My Social Media Case Study @ Peter England !

I never had my personal stuff on my blogs, but today I would like to share a personnel experience of mine. It goes around social media, branding and customer support and what not!

 

So all these days I've been listening about social media its buzz, the importance, the mileage it can bring to brands. Suddenly I get to understand what social media can do for me, with a personal experience, so let’s start!

Few days back (15th May, 2012), I was shopping at a Peter England store at himayat nagar, Hyderabad. After I made up my mind, for a cool blue shirt and walked straight to the billing counter, the guy at the counter asked me “cash or card Sir “ it’s by card I replied. The store keeper took my card swiped it and said there was a problem with the connectivity and asked me if I can pay cash, well I walked all the way to a ATM nearby, and paid the bill, 849 it is.

Later the day I was surprised to see, a late alert on my mobile showing a shopping transaction. So I called him back and he replied asking me to consider his mistake and want me to compensate the mistake by buying another shirt at the same price (frustration at peeks) & later on conveyed that he would return my money back if someone makes an equivalent bill of 849 (this is mad stuff). Eventually I made up my mind to wait for the deal, but there after it’s the social media magic!

Social media the saviour (Thanks to Twitter)

Well unconsciously I wrote this issue on Peter England’s brand page on Twitter and the brand replied me with a sorry, a promise to look into the issue and conclude this as soon as they can. Later on requested for the store details and my mobile number for which I did the expected. Then just after one hour from my tweet I received a call from the store asking me to collect my money (with a polite voice). Believe me, it just happened in no time. Yuppie there ends the drama, I'm happy with my money back.

I really loved the way Peter England cares for its customers, superb.

Conversation on twitter.

Not just Peter England many brands were talking to the target audience on twitter, I had similar conversations with brands recently. Chocolate Room a local chocolate recipe’s provider had retweeted and replied to my tweets, here the chocolate is the common interest for both of us. It’s awesome experience to see brands talking to you.

Now let me sum up my experience with how social media can help brands manage their online image & customers are at comfort of it.

1. Social media is such huge media where the reach is enormous so brands can’t take a chance on presenting a pale picture of its image online.

2. Social media is the reach, that a busy customer can easily communicate with the brand be it regarding customer support, queries, product information etc. Not just this social media can be moulded the best way to fine tune with the brands requirement of communicating with its target audience.

3. The credibility is social media, brands can’t make false promises nor they can deny pitfalls from their side.

4. The word of mouth, as I'm happy with the brand ill shout it loud and social media makes it Louder.

So this is my social media story, what's yours?

The Rajini power !

Its not just a typical Rajnikanth signature style joke, Its an another kick-ass flick featuring the dummy god of masses Rajnikanth, Recently a website dedicated to Rajnikanth went viral online as it runs  WITH OUT INTERNET CONNECTION. Yes a website which features end to end Rajnikanth from jokes to pics to his music was designed to run with out any internet support.

When you enter www.allaboutrajni.com it says, "He is no ordinary man, this is no ordinary website". It runs on Rajini Power. The only way to enter this website is by switching off your internet.Also when you try to reconnect the internet connection a warning pops-up and screams Aiyyo that was unexpected to keep browsing, switch off your internet.

a screen shot from allaboutrajni.com

Webchutney an Indian firm based out of New Delhi specialized in digital media marketing, Designed this distinctive website for Desimartini.com. They(Desimartini.com) want to do some thing parallel with, not just a super star kind of charisma that Rajni carry's.

Gurubaksh Sing creative director with Webchutney said, We designed an complex algorithm in such a way that the  site will run only when the internet connectivity becomes zero and visitors start enjoying the magic show. This website marvelled millions on digital media and social networking sites in no time. 

"To the grab attention of the online audience, we needed to show them something they've never seen before, and only a Rajini website holds the credibility to do so!".  Amit Garg, business head of  desimartini.com said.

In this online era, organisations are in a prowl for better online visibility and brand building through out the digital media space and same is the intention of Desimartini.com in launching this campaign. Recently matrimonial services firm Shaadi.com launched an online game Angry Brides (a whistle blower against the dowry practice in India) as a part of enhancing their online brand presence.

With more than 200 millions of look-ups on Google every day people search for information online to utilize this organisations provide quality and informative content online about their products & services using blogs, fan pages in social media, Youtube channel etc, thus building brand image and trust among potential and current customers.

Yenna Rascala.....That's the power of Social Media,  MIND IT..!  

"why this Kolaveri di" - a Social Media Marketing Bang

Hand la glass,  glass la scotch,  eyes-u full- of  tear-u , empty life-u,  girl-u come-u, 

life reverse gear-u. lovvu lovvu, oh my lovvu, u showed me bouv-u, cow-u cow-u holi cow u.

Above lines are the 'Tanglish' (Tamil-English) lyrics of a song from the movie '3' directed by Aishwarya Rajinikant Featuring Tamil hero Danush. This video was released digitally on November 16 by Sony Music, later made waves on the social media and spread like wild-fire all over the country in no-time.

The song Kolaveri di, appeared as the number one Indian trend on Twitter on November 21. first regional film song to be played by radio stations around the country, It became the most searched video on YouTube with 83000 views in 24 hrs (total of 5 crores ) & attracting more than 12000 likes in its official fan page on Facebook.

When i saw this song for the first time I enjoyed it I played it again and again. But I really started thinking of it when one of my friend raised a question, why such a hype being created around a normal song  ???  The answer is  simple SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (using social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, linkedin etc for Marketing communications). I'm unable to trace out if the film crew has appointed a Marketing agency to do all this. But the way this particular song penetrated through out the country, one has to doubt its strategy. Firstly the song was released in a social networking platform, after its rounds on the web most of the media houses let it it be in print media or electronic media started communicating the success of the song (it shows the strong PR this film unit have maintained). Kolaveri di goes viral says CNN-IBN. The Hindu says, why this 'why this Kolaveri di'


The song is just an example.Most of the business organisations across geographies are using Social media to Traditional media, to make use of ever increasing internet users. Few companies including social media along with their traditional marketing communications & few companies exclusively using social media depending upon their operations and the product nature.

One major advantage of Social Media Marketing is, it provides a hassle free two way communication unlike the traditional media. 79 per cent of the largest fortune 500 firms use social media platforms to communicate with customers & major stakeholders (Burson-Marsteller report). Many companies now have a Facebook fan page, tweets its updates on twitter, have a YouTube channel to show case their case studies or success stories & have a linkedin page for brand awareness among the customers.The reason is simple instead of reaching the target audience using a media find out a media most loved by the audience so that it can reach masses easily.

Finally, social media for some people a time killing drug & for other its a money churning machine in the ever changing marketing dynamics.

References  

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/cinema/article2650957.ece
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/dhanush-overwhelmed-with-kolaveri-di-success/205088-8-68.html
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/technologynews/view/1166750/1/.html