India on a birdsong

In Bangalore’s Koramangala fourth block area, a group of people are greatly interested in what everyone else is tweeting. They have developed a software that scans about 10 million tweets each day and generates various insights. Their employer, Frrole, has clients ranging from Disney UTV and Snapdeal to Asian Paints, which use these insights to understand what is currently trending or dominating the attention of people everywhere — it could be a celebrity or a political campaign or even a sports event. No longer just another social networking avenue, Twitter in India is becoming indispensable for businesses small and big.

Further north in Nagpur, Maharashtra, an 80-year-old woman presses a few buttons on her mobile phone and TV channel Aaj Tak sends her news tweets as phone messages. She remains updated with the latest news without even knowing how to log on to the internet.

This woman may not be Twitter-savvy, but her grandson, Rishi Jaitly, happens to head its India operations and wants to ensure that the 140-character messages touch the lives of every citizen and corporate entity.

“India is one of our fastest growing markets…a strategic user-growth market where our number one objective is audience growth,” says 31-year-old Jaitly, the South and South-East Asia market director at Twitter.

That objective saw, for instance, Jaitly’s team spending days with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) ahead of the Mars Orbiter Mission. As soon as the Mangalyaan spacecraft entered the Martian orbit, its Twitter account ensured the whole world took notice. Whether it’s to do with elections, cricket, Bollywood or even the Prime Minister’s Office, Twitter is increasingly becoming a necessary presence in India, and that must be music to the ears of its CEO, Dick Costolo.

The little blue bird’s fastspreading wings in the region can be attributed to Jaitly’s three-pronged strategy: driving partnerships with everyone from media houses to government departments; making Twitter more accessible on a wide range of devices and networks; and educating brands about the value of Twitter.

“We drive partnerships with India’s biggest media companies, the cricket federation, film production houses and news organisations,” says Jaitly. Both sides are eager for more audiences, and Twitter markets itself as a tool that can engage mass mobile audiences.

Mobile chirrups

At nearly 800 million, the country’s mobile subscribers constitute a huge audience, and market on handheld phones. And it is this opportunity that Twitter is tapping for itself and its partners.

A case in point is MTV, which uses Twitter extensively to reach its target group — young audiences who tune into social media at least thrice a day. “We talk to consumers using TV and they talk to each other through social media. It has become an important part of the ecosystem. Whenever we do a show or campaign, it is important for us to have content that is Twitter-friendly and social media-friendly to add to the chatter,” says Sumeli Chatterjee, the head of marketing, media and insights for MTV India.

For its Rock the Vote campaign last summer to make voting cool, MTV partnered with Twitter to launch “dial the hashtag”, a programme that allowed youngsters to participate in #rockthevote discussions even if they were offline, through a missed call from a simple feature phone. This took it beyond the affluent audience segment.

For any new show or a different kind of storytelling in a particular episode, the music channel uses hashtag contests and other Twitter content to gauge audience responses.

"Twitter impacts conversations and interactivity with the content. It definitely drives affinity to a show or campaign because the more you talk about it, the more you are attracted to it,” says Chatterjee.

Start-ups too are hopping onto Twitter’s growth bandwagon. Frrole, for instance, allows its customers to integrate real-time social data into their television shows and marketing campaigns. It analyses the tweets for the brands and companies. As a track partner of Twitter, it has access to data beyond what is in the public domain. “Twitter doesn’t require us to buy data,” says Frrole co-founder Nishith Sharma.

Frrole charges for the data it analyses for clients using a measure called data stream. “Data stream generally costs $100 per month, but it can vary depending on the complexity and size of the engagement,” says Sharma.

He describes the arrangement with Twitter as not financial, but mutually beneficial. “When the Twitter India team finds a customer in need of a Twitter-based solution, it introduces Frrole to them. We help execute campaigns and create products to amplify the Twitter engagement,” he adds.

Like Frrole, ZipDial, BrizzTV and Unmetric are enterprises that have created revenue streams using Twitter. Bangalore-based Zip-Dial forwards tweets from specific Twitter accounts to customers who give a missed call for them. A number is assigned for, say, Amitabh Bachchan’s Twitter account and anyone dialling it gets the actor’s tweets as messages on his or her phone.

Little birdie on telly

“The environment here (in India) is quite complex,” says Jaitly. More than 99 per cent of phone users use pre-paid connections and mainly feature phones, forcing Twitter to provide access on a range of devices through the missed call service.

It has also taken the first steps to reach TV audiences on their remote controls. Airtel DTH customers can view on their TVs what celebrities are tweeting about popular shows. Viewers too can tweet about shows across channels even as they are watching them by simply pressing a green button on the remote. This technology comes from BrizzTV, another Bangalore-based start-up.

Jaitly is well aware of the potential in TVTwitter partnership, where broadcasters can engage live with the audience. While the broadcast medium is not two-way, Twitter helps make it interactive. “We describe Twitter as the world’s biggest sofa, where everyone is watching TV together. Twitter is now the second screen for TV broadcasters in India.”

That persuaded him to bring in the Twitter Amplify programme, which lets broadcasters publish content directly to Twitter and amplify its reach. This content is then monetised through sponsorship packages.

To begin with, Star Sports was tweeting replays from the Indian cricket team’s England tour in August. As the sponsor, Vodafone got a 30-second slot in those replays. Everyone benefits here — from Star to Vodafone and Twitter. Ronita Mitra, Vodafone India’s senior VP and head of brand and consumer insights, says her company uses Twitter regularly for brand engagements and communications. “Of late, a lot of product communication is being done on Twitter, whether it is for international roaming or Vodafone Red (an integrated post-paid plan for voice and data).”

The telecom company even uses Twitter to manage customer grievances. “We are very quick in our first response to the consumer through Twitter. This is a well-running machinery by now,” she adds.

As part of the Twitter Amplify programme, Vodafone got a pre-roll for a product communication before a cricket snippet came on. A customer clicking on it would be taken to the Vodafone webpage. “This has worked well. Our engagement scores have been very high and the cost much lower than other international initiatives,” Mitra adds. Engagement scores refer to the number of people who clicked, or viewed the communication or clicked on the hashtag, besides other parameters.

Dominating conversations

Improving this score for corporates forms the third element of Jaitly’s India strategy. “We are educating brands about the value of Twitter. Think of Twitter as a town square. If you are a brand, it is a great place to be in as a part of the conversation, as so many people are talking about mobile phones or fitness or restaurants or other things. It helps brands develop a voice and personality,” he says.

During the IPL, Pepsi took on the persona of a real person with whom Twitter-users could play cricket. Pepsi would ‘bowl’ to a user, who would then tweet a shot for which Pepsi would give the result. “You play the game of Twitter with a brand. We have seen brands using Twitter to showcase their personality and talk to the consumer when he is most interested in their product. We point people to where they make money,” he adds.

Twitter gets about 85 per cent of its revenues from the advertising on its site. A company or individual can advertise by promoting a tweet, which will appear in people’s timelines or promote a trend.

If a restaurant wants to take its new menu to users who have interest in food, travel or leisure, it can arrange to send tweets into their timelines. While this marketed tweet is not paid for, if a user opens the tweet, clicks on the ad’s picture, or shares or favourites the tweet, the restaurant will pay Twitter.

As things stand, Twitter is growing its user base globally. While it does not share countryspecific numbers, its total monthly active users (MAU) in the June 2014 quarter stood at 271 million, with a net addition of 16 million. Its ad revenue grew 129 per cent during the quarter on the back of higher quality ads, improved prediction and targeting, and the growing use of rich media by advertisers, according to Mike Gupta, Twitter’s CFO and senior vice-president for strategic investments.

In India, Jaitly says people are coming to Twitter ‘in loads’. Last year, there was a 600 per cent increase in the conversations on politics and 100 per cent increase in conversations related to TV. “I don’t know any other company that is live, public and about conversation. We have a big job ahead of us, but the good news is that Indians are flocking to the platform.”

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