APEKSHA HARIHAR GURMAN BHATIA A REPORT ON THE SOCIAL MEDIA STATE OF INDIAN TELEVISION INDUSTRY THE TELEVISION INDUSTRY ON SOCIAL MEDIA HAS EMBRACED THE MARKETING CHANNEL A BIT LATE IN THE DAY. THOUGH THE SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS OF THE CHANNELS IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE TAM RATINGS, MOST OF THEM HAVE A SIMILAR STRATEGY. NONE OF THE CHANNELS IS DOING ANYTHING VIVIDLY DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER. YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT SUCCESS ON SOCIAL MEDIA DEPENDS ON THE HOW ORIGINAL THE CONTENT IS. ON TELEVISION, THOUGH EACH ONE HAS A SIMILAR SET OF TARGET AUDIENCE, YOU CAN TELL APART BY VIEWING THE SHOWS EACH ONE HAS TO OFFER. SIMILARLY, ON SOCIAL MEDIA IF YOU DO NOT ACCOMPLISH INNOVATIVE CAMPAIGNS, IT IS NOT GOING TO WORK IN YOUR ADVANTAGE. DURATION OF STUDY - 30 Day Sample for The Year 2013 1 2 COLORS CHANNEL Colors, one of the most popular television channel owned by Viacom 18 targets a Hindi speaking crowd in over 90 cities of India. The channel projects a youthful personality. Soon after its launch, the channel hit high numbers owing to popular shows like Balika Vadhu, Big Boss etc. Within the first 10 weeks of the launch, Colors enjoyed a 24% market share and reached the no. 2 spot among competitors. Today, the viewership is skyrocketing and the channel maintains a current average TRP rating of 2, highest being 2.8 of Balika Vadhu. 3 COLORS HAS AN IMPRESSIVE PRESENCE ON FACEBOOK. WITH A FAN FOLLOWING OF 1.9 MILLION, the content strategy of the channel is pleasing. The growth rate of the page draws a straight line towards the top on the charts, standing at 7.4%. The PTAT score of the page is 4.9% which is above the average industry score. A good community size and a fine growth rate has generated a curiosity within me to exploring more. 4 ENGAGEMENT Looking at the growth rate, I had assumed the page boasts of a good engagement score. And I was right. The channel has double the score of an average score in this sector. On an average each post receives 6K likes which is excellent. However, I attribute this score to the popularity of the TV shows more than the channel page on Facebook. There are precisely three reasons for this. Fans cannot post on the wall (Despite being a viewer oriented channel, it has blocked the opportunity to take any feedback or understand its audience.) The channel does not interact with fans (Not a single comment has been replied or addressed to.) 3.There are no interesting applications/custom tab (Currently, the channel was highly promoting the launch of the new show Pammi Pyarelal. It could have extended this promotion by creating a fun app but did not.) 5 CONTENT STRATEGY The content on the page can be categorized into the following heads. There is nothing unique or attractive about the content. There is no effort put into image design, infact some images lack resolution too. Overall it is a shabby presentation. The only effort for designing has been taken for the promotion of a news show Pammi Pyarelal. The posts are interesting. 6 7 Apart from this, lots of images from popular reality shows like Jhalak Dikhlaja are uploaded as a pre promotion of an episode. The channel page has regular updates of 2 posts everyday. 8 CREATIVE As mentioned above, not all images are not appealing due to being low quality. The cover photos are not innovative either. A set pattern of copy pasting images is maintained on the page. The channel should realize that images attract the users more and drive maximum engagement. If the channel puts in a little effort in design of the posts, there will be more scope for visibility. CUSTOM TABS There are no custom tabs and negligible monthly active users. It is startling that the channel has not bothered to launch any tabs even though entertainment has so much scope in custom applications. The tabs HOW THEY CAN are mainly directing users to other social media properties like Twitter, Youtube, Instagram and IMPROVE? Pinterest. Unfortunately the page also has 2 inactive tabs which it has not removed. The very first thing they should do is open up their wall for fan posting and start interacting with their fans. Also, the content and SENTIMENT design can be so much better and interesting. Somehow it depicts that the page is not being handled by professionals. Sentiment is usually analyzed on the basis of the fan posts but since Colors does not allow this, we would They can develop some great not know the sentiment on the page. However, the applications on the page which interactions through comments suggest that it is a are viral by nature. This is happy world for obvious reasons that they love the will enhance their Facebook television shows. marketing and get the fans more engaged. 9 @ColorsTV the Twitter handle of the channel has a huge community size of a little less than 1 lakh, 99K+ followers. The follower growth has been excellent in the last 3 months where they acquired 42K+ followers. This growth rate is brilliant at 75% and showcases the importance the channel is showering on this micro-blogging platform. On an average, 30 tweets are sent out on a daily basis. 10 # ENGAGEMENT Colors has acknowledged most tweets by users and replied to them within 15 minutes on an average. This is a great ART for customer service. A total of 992 mentions and 900 retweets bought the channel a huge fan following on Twitter. An interesting takeaway from the charts shows that the most number of tweets are sent out between 9-12 pm which is the prime slot for shows. The hash-tag and twitter handle of Colors is flashed during this time while the show is on, encouraging people to participate in discussions. The concept of a second screen is supported very well by the channel. # CONTENT STRATEGY The channel is engaging very well with its followers through chats and QnA sessions. Recently, it completed 5 years and celebrated this by bringing lead actors of various shows to answer questions using the hash-tag #Colorsturns5 calling it Twinterview. 11 A similar QnA session was done with Akshay Kumar during the screening of Special26 in June with the hash-tag #Special26onColors. This is a good strategy since followers love to chat and interact with celebs connected to their television shows and premiers. 3 Hash-tags were created by Colors during 3 months namely #Jhalak, #ComedyNightsWithKapil and #IndianTellyAwards. These have received good interaction levels. Though each show has its own Twitter handles, Colors cross promotes most of them. The content strategy is to promote interaction for latest shows that have just begun or are going to begin. # HOW THEY CAN # SENTIMENT IMPROVE? Positive sentiment is all over the account. A very small number of negative updates are present. Entertainment is about feeling They can share candid pictures of good and people are attached emotionally stars since this is viral in nature. to television shows. No doubt most GEC Also, fun trivia on stars would be an accounts should have positive sentiment. interesting read for followers. Apart from this, Colors is doing a great job on Twitter. 12 On Youtube, the channel named ColorsTV has 1.7 million views and over 3 lakh subscribers. There are more than 18K videos uploaded by Colors. The video view growth is over 2.9% which is more than the average growth rate in this sector. These figures are quite normal for a television channel since a lot of people enjoy watching repeat telecasts, behind the scenes and follow other activities the channel has to offer. 13 CONTENT The quality of the videos is good since it is a replication of the same episodes shown on TV. However, a campaign is being run on the Youtube channel called Step of the Week. The viewer has to learn the step shown through the video and upload their video on the channel website. The chosen winner will be gratified with an ipad or a chance to meet Madhuri Dixit who is judging their famous show Jhalak Dikhlaja. However, with over 1.7 million subscribers the views received on the video are negligible. 14 The good thing is the channel interacts and takes part in community discussions. Asking questions and taking feedback about the shows is appreciated. SCOPE FOR IMPROVEMENT There are lots of interesting videos that a television channel can upload ranging from star interviews, behind the scene activities and special previews for subscribers. These videos can further be promoted through Facebook and Twitter. Currently, no tags are being used to enhance the promotion of the videos. Tagging helps in search results. 15 The Pinterest community is very small as compared to other social networking sites. There are only 185 followers. Even though the growth rate of the channel is 14%, it has become stagnant from the month of July. Colors started Pinterest activities only in June 2013 so it is yet to utilize the platform fully. Brands are yet to make their mark on Pinterest and realize the importance of this platform. 16 CONTENT The channel has 18 boards and 194 pins. The pins could have been more interesting with unique board names and unique images. However, the boards are about different events that the channel has under its brand name. Some boards are also featuring unique photo shoots of stars. This does not come across as original or exciting. There are no images that were not seen in any other platform before.