A SYNOPSIS ON

“STUDY OF INDISPENSABILITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (SMM),

IN MARKETING MIX”

OBJECTIVES-

This study is oriented towards-

1-Getting knowledge regarding ways of social media marketing

2-How much it should be integrated in marketing mix.

3-Throw some light on future scenario of social media marketing for branding and marketing.

SCOPE-

With about 300 million members on facebook, 70 million on LinkedIn and more than 50 million on orkut
social networking sites cannot be neglected for approaching customers. This study can help in effective
integration of social media marketing or optimization in marketing mix.

LITERATURE REVIEW-

The concept of social media marketing basically refers to the process of promoting business or websites
through social media channels. It is a powerful marketing medium that is defining the way people are
communicating. It is one of the significantly low-cost promotional methods that provide businesses large
numbers of links and huge amount of traffic. Companies manage to get massive attention and that really works
in favor of the business. Social media marketing is a potent method applied by progressive companies for
selling their products/services or for just publishing content for ad revenue.

Examples of social media marketing.

1. Coca-Cola - Coco-Cola is one of the best examples available out there. The company was also named by
Slate’s The Big Money as the brand “making the best use of Facebook,” . Coco-Cola has used several ways
such as blogging, sharing photos/videos, tweets, social media apps to promote their brand and achieves huge
success

2. Dell - Dell is usually known for its cost-effective methods that it uses and so it jumped in social media to
reach people.

3. SAP-This third largest software company in the world faced a challenge in the year 2002. It wanted to
become a platform company using NetWeaver. The company had to open its platform and allow the other
developers to use the platform in order to solve their business problems. The company had to interact with
several developers across the globe. As a result of which, the company gained global collaboration and
adoption of new SAP products increased.
4. SeaWorld -The main aim of the Journey to Atlantis social media program was to develop contact with the
coaster community and bring about alertness regarding Journey to Atlantis. Influential people said that social
media will give a chance for SeaWorld to make inroads. So, 22 coaster enthusiast blogs and forums were
recognized during its beginning period.
5. British Telecom-Corporate intranets use social media tools to promote their interests. Unlike other
companies, BT has completed web liberalization project. The company wanted all its employees to excess
social media sites. According to the company, these networking sites, gives a chance to change the way our
employees relate with one another, with the customers, partners and also with the suppliers.

Review of social media marketing by ndtv profit

NDTV Profit panel discussion on the business on social networking with NDTV Profit’s Pankaj Pachauri,
Vizisense COO Prashant Mehta, Faking News founder Rahul Roshan, and Perfect Relations MD Dilip Cherian.

Here are a few comments made during the panel discussion –

• Social networks make money by advertising, subscriptions and micro-transactions (virtual goods). In
the coming years, virtual goods are likely to become the most important source of revenue for social
networks.
• People can make money from social networks by building applications using their APIs, helping
marketers create social media programs and leveraging your reputation as a thought leader to create a
career as a writer/ speaker.
• The convergence of the three screens — TV, web and mobile — is the next biggest trend for brands and
already, we are seeing that social networks are acting like a virtual water cooler during large events that
lead to spurts in TV viewership.
• How brands are moving beyond simple marketing applications for social media and creating social
CRM programs to engage customers throughout the customer lifecycle.
• Across the world, social networks like Twitter and Facebook have a discontinuous increase in usage
because (1) they become hubs of discussion during large national events like natural disasters and
elections (2) celebrities start using these services and bring along their fans, and (3) TV channels start
using these services to engage with their audiences.

Hence from it can be find out that its worth studying about social media marketing in today’s scenario as it
could be most promising instrument for marketing and brand building in future. This study would help in
gaining useful knowledge with respect to integration of social media marketing in marketing mix.

Social media marketing in India:-

Is Social Media actually working in India? Is Social Media Marketing the only facet of social media? Can you
help your business through social media in India ? What should you be doing if you want to market yourself ,
or your brand for that matter, on social media? These are my views on what you need to be doing to undertake
a successful social media campaign in India .

• Facebook fan page: A Facebook fan page is something we all have seen. Once a person becomes a fan
on your fan page, your updates appear on his profile. Obviously, until he decides to remove himself
from the fan page. A number of custom applications can be built on the fan page. Companies have even
started using the fan page for e-commerce and competitions for promoting their brands. This can be
done very easily using the static-FBML application and writing some very simple mark up. By the
way, Facebook now is the 4th most popular site in India, overtaking Orkut. Check out the facebook fan
page of Coca Cola to see how the brand has used it beautifully.
• Facebook applications: A facebook application can be viral. Some companies in India have already
started using the facebook applications to brand themselves. The Complete the zoo-zoo story
application by Vodafone is a case in point.

• Orkut : Although, Orkut(5th most popular site in India) is a dying social medium, it still remains a
major social network as far as India is concerned. It still has the highest number of user accounts for a
social network in India. Make sure you monitor the discussions going on about your brand. If you really
think your brand could leverage Orkut, you can even go for Orkut applications.

• Twitter: Everybody seems to have a twitter account these days. Companies like Dell have used twitter
to do some good business. Yahoo India seems to be running huge contests on Twitter to get the word
of mouth going for them.

India is number 2 as far as twitter usage goes

However, there are still a lot of small companies which are trying to figure out how this thing works.
My advice to them would be just trying it out first. The only way to learn what is happening on twitter
is to get busy using it. The small businesses using twitter have to understand that twitter’s reach is truly
global. Find out twitter audience in your vicinity using services like Nearby Tweets and target them.
Also make sure you have information going out continuously on twitter, or else your tweet will be
nowhere to be seen on your follower’s wall.

As a matter of fact, I read somewhere that Indian companies have still not deciphered Twitter. I must
say that it’s high time they start understanding the concept of two-way communication on Twitter.
Twitter is now the 12th most popular site in India. India, now is at number 2 as far as number of twitter
users is concerned. US have 37% presence on twitter, India has 8% and I bet Indians will out number
Americans very soon. No wonder every time the Indian cricket team is playing, one of the Indian
cricket players is a trending topic.

• Blog: Try to understand the focus of your blog. Some companies try to put up quality information
about the industry they are in. This gives them an edge and leaves the audience thinking that your brand
understands what it is doing. Other companies however, have used their blogs to show the human side
of the company. With a number of their own employee’s blogging about the fun they are having
working in your company helps the audience relate to your brand in a human way. Companies like
Zippos have done this very well. Although, a tougher medium to use, the ROI is very high. I don’t see
any Indian company showing off their consumer-sensitive side through a blog. The microsite of
pampers which is covered in one of our previous posts can be good example to look at.

• LinkedIn: LinkedIn is more of a professional social networking platform. To embrace LinkedIn, create
an account and try to see how everyone else is getting involved in it. LinkedIn already has 3.4 million
users in India and now the Mumbai office.
 • Wikipedia: Wikipedia may not seem a social medium but it is in fact one of the most important
mediums to monitor. Make sure the information out there is correct and try to edit if you feel the
information has been tampered with.

Combining your social media campaign with some social cause:

Some of the companies in India who have taken up social media campaigns have been pretty much
throwing their brands information on the users. Tata Docomo almost reached levels of hash tagging
where people started feeling spammed by their social media campaign. Indian brands can learn from the
way Jimmy choos has taken up their social media campaign with the name jimmychoo72 . The money
they make from this campaign goes to the Elton John AIDS Foundation. In this way, Jimmy choos is
able to combine its Social media campaign with CSR activities and hence create beautiful branding
around itself. I would dearly love to see an Indian brand doing some similar work.

One of the most important things, however, is that your social media campaigns in different mediums must go
on in a synchronized manner. If you want to know what I mean by a synchronized manner, check out a
previous post on micro reviews here. All your social medium should connect to each other. The facebook
profile must be able to update your twitter feed. The twitter feed in turn can update your LinkedIn profile if it
has a #in attached. Your website must have a place where all your social media activities are listed the way dell
has done at http://www.dell.com/twitter and http://www.dell.com/facebook

• Try using Social Media as your first level of feedback.

• Listen to people and answer them.
• Show the human face of your brand through social media.
• Don’t over do it, the way Tata Docomo did for a while and pissed of many people completely.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY-

Tools for data collection” secondary data - when the data is collected and compiled in a published nature
it is called secondary data examples: news papers. journals.,magzines.,marketing journals
As per our study concern we analyze data on the secondary data from the websites, journals, magazines
of advertisement and marketing.
techniques for data analysis : out of , all research methods , which was most suitable to our study is trend
analysis because it helps in understanding the current scenario and strategies and social media is most
recent trend.

REFERENCE-

BOOKS.
1. The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral
Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly –BY “David Meerman Scott”
2. The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media-BY “Paul Gillin”

WEBSITES .

• www.socialmediamarketing.co.in
• www.socialmediaexaminer.com
 • www.whitepapersource.com

Submitted By: Name of Student:- Swati Singh

Course:- Master of Business Administration (MBA)

Batch:- 2009-2011.

Year:- Second year

Specialization : Marketing

College: Lakshmi Narain College of Technology-

Management Education and Research,(LNCT-MER),Indore.