Brands that are helpful always find a special place in the consumers’ heart. As more and more companies follow the “social media” way to reach out to their customers, there are companies that are taking an extra step to make sure they create a positive impact not only on the business front, but also on the society. Bharti AXA is the latest company to join this list and use social media in a healthy way to promote its messages.

Bharti AXA General Insurance has a dedicated micro-site that focuses on providing solutions to people who are in stress. Besides, it aims at encouraging people to lead a “holistic” life by involving Mickey Mehta, India’s Holistic Health and wellness Guru, to share his health tips and secrets. The site also incorporates exclusive elements like ‘Dare Stress’, ‘Kill my Stress’, ‘Face your inner self’ etc. to provide meaningful experiences to people.

Moreover, those who are addicted (and probably stressed) by over-using social-networking sites also have a reason to rejoice. The company has set-up its own “StressFreeZone” on Facebook, where it discusses interesting and hilarious stuffs to release your stress. The fanpage has already amassed more than 100 fans and is growing stronger day by day.

This is another example of a company that believes in including social media into its integrated marketing strategy. While the motive is to educate people about the ill-consequences of stress, it is remarkable to witness such initiatives taken by brands through social media tools. It also gives a clear signal to those who are still reluctant in using social media, believing it as a waste of money and time.

It was only 3 to 4 years back when Orkut was the dominating social networking site in Brazil and India. No doubt, it still maintains the lead in these two regions, however the growing popularity of Facebook has forced it to put the thinking cap on to maintain its leader’s position. Not surprisingly, Google-owned Orkut has decided to refurbish its interface and design, which would be rolled out in few days. 

Users switching to Facebook from Orkut permanently would now have a reason to stay back due to the latest developments planned by the site. To start with, the new site has fewer pages and quicker browsing to help people connect with each other through multiple activities like chatting, watching videos, browsing and searching within full friends and communities lists on the same page. Secondly, it has reorganized the most important activities on the site for easier navigation and usage with a clean, simple interface.

To give its members a platform to do more than just regular text IM, it now also has video chat along with access to other Google services like maps, Gmail and search within the homepage. Unlike Facebook, users would be able to customize their profile a page with faster photo uploads.

Since the beginning of this year, two of the fastest growing social networking sites in India – Facebook and Twitter have been trying to disturb Orkut’s stand in its domain Brazil and India. In fact, the Zuckerberg-owned Facebook had also proposed an option for its users to switch their friends from Orkut, which might have provided some benefit to the social networking leader.

Moreover, Orkut seemed to have been getting the pinch, especially after it saw a decline in its million unique visitors in September. But with the latest developments in the pipeline, it is roaring a strong message to its competitors that it would not step back. Will this be a redefining phase in the history of social networking, and especially Orkut? We’ll wait and watch!

Looking at the rate at which social media is growing amongst small businesses across the world, corporate giants are making sure not to be left behind in experimenting the latest marketing medium. We’ve already seen companies like Ford, General Motors, Coca Cola, Southwest Airlines, etc. embrace social media and using it effectively to create a strong online presence. Now, its time for FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) companies to set the gear high and ride its benefits! According to Advertising Age, FMCG mogul Unilever is all set to whirl the social media wand in the Asian market.

Apparently, Asia is the biggest market for the FMCG companies to market their products, with demand escalating from fast-developing nations like China and India. Being aware of the growing competition, Unilever has decided to promote three of its popular brands, Pond’s, Lux and Comfort through social media. The aim is to target specific regions and engage users via certain social media platforms like blogs, video-sharing sites, etc. For example, the company plans to use bloggers in a blind test of Pond’s Age Miracle moisturizer as part of its experiment and marketing strategy in the region for the skin-care brand.

The consumption level of skin-care products in China is high, with the Chinese women being particular about the products that they use. This is good news for Unilever, but the growing competition from other brands like L’Oreal, Clinique, Olay brands, P&G’s SK- II and Lancome is a reason to worry for the multinational giant.

Realizing that traditional media causes deeper holes in the pocket than the digital media, Unilever opted for a stealthy digital campaign to generate buzz, establish the product’s credibility and invite Chinese women to try Pond’s Age Miracle. An initiative towards achieving this goal is Onlylady.com, where Unilever asked for volunteers to try out an unidentified anti-aging solution and quickly signed up with 150 official testers, according to Advertising Age.

With over 100 million Chinese claiming to communicate via forums/discussion boards, and 41 million being heavy social-media contributors, it could be risky for Unilever to influence such a massive community. In case if women do not accept the brand, it could fail in the market within no time.

But looking at the past where bloggers gushed over the mysterious moisturizer in several numbers of posts during a 7-day trial last month, with 9 out of 10 continued to promote the brand as enthusiastic, unpaid brand ambassadors, Unilever wouldn’t need to be that worried.

The aim behind the digital campaign is clear. Unilever would like to leverage the tremendous demand available in the Asian market by connecting with its target audience. With this kind of hunger, the company would also like to hunt for customers in other countries like Singapore, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

The initiative to launch the campaign could be similar, i.e. targeting bloggers, forums and other social media platforms where users flock in huge numbers. This means, one can expect several activities by the firm in the Southeast Asia belt. With digital media being 1/10th of the cost of traditional media, this strategy could certainly prove useful for Unilever in the short as well as in the long run. 

Using Facebook and YouTube:

With over 300 million users on Facebook, a large part of the population apparently comes from Asia. Hence, Unilever plans to exploit the various Facebook fan sites and communities that are dedicated to its brands (like Pond’s). For example, one in the Indonesian city of Bandung has approximately 10,000 members, which the company is using as a test to reach young Asian women, develop tailor-made Facebook activities like games, invitation to events, branded merchandise program offering discounts to local lifestyle hangouts and a mobile app with girl-friendly content, according to Advertising Age.

In the previous month, Unilever invited top beauty bloggers from India, Indonesia and Malaysia to encourage fans and followers to view a spot, called ‘Behave Beautiful’ which features Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra. The contest then requires users to create and upload their own ‘Behave Beautiful’ clips to the Lux YouTube channel.

In fact, it’s not only in Asia, but also the Far-east and Africa that Unilever plans to focus its social media campaign. With so many activities, the company certainly seems to set an example and embark on a long social media journey.

They say change is the only thing that is constant. While year 2009 has been fabulous for Facebook as it became the leading social network worldwide, MySpace has struggled to sustain its strong position that it enjoyed last year. The US market has embraced Facebook and distanced from MySpace ever since the former gained acceptance and adulation from the global social networking audience.

The Mark Zuckerberg-owned company grabbed a 59% market share in US according to online research firm Hitwise. On the contrary, MySpace managed to grab only 30% of the visits in September this year. If you still think that 30% is not bad, you are bound to get shocked after comparing MySpace’s performance during the same period last year. The News Corporation-owned social network enjoyed King’s position in September 2008 with massive 67% of the US market share. Then, the underdog ‘Facebook’ pocketed just under 20%.

Statistically speaking, Facebook accelerated its growth by a whopping 194%, while MySpace slipped back 55%. All it took for the current social networking leader was just 1 month to grab nearly 3 percent from MySpace, moving from 55.15% in August to 58.59% in September this year. On the other hand, MySpace decelerated from 33% in August to 30.26% in September.

However, there is one area where MySpace managed to beat Facebook, i.e. time spent on the social networking site. It managed to keep users interested in spending 25.56 minutes in September 2009 compared to Facebook’s 23 minutes. But, one cannot state this as good news for MySpace, as a comparison with the previous year shows a steady decline from 29.37 minutes, while Facebook shot up from 18.23 minutes a year ago.

But hey, how can we forget Twitter – the rapidly increasing social networking site worldwide! The new-entrant to the market has still lot of catching up to do, in spite of being the fourth most visited social networking site in the US. The micro-blogging service grabbed merely 1.84% of the US market share, though bettering its performance from 0.15% in the last year.

There’s an explosion of social media sites that are ready to assist the travel and hospitality industry reach out to both, their existing as well as potential customers. As users increasingly use forums, review sites and social networking sites to share their experience, seek answers to their queries and assist others in need, the popularity of these social media platforms is certainly on the rise.

While Facebook and Twitter are still the favourites for most of the travel and hotel companies, other niche sites like WAYN, LonelyPlanet, Virtual Tourist, etc. are making their presence felt as well. They are soon becoming an online destination for users to share their travel pictures, likes and dislikes, views and knowledge about a particular place, etc.

When it comes to social media marketing, every industry has to take a unique approach. For example, an industry like travel and hospitality could make use of niche sites as mentioned above, along with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Travelistic, etc. On the other hand, an industry like technology/gadgets could leverage Twitter and Youtube to educate people in using the product. On some occasions, the social media promotion tactics depend upon the popularity of the brand itself. A highly popular brand like Apple, BMW, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. would obviously get ready fans on Facebook fanpage or increased followers on Twitter compared to a brand that is new in the industry.

However, when it comes to the travel and hospitality industry, even the small-operating or newly set-up firms could take part in the race and become a threat to the giants. In this case, it all depends on user opinions and reviews, where quality plays a key role. A bad review or opinion regarding your hotel can cause worries and help competing brands to capitalize on the opportunity. Hence, it is very important that travel and hotel companies track user movements on such sites on a regular basis and manage their online reputation.

Though social media promotions are common in countries like the US and the UK, emerging economies like India too are accelerating into the new world of marketing. Not only businesses and the entertainment industry, but also the sports industry has started taking social media seriously – particularly Cricket, which is considered as a “religion” in India by many.

The Indian Premier League (IPL), a Twenty20 version of cricket, has earned tremendous popularity in India and several other cricketing nations. The format, which currently includes eight franchises in form of teams, comprises of professional players from different International cricket teams to compete for the tournament. Though these teams invest huge amount of money in offline promotions, some have turned up to online media since the last year after realizing its potential in connecting with the Cricket fans.

The latest example of a franchise that has stepped up its efforts on the social media front is Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), owned by business tycoon Vijay Mallya. The runner-up team of the second season of ‘DLF IPL’ has set up a platform for interested people to become a chief blogger, chief photographer and a chief RCB fan with an aim to build its fan club. The winners of the Fanatic Fans Challenge will get an opportunity to travel with the team to Airtel Champions League.

So, where does social media come into picture? The applicants will have to collect votes and testimonials from their friends, and support RCB to run a successful campaign on social media. Higher the competency level, higher would be their chances to get on-board with the team and experience this unique opportunity presented for the first time by any team so far.

Businesses, average citizens, Hollywood superstars, sportsmen, and now Bollywood celebrities; the Twitter phenomenon is experiencing rapid growth amongst the top-notch personalities across the world. It has just been over a month, and Priyanka Chopra – a prominent celebrity from the Indian film industry – has become the latest sensation on Twitter.

With over 22,000 followers already, Priyanka Chopra has managed to use the micro-bogging site effectively to stay connected to her fans and friends, which include Mallika Sherawat and Gul Panag (also famous actresses from the Indian film industry). While Mallika Sherawat (over 11,000 followers) and Gul Panag (over 13,000 followers) have been using Twitter for quite some time now, Priyanka Chopra joined the bandwagon only in June this year.

India is a country of entertainment, where hundreds of movies roll out every year, thereby making it one of the biggest markets across the world. Hence, it is no surprise that the general public is always keen to know more about the personal lives of movie celebrities (i.e. where they go, what are they upto, who do they hang out with, etc.). Twitter makes this possible to a great extent, due to which its popularity amplifies every single day.

Also, Twitter’s and Facebook’s growing influence in the Indian social networking market proves that there is a lot of potential for marketers and popular personalities to use the social media platform to their advantage in terms of marketing and promotion.

Social media is being given a lot of importance in the modern business world. Marketers from across the world are slowly becoming aware of the benefits of social media, thereby investing considerable amount of money and time to use it for marketing purposes. However, in the wake of this, most of them seem to be forgetting the significance of search engines.

Several platforms such as social networking, social bookmarking, video and photo sharing sharing, discussion forums, blogs and microblogs together form social media. While there are instances when online users do not use search engines to access a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace, there are also situations where these users have to visit search engines to know about a particular service/product, public reviews, latest news or offers, etc. Moreover, users accessing social media sites via search engines account for a major part of online activity, a key fact that several businesses are not aware or tend to ignore even today.

According to Bob Pearson, ex – VP, Communities and Conversations at Dell, what people see on Google/Yahoo/MSN is the new HomePage. Put your brand in Google and see what comes up. Search engines reflect the first impression about your brand when people search for it online.

Also, with about 80% of the Internet traffic using search engines, it is quite sensible to integrate both social media and search engines to market and manage your brand online. The more you enhance your presence online, more are your chances to experience growth and sustainability in the long run.

Twitter is considered as one of the most important social media sites today. Its use has been different for different user categories like individuals, businesses, celebrities, etc. Moreover, what has been surprising is the manner in which Twitter is used for promotional purposes.

For those who use Twitter, you would have come across ‘Trending Topics’ section at the right hand side of the site once you log in to your account. This section displays the most popular topics discussed by the ‘Twitterers’. The benefit of this is that the topic appears in front of millions of Twitteres all across the world. One such topic that was intentionally trying to be pushed lately was WWE star ‘Jeff Hardy’.

The reason why I say intentionally is because there was a serious attempt to push Jeff Hardy at the first spot of the Trending Topics. Following is a snapshot of how some users attempted to succeed in their endeavor.

Here, it can be seen that users managed to get ’Jeff Hardy’ to reach the second position in the Trending Topics and were keen to push it up ahead at the first spot. Here is another snapshot:

Though the above method would be termed as ‘spamming’ by most of us, this is a clear indication that fans or users would do anything to get something noticed to the world through Twitter. This is possibly because Twitter is an extremely well-known and fast-growing micro-blogging service that is grabbing attention from the global audience.

Twitter has become a very important site for businesses today. As companies realize the power of Twitter in helping them connect with their present and potential customers, the micro-blogging service has created a strategic business position across the globe. There are already thousands of brands leveraging it as part of their social media activity, along with several others keen to use it for the first time.

However, like every coin has two sides, so does Twitter. Though it is beneficial in nature, it can also prove to be dangerous if not monitored and used effectively. For example, users of a particular brand may ‘tweet’ their bad experience with thousands of other Twitterers, followed by several ReTweet (RT). In this case, if the brand does not monitor and track user conversations, it can cause severe damage to its online reputation.

Today, there are a number of products and services being discussed on Twitter by regular users. These discussions are sometimes positive and sometimes negative. The former result in the creation of brand advocates while the latter result in the creation of brand opponents (who you need to be careful of).

Hence, to make sure your brand credibility does not diminish due to your brand opponents on Twitter, you can undertake the following actions immediately:

• Track user conversations: Hunt for users speaking about your brand on Twitter through the search tool. Find out what they are discussing, whether positive or negative, and note down all the important points that you feel are relevant to your business.

• Formulate a conversation strategy: Thank users who are speaking positively about your brand and try to build on the relationship from a long-term perspective. Converse with them about the latest discounts, contests or offers and keep them interested in your product or service. As far as dissatisfied users are concerned, understand their queries and respond to them immediately to protect your brand image. Assure them about recovery measures to make them feel important and valuable.

• Follow and engage: There could be users seeking information about your brand through Twitter. Get in touch with them and solve their queries urgently. This will make them feel special and being heard. Also, follow users who keep sharing information about your brand through links and texts. These users can become useful brand advocates if you engage with them and build trust on a continuous basis.

Finally, remember to use Twitter as a key conversation tool with your suppliers, customers, general users, and the stakeholders at large. This will help to cut down your communication costs and create a powerful reputation in the social media world.