Executive Summary
This Whitepaper outlines the Social Media Marketing (SMM) goals of three brands within RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group – ATK-Mohun Bagan, CESC and Saregama, the challenges faced by them in their SMM journey and the strategies adopted by them to overcome these challenges.
1. CESC
CESC faced ‘trolling’ for the first time after cyclone Amphan affected CESC’s service in 2020. Next the ‘high bill’ issue happened. The company also faced the ancillary brunt of ATK-Mohun Bagan name conundrum on social media.
The challenge for the team was to see how they could amalgamate the social media piece into a broader brand-building context. CESC made its foothold stronger in the social media arena through:
- Showcasing the legacy and heritage of the brand
- Giving opportunities to the consumers to interact with the brand
- Engaging with the influencers and celebrities to create connect
2. Saregama
Saregama’s ssocial media strategy had been designed to cater to its mix of both audiences – the older generation and the current influx of the younger generation.
To cater to an all-encompassing audience, Saregama focused on keeping the golden age of music fresh and relevant among old and young audiences as well as popularising new launches across different languages. This was done by:
- Encouraging user-generated-content (UGC) to engage with its listeners
- Creating defined daily content buckets with informative, topical and event-based content
3. ATK Mohun Bagan
In 2020, ATK-Mohun Bagan came together in a new merged identity. The supporters of Mohun Bagan who were emotionally invested in the football brand suggested that the ATK name be dropped from the 130-year-old iconic brand – Mohun Bagan.
ATK-Mohun Bagan’s improved the engagement with fans through:
- Sharing content that connected the fans with the new brand identity
- ‘Moment marketing’ to commemorate events that were important to the fans.
Finally, the Whitepaper is rounded off with some generic guidelines to deal with common issues that brands face on social media platforms –
- How to increase brand acceptability
- How to handle trolling and negative conversations in social media
- How to establish brand credibility on social media
- How to keep legacy brands relevant for newer generations
Introduction
As the famous adage goes, “Half of the advertising is waste, but I don’t know which half”. This has always been a dilemma of traditional marketing. Because of this, in recent years, organisations are gravitating towards Digital Marketing to target specific audiences, create awareness and promote their brands by using all available digital channels.
Digital marketing is an umbrella term for social media, content and email marketing, public relations, SMS and other digital channels that organisations use to share information and build a sustainable, trusting relationship with customers.
In this edition, we look at three companies from diverse sectors – sports (ATK-Mohun Bagan), electricity (CESC Limited), and music (Saregama), for their Digital Marketing strategies. The background circumstances that propelled them to “Go Digital” were different, as were the issues that they faced during their transitions. Yet, what has emerged as a commonality between them is their focus on the following attributes in their digital journeys:
An important dimension is that the digital marketers have also been perceptive towards the performance of their campaigns. Operationally, the analytics help them to fine-tune their campaigns. It also allows them to demonstrate to business leadership that their efforts are driving users to engage with the brand and eventually converting users into consumers, thereby providing value to their companies.
CESC Limited - Electricity
Background - CESC today is available on most of the social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. The challenge for the new team is to see how they can amalgamate the social media piece into a broader brand-building context. While CESC has been a little conservative in the past, presently it is completely updated with the times.
CESC’s social media journey started in 2014 with two objectives – transactional and promotional communications. The transactional communications on Facebook and Twitter dealt with customer complaints and queries related to emergency services. As these queries happened round-the-clock, a Help Desk support system was set up and vendors were engaged and trained to handle them. A number of FAQs were developed and officials gave the vendors constant support to address the queries and complaints from the social media platforms. For the promotional communications, another vendor was engaged to work on the creatives. These creatives communicated anti-pilferage measures, usage of different technologies and built awareness of CESC’s different services. During this time period from 2014-2020, it was rather a journey with just organic growth of likes and introduction of additional social media platforms like Instagram & LinkedIn. From 2021, CESC revamped its social media strategy to suit the emerging needs.
Electricity as a Utility Product
Electricity is a basic essential service and many times such products/services are taken for granted. People connect with it only in the absence of electricity when it causes them pain, not otherwise. Thus, CESC as a brand does not automatically earn empathy in the minds of the consumers. Therefore, the focus of the branding team is to envisage how to build this empathy. It can do so by establishing in the consumer’s mind what value CESC brings to the society.
The Transition
To move towards structured practices around brand management, the team needed to first structure and strengthen the social media piece. Different stakeholders (internal teams, cross-functional departments and the Group) with different expectations from the social media initiative, proposed various themes. The challenge was to bring everyone to a common platform of understanding. Broadly, the team identified three areas of activities:
- Create an action plan around the three re-designated pillars – content management, customer response management and online reputation management.
- Find a social media agency– The creativity part of the content needed to be taken care of by an agency, as CESC did not have the bandwidth to do that internally. The agency would be oriented by the internal team. So it was critical to find an agency that (i) was most relevant to the brand, and (ii) could address through creativity the nuances existing in the minds of the several stakeholder segments.
- Fix the service delivery– Having ways to manage the service delivery issues through CESC’s internal radars before they reach the social media, will ensure that the detractors do not shout aloud on the social space. The team would sensitize the various departments as to the kind of issues that are being mentioned on social media, which jeopardize the brand’s online reputation.
Issues
1. Fake pages on social media
Multiple fake pages run in the name of CESC were a matter of concern and caught everyone’s attention. The offenders were a mix of customers, followers and, at times, ex-employees. However, these were not always intended malicious situations. People not very conversant with social media had created their own public groups; thereafter they had left the organisation and lost touch with the social media page. While it is not possible to shut down someone else’s page, CESC could only influence the situation. The team did several awareness campaigns with the consumers to inform them about the fake pages – that these were not verified accounts. They also pinned disclaimers on the top of those pages. For ex-employees, HR was involved to reach out to them. Finally through persistent efforts, the team reached out to FB and succeeded in removing the fake pages.
2. Trolling after Amphan
First time CESC had faced ‘trolling’ was after Amphan in 2020. It was an alien word until then. The trolls highlighted the disruption of electricity supply, restoration timelines and the lack of preparedness for the cyclone. Initially CESC underwent a phase of being at a loss on how to handle it. However, trolling specifically for Amphan was a temporary phenomenon and it died down after 15 to 20 days.
3. Perceived High Bill
Next the ‘high bill’ issue happened and it continued for a long time. There have been instances where executives from the Company had made personal visits to a few consumers to convince them regarding the authenticity of the bill. These were another category of customers who trolled CESC on social media. Their meters were tested but ultimately the fact remained that if the bill was right, the consumer would have to pay. In the end, CESC had successfully been able to defend their stand in all these cases.
4. ATK-Mohun Bagan Backlash
Football fans of both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal who were not happy with the ATK-Mohun Bagan tie-up, trolled CESC because of its extended connection with ATK. They too vented out their angst on the social media pages of CESC.
Digital Marketing Strategy
1. Brand-building Through Content Management
Content management was the first and foremost pillar that needed to be strengthened. The four fundamental questions the team asked were:
- What are we creating?
- What are we showing to our consumers?
- What are the customers seeing about us?
- How do the customers perceive us?
Of the above four, perception is the most important item as that becomes the customer’s word-of-mouth. The team has completely revamped and enhanced the quality of the content. It is scrutinised and reviewed for best possible options on visuals, texts, 15-20 days before uploading and many iterative changes are made to it. Each post is aligned/oriented to one of the Group’s seven Core Values – Execution Excellence, Agility, Risk Taking, Customer First, Credibility, Humaneness and Sustainability. Content revamp at the concept stage, also includes using several new concepts like Reels, Instagram and FB stories, incorporating quizzes (as they garner good engagement).
Also, choosing properly researched trending hashtags ensures a wider reach. A weekly schedule has been prepared where each day of the week has been earmarked for a particular topic.
With these initiatives, CESC’s social followership has improved significantly. Current average engagement in FY22 is about 300 likes, as compared to the previous 25-30 likes.
2. Customer Response Management
Consumers write to CESC through these social media channels, at times shouting out socially to create pressure on the brands to address and answer. Sometimes it reaches a higher level of social media blackmailing. This was another pillar that the team had wanted to further strengthen from its existing position. So, when a customer writes on social media:
- A call goes from the team to the customer
- It is referred to the field
- Field calls the customer
- The issue is sorted
- A courtesy call back happens from the team regarding feedback that the issue is appropriately closed
- Finally, each negative comment is tried to be converted to a positive comment (that the consumer is happy with the resolution)
3. Online Reputation Management
Both the above points (Content Management and Customer Response Management) are seen as means to achieve the end – an enhanced online reputation and image. The aspects that came up to the team were:
- How do we start increasing followership?
- Are we following the correct metrics to measure online reputation?
- How are we managing the negativity piece?
- How are we creating audience’s loyalty towards the brand?
- How are we measuring sentiments?
One solution was to start creating iconic campaigns. This is because to create a great brand perception in the consumer’s mind, and drive reputation, a brand needs a larger audience. For it is only when a larger audience starts following CESC on social media, online reputation management can be effectively done.
Another initiative the team took was to scan the internet and social media channels 360° with CESC-related keywords to ensure that no comment goes unnoticed or unattended. This works especially so for intermediary consumer forum sites, like ConsumerComplaints.in where consumers file complaints about CESC. The team immediately starts reaching out to these consumers for redressal.
Previously, CESC tracked the posts on Facebook and Twitter manually and with software. Though, preference was given to manual search for best results. Online reputation management was done for three specific situations:
A. Posts in which the consumer has already tagged CESC
Social media team internally checks 3-4 times a day and when any notification of a new post is received in cases where the consumer has tagged CESC, the team responds to it. (E.g. if it is a billing complaint then CESC directly replies to it saying, ‘Kindly message us your consumer number, contact number. Please do not worry, we will look into it and provide the necessary assistance.’) The subsequent communication is transferred to DM (direct message) so that it does not stay for long as a public complaint that is open to public interactions.
B. Posts in which CESC is not tagged
These posts become an issue. For such cases, CESC has an influencer marketing strategy whereby the genuine brand advocates of CESC comment on these pages. (E.g. The advocate leaves a message ‘Sir you can contact CESC on DM and they will get in touch with you’, or ‘Sir I also had a similar problem, why don’t you tag CESC or call their 1912 number so that it can be taken care of’.)
C. Posts in which the security settings do not permit any comment
These cases are a challenge as CESC or any other public is unable to respond to those posts. Here, the team tries to trace /track the person, reach out to them through the advocates, find their contact number and then get in touch with them over the phone. This yields positive results in many cases. (E.g. comments like, ‘Nice of CESC that they got in touch with me and I don’t have any issues against them’, or ‘CESC called and helped and it’s not their fault’.)
4. Customer Engagement
A challenge for the team was that the social media pages got a huge amount of impressions during occasions like Durga Puja, Book Fair, etc. At other times, there was a complete lull. The team took a conscious decision to not just roll out videos/ viral content during popular periods but also during lean periods. Peak periods automatically get their own share of engagement organically, so boosting engagements is only needed in lean periods. This way, the team has been able to keep the engagement high even during lean periods.
Engaging the consumers
It was also a management decision to be the best in terms of followership in social media. Too many followers but no engagement would mean inorganic (paid) followers. The team took up the challenge to build benchmarked followers gradually and slowly, so that increased followership would be accompanied with great engagement. Which translates to the fact that most of what the team wants to do, it does organically. (This can only be done with great content that was already initiated, as discussed above). When the team started the social media initiative, CESC’s FB followers were 1.82 lakhs that has today reached 2.4 lakhs. This has been achieved with a mix of both organic and inorganic strategies, though it is mostly skewed towards an organic approach.
During occasions like Durga Puja, Book Fair etc., contests are occasionally conducted for consumers on Facebook, etc. ‘Click and post’ was one contest conducted during a Durga Puja that gained popularity and generated a lot of likes. CESC had also conducted a contest about e-payments for first-time online bill payers and it expects that conducting such relevant events will help CESC to popularise its page further.
Moment Marketing
Moment Marketing is done for specific days like Holi, Diwali, New Year, Bhai Duj, etc. Incidentally, the creative that was posted as a tribute to legendary actor Soumitra Chatterjee was highly appreciated. Creatives of Mother’s Day (Powered by Love, Mothers – Lighting up our lives. EVERYDAY.), Earth Day (Let us have a Greener World for the future), also have resonated well with the consumers.
Though it cannot be considered as a routine process, some of the trollers who were contacted individually for redressal, are now interacting directly on WhatsApp with CESC’s executives. Undertaking the extra effort has helped CESC in connecting directly with the consumers as they now have a face with whom they can talk. This has generated an overall good experience for them.
5. Information Dissemination
In 2021 for cyclone Yash, based on its learnings from the previous year during Amphan, CESC shared real-time updates on its Facebook page and Twitter handle regarding the locations where power supply was disrupted. In fact, even before Yash was due, CESC posted reassuring information on preparation steps that were taken for the cyclone, feeders for public safety, Do’s and Don’ts alert, etc. This was a method of continuously educating the consumers and trying to reassure them that CESC was doing the needful. On each day prior to cyclone Yash, two safety tips were posted for the consumers’ awareness. The content that was disseminated through SMS was also posted on social media as simple creatives. Cyclone Yash was the first time that CESC used social media extensively for a particular event. Receiving this kind of proactive information was well-appreciated by the consumers and CESC did not face any negative comment or adverse post on social media after Yash.
6. Digital Analytics
The team targeted improving the positive to negative sentiment on social media. More the positivity, better is the Word-of-Mouth reference and better the online reputation management. So, for each negative comment, the team aims to get 20 positive comments. The team monitors at real-time these metrics. The exercise started at a rating of 2.1, as of today it is at 4. The number of appreciation comments on social media has reached an all-time high of 700 that earlier was pegged at 100-150. It implies that the social atmosphere in the digital space is improving quite rapidly.
7. Customer Acquisition
CESC is the sole distributor of electricity within an area of 567 sq km of Kolkata and Howrah and serves approximately 3.4 million consumers, which include domestic, industrial and commercial users. Through its social media platform CESC is focusing on its future customers, as they are all available on this platform – the entire urban janta is on Facebook and Twitter and hence it is a cost effective avenue for reaching out to them.
Saregama - Music
Background: Saregama is a custodian of over 1.4 lakhs songs in over 25+ languages and its social media is an extension of the same legacy. The catalogue offers music from the golden era to the new age film and non-film tracks. As the largest in-perpetuity global owner of both sound recording and publishing copyrights of Indian music and the custodian of the golden era of Hindi Cinema, Saregama aims to keep the golden melodies alive among the generations as well as reach out to the audiences with newer music releases.
Saregama reaches out to its different audiences through its social media and engages with them through its music on various platforms. Music consumption happens through various platforms like YouTube, Carvaan, OTT platforms, short video format apps, etc. Social media as well as these short format apps are used effectively to penetrate its evergreen and new age music among the audiences. In effect, the social media pages aim to deliver to consumers a trip down the road of nostalgia at the same time get them moving to new hits. Saregama’s good social media presence also enables it to connect with fans globally and interact with them on a daily basis.
1. Music as a Product
Music is an integral part of self-expression that brings people closer together and creates memories that last. Saregama owns the largest music archives in India. It has also expanded into other branches of entertainment – publishing, film production and digital content. Saregama’s music label has music from all eras that connects with audiences of all ages and likings. Therefore, whatever goes up on its social media carries music at the core – as a product or a streaming-related posting.
On a different plane, Saregama’s Yoodlee films is about strong stories and fearless cinema. The films are made for theatrical release or a direct OTT release. The audience that enjoy Brand Yoodlee are of a niche category and accordingly, suitable content strategy is directed towards that relevant audience and moulded according to the film being promoted. Hence, its marketing and social media strategy is not about amassing a huge number of followers, but getting the right kind of audience (who are hungry for differential cinematic content) to interact with the brand.
2. The Transition
Saregama’s social media strategy has been designed to cater to its mix of both audiences – older generation and the current influx of the younger generation. Though younger audiences usually rule social media as a platform, gradually the older generation is also getting social media savvy, which has worked wonderfully for Saregama. The core of its strategy is to keep both sets in mind and keep them engaged. Though its major catalogue today is of music from the golden era but with aggressive music acquisition across languages, the spectrum has grown to cover all age groups. The younger generation not only follows Saregama’s new music but also engage with the classics in their own unabated way, while at the same time the older generation loves to shower their love on evergreen melodies. Therefore, Saregama’s strategy includes coming up with content ideas that are relevant for a larger and more inclusive audience. Broadly, this transition to an all-encompassing audience makes Saregama focus on the following through its social media:
- Keeping the golden age of music fresh among the old and new audiences
- Popularising new launches across different languages, attracting and engaging with new audiences through them
- Communicating new launches, be it products, events, music or films
3. Issues
A. Content Synchronization
Saregama has a lot of varied content that goes up on its social media pages, like old catalogue promotion, new music releases, new product launches, topical marketing content (for birthdays, anniversaries of artistes / films, etc.) The biggest challenge is to keep all this in sync. Everything ultimately has to tie down to the core, i.e. music.
B. Younger Audience Engagement
A challenge is to get younger audiences to interact with Saregama on their evergreen songs. It is surprising that this generation also relates to those songs and they participate in various polls and engagement activities that are carried out on Saregama’s platforms.
4. Digital Marketing Strategy
A. Brand-building
For brand building of Saregama’s music, it follows the content consumption strategy; which means that Saregama asks people to use its content and make their own creations like reels or videos on different long and short format apps. This helps in organic circulation of content and hence provides a larger distribution reach. Saregama also uses its own artistes to promote the content.
B. Customer Engagement
With a constant attempt to keep the audience engaged, Saregama has observed that its audience is more interested in video-plus-audio style of content. So, it has developed sustainable content properties, like trivia-based videos on celebrity birthdays and film anniversaries, Soul of a Song (Decoding the song), Monday Mood Booster, Tuesday Trivia, Women Wednesday, Flashback Friday, etc. Such properties generate conversations and create threads. Saregama experiments with different content ideas to interact with its audiences. Key points involved in developing content properties are:
- Platform relevance vis-à-vis content type
- Experimenting with different content formats
- Structuring ideas into set templates
- Using influencer based marketing
As social media is opening up to user-generated-content (UGC), Saregama profusely uses UGC to encourage and engage with its listeners. As Saregama has a song for every mood and situation, these songs work brilliantly in creating enough conversation and engagement on its social media. Be it rain or a traffic jam, people comment with the songs that come to their minds. More often than not (approximately 9 out of 10 times) it is Saregama’s song. Saregama catalogue is officially available across most long and short video format apps and the content gets extensively used by people to add music to their posts and stories and keep continuous engagement with the catalogue.
With respect to Carvaan, many people share their personal heart-wrenching stories and similar audiences thereafter start interacting with Saregama. Consequently, this journey is very nostalgic for the audience and in line with what Saregama’s evergreen music stands for.
C. Information Dissemination
Saregama has defined content buckets for day-to-day consumption that are majorly classified into segments like New Music, Saregama Catalogue and Carvaan. Within these buckets, Saregama creates content that is informative, like trivia, music-based polls, and even content for topical and event-based marketing.
D. Online Reputation Management
Social media is an open house in which people are free to comment about their likes and dislikes about any song, artistes or any issue with the product that they may face. Sometimes certain segments of people do not appreciate a recreation of a few songs, or a certain picturisation of a song. In such cases, Saregama cannot pacify subjective opinions. However, if any product-related issues are shared with Saregama, a very prompt action is taken. A team checks the issues and shares with the concerned team. Such issues are resolved with utmost priority.
E. Digital Analytics
Saregama started with a few thousand followers in 2015 that has currently reached four million + user-base, between Facebook and Instagram. Saregama treats reaching out to every new follower as a milestone as keeping them all engaged is a herculean feat. Saregama’s journey started with using their evergreen catalogue music, trivia and stories about artistes that has only grown wide and deep with a large number of new releases and having audiences across age groups glued and following the pages. While the efforts are towards increasing followers and likes, the key evaluation remains engagement. The metric used for every unpaid post is reach and a paid promotion is cost per engagement.
F. Customer Acquisition
Saregama’s core of all strategies remains music as it deals in product as well as music consumption. Nevertheless, no hard sell is required as everything is led through music. Rest is about developing the means of distribution to their target audience. For distribution, Saregama uses audio-video medium as well as influencers. For product-related promotion, it works on UGC as well as advertisement-driven and influencer-based strategies. The relevant content distribution adds relevant audiences on the platform.
ATK Mohun Bagan - Sports
Background: Following RPSG Group’s acquisition of majority shareholding in Mohun Bagan Football Club in 2020, ATK-Mohun Bagan came together in a new merged identity, in the rapidly growing, professionally managed, Indian football landscape. The challenge was that supporters (fan base) who were emotionally invested in the football brands got affected – ATK was a six-year-old brand that had taken over the iconic, 130-year-old Mohun Bagan brand.
1. Sports Team as a Product
A ‘sports team’ is a passion product that works on a consumer (fans) ‘pull’ effect. It cannot be forced in the consumer’s mindscape by undertaking ‘push’ efforts. Success in its brand-building depends on factors like:
A. Region Represented
How evolved the region is. Bengal as a region and Bengalis as a fan-base are highly engaged, passionate and involved with the sport.
B. Assets Owned
The players. The ATK-Mohun Bagan invested in the best of the Bengali players and the ‘Bangla Brigade’ campaign was made around this initiative.
C. Success
All through its seven years, the football franchise club has had successes (won trophies in Seasons 1, 3 and 6; reached semifinals in Season 2 and finals in Season 7).
2. Transition
ATK has been changing identities since its inception. The football team had been known as Atletico de Kolkata in the initial three years, only ATK in the next three years and ATK-Mohun Bagan since the last season (2020). Historically, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal played in the I-League and ATK played in the Indian Super League (ISL). Players from Mohun Bagan and ATK represented both the clubs. There was peaceful co-existence among the fan-bases.
3. Issues
Two major issues surfaced when ATK merged with Mohun Bagan:
A. Nomenclature
The fans who had strong emotions passed down through generations, had major doubts of the name ATK prefixed before ‘Mohun Bagan.’ They voiced opinions that the new club name could be in the reverse order as Mohun Bagan-ATK. Even RPSG-Mohun Bagan or CESC-Mohun Bagan were other acceptable options. For the club management team, it was decided that the name would continue to be ATK-Mohun Bagan while the green and maroon colours of Mohun Bagan would be retained.
B. Mohun Bagan existing as an Independent Entity
Mohun Bagan is a multi-sport club and the acquisition was of the football operations only. Therefore, while Mohun Bagan as a separate entity cannot create social media posts on fresh football events occurring after the acquisition in 2020, it can continue to create new posts on their past football accolades, about their history, throwback to events that happened 50 years back (remarketing) as well as their other sporting activities. As a brand, Mohun Bagan is quite entrenched in its legacy and the fans relate deeply to it.
C. Social Media Challenges
- 1. There were quite a few challenges in the social media space and it was important to connect with the fans by communicating with them.
- 2. Not immediately adopting #JoyMohunBagan hashtag in social media started the first protests that gradually gained momentum. Interactions on social media were sparse and there were few quality conversations. Once #JoyMohunBagan was adopted, it was used in all the social media captions and creatives.
- 3. An adverse reaction followed almost every post that was put up, which needed to be addressed.
4. Digital Marketing Strategy
A. Brand-building
Through all the social media challenges, the management team took cognizance of how the fans felt and resolved to do their utmost to quell their anguish. One of the most important objectives of the team’s social media efforts was communicating effectively with the fans. This was to be a long-term endeavour as it is not feasible to change the consumers’ orientation towards a brand and make it your own, overnight. The creative team stuck to the green and maroon mood-board of the Mohun Bagan club in all its creatives on social media. As they are both dark colours, it is difficult to work with them artistically but the team was consistent with the brand colours.
B. Customer Engagement
Fans want to see what the players are doing behind the scenes; their conversations in the training pitch, dressing room, etc. For the fans, this creates familiarity with the players and establishes the brand-connect. Moment marketing commemorating events and sensitisation to events that are important to the fanbase, e.g. creatives on Chuni Goswami’s death anniversary, are new initiatives that may not have been thought of earlier. Staying active with contests also helps to identify the pulse of the fans.
Generating content during the game season helps to catch the eye of the fans. The broadcaster gives access to interviews before and after the games, highlights of matches, etc. The social marketing team then creates properties out of these contents, such as video clips on goals of the week and saves of the week.
C. Information Dissemination
Because of changing its identities over the past seven years, the club management team had to constantly evolve the way they presented themselves and the way they communicated with the fans. The current emphasis is on informing people that the team is still Mohun Bagan, just prefixed by ATK.
Initially, the creative team had come up with a ‘FanATK’ campaign. However, the theme hadn’t caught on and since then, the campaign has been replaced with the ‘Bangla Brigade’.
D. Online Reputation Management
Taking over a legacy brand like Mohun Bagan and getting people who are emotionally invested in it, to now accept it as ATK-Mohun Bagan, is a process of acclimatisation that is expected to take 3-5 years. To embark on the process, the creative team created bespoke content (telling stories through the eyes of the fans) on social media. They also communicated with them directly through emails, sms, on details on match programmes, etc.
It is also relevant to note that the only way fans would really connect with the brand was if the team scored well in the field. Therefore, a conscious effort was undertaken to ensure the successful performance of the team – resources were allocated to secure the best players and provide the appropriate environment (biosecure bubble etc).
E. Digital Analytics
Through digital analytics, the team had a clear idea on how the fan-bases were reacting. The ATK-Mohun Bagan app had 15,000 downloads that translated to data availability of 15,000 people. One video of goalkeeper Arindam Bhattacharya doing stopping practice and a few reflexes had 7 million views in 19 days. With more access granted by the coach to practice-sessions, greater quality of creatives can be made that will drive higher engagement per post on social media.
F. Customer Acquisition
With its digital marketing strategy, the team had built a good user-base and the engagements and interactions were of high quality. Bengali fans are evolved fans; they talk proper football and generate high quality discussions on social media. However, this had not translated into businesses, as the club had not leveraged the merchandise opportunity. The club collaborated with Amazon and other e-commerce platforms to sell its merchandise (Mohun Bagan jersey and leisurewear). As a part of its digital strategy, the club also launched the ATK-Mohun Bagan mobile app for fan engagement. The app was promoted on social media, which resulted in a great traction in merchandise sales.
Continuing to be successful on the pitch, being consistent with the brand, and understanding the fan-base further will be the right social media strategy for some time now, before ATK-Mohun Bagan can become that one household brand in professional football league.
Here are some generic guidelines to deal with very common issues that brands face in the social media platforms
How to increase brand acceptability?
1. Use media listening to increase brand awareness
When it comes to media monitoring for brand awareness, there should be at least two projects. One for monitoring the mentions regarding the brand or products and services. The second for monitoring topics concerning your industry niche. It helps you find conversations you can jump into. That way, you can sway undecided customers towards your brand or even get your competitors’ clients to buy your product. Another aspect of media monitoring for brand awareness is the fact that people appreciate brands that keep their eyes on the ball and respond to all mentions, even those without a branded hashtag or @mention.
Netflix, on their social handles, have always been an audience-friendly brand trying to post humorous and witty posts. They have also been social-listening to the comments and chatter posted online. Through these measures, Netflix discovered that many users fall asleep while binge-watching shows only to wake up several episodes later. To tackle this issue Netflix devised Netflix Socks, a pair of smart socks that sense it when the user is dozing off and send a signal to the device to pause the show. No doubt, the project was a massive success and they won the Shorty awards for the creative use of technology. Besides proving to be innovators in the industry they also won the trust of their customers as being attentive to their needs.
2. Choose the right social media platform to build brand awareness
The great thing about social media is that they give you a well-functioning platform to broadcast your message. All you have to do is send the right message to the right people at the right time.
Start with identifying the right social media platform for your brand awareness campaign. The right platform for your business is the platform where your customers are present.Social media monitoring tools will help you:
- spot the social media platforms where your audience is present,
- the sentiment around your company or product,
- estimated social media reach of your hashtag,
- and much more!
When it comes to selecting the right platform for your social media campaigns, the choices are not only limited to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. There are many other platforms where you can find your niche and explore formats like text, video, images and GIFs.
3. Harness the Power of Hashtags
Social posts with hashtags receive more engagement than those without them. Hashtags instantly make your posts searchable and smaller, niche tags help introduce your brand to dedicated communities of potential fans.
Secondly, a branded hashtag helps to find and repost user-generated content. User-generated content serves as social proof, a way to reassure other social media users about the quality of your products or service.
The most vital part of running a hashtag campaign is coming up with a hashtag that can easily go viral. Before you proceed, here are a few dos and don’ts for using hashtags on social media:
- Your hashtag should be original. It should not look like a rip-off of your competitor’s campaign
- It should be precise and easy to understand
- Don’t combine more than 3-4 words together
- Try to write it in Title case to make it easy to understand
- Don’t make your hashtag entirely about your brand
- Don’t come up with a hashtag that your audience would resist using
- Don’t sound demeaning, offensive, or self-promotional
- Use trending topics, but don’t solely rely on them
Most importantly, always read your hashtags a few times and ask someone else to review them as well. Because who could forget the hashtag fail of #Susanalbumparty? Causing great mirth on the social network the unfortunate choice of hashtag to promote singer Susan Boyle’s new album event has spawned a wealth ridicule. A whole lot of trouble could be saved by simply capitalizing the hashtag as #SusanAlbumParty.
4. Use Customers’ Testimonials
Customer testimonials are a great way to build brand awareness.
- They help establish your credibility as a brand
- They drive sales. There’s nothing more convincing than reading success stories from other satisfied clients
- They are highly effective and free ads
Currently, Country Delight is using this tactic extremely well. They are using their customer testimonials and running them as YouTube bumper ads, with short videos of 6 seconds. CRED, the member-exclusive credit card bill payment app, too has used this as where they shared the video testimonial of a user who won a Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupé, by paying her credit card bills on time.
5. Work with Social Media Influencers
Influencers can help you reach consumers you’d otherwise miss. They can not only spread your content and build brand awareness, but also legitimise your message with their authority. The key to successful social media influencers marketing for your company is choosing the right influencers. They have to align with your brand core values and have the same target audience as you do.
During the pandemic, people were apprehensive to step outdoors to shop for Durga Puja so, Pantaloons wanted them to have a seamless and equally fun shopping experience from the comfort of their homes through Pantaloons’ WhatsApp Chat Shop. For this campaign, Pantaloons collaborated with well-known celebrities and influencers in Kolkata to position Pantaloons as the go-to hub for Pujo shopping. Their videos highlighted relatable problems that they faced during the festivities and how Pantaloons came to their rescue to make Durga Puja memorable.
6. Work with Social Media Influencers
Influencers can help you reach consumers you’d otherwise miss. They can not only spread your content and build brand awareness, but also legitimise your message with their authority. The key to successful social media influencers marketing for your company is choosing the right influencers. They have to align with your brand core values and have the same target audience as you do.
During the pandemic, people were apprehensive to step outdoors to shop for Durga Puja so, Pantaloons wanted them to have a seamless and equally fun shopping experience from the comfort of their homes through Pantaloons’ WhatsApp Chat Shop. For this campaign, Pantaloons collaborated with well-known celebrities and influencers in Kolkata to position Pantaloons as the go-to hub for Pujo shopping. Their videos highlighted relatable problems that they faced during the festivities and how Pantaloons came to their rescue to make Durga Puja memorable.
7. Tag Others to Get Them Talking
Tagging (@ mentioning) is a brilliant brand awareness strategy because it only takes about half a second and instantly amplifies your content. Anyone you tag via Twitter or Instagram instantly receives a notification, meaning you win an extra opportunity for engagement. Not only that, but it’s a sure-fire way to make positive impressions on other players in your industry. If you have an opportunity to give someone a shout out, go for it.
How to handle trolling & negative conversations in social media
1. Establish a Policy
Most social networks have community policies for ‘being respectful’. Create one of your own, too, as a reminder of acceptable behaviour for posts, comments and shares. Then, if someone acts unbecoming or dastardly, point them back to your policy.
“Hey Joe, I’m nudging you with this friendly reminder about our community policy.”
No need for them to take it personally when it’s written out, right?
2. Ignore them
Trolls cause negative reactions in others, because they want attention. So then…Just ignore. Don’t fuel them. They want you to get upset. Don’t give them pleasure. Deprive them of their life force, so they’ll go dig elsewhere. This works. Sometimes.
While you, as the social media admin, choose to ignore them, other well-meaning members might not. Now the troll is gaining the traction it craves and feeds on. Inactivity is no longer an option. No problem. Try a different strategy to avoid a tragedy.
3. Respond with Facts
Are your trolls spreading rumours, wrong information, inaccuracies or outright lies? Then disprove any tales told by trolls with facts. Apple did. A lot of trolling followed rumours of the new ‘bending’ iPhone 6. Apple took a stand. They admitted to an issue, which affected only nine customers in the first six days of going on sale. Rather than deny, they accepted and disclosed. The controversy soon went away.
They admitted to an issue, which affected only nine customers in the first six days of going on sale. Rather than deny, they accepted and disclosed. The controversy soon went away.
Do the same for your brand. Confess and address to rid the trolls of their fuel. Zomato handled their controversies quite well, when there was a case of food tampering and when a customer was allegedly attacked by their delivery partner.
4. Diffuse with Humour
Easy to say. Harder to do. Done well, humour can humanise your brand and diffuse a situation. Trolls aren’t usually equipped to respond to humour. Their goal is to make people mad, not make them laugh. Laughter is troll kryptonite.
If you need some inspiration on how to fight trolls with humour, check out Wendy’s Twitter. The brand has become well-known for its tongue-in-cheek humour when responding to trolls.
When a Twitter user in India posted an obviously fake offer — “free Netflix subscription for six months” if you’d just be one of the first 10,000 people to call a certain telephone number; Netflix India replied in the best way possible, “This is absolutely fake. If you want free Netflix please use someone else’s account like the rest of us.”
However, if your joke falls flat, that could keep the troll on a roll.
5. Block or Ban them
Most trolls, most of the time, are annoying. And usually harmless. However, sometimes trolls take things too far. Like escalating to threats or hate speech. When they do, you can use your social might to block or ban them. Also, check the standards for appropriate content for that social network. If the troll’s posts are in violation, submit a report.
6. Correct Mistakes
Listen to what people say on your social media accounts.
If you catch a mistake:
- Correct it
- Let the person know what you did
- Explain why
If they’re a disgruntled (and reasonable) customer, they’ll most likely appreciate it. Because..
- You listened
- You responded
- You made them feel heard
And it can turn frustration into loyalty. Unless they’re a troll. But it’s all good anyway. Because..
- Your community will hear it
- You showed that you’re listening
- You re-enforced your standards for appropriate behaviour
- Everyone can see how professionally you handled it
- Other trolls will know not to mess with you
You can’t control what’s said. You can control how you respond to what’s said.
7. Don’t be Baited
Similar to ignoring them, don’t feed them either. If they’re trying to be funny, your response could be just what they want for their pending punch line.
If you don’t respond, there’s no joke. If you do respond, keep your cool. With the ways, and for the reasons, we explained above.
8. Don’t delete their posts
Because that can escalate their bad behaviour. Taking extreme action against small infractions can heighten antisocial behaviour. Researchers also found that if two users wrote posts of similar quality, and one user’s post got deleted “unfairly,” that user would be more likely to write something worse in the future.
9. Build a supportive, friendly community
Trolls are a fact of social media life. Make them your friend. Remember, your community is waiting to see how you handle them. Think carefully and thoughtfully about your response to a troll. Then, post it. The others will notice. You’ve given them a chance to police trolls for you. They’ll most likely chime in to make trolls feel unwelcome. Being responsive and responsible will help you build a supportive community of followers – one that will respect and stand by you. This will make life for trolls difficult. They’ll most likely move on to spill their digital bile elsewhere.
How to establish brand credibility on social media?
1. Build A Connection
Based on the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer report, a study with more than 3,000 respondents, 39% said that they were unlikely to become emotionally attached to a brand unless they were interacting and communicating with them via social media.
Bolster your brand’s connection to your audience by sourcing your content from them. This can be as simple as observing what your followers are talking about on social media regarding your brand. Expound on these findings via your content and marketing materials.
Your brand should make the social media users feel like they are more than mere consumers. Make them know that you consider them as partners.
2. Quality and transparency is key
With content, credibility comes from verifiability. Quality content is verifiable and trustworthy. To further give strength to whatever you argue or describe in your content, show sources that can corroborate the information you provide.
If you are doing sponsored or paid content, make sure your audiences know about it. People don’t like hard sells.
Go for simple nudges. Interesting content should come out on top instead of simple sales pitches. But if you have to talk about your product, just like with citing your sources, use established voices and industry experts to keep things credible.
3. Constantly Experiment
Social media is ever-changing, and you have to keep up with the newest types of content to stay afloat.
Don’t be afraid to experiment, leverage on all available features. On Instagram, experiment with IGTV, short-form, and vertical videos. Try using Boomerang, stickers, and encourage your audience to use your hashtag. This way, you make your brand appear versatile. This will also give you metrics that teach you what works for your brand. Use this data to develop insights and refine your future content. By building your name as a brand, you also make yourself a credible player on social media.
4. Practice Consistency
Lastly, “consistency is the key” will never go out of style. Social media users unfollow brands that rarely post or post too much promotional content.
You can also look at creating a scheduled series (e.g., a career-related video series every Monday, inspirational posts every Sunday). This way, you give audiences something to look forward to, building a relationship with your brand along the way.
Building brand credibility can’t be done overnight. Just like any relationship, it’s a process that banks on little gestures that gain trust. Be consistent, put out quality content, and let your audience know that you listen and that they can reach out to you. Eventually, your audience will be confident enough to put their trust in you.
How to keep legacy brands relevant for newer generations?
1. Pay Attention
Keep an eye on consumer data and trends. For example, Lego took advantage of the hype around the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises by cutting licensing deals. Attaching the brand to proven winners helped Lego stay relevant in the mind of the consumer and surpass other toy brands like Mattel.
2. Show Up
Meeting the consumers where they are, keeps brands relevant. The emergence of mobile as the “first screen” has caused some brands to scramble to stay relevant. Having a consistent presence across channels and an efficient omni-channel marketing strategy will keep the brand on the forefront of the consumer’s mind.
3. Give the consumers what they want
Brands must pay attention to changing tastes and habits to deliver to expectations. The baby food company, Beech-Nut discovered that mothers made homemade food for their babies because they wanted to know the exact ingredients, so they simplified their ingredients and marketed how the product saves mothers the time and effort while delivering quality food for babies.
The Social Media guidelines are mainly based on our online research in various journals and articles on this subject.
For more information, please get in touch with:
Sujit Paul,
VP - Customer Relations
CESC
Kumar Ajit,
SVP - Sales & Marketing
Saregama
or write to: cross.synergy@rpsg.in
