In a clear departure from the global trend in which celebrities top Facebook page ?likes?, corporate brand pages dominate the social media in India. When one considers the top 50 FB pages in the country with regard to page likes, 33 of them belong to enterprises. Globally, 15 of such highly popular pages belong to the corporate world and the rest belong to celebrities from the fields of music, sports and films.
Twitter also shows a similar trend. Globally, only six of the top 50 handles on the site having the maximum followers are corporate brands, while in India 32 of them are corporate brands.
The most popular of the brand pages on Facebook is that of Tata Docomo, which had 97 lakh ?likes? as on November 1. This means that every sixth Indian on Facebook likes that page. Nokia India has around 45 lakh fans. Ritesh Ghosal, head, brand marketing, Tata Docomo, says campaigns to gain fans were carried out in the beginning, but not so in the past two years. ?It is also a tool for cost-effective mode of consumer activation,? he adds.
Interface Business Solutions, an agency that manages the Tata Docomo Facebook page, says Docomo has never paid them on the basis of number of fans. ?Ours was a monthly revenue model. We rose above expectation in terms of number of fans, but that was expected of us,? says Sabyasachi Mitter, managing director of Interface.
Mahesh Murthy, founder and CEO of Pinstorm, a marketing and advertising firm, says the modus operandi of the agencies that promote brands on digital platforms is to place appropriate ads on the FB pages of a member, depending on his tastes and usage patterns, and invite people to `like? their page. Then they will be asked to participate in contests or promos for which they will need to like the page, he says. ?It is like buying a friend. They can be proud of the numbers but it is meaningless,? Murthy adds.
As per a study called ?Social Media around the World 2012? by InSites Consulting, an online research agency, one of the reasons why people follow brands on social media is to get gifts that the brands offer for participating in contests. According to Murthy, 20% of the people never visit the page again. Social Wavelength?s Mehta says contests are a way of acquiring fans. ?The target is always to achieve a high fan base to reach your campaign to the maximum number of people,? he says.
However, as Nokia says, fan addition will not be sustainable in the long run. ?Only real fans can give you a honest opinion. We only use digital platforms for testing our marketing strategy and the product previews,? says Viral Oza, director, marketing, Nokia India.
Titan, which has its Fastrack brand in the top five of FB?s brand pages in India, says fans don?t always translate into business. ?They may be simply commenting on our campaign,? says Bhaskar Bhat, managing director of Titan Industries.
According to InSites Consulting Research, all brands are currently on social media for reach. But it is now time for companies to add a second dimension, which is collaboration, the research note says. And this is something that Indian brands need to take note of to reach the next level on the social networking ladder.
Facebook currently has around 6.5 crore users in India, and that represents only around 5% of the population. More than 50% of that crowd is in the below-25 year age group. Since most of the Indian celebrities are inactive on FB, aspirational Indian youngsters are typically attracted to brands promoted by various marketers.
Sanjay Mehta, joint CEO of Social Wavelength, an agency that manages pages like Idea and Bingo on FB, agrees that the young population is making all the difference. In US and UK, the age group of 18-34 years is under 50% of the Facebook universe, whereas in India, this age group makes up 80% of the Facebook population. Unlike in the West, where people try to model themselves on celebrities, Indian youngsters are more likely to acquire a lifestyle driven by brands, according to social media commentators.
?In the West, most celebrities are active and are brands by themselves ? be it Rihanna, Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. They put their upcoming songs and updates of their tours etc on their FB page,? says Paritosh Sharma, a social media analyst. According to him, most of these celebrities have professional agencies running their pages. Their mandate is to get a huge fan base for the clients who thrive on hype.
In India, the scenario is different. MS Dhoni, Shah Rukh Khan etc occupy the top 50 page `likes? in India, but they are still not as active as their western counterparts. AR Rahman is an exception though, and is on the number two slot behind Tata Docomo.
