The Hindu Business Line : Tapping the social web

As the Indian population increasingly turns to the Internet for news, sports, shopping and more – whether via the laptop or the 3G-capable handset —one thing is clear: It’s no longer business as usual.

As an organisation, learning to leverage this shift and using it to your competitive advantage is essential. While the use of the Internet and social networking in particular is in its early stages, its use within influential demographic groups is a factor to take note of. The question before many managers now is ‘How do I get started?’. Beginning with ‘active listening,’ a term coined by Ogilvy’s Rohit Bharghava, the organisation can benefit greatly by simply listening to the digital channels.

A quick search on Twitter, for example, for ‘Tata Nano’ reveals many conversations around the electric and hybrid versions, as well as brand insights like this one from Sriram Venkitachalam (@sriramvenkit on Twitter): “The reason I am in love with Tata Nano is because it represents innovation for the economically humble.

A lot of other technology innovations I hear about are elitist.” This kind of conversational data, gathered systematically over time, can help a brand marketer stay true to what drives the brand itself. What had been ‘word of mouth’ now includes digital media. This new digital media – known also as ‘social media’ because it is often spread through social networks – ranges from personal blogs and short posts on Twitter to photos and videos conveying personal experiences with products and services. These digitally recorded and shared experiences can directly impact marketing efforts, a point not lost on businesses in the midst of a global economic slowdown. How prevalent are products and services in word of mouth? A 2007 Zenith Optimedia study found that of the 3.2 billion word of mouth conversations that occur daily (both in person and online) rough two-thirds of these directly referenced a brand, product, service, or piece of commercial media. Perhaps more importantly, the majority of these references are positive. As digital channels become commonplace, your ability to listen to these conversations only improves.

If listening is step 1, what is step 2? With the conversational data in hand, you can engage your operations team and respond to what you’re learning through your listening efforts. This gives you the information you need to focus production and manufacturing efforts on the products and services that drive the conversations that amplify your marketing efforts. At the same time, you also gain the ability to respond immediately – and directly in context —when an unexpected issue suddenly arises. Putting out a small fire is infinitely easier than extinguishing an out-of-control blaze.

Indian blogger Rajesh Lalwani describes the case of Cleartrip.com and ‘the Kiruba Incident.’ Cleartrip, by making use of social media channels like its own blog and Twitter, was able to quickly identify and respond to a customer who’d been inconvenienced by a relatively simple error, recounted fully in Cleartrip’s blog: http://blog.cleartrip.com/journal/2009/6/16/the-kiruba-incident.html. To Cleartrip’s credit, the firm quickly reacted and apologised. This basic act goes a long way toward restoring faith: After all, mistakes happen. It’s what happens next that separates the great brands from everyone else, and in the case of Cleartrip they used their listening ability to identify and correct the errors that contributed to this incident. Over time, they will be rewarded for this (though admittedly that is sometimes hard to see!)

Turning to marketing, social media is useful in this aspect of your business as well. Enlisting your customers — making it easy for them to share positive experiences with others who may be considering a similar purchase — is a proven business building strategy. Kingfisher using Twitter (@FlyKingfisher) for customer communication and Aircel’s use of Facebook’s embedded applications services to create a voice messaging service all result in the kinds of conversations around which recommendations and endorsement flow. Recommendations from ordinary people are among the most powerful and credible sources of the data (Jupiter Research, 2007) that consumers use when considering purchase options.

Credibility around recommendations can be tapped inside an enterprise: Aditya Birla Group Chairman K.M. Birla instituted a series of internal changes that resulted in collaboration and sharing of best practices across the businesses that comprise the group. The use of social media inside the enterprise — for example, in implementing communications platforms inside a company that encourage collaboration — are powerful examples of how social media can be used by businesses.

Listening to your customers, tapping the knowledge within your employees and suppliers and using the results to improve your products and services are within reach for many businesses. It often starts with recognising your own role in creating favourable outcomes and then making it easy for your customers and employees to share their stories or contribute to best practices. Take the time now to look inside your firm for the knowledge you need to successfully engage customers on the social web.

(The writer is a social media marketing expert from the US.)