STRATEGY INDIAN REVIEW MOBILE BRANDS A Social Samosa Publication

This ebook talks about the individual as well as comparative social media strategy reviews of 5 leading brands in India. The mobile sector on social media is fairly doing well in terms of product promotion, online offline integration and pulling off some good campaigns as well. However, it is majorly lacking in customer service, interaction and driving engagement.

The brands have been analyzed for a period of 30 days, February 2014. We have highlighted their activities on primarily on Facebook and Twitter with the support of Locobuzz, a social media analytics tool. AUTHOR PROFILE

APEKSHA HARIHAR

Apeksha Harihar is a digital media journalist with a strong interest in analytics and strategy. She analyzes brands and their social media strategies and provides them with solutions that can help them derive real business results. Nokia has played a pioneering role in the growth of cellular technology in India. Nokia started its Indian operations in 1995 and had managed to be the market leader in the mobile phone category until it was dethroned by Samsung Mobiles in India.

One of the major positives which worked in the favor of Nokia to be the market leader for so many years is that Nokia had a mobile phone for every Indian. A wide product range was a major reason for the brand’s success in India. The brand was innovative initially but was not able to keep up to the pace of innovation because of which it had to lose its market leader position in India.

The brand has a very strong presence across the social media channels in India.

www.socialsamosa.com NOKIA ON FACEBOOK

The Facebook page of Nokia India has more than 10 million likes. The page also has many applications like Nokia care, 520 Speed Project, Nokia Music Theatre, Your Wish is my App etc. The overall engagement level through its facebook page is quite decent.

This post is a product oriented post which has been one of the most failed methods of promoting a brand on social media. Promoting Asha 503 could have been done in a better way considering Facebook was a great platform to connect with young users who are actually the target audience of this phone. Though the brand has used the right hash-tags and tried to communicate the bright colours as its USP, it has failed to create any recall value.

What Nokia could have done instead was a series of testimonials or reviews by users/bloggers and showcase it on Facebook to increase user interest and curiosity.

www.socialsamosa.com Few post highlighted the features of the Lumia series phone. Data which is the most important thing in today’s world can be protected via one of the features of these Nokia Lumia phones. The post has few interactions as well. The other thing which this post indicates is the irate customer who has complained about some issue but the team was not able to meet the expectations of the customer which has made the customer even more irate.

www.socialsamosa.com One of the major attractions of Nokia’s facebook page was the #YourWishIsMyApp campaign. The campaign was excellently integrated on the online and offline front. Events were created on the facebook page inorder to increase awareness about their offline campaign. The offline campaign was held across different cities in India and the same was integrated to their online platform via Facebook.

www.socialsamosa.com A series of posts were created during the Valentine’s week with the aim of increasing customer engagement. These posts included a video of a guy who wanted to win back his Indian girlfriend and in the video he asked for ideas to win her back. The video series had a desired impact on the audience and was successful in engaging the audience to a certain extent.

www.socialsamosa.com The above graph represents the post which the brand had on it facebook page. The numbers of post are consistent over time which indicates that the brand is quite engaging on the facebook. The quantity of post is also decent which indicates that the brand has content which attracts attention on the social media space.

www.socialsamosa.com NOKIA ON TWITTER

Twitter was used effectively to share product related information. The twitter handle had a mix of product oriented and event oriented tweets. Various hashtags were used to interact with the audience through twitter as a medium.

The Nokia X series were launched during the Mobile World Congress held at Barcelona during 24th to 27th February 2014. The launch was integrated to the online presence of the brands and tweets including product features and launch videos were done during the entire week. Since it was the first time the brand was using Google’s Android OS, the launch gathered lot of attention on the offline and online platform.

Besides this various contests which were a part of the brands engagement strategy were also featured on their twitter handle. The #YourWishIsMyApp contest which was held on twitter as well as had its offline presence was beautifully integrated on twitter and facebook.

www.socialsamosa.com Another major event in which the brand was involved with was the Social Media Week held in Bangalore during 17th -21st February 2014. Social Media Week which is a media platform and worldwide event found its presence on Nokia’s twitter handle. This gathered engagement from the audience associated with the event and present on the micro blogging site.

www.socialsamosa.com Various hashtags were used on the twitter handle to engage with the audience, create hype about the products and its features and also create awareness about various contest held on the social networking space.

www.socialsamosa.com The number of tweets had drastically increased during the launch of Nokia X at Mobile World Congress held at Barcelona. This indicates that the product launch had an impact on the social media space. The brand could even leverage to the hype that was created about the products on the social media channel.

www.socialsamosa.com The above pie chart represents the sentiments with respect to brands interaction on social media platforms. The brand has the least negative interactions among all the brands. Nokia has just 5% of its interaction with negative tone and the remaining 95% interactions had a positive tone. This shows that the brand’s online presence and content is appreciated by its audience.

Suggestions

Nokia should interact with their users and offer a better customer support service. They could use a tool that offers support in terms of CRM and track conversations that are related to them. Else, the brand is doing reasonably well on social media.

www.socialsamosa.com HTC had always captured the market share of a premium brand and since 2006, manufactured their own handsets. After enjoying the top position, the brand began to fade after Apple and Samsung came to limelight. It is still eyeing 15% marketshare in India in the growing smartphone market.

The brand has a presence on the social media world as well. In India it has a presence on Facebook, Twitter and other such social media platforms.

www.socialsamosa.com HTC ON FACEBOOK

The facebook page of HTC has more than 4.7 million likes. There are various applications as well on its Facebook page to engage with its customer. Few of the applications such as “Speak to us!” which is the customer care application, “Ratings and Reviews” which provides ratings and reviews of most of the mobile phones in the product line of the brand HTC and “HTC present How to?” which is a sort of user manual types application has a decent level of engagement.

But besides this the overall posts and videos shared on the Facebook page of the brands are mundane and very product centric. Few post try to gather the attention of the audience but the frequency of such post is very less.

www.socialsamosa.com Such product and features centric post are very common on the brand’s Facebook page and its time that brands start understanding that hard selling or direct advertisement does not work on social media.

A campaign which was launched during the Valentine’s week managed to increase the engagement level for the brands. The campaign was simple but effective and used various components of social media.

The campaign in-a- way was an attempt to highlight the features of HTC Desire 501 and at the same time increase the engagement across the social media space. It was well integrated across facebook and twitter.

www.socialsamosa.com The above graph indicates the number of posts on the brand’s facebook page. As seen in the image the number of posts have been consistent. A few contests have been engaging the users. Besides this the new product rage has also been attention grabbing. HTC ON TWITTER

The twitter handle of the brand has more than 26,600 followers but just 1790 tweets. This shows that the brand is not using Twitter as a medium effectively. The frequency of the tweets and the content of the tweets was also not upto the mark. The brand has an extremely efficient international twitter handle but the same couldn’t be replicated to their Indian handle.

www.socialsamosa.com The HTC Desire 501 contest was integrated on different platforms where the brand is present. The timing of the campaign was an issue. As the campaign was related to the occasion of Valentine’s Day, the campaign should have been launched atleast a few days prior to Valentine’s Day but the campaign went live on twitter just a couple of days prior and hence couldn’t leverage the occasion.

Most of the tweets were product oriented and didn’t engage the audience. The content on the twitter handle was poor. The brand didn’t even make an attempt to converse with its follower.

Few tweets were related to the brands achievements at different international platforms. These cross promoted tweets manage to get some attention from the followers as these tweets spoke about the brand as a whole and not about a single model.

www.socialsamosa.com The above image represents the tweets on the brand’s twitter handle. As seen in the image the brand’s tweet counter was always busy. The handle received lots of tweets at the time when the brand received a couple of accolades at different international platform. This even increased the engagement at the brand’s twitter account. The overall presence of the brand on twitter is quite decent.

www.socialsamosa.com The above graph represents the overall sentiments with respect to the brand comprising all the social media platforms. As seen in the figure only 18% of the interactions had a negative tone & the rest 82% interactions from the audience had a positive tone. This suggests that the brand’s content on various social media platforms were appreciated by their audience. Suggestions

HTC should create some relatable content buckets and concentrate on building an emotional bond with online users. It should try using branded properties on social profiles to rebuild their image. They should also begin executing original campaigns that will help in brand building.

www.socialsamosa.com Samsung is quite a favourite among many android users and the brand is also very popular on social media. It has maintained its communication efficiently in the online space. Not only has the brand executed several successful campaigns in the past, but has also been consistent with them.

www.socialsamosa.com SAMSUNG ON FACEBOOK

Samsung Mobile India has just a little above 9.7 million likes on Facebook. The Facebook page was a mix of posts related to the products information and the events which Samsung mobiles were a part of. A few posts were also related to the contest conducted across social media platform. The page was image dominated and had very few posts intended for interaction with the customers. Posts were mundane and were mostly product related.

Though the page was product dominated, it was the only thing which worked in favor of the brand on the social media channel. Having a strong product line to display via its Facebook page worked as a major positive for the brand. As you can see in the above image the post displaying the new model Grand Neo gathered 8323 likes.

www.socialsamosa.com One of the most disappointing things which I came across was the way in which grievances were dealt with. As you can see in the above post that despite the customer’s explanation the brand didn’t bother to reply to the irate customer which is something you wouldn’t want to do atleast on the social media channels which are in the public domain.

www.socialsamosa.com A few attempts were made to engage with the customers and fans. Few contest related post and a few posts asking the audience to send in pictures clicked using their Samsung mobiles. The Everyday Grand contest was integrated with their model- Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 and had given the contest winners to have a picture with the Bollywood singing trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.

The above graph represents the number of posts by the audience on the brand’s facebook page. The frequency and the number post are consistent over time. If they could have more engaging content and try to involve the audience, the frequency of post by the audience could increase drastically.

SAMSUNG ON TWITTER

Twitter too was used in a similar manner as Facebook by the brand. Tweets were product centric and weren’t too engaging. Having said that, the medium was used excellently well during the unveiling of the new mobile phone Galaxy S5.

www.socialsamosa.com Tweets included information about the product, the price and the features. Video showcasing the launch of the new model was also mentioned in the tweets. The complete launch was supported by tweets on the micro blogging portal.

One of the major contests which was conducted via the brand was the #DesignANeoLife which was an effort made by the brand just before the launch of its Galaxy Note 3 Neo model. The contest was a great success and was trending for quite some time. But the contest lacked originality.

www.socialsamosa.com www.socialsamosa.com The above tweets were a part of a contest conducted by the brand. The contest was well integrated over various social media platforms. All the contest were related to the product line and were an attempt to increase awareness about the product and the brand managed to do that quite well via integrating the contest on all the social media platforms where the brand is present.

Samsung Galaxy S5 was launched in Mobile world Congress held at Barcelona during 24th to 27th February 2014. The launch was integrated through their online channels on facebook and twitter. All the images and videos of the launch were present on the social media channels. The social media channels were also used as the medium to create hype about the product launch and highlighted product features. This is a nice way for brands to communicate to online users. Brands should make an attempt to build synergy between their offline and online marketing methods.

The above graph indicates the number of mentions which the brand received on the micro blogging site. As seen in the image there was a drastic increase in the number of mentions when the brand had launched their new Galaxy models and even when they had a contest running on twitter.

www.socialsamosa.com The above pie chart represents the sentiment wise summary with respect to brand’s social media interactions. The total count of interactions for the brand is less. But within those conversations the number of interactions with a positive tone is more i.e. 83% and the remaining interactions are with negative tone. The brand should try and increase interaction over its social media channels and try to use social media at an optimal level.

Suggestions

Samsung can have a better strategy for Twitter, instead of putting up its Facebook content frequently. Though the brand is pretty good with customer service, it can elevate its level to a fully optimized CRM service using what it uses best – technology.

www.socialsamosa.com Micromax, one of the few Indian mobile brands has gained a good share among mobile brands. It has targeted the youth since inception and hence social media is the best place for the brand to unleash its marketing strategies. After the launch of android smartphones and affordable tablets, it began exploring dual sim phones, qwerty keypads and 30 day battery backup features. The brands online presence in India is also a quite dominating as compared to various other brands in the mobile phone sector in India.

www.socialsamosa.com MICROMAX ON FACEBOOK

The Facebook page of Micromax Mobiles has just a little less than 1.8 million likes. The page is dominated by product related images. The page has been used to give information about the products and create hype about new product launch. The page also has post related to the events which have been sponsored by the brand. This is an effective way to gather attention and even promote the events associated with the brand.

The above post is related to an event of an Australian rock band named “Wolfmother” at Hard Rock Café in Mumbai and Delhi. The post is thus used to create awareness about the band’s performance and also to showcase the brands association with the event.

A similar post which was about “Deadmau5” performance in Mumbai and Delhi was also posted on the brand’s facebook page. The event is organized by Micromax hence it wants to gain maximum form this event as this is also Deadmau5’s first performance in India.

www.socialsamosa.com A few posts were related to the brand’s association with Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm event which is the annual six-day marathon motorsport event. The rally was held in three categories -- XTreme, NDure XPlore and Moto Quad and transversed through Bikaner, Chattargarh, Jaisalmer, Sam, Pokharn, Gajnaur, Kagsar, Lakshmangarh.

There were post including videos and images related to the event. The post were an attempt to highlight the brands association with such a huge motorsport event associated with a brand like Maruti Suzuki. Though the attempt was not that successful to gather attention on the online space.

www.socialsamosa.com www.socialsamosa.com Probably, the brand should look at revamping its marketing strategy on Facebook since its not helping them achieve major objectives such as engagement. There are very few likes, shares and comments on an average per post even with a huge community size. Micromax otherwise has a very fun angle to its TVCs and other marketing methods. However, if the same magic can be recreted on Social Media, it will prove to be a boon for the brand.

www.socialsamosa.com The above graph represents the number of posts shared by the brand on its Facebook page. The brand is quite consistent with respect to the frequency and the number of post. The brand is more of a youth based brand so increasing engagement through Facebook as a medium could be beneficial for the brand. Most of the brand associations are youth based. MICROMAX ON TWITTER

The twitter handle is being used by the brand as a secondary medium of communication. Most of the tweets were in-sync with the posts on their Facebook page. The tweets lacked interactive content and were majorly product and event driven.

In a way the content was efficiently integrated on the social media space but was not successful in gathering the attention of the audience and lacked the engagement quotient.

www.socialsamosa.com Another interesting activity being done by Micromax is the #TeamMicromaxAtDesertStorm which is a tracing their journey through social media on a road trip in an event organized by Maruti Suzuki.

Though the brand is majorly promoting events through social profiles, it is not doing so in the right manner.

During the Valentine’s week the brand ran a contest using the hashtag ‘#CANSpreadLove’. This contest managed to engage the audience to a certain extent. The contest asked the audience to use the props in the image and come up with a proposal line using those props only.

www.socialsamosa.com The above graph denotes the tweets associated with the brand. As seen in the figure the brand is quite active on twitter and has certain level of consistency when it comes to the tweets. The brand should to engage with the audience through twitter even more and should explore new and innovative for the same. The below pie-chart represents the overall sentiments with respect to the brand, comprising all the social media platforms. As seen in the figure only 18% of the interactions had a negative tone & the rest 82% interactions from the audience had a positive tone. The figures are similar to the sentiment figures of HTC mobiles.

Since the brand is inclined towards the youth, having only 18% of the interactions with a negative tone is quite decent as youths are considered to be more vocal. As most of the interactions on social media had a positive tone the brand seems to have more number of people who appreciate the brand and its product line.

www.socialsamosa.com Suggestions

Micromax should concentrate on driving more conversations through Twitter and elevate the brand’s image through social media. Even on Facebook, instead of mere event updates, the brand should try to execute interesting campaigns.

www.socialsamosa.com BlackBerry, it seems, is far from calling it quits. Besides its mobile phone business the company is now focusing on the growing adoption of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 by Indian enterprises across a range of sectors. The enterprise market continues to grow in India and holds immense untapped potential for BlackBerry, especially in sectors like retail, insurance, banking, healthcare, construction and professional services.

Even the mobile phone business of the brand is not at all stagnated. In the recently concluded Mobile World Congress the brand launched its BlackBerry Q20 model. The Canadian company has also announced a 5-inch BlackBerry Z3 smartphone for Asian customers. But still the company’s presence in Indian market has taken a hit after swift development in the handset market in the country. Stiff competition from World players like Samsung, Apple, Nokia and local players like Micromax has affected the company a little too much in India.

www.socialsamosa.com BLACKBERRY ON FACEBOOK

The company’s presence in India on social media is not at all impressive. They don’t have a dedicated India page on Facebook. The frequency of post from the brand is also quite low even on their international page. The content on their international page is product driven. There were no attempts made to engage with the audience. No contests or any other innovative ways to increase customer engagements. On the positive side the images used on their international Facebook page were good and eye catchy as most of the images were product centric and elegant. The positioning of the brand has always been classy and they have always targeted the elite section of the mobile phone market. The same can be seen on their social media channels.

BLACKBERRY ON FACEBOOK

Their twitter handle has its tweets protected. This is one of the first brands which I have come across which has its tweets protected. Social media is a channel to reach out to your existing as well as your potential customers. Keeping your tweets protected may make the non-customers or people who are not able to follow you feel unwanted.

Infact people wouldn’t want to follow your brand if you have your tweets protected. No one really likes to be waiting for an approval and especially just to follow a brand unless he is absolutely loyal towards that brand. Many people use social media to explore about various options available so keeping your tweets protected can go against you.

Ideally, you would want people to find out about you and connect with you, which will lead to more engagements and awareness about your brand so I personally feel that for a brand like BlackBerry it is a bad decision to keep its tweets protected.

www.socialsamosa.com The above pie chart represents sentiment wise summary of the brand’s social media interactions. As seen 14% of the interactions had a negative tone and the rest 86% had a positive tone. The brand is still fighting the major brands on the social media space as well. Despite the crisis the positioning of the brand hasn’t changed much. The brand had to cut down on the price of few of its latest handsets which had a lot of eyebrows raised on the social media platforms. Suggestions

The brand should leverage social media to the fullest. It should make sure that it reaches out to its existing customers as well as potential customers thorough social media as well. They should use some innovative ideas and contest to engage with the audience and also use social media as an interactive tool and not just as a medium to showcase its product line.

www.socialsamosa.com COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The five brands under consideration are quite different from each other. Their positioning and journey so far in the Indian market is also quite different from each other. These five brands except Micromax are major international players as well but their strategies for Indian market have been different from their international strategy.

Micromax is the relatively newer brand as compared to other brands. The positioning of the brand is more youth oriented. The same can be seen in the brands association with DJ Deadmau5 and the Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm event. The same positioning of the brand can be seen in it content on facebook and twitter as well. The post and tweets mostly highlight the brands association with such event which are youth oriented and thus try to justify its positioning in the mobile handset business in India.

Posts and tweets related to the product range were less and the post related to the events which the brand has sponsored led to interactions by the fans and followers. The one thing which stood out is that the brand used social media quite efficiently to promote its events as well as to a certain extent its product rage.

Nokia which was the market leader till recent times has a different positioning all together. With its recent collaboration with Microsoft and now with the launch of new handsets using the Android OS the brand is trying to lure the Android users. The Facebook and Twitter content of Nokia is thus more feature centric and is trying to focus more on their new product range which has used the Android OS. They have even made an attempt to lure its users by running various contests on the social media platforms and have integrated the same quite well. The launch of Nokia X series at Mobile World Congress was also highlighted in the brand’s social profiles.

www.socialsamosa.com Samsung is the company which gained a lot of base in India in the last couple of years. The positioning of the brand on its social media channels is more ‘product’ and ‘innovation’ oriented. The range of products which the brand has is growing every quarter and the brand uses the social media space to showcase its product range. The Facebook page and Twitter handle of the brand is full of product related post and tweets. Even Samsung used its social media channel to showcase the launch of Galaxy S5 at the Mobile World Congress. The entire event was highlighted on their social media portals and videos and images of the event were used for the same.

HTC is positioned differently as compared to the other brands. It is positioned as a high-end phone. The cost is also an important factor when it comes to Indian market. HTC mobiles are high on features as well as on price. “Selfie” is the new trending word on the social media space. HTC one was named “Best #selfie phone” by NewYork Times and the same was highlighted on the brands social media pages. HTC One also won the Global Mobile Award for Best Smartphone of 2013 which was also shared on the social media space. Thus the brand used social media to portray its achievements to its user base and make them feel that the own something valuable. This had a positive response from the user base as well and created lot of engagement for the brand.

BlackBerry after its recent crisis is trying to make its presence felt in the Indian market but has not been quite successful so far. The recent price crash of its handsets also depicts that all is not well for the brand. The social media positioning of the brand in India is quite weird. The brand doesn’t have a dedicated Facebook page for its users plus the twitter handle has its tweets protected as mentioned earlier. The brand is not vocal about its accomplishments and product range on the social media platform. Even the brand’s international pages lack engaging content and innovative ideas. The posts are very product centric and mundane. The brand should think of using social media in India if it needs to stay in the race with other brands in India because all other brands including the local brands are using social media inorder to be vocal to its customer base.

www.socialsamosa.com EXPERT OPINION by Rajiv Dingra Founder & CEO of WATConsult – An Award Winning Digital & Social Media Agency

The mobile sector has not taken the much needed leap from approaching social media at its nascent stage to an advanced marketing platform. They are thriving more on direct marketing, product announcements and mundane posts.

Nokia has some very interesting campaigns but the brand needs to build its CRM strategies and be watchful of its ORM too. It’s probably not the best brand in the market today, but with its success in latest models, it should strictly look at ramping up its engagement on social media.

Samsung being the current market leader is only extending its offline reputation online and taking advantage of it.

HTC focuses on pure product promotion, launches and is attempting to accomplish sales objectives through its social profiles. Probably they should attempt the same using a different approach.

Micromax has struck a chord with its audience, the young users of Facebook and Twitter, specifically because though the brand does not make it a point to interact as often as it should, it has positive sentiments flashing all over. Blackberry’s tarnishing image is creeping into the social space too and its sad to see that the brand isn’t doing anything much about it. Probably there was too much to handle and Blackberry decided to concentrate more on what was needed at the moment than build a lost reputation on social media.

Since the mobile industry is dynamic and cut throat competition prevails, with new handsets pouring in and price wars constantly taking place, it is important for them to move fast and act quickly on social media to gain a competitive advantage.

www.socialsamosa.com A ANALYTICS POWERED BY: PUBLICATION