The Impact of Social Networks on Growth of Business Make Social Networks Work Their Magic on Your Business Strategies

The Impact of Social Networks on Growth of Business Make Social Networks work their magic on your business strategies

www.hexaware.com Preface

Business strategists and leaders recognize the importance of social media due to its strong technical roots and ability to shape future technical trends. Social platforms employ cloud technologies, APIs, natural language processing engines, artiﬁcial intelligence, Internet of Things, and geo-location to create an omni-channel experience for users and generate deep level insights and business opportunities for industry and business leaders. Despite of its evident beneﬁts, several B2B companies who are still experimenting with social media and their social engagement strategies are not geared to evolve at the frantic rate at which social media is evolving.

Hexaware’s Social Media o erings help such B2B companies address current and future strategic and marketing requirements and enable businesses to meet their vision and goals. We leverage social media to help you pursue strategic transactions, create brand awareness, establish thought-leadership, manage online-reputation, generate sales leads, and explore viability of new business ideas. With our innovative Social Media solutions, we integrate social touchpoints at every stage of key-decision makers’ journey to share useful information and content, provide insights and updates, and empower them to make the right decision for themselves. Hexaware can make your digital journey more productive and result-driven. Introduction Over the last 5 years, social media has changed the business landscape by connecting over 2 billion people on a single suite of platforms. Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and many other social media sites allow organizations to meet people across every geography and every niche. Today businesses are looking for a robust and practical social media solution to sustain their growth.

Impact of Internet on Business Before taking a deep dive in social media, let’s look at the path through which we have reached here. The journey starts through development of Internet, the technology that has been universally described as the greatest invention of modern times. In the last 25 years, Internet has fundamentally changed the way business is done, conceptualized and strategized. It connected 100s of millions of computers and made the world notice the power of information, shared by all and made accessible to all.

In 1991, World-Wide-Web was launched as an interface to access information residing on networked computers through websites. A few years down the line, we had millions of websites and hundreds of millions of webpages. Most of these websites o ered little or no value, but they were instrumental in raising public consciousness about value of internet and connected networks.

By 2002, a web-presence had become a part of a legitimacy check for every business, giving rise to an interesting and accurate notion that ‘if you are not found on Google, you don’t exist’. Organizations that meant business, and intended to stay relevant, invested in creating their web identities, and in the process discovered that web not only supported businesses but also sustained them.

• Engagements Web and Online • SEO Social Business Model • Bill Boards • Inbound Business Address: • SEM Address: FB, Twitter, • TV, Radio • Proﬁling www.xyz.com • Banner Ads Instagram, LinkedIn • Newspaper • Predictive AI • Clickbait • Magazines • Kiosks 1993 1990 2010 2010

Brick and Mortar Business Address: ‘City, Street, Zip Commercial Web 2.0 Social Engagement code’ Internet and www Technologies Technologies

Figure 1.1 Evolution of Social net

Emergence of Social Media as the New Identity of Business In 2003, the idea of Web 2.0 set forth concepts of ‘Intuitiveness’, ‘Interoperability’ and ‘User Generated Content’. In other words, it made Internet participative and interactive. From being a one-to-many channel of information dissemination, WWW transformed into a many-to-many channel of sharing and collaboration. As users grew more comfortable with sharing and creating content on the Internet, Facebook (2004), Twitter (2005) and YouTube (2005) emerged to capitalize on this change of behavior, and eventually grew to become eponymous with the idea of social media.

Initial social media users were mainly students and hobbyists who used it for fraternizing and as a getaway from profession-bound activities. However, as students moved up on their career trajectories and entered business and economics, they sowed social media concepts in their work-ﬁeld and helped spread the idea. Social platforms achieved their sharpest increase between 2008 and 2013, with over 1 billion active monthly users accessing di erent channels by end of 2012. Today these platforms host largest communities on Internet, for whom thinking, and sharing are ingrained as part of their personal and professional lives.

1 Many businesses were quick to realize the benefits of social media Platforms as early as 2008. Dell, Nike, Amazon, Ford, GE etc. were among the early movers who capitalized on new channels’ strength and influence in reaching out to their target audience. Since then, millions of businesses have successfully made social a part of their marketing and strategic armory. Social media is now a substantial part of every marketing strategy, and the benefits of using social media are so great that anyone not implementing this cost-effective resource is missing out on a phenomenal marketing opportunity.

Social media platforms have impressed both marketers and strategists on the strength of their functional and technological attributes. Marketers who understand how users have become independent and choice conscious in this digitally connected world realize that sponsored content, paid Figure 2.1 Social Media-Technology Wheel advertisements, and in-your-face outbound messaging are on a downward spiral. Social media platforms allow marketers to engage their target Social Media Users by Age audience with thoughtful content and provide contextual experience through their products and services.

Business strategists and leaders recognize the importance of social media due to its strong technical roots and ability to shape future technical trends. Social platforms employ cloud technologies, APIs, natural language processing engines, artiﬁcial intelligence, Internet of Things, and geo-location to create an omni-channel experience for users and generate deep level insights and business opportunities for industry and business leaders. Figure 2.2 Social Media Use among different age groups

Social companies like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter are also at the forefront of new technology development and integration like Virtual & Augmented Reality, Haptic Feedback, Neural Implants and Biometrics, to name a few, that are further pushing boundaries and opening new vistas of business.

Statista and Gartner reports on ‘Internet usage worldwide, 2015-16’ reveal that on an average, Internet users across the world spend 106-118 minutes every day on social media platforms alone, that scales to 40-60 hours every month, or equivalent to a full productive week! Social media usage is the heaviest among people below 40 years where over 80% of Internet users are actively using at least one social platform. This demographic group also happens to constitute the largest segment of active consumer base and decision inﬂuencers. The implications are two folds. First, a billion users spending 45 hours every month on social media has compelled every company to utilize these platforms in order to get on the radar of this inﬂuential, auent, cash-rich and always-online consumer base. Second, a billion users have clearly demonstrated their anity for social media and they will be more likely to favor and trust companies that are on similar platforms.

Extending Business Value through Social

Social Platforms open numerous opportunities for business developments, but at the same time they also bring a high degree of scrutiny and accountability for business enterprises. Social media users have higher expectations of trust worthiness, transparency, and ethical practices from companies on social media. Maintaining a steady reputation on social media is a challenge for even the best of the brands, as even a minor faux pas or miscommunication has potential to get ampliﬁed and go viral within hours. But brands with well-articulated social media strategy successfully pass social litmus test and enhance their business prospects. Social media is truly the great marketing equalizer. Let’s look at several key factors that help businesses create value through social media.

Transparency: Social media is not a place where anyone, least a company, can easily escape consequences of misdemeanor, subterfuge or fact twisting. Social communities, in general, are extremely vigilant. They can quickly catch a lie, and it’s not uncommon for them to extensively investigate a claim to check its veracity. False claims and their perpetrators are then publicly exposed. As such any company with a serious intent of utilizing social media to drive its business should adopt a very transparent and forthcoming communication strategy. All the facts, statistics, and information a company shares should be cross veriﬁable and consistent across all social and public channels. Over time this strategy leads to creation of loyal follower groups who trust brands and become its advocate.

1 Online Reputation Index Context Persona Sensitivity Continuity Transparency Social Business Value Figure 3.1 Business Values Driven Through Social Media Sensitivity: Social media has a remarkably low threshold of emotional tolerance and people may take umbrage at the slightest hint of any provocation. As such if you are a brand or associated with a brand, it’s prudent to stay away from commenting or participating in controversial topic on social media. Wells Fargo, KFC, and several other companies learned it the hard way when their quick-grab-attention strategies backfired as it was perceived as not respecting sentiments of a group of people or cultural beliefs. But companies that take a completely neutral tone or decision to not discuss anything related to sensitive issues may also miss on the opportunities to create an emotional connect with their audience. Therefore measured, mature and respectful conversations be instrumental in creating a positive image of the business. Persona: The fabric of social media is weaved with interpersonal connects and conversational touchpoints. Social media users like to interact with people or entities that appear like people. Therefore, many socially savvy companies have consciously crafted online personas with a human touch, voice, and opinions. These personas help companies simulate real conversations and generate interest in their communications. Context: Social media provides companies a unique way to engage audience around issues of their interest. In the era of the always-on customer, social media is a primary channel for customer engagement Core Benefits of Social Media to Businesses • Increased Brand Awareness: Social media is one of the most cost-efficient digital marketing methods used to syndicate content and increase your business’ visibility • More Inbound Traffic: Every social media profile you add to your marketing mix is a gateway to your website, and every piece of content you post is another opportunity to acquire a new customer. Social media is a melting pot of different types of people with varying backgrounds and behaviors. With different people come different needs and different ways of thinking. Syndicating your content on as many platforms as possible allows these individuals to organically reach your business. • Improved Search Engine Rankings: While social media doesn’t directly increase search engine rankings, Social Media Examiner states that more than 58% of marketers who have been using social media for one year or longer still see improved search engine rankings. • Higher Conversion Rates: Social media marketing allows your business to give a positive impression through a humanization factor. When brands are interactive by sharing content, commenting, and posting statuses on social media, it personifies a brand. People prefer to do business with other people, rather than companies • Better Customer Satisfaction: Customers appreciate knowing that when they post comments on your pages, they will receive a personalized response rather than an automated message. Being able to acknowledge each comment shows that you are attentive of your visitors’ needs and aim to provide the best experience. • Improved Brand Loyalty: Social media is not just limited to introducing your brand’s products and promotional campaigns. Customers see these platforms as a service channel where they can communicate directly with the business. • Cost-Effective: Being cost-effective is such an advantage because you can see a greater return on investment and retain a bigger budget for other marketing and business expenses. • Gain Marketplace Insights: What better way to know the thoughts and needs of your consumers than by directly talking to them? By monitoring the activity on your profiles, you can see customer’ interests and opinions that you might not otherwise be aware of if your business didn’t have a social media presence. Influence of Social Technologies on Customer-Oriented Organizations (B2C) Today social media has become the key marketing and strategic channel for every business that transacts directly with their end-customers. Consumer-driven markets have typically a high degree of volatility and unpredictability, where user trends take frequent, often chaotic turns. Since decades, B2C companies have annually invested millions of dollars to conduct extensive studies, researches and analysis of consumer behavior to grow their market reach and profitability. Since 2010, the majority of B2C companies have overhauled their marketing strategies by leveraging social media as their primary engagement channel. Businesses are using Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Twitter and YouTube to create a 360-degree presence that allows users to understand company’s goals, philosophy, and values and in turn enables companies to evaluate users’ interests and behavior. As the next step, businesses have used insights generated from users’ interactions to create customized services and products that cater to their preferences. We have noted earlier the unique advantages o ered by social media platforms in reaching out to hundreds of millions of existing and potential customers. It enables businesses to execute an end-to-end marketing strategy at a significantly low cost and time.

1 Social media has helped brands in the following areas: a. Gauge target market size and success possibilities b. Create brand awareness c. Create brand reputation d. Directly target individual users to sell services and products e. Address complaints before they escalateSCOR f. ECreate fan-following. Social media platforms brought these features on a platter and therefore it’s easy to understand why top Fortune 500 companies like Walmart, Coca Cola, KLM, Microsoft, General Motors, MetLife, Verizon and many others now use social media as their main channel of marketing and audience engagement. These companies have presence across multiple social media platforms (in fact in certain cases they have multiple presence on the same social media platform), are followed by millions of fans, frequently post pictures, videos, surveys & messages to engage audience, and their posts are shared a thousand times every day. These companies have invested heavily in social media by having a dedicated team of professionals, have purchased specialized social media tools and have allocated budgets of millions of dollars to meet their objectives. Social media technologies have not only helped existing businesses to grow, but they have also spawned a new category of businesses that are powered by collaborative-strength of networked users. Multi-billion-dollar companies like Wish, Social Finance (SOFI), and Airbnb are exclusive products of Social Media age. These companies have their core business models rooted in technologies that enable social sharing and collaborations, riding on the strength of user-generated content, networked connection, and social insights.

• Market Research – 56% • Brand Awareness and Reputation – 72% • Behavioural and demographic segmentation – 80% 25+ Social Media Platforms • Per-empting issues and trends – 43% 2 Billion + Users Figure 4.1 Marketers’ use of Social Media – Survey, 2016

Influence of Social Technologies on Business-Oriented Organizations (B2B) While B2C companies are now using social media extensively, B2B companies have been more cautious in its uptake. In general, B2B organizations are conservative in their approach on non-mainstream trends and they seldom employ avant-garde marketing techniques. This explains why for initial few years, a majority of them stayed clear from social media bandwagon. These intervening years have allowed social media platforms to mature and develop specific solutions that cater to B2B audience. Today the mainstream social sites have created a suite of applications and services to assist B2B marketers and they are well-aligned to serve interests of their B2B audience by addressing their core concerns and interests. B2B marketing is a very contextual and expertise-driven discipline and it demands channels that allow marketers to connect with their target audience on very specific touchpoints. Until now a majority of B2B marketers have used conferences, trade-shows and exhibitions to showcase their solutions to grab audiences’ attention. However, these approaches are time consuming, demand huge e ort and material investment and take place infrequently. Social media o ers options to B2B marketers to develop and deploy easy and simplified solutions that can help them focus on right segments of customers, foster close relationships with their client base, and implement inclusive marketing strategies to demonstrate their expertise and strengths. Most of the B2B marketers have already started using social media as part of their marketing strategy. As per industry reports, in 2016 over 90% of B2B companies had started to use social media to drive their engagements, create brand value and augment sales. On the flip side, several B2B companies are still experimenting with social media and their social engagement strategies are not geared to evolve at the frenetic rate at which social media itself is evolving.

As discussed above, today the social media user B2B Social Media Landscape base is around 2 billion, which almost translates Facebook B2B Engagements LinkedIn B2B Engagements to 30% of world population. This is a mini-world in itself, that hosts 95% of all companies, their • Share stories target audience, partners, vendors, supplier 72% 57% 53% • Generate goodwill • Engage Customers • Narrate experience 75% 51% 30% • Build Conversions networks, customers of customers, influencers, • Build brand presence • Create Opportunities Interact with Interact with Engage with Interact with Interact with Engage with advocates and basically everyone who matters Contracts Influencers Brands Contracts Influencers Brands for their business. YouTube B2B Engagements Twitter B2B Engagements The mainstream social media platforms for B2B companies are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and • Share news • Increase Influence • Build Brand Presence YouTube. Within past 1 year, Instagram, Google • Engage Experts 7% 47% 81% • Increase Influence 30% 74% 61% plus, Slide Share and Ted Talk have also gained • Build Thought Leadership • Build Thought leadership • Provide Support Interact with Interact with Engage with Interact with Interact with Engage with Contracts Influencers Brands traction. These channels often complement each Contracts Influencers Brands other and are integrated with corporate Source: Gartner Report on Social Media: 2014 websites, product & brand microsites and o -line marketing campaigns. Figure 5.1 B2B Social Media Landscape

1 • LinkedIn is the most preferred social network among B2B marketers who want to engage in long-term business and industry conversations. LinkedIn’s focus on professional work-based profile and business-driven groups makes it an ideal platform for focused campaigns. Today there are about 450 million connected members on LinkedIn who use it to create their business profile, develop their industry connects, meet experts, extend their influence network, identify new economic opportunities and grow new businesses. LinkedIn aids these focused transactions by a range of services and tools that allow members to discover new matches, recommend skills, provide testimony, develop blogs, create & mentor groups, direct emails, and join Learning networks to enhance skills. LinkedIn also provides core marketing solutions that allow brands to create LinkedIn company page, display advertisements, and steer expertise-based user groups to drive conversations and generate engagements through social messaging systems. LinkedIn platform has limitations in facilitating real-time conversations and is not structured to create viral campaigns.

• Twitter is a service for micro-blogging and social networking. For B2B marketers it’s one of the best platforms to track real-time conversations around their brand, track user sentiments, and create one-to-one conversations. Twitter is also a very useful promotional tool, especially if used to direct followers to companies’ landing pages or longer content that is posted elsewhere. Twitter is ﬂuid, contextual, immediate, and a great tool to keep continuous ﬂow of interactions with one or many people

• Facebook is the largest social networking site and, in many ways, the most important social channel for B2B companies to engage with their audience. If an organization has time and resources for only one social channel, then it should be Facebook. Like LinkedIn, Facebook also provides core business solutions for organizations to create company pages, manage targeted advertising, host calls & email links and steer closed or open groups. Marketers can also upload videos and photographs to showcase their products, services, testimonials, and expert proﬁles. The latest ‘live’ video streaming can be used for real-time product and services’ demonstrations. Facebook is a great platform to humanize a brand by engaging audience through both knowledgeable content as well as interesting information. Organizations also focus on capitalizing Facebook’s post sharing feature that can help content pieces to reach a much larger audience at very low costs.

• YouTube is the world’s most popular video sharing and hosting service that is extensively used by organizations to showcase product and service demonstrations, trainings, expert conversations, and campaigns videos. As a social media platform, YouTube is very directional. Users can watch videos and like them, but sharing can happen only by embedding video URLs in other platforms.

Hexaware’s Social Media Oﬀering to Your Rescue Hexaware’s Social Media o erings address current and future strategic and marketing requirements of our B2B customers. Listed below are key advantages brought by our powerful suite of solutions. Embed social touchpoints in customer journey stage: Whether you are a banking organization, insurance house, educational institute or travel corporation, engaging your audience with the right message at the right time can turn your prospects into customers and customers into advocates. Hexaware’s Social Media Solutions integrate social touchpoints at every stage of key-decision makers’ journey to share useful information and content, provide insights and updates, and empower them to make the right decision for themselves. This non-intrusive but pro-active strategy helps in creating lasting business relationships with your audience.

Case Example: You are a Logistics company using Hexaware’s Social Media Solution. A company wants to ship 500 boxes of hardware and starts searching for vendors. You receive 1. Social media contact details of key decision makers, groups and lists that they are a part of, along with information about their inﬂuencers. 2. Ongoing insights in their interaction with your content 3. Insights about topics that interests key decision makers to engage them on parallel conversations.

Enhance transaction types to increase volume and frequency: Using our solutions, you can transform your social media channels into transaction platforms to provide your audience an integrated and seamless experience, without making them leave their social networks.

Case Example: You are an Airline carrier using Hexaware’s Social Media solution. As the holiday season approaches, you want more travelers to book your ﬂight and existing travelers to enhance their experience. Using our solution, you can map frequent travelers to social platforms they use and enable sales and after sales services such as ticket purchase, online check-in and seat booking via their social space.

Deep dive into your audiences’ social media activity: Social media platforms are hubs of business conversations and discussions, providing organizations insights into thinking pattern of their audience, identify their choices and track opportunities. Hexaware’s Social Media solution scans social horizons to anticipate and predict new business opportunities and growth areas.

Case Example: You are a ﬁnancial lending institute using Hexaware’s Social Media solution. You are looking for credible companies to invest in. Our social media scanner identiﬁes a new crowd-funded clean energy utility startup that has generated positive social feedback, experts’ buy-in, favorable reviews and positive intent among people to associate with this brand. Your company can approach this start-up for an investment opportunity.

1 Optimize Channel Management: There are over 20 major social platforms. But not of all of them may be relevant to every business for every business objective. Using our social media solutions, you can tailor an optimum strategy using the most relevant social channels to achieve your business goals at optimized cost and e orts.

Case Example: You are a service consulting firm using Hexaware’s Social Media solution. You want to position yourself as a thought leader in the field. Our solution will identify the best social channels to leverage the right set of audience and influencers for interactions and most germane keywords for content creation.

Get a Sense of your audience’s sentiments and behaviors: As a business you would want to know what your audience thinks about your brand, products, services, business practices and people associated with you. Sentiment analysis provides businesses the ability to gauge their audiences’ opinion level with each speciﬁc online or oine activity. It serves both as an opportunity spotter and early warning radar.

Case Example: You are an educational institution using Hexaware’s Social Media solution. You are planning to establish a student exchange program with a foreign university. Our solution will analyze the sentiments of other institutions’ fraternity, alumni, and faculty to determine if their cultural values, ethos, and environment bear an acceptable positive correlation with your institution to ensure success of this program.

Identify, Acquire and Convert relevant leads: One of the closing requirements of every social media marketing activity is lead acquisition and identiﬁcation. Our social media solution identiﬁes prospects that have strongly interacted with your brand and evinced interest in associating with it. More importantly, this information is conveyed in real time, to enable your sales team to make a timely approach while chances of conversions are highest.

Hexaware can make your digital journey more fruitful Today, social media platforms have made businesses aware about changing consumer behaviors and preferences. Businesses are relying on social media to pursue strategic transactions, create brand awareness, establish thought-leadership, manage online-reputation, generate sales leads, and explore viability of new business ideas. Hexaware provides sophisticated social media solutions to enable businesses to meet their strategic vision and goals through one of the most potent technologies of our times. Hexaware can make your digital journey more fruitful

About Hexaware Hexaware is the fastest growing next-generation provider of IT, BPO and consulting services. Our focus lies on taking a leadership position in helping our clients attain customer intimacy as their competitive advantage. Our digital offerings have helped our clients achieve operational excellence and customer delight by ‘Powering Man Machine Collaboration.’ We are now on a journey of metamorphosing the experiences of our customer’s customers by leveraging our industry-leading delivery and execution model, built around the strategy— ‘Automate Everything, Cloudify Everything, Transform Customer Experiences.’

We serve customers in Banking, Financial Services, Capital Markets, Healthcare, Insurance, Manufacturing, Retail, Education, Telecom, Professional Services (Tax, Audit, Accounting and Legal), Travel, Transportation and Logistics. We deliver highly evolved services in Rapid Application prototyping, development and deployment; Build, Migrate and Run cloud solutions; Automation-based Application support; Enterprise Solutions for digitizing the back-ofﬁce; Customer Experience Transformation; Business Intelligence & Analytics; Digital Assurance (Testing); Infrastructure Management Services; and Business Process Services.

Hexaware services customers in over two dozen languages, from every major time zone and every major regulatory zone. Our goal is to be the ﬁrst IT services company in the world to have a 50% digital workforce.

NA Headquarters India Headquarters EU Headquarters APAC Headquarters Metro 101, Suite 600,101 Wood 152, Sector – 3 Level 19, 40 Bank Street, 180 Cecil Street, Avenue South, Iselin, Millennium Business Park Canary Wharf, #11-02, Bangkok Bank Building, New Jersey - 08830 ‘A’ Block, TTC Industrial Area London - E14 5NR Singapore - 069546 Tel: +001-609-409-6950 Mahape, Navi Mumbai – 400 710 Tel: +44-020-77154100 Tel: +65-63253020 Fax: +001-609-409-6910 Tel: +91-22-67919595 Fax: +44-020-77154101 Fax: +65-6222728 Fax: +91-22-67919500

Safe Harbor Statement Certain statements in this press release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Hexaware has made strategic investments, withdrawal of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry.