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Social Media Strategy Review

Watches

Introduction:

Watch Industry is a sub domain of Lifestyle Industry which holds immense potential to play with the content and making it most engaging and entertaining. Most of these brands are on social media from a longer time and are growing every day in their strategy and communication plan. While all these brands have the potential to make it BIG in Social Media, some of them have been really consistent and others are catching up with the new age phenomenon.

This study includes in depth analysis of brands like – Timex, Titan, Maxima and Sonata on two major platforms, Facebook and Twitter for time duration of 30 days (20th May to 20th June).

Titan Watches, an overriding performer in the Indian watch industry, has fruitfully conquered more than 60% share of the total Indian market! Founded way back in 1987, Titan, is the fifth largest Watch Manufacturer Company in the World. The brand has carefully segmented their market across different areas such Watches, Jewellery, Eye wear.

Now let us go through the Social Media presence of the brand with a fine-tooth comb!

In this article, we will look at the Social Media campaigns used by Titan Watches during the last 30 days (20th May to 20th June) on two major platforms, Facebook and Twitter.

Summery

Buzzword

Audience Analysis

Although Titan is creating content aimed at both female as well as male target audiences, they have more men interacting with the brand.

64.8% of posts have been contributed by males to contrast starkly with only35.2% female posts. 1

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Titan on Facebook

Titan has more than 1.9 million Fans on their Facebook page but only 2.6k people are talking about the brand. Considering that Titan watches account for more than 60% share of the total Indian market, I realize that 2.6k is a very small number in comparison to its huge popularity. Besides, the official website of Titan redirects its users to an incorrect Facebook

link (https://www.facebook.com/TitanWatchesIndia)

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Social links on official websites encourage users to connect with the brand. Even worse than that, the Facebook Page of Titan is inactive since May 11, 2014.

Stakeholders have contributed 97.8% of the total 269 posts on the brand page. The image below indicates that Titan’s Social Media team has not updated a single post in the last 30 days!

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They may end up losing their existing as well as prospective customers by being slothful on Social Media. It could reflect negatively on the company.

Content Strategy

It seems that as of now Titan India has no Social Media content strategy, whatsoever. The brand has not communicated at all in the month of June and just once in May 2014.

The same content topics are being shared on their Facebook page repeatedly, isn’t that boring? They were endorsing ONE SINGLE television commercial throughout April.

Rather they should experiment with new types of contents; only then, fans will be hooked on to their page.

For example, the above latest commercial underlines the joy of gifting with a layer of commitment that Titan proposes to offer. While endorsing this TVC, Titan could have gone the extra mile and proactively reached out to its community. They could have paid attention to user stories based on gifting.

Celebrating user stories and interaction with the community enhances your social media strategy with a personal touch!

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Customer service

Titan needs to ramp up their Social Media customer-service by interacting regularly and helping customers in real time. You can see in the images below that fans are trying to reach out to the brand but then most of their requests go unanswered.

It seems that the brand is not paying heed to online customer-service related issues. Treating social media as a one-way marketing channel or overlooking questions and complaints can have adverse consequences on the brand.

https://twitter.com/chandsethstatus/465853538527350784

https://twitter.com/TheMathsMan/status/464306720064274432 6

Titan on Twitter

Titan Watches have more than 10.8k followers on Twitter. Just like Facebook, Titan does not seem to be active on Twitter.

Previously they had run few Twitter hash tag campaigns such as #IWishIHad and #TitanTokenOfLove. Both the contests had garnered a good response from their community; however, these activities were carried out in the month of April. Titan has hardly tweeted anything in the last two months, May and June.

https://twitter.com/titanbemore/status/460027614007001088 https://twitter.com/titanbemore/status/458278853371109378

It is surprising that for now Titan is not at all leveraging these Social platforms to build a lively community around itself.

Online Buzz It is clearly visible that Social Networks as well as micro blogging sites have a higher share in brand mentions and conversations as compared to blogs. Out of 371 mentions during the given period, 184 are sourced from Social Networks and 162 come from micro blogging sites such as Facebook and

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https://twitter.com/KRUTIKABUDHANI/status/453082774245625857

https://twitter.com/MentalPetal/status/460799168655523840

https://twitter.com/ramonasworld/status/455757115349417984

That means Social Networking sites are definitely platforms that Titan needs to consider. Their potential advocates are already talking about the brand.

Unless you are not active on the online space, you cannot be part of the conversation. Titan is literally turning out to be invisible to its social media audience.

Service Feedback

Out of the total 420 posts updated online, 184 are obtained from various social networking sites and162 have been posted across microblogs, majorly twitter. Twenty-Five blog posts have been written about the brand in addition to 18 videos and 7 news articles. Besides, there are some other sources of content such as Forums, Complaints, and Data Aggregators.

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Sentiment

The following statistics indicate that Titan, being the leading Watch brand in the Indian market, has enjoyed about 78.5% positives sentiments on Social Media. The negative sentiment score is 21.5%.

The first step to improving their online sentiment level would be a lively Social Media presence. Paying more attention to what is being said about their brand could reflect positively, leading to more and more positive mentions.

Conclusion

Titan, one of the most trusted brands in the Indian watch industry tends to miss the mark in the digital sphere. Social Media is a lot more than just posting monotonous updates and running hashtag contests. They need to communicate more frequently and stay active in order to maintain engagement with their fans. Titan’s social media strategy lacks innovation, lead generation, customer service, advocacy, and the most important of all, conversations. The consequences of discounting these important aspects cannot be overlooked.

Furthermore, ignoring customer’s queries and grievances can have a strong impact on their purchase decisions. I my opinion there is a huge scope for improvement for Titan Watches in the Online Space.

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Timex was founded in the year 1854 and ever since it is one of the world’s leading watch makers. With state of the art design and technical prowess, Timex is renowned and a trusted name worldwide. Timex was launched on Facebook in second half of the year 2012 but they were launched on Twitter recently. The brand has decent sized fan community on Facebook but they need to work hard to develop a considerable amount of follower base on Twitter.

My study period is based on the last 30 days and an in depth analyses of Timex India on two major platforms, Facebook and Twitter.

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Summery Chart

Buzzword

Audience Analysis

Timex has a very low audience base and the gender distribution is also uneven. Male audience contribute 85.7% of posts and only 14.3% of posts are contributed by females. Although Timex offer products to both genders yet distributed gender distribution is justifiable considering their branding and advertising on social media.

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Timex on Facebook

Timex has decent followers owing to the fact that they were the early adopters of Facebook. The brand has 115657 likes and approximately 8.1K people are talking about them. The platform is basically used to showcase different variety of watches brand offers. Few posts have links which diverts a customer to Timex’s official website to drive sales.

The Brand is regular in posting content on Facebook. They try to post on an average 4 posts /day and get ood amount of engagement on them. Stakeholders contributed 81.8% of the posts making it a total of only 5 posts.

Content Strategy

Timex’s Facebook content strategy is product centric and almost all the posts are meant to showcase different product models. The content mix is a uniform with little variance, having said that the brand gets decent amount of interaction on these posts. Most of the posts are liked and shared by fans but very few receive comments.

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The brand uses a hashtag #WearItWell with its exclusive stylish products. This hashtag is used mainly to promote their new range of watches collection.

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Few posts have direct links to their official website which is a good initiative to generate sales through social media. This practice when done as secondary plan is acceptable by the audience.

Some of the posts are aimed at direct promotions asking followers their most desirable feature in watch. Such posts generate engagement on the page and also helps in getting insights about target audience’s liking which if required can be used for planning future campaigns and by product development team. 14

Timex’s content plan lacks engagement activities like a simple quiz or contests, If the brand focuses on organizing such activities, it will lead to overall increase in engagement ratio on the page. In terms of customer service, Timex does not reply to its customers. There have been instances where response from the brand was necessary yet no heed was paid to the customers.

Timex on Twitter

Timex joined twitter recently and has very less followers for now. There are only 49 followers which is negligible amount for a big brand like Timex. If they want to make an impact on their online audience, they have to buck up and run fast in this race. They need to use 360 degree efforts in building follower base on twitter. Timex started in the month of February and was inactive for some time after March. They resumed their activity on Twitter from June 1. Timex uses same hashtag #WearItWell very often with its posts relating to their exclusive and stylish product range as it uses on Facebook. 15

Content on Twitter is on similar lines of Facebook. All the tweets are product centric and are meant to direct customer to their website or Flipkart.

There is less creativity and variety in content posted on twitter. Brand needs to add whole new collection in their content basket which is more engaging and interacting with followers and lead to follower generation.

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In terms of engagement, Timex receives less interaction on the page and only hand full of tweets are retweeted. Brand rarely indulges itself in any conversation with potential customers and followers. They need to dedicate their resources on relationship building and thereby generating remarkable size of follower community.

Online Buzz

Social Networks i.e. Facebook gets most mentions about Timex. 72% of all the mentions occur on Social Networks followed by microblogs like Twitter with 28% of mentions. Brand gets zero mention on any other platform like blogs or news. If brand get more digital impressions on other platforms also, it will be beneficial for overall brand’s social presence.

Approximately 132 posts have been posted across major platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Out of which 95 posts were occurred on Social Networks i.e. Facebook and 37 posts were contributed by Twitter. Surprisingly no blog or

Sentiment

Timex gets both negative and positive sentiments from its audience. Brand gets 50% of positive sentiments and 50% negative sentiments. Overall it may look like that brand maintains neutral sentiment on Facebook and other digital platforms but the fact that half of the target audience have negative sentiments is a matter of worry for the brand. 17

Conclusion

Timex is trying to be active digitally and build its social presence but they need to update their communication plan and modify their content strategy to increase their fan and follower base at the same time they need to focus on reducing negative sentiments present online. Monitoring and tracking their current social media activities would be of great help to develop a multipronged strategy with clearly defined agendas.

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Titan has brought about a paradigm shift in Indian watches market with its futuristic quartz technology. Sonata belongs to Titan family, offering a range of superior yet affordable watches. The success story began in 1984 with a joint venture between the Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation. Sonata was officially launched in the year 2007.

Sonata joined social media in the year 2011, but it has not gained the height on social networking sites expected from a brand in the Titan umbrella.

My study period is based on the last 30 days and an in-depth analyses of Maxima on two major platforms, Facebook and Twitter.

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Summery Chart

Buzzword

Audience Analysis

The Audience mix for Sonata includes more of male followers than female. Out of all 60.4 % of posts are contributed by male audience base and remaining 39.4% of posts are contributed by female audience base.

This difference in gender distribution can be reasoned to more of male products in Sonata’s product catalogue. As Sonata has more designs and variety in male watches, more of male audience hold interest in the brand.

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Sonata on facebook

The brand has decent presence on Facebook, as they are early adopters of social media. Although they have 168.4K likes on its page, only 211 people talk about Sonata. They still have to strive hard to touch the benchmark already set by TATA Group and to rise in terms of reach and engagement expected from a brand of TATA family. The major reason for low popularity on social media is irregularity and habit of absenteeism from their social profiles.

The frequency of posts from Sonata on social platforms is irregular. It goes up to a prolonged gap of 20 days. Stakeholders contributed 81.6% of the posts making it a total of 40 posts.

Content Strategy

On Facebook, the Content Strategy for Sonata depicts a clear transformation from the traditional approach of putting out product shots with descriptive copy to the new order which is that of pushing relevant content which has the potential of engaging with the users, leading to tangible associations for the

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In the year 2013, content posted by Sonata was focused on displaying the range of products they offer, a few posts as per the occasion like Diwali, New Year etc. brand.

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The Year 2014 has brought in a fresh perspective altogether in the content strategy. The focus has shifted from the range of products to one of their flagship products which is Sonata Super Fibre an ideal choice for adventure freaks, water sports enthusiasts.

The Content Plan has been carefully devised to take the followers through the journey of conventional AIDA Model leveraging on the fun and adventure. To create awareness and buzz a shout out was made to call for challengers.

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Once the entries were received the brand utilized the challengers profile to incite the elements of interests and desire amongst the followers on Facebook.

At a later stage videos and pictures of adventure trips which testify the capabilities of the product were being shared as the final push towards the final phase of action i.e purchase decision.

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Sonata on Twitter

On Twitter, the content strategy for the brand remains the same, but the frequency of posting is really low. In the year 2014, the brand has made only 4 tweets, 3 of them focus on Sonata Super Fibre and 1 on the launch of Sonata Ocean Series.brand.

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The reason for this lack of attention could be the low number of followers for the brand on twitter. Any which ways, Sonata should not ignore the potential the platform has in store. They already have the content ready on Facebook, it just needs to be tailored a bit for twitter. Besides Twitter can help them get into real time conversations with their target audience which can result into tangible conversions i.e sales.

Online Buzz

Sonata is fairly active on social networks hence it gets most number of mentions through Facebook. Out of all 76.7% mentions occur on social networks. Microblogs (Twitter) and Blogs also got few mentions worth considering. Microblogs witnessed 14% mentions and blogs witnessed 9.3% mentions in the span of 30 days.

Surprisingly Sonata is one amongst the rare few brands, especially in watches and accessories sector, who gets considerable amount of mentions on blog.

Service Feedback

Approximately 236 posts have been posted across various social platforms like Facebook, Twitter (microblogs), blogs, forums etc. Maximum posts i.e. 120 posts were contributed by Social Networks followed by 51 posts on blogs, 28 posts on forums and 25 posts on microblogs. On an average 2 posts were made on different platforms like aggregators, complaints, image sharing, news ad Wikipedia.

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Sentiment

An uneven distribution in sentiments is observed for Sonata. Audience have 75% positive sentiments for the brand owning to the fact that Sonata is putting all its efforts to connect with customer with a positioning of adventurous brand. But at the same, 25% audience have negative sentiments about the brand. The reason for negative sentiment is the prolonged gap in content posting and poor customer relationship building efforts on social networks.

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Conclusion

Sonata has tried to evolve from the state of traditional advertising to a dynamic brand which thrives on compelling content. The refreshing positioning based on fun and adventure is doing wonders for the brand. It will take some time for the brand to mature and emerge as a key player in the social media space. Having said that, Sonata is on the right track and the transition so far has been so good although the brand needs to buckle up and start building up extensively on other social networks like Twitter, Instagram. Social Data Mining and Analytics have a major role to play for the Brand as this data would assist them in defining a strategy which fulfills the long term objectives for the brand.

This sort of sentiment distribution brings us to analyze the sentiments around key factors about the brand. Branding and advertising, after sales service and pricing are some of the topics that can be considered. As seen in the graph maximum amount of positive sentiment is because of Branding and Advertising, since the brand is at the verge of establishing itself as adventurous brand. Negativity is more in After Sales services column clearly indicating the fact that there is scarcity in customer interaction and customer service online as well as offline.

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Maxima is one of the fastest growing watches brand in India. It was launched in year 1969 and ever since it has grown across country, satisfying customers by its product quality and after sales service.

Maxima was an early adopter of social media and the brand made its entry in the year 2011. The brand has decent presence and maintain fair engagement ratio on both the platforms.

My study period is based on the last 30 days and a in depth analyses of Maxima on two major platforms, Facebook and Twitter.

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Summery Chart

Buzzword

Audience Analysis

Maxima has more of male audience than females. Out of all the posts 60% of the posts are contributed by males while only 40 % posts are through females. Considering the fact that brand caters to both the genders, this is considerable gender distribution. Also knowingly or unknowingly they are promoting gents watches slightly more than ladies watches, this can also be one reason for extra male audience.

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Maxima on facebook

The brand has less followers contrary to the fact that they were initial ones to make an entry on social media. After all the efforts they do, they have very less numbers with only 20,816 likes and only 69 people talking about them. The platform is majorly used for directing customers to their website or their flipkart’s page and generating sales.

The frequency of content posted by the Brand is a little low. They generally posts 1-2 posts/ week which is less for any brand to achieve its target. Stakeholders contributed 75.8% of the posts making it a total of 182 posts.

Content Strategy

Maxima’s Facebook page gives a feel that one is looking at their catalogue and not on their social network profile. The brand posts pictures of their products with their model number and price along with a link to direct customers to their website for a purchase. It is a good idea to increase traffic on your website and generate sales but it sometimes work negatively for brand’s social profile and can lead to overall reduction in engagement on page.

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Maxima also tries to connect time with life and other things to strike a conversation with audience. This gives brand positive sentiment but gets less response than expected from the brand.

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At times, Quizzes related to time which requires little bit of calculation are also posted on their Facebook Page. These posts gets maximum engagement as compared to any other.

In terms of customer service, Maxima rarely replies to their customers. In the time span of 1 month brand replied to only one query which was related to product and may be because she was a potential

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Brand pays no heed to answers to their quiz and not even post the right answer for the same. It is not the right approach if the objective for the activity is to increase engagement on page.

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Maxima on Twitter

On Twitter, the brand has less following, it is as low as only 224. If Maxima wants to make their social presence felt they need to work extensively on their strategy and direct all their efforts in building a community of followers.

Brand is also using same content as Facebook on Twitter which results in low levels of buzz and engagement on its account.

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In order to stay in line with ongoing activities around the world Maxima tries to gain tractions by posting tweets about recent trends like during FIFA they made posts with hashtag #FIFAWorldCup. To incorporate current events in brand’s communication plan is clever approach to attract more followers, but sadly it didn’t work much for Maxima.

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Maxima also ran a contest ‘Relive your Moments’ during study period which was not extensively promoted.

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In terms of engagement, Maxima is lagging far behind. It is rare that brand involves in any sort of conversation with its followers or retweets any tweet they were mentioned. The Brand needs to concentrate on building relations with their potential customers and make sizeable fan community.

Online Buzz

Out of all the mediums, brand gets its mention only from Social Networks i.e. Facebook and Microblogs i.e. Twitter. Blogs get zero conversation. While 72.9 % of the mentions are made on Facebook and Twitter contributes 27.1%. Only 122 posts have been posted across 2 platforms, Facebook and Twitter. 89 posts were contributed by Social Networks and remaining 33 posts were contributed by Twitter. Surprisingly no blog or news article is published in the tie frame of study. If the brand used other platforms also, many more mentions would build up for the brand.

Sentiment

To everyone’s surprise Maxima has 100 percent positive sentiment. There are no negative sentiments about the brand on Facebook and other digital platforms. This is an achievement for brand to attain such a high level of positivity on digital platform. One big reason can be that there are only few mentions about the brand and luckily all these mentions are positive.

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This brings us to analyze the sentiments around key factors about the brand. Branding and advertising, after sales service and pricing are some of the topics that can be considered for positivity of brand but it all narrow downs to only 1 factor Branding and Advertising giving 100% positivity.

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Conclusion

Though brand has positive sentiment digitally but they don’t have huge numbers in fans and followers community. It’s high time they start restructuring their current communication strategy with an agenda to gain more fans and followers. Monitoring and tracking their current scenario will be of great help to develop new communication plan.

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Comparative AnalysisFour top watch brands were individually analyzed above. This comparative analysis will give a general overview of how the watches industry fares on Social Media.

The Indian watch industry is growing rapidly, especially their products in premium segment because of ever increasing urban population. The industry offers product range in both mass and premium segment for both the genders, still overall watch industry has more of male followers. The sector is overall active on Social Networks and Microblogs and holds a decent amount impressions digitally.

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Source of posts

There are several sources on digital platforms where brands post their content, few of which are social networks, microblogs, blogs, news, complaints etc. Undisputedly social networks like Facebook are the first choice of brands to post their content. Sonata is majorly active on Facebook only and all the platforms including microblogs like Twitter are rarely used by the brand. Surprisingly, Timex witness considerable amount of content on blogs also. 19.5% of content, i.e. 135 posts are published on blogs. This trend is followed by Titan as well where 6.1% of content, i.e. 26 posts are published on blogs during the study period. Maxima gets 71.3% of the content on social networks like Facebook only.

Surprisingly these brands does not believe in using Twitter as their key social media channel to showcase their products and to connect with their prospective customers.

Number of Posts

Out of all the brands only Timex is regular in posting content on their social profiles with a frequency maintained 1 post/day. During the study period especially in the month of June, Timex’s posts on digital platform were more than double from the second active brand, Titan. The answer to the question that what made Timex to be active on social networking platforms especially Facebook is that they were promoting their new range of watch collection with the hashtag #WearItWell. On flipping the coin, the frequency of posts on social networking sites for Sonata is very less. Sometimes it goes so low that there is a prolonged gap of 20 or more days.

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Features Distribution

All the brands of watch industry studied here receive positive sentiments, mentions and digital impressions because of their Branding and Advertising. Maxima leads the chart of mentions about branding and advertising by 76.5%. Sonata and Timex are the two brands who have disturbing percentage of mentions, 23.8 and 15.6 respectively, for pricing.

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Sentiment

All the brands get positive sentiments across digital platforms. Credits for high positivity can be given to branding and advertising. With the attractively designed campaigns revolving around time and their products it becomes easy for these brands to garner positivity.

Surprisingly, although Sonata is irregular in its content posting, it gets 80 % of positive sentiments which is almost close to positive sentiments of other brands like Timex and Titan, 80.9% and 80.4% respectively. Maxima is not far behind in this race of positivity. It gets 70% of positive sentiments. Reason for this positivity can be attributed to its branding and advertising. At the same time other factors like online customer service is the reason for remaining 30% of negative sentiments. As mentioned earlier, Maxima rarely replies to their customers. Also their posts are pushy and directs a customer to their product selling pages which might have worked adversely for the brand.

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Conclusion:

Four brands, Timex, Titan, Maxima and Sonata, having distinctive yet similar communication strategy was studied here. As watches sector is a sub domain of accessory and lifestyle sector, holds the potential to go beyond limits and generate innovative and engaging content for their target audience.

A few of them are using social media from a longer period but sadly no one used it optimally in past. But as the industry is evolving, brands are bringing new perspective and freshness to their approach in devising a content plan for them. Therefore, there lies a scope for improvement which can give these brands a boost, and especially stronger and greater number of fan and follower base.

Timex is least active on Twitter, may be because of their recent entrance on Twitter, but leveraging the medium to its max potential they can reach to greater audience. Timex is trying to be build its social presence but they need to restructure their communication plan and content strategy to increase their fan and follower base at the same time they need to focus on reducing negative sentiments present online.

Brands should work on building online customer service to build a strong and deeper relationship with their customers as well as to reduce negativity around them.

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