2014 Social Media TrendsFrom Indian Brand Managers

Lighthouse Insights

• Rich Experiences On The Move

• Increasing Dominance Of Content Marketing As A Strategy

Sony India

Tadato KimuraHead Marketing

Rich Experiences On The Move

India has an estimated 130 million mobile internet users and the figure is expected to double by 2015. This, coupled with a competitive and growing telecom industry makes the case for cheaper high speed data. While many products and services in the industry have accepted the ‘mobile first, digital second’ paradigm, 2014 will begin to see the adoption of this principle.

Increasing Dominance Of Content Marketing As A Strategy

For marketers, there is clear impetus to move beyond the traditional screen and to think of video as the component of a story but not the story itself. The next generation of storytellers will not necessarily have to be film makers and specialists – but our consumers themselves. It excites me to think about the highly contextual localized content and collaborative models that will spark creativity in the coming year.

• Social Media No More About Likes

• Social Media Operates As An “Experience Economy”

Lufthansa German Airlines

Sangeeta SharmaManager Marketing

Communications

Social Media No More About Likes

• 2014 marks a decade since Facebook was founded. With over a billion participants today, we have come a long way on this journey. Social media is no longer the new kid on the digital block. It is a ‘must-have’ in the marketing mix today and one that needs to be integrated into the overall marketing strategy.

• In the coming year, I believe it will become increasingly apparent that social media is no more about getting the maximum ‘Likes’, fans or followers.

Experience Economy

The fact is that social media operates as an “experience economy.” Come 2014, we will see leaders in this space breaking through the existing clutter with strategies that recognize this fact.

• Rise Of The Digital Content Agency•Social Data Enterprises•Brands “Being Human” On Social •Internet Of Things As A Branded Exp

MTS India

Anupam DikhitHead, Digital Marketing

Rise Of The Digital Content Agency

I see 2014 as the watershed year for digital content. I was hoping this year to be that one, but for various reasons not much has happened in that space. However, I anticipate next year onwards, media as we know it to start getting replaced by content driven primarily by the dominant use of smartphones/tablets for accessing content as smartphone penetrations crosses 20%. This should also see brands diverting monies from media to content with the same business objectives in mind.

Social Data Enterprises

A subset of Big Data & Smart Data, I foresee companies, especially in the service space, investing on building capabilities of overlaying their customer information with social graphs to build dynamic behavioral profiles of their consumers for predicting demand, churn, usage, recommendation, etc. This will be bring us one step closer to achieving mass personalization and segmentation of 1. This will possibly do more for digital targeting than what SoLoMo ever could.

Brands “Being Human” On Social

This is something I have been spotting on and off, and I can see this blowing into a massive movement soon as brands will look at getting off their vaunted perches and start embracing their customers more closely by mirroring them online, be it through crowdsourcing spokespersons, providing experiential engagement, creating more intimate consumer connects or simply by making their lives part of the brand story.

Internet Of Things As A Branded

Experience

With more smart watches, smarter devices and wearable computers than ever before in history, it is inevitable that brands will look to latch on to this new frontier to extend the brand experience, more so when experiential engagement is already on an all-time high. I see the first movers of this coming from the automobile, healthcare, lifestyle and telecom industries.

Compelling Proposition For The Consumer On The Mobile Screen

Ajit MohanHead, Digital Business

Star India

Compelling Proposition For The Consumer On The Mobile Screen

Brand managers are looking to engage consumers where they are. Increasingly, that is on a mobile screen. And, therefore, the big fight between broadcasters and platforms and social media aggregators would be on creating a compelling proposition for the consumer on the mobile screen.

• Brands Building Their Own Platforms • Content Will Be Crucial• Twitter & Pinterest Will Be The Show Stealers

Titan Company Limited(Jewellery Division)

Deepika S TewariGM -Head Marketing

Brands Building Their Own Platforms

The year 2014 will be big for social/ digital mediums as biggies like Facebook and Twitter will be going public. The cost factor of using these platforms will push brands to build their own platforms like blogs, apps, microsites etc. Hence, platforms like Twitter and Pinterest will see more traffic.

Content Will Be Crucial

Also, content has always been important for digital/social medium, but it will be crucial in 2014. Be it visual or written – this will help brands to reach out the exact set of audience.

Twitter & Pinterest Will Be The

Show Stealers

Overall, the mobile medium, influencers bloggers, strong content and social platforms Twitter and Pinterest will be the show stealers for the year 2014.

•Creating & Curating Content•Relevant & Engaging Content

Karthi Marshan Executive VP & Head - Group

Marketing

Kotak Mahindra Bank

Creating & Curating Content

Getting it right will involve creating content of course, but also inviting and curating it from all constituencies relevant to the brand. For this, brands will have to build content teams that resemble those at publishing firms, with high caliber writing skills, coupled with deep domain knowledge of our category spaces.

Relevant & Engaging Content

Getting it right will involve creating content of course, but also inviting and curating it from all constituencies relevant to the brand. For this, brands will have to build content teams that resemble those at publishing firms, with high caliber writing skills, coupled with deep domain knowledge of our category spaces.

• Use Consumer Insights To Connect• Have A Digital Partner

Debal Dutt Head, Brand Mgmt, India & South

Asia

Standard Chartered Bank

Use Consumer Insights To Connect

Use consumer insights for the social media space to – not just broadcast, but connect. Social media is a media channel that works at a totally different level – unlike mass media. However, the fundamentals should be the same – work on consumer insight, build on it and then have communication/activation based on an insight.

Have A Digital Partner

Organisations who want to be active on social media platforms, need to have partner agencies who are strong on building a brand. It is not about broadcasting, it is all about connecting. It is not only important to have a digital agency, but a digital partner that is strong in brand building on social media platforms.

• Creating, Owning & Disseminating Content• Hard Data And Analytics

Sridhar Rajaram Group Manager - Marketing

Louis Philippe, Aditya Birla Group

Creating & Disseminating Content

I expect digital agencies and brand managers to finally get the drift about ‘content’ and drive content marketing efforts. Content marketing has been around for some time now but just in theory. I expect that to change as more brands will begin to truly invest in creating, owning and disseminating content. Smart brands who have already invested in content will drive the next big growth through innovative content discovery platforms.

Hard Data And Analytics

The second big shift is brand managers building their digital assets based not just on ‘nice ideas’ but hard data and analytics. For far too long marketers and agencies have given analytics and numbers the short drift in this space because they have not understood the numbers this medium throws up. It is however time for marketers to start learning how to analyze data, drive complex metrics and learn along the way with their agencies.

• Re-Defining Measurability• Better Second Screen Experience

Rajneel KumarVP & Business Head - Digital

Media

Viacom18

Re-Defining Measurability

Measurability has been loosely defined which has forced brands to invest more. We need to get a better system, metrics in place that will take care of it and build more confidence in CMOs.

Better Second Screen Experience

Right now the second screen experience is scattered in the country. 2014 would see quite a few startups working on products/apps that aggregate all social experience on one single platform.

Meaningful Engagement

Ritu Gupta Director, Marketing, Consumer &

Small Business

Dell India

Meaningful Engagement

The market will keep growing in the country. From acquiring fans brands in 2014 will focus on engagement. The year would be more of “meaningful engagement.”

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