar.zapak.com/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
axeangelsclub

Axe Angels Club – building virtual

engagement via ‘real’ personas
 Casebook1

AXE is a cool, iconic,

youth brand available in more than 60
countries around the world. Launched
in India in 1999, the brand has the
dominant share in male deodorant
market in India.

Executive Summary
Axe brand communicates through advertising, the various
ways it helps men attract women. The task at hand was to
create the same brand positioning for Axe on four key social
networking platforms Facebook, Twitter, Orkut & Big Adda .
Approach/Strategy
qq At the outset, the objective was to create one of India’s
largest and most well engaged fan pages on Facebook,
which reaches out to more than a million users on a daily
basis.
qq We wanted to give the users, who played the AXE Inxtinct
game a better and a more realistic brand experience
qq Hence we activated the 5 Angels from the game across
Social Networks.
qq This gave us an opportunity to connect with users on a
daily basis, rather than simply a one point interaction while
playing a game or watching a TVC.
74
One of the important steps in planning for the initiative was
to identify the five angels for the Axe angels club (given the
success of the initiative was driven to a great extend by the
level of real-time representation of the club).
qq Based on certain parameters, we shot with 8 young models
on various beautiful locations across the country. As the
theme of the potentially 10 lakh strong community was to
be based on these 8 ambassadors, each Angel was given a
set of interests and a profession which gave us a large base
to power content in the community.
qq Drove engagement through user generated contest
where we asked users to take a picture of them with a
note saying: I love AXE. XYZ is my Music Star (For Axe
Music Star promotion). We got 200+ people adding their
photographs.
qq Asking users to update their status messages and
 Casebook1

uploading user generated videos created a lot of buzz in the qq This club is run by the Angels. Currently we have 5
community. moderately active angels and 3 super active angels.

qq We launched highly engaging applications, games and virals && Alisha – Fashionista, Film Critic
on Facebook which directed the users and their network to && Sophia – The cute college chick
the community
&& Rhea – The musical rockstar!

Planning & Outreach && Simran – The hot Punjabi kudi

&& Tanya – The Gym Babe
qq We started off with 5 Axe angels who would drive the && Lydia – The corporate hottie
audience to join the official Axe community – The Axe
&& Kelly – The sexy bartender
Angels Club. The challenge was to make the AXE Angels a
part of the daily lives of thousands of users && Natalie – The bold Biker babe

Quick Tips:

© IndiaSocial
Don’t sell but engage - Rather than ‘Selling’
the brand, we made these 8 angels the
brand ambassadors which helped us attract
fans towards the brand, not only in terms
of awareness, but also in terms of trials,
purchase, consumption and repeat purchases.
Give a face to your brand to build better
connect - It became far easier to connect to
the audience with a face; especially when
that face was that of a character and more
and more consumers continue to interact
with them daily, driving user generated
content and virility to the community.

75
 Casebook1

qq Over the course of last 9 months the Facebook page has

really grown. Apart from the girls living and showing off a
sexy Axe life - they connect with the TG on what would be
interesting to them. i.e. Cricket, Football, Music etc

qq Topical conversations - Guys love women who know their

Sport!

&& During the IPL, each Angel supported a different team.

This allowed us to maximise conversations and we used
the IPL to our benefit!

&& Similarly during the Football World Cup, the Angels

again supported different teams!

qq There are regular contests, product sampling and surveys;

TVC’s are released here before they hit the channels.

qq Updates and posts revolved around the latest Axe 2 cities, we are now recognised as one of the most active
fragrance, introducing fans to the product and educating Youth brands in India on the digital medium.
them about it with content bringing out the ‘Mischievous
qq Now at 4,50,000+ fans, Axe angels club is in the list
side ’ of Axe Men
of top 5 Facebook fan pages of India and reaches out to
qq We avoid pushing the brand on the page but once in a while 1.2 million users on a daily basis. If you add up the total
the brand message is subtly put out and people appreciate minutes spent on AXE Angels Club on Facebook in the
that too. month of August, 2010 it comes to – 49,650,000 minutes!
That is nearly 50 Million minutes!
Impact – Outcome
What Next
qq The Axe angels club is now one of India’s largest and most
well engaged fan pages on Facebook. && To hit 1 million fans

qq Apart from Sales having increased in the Tier 1 and Tier && To be the largest and most engaged community by the
end of the year.
76
“
Why social media can
“
be so unsocial

Anurag Batra
Chairman and Editor-in-Chief
exchange4media group
 Casebook1
I am from the generation that grew up without ACs, mineral
water or even toilet paper. It was a magical time, without
internet (and obviously no social media), where relationships
ran deep and interactions were full of quality. Instead of playing
a virtual Farmville on Facebook, we played with marbles, ‘gilly-
danda’ and cricket with real friends. The physical touch wasn’t
missing – what mattered was the one-to-one contact, and it
took time to connect with friends and acquaintances, and build
relationships.
Today, all of us suffer from the dual syndromes of ‘paucity
of time’ and ‘partial attention disorder’. We have a million
simultaneous things to do, and prefer to do all these things
in virtual space, which allows for ‘multi-tasking’. Let me ask
you a real question – if you have a thousand friends on your
Facebook account, and are still alone at home on a Friday night
hunched over a computer screen, how many friends do you
really have? In the virtual space, if you are not updating your
profile on Twitter, Facebook, and the dozen other social media
sites, do you even exist?
It’s interesting to note that the internet, digital media and
social media are forcing human beings and marketers to
become publishers, and marketing and connecting is becoming
more about the relationships and lesser about the medium of
communication. I am reminded of what Seth Godin said - that
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but
about the stories you tell.” Social media is no longer a small
movement; it is a force, and for the average marketer, it is no
longer about whether to use it or not, but how to effectively
use it – and that’s the real trick! As Avinash Kaushik tweeted
“Social media is like teen sex. Everybody wants to do it.
78
Nobody knows how. When it’s finally done there is surprise it’s
not better.”
Internet is the great equaliser. It is the medium that allows
everyone to post their comment in the cyberspace, regardless
of creed, social position, or gender. Everyone is allowed an
opinion, and the internet keeps a record of every opinion that
has ever been shared on it. This, however, poses a problem,
where all opinions posted are less-than-sterling; in fact, it has
come to a point where the content of social media and its
seriousness is under doubt. Exclusivity is the new mantra, and
you are now known by the friends that you do not keep rather
than the ones that you do. Let me put it this way – there are
plenty of people who try to market their wares to me under
the grab of conversation, and that just dilutes efficacy of
the media – quite like sms marketing on the mobile phones.
Also, I hate the fact that there is no depth in social media
relationships – there is no pain or effort involved in building
lasting relationships, and breaking a relationship is as easy as
blocking a person from your contact list.
To me, social media is an untamed animal – for those who
know how to respect its limits, it’s a great tool for keeping
in touch with the world around (even casual acquaintances).
The problem comes for those who do not know the limits of
social media. I think it’s interesting when a person wants to
broadcast an opinion to the world, but I draw the line at people
who keep updating their Facebook, Google Chat and Twitter
status on a minute to minute basis. I know of too many people
(and colleagues) whose productivity in their work has been
severely hit due to their overindulgence with social media. I
am reminded of a recent decision of a technology firm which

banned the use of laptops and other social media devices in
meetings. After all, imagine making a presentation to a room
full of open laptops and active cell phones – how many people
do you think are actually paying attention to the presentation?
From a purely marketing perspective, social media shouldn’t
be the destination, and while it can be a value-add and the
icing on top, it shouldn’t be the main point you want your
customers to be. There is no relationship building in the social
media world that can match the loyalty you get from physically
interacting with customers and talking with them “face-to-
face”. Even when a store is virtual, you can still connect with
your customers on a real human level. A phone call now and
then to the customers telling them how appreciative you are
for their business goes a long way. The point is, social media is
great at keeping loose contact with customers, but it’s not the
main driver of real customer relationships. I was reading that
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the success of Apple is based in no small part on the ability
of Steven Jobs and his “chat with his friends” at any Apple
announcement and at the annual Apple convention. While it
is true that Apple has done a brilliant job in creating a brand
essence that is both authentic and desirable, people still feel
that they know Steve Jobs and that Apple isn’t just a cold,
tech company. He has been able to connect on a real human
level using technology to help reach the masses, and yet many
still feel like Apple is interested in them. This brings us to an
important point – the real essence of the relationship is built on
how you treat your customers in the real world rather than just
the virtual world, how your employees interact with them on a
“one-to-one” basis, and how authentic your brand is.
Ultimately, social media is just a tool to stay in loose contact
© IndiaSocial
with the world around you, and those who live just by social
media will die by social media.
79
Click here to visit NM Incite
 Company Details:
Name : Katalist Viewspaper
Private Limited
Number of Employees : 51-100
Category : Media (For Profit
corporation)
Campaign Duration : Long term
Case submitted by : Shiv Bhaskar Dravid,
Founder and CEO
Website : http://theviewspaper.net

Viewspaper:
Creating and
strengthening the
voice of the youth
 Casebook1
Launched in
August 2007 - The Viewspaper
is fast emerged to become India’s
largest youth paper. Based on the
citizen journalist format, the organization
has grown to a network of 5 sites with
a UK edition and verticals in ads, careers,
health and pet care. The Viewspaper
network is receives 150000 visitors a
month and till now around 4000
people have contributed to it.
Executive Summary
The Viewspaper is the voice of the youth and the more writers
and contributors it gets the stronger the voice becomes. This
is what defines Viewspaper. We have used both the physical
and virtual medium to build a community of highly active
individuals. The actions taken have not been for a one time
campaign but to build a long term closely knit family.
Background
Since we don’t have any staff writers, getting more and more
people to write and contribute is core to our business. If we
82
don’t have enough writers we will run out content. Therefore
this activity has been constant from the day we started. The
more successful we are with our marketing efforts the more
content we are able to generate which directly results in
greater readership and revenues.
Stakeholders
Our target audience is any person less than 35 years of age.
However, till now we have mainly focused at college and
school students. Within this we have targeted the young and
opinionated individuals.
Approach
The very objective why Viewspaper was started was to get
more and more young people to share their views and therefore
getting more and more people to express themselves has been
one of major goals and we constantly work towards increasing
these numbers.
As we are a startup we have always had limited funds to
market ourselves and therefore we have used various channels
and have relied heavily on writer referrals.
When we started we used extensive poster campaigns in
colleges and schools. We also conducted presentations at
various education institutions across the country. We also
used voluntary recruitment groups who would go and talk to
people, organize presentations and put up posters. We built a
community of Viewspaper ambassadors who promoted The
Viewspaper across various colleges in the country. These

groups were responsible for geographies and would constantly
get support and guidance from the main organization.
When we launched on day 1 we had 0 writers and by using
all these techniques we got 30 writers in our 1st month and
touched a writer base of 700 people by the end of the first
year.
As we grew we started employing other marketing methods
such as emailing and Facebook Advertising. In July 2009
which is when most college students have summer holidays
we sent out 1,00,000 emails and had around 500 queries
coming in, out of which we finally selected 150 people. We
generally found that for every Rs 1000 that we spent on
Facebook we would get around 50 people to write in who
would be interested in writing for us. It is important to note
Casebook1
that there is an extremely strict application process to become
a writer with The Viewspaper. So for a person to become a
writer he has to fill in a query form after which he is provided
with some information over email. He then has to fill out an
extensive application form which includes writing 2 articles
of 500 words each. After this the application is reviewed and
the person is informed about his selection or rejection. What
this means is that we have had 4000 writers who have been
selected till date to write for The Viewspaper but the number
of applications that we have received is substantially greater.
To keep our writer base engaged, we have also held events and
organized meetings and gathering from time to time. These
efforts have resulted in greater referrals.
© IndiaSocial
To achieve these numbers we have not taken help of any
agency and we have had a marketing budget of Rs 10,000 per
month over the last 3 years.
Planning and Outreach
We used Poster Campaigns
qq Presentations in Schools and Colleges
qq Organising Workshops
qq Organising Social Gatherings
qq Emailing
qq Facebook Advertising
83
 Casebook1

qq An online and offline engagement and recognition program This has resulted in the following:

qq Merchandising qq 5 sites

Impact – Outcome qq 20000 articles contribute (approx)

qq 6343 published articles

It will be difficult for us to put number here as this would mean
analysing the entire marketing effort of the last 3 years but the qq 4000 contributors (approx)
numbers below should give an idea of the outcome and impact.
qq Contributors from 20 countries
qq Total marketing budget of the company over the last 3
years - Rs 7.2 lacs
Credits – Strategy & Execution
qq Marketing budget to recruit writers - Rs 3.6 lacs
We have used no external agency. All marketing effort has been
done in-house.

Quick Tips:
Don’t be stuck in silos - SEO,
Social media, design, email
marketing writer support etc all
influence our ability to get more
writers. Efforts on Social media
also had effects on SEO and design
Testimonials
http://www.livemint.com/2008/02/04225924/This-media-
portal-presents-vie.html
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tv/brand-equity/
Showcase-The-Viewspaper---Voice-of-the-youth/
videoshow/5890907.cms
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Youths-in-the-Capital-
find-their-own-voice-create-niche-in-media/334078/

played a huge role on conversions http://www.tubaah.com/details.php?video_id=114804

http://www.tedxyse.com/

http://bit.ly/c426gB

84

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Ashoka-and-Staples-Announce-
bw-2423678322.html?x=0
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6710082.cms
What Next
In the recent months with the launch of our topic specific
verticals we are now trying to target people who are interested
in a certain topic such as advertising, health, careers, fashion
etc. Therefore, our target audience is now expanding from
college and school students to young professionals working in
specific sectors. We have plans of launching 50 new verticals
in the next year which means that we will be targeting 50
of such sectors in the coming months. Apart from this we
are now looking to find people who will commit even greater
amounts of their time to us by creating video and audio
content for us. Our foray into the UK market means that we
Casebook1
are now looking to build a writer base in the UK. There is also
a possibility of us moving into regional languages which we
believe will be an extremely challenging.
We have built a community of intelligent and thoughtful young
people on limited budgets. Our objective is not just to get
another Facebook fan or a twitter or RSS follower. That in our
opinion is a spur of the moment, one time action. We have
always tried to bring in people who are committed and willing
to put in their time and effort by committing a certain number
of articles to us. It will be interesting to note here that the
average number of contributions per person to the Viewspaper
is 5 which means that a person is spending at least 10 hours
of his time in writing articles with no guarantee of whether it
will be accepted or not. That in our mind shows the kind of
© IndiaSocial
committed and loyal community we have been able to build.
85
 Company Details:
Name : UTV Movies
Number of Employees : N/A
Category : Media (For profit corporation)
Campaign Duration : Short term
Case submitted by : Imran Khan, Research Manager,
The Nielsen Company
Website : http://www.utvmovies.com/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
utvmovies

Bollywood Buzz -
Assessing the effectiveness of

online advertising

Launched in
February 2008, UTV Movies is
one of the 24-hour premium Hindi movie
channels that is the brand extension of UTV
Motion Pictures - one of the largest Hindi
movie studios in India.
The Nielsen Company is a global information
and measurement company. Nielsen’s
BuzzMetrics services deliver trusted brand
metrics, meaningful consumer insights and
real-time market intelligence to help
clients apply the power of consumer-
generated media (CGM)
to their businesses.
Executive Summary
The research was conducted for UTV Movies in Q1 2010,
using proprietary Nielsen Online tools to measure the buzz for
6 movies that were released in the same time period.
The study measured the impact of paid vs non-paid online
advertising-- by comparing audience metrics on consumer
generated media (CGM) and traditional online portals.
The results were used by the client to take a closer look at
whether the websites they were currently advertising on,
provided the maximum “buzz for their bucks”
Casebook1
Background
UTV Motion Pictures decided to engage with Nielsen’s Online
division to understand how movie-goers react to the PR/official
promotional activity leading up the release of the movies, along
with how movie-related multimedia goes viral.
In addition, we gauged the effectiveness of UTV’s online
advertising by measuring the reach and “buzz worthiness” of
the paid ads and multimedia content of the upcoming releases
(images, songs, video clips)
Stakeholders
UTV Motion Pictures’ marketing and research division
© IndiaSocial
commissioned the study, under the stewardship of the CEO of
the UTV group.
The results of the study would be used to re-allocate the
marketing spend across the various consumer touch points
(print, radio, TV, online)
Approach
Project time frame: 6 months (Jan 2010 – June 2010)
87
 Casebook1
-Nielsen used its AdRelevance application to determine the
sites on which UTV’s banner ads ran and the typical page
impressions that the sites get
-BuzzMetrics was used to analyze the conversations about the
6 upcoming UTV movies, and uncover whether the links from
UTV’s paid/promotional sites were being shared by consumers
(to determine its viral effect)
Planning & Execution
Using proprietary online advertising measurement
(AdRelevance) and social media measurement tools
(BuzzMetrics), Nielsen Online (NOL) was able to:
qq Determine the sites where the maximum conversations
about Bollwood movies took place
qq Determine the reach of the online properties where UTV
has advertised its upcoming films
qq Determine what are the drivers of buzz surrounding the
upcoming releases and how movie content is shared (how
do they viral)
Impact
qq Nielsen Online was able to determine the leading social
media forums on which Bollywood discussions take place
and analyze what specific aspects of upcoming movies do
users converse about
qq By using audience measurement tools, Nielsen Online
determined the reach of CGM sites compared to portals
88
Quick Tips:
Buzz via paid vs. non-paid - We determined
that there is higher buzz being generated
through non-paid advertising, compared to paid
advertising.
Where are you putting the money - The sites
where the maximum ad spends were made,
were not necessarily contributing to the “buzz”
i.e. links which were being shared by consumer,
and hence going viral
Our analysis furthers the cause of using social media to
measure the impact of online promotional activities by
checking what consumers are saying and how they are
reacting, rather than just gauging them, based on clicks
through and page impressions.
Credits Strategy and Execution
Self
What Next
The study has helped UTV take a second look at its allocation
on offline/online promotional activity. And for online: the
results bring forth the idea that consumer generated media
(CGM) sites/discussion forums are vital properties on which
to advertise, rather than just traditional online properties.
Traditional non-CGM sites may provide the reach, but CGM
sites provide maximum impact!
 Company Details:
Name : MTV India
Number of Employees : N/A
Category : Media
Campaign Duration : Long term
Case submitted by : Sharda Mandal, Manager Digital,
Viacom 18 Pvt. Ltd.
Website : http://www.mtvindia.com/index.html
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/mtvindia
Twitter : http://twitter.com/mtvIndia

MTV – Using
social media
to narrowcast
to the Indian
youth
 Casebook1

MTV, launched in 1996 is

one of the India’s leading
multimedia youth platforms. It
caters to the interests of 15-
34 year olds, offering them an
exciting mix of music and non-
music programming.

Executive Summary
MTV India has made its presence felt in the online world
through the various social networking sites. We have an active
account on Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and You Tube with a huge
fan following & with this active online presence MTV has stood
true to its new motto ‘Beyond Music Beyond Television. This
has been the best way to enhance engagement with our valued
consumers and further extend community of followers.
Stakeholders
Dedicated online users between the age group of 13-30
Background
MTV is one of the most powerful youth brands globally, it
Approach
was imperative to develop this brand in India beyond the qq To capture the audience where they are most engaged
TV channel. Social Media and Networking were important
platforms and progressive to connect with the youth of India. qq To create online platforms to engage with different
It was imperative for MTV India to develop a science for demographic groups
consumers to connect with this brand via a media of their
choice. qq To develop compelling online content

90
 Casebook1

qq To showcase MTV as an approachable medium ensuring them closer to the BRAND, our SHOWS and our VJs
that there is certain element of belongingness amongst the
youth qq Running regular contests and giving away prizes. [FB Freak
(Fan of the week), MTV-HITS, beat that tweet etc.]
qq Use social networking platform to deliver information,
to enrich the consumer experience and ensure that they qq Sharing exclusive content/uncensored footages
become a valued and loyal consumer.
qq User generated content through these social networking
Generate wider online footprint through online marketing and sites are also used for on air shows.
Social networking media promotions (FB, Orkut ads) and strike
How has this initiative been received by them so far –
relevant eyeballs through TV.
The number of fans is an answer to this question:
qq Campaign used a mix of TV, online and in-channel
promotions to popularize the initiative and urged interested qq Facebook – 7,99,624
fans to sign up, become members of the MTV community

on Orkut, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Astons and in
show promotions
qq Online Media and Social Media were the primary platforms
and were used to drive engagement with the
Digital Show. Ads on Facebook and Orkut. FB
presence on MTV India website widget
qq Word of mouth and status updates.
Planning and Outreach
Youth centered activities that appealed our fans
are stated below:
© IndiaSocial
qq Orkut – 3,43,148
qq YouTube – 2,724
qq Twitter-1,47,782 followers
One of the fastest growing communities on Facebook and
Orkut. We have innovatively combined the aspects of social
networking with personalization and in a process of building
loyalty through compelling brand experience. We successfully
track the conversations taking place within the framework
of social networks. As an organization we are leveraging the
power of these new social networks to create innovative &
original brand experience.

qq Connect consumers to brand MTV Impact – Outcome

qq Link to the sense of aspiration and bring qq Orkut community numbers have increased to a growth of
3,43,148 members.
91
 Casebook1

qq Facebook fanpage now has

a magnificent 7,99,624 fans.
qq Twitter profile has 1,47,782
followers
qq You Tube channel started in
Nov has 2,724 subscribers
qq Also, is –
&& #25 – Most Subscribed (All
Time) – India
&& #12 – Most Subscribed (All
Time) – Directors – India
&& #74 – Most Viewed (Today)
– India
Quick Tips:
Think about monetization -
as marketers move in, users move out!
Also when the users submit inaccurate
information on their profile, our marketing
efforts might not be aimed at the right
audiences.
Develop long-lasting relationships - provide a
customer-centric experience
that combines community and social
networking, consumer-generated
content, viral and
word-of-mouth marketing.

&& #27 – Most Viewed (Today)

– Directors – India

&& #70 – Most Viewed (This

Week) – India
&& #25 – Most Viewed (This
Week) – Directors – India
&& #33 – Most Viewed (This
Month) – India
&& #16 – Most Viewed (This
Month) – Directors – India
What Next
Our purpose is to provide a unique destination for like-minded
consumers and our brand to interact with each other and
develop advocacy. This is an ongoing process and will continue
as long as possible. We are due to create unique experiences
on social media platforms, allowing consumers to relate with
different attributes of their personality.

92
Channel [V] – Building Name
Company Details:
: Channel [V]

buzz using Twitter and Number of Employees

Category
: N/A
: Media

mobile social networking Campaign Duration

Case submitted by
: Short term
: Sanjay Mehta, Co-Founder, Social

around the re-launch

Wavelength and Sameer Agarwal,
Director Marketing, Rocketalk
Website : http://www.channelv.in/index1.php
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
channelvindia
Twitter : http://twitter.com/channelvindia
 Casebook1

Social Media platform as well, as the core TG for the brand

Channel [V] is a was very active on the space. A decision was taken then, to
music and entertainment utilize Social Media along with other marketing initiatives, for
this re-launch.
channel, and part of the
Star group, owned by More specifically, the new platform of Twitter was identified
News Corp. for these two specific campaign activities, as being the perfect
platform for the impulsive and viral run that could be obtained
for these campaigns.
Executive Overall, during the launch phase of the channel in July and
Summary August, all the popular Social Media platforms, viz. Facebook,
Twitter, Orkut, and YouTube were used.
Channel [V] was in a
unique position in terms However what we would like to highlight in this case study,
of having a focused TG are a specific couple of Twitter based initiatives that were
that was well aligned to employed.
the Social Media usage
profile in India. With a Stakeholders
clear objective of creating
awareness about the new “Bloody Cool Channel [V]“, the qq Primary stakeholders - consumers and potential consumers,
Social Media campaign identified and executed, especially via of the television channel which comprised the urban and
Twitter, worked quite well. Also in doing so, it got Channel [V] semi-urban, educated youth, largely in the sub-25 age
going into the active realm of Social Media, and engagement group, in India
with its users.
qq Secondary stakeholders to be engaged included the senior
Background management within Channel [V]

Channel [v] was being re-launched in a new avatar, with Approach/ Strategy
significant changes in television programming, positioning, tag
line, style, etc. Almost like a rebirth. This was in August 2009. qq The most important communication that we needed to get
out was that Channel [V] was changing. So ‘change’ was
The time was ripe then, to extend the engagement to the one of the key buzzwords

94

qq Beyond that it was important to
communicate ‘WHAT’ this change was
about. In a simple quick communication, a
different logo after many years, for a well
recognized brand, serves the purpose of
communicating that ‘some change was
afoot’. It was important then, to see how
we could get the logo in front of maximum
number of people
qq Keeping these objectives in mind, the
goal was identified as being able to reach
out to maximum number of people with
the communication of “change” and the
visibility of a new logo of Channel [V]
qq The duration of this specific launch phase
campaign was going to be about 1 month,
from late July, till the launch date of August
22, 2009
qq The overall budget for this one month
phase, including the fees paid to Social
Wavelength, was around Rs. 2 lakhs
Planning & Outreach
Overall, during the launch phase of the
channel in July and August, all the popular
Social Media platforms, viz. Facebook,
Twitter, Orkut, YouTube etc. were used.
Casebook1
However what we would like to highlight in this case study,
are a specific couple of Twitter based initiatives that were
employed.
Activity 1 was called iSawTheChange.
Use of Twitter
qq We created a web page where we put a collage of our
various popular characters and icons, from over the years.
Over a period of 15 days, we would make one small change
on this graphic every day
qq The challenge to the users was to track the image daily and
identify that one change. And once they did so, they had
to convey their answer to us, via a very small form on that
© IndiaSocial
same page.
qq Along with their answer, we asked for their Twitter
credentials as well. And in doing so, we (after their
permission) sent out a tweet on their behalf, that said,
‘Hey @ChannelvIndia I saw the change on http://
iSawTheChange.com . 10 Daily Prizes and 10 iPod Nanos to
be won!’
qq As this tweet reached the followers of the participant, more
intrigue was created and others would click and reach the
same URL and many of them participated too.
qq This contest was played around a 1000 times, and the viral
impact of the tweet stream enabled the brand to reach
multi-fold number cumulatively.
95
 Casebook1

Activity 2 was called On Yours. campaign in the real world

In this case, an application was
built, which allowed people to
register, and then opt to swap
their personal Twitter Display
Pictures, with the new Channel
[V] logo. The swap would work
on a random basis for 50% of
time. Or in other words, on a
random basis, half the time, the user’s own personal DP was
visible, and for the other half, the new Channel [V] logo was
visible, as the user’s profile picture.
The inducement for people to do this, was in terms of
gratification. Any user who stayed registered for at least 5
days, was given a Channel [V] T-shirt (of course, with the
messaging of the changed channel, and its new tag line,
‘Bloody Cool’). And for lucky few, there were bigger prizes
involved.
There was excellent adoption of this activity. We generated
good participation.
Impact – Outcome
There was a great participants in both activities, and through
their participation, the message reached to a vast audience
qq While the activity of iSawTheChange would have been
visible to more than 100,000 people, the changing logos
at On Yours created a buzz equivalent to a large billboard
qq We did measure the growth of Twitter followers, Facebook
fans (as an accompanying by product), the conversations
generated, the RTs that we got, the stats on the two web
pages, etc.
All in all, these numbers all represented results beyond our
expectations. While we were trying to create communication
that the TV channel, Channel [V] was changing for the better,
we also achieved a great secondary objective.
Credits Strategy
qq Social Wavelength, Mumbai, represented by Sanjay Mehta.
In fact, the strategy was completely thought out by them,
and we simply sanctioned the same
Credits Execution
qq Social Wavelength, Mumbai, a team led by Mihir Karkare,
handled the execution
Testimonials
qq On Aug 13th, 14th and 22nd, 2009, respectively,
@ChannelVIndia was rated as 2nd, 4th and then ‘The Most
Popular’ Twitter user from India. Details in presentation
referred above.
qq Medianama’s coverage of the activity
qq Manuscrypt / Manu Prasad’s coverage of this activity

96
 Casebook1

Quick Tips:
The medium is all about viral factor. If we make
the application fundamentally tuned to be viral,
we are giving ourselves the best opportunity to
spread the fire.
Gratification is good. But it does not have to be
very expensive. A simple T-shirt is enough to
generate interest and excitement.
A little debate does not hurt. There were some
who questioned the logic on the On Yours Channel V’s exhausted was a reality game show that
required 6 finalists to stay awake for more than 48 hours,

© IndiaSocial
activity. Why do people trade in their DPs, for
doing impossible tasks…
example? And why were they seeing Channel
[V] wherever they looked on Twitter. But while Task
there was a sense of critical feedback here, it
helped in keeping the interest and the buzz alive. qq Channel V was re-launching. V-Exhausted was to be
their launch contest-reality show on TV

What Next
The launch phase itself, was a one-off effort. However it
showed us the merits of interacting with our stakeholders
on Social Media. Since that point in late August 2009, we
have continued to engage our TG, and created several other
specific efforts and many ongoing activities, on Social Media.
We have used Facebook, Twitter and Orkut, to promote shows
on air, call for entries to reality TV shows, and for completely
independent Social Media specific activities as well.
qq They were seeking a low –cost marketing solution that
could penetrate Provincial India for high brand visibility
at low cost and that enabled rich media creation,
sharing and consumption
Approach
qq RockeTalk replicated the same on its social mobile
environment, using a programme called Wake-a-thon!

97
 Casebook1

qq A new build was developed for Channel [V]. qq 8 RockeTalkers selected to play
Although the campaign was available on the basic
RockeTalk environment too && Tasks given every few minutes, videos posted live

&& Inbox messages sent to all promoting the 8 finalists

Planning & Outreach
qq Launch activity: Wake-a-thon Outcome
&& Sample - You can win a Digital Camera; simply qq Channel V/Wake-a-thon Videos viewed - 2,54,431
answer 48 questions in 12 hours. Think you can
qq Channel V contest questions attempted - 43,729
do it? Be part of 12 hour Channel [V] Exhausted
Wake-a-thon from 21st Aug 11 pm to 22nd Aug qq Channel V/Wake-a-thon banner impressions - 27,50,111
11 am. We will send you the details shortly in
your inbox. qq Unique users who saw Login message about Channel V -
1,98,466
&& Audio jingles promoting the contest auto-played
when page rendered. qq Impressions for System Buzz sent for show introduction
and TUNE IN - 27,50,111
qq Qualifying stage: preliminary contest

&& Short-cut to fame – inviting user-generated video

content

98
Click here to visit MediaNama
Click here to register
“
Doing the
math on social “
media…

Karthik Nagarajan
Director, Online Division
The Nielsen Company
 Casebook1

Yesterday, I read a press report that said Asia has been So where are these conversations
declared Facebook’s fastest growing theatre (apparently a
term used internally by Facebook to denote different market happening?
regions). While the Indian user base at 13 Million is certainly
While social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and Ibibo
not the largest, it definitely is among the fastest growing
have become a part of prime time folklore, the most underrated
markets. The report goes on to say that when adjusted for
social segment are the discussion forums, message boards and
the Indian internet-using population, this FB user base grew
review sites in India. Below is the list of top 10 forums in India,
from being 11 of Indian internet population in Jan 2010, to
based on volume of conversations in the last year (as measured
over 18 percent in June 2010. In a recent survey that we
by Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics tool).
did at Nielsen, among social media users, more than 57% of
respondents claimed that they started using Twitter only in the
last 12 months. That means that one out of every two Twitter Notable boards Demographic/Site Description
users, signed up post August 2009. Now, think about this - forum.santabanta.com Bollywood celebrities and
about 2.1 Million smart phones were sold in India in 2009. entertainment
This number is expected to double over the next 2 years. This india-forums.com Hub for Indian TV and movie
is likely to further fastrack social media adoption. news and gossip
in.answers.yahoo.com General Q&A site
These are amazing numbers! And the more I think of it, the
pagalguy.com MBA admission/Business school
more I am convinced that we are at the beginning of what
prep forum
seems to be a mini social media revolution in India. Call me a
apnicommunity.com General interest forum with high
romantic, but I don’t recall any other web trend that we as a
volume of entertainment and
country embraced so early and in so much volume, as we are
humour posts
doing with social media – not even e-commerce.
funonthenet.in Celebrity and entertainment
What does all this mean to you, if you are a brand? More forum
people will interact with your brand online. Communities will indiamike.com Travel and tourism site popular
be formed and captive audiences will be created. But most with foreigners living in India
of all, you will get to Listen – to uninhibited, unprompted and forums.bharat-rakshak.com Indian defence and military
passionate conversations about brand experiences. And I think affairs-interest
that is a luxury that marketers of today have – the ability to bollywoodhungama.com Bollywood interest forum
tune in to the all important consumer’s mind and to do that in bcmtouring.com Indian travel and auto enthusiast
close to real time. website

102

While it is clear that we as an online market are obsessed
with our films (like most of the markets in the world), it is
interesting to see generic sites like Yahoo! Answers and
Pagalguy.com in the top ten. Innumerable brand-related reviews
and conversations happen on these platforms everyday.
Nothing brings out the importance of these forums more than
the fact that 50% of consumers in India, use social media
sites to help them make purchase decisions (Source: Nielsen
consumer confidence survey, 2010). And online product
reviews are the third biggest influencer of buying decisions
(only after family and friends). This is especially true for
consumer electronics and durables, where 3 out of 4 social
media users have read an expert review in the last 12 months.
What about the SN sites? Aren’t they
all about teen talk?
This probably is among the most incorrect myths about the
online market in India. While the average age of people on SN
sites definitely does not begin with the number ‘3’, it is by no
Casebook1
means a teen forum. In fact, 37 percent of ‘heavy users’ of SN
in India are between 20-30 years old and the age segment that
is most likely to click on an ad in a SN site is the 31-40 year
olds. Having said that, if you are a ‘youth’ brand, you need not
get disheartened by these numbers, as 3 out of 4 teens have
become fans of at least one brand online and 60 percent of 15-
20 year olds spend at least 30 minutes a day on SN sites.
With all this action happening on the social media market,
the million dollar question for marketers is ‘OK’. So who is
tapping into this today? And who are doing it well? And most
importantly, what are the best practices? This is precisely
where this initiative by India Social cannot be lauded enough,
for this book is your one-stop-shop answer to all of these
questions.
© IndiaSocial
As I conclude, the overwhelming feeling that I get is, that ‘if I
were asked to write this piece a year from now, the numbers
would have grown exponentially’. And I believe that voice is
definitely not coming from the romantic, but the researcher in
me.
103
Are you missing
the digital
revolution?

Ramanujam Sridhar
Communication Consultant, Author,
Columnist, Teacher, Trainer, Cricket Enthusiast
and a Passionate Social Activist

In the eighties, some of my classmates went to the US to
study further and I was a bit envious of them. The reason? The
US was going through a “sexual revolution” or so one read and
here I was sitting in India where even the green revolution was
a flop. When they returned a few years later a little rounder if
not much wiser, I asked them eagerly about their experiences
and they said rather shamefacedly “I missed it. It just passed
me by”. Now when I see the digital revolution taking over the
marketing the world over, I am reminded of this incident. Is
our generation, which has its fair share of industry leaders,
missing the digital bus? Now why am I saying this? Consider
this. What is the greatest challenge that Indian marketers
are facing. To my mind it is simple “Heads of marketing in
companies are in their forties, Managing directors are in their
fifties, while consumers are in their twenties!” Enough and
more has been said about the Indian youth market, its size, its
complexities and its obvious potential as a market. What does
the Indian youth particularly urban youth have similar in broad
characteristics to youth the world over? They are a plugged-in
community and are either on the mobile or on the net 24/7.
They can bare their souls to complete strangers unlike us who
are tighter than clams. They have the attention span of nano
seconds and are bored easily. They are not satisfied with what
they are born with and what to equip themselves with to meet
the demands of the world. If that means preparing for IIT so
be it. If that means taking a year off from school to compete in
Indian idol, then that too is par for the course! So where is the
problem?
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It is all in the attitude honey
Belonging to generation X, I believe we are different. We are
unable to accept generation Y as our equals and peers, as
my second son says quite succinctly “Dad, the problem with
you is that you are a dangerous combination. You are both a
teacher and a parent. Teachers lecture and parents advise. You
do both!” So maybe it is time for us to do more introspection
if we are to understand youth and their medium better. Are
we still in the world of print and television while they are
online? The other challenge is technology. Some, not all, of
our generation are technologically challenged. I wonder how
many of you have seen this commercial for R world, a value
added services provided by Reliance communications. As it is
© IndiaSocial
a few years old, let me jog your memory. There is a class of
young school children who are being taught. A parent of one
of the children is standing outside the class, desperately trying
to get his young kid’s attention. The kid desperately looks the
other side. His friends draw his attention to the fact that his
dad is outside and he comes out reluctantly from the class,
only to be asked by his dad how he can see the score on his
mobile. The kid looks at his father disdainfully says “Bus button
dhabao” and gets him the score in a flash. As luck would have
it, Dhoni hits a six and the father does a gig in the corridor,
to the disapproving glares of two nuns who pass by. It is a
brilliant commercial which addresses the consumer insight of
how children take to technology like ducks to water while their
parents struggle to come to terms with it.
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Opportunity beckons
I was at a seminar recently where one of the speakers asked
an interesting question to a group of Managing directors of
PR agencies “How many of you have Facebook or LinkedIn
accounts “I am not going into the answers here. But my
question is simple. If the next generation is in a different
medium, should we not try to understand and harness it, for
our own good? How long can we keep talking about being
“technophobes” and take pride in being “pencil and paper”
types? The same challenge is with advertising agencies.
Today’s agency heads have been reared on the picture tube.
106
To them life is one long thirty second commercial. They do
not understand the online medium, much less create for it.
Clients too are experimenting with the medium much like radio
in the nineties, without going the whole hog. I believe that
while there are changes around us that we can all feel good
about, I do not wish us to have the Indian mentality- “Look
how much we have achieved in sixty years”. Yes, but there is
so much more to be done. I think, perhaps the best expression
that comes to my mind when we talk of India and the online
medium is that “we have miles to go before we sleep”. And
if we do not traverse those miles now, we will end up having
sleepless nights.
 Company Details:
Name : Tata DOCOMO
(Tata Teleservices Ltd)
Number of Employees : 501-1000
Category : Telecom (Brand)
Campaign Duration : Long term
Case submitted by : Shitij Jain, Brand Manager
Website : http://www.tatadocomo.com/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
tatadocomo
Twitter : http://twitter.com/tatadocomo
YouTube : http://youtube.com/tatadocomo
Orkut : http://orkut.com/tatadocomo

TATA DOCOMO
– Fighting
the telecom
incumbents on
social media front
 Casebook1

Background
Tata DOCOMO is a
Why Social Media?
leading Telecom service
provider. The brand When Tata DOCOMO was planning to enter the Indian market
stands for doing the as the 9th GSM operator, it faced entrenched incumbents
new and its spirit of and strong brand communication barriers from other telecom
innovation. operators. However Tata DOCOMO was determined to change
the game and cut through the clutter through pure innovation
and doing the New.

At the very core of the Social Media strategy was the idea of
Executive Summary humanizing a telecom brand and make
it warm, friendly and conversational.
Many independent observers refer to Tata DOCOMO as a “child The strategy was simple yet engaging.
of Social Media”. In effect that is quite close to being the Reach out to every corner of the
strategy for Tata DOCOMO even before the time the brand was web and to every possible TG not
officially unveiled. as a corporate brand but as a friend
willing to engage the consumer in a
Social media has helped Tata DOCOMO connect with the
one-on-one dialogue on anything and
youth of India like few brands have managed. Even after
everything pertaining to the brand,
every telecom brand launched per second tariff the brand
its offers, its deficiencies as well as
continues to be the fastest growing telecom brand. Our fans
anything to do with telecom per say.
are passionate; they love the open, honest and approachable
The desired outcome was clear in
brand ethos. Social media is the focal point of making this
everyone’s mind – to build the most
happens. Many brands have been on social media but few have
loyal set of beta customers who will
probably been a “friend” to each of their fans individually. A
champion the brand in their micro-
friend who chats with them, solves their problems, engages
communities at every moment.
them to design products and services and even hear and act
on criticism. It takes a lot of effort to achieve this, and the fact Social Media became the first
that we do is testimony to the impact of social media to our opportunity which had not been picked
business up by most Indian brands in June

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2009 leave alone the telecom operators. It was unchartered
waters but we knew that Social Media connects us with the
exact TG that the brand wanted to associate with. It further
had the wow element and was clearly doing the New. The
perfect reason for Tata DOCOMO to draw up an extensive
strategy to harness the power of Social Media and build the
brand with its consumers.
Stakeholders
The stakeholders were the youth of India specifically 15-24
urban. The entire execution is highlighted in the next point.
The response has been phenomenal. Today Tata DOCOMO has
direct fan/follower base of more than 3 lakh and a secondary
reach of over 6 million. Today there are more than 1.5 million
Tata DOCOMO has constantly launched consumer
engagement programs with a heavy social media angle.
This has helped us build repeat engagement points with a
large number of our fans. Be it “dietsms” which was rolled
out exclusively through social media, “Ageekthing” which
involved Orkut and Facebook applications, gadgets and
automated Twitter tools or “Happy DO Year” which could
be played through Facebook, Twitter or Orkut.
qq Address and resolve complaints – Even before the launch of
social media engagements, a dedicated customer response
mechanism was laid out for priority resolution of all social
media grievances / enquiries. Top management at Tata
DOCOMO has taken great pains to make sure that literally
the buck stops when an issue is raised through social

© IndiaSocial
views of Facebook Status updates alone with a very high media channels. From activation problems, network issues,
engagement percentage. handset settings or billing related matters, every single
issue has been promptly addressed and resolved. Comes as
Approach no wonder therefore that initially the Tata DOCOMO Twitter
account was nicknamed the “unofficial helpline”.
The Tata DOCOMO
social media strategy qq Crowd sourcing – Very early in the social lifecycle of the
has been carefully built brand, Tata DOCOMO realised it had hundreds of well
on five pillars. wishers who were all brimming with ideas on new product-
service offerings that could be a real differentiator for the
qq Build consumer company. The social team has repeatedly engaged with
engagement – its beta consumers, collecting feedback about usage,
Build engagement preferences, bounced off product ideas and pretested
beyond the day to concepts to help the product team develop compelling
day and one-on-one product service offerings.
interactions with our
fans and followers, The icing on the cake was when we involved our

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technology savvy Twitter followers to hack into a social
game launched by Tata DOCOMO as part of the geekthing
contest and suggest ways to prevent others from doing
so. Many of the recent product service launches like GPRS
packs and parts of the buddyNet program have been built
on crowd sourcing inputs.
qq Build brand advocacy – Continuous engagement and
proactive problem resolution has helped Tata DOCOMO
build extremely loyal fans on social media. Innovative ways
of recognizing such efforts through fan of the week on
Facebook and Twitter has further enhanced the cause.
qq Micro communication – With close to 100,000 direct
followers and over 6 million secondary reach, all
communication from Tata DOCOMO enjoys a sizeable
instant audience. However, our social team remembers
the names, occupations and past communications with
thousands and thousands of our fans. This helps us micro
communicate with each individual building a personal touch
and therefore a high impact to our messaging.
Planning & Outreach
A dedicated Social Media team at Interface was built to
execute the plan. Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, YouTube accounts
were opened up and optimized even before the brand launch
took place. The website itself actively solicited visitors to sign
up to the Tata DOCOMO communities months before it became
a fad for others. The Social Media team set about targeting
each of the Social Media platforms differently.
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Twitter
Twitter typically has a more evolved and techy audience than
that of the other Social Media platforms. Tata DOCOMO
acknowledged the importance of these thought leaders and
made sure they got their worth by following the brand. All
products, offers and schemes were first announced to our
Twitter followers before they were allowed on any other media.
On many occasions Twitter followers were given teasers and
prelaunch feelers much before the product was even in a state
of launch readiness. Today Tata DOCOMO has more than 8850
followers and we know most of them by name.
We have solved their telecom problems, passed on their
messages to relevant people in the company and brought about
resolutions or simply just said a hello when someone was
missing in action for an extended period of time.
Quick Tips:
Social media engagement is not
about shouting promotions and offers
- The key is to be able to have a two
way dialogue with consumers. Paying
lip service get one nowhere,
it is important to define specific
strategies that are relevant to the
brand and implement
them with rigor.

Facebook
Facebook clearly has a large influential community that was
identified right at the start as being a major influencer of brand
advocacy. Tata DOCOMO set about creating conversations
among its fans on Facebook. Like Twitter a one-on-one
communication was maintained with all its fans helping resolve
problems, providing information and escalating issues. The
community was kept engaged through a variety of status
updated including discussions on TV commercials, jingles,
product service launches and fun and games.
Orkut
Orkut has a mass user base and was identified as an important
element in managing mass sentiment around the brand. The
forum has been used both as a community feedback tool as
well as a platform where free discussions were enabled on
specific topics (either product-service related or band related).
The platform has also extensively been used for contests to
keep community members engaged. Today, there are more than
58,500 fans on Orkut.
YouTube
YouTube has been a central repository for all brand commercials
and videos. Tata DOCOMO has made a departure from the
traditional way of only uploading videos created by the brand
to also showcasing user generated content, specifically
animation videos submitted by users at the create.tatadocomo.
com platform. Hi5, MySpace, BharatStudent, Rediff MyPages.
In continuation of its strategy to be omnipresent in Social
Casebook1
Media, Tata DOCOMO has reached out to less popular social
networking and community portals in India. It carries through
the same brand promise of being everywhere that out potential
consumers could be however small the reach of the portal
might be.
Third Party blogs and forum
The Tata DOCOMO strategy with respect to third party blogs
and forums were both proactive and reactive. Everyday 100s
and 1000s of blogs and forums were scanned or any mention
of Tata DOCOMO and whenever a user had posted a question,
comment and complaint, the Social Media team made it a
point to go and respond to resolve (wherever necessary) every
post or comment. Tata DOCOMO has gone ahead and created
© IndiaSocial
official accounts on hundreds of blogs and forums and have
always responded through its official id.
Impact – Outcome
qq Each media of the social media strategy has helped Tata
DOCOMO build a strong and loyal fan base amongst
the youth and has unmistakably taken ownership of the
innovator platform this firmly establishing the brand
essence of do the New
qq The brand values of honesty, transparency and sincerity
have been well established in the minds of consumers. Tata
DOCOMO social presence is not seen to be a marketing
gimmick but a genuine effort to connect and engage with
every fan and follower with sincerity and with the authority
to solve their problems
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qq Tata DOCOMO has significant Klout on Twitter even when
compared against global heavyweights. Today Tata Docomo
Twitter Klout is equal to that of AT&T, though it has been
achieved in a very short period as is evident by the meteoric
rise displayed in the graph.
qq The social mention parameters like strength and passion
outscore competition by a good distance
qq Grade of 99.8 means the Tata DOCOMO Twitter account
ranks higher than 99.6% of all Twitter accounts. The social
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mention parameters like strength and passion outscore
competition by a good distance
qq Grade of 87 means the Tata DOCOMO Facebook account
ranks higher 87% of all Facebook accounts.
Credits Strategy & Execution
Interface Business Solutions (interface.co.in) is our Social
Media Strategy and implementation agency and the success of
Tata DOCOMO on social media would largely be attributed to
the team at Interface.

Testimonials
There are many independent reviews of Tata DOCOMO’s social
initiatives, a few are listed below:
http://microreviews.org/social-media-presence-indian-telecom-
majors-1-Facebook/
http://microreviews.org/social-media-presence-of-indian-
telecom-majors-part-2-Twitter/
http://microreviews.org/social-media-presence-of-indian-
telecom-majors-part-3-website-and-blog/
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http://www.prasanthp.com/2009/12/docomo-and-social-media-
marketing/
http://2020social.com/social-media-in-india-tata-review/
What Next
Social Media remains the cornerstone of Tata DOCOMO’s
consumer engagement strategy. Having established the social
base, we are now looking to change gears and take social
media to the next level – leverage our social reach to impact
the brand in real terms be it acquisitions or revenue.
© IndiaSocial
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 “
Company Details:
Name : Samsung Mobile Samsung Corby
Number of Employees : 5000+
Category
Campaign Duration
: Telecom (Brand)
: Short term
Color Wars on Twitter
“
Case submitted by
Website
: Ankur Sharma, Digital Manager
: www.in.samsungmobile.com
– Generating Buzz
Facebook :
Twitter : http://twitter.com/samsung_
mobiles

At Samsung, we see every challenge as an
opportunity and believe we are perfectly
positioned as one of the world’s recognized
leaders in the digital technology industry.
Our commitment to being the world’s
best has won us the No.1 global market
share for 13 of our products, including
semiconductors, TFT-LCDs, monitors and
CDMA mobile phones.
Executive Summary
Samsung Corby Colour Wars was an initiative by Samsung
Mobile India during the launch of its touch-phone, Samsung
Corby – an affordable and stylish touch phone, the first of
its kind, for the Indian youth. In India, the Corby brief was
to connect the dots around three key words – Youth, social
networking and colour. Samsung Corby Colour Wars brought all
aspects of the brief together.
We chose Twitter as the main platform for connecting
stakeholders (supported by Facebook, Slideshare, and blogs as
other touch points); chose a viral format to make it attractive
to youth and brought out Corby colours at, literally, every little
step of the activity.
The Digital Brand Index 2.0, jointly brought out by Edelman and
Casebook1
Brandtology, earlier this year (shared in detail below) derives
that there has been an exponential (123% ) increase in the
number of brand mentions for Samsung during Oct-Dec (6,548
brand mentions) over the previous quarter, taking Samsung to
#4 in the Index (against #7 in the previous quarter).
The Samsung Corby Colour Wars on Twitter as part of our
Social Media campaign is likely to have contributed to this
jump (given that the index also showcases Twitter as the
buzziest social channel). Our own post-activity analyses show
over 3000 mentions of Samsung Corby, amounting to nearly
6,15,000 exposures.
From a total of 3284 tweets with brand mentions in the 12
days, 2853 tweets were from the teams and other fans,
© IndiaSocial
leading to an overall exposure of around 6,15,750 exposures at
the rate of 0.09 INR per exposure, our expense on the activity
being a total of 58,000 INR.
Background
Samsung Mobile is the market leader globally for full-screen
touch phones and has been focused on its touch phone
strategy to grow its market share in India. In Sept 2009, the
company launched Corby S3653, its first mobile handset
designed to support the highly connected lifestyle of today’s
younger mobile users, complimenting the Company’s existing
touch screen strategy “touch for every lifestyle”. The Corby
was a crucial launch for the brand given that it was the entry
point for the company in the youth segment.
The task at hand was to position Corby on three key planks –
colour, social networking & youth. As an important element of
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the product itself, social media had a significant role since the
task was to create a unique experience for the customers on
social networking platforms that would create awareness for
Corby and build association in the product category.
Stakeholders
Taking Youth and Social Networking as the foci for the
initiative, it was aimed at socially networked, online savvy
youth both influencers and potential customers for Corby. The
choice of medium for the initiative – Twitter allowed engaging
with the stakeholders extensively given its viral nature.
Approach
Objective
qq Create buzz and generate conversations around Samsung
Corby in the launch phase to help the brand take a strong
position in the youth and touch phone segment. Choose
a viral format that connects Youth, social networking and
colour as three key concepts associated with Samsung
Corby
Concept
qq Five active, vocal Indian users were invited to form a Corby
Colour team each (based on the 5 colour options for Corby
available in the Indian market)
qq Corby Colour Wars team leaders approached friends and
asked them to follow the ‘team colour’. To join / follow a
team, all participants had to ‘tweet’ the team’s hash-tag
ONCE (vote would be counted only once)
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qq Top three Corby team leaders, who reached a certain set
target of followers over the activity duration of 12 days,
could win a Corby. Team members / followers of all 5 teams
combined also stood to win a minimum of ‘two’ Samsung
Corby handsets, selected through a lucky draw
qq The Team Lead with the maximum number of members/
follower in the team would also win Rs. 10,000 in cash
qq Ensure that ‘experience is the reward’ and everyone feels
like a winner at end of the activity
Duration
qq Planning: 20th Oct – 30 Oct
qq Execution: 02 November – 13 November, 2009
qq Evaluation: 14th November – 18th November
Resources allocated
qq Five Corby phones for winners
qq Rs 10,000 cash prize for the final winner
Budget
qq Rs 58,000 (MRP of a Corby phone = Rs 9,600)
Planning & Outreach
The internal discussion by the team was to make Corby Colour
Wars like ‘Big Boss’ with twists, turns, and soft controversies
to generate talk and excite participants.
 Casebook1

Identifying the five Corby team
leaders:
One of the important steps in planning for the initiative was
to identify the five leaders for the Corby Colour Wars (given
the success of the initiative was driven to a great extend by
the level of participation by the leaders). Based on certain
parameters – young (target group for Corby), highly vocal (to
ensure enthusiasm) and having a strong network (to ensure
reach), the team identified 12 target team leaders and reached
out to them for participation. The following five team leaders
were finally selected after securing their approval –

S.No. Name Bio No. of followers on

Twitter
1. @Praval - (Praval Singh) Head - Strategic Solutions 1,279
at Media Redefined -
A social technologies firm

2. @Sensonize - (Mohnish Nagpal) 18 yr old blogger, student, 5,611

© IndiaSocial
geek, content broadcaster
and (EVIL) Tweeter. CEO
of @Limespace Networks.
Netrepreneur by Day, Super
Hero by Night
3. @Dhempe - (Hrish Thota) Knowledge Management 2,809
Professional, Social Media
Enthusiast, Amateur Filmmaker

4. @baxiabhishek - (Abhishek Baxi) Geek / new media guy / 2,278

photowalker / microsoftie /
windows7 PC / blank noise
guy / critical movies fan /
windows mobile
5. @monnikinom - (Monik Pamecha) 14 - Blogger, Web Developer, 17,675
Online Marketing Enthusiast,
G33k, Watches lots of Movies,
Loves Soccer, his comp and 117

twitter
 Casebook1

Introducing interesting twists to drive conversations and build

engagement:

qq Twist in the tale # 1 – proposed team leads allow change of

vote once – lots of back-forth-tweets emerged. Team leads
didn’t agree

qq Twist in the tale #2 – brought down the number of

followers to win, to 200 per team – renewed interest in the
game at end of week 1

qq Offered continuous back-end suggestions & support to the

teams on how to build supporter base

Actively engaging to ensure the fun quotient was high:

qq Predictions and prophecies – periodically shared the tally

of the team leads always preceded by fun videos, songs,
riddles

qq Undertaking exit polls to drive interest among participants

and push supporters
Sensonize came back with a vengeance into the game and
qq Amplifying the natural twists in the game went on to win the 2nd place

qq E.g. A team leader wanting to quit – teasing, challenging qq Taking a strong stand against spam and engaging with
and successfully getting him to jump back with renewed participants having identified the bots
energy
qq Facilitating the competitive build-up among players in a
Team leader Sensonize wanting to quit the game spirited manner

This is how Samsung Mobile pepped him! qq Team leaders luring supporters by offering prizes at own
behalf ranging from movie tickets, lockerz invites and even
declaration of contributing 10% to charity

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qq Building hype for the grand final qq Exposure – the total exposures received from the activity
were 6,15,750*
qq Periodic polls to evaluate the participants’ sentiment

qq Great excitement among the participants

Touch points and channels used

Brand Samsung Mobile also utilized the thriving Corby

community on Facebook as a channel of getting more
participants over Twitter by sharing periodic updates, content.

The real highlight were the touch points and channels set-up by
the participants that helped build greater visibility -

qq Blog posts by team leaders & supporters

© IndiaSocial
* Exposures – sum of all the tweets mentioning the relevant
qq Facebook event page set up by leaders & supporters keyword, each multiplied by the number of followers of the
person tweeting
qq Give-aways offered by team leaders on their own behalf to
win supporters! qq Engagement with stakeholders – From a total of 3284
tweets with Samsung Corby mentions, 87% came from the
qq Tracking mechanisms being put in place by the participants
participants.
themselves

Impact – Outcome
As elaborated earlier, Samsung Corby Colour Wars did
successfully bring all aspects the brief together. In doing so,
not only did we generate huge buzz across the platform and
other Samsung Mobile touch points for Samsung Corby, but
also seeded Samsung Corby as the youth phone in the touch-
screen segment.

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qq Three of Samsung Corby Colour Wars hashtags among the && Samsung ranked #4 among the top 10 buzziest brands
top 25 most trending topics in India* in India, jumping 3 positions from the previous quarter
July-Sept

&& 123% increase in the no. of brand mentions for

Samsung during Oct-Dec (6,548 brand mentions). It is
noteworthy that the number of tweets (with Samsung
Corby’s mention) were 2853 contributing 56% of
overall brand mentions

&& Twitter was the top channel of buzz with 76 per cent
of all mentions (118,150) found on the micro-blog
platform

qq The activity was able to connect the brief with strategic

objective of positing the Samsung Corby as a youth touch
phone.

Credits – Strategy
Blogworks – strategic social media solutions

qq On Slideshare.com, the Corby Colour Wars Terms &

Credits – Execution
Conditions document came into the “Hot on Twitter section Blogworks, Starcom (Buying)
8 times in the duration of the contest

qq The findings of Digital Brand Index, an independent survey Testimonials

conducted by Edelman in association with Brandtology
qq “At the outset, thanks much for an opportunity to get
for the period Oct-Dec 2009 validated the impact of
involved in the fun Fun, yes, ‘coz for me the idea of
the Samsung Corby Colour Wars on Samsung’s overall
engagement was fun. And the way the tweets from @
presence online
Samsung_Mobiles motivated/teased/commented, everything

120

came out as an entertaining and involving (very important)
initiative rather than a hard lined marketing effort. Kudos to
the team (and the individual managing the Twitter account)!
It clearly showed the hard work put into the effort.” –
Abhishek Baxi, Team Leader, Corby Colour Wars
qq “SamsungCorbyWars was fun! No matter who wins but it
was a feeling which I could compare with the tug-of-war
we did in high school”. – Praval Singh, Team Leader, Corby
Colour Wars
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qq “Shimauli the Chief Buzz Officer of Buzallong highlights the
Social Media Marketing campaign by Samsung Corby” in
a Blog post by Sorav Jain that compiles the Social Media
Highlights of 2009
What Next
Samsung has created Social Footprints and the engagement is
growing. The Social Media journey for Samsung Mobiles has
been received with great acceptance and initial excitement, and
we’ll be building on that in the future.
© IndiaSocial
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 Nokia- email
Company Details: with ease
Name : Nokia
Number of Employees
Category
: N/A
: Telecom (Brand)
campaign
Campaign Duration : Long term
Case submitted by : Songita Verma;
Founder and CEO, Bloggers Mind
Website : http://www.nokia.co.in/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/nokiae72
 Casebook1

Nokia started its

India operations in 1995.
Nokia has established itself
as one of the market and brand leader
in the mobile devices market in India.
The company has built a diverse product
portfolio to meet the needs of different
consumer segments and therefore offers
devices across five categories
ie. Entry, Live, Connect,
Explore and Achieve.
Background
Nokia was primarily associated with mobile devices and
attracting users towards email solutions was a challenge.
At the same time, there was a compelling need for people to
access email on the move as it helped people work smarter. An
in-depth consumer behavior study was conducted online that
helped derive that the major bottleneck was its complexity to
set up. The common user was perplexed with the way email
needed to be configured and relied on their organization IT
heads for help.
Stakeholders

© IndiaSocial
The stakeholders engaged with were:
Executive Summary qq Business executives
Email with ease campaign was launched in April 2009. The qq Entrepreneurs and SMEs
KRAs were to:

qq Help handhold mobile users in setting up their emails in 3

simple steps

qq Educate them about the fact that mobile emails are easy to
set up and they can do it themselves

qq Clear perceptions around email configuration and the myth

that it can only be handled by IT heads/geeks, increase
adoption. A holistic consumer education and advocacy
program was launched that reached out to over 10,09,822
active online consumers and helped increase adoption
significantly.
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qq Senior/top management executives. qq E75 as a preferred option

Approach qq Tap into a wide segment of mobile users across the various
Social Media touch points
qq Build thought leadership for Nokia in the mobile email Duration: April 2009 till date.
segment
The campaign was initiated in April with the launch of E75
qq Drive wider adoption amongst both advanced and aspiring (Nokia’s business device) and was later merged into Nokia E72,
users the latest business device from Nokia, thus ensuring a long
qq Increase awareness on Mobile Email and its benefits term approach and optimization.

qq Establish the fact that it’s easy to set up mobile email Resources: An expert panel with 8 specialists on email, 4 buzz
specialists and campaign lead.
qq Establish thought leadership for Nokia in mobile email

Build a community Planning and outreach

qq Step 1: Create a pull for early adopters (awareness)
The initiative was very well received amongst professionals
qq Step 2: Build advocates (credibility) from different walks of life, individual entrepreneurs and
business professionals.
qq Step 3: Trigger adoption (conversion)

Counter negative perceptions around mobile email, change qq Capture the audience and build a communication channel:
consumer mindsets Capture a large audience via an interactive online widget
that allows consumers to submit their queries and get
qq Launch an education program expert tips.
qq Create awareness features and benefits
qq Influence and engage through an interesting two way
qq Develop a platform which can be used to address email dialogue: Launched a dedicated community for Eseries and
related queries other S60 users to interact and generate conversations
around email on mobile
Build conviction around the ease of use in setting up mobile
email qq Build a panel of experts to generate credibility: Created
qq Trigger conversations a panel of experts aimed at addressing and resolving
consumer queries established trust amongst consumers
qq Ease of use, benefits looking for a solution.
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qq Spread WOM through influencer relations: Seeded the E75

amongst influential bloggers to experience and demonstrate
the benefits of email on the go, how to use NMS and set
up corporate emails.
Impact – Outcome
qq Generated over 26,709 conversations, 12,987 comments
and impacted over 8,72,8000 consumers over a period of 3
months
qq Facebook and Twitter pages attracted over 3,000 fans and
generated over 10,098 conversations, averaging 4092 +
conversations per month
Quick Tips:
Adopt long-term strategies and build
campaigns that are sustainable. Reach out
to consumers and provide them a platform
to speak up and share their problems
Shape opinions via specialist guidance and
build consumer confidence
Understand the pain points of consumers
at multiple levels and help them
graduate to the next level.

© IndiaSocial
qq 16,098 direct conversations triggered around Nokia
Messaging and setting up corporate emails

qq Developed an Indian mobile email community with over

13,000+ members, generating over 2500+ conversations What Next
qq The online help widget generated over 3000+ queries, over Take the campaign to the next level and leverage on the current
2000 tips have been shared with consumers helping them user base.
resolve their issues
qq Use the power of influence and awareness to build
qq Over 3000 profiles captured, close to 1000 consumers have advocacy and spread the word across a larger audience.
acknowledged that the tips shared have allowed them to
resolve their issues qq Drive higher adoption and activations for Nokia Messaging
(email solutions).

Credits – Strategy & Execution qq Broad base the campaign to younger generations and
middle management/students
Self

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 Company Details:
Name : Nokia
Number of Employees : N/A
Category : Telecom (Brand)
Campaign Duration : Long Term
Case submitted by : Songita Verma, Founder and CEO,
Bloggers Mind
Website : http://www.nokia.co.in/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.
com/pages/Nokia-
N97/112286308784600?ref=ts
Twitter : https://twitter.com/_NokiaN97

Nokia – Reaching
out to the influencers
in “Search for N”

Nokia started its
India operations in 1995. Nokia has
established itself as one of the market
and brand leader in the mobile devices
market in India. The company has built
a diverse product portfolio to meet the
needs of different consumer segments
and therefore offers devices across five
categories ie. Entry, Live, Connect,
Explore and Achieve.
Executive Summary
The Nokia N97 was the first touch device in the high end
Nseries segment. It was positioned to make one’s internet
experience personal through it’s customizable home screen that
allowed one to select widgets of their own choice and create
short cuts on the home screen itself for instant access. The
KRAs were to:
qq Establish the category ‘personal internet’ and create
excitement around widgets (since most people were not
aware of what widgets are)
qq Reach out to the technology leaders and explorers and
highlight benefits of N97
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© IndiaSocial
qq Communicate the seamless experience via Nokia’s Ovi
Store on the N97. A high decibel Social Media campaign
was kick started with a virtual treasure hunt called “Search
for N.” The hunt was to find clues that were centered on
various aspects of the N97 such as the personal home
screen, widgets, QWERTY keypad, etc which allowed us to
familiarize the consumers with the device.
Considering that the N97 was the flagship touch device in the
Nseries category, it had it’s own learning curve, as it was a
completely new interface for consumers. Also, the experience
of Ovi store was an important consumer experience and
the idea was to cultivate new habits of accessing widgets
and apps, on the move. In the pre-launch phase alone, over
9,000 conversations were generated, that helped build huge
excitement around N97 and the personal Internet experience.
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Stakeholders Build engagement

Technology leaders are those who stay ahead of the qq Engaged with consumers through Nokia Nseries and N97
technology curve and like to stay connected all the time. These community pages on Facebook and Twitter
are essentially the super geeks and young explorers who like to
have the best of multimedia and productivity. qq Drove conversations around N97, seek first impressions and
discussions around key product attributes
Approach Duration:
Campaign objectives/goals May 2009 (5 Day activity)
qq Create a WOW around Quick Tips After the end of the contest, all participants were reached out
N97 as a high end to and were converted into long-term advocates, as part of our
internet device and Use networks that communities.
build excitement around are influential and
widgets command a high Resources -

qq Drive activations for reach A team of 5 Social Media specialists, 4 from the digital
Nokia’s Ovi Store. activation team.

qq Build excitement: in the

pre-launch stage
Planning & Outreach
qq Identify the right web partners: Partner with sites and blogs
qq Launched ‘Search for N’, a virtual treasure hunt in
having huge popularity and credibility amongst technology/
association with popular technology bloggers and portals –
mobile followers.
rope them in as web editors to drive the contest.
qq Create interesting content: Develop the hunt clues
qq Build buzz around the upcoming N97.
and questions in an innovative format that makes it a
qq Capitalized on the reach and popularity of the web editors worthwhile experience for the consumers
and reach out to the tech and geeky community.
qq Deliver it through an interactive format: Design an
interactive hunt for people to follow the clue and discover

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the answer, yet Impact – Outcome

make it simple
and interactive qq A whooping number of entries achieved over 5 days
– maximize
qq Total entries: 32240
participation.
Participate through qq Correct Entries: 21790
‘Search for N’ qq An incremental jump by 34.84% on the 4th day and
Widget. 25.26% on the 5th day

qq Make it qq Crossed 4691 entries on the 1st day, adding an average of

compelling for 5000+ entries on each day from 2nd till 5th
consumers through qq More than 1000 participants waited anxiously every
360 buzz: Reach out morning for the question of the day
to consumers across
qq Triggered over 6000+ conversations, 4000+ comments,
social media touch points, create hype and excitement

© IndiaSocial
30000 views
around Search for N, inform and invite a large number of
people. qq Over 32000 consumer profiles were captured

The web editors: Thinkdigit.com, Techtree.com, Fonearena. Credits Strategy & Execution
com, Digital Inspiration and Brajeshwar.com
Self
The working mechanics:

qq Participate in ‘Search for N’ What Next

qq Choose your web editor qq Sustain the engagement and continue to drive adoption for
Nokia’s Ovi Store.
qq The contest was on for 5 days
qq Leverage on the captured user base to build positive WOM
qq Each day, the web editors posted about a compelling around the upcoming Nseries internet enabled devices and
feature of the device and the task for the participants apps.
to find the clue, guess the answer and submit it on the
contest widget embedded on the sites. qq Use this as a platform to launch new products.

129
Dear Brands, Let’s Get Social

Faisal Farooqui
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
MouthShut.com

On September 15, Financial Times carried a feature
intriguingly titled: “Diligent shoppers offer opportunity to
manufacturers”. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way round
when manufacturers were supposed to provide opportunity
to shoppers? That’s how it has had always been. The article
states that today, two decades after the Indian market
opened up its doors, Indian consumers are amongst the most
demanding. And the Internet has definitely changed the way
things used to happen in the “good old past”. Before buying
a product, the average, city-bred Indian consumer does the
rounds of various websites including MouthShut.com to scour
for reviews. No more is it a case of a product being doled out
to the hungry-for-choice consumer and he happily lapping up
whatever is being dished out to him.
It would be presumptuous to say that the good old way of
doing business – manufacturing a product and using general
advertising methods – is over. However, it would not be
erroneous to point out that the focus points have definitely
changed. At the risk of sounding too generic, let me just say
that with the advent of Social Media, the consumers have
gotten aware of their right to speak their minds and brands are
now aware of this right.
If the consumer is not happy with the deal he has got, he
gets grouchy and lets the whole world know about it. Pradeep
Chopra, a prolific blogger, once had a problem with ICIC
Bank. When three visits to the branch did not help matters, he
tweeted about it and the problem got resolved in the next two
days. In December of 2007, his Apple Macbook started giving
him problems. Plastic was chipping off near the keyboard and
the battery would suddenly stop functioning. He gave it to an
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Apple service center in Delhi. They promised to resolve the
issue in three to four days but couldn’t, or rather didn’t even
after fifteen days. Finally, a review on MouthShut.com was
what caught the attention of the Head of Apple India. Pradeep
was promptly given a new machine and even when that started
posing problems he was given a refund.
We have to understand that Social Media is 24X7X365
phenomenon. If the Internet revolutionized communication,
Social Media has completely changed the way people use
the Internet. Blogging, micro-blogging, product blogging,
making and consolidating relationships is just the initial phase
of Social Media. Internet history has not seen something like
this boil in the browsers. Social Media is the harbinger of a
revolution which has started redefining opinions and breaking
© IndiaSocial
stereotypes.
Social Media is the democratization of information,
transforming people from content readers into content
publishers. It is the shift from an editor-wall-reader model to an
open system deep rooted in conversations between authors,
people, and peers. Social Media uses the “wisdom of crowds”
to connect information in a collaborative manner.
Companies are aware that their customers are talking about
them and most are involved in adopting ways and means to
adapt to this new reality. An increasing number of brands are
now aware that there is something known as Social Media
which is extremely viral and can make or mar their equity.
Hence, agencies are being hired, Social Media cells are being
set up within organizations to see what is being written on
the Internet and understand what can be done. The buzz is
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extremely volatile; there is excitement in the air and all efforts
are made towards listening to what the customer has to say.
Worldwide companies are increasingly participating on
Social Media platforms. In India, too, the trends have been
very encouraging. I know for a fact that big brands like
Eureka Forbes, Club Mahindra, Ezeego1, Kaya, Cox & Kings,
Makemytrip.com amongst many others have jumped on to the
Social Media platform. On MouthShut.com we have seen some
of the biggest brands talking to their customers and resolving
their issues using the Corporate Blog platform. Going beyond
resolving issues, presence on Social Media platform is an
affirmation of such brands’ commitment to their customers. Its
importance lies in the fact that your customer knows you are
there to listen to him. That according to me is the biggest plus.
Since Social Media is at an evolving stage, some companies
do falter in trying to come to terms with the rabble against
them. The chatter of the consumer does get to them. Some
still believe that by thundering “SILENCE” like a primary school
teacher, the noise that consumers are making will die down.
Those who try arm twisting techniques do not understand
the might of the internet savvy consumer. Nothing is going to
silence him. He is going to go hammer and tongs at a brand
if he is not provided the desired service and quality. But most
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brands are sensible to realize the growing power of the online
consumer and try to engage him rather than antagonize him.
A few misconceptions also need to be addressed.
There is this notion that if you want to engage your target
group, then you must bombard them with marketing strategies
and initiatives. Today by merely being in touch with your
audience you can engage them and keep them hooked on
to your brand. More than a marketing strategy work out a
communication strategy for them. Keep in touch with them and
you’re sure to have touched them.
My suggestion to brands looking to engage their customers is:
Do not perceive Social Media platform as a quick fix solution.
Patience is the key. Float around with your ears and eyes open
and your customers will float with you.
Everybody is a winner in the Social Media space, no doubt
about it. Remember Brand Managers, your average consumer is
far more vocal today. He does not need a Letter to the Editor to
voice his opinion. His voice is far stronger than what it is today.
All he needs to do is sneeze which will create a viral effect.
One blog on any platform can make or mar your image. So just
don’t sit there and bombard him with marketing initiatives.
Listen to him and talk to him. That’s how he likes it.
IndiaSocial Case Challenge - Winner of
Position #3, Long term initiative

Company Details:
Name : Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd.
Number of Employees : 101-500
Category : Travel (Internet – Online Travel Agency)
Case submitted by : Hrush Bhatt, Founder and Director,
Product and Strategy
Website : http://www.cleartrip.com/forums

Cleartrip – How Blog

Facebook
: http://blog.cleartrip.com/
: http://www.facebook.com/

the brand “travels” Twitter

cleartripfanpage
: http://twitter.com/cleartrip

through social media

 Casebook1

Launched in July 2006,

Cleartrip is one of the
leading online travel
companies in India. It is based
on a straight forward premise
of “making travel simple”
for its customers. Stakeholders
We believe that for any social media strategy, the customers
(or the end users of the product) are really the most relevant
Executive Summary stakeholder to engage. Our social media strategy has been built
around this belief.
Cleartrip has upheld integrity and transparency as foundational
values of our brand. Embracing these values has made it easy We’ve used our various social media touch points to gather
for the brand and the organization to have an active social feedback and improve products, provide troubleshooting, offer
media presence–tapping every viable social media touch point customer service.
we can to engage customers in dialogue and share with the
online world.

Background
Cleartrip’s web marketing strategy is still evolving and it sees
the web as just one part of the overall marketing strategy.
Cleartrip’s initial marketing strategy relied heavily on print and
television advertising to build brand awareness and search
advertising to drive traffic. After establishing a threshold of
brand awareness using traditional media, Cleartrip now uses
online display ads for brand building and product launches,
something we were not previously investing in.

134

We have multiple cases where extremely irate customers (the
Cleartrip episode by Kiruba Shankar, post 1 and 2) have been
vocal on their blogs or Twitter and we’ve successfully reached
out to them, taken care of their problems and turned them
from complainers to evangelists. Our openness and willingness
to admit our mistakes (the Kiruba incident, post 1 and 2) has
established a high level of trust and preference among savvy
users of social media (1). The proof of this lies in the level
of chatter around the Cleartrip brand as compared to other
brands:
Approach
We’ve always been early adopters of social media tools. Social
media marketing is easy if you avoid the cardinal sin of using
the platform to deliver a sales pitch. It’s counter-intuitive,
because marketers want to sell; but the key to success
here is not to be selling, but to be building relationships and
encouraging conversations around the brand.
Planning & Outreach
We have used the following channels/touch-points to announce
product launches, share interesting information/statistics
related to the travel industry, educate the customer about this
segment, and share our opinions on happenings in the online
travel segment and the online world at large.
qq Cleartrip Blog
qq Cleartrip Customer Support Forum
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qq Twitter
qq Facebook
Quick Tips:
Assess strengths and weaknesses of tools -
align your budget with your goals and use the
most appropriate tool to meet that goal. If the
goal is brand-building, display ads, viral and
social media are good tools; whereas, if the
goal is traffic-building, nothing beats search
advertising
© IndiaSocial
Measuring and tweaking - lay out the metrics
for a campaign in advance of its launch and
constantly look at the data for patterns.
Simple things like words and colours should
constantly be tweaked, tested and measured
to see which creative execution is best at
meeting goals
Choose where to focus - Being present on
all outlets at all times can actually be very
confusing because all web marketing is
highly measurable and marketers often find
themselves drowning in a glut of data and
unable to measure cause and effect.
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Impact – Outcome
Social media is too new, but the key measure here should be
how much “chatter” is being created about the brand. On
Twitter, for instance, Cleartrip far outstrips its competitors as
the most referenced and recommended online travel brand.
This “chatter” demonstrates that we have a high degree of
engagement with our customers.
There are three key ingredients to executing a successful online
marketing strategy
136
Strategy and Execution
Team Cleartrip.com
What Next
We’re fairly happy with how all our social media initiatives are
faring. The next challenge for us here is to scale the initiatives
up and get a little more organized with respect to how we
use these media as a company. Until now, all of the effort has
been unstructured with ad-hoc support from various team
members as necessary. Moving forward, we need to get more
structured and involve more people from within the company in
connecting with customers via social media.
 Mahindra Homestays –
engaging travelers and enabling owners

Company Details:
Name : Mahindra Homestay
Number of Employees : 11-50
Category : Travel (For Profit Corporation)
Campaign Duration : Long term
Case submitted by : Japa Ghosh-Head of Marketing
Website : http://www.mahindrahomestays.com/
Blog: http://blog.mahindrahomestays.
com/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
MahindraHomestays
Twitter : https://twitter.com/indianhomestays
YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/
MahindraHomestays
 Casebook1

Mahindra Homestays is a
unique Indian accommodation
network. Launched in 2008, and
initially targeting the UK and
Indian tourist markets, it brings
together a large number of
premium family homes that have
quality guest rooms.

They want to talk with brands, discover information

Executive Summary
Mahindra Homestays has quickly established itself as a
digitally-literate, self-assured and colourful brand that relishes
dialogue and collaboration with its audience. Through
innovative blog content and social media initiatives we have
built the necessary foundations for any travel brand looking for
success in the modern online marketing environment.
Background
and explore a relationship. For brands, this is a powerful
opportunity.
The obvious benefit of being involved in social media is
exposure: directly, it’s a chance to market and create sales,
sometimes immediate, sometimes years later – a way of
capturing and developing an audience; indirectly, it’s a way of
improving and building on search engine rankings.
For a new brand launching in India and in the UK we wanted to
explore the exciting opportunities available to us through social
media marketing.

Once it was an exception to find a brand involved in social

media. Now it is an expectation.
Stakeholders
The stakeholders we engaged through the initiative were our
People want to find products and services using the familiar
homestay owners who are delighted that we have provided
tools of their online travels: YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to
this platform to engage with their visitors and prospective
name a few.
customers.

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Video has provided a great opportunity for the homestay
owners to engage with the initiative, through a profile their
property, giving viewers the opportunity to get a real insight
into the homestay experience and get a taste of the hosts’
personality and the sort of hospitality they might receive.
qq The India Travel Blog: We created a branded blog on the
website, designed to draw traffic and ultimately send it to
the main site. We developed content strategically to appeal
to different target audiences and niches, from yoga lovers
to dog owners interested in pet-friendly accommodation.

Approach We used keyword techniques to capture search traffic on

Although, the time and resources across different social media
has varied throughout the initiative we have chosen to work
under six guiding principles and we feel these values have
aided our success.
qq Be honest – we act responsibly and truthfully when
representing our brand in social media
certain useful terms – particularly longtail keywords where
we saw an opportunity to get plenty of success. And
we used lively editorial to communicate the brand in an
interesting way and encourage dialogue.
Our output over six months has included: 30 highly popular
things-to-do articles covering key locations; features on
Indian culture, history and traditions; stunning Indian

© IndiaSocial
photography collections; video tours of properties; original
qq Be interesting – we ensure we communicate worthwhile,
engaging messages that people enjoy

qq Be open – we communicate in an open, collaborative and

sharing way with the people who engage with us

qq Be dynamic – we strive to demonstrate innovation,

originality, enthusiasm and a clear sense of purpose in
communications

qq Be committed – we are dedicated to keeping our activity

regular, timely and relevant

qq Be strategic – we plan and execute communications

intelligently for maximum results

We’ve applied these principles across all the Mahindra

Homestays social networks.
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 Casebook1
competitions and offers; and we have recently started
podcasting. The blog receives 6,000 visitors a month.
qq Facebook: Strong social media assets create confidence
among customers, especially in an unfamiliar brand and
new product. We created an attractive Facebook page
with intelligent use of apps and features and we set about
finding our audience. With conversation and user-centric
initiatives such as our ‘Photo of the Month’ contest we
have grown to 4,500 active fans. We use the Facebook
page to seed our blog content, answer customer enquiries
and push fans to the main site at any relevant opportunity.
qq Twitter: For us, being on Twitter was not simply a matter of
following the trend. Early on we saw an opportunity to use
Twitter in a powerful way to find our audience as they are
making accommodation decisions. We developed a Twitter
page which we use in much the same way as Facebook, to
seed links to the Mahindra Homestays website and respond
to discussion. But we also use it to build relationships
with travel journalists, bloggers and travellers across
the world. Our approach is proactive; time is spent, for
example, searching for current conversations about ‘hotels
in India’ or ‘flights to India’. When appropriate we step into
discussions with useful and timely contributions.
qq YouTube: Our 26 videos including host-led tours of
accommodation as well as a short Kerala travelogue from
some well-regarded UK travel writers have brought over
21,586 views on YouTube. Mahindra Homestays videos
dominate the search results on the leading keyword term
‘India homestays’.
140
Having created publically accessible channels for
communication they are able to participate directly via Twitter
and Facebook.
We are in regular contact with homestay owners via email and
telephone to provide regular updates about the initiative and
how they can get involved.
Impact – Outcome
qq • Blog: Traffic to our blog has been increasing steadily
since launch and currently with over 6,000 visits per
month. Almost half of this traffic has come via natural
search engine rankings. With a new brand and targeting
a new market (UK) we have been able to build brand
awareness early on in the travel research process. For
example, those searching for things to do amongst Indian
destinations have a strong change of being exposed to the
Quick Tips:
Weigh results- Time spent on
social media must be weighed up with
results achieved and we strive to balance
our resources across the different
networks depending on which generate
the best results.

Mahindra Homestays brand. By offering useful destination
content within a friendly community such as the blog
enables us to reach our audience. We use analytics on
the blog which is fully customised to help us measure the
effectiveness of the blog.
Although all blog visitors are being exposed to the brand
(we avoid selling on the blog) a key aim is for visitors
to then explore the main Mahindra Homestays website.
Currently 10-20% of all blog visitors navigate to the main
site and are more engaged that other types of referrals. For
example, a blog visitor spends 50% more time on the site
and visits 35% more pages. We’re also delighted that blog
visits lead directly to online bookings.
qq Twitter: It is harder to measure direct results with Twitter.
We limit our time on Twitter to four to six hours each
month.
Our links to new blog content have been re-tweeted by a
number of high profile followers (such as Times Travel in the
UK) that provides peaks in traffic.
qq PR coverage: We do use Twitter to communicate with the
travel trade. One follower had a request for accommodation
coverage in Delhi and we were able to act upon this.
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qq Facebook: Each month we review the ‘Insights stats’ that
Facebook provides along with information provided through
Google Analytics. One year on we’ve had 30,000 visits to
our fan page.
A year after the launch we asked our fans whether they were
more likely to choose a Mahindra Homestay while travelling
in India compared to 12 months ago and all responses were
positive.
Testimonials
Mahindra Homestays was recently announced winner of
Wanderlust magazine’s Eureka – Travel Innovation award. We
feel that the social media marketing initiatives have been a key
© IndiaSocial
factor in building awareness of the brand.
Our initiative was profiled in The Hindu Business Line –
September 2009.
What Next
We will continue to build our social media activity around the
blog and look to integrate this activity more closely onto the
main site when it is re-launched. Our aim is to continue to
build the blog as a resource for travelers and to strengthen the
community.
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 Company Details:

Jiyo Life Movement – Name

Number of Employees
: Club Mahindra
: N/A

using content as the honey Category

Campaign Duration
: Travel (For Profit Corporation)
: Long term
Case submitted by : Arun Nair, Senior Manager -
Marketing and Head - Web
Initiatives
Website : www.jiyolife.com
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/jiyolife
Twitter : http://www.twitter.com/jiyolife
 Casebook1

Mahindra Holidays &

Resorts India Ltd. Is a part
of the USD 6.7 billion Mahindra Group,
one of India’s leading Industrial Houses.
Started in 1996, the company’s flagship
brand ‘Club Mahindra Holidays’, today
has a fast growing customer base of
over 79,000 members and 23 beautiful
Resorts at some of the most
exotic spots in India
and abroad.

Executive Summary
Club Mahindra, India’s No. 1 Holiday brand launched a new
brand campaign that aimed to re-position the brand. Jiyo Life
is the new tag line for the brand and this will bring the brand
closer to people, by encouraging them to commit to spending
time on, participating in, creating and sharing - moments that
allow them to live life fully.
One of the largest and most active fan pages among Indian
brands on Facebook is Jiyo Life. Our brand charter - A call to
live life to the fullest and finest - Jiyo Life is a movement for
users to break free from stress and relive the smaller joys of
daily life. It’s also sharing one’s blissful moments with like
minded people of the page.
© IndiaSocial
Background
The community page idea was an extension to the Club
Mahindra - Jiyo Life TVC which highlights the finer nuances of
life. Social Media was identified as an integral part of the brand
campaign and we wanted to create a momentum in tandem
with the TVC.
We decided to focus on Facebook as our primary channel for
its prolific reach and the captivity of the medium. It also helps
that Facebook is one of most popular website in India and 2nd
most visited site with over 13 million registered Indian users!
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Approach
Below, are the highlights of the fan page activities -

qq High quality admin posts for increased and consistent

interaction by users

qq Posts had to be interesting as we wanted users to share our

posts with their friends

qq A detailed content strategy for Facebook page was thus,

planned for admin posts to match user sentiments

qq Regular features consisted of polls, contests, fan photo of

the week and others

qq We created custom tabs and landing pages on our fan page

Objective
qq To let the user experience the brand in interactive and
innovative formats thus making the brand more memorable

qq Build a large community base on Facebook of active users

(to reach 50,000 fans in 4 months). Aim for a large number
of posts/uploads from users

qq Drive traffic to the Jiyo Life website through Social Media

activities, Facebook being primary.

qq 4. Infuse the term ‘Jiyo Life’ in the users posts and

conversations, as a generic term (Eg ‘Google it’)

144

qq Optimal use of Facebook advertising which was a good
source to build fans through branding
qq Constant monitoring of ad performance and accurate
targeting led to low cost of fan acquisition
qq Aligning of offline events to the Jiyo Life page for higher
engagement with users
Results
In conjunction to the 5 brand objectives, we achieved them all -
qq Received over 40,000 interactions from users on admin
posts.
qq We aspired to create 50,000 members on the page by 31st
July which we comfortably reached by 15th July. The page
also had over 150,000 wall posts by users (including over
2000+ images uploaded by them)
qq We received over 65,000 visits on the Jiyo Life website
through our Social Media activities
qq Literally, every 3rd post/comment on the Jiyo Life page by
a user has the term ‘Jiyo Life’ coined in the phrase
Apart from achieving our objectives, we crossed a number of
milestones
Impact
qq Within the first 15 days, we crossed 10,000 fans on the
Facebook page
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Quick Tips:
Customise content basis user interest -
Jiyo Life page is a classic example of how
an initial laid strategy had to be amended
after user interaction. Isn’t Social Media
all about that, users and their interaction?
We were quite pleased to transform our
strategy with new plans based on user
significance.
qq The Facebook fan page visit ratio is 1:3 viz. one user
© IndiaSocial
has visited the Jiyo Life fan page at least 3 times on an
average!
qq The Jiyo Life Facebook page made it to the Top 5 organic
search results within a couple of days of launch
qq In terms of engagement, we have observed a large number
of friendships blossomed amongst the users of the page.
There is a strong bond created amongst them.
qq On an average, every admin post receives over 100
interactions within a single day
qq Optimal use of Facebook ads has given Jiyo Life ads more
than 100 million impressions!
qq Close to equal Male:Female distribution at 46:54 (Facebook
India M:F – 68:32)
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qq Every admin post also receives over 75,000+ impressions
(which is much higher than our fan base, clearly stating
that users are sharing our posts with their friends)
qq On attaining 50,000 fans, we introduced offline events
to offer more engaging activities to the users called
the Jiyo Life Zone. The Jiyo Life Zone was a fun zone
held on weekends across major cities of India. We got a
tremendous response with large number of footfalls across
all the cities.
What Next
Our focus remains on building the user base to greater numbers
but at the same time maintain quality interactions and posts
by admin and users. We want to make the Jiyo Life movement
one of the biggest online communities. We want Jiyo Life to
be infused as a conversational term for the users to a great
extent!

qq Jiyo Life Zone received over 10,000 visits to our website +

over 1.5 million impressions on the Facebook posts

Testimonials
User testimonials from the fan page:

Rakesh Mathur: Thanks to the team Jiyo Life to have started

a platform like this where all “positive thinking” and “live for
today” kinda people could meet....!!!

Renu Sehgal: I have just joined Jiyo Life but have found it to be
an amazing platform for positive thoughts. The team members
and the people who are a part of it are also amazing. Thank
you Jiyo for being a part of my life.....:)

Monika Sharma: Thanx jiyo life!!...4 providing me the stress

relieving tips article bcoz...really my stress is reduced...actually
it was topic of my presentation..!!!:)thanx a lot!!...waiting 4 the
second part of this article!!!

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 IndiaSocial Case Challenge -
Winner of Position #1,
Short term initiatives

Mitsubishi Cedia Sports – the

Great Driving Challenge

Company Details:
Name : Mitsubishi Cedia (Hindustan Motors
Limited)
Number of Employees : N/A
Category : Auto (Brand)
Campaign Duration : Short term
Case submitted by : Nidhi Makhija, Digital Marketing,
Experience Commerce
Website : http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
greatdrivingchallenge
Twitter : http://twitter.com/cediatgdc
 Casebook1
Hindustan Motors Limited
(HML) is one of the India’s
pioneering automobile
manufacturing company
and Flagship Company of
the C.K. Birla Group.
Executive Summary
Hindustan Motors (HML) well understood the sentiments of a
Cedia owner. Consumer research reiterated that a loyal Cedia
owner loved to get behind its wheels and just drive. So when
it was time to launch the new Mitsubishi Cedia sports, HML
wanted to reach out to their target audience and engage
the travel fanatics in conversations around “a long drive”.
This vision led to the creation of (one of ) India’s largest and
most buzzed digital-led campaign, aptly titled “Great Driving
Challenge”.
Background
We wanted travel aficionados from all over the country to come
together, driven by a mutual passion for enjoying a long drive.
The Web was a natural medium for engagement, as it provided
multiple social platforms, diverse communities, and tools to
encourage participation, conversation, and consumption of
content.
148
Stakeholders
Though the campaign was digital-led, it included on-ground
events and was not going to be a success without team work.
The brand campaign was supported by Contract Advertising
and the on-ground event was wholly managed by Encompass.
It was important that the finalists derived the same experience
off-line as they had experienced on-line and all agencies did a
terrific job.
The brand – Mitsubishi – remained supportive of every request
made by the contestants, agreeing to last minute giveaways.
Approach
Our vision was to engage a community of travel fanatics
around the idea of a long-drive – a getaway. Each applicant
couple was provided their personal blogging space on the site
to share past travelogues, travel pictures, videos, and their
travel plans. By making the event open for “couples only”, we
ensured the entire family & friend network was rallying behind
contestants.
The central idea of the campaign was powerful and appealed
to the workaholics to take a break from their daily grind and
escape on an all-expenses paid 10 day Trip in a brand new
Mitsubishi.
 Casebook1

Once the core audience was engaged with the campaign

idea, we supported the launch with an Internet ad campaign.
However, we received more quality audience from Facebook,
Quick Tips:
Blogs and organic search than paid Internet advertisements, Social media content is only created by youth
thus making TGDC a truly ‘social media powered’ campaign.
is a myth - Married couples with families
The campaign extended for two months during summer 2009. and kids to look after, and jobs that take
over most of their days make time for their
TGDC saw 2,000 sign-ups in the first few hours itself; over passions on the internet too. The average
50% had already started meaningful applications by Hour 3.
age of applicants ranged from 25-60years,
By end of Day 1 over 300 people had completed meaningful
applications, uploaded photos, mashed up their flickr streams,
with a median around 31.
annotated their Google maps, and were ready to reach out on
One couple in their sixties defended their age
their social graph for testimonials and votes.
in the application, arguing they were the best
couple because… “29 states, 13 countries,

© IndiaSocial
The average stay time for people creating application was over
an hour. Our jaws dropped! We were prepared for a long haul 15000 KM per year drive and 35 years of
to entice applicants to fill up their forms (blogs), but the core experience. Beat that!”
of the community had formed faster than we dreamed possible.

Results
qq Total Testimonials Cast: 13,000 +
qq Unique Visitors in a month: 6,50,000 +
qq Alexa India Rank: 551
qq Page views in a month: 69,00,000 +
It was important for us as a Digital Agency in India, to measure
qq Max page views for a day: 7,50,000 +
the ROI on print. The traffic volume was in line with our
qq Blog Citings: 120 + expectations, and our gut feeling came through as we saw
very high quality of traffic – a super-low bounce rate of <6%,
qq Total Votes Cast: 3,20,000 and conversion ratio of >25%. This far exceeded benchmarks
for brand supported destinations that we had seen in our past
qq Sign ups: 18,000 +
projects

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Credits – Strategy
Experience Commerce
Credits – Execution
Contract Advertising and Encompass
Testimonials
“The Great Driving Challenge is not only a path breaker in
automobile marketing but also a lodestar in the convergence of
new media with traditional media. It represents how seamlessly
we can integrate digital media with traditional media and
maximize reach, frequency and impact.” – Pritam Saikia, Head
of Marketing, Hindustan Motors
“I’ve been watching the GDC unfold from day one and gotta
say: This was BRILLIANT marketing by HM-Mitsubishi. Not
once in the past 5 years had so many people visited an HM-
Mitsubishi website, or had their brands created such a buzz in
the market. I know for a fact that other brands are watching
closely and will be coming out with their own in-house versions
of the GDC soon. Coming from a manufacturer which has
effectively over-slept (while the competition walked all over)
was most unexpected. I hope some of this new found vigour
rubs off on HM’s product planning division (new Lancer, EVO
X anyone?).” – Read on Team-BHP Forum (India’s hottest
destination for Auto Fanatics)
What Next
Wait and see

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ThankYou
http://www.indiasocial.in