Social Media Strategy for Tata Docomo

Summer Internship Project Report
On
DEVISING A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY FOR
TATA DOCOMO
By
AAKRITI AGARWAL
BMS Class of 2016
(13004)
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Award of the Degree in
Bachelor of Management Studies
(2015)
SHAHEED SUKHDEV COLLEGE OF BUSINESS STUDIES
(University of Delhi)
VIVEK VIHAR

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DECLARATION
I, the undersigned, Aakriti Agarwal, declare that this Internship Report,
pertaining to my summer internship at Tata Docomo presented herewith is completely
based on my job duties and is authentic to the best of my knowledge. The same may
be confirmed with my mentor as and when required.
AAKRITI AGARWAL

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to my mentors Mr. Sumeet Pahwa,
Head- Consumer Insights and Mr. Praveen Gupta, Head- Digital Media, Tata
Teleservices. Without their constant, untiring & unfailing support and guidance, I
would not have been able to learn so much from this internship experience.
My deepest thanks to my colleagues without whose continuous support and
encouragement, I would have not made the most out of this internship. I would also
like to express my gratitude towards the Placement Officer, Shaheed Sukhdev College
of Business Studies, Ms. Manika Kaushik , for her guidance and support. I would
also like to thank my college, family and well-wishers without whom the internship
would have been a distant reality.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION..................................................................................1
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY.....................................................................................1
CONTEXT OF THE STUDY....................................................................................1
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY...........................................................................2
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .............................................................................2
Why Brand Presence on Social Media Matters?.................................................2
Why Engagement is the Most Important Metric?...............................................3
DEFINITIONS...........................................................................................................5
SUMMARY ...............................................................................................................6
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE.................................................................7
What is Organic Reach?......................................................................................7
Why has Organic Reach taken a dip? .................................................................7
What Can You Do To Improve Your Organic Reach?.......................................8
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES ................................10
RESEARCH DESIGN .............................................................................................10
RESEARCH QUESTIONS......................................................................................11
LIMITATIONS........................................................................................................11
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS.................................................12
REVIEW OF METHODOLOGY ............................................................................12
CASE STUDIES ......................................................................................................12
CASE STUDY I- TESCO ....................................................................................12
Keep it Casual...................................................................................................13
Share Your Success...........................................................................................13
Explore Different Emotions..............................................................................14
Short Term Gains May Not Give Long Term Benefits ....................................14
Takeaways.........................................................................................................15
CASE STUDY II- MTN - More Than a Network................................................15
Providing Security ............................................................................................16
Creating a full range of services .......................................................................16
Complementing Social Media Campaign with Offline Campaign - Callerfeel 16
Who says you can run only one campaign at a time?.......................................18
A Whole New World of Metrics.......................................................................20

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CASE STUDY III- OOREDOO...........................................................................26
Bringing Self-Order to Facebook......................................................................26
Facebook Reviews ............................................................................................27
Cross Platform Integration................................................................................27
Loyalty Program ...............................................................................................29
Going to great lengths to Pamper the Loyal Customers ...................................30
Takeaways for Tata Docomo............................................................................30
CASE STUDY IV- VODAFONE ........................................................................30
A Host of Services ............................................................................................30
Driving Recharge through Facebook................................................................32
Takeaway..........................................................................................................32
CASE STUDY V- MAXIS...................................................................................32
Share Useful Links............................................................................................32
Collaborate & Crowdsource- Waze Safe Drive................................................35
Why This Campaign Went Viral ......................................................................36
Takeaways for Tata Docomo............................................................................36
CASE STUDY VI- SINGTEL .............................................................................36
Experiment with different posts........................................................................36
Competitions.....................................................................................................37
Weave a story using videos...............................................................................38
Create an identity for your brand, not just your product...................................39
Keep it Topical..................................................................................................40
CASE STUDY VII- COCA COLA......................................................................41
Crowd-Sourced Content....................................................................................41
Direct Engagement............................................................................................42
Influencer Involvement....................................................................................42
Takeaways.........................................................................................................42
CASE STUDY VIII- STARBUCKS....................................................................43
Why this is a wonderful idea. ...........................................................................43
Quid Pro Quo....................................................................................................45
From Brand-Centric to Follower-Centric .........................................................45
FINDINGS ...............................................................................................................46
REVOLUTIONISING FAQS AND SELF CARE...............................................46

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Where to Start ...................................................................................................46
Understanding Concerns...................................................................................46
Dynamic FAQ...................................................................................................47
Go the Extra Mile..............................................................................................47
Self Help Portal.................................................................................................47
Bridging into Social..........................................................................................47
Benefits:............................................................................................................48
THREE TRENDS THAT WILL RULE 2015-16 ................................................48
Story Telling is the Next Big Thing..................................................................48
Social stars will shine brighter..........................................................................48
Content distribution will be signal-driven ........................................................48
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN POSTING ..............................................49
Be Relatable......................................................................................................49
Aim For Virality ...............................................................................................50
Timeliness Matters............................................................................................51
It’s A Two Way Street ......................................................................................52
GET INTO THE CONSUMER’S SHOES...........................................................52
RESULTS OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS .............................................................53
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ...................................................................................53
When Setting Up the Page................................................................................53
When Looking for Content to Post...................................................................54
When posting ....................................................................................................54
When Replying to People .................................................................................55
Bonus Tips ........................................................................................................55
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS...............................56
DISCUSSION OF RESEARCH QUESTION .........................................................56
RECOMMENDATIONS .........................................................................................56
LIMITATIONS........................................................................................................57
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE ........................................................................57
IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ......................................................58
CHAPTER 6: REFERENCE MATERIAL..................................................................59
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................59

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LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 2-1: TRENDS IN ORGANIC REACH.......................................................................7
FIGURE 2-2: ORGANIC REACH VS FACEBOOK STOCK PRICE ...........................................8
FIGURE 2-3: ORGANIC REACH: PEAK VS NON-PEAK HOURS...........................................9
FIGURE 4-1: TESCO- KEEP IT CASUAL...........................................................................13
FIGURE 4-2: TESCO- SHARING THE BIG MOMENTS .......................................................13
FIGURE 4-3:TESCO-THE GOOD OLD PAPERCLIP ...........................................................14
FIGURE 4-4: TESCO- FAN OVERVIEW............................................................................14
FIGURE 4-5: TESCO-PROMOTING S6 ..........................................................................15
FIGURE 4-7: MTN- CALLERFEEL STATUS ....................................................................16
FIGURE 4-8: MTN- CALLERFEEL OFFLINE ...................................................................17
FIGURE 4-9: MTN- FAN OVERVIEW..............................................................................17
FIGURE 4-10: MTN- CALLERFEEL COMPETITION.........................................................18
FIGURE 4-11: MTN- SOCIAL CAMPAIGN ............................................................................ 19
FIGURE 4-13: MTN-ONLINE COMPETITION........................................................................ 19
FIGURE 4-15: MTN- FAN OVERVIEW............................................................................20
FIGURE 4-16: MTN- FANS BY COUNTRY ......................................................................21
FIGURE 4-17: MTN- FAN GROWTH...............................................................................21
FIGURE 4-18: MTN- KPIS ............................................................................................21
FIGURE 4-19: MTN-POSTING HISTORY ........................................................................22
FIGURE 4-20: MTN- BEST & WORST POSTS.................................................................22
FIGURE 4-21: MTN- COMPLETE POST LIST ..................................................................23
FIGURE 4-22:MTN-KEYWORDS....................................................................................23
FIGURE 4-23: MTN- HASHTAGS AND SOURCE..............................................................24
FIGURE 4-24: MTN- LENGTH OF POSTS........................................................................24
FIGURE 4-25: MTN- POSTING METRICS .......................................................................25
FIGURE 4-26: MTN- ENGAGEMENT METRICS...............................................................25
FIGURE 4-27: OOREDOO- MUSIC APP IN FACEBOOK.....................................................26
FIGURE 4-28: OOREDOO- UTILISING LESSER KNOWN FEATURES..................................27
FIGURE 4-29: OOREDOO- YOUTUBE ................................................................................. 28
FIGURE 4-31: OOREDOO-TWITTER INTEGRATION IN FACEBOOK ...................................28
FIGURE 4-32: OOREDOO: CROSS PLATFORM INTEGRATION AND REVIEW FEATURES ...29
FIGURE 4-33: VODAFONE- A HOST OF SERVICES FOR PRODUCT DEPTH .......................31
FIGURE 4-34: VODAFONE: FACEBOOK FOR RECHARGE.................................................32
FIGURE 4-35: MAXIS- SHARED CONTENT .....................................................................33
FIGURE 4-36: PROMOTING YOUR MOBILE NETWORK SUBTLY .....................................34
FIGURE 4-37: MAXIS WAZE CROWDSOURCED CONTENT..............................................35
FIGURE 4-38: MAXIS: WAZE VIDEO..............................................................................35
FIGURE 4-39: SINGTEL- LIFEHACKS..............................................................................36
FIGURE 4-40: SINGTEL- MOBILE WALLET ....................................................................37
FIGURE 4-41: SINGTEL- STORIES THAT MOVE YOU......................................................38
FIGURE 4-42: SINTEL- CARVING A BRAND IMAGE ........................................................39

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FIGURE 4-43: SINGTEL- CASHING IN ON EVENTS ..........................................................40
FIGURE 4-44: SINGTEL- INTERACTION RATE CHART.....................................................41
FIGURE 4-45:COCA COLA- DIRECT ENGAGEMENT........................................................42
FIGURE 4-46: COCA COLA UNLEASHING INFLUENCER POWER .....................................42
FIGURE 4-47: STARBUCKS CROWDSOURCED IDEAS ......................................................43
FIGURE 4-48:STARBUCKS- LET PEOPLE KNOW THEY’RE BEING HEARD ......................44
FIGURE 4-49: STARBUCKS-GAMIFY IT!.........................................................................44
FIGURE 4-50: STRIKE A CHORD.....................................................................................49
FIGURE 4-51: BE RELATABLE .......................................................................................49
FIGURE 4-52: BE VIRAL................................................................................................50
FIGURE 4-53: TOI- CASHING ON VIRALITY ..................................................................50
FIGURE 4-54: STAY UPDATED.......................................................................................51
FIGURE 4-55: STAY ABREAST WITH TRENDS ................................................................52

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AAKRITI AGARWAL
DEVISING A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY FOR TATA DOCOMO
ABSTRACT
The project is aimed at exploring strategies to strengthen Tata Docomo's brand
connect with its consumers using Social Media. For this, social media profiles of
Telecom giants and youth-centric brands have studied to come up with a Social Media
Strategy for Tata Docomo. The main sources of information have been influencers
and blogs like Adweek and Social Media Examiner. Social Media Analytics tools
such as Quintly, FanpageKarma and SocialBakers have been used to gain deeper
insights into the performance of the brands under study. The power of engagement
cannot be understated as a means of strengthening relationships and trust in a brand,
and social media is the best platform to facilitate this. Therefore the focus of this
study is to generate engaging content, build a brand connect, as well as possibly even
look at converting the brand connect into leads, thereby increasing sales.
Top brands receive high leverage from social media marketing and internet
companies are getting highly interested on how they pull it off. By social media
marketing, a brand or business is able to build its popularity by increasing its website
presence and growing the number of its followers using the social media. The study is
not only of importance to Tata Docomo, but also to any other company wishing to
structure its social media strategy, with a special focus on engagement. The ideas,
tips, and strategies in general would prove immensely beneficial if applied to any
vertical, industry or brand.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
As on April 2015, Tata Docomo ranks first in terms of number of Facebook
fans as compared to other Telecom providers. Aircel India comes in a distant second,
clinching 4 million less fans than Tata Docomo. However when it comes to
engagement rate Tata Docomo fares rather low.
The project is essentially aimed at exploring and suggesting short term as well
as long term strategies aimed at strengthening Tata Docomo's brand connect with its
existing and prospective consumers with the help of Social Networking platforms. In
order to achieve this, the best practises followed by other Telecom giants as well as
other major brands that cater to the youth, need to be observed, analysed and adapted
to in Tata Docomo’s context. The end goal is to devise a Social Media Strategy for
Tata Docomo focusing on steps to generate engaging content, build a brand connect,
as well as possibly even look at converting the brand connect into leads, thereby
increasing sales.
CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
In today’s time, the 4 Ps or even the 7 Ps alone aren’t enough. Today, a brand
needs to be accepted, sought after. The audience needs to know who the brand and
what it stands for. And with more and more people active on social media, getting
their news, their updates, participating in more and more of their daily interactions
online, this is where brands need to be to connect with them. NM Incite’s “State of
Social Customer Service Report” claims that 71% of consumers who experience a
quick and effective brand response on social media are more likely to recommend that
brand to others.
The power of engagement cannot be understated as a means of strengthening
relationships and trust in a brand, and social media is the best platform to facilitate
this. It's immediate, it's accessible - it's where the audience is already at.

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This is why content is crucial in social media. This is why engagement is
crucial. It’s a brand’s way into their customers’ world.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study is not only of importance to Tata Docomo, but also to any other
company wishing to structure its social media strategy, with a special focus on
engagement. The ideas, tips, and strategies in general would prove immensely
beneficial if applied to any vertical, industry or brand.
Given most of the examples used are those of Telecommunication brands, this
report is of special significance for other Telcos looking to revamp its social media
presence.
Lastly, this report can also be used by marketing students, or people interested
in social media marketing to understand certain nuances of social media marketing,
such as organic reach, EdgeRank, et al, in addition to having a case studies of various
Telcos and youth-targeted brands.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Why Brand Presence on Social Media Matters?
Top brands receive high leverage from social media marketing and internet
companies are getting highly interested on how they pull it off. By social media
marketing, a brand or business is able to build its popularity by increasing its website
presence and growing the number of its followers using the social media. There are
many marketing tricks employed by many businesses in order to increase their
website traffic and ranking by using the social media influence.
Whether you want to sell products, gain subscribers, persuade followers to a
point or sway the hearts and minds of readers to your cause, they’ve got to know who
you are in the first place.
Your ability to encourage any of these actions comes from your brand’s
authority -- and one of the best ways to build that is through the savvy use of social

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media. In fact, recent research from Econsultancy shows that 71 percent of brands
plan to invest more heavily in social media in the coming year to reach new followers
and build brand reputation.
Social media sites are revolutionizing their own platforms to make it more
suited for social marketing campaigns. Facebook has billions of users each day,
making it a viable channel in promoting your brand. It also offers paid advertising
services that allow you to track down specific audience to reach for your brand
marketing campaign. Twitter offers a platform where you can promote a strong brand
presence in the social media community. It helps your brand to interact with humans
through commenting and promoting trending topics. Companies leverage on Twitter
in responding to their customers in a timely manner while featuring the latest news
and headlines about an upcoming event and product releases that keep their followers
engaged with their brands. Other social media platforms are LinkedIn, that helps you
promote your company profile and to display ads, Pinterest for image engagement and
YouTube for video marketing campaigns.
Social marketing is a continuous process. You never stop after launching your
campaign to social media channels. It is important to monitor how social media users
response to your brand marketing strategy and obtain feedback to improve your
marketing campaigns better.
Why Engagement is the Most Important Metric?
The “social” in Social Media means engagement or active participation in
mutual interaction between you and other users belonging to the same social media
sphere where you’re operating from. From a Digital Marketing point of
view, Forrester probably provides one of the best definitions for it as follows,
“Engagement is the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence an
individual has with a brand over time.”
For in using social media as a digital marketing tool to connect your brand,
product or service with your targeted customer, engagement is an essential thing.
Social media engagement is a most effective way of developing interaction and
affinity between a brand and its customer. If social media engagement is prolonged or

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has become a regular avenue for interaction, brand loyalty and even championing may
ensue.
Digital marketers should come to realize that Social Media Marketing all boils
down to the basics of why social media networks were created in the first place – to
provide a platform where people can interact with other people. These people are
brought together through a particular point of engagement which is usually a
published content in the form of a picture, video, or article. These are the main
reasons why social networks like Facebook are very popular among online users – 1.2
billion monthly active users in fact.
How you interact with your targeted audience is at the heart of social media
engagement. The higher the frequency and quality of these interactions will not only
develop a better relationship between brand and consumer, but will also get you
higher visibility on search results as will be explained later. The key principle to
remember here is that social media engagement is interaction, and interaction signifies
a two-way communication – a fact traditional advertising is not capable of.
Now, advertisers have to create more innovative, entertaining and thought-
provoking advertisements just to capture consumers’ attention. People like stories,
and would expect the same quality of storytelling even with advertisements. That’s
why the quality of content you use for digital marketing is critical to the success of
your social media marketing. It is through your content where interaction and social
media engagement with your targeted audiences will take place.

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DEFINITIONS
 Social Media: Computer-mediated tools that allow people to create, share or
exchange information, ideas, pictures, and videos in virtual
communities and networks. Eg. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest.
 Newsfeed: A service by which news is provided on a regular or continuous
basis for onward distribution or broadcasting. On social networking sites,
a News Feed is a list of updates the home page about Friends, Pages as well as
advertisements.
 Reach: The potential audience for a message based on total follower count.
Facebook computes it as the number of people who saw your post.
 Organic Reach: the total number of unique people who were shown a page’s
post through unpaid distribution
 Paid Reach: the total number of unique people who were shown your post as
a result of ads.
 Engagement: How much and how often others interact with a page/profile
and its content in social media through likes shares comments retweets and
replies.
 EdgeRank: The name commonly given to the algorithm that Facebook uses to
determine what articles should be displayed in a user's News Feed.
 Content Crowdsourcing: Process of obtaining ideas, or content by soliciting
contributions from a large group of people, especially from an online
community,
 Influencers: Popular people on Social Networks with large fan following and
the ability to move their followers.
 Social Media Analytics Tools: Web based tools that gather data from blogs
and social media websites and analyse it to provide various metrics that can be
used to make business decisions.

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SUMMARY
Tata Docomo ranks first in terms of number of Facebook fans as compared to
other Telecom providers. Airtel has much lesser fans, but Tata Docomo’s engagement
is lower. Consumers who experience a quick and effective brand response on social
media are more likely to recommend that brand to others. This is why content and
engagement is crucial in social media. It’s a brand’s way into their customers’ world.
The project aims at exploring and suggesting strategies aimed at strengthening Tata
Docomo's brand connect and engagement with consumers with the help of Social
Networking platforms. Best practises followed by Telecom giants as well as other
youth-centric brands have been understood for this purpose. The study is therefore of
importance to any company wishing to structure its social media strategy, with a
special focus on engagement.

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CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
This report is largely based on Social Media, and not many authentic or
popular Journal articles are published on this topic. Therefore, the “literature” for the
scope of this project can be inferred to mean Blog posts from popular influencers in
the space of Social Media Marketing. Some blogs referred for this project are Social
Media Examiner, Jon Loomer, Hootsuite, Social Bakers, etc.
What is Organic Reach?
Organic reach refers to how many people you can reach for free on Facebook
by posting to your Page. The conventional wisdom about Facebook pages is that
organic reach is virtually nonexistent and posts with photos perform the best, but a
study by social analytics and reporting firm Locowise poked holes in those theories.
These were its findings.
Figure 2-1: Trends in Organic Reach
Why has Organic Reach taken a dip?
● With more than 18 million businesses competing for space Facebook has
taken to limiting the number of posts than make it to the News Feed.
● Facebook is a business, and its revenue is largely generated by selling ads to
brands for increased reach.

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`
Figure 2-2: Organic Reach vs Facebook Stock Price
This chart from ConvinceandConvert shows Facebook’s declining organic
reach (according to a widely cited study from Social@Ogilvy) charted against
Facebook’s stock price during the same period. As organic reach dropped from
approximately 12% to 6% (and now often at 1%), Facebook’s stock price moved from
nearly $50 to nearly $70, adding billions of dollars in market capitalization.
What Can You Do To Improve Your Organic Reach?
An important thing to note is videos — which only a few months ago didn’t
get much reach — have received an algorithmic bump since Facebook started
focusing on video. Creating video content is now worth your consideration. If you
already have videos, it is worth uploading videos from your YouTube channel directly
onto Facebook, too.
Another interesting update by Facebook is that now all video posts start
playing automatically in your newsfeed, albeit on silent. How can you cash on it?
Create videos that grab eyeballs, use text in the video to tell the story initially, such
that it interests the user enough that he puts the video out of silent mode and watches
it completely.
Just a year ago Facebook was encouraging the use of imagery but now it seems
frivolous. Perhaps this is because timelines are saturated with imagery, so maybe link
posts cut through the noise.

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However, Jon Loomer argues, merely relying on algorithmic information to
design posts wouldn’t work out well in the long run. One’s content should seem to
flow naturally, only then will the customer click the share button. When posting, the
marketer should have his objectives clear:
 If you are sharing a blog post, you should be focused on getting the most
website clicks possible.
 If you are sharing a photo, you should be focused on getting as much
engagement as possible.
 If you are sharing a text update, you should be focused on getting as many
comments as possible.
 If you are sharing a video, you should be focused primarily on getting as
many video views as possible, with website clicks sometimes being a
secondary metric (when call-to-action button is used).
‘There are up to 100,000 factors influence whether your posts make it to the
newsfeed. Photos and videos receive more interaction, but if your content is reported
as spam, your post rating decreases. Similarly, user interaction with ads also plays
into the algorithm. High reach does not guarantee that any of these things will be
good. Low reach does not guarantee they will be bad.
Jon Loomer conducted
a study where they
tried to ascertain
whether posts within
peak hours and non-
peak hours get similar
response, and if not
which is better.
However, Janetfouts argues, reach isn’t everything; it’s the real engagement that
counts, and that the declining organic reach of page posts on Facebook presents
agencies and brands with new opportunities elsewhere. The proper response to
these changes, according to both analysts and marketers, is to develop a wider
social media strategy.
Figure 2-3: Organic Reach: Peak vs Non-Peak Hours

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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES
RESEARCH DESIGN
This study is descriptive in nature, and has a flexible research design focussing
on case studies. No primary research has been undertaken for the same.
In order to devise a successful social media strategy for Tata Docomo, the first
step was to identify the top communities and brands in India as well as worldwide,
especially in the Telecom sector. This identification of the top brands was done using
reputed Social Media Blogs and Aggregators, primarily SocialBakers.
Top posts (in terms of number of likes, comments and shares, and the type of
comments) were identified using trial versions of Social Media Analytics tools such
as Quintly and FanpageKarma. Each metric and feature of the available tools has been
explored in depth to provide suggestions as how to best utilise them in order to best
quantify the results of the brands’ social media activity as well as infer what each
metric means.
The pages' popular posts, marketing campaigns, organic reach, likes etc were
analysed to understand the essentials of a post that help in building a connect between
the brand and the audience, especially in context of the youth. The social networks
under consideration were primarily, Facebook and Twitter, although some examples
have been taken from other networks as well.
The posts have been analysed primarily on the basis of four aspects, namely:
the core message, the objective, the packaging of the tweet/post and whether any
special feature of the platform has been leveraged to boost engagement or virality.
Various case studies have been taken up to understand what makes content
engaging and makes it go viral, in order to help Tata Docomo adapt content according
to its target base and replicate the same success. The study also looks at strategies that
can enable self-service, self-order, and self-support for consumers.
The outcome of the project is a checklist for Tata Docomo including steps to
generate engaging content, build a brand connect, as well as possibly even look at
converting the brand connect into leads, thereby increasing sales. Given that there are

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increasingly more and more metrics available today, this study will also look at some
of the useful metrics offered by various Social Media Analytic websites and tools and
show their usability, for the metrics are worthless unless the marketer understands
what to do with them.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What are the top telecom brands on social networks that cater to the youth, and
why are they popular?
2. What is organic reach on social media?
3. How does Facebook's EdgeRank work?
4. What are the parameters on which a post/tweet can be judged to ascertain
engagement or virality?
5. What are the objectives of a brand when using social media, and how can it
accomplish each?
6. How can a brand increase its social connect and engagement with its followers
on social media?
7. What are the free/paid metrics available to enable brands to better understand
their social media usage?
8. Can there be a universal winning formula for success that a brand can use as
its social media strategy?
LIMITATIONS
Although many free and demo Social Media Analytics tools have been used
exhaustively for different cases, due to restrictions on total number of profiles that can
be analysed in each tool, not all cases could be studied in the same depth. A full-
fledged Premium account of an Analytic tool could've yielded a better analysis.
Even for the trial versions, many Key Metrics are blocked out because of
inability to gain administer access to the pages and profiles under analysis. However,
when a brand is reviewing its own page it would have more in depth data and metrics
to consider.

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CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
REVIEW OF METHODOLOGY
Facebook and Twitter pages of brands studied were visited and their best
performing posts were collected by taking screenshots. Various Social Media
Analytics tools like SocialBakers, FanpageKarma and Quintly were also used to
arrive at some interesting posts and insights.
However, not all case studies could be analysed on an equal footing due to a
limited number of profiles that could be assessed using one tool, because of the
free/trial version terms and conditions. The posts have been analysed primarily on the
basis of four aspects, namely: the core message, the objective, the packaging of the
tweet/post and whether any special feature of the platform has been leveraged to boost
engagement or virality.
CASE STUDIES
CASE STUDY I- TESCO
Tesco, a UK mobile network provider’s Facebook page has a fair mix of photo
posts, questions, promotions as well as shared content from third party websites and
blogs relating to apps, phone functionality, and all things mobile. What really stands
out is how active its social media team is in responding to its consumers’ comments,
be it thanking them for praises, addressing their concerns or coming up with witty one
liners to strike up conversations.

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Keep it Casual
One thing to be
noted is, Tesco’s
replies to the
comments posted by
users aren’t generic
formal ones. You
can feel the human
contact- the
nonchalance and
engagement of a
real conversation.
Share Your Success
One of their top posts is
about them being rated
the number 1 telecom
provider in UK.
Sharing their success
like this on Facebook
reassures the consumers
that they made the right
choice. The post also has
many shares, perhaps by
proud employees or users of Tesco. Tesco made sure to reply to all comments on the
post, making people feel involved in their success.
Figure 4-1: Tesco- Keep it Casual
Figure 4-2: Tesco- Sharing the Big Moments

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Explore Different Emotions
Nostalgia too seems to
work remarkably well
with the audience. Tata
Docomo could learn
from this and share
images of the retro
phones, ask people
what their first phone
was.
Another thing that may work well could be sharing a sneak peek of behind the
scenes. Images of workplace, how work is done, what its office culture looks like.
This could help in giving a human face to the brand, as well as, strengthening brand
connect.
Short Term Gains May Not Give Long Term Benefits
A quick overview of 6 month fan activity shows consistently rising page likes,
with a significant peak between February and March.
Figure 4-4: Tesco- Fan Overview
Figure 4-3:Tesco-The Good Old Paperclip

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The peak could be due to Tesco promoting Samsung S6 Edge aggressively and
even using a Double Data pack to lure new customers. However the effect of the
promotions seems to be short lived.
Figure 4-5: Tesco-Promoting S6 Figure 4-6: Tesco- Double Data on S6
Takeaways
 Ensure a stable mix of promotional and content based posts. Excessive promotion
leads to short term gains only.
 Questions are a good way to start conversations. However you need to give non-
generic replies to ensure genuine engagement.
 Nostalgia when done right can help build a strong brand connect.
 Share your success with your audience. Make them a part of it.
CASE STUDY II- MTN - More Than a Network
MTN has taken its services a step ahead by offering added services like
Mobile Insurance, Health Insurance, Self-Care app, and even a whole new service it
calls CallerFeel. One glimpse at its Facebook page and you can see there’s hardly any
period in which it isn’t running one campaign or the other, in fact, at times running
two or more campaigns simultaneously.

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Providing Security
Y’ello Health Insurance Scheme - MTN partnered with a health insurance
provider to offer an all-inclusive mobile health insurance scheme which allows
subscribers to gain access to pre-defined treatments and also the freedom to choose
their own Health Maintenance organisation, and healthcare provider from over 6000
registered partners across Nigeria. Through the scheme, subscribers will have access
to unlimited hospital visits with a weekly deduction of N250 (Rs. 80) only.
Apart from this MTN has another Insurance plan that offers cover for
subscribers’ phone, sim cards, laptop or modem. They even have the facility to loan
handsets while the customer’s damaged phone is in for repair.
Creating a full range of services
Although many third party apps exist for various facilities like sending one’s
location to their relatives, getting doctors’ advice, sending money through mobile,
setting up parental control, getting directions, booking tickets to concerts or movies,
emergency mobile panic button, providing cloud storage services etc; MTN has gone
a step forward by providing all of these facilities via SMS, USSD or internet.
Complementing Social Media Campaign with Offline Campaign - Callerfeel
MTN launched CallerFeel, a subtle way for to
advertise one’s products, tell people about their
projects or simply share a personal update. A
person can put up a CallerFeel status, and when
someone would call them, they would see that
status on their screens. It’s like a text based
personalised caller tune.
Figure 4-7: MTN- CallerFeel
Status

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Why should outdoor
advertising be restricted
to Billboards only?
Here’s a much more
engaging way of offline
advertising.
This helped in
popularising the product
even before it was
launched.
Notice how people have
uploaded pictures of the
sandwich-men in the
comments section.
The campaign
also
helped
increase
the
number
of likes
on its
Facebook
page
Figure 4-9: MTN- CallerFeel Offline
Figure 4-8: MTN- Fan Overview

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Another way to
engage customers was
to make them come up
with a witty Callerfeel
status. This could’ve
triggered a user cycle.
Most of the
participants for the
competition would
actually update those
witty one liners as
their status. Therefore
when people would
call them they would
see that status.
Striking them as the
fascinating new idea
that it is, they too
would be inclined to
try out the CallerFeel
service.
Who says you can run only one campaign at a time?
The fact that MTN is able to come up with such varied content for its post
ensures it engages a wide spectrum of audience. It is no wonder then that its Fan base
is increasing at such a fast pace every day.
Figure 4-10: MTN- CallerFeel Competition

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Fig 4-11: MTN- Social Campaign Fig 4-12: MTN- Offline Competition
Fig 4-13: MTN-Online Competition Fig 4-14: MTN-Inspiration

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A Whole New World of Metrics
Here, various tools have been explored
This simple metric which shows the Fan/Follower graph for Last Week, Last 2
Weeks, Last Month, Last 3 Months, and Last 6 Months, for free at SocialBakers,
could be put to great use.
Fan Overview
Figure 4-15: MTN- Fan Overview
Not only can one look at how their own fan following was built and what
caused the peaks, but also that of competitors. The peaks stand out prominently and
then page activity for the same period can be viewed to ascertain what caused the
peak.
Fan Distribution by Country
This feature by SocialBakers lets one know where the brand is largely based,
making it easier to spot other related communities catering to similar geographies to
partner up with.

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Figure 4-16: MTN- Fans by Country
Also this helps in identifying whether likes have been bought by the page,
thereby dampening its credibility a little. Many a times some brands based in Western
regions have a major chunk of their likes coming from Asian countries, this could be a
potential red flag, and an indicator of bought likes. A company therefore needs to be
careful when buying likes as well, because people are getting increasingly tech-savvy
and are getting better at spotting flukes and attempts at faking popularity every day.
Fan Growth by day week and month
Figure 4-17: MTN- Fan Growth
This acts as a quick metric to see the overall performance of a brand.
Consistently increasing likes are a good indicator that the brand is performing well on
Social Media.
Key performance Indicators
Figure 4-18: MTN- KPIs
This table by FanpageKarma gives figures like Ad Value, posts per day,
engagement, post interaction, etc in addition to information that we’ve already seen

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before. Ad value means the money that would have to be spent had the page wanted to
reach the same engagement that it has now, via paid channels.
Post History
This graph by FanpageKarma helps in understand which types of posts are
generating the best type of response for your page. Each colour represents a different
type of post. The paid version allows one to plot many other metrics other than “Total
Reactions” for different post types.
Figure 4-19: MTN-Posting History
Best and Worst Posts
This feature lets the brand view its top 5 or 10 or 20 weakest and Strongest
posts in terms of Reaction.
Figure 4-20: MTN- Best & Worst Posts
This feature can be particularly useful to see which type of content works best
with your audience. Conversely, you can also access which content your audience
isn’t that interested in. Here too, sorting can be done in other terms than “Total

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Reactions”, where Total Reactions refers to a sum of likes, comments and shares on
that post.
Filtered List of Posts
This features by FanpageKarma a complete post list sortable by number of
likes, comments, shares, and date and can be used for similar purposes as above, but is
more interactive and detailed. The free version only lets one view posts for the past
month, however in the paid version there’s no upper limit on the time period that can
be selected.
Figure 4-21: MTN- Complete Post List
Most frequenty used Keywords, Hashtags and Sources
Figure 4-22:MTN-Keywords
This feature indicates which topics and phases appear most often. The bigger the
words the more often they’re used and the colour indicates how engaging the words
are.

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Figure 4-23: MTN- Hashtags and Source
This feature extends to Hashtags and Sources as well. The hashtags feature is
particularly useful for Twitter. Though the text isn’t entirely clear here, we can see
that although the hashtags that were only about MTN’s new products and campaigns,
such as MTNCallerFeel, MTNPulse, MTNProjectFame8, were used often by MTN,
they failed to generate much engagement. This could probably be because it just
doesn’t feel natural to type out a brand’s name and include it in your status update,
unless the brand is viewed as the it-thing or is a premium brand that is indicative of
luxury.
However, other hashtags which feel natural, like ThrowbackThursday,
JoinTheMovement, WomanCrushWednesday, fared much better in comparison. Even
MTNFootball fared pretty well despite not being used much by MTN (indicated by its
small size), yet it was about something people are very passionate and opinionated
about and hence its success.
Length of Post vs Success Rate
Figure 4-24: MTN- Length of Posts

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This is a very important feature. The reactions are on the Y axis and the
Number of characters on the X axis, where different post types are indicated by
different colours. Although here we don’t see a definitive pattern but in some cases
we may get interesting patterns that could give us a deeper insight and help decide the
range that gets the most engagement.
Posts per day & Posting frequency
Figure 4-25: MTN- Posting Metrics
This metric by FanpageKarma can show you your own posting frequency for
each day of your week as well as how frequently you’re posting to your page daily.
FanpageKarma issues a friendly warning saying that posting too often may annoy
your fans, a point that many forget in the world of marketing where quantity is often
used to make up for quality, in the name of ‘creating recall value’. FanpageKarma
goes a step further and tells that “MTN prefers to post on Thursdays but is more
successful on another day.”
Engagement per daytime
Figure 4-26: MTN- Engagement Metrics
This neat graph indicates engagement per daytime for different days of the
week. This helps the brand know which time slot works best for posts. An added

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advantage of this feature is, that there is an option to adjust the time zones and
grouped hours, enabling a more precise or generalised grouping as per your needs.
This graph combined with the posts per day graph can be used to analyse whether
your brand is posting on the right day and right time.
CASE STUDY III- OOREDOO
Ooredoo a telecom provider primarily catering to the Middle East has come up
with two unique offerings that differentiate it from many others in the same league.
Bringing Self-Order to Facebook
Given below is a screenshot of the Samma3ni callertune shop that Ooredoo
Tunisia has on its Facebook page. Subscribers can listen to, download or gift caller
tunes to others for a price of 1.5 Tunisian Dinar (approx Rs. 50). Subscribers can
choose from Top 10 and Recent callertunes or search by song or artist. All it takes it
entering one’s number, a captcha image, and paying the requisite amount and one can
get a callertune directly from Facebook. This is how the Facebook app looks.
Figure 4-27: Ooredoo- Music App in Facebook

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Granted there are many apps that enable people to download and gift caller-
tunes, however, the USP of this app is location. This app, by the virtue of belonging in
the Facebook environment automatically becomes much more social and engaging.
Facebook Reviews
Another available but lesser implemented feature on Facebook is the ability to
for users to leave reviews.
Figure 4-28: Ooredoo- Utilising Lesser Known Features
Other users who may be interested in obtaining an Ooredoo connection can
look at the reviews and take an informed decision. This could be a great way for a
self-assured brand to create new customers.
Cross Platform Integration
Ooredoo’s Qatar page has a solid cross platform integration. The Facebook
page itself can redirect users to its Instagram, Twitter as well as Youtube profiles as

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well. Although this may seem like nothing big, but such small changes help keep
customers more engaged and spend more time on your social media profiles.
Fig 4-29: Ooredoo- Youtube Fig 4-30: Ooredoo: Instagram
Fig 4-31: Ooredoo-Twitter integration in Facebook

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Figure 4-32: Ooredoo: Cross Platform Integration and Review Features
Loyalty Program
Ooredoo has a loyalty program called Nojoom under which customers get
segmented, on the basis of their usage status of the past 6 months, into Red, Silver and
Platinum tiers (platinum being the highest) where they get 1, 1.5 and 2 points
respectively for every Qatari Riyal (approx. INR 17.5) spent. Members get 1 status

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point per 100 Qatari Riyals spent and they require 120 and 300 status points to get to
Silver and Platinum levels respectively.
The points can later be redeemed for a top up or redeemed across retail and
travel sectors ranging from lifestyle and leisure to travel and tourism. The
membership also grants access to members to exclusive discounts and promotions
across Nojoom partners.
Going to great lengths to Pamper the Loyal Customers
Along with the above mentioned benefits, platinum customers are treated with
uber care, getting a wide variety of services including:
 24x7 personal assistance with everyday errands, booking tickets, etc
through Nojoom Customer Care.
 Courier service- free delivery of flowers, payment of tuitions,
processing bureaucratic work like Visa, free valet parking.
 Free mailboxes in UK and US to have international purchases
delivered to customers’ Home country.
Takeaways for Tata Docomo
 Value your Customers- Reward their loyalty.
 Small steps like cross platform integration and review page can make a
difference.
 Your Social Page can be your Virtual Store.
CASE STUDY IV- VODAFONE
A Host of Services
Vodafone sure knows how to keep its users engaged by offering a whole range
of web based, app based and SMS based services.

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Prepare for CAT through notes. Keep your children in check through Guardian App
Play the latest games with Vodafone Listen to your favourite music on
Android
Figure 4-33: Vodafone- A Host of Services for Product Depth

32
Driving Recharge through Facebook
Vodafone launched its own recharge app named MyVodafone and smartly used
Facebook to spread the message.
Figure 4-34: Vodafone: Facebook for Recharge
Interestingly, Vodafone uses Cover Photos more than picture uploads in posts, to
promote its latest offerings. Perhaps because it helps them keep the latest promos right
at the top of the page. However it may not be the best tactic as many users have found
their organic reach drop drastically for cover photo updates.
https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=904819662877426
Takeaway
Provide product depth to attract people who use third party apps.
CASE STUDY V- MAXIS
Share Useful Links
Who says you need to create new content on your own every time you need to
post an update? Maxis often shares useful tips, tricks and other trivia about mobile
and related apps, sourced from third party blogs.

33
Figure 4-35: Maxis- Shared Content
Another example of shared content is this post where Maxis listed out some apps to
sell “pre-loved” items and got a good number of likes too.
Why this is a good strategy:
● The Facebook Algorithm currently prefers links, therefore this increases the
chances of the post appearing in users’ newsfeed.
● Having content that’s not about the brand makes for a natural conversation and
doesn’t make the brand seem overly self-centred.
● Such posts are quite likely to be shared by users (in comparison to fake/overly
marketed posts)
● It fulfils the objective of creating engagement with the user on a personal
level.
Brands can even partner with certain blogs and agree to share one or two of their
blogposts per week in return for the blogs promoting them as well. How this can work
out:
● Choose a Blog that has a target audience similar to your Brand’s

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● Share a post not just because the Blog wants you to, but because you feel your
target audience will like it and may engage with it
● Make sure the shared blogposts aren’t completely random, but do add some
value and work well with your own brand/product category image
● The blog could in return promote the brand in various ways like writing a post
about its services, complementing its ads, highlighting some new feature
launched by Tata Docomo, etc. It could run a widget on the side/bottom asking
users to like Tata Docomo’s page.
● Or the Blog could promote the brand subtly
○ If it is a Social Media Marketing blog, they could share your posts, use
your posts as examples of good social media marketing practises.
○ Any other tech blog that uses screenshots could be offered
complementary Tata Docomo sims provided the screenshots they share
show that they’re using Tata Docomo as their carrier. Iphones always
show the carrier name at the top of the screen
IPHONE WINDOWS PHONE
Figure 4-36: Promoting Your Mobile Network Subtly
○ Although this is rather subtle, but repeated screenshots showing the TD
name could be a new way to reinforce brand recall.

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Collaborate & Crowdsource- Waze Safe Drive
Maxis collaborated with
Waze, which is a free
community based
navigation app where users
can actively contribute to
real time data about traffic,
accidents etc, to launch Safe
Mode - voiced by children.
Waze has many different
voices that you can choose
for navigational narration,
Safe Mode was developed
to help parents drive safer.
Under this, Maxis took to social network to ask people to let their children contribute
their voices to the Safe Mode.
Maxis clearly
leveraged the video
autoplay mode along
with a beautiful way
of story-telling to
capture voices as well
as hearts. It featured 3
videos: One inviting
the children, another
video showcasing “the
making” of Safe Mode
and finally the actual
Safe Mode itself.
Figure 4-38: Maxis: Waze Video
Figure 4-37: Maxis Waze Crowdsourced Content

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Why This Campaign Went Viral
● As with any crowdsourced product, Safe Mode created an opportunity to get
the first hard core loyalist users of the app- parents and relatives of the
children whose voices were featured in the safe mode.
● If there’s one thing most viral videos have in common- it is, they feature a lot
of cute content (read: children, baby animals, etc). It is no wonder that this
post has over 5000 likes.
Takeaways for Tata Docomo
 Experiment with your content and see what works best- funny posts, cute
posts, inspirational quotes, relatable teen/young adult problem posts to see
which goes viral with your target audience.
 Crowdsource content to leverage maximum reach
 Look to partner with other players offering complementary services.
CASE STUDY VI- SINGTEL
Experiment with different posts
A fun post idea that’s different from
memes and jokes.
The internet is abuzz with lifehacks, some
of them genuinely wow-worthy. We’ve
already established people don’t share
promotional material as such. But
lifehacks and other cool tips and tricks are
bound to get people to click their share
buttons.
Figure 4-39: Singtel- Lifehacks

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Competitions
Who doesn’t want to win
freebies? Sometimes competitions
as simple as commenting the right
answer could really boost
engagement rate for the post.
Although this particular contest is
a little silly with the correct
answer being not only too easy but
also overly-promotional, the
campaign sure does serve its
purpose by being one of the most
liked, commented and shared
posts by Singtel. This is perhaps
the only post by Singtel with a
whopping number of 1500
comments.
However, a competition where
people actually had to think a
little, where they genuinely felt intellectually challenged and stimulated would have
been a better idea.
Offers
Singtel has a whole range of
products, including a mobile wallet.
The product is still in its initial
stages, where penetration is the key
goal. A great way to achieve that is
to offer cashbacks and first-time
only offers.
Figure 4-40: Singtel- Mobile Wallet

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Weave a story using videos
Figure 4-41: Singtel- Stories That Move You
This has been the most popular post by Singtel in terms of total interaction.
This was one of the series of videos uploaded by Singtel where they featured some of
the players from SEA(South East Asian) Games. The stories were about the daily
heroes who had been a major part of these players’ lives and in some way made them
what they are today. It’s a beautiful candid conversation with the player, his hero and
the interviewer when suddenly a huge crowd of volunteers in red tee shirts come and
surround the hero with banner boards, confetti, and a whole air of celebration. The
idea of acknowledging the people behind the popular players really worked well for
Singtel.

39
They also had a behind the scenes photo album where they encouraged their
volunteers to tag themselves- another fun activity-, as well as a compiled video of all
the players and their heroes together. The feel-good emotional story, coupled with the
facebook video autoplay is perhaps the reason this video went viral.
Create an identity for your brand, not just your product
Singtel not just provides telecommunication services, but is also a Broadband,
and DTH provider besides selling mobiles, phones and tablets bundled with data and
voice plans.
It makes sure it posts
about all of its product
categories. There is a fair
mix of posts about TV
series, new handsets, data
plans etc, which ge
interaction/engagement in
a decreasing order,
respectively.
This is almost like umbrella marketing. Doing so has its own pros and cons. The
biggest benefit is that of cross-selling. If people feel satisfied with one product of a
particular brand, they are more likely to try out other products of the same brand as
well. This however can work both ways, and one bad experience can make the
consumer wary of all of the brand’s products as well.
Sometimes, people are avid users of a particular product and do not even
realise another product they use belongs to the same brand. Perhaps, every page that
has multiple product lines should have one dedicated page as well that talks about
ALL of its offerings. A brand like Tata which has its presence in nearly every vertical,
Figure 4-42: Singtel- Carving a Brand Image

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be it clothing, jewellery, watches, opticals, telecom, automobile, etc, could greatly
benefit from giving a consistent identity to all its products.
Keep it Topical
The biggest event around this time is Eid, or Hari Raya as it is called in Singapore,
and Singtel sure seems to have a
big celebration planned for the
auspicious festival!
Posts about Eid, where Singtel
roped in famous celebrities to
perform as a popular Singapore
spot, have gone viral on
Facebook. Another post similar
to the one above is Singtel’s all
time top rated post in terms of
total interaction (likes, shares and
comments, standardised by
number of fans and own posts).
People are sharing the posts and
tagging their friends in them
asking them to come along. A
well planned marketing
campaign, indeed!
Note that Singtel didn’t even ask its fans to tag their friends yet nearly all of the
hundreds of comments have people tagging their friends and inviting them to the
event.
Figure 4-43: Singtel- Cashing in on Events

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Figure 4-44: Singtel- Interaction Rate Chart
This is a chart of Singtel’s interaction rate. As expected the highest peak
corresponds to the Hari Raya(Eid) post. Most of the other peaks correspond to phone
launches and new TV series advertisements.
CASE STUDY VII- COCA COLA
When you’re working with an established brand, building an audience isn’t an
issue. The challenge comes from understanding how each of your social channels
work in concert with one another, and the way your fans interact with different
content on different networks.
Crowd-Sourced Content
Coca-Cola runs campaigns to engage its audience and generate content that
they can share. Not only are you engaging your current audience and making them a
very real part of your brand experience, you’re creating a collection of advocates.
Coca Cola asked its fans to post a video recording their “Ahh” moment after drinking
coke. It then compiled it into a funny quirky 30 second video and marketed it as the
coke commercial made by people. Every single person featured in the video would
probably Retweet/share/mention this video to their audience, who may not follow
Coca-Cola yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XokGFN86ljc&feature=youtu.be

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Direct Engagement
One of the biggest
challenges for any large
brand is keeping up with the
volume of mentions on
Twitter or posts to page.
Coca-Cola is does a
marvelous job at this.
After all, you are posting on
Facebook, Twitter, and all
other social platforms to
speak WITH your audience
not AT them.
Influencer Involvement
As a way to encourage its crowd-sourcing
tactics, Coca-Cola engages influencers
like Ryan Seacrest. This campaign – a
lead-up to the World Cup in Brazil – has
used several influencers as a way to get
users to add their own selfies to their
massive project. Influencers are an
amazing way to amplify your brand’s reach exponentially.
Takeaways
 Make Influencers your brand ambassadors.
 Reply back when people talk to your brand.
 Innovate in the space of crowd sourced content
Figure 4-46:Unleashing Influencer Power
Figure 4-45:Coca Cola- Direct Engagement

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CASE STUDY VIII- STARBUCKS
People have opinions, especially, when it comes to consumer products. They
also often have brilliant ideas. Why? Because they are the ones using the products,
who better than them can tell you what they want. Ideas are the biggest currency in
the world of marketing and yet marketers don’t have dedicated portals where
consumers or maybe even marketing students can pitch their ideas to the brand.
Have a look at
Starbucks’
“My Starbucks
Idea” website
for inspiration.
http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/
The left panel categorises ideas by Product, Experience and Involvement. Top and
latest ideas are featured. The best part is Ideas in Action
Why this is a wonderful idea.
Firstly, one has to sign up to comment/post ideas. This gives Starbucks the
email IDs of their interested and engaged customers. Starbucks can send mailers and
newsletters to this community.
Starbucks gets to hear directly from people what they want and may even
chance upon some brilliant ideas occasionally.
Figure 4-47: Starbucks Crowdsourced Ideas

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Being able to see what
stage your idea is in,
under review, in
progress, implemented
gives one immense
satisfaction. In fact, even
to page visitors, it
conveys that the ideas are
genuinely being
implemented. Being able
to see how seriously the
ideas are bring taken
really makes a big
difference.
Leaderboards bring out the competitiveness
in people and makes them strive hard to
increase their ranks. In essence it has almost
become a game with rankings and level ups.
They have also almost created a social
network of coffee lovers who would engage
with each other all within the website’s
ecosystem and perhaps even have hangouts
and meetups and starbucks.
Figure 4-48:Starbucks- Let People Know They’re Being
Heard
Figure 4-49: Starbucks-Gamify it!

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Quid Pro Quo
Social is increasingly about getting popular. People often post about trending
topics in the hope that their Tweets/posts will get retweeted by celebrities, brands, top
influences, in order to get their two minutes of fame. What can you as a brand do
about it?
When someone is talking about you, specially when it’s something good,
retweet it or post it. Create a “What Others are Saying About Us” kind of section
because people supporting a product is any day better than the brand itself supporting
its products through advertising, be it in terms of credibility, or cost, or potential for
virality.
When potential customers see genuine testimonials from “people just like
themselves” about the brand they are much more likely to try the product out. Give
your top users a voice and feature it. However, overdoing this too much would be a
sure shot way to put off most of your fans. The best way to go about retweeting is to
add RT to the start of the original tweet and put in your comment. This will help give
the tweet more context and add your brand’s personality.
From Brand-Centric to Follower-Centric
Why are people following/liking your page? Is it just about funny posts and
relatable memes? True, they should form a major part of your posting activity, but
should it end there?
Understand that your followers/fans have a life outside your page and your
brand, of which you are still a miniscule part of. How can you be of more relevance to
your followers? If your followers are largely from one particular segment you could
identify major life stages/events associated with that demographic and post about
them. It could be in terms of advice, suggestion or just a friendly, “hey there I
understand what you’re going through” kind of feel.
Suppose your target is largely people in their late teens and youth. You could
post about exams, tips to study effectively, foods to avoid. Or post about college life,

46
tips on choosing the right college, give your take on the eternal “course vs college”
controversy.
You could have an advice column. Remember confession pages and their
virality? Before you knew it every school, college, locality, city had a confession page
of its own. Why were they so popular?
 They gave Anonymity
 They gave you a sneak peek into others’ spicy lives.
Arguably, turning into your page into a confession page could perhaps be the
worst idea ever. However, what you could do is give people a link to an anonymous
google form where they could ask questions. You could decide a particular theme
beforehand, eg. placement/job related issues. People could send in their questions and
you could reply to them on a particular day of the week or at a particular time daily.
What this is, in essence, is a Q&A forum, that offers anonymity to the person posing
the question. Although this takes away credibility just a little but for the youth,
anonymity has become an increasingly important motivator, as we’ve seen through
the confessions example.
FINDINGS
REVOLUTIONISING FAQS AND SELF CARE
Where to Start
Understand what your touchpoints with the customer are. Traditionally the
touchpoints used to be with the customer care, the retail store, etc. Now the
touchpoints include your website and your social media profiles as well.
Understanding Concerns
Now, try to understand what people are asking about you and your products,
not just generic questions but specific ones. For the traditional ones you can collect
this information from the exclusive Tata Docomo outlets or the Telephonic Customer
Care. The modern touchpoints’ data can be collected by tracking what people are
putting in the search bar of your website, or perhaps searching Yahoo and Quora like

47
Q&A forums for questions about your brand. Tata Docomo even has its web based
customer care service from which data can be gathered.
Dynamic FAQ
After you’ve understood the concerns, try to categorise them and proceed by
consolidating them into a FAQ or title it something new such as “Know Us Better”.
Every major company does have FAQs already but more often than not there are
generic concerns that remain static throughout.
Go the Extra Mile
Make an effort to keep an ear out for consumers’ problems and keep updating
your section frequently. Give people an option to sort the Q&As by date or let people
upvote certain Q&A, to aid “sort by votes/popularity”. Giving people the facility to
upvote certain concerns helps in boosts engagement by stimulating interactivity. This
also effortlessly helps you identify which questions arise most often in your
consumers’ minds and you can then go about addressing these concerns as well. Also
give your customers an option to ask more questions that they feel haven’t been
addressed as of yet, by submitting their query to this database.
Self Help Portal
Once you’ve identified some of your customers’ major concerns and queries
you’re all set to launch a full fledged self help portal. Although you could have
launched the portal without doing the above steps, but that would’ve just been a
repitition of a generic FAQ section with minimal interactivity and would also lack the
Q&As addressing genuine concerns faced by your customers, data that you’ve been
able to gather using the above steps.
Bridging into Social
Do not isolate the Self Care or FAQs from social. Integrate each of these using
a Facebook app, feature it on your Twitter page. Better yet create posts asking users
for their queries or concerns. This can also help you identify who are the people who
are actually using your product aside from merely liking your page.

48
Benefits:
 You get seen as a brand that cares.
 People want to be heard. They believe they’re really being heard.
 The increased interactivity that the upvote feature brings will certainly spike
engagement.
THREE TRENDS THAT WILL RULE 2015-16
Story Telling is the Next Big Thing
The first five seconds are essential to get an audience hooked to an
advertisement, else they’ll just skip the Youtube ad. Even if there's no option to fast-
forward or skip, consumers can always pick up a smartphone, switch tabs, or find
other ways to hit a metaphoric skip button.
Last year, The Hunger Games’ Twitter Profile successfully built buzz and
anticipation for Mockingjay the movie by launching the trailer on Twitter once
enough fans had 'unlocked' it with a retweet. And Starbucks launched the
#VoteForJoy campaign to encourage its followers to vote for their favourite holiday
drink, which was later offered in all U.S. stores for 50 percent off.
Social stars will shine brighter
Brands will continue to partner with talent that builds credibility with
millennials. YouTube's Michelle Phan recently inked a deal with L'Oreal, while HP
created a TV spot featuring Vine influencers Robby Ayala and Zach King. We're even
seeing companies like Vessel emerge to elevate and promote social media stars.
Anticipate more companies like Niche Media—which pairs social media content
creators with established brands—stepping up as traditional talent agencies start to
diversify their talent portfolio.
Content distribution will be signal-driven
Brands now have the ability to tap into signals of intent when people are
talking about everything from car shopping to eating lunch. Brands will use audience
signals to target consumers based on what they are doing and the content they're
sharing. On Twitter, Budweiser supported its #FriendsAreWaiting campaign (about
responsible drinking) through smart distribution that connected with users talking

49
about going out to bars and parties. The campaign was a big success, yielding a 6:1
earned-to-paid ratio.
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN POSTING
Be Relatable
Know where your majority user-base
comes from. India is a diverse country
and people identify strongly with their
cities and cultures. Posting culture
specific content like “10 things that
Gujrati people love to do” or this
post.
People love content they can identify
with and tell their friends about it as
well. You could decide not to target
particular cultures but make India-
centric posts as well.
Figure 4-50: Be Relatable
Figure 4-51: Strike a Chord

50
Aim For Virality
9GAG a very popular online platform
featuring user uploaded memes, gifs,
funny pics etc. was abuzz with the photo
of this little boy in Vietnam studying by
the roadside.
Times of India cashed in on the virality of the photo and uploaded it to its Facebook
page.
The post got a
whopping 20k likes and
over 2k shares. The
comments on it ranged
from people criticising
McDonalds, to praising
the boy, to asking TOI
about the boy’s address
for helping him. All in
all, a win for TOI.
Figure 4-52: Be Viral
Figure 4-53: TOI- Cashing on Virality

51
Timeliness Matters
You should keep abreast of the news as well in your country because posts
revolving around current happenings will connect with and speak to your audience at
that moment. Hindustan times’ website conveniently displays all “Top”, “Popular”,
“Don’t Miss” “Editor’s Pick” news letting any content planner keep track of what’s
going on and sniff out the articles that his particular target audience may be interested
in.
Figure 4-54: Stay Updated
Often Facebook, Twitter are how people come to know of current trends even
before they read the newspaper the next day. By giving people a snippet of the top
news you’re creating a steady base of audience who will want to come to your page
time and again to view the latest posts, thereby significantly improving your
EdgeRank as well.
Google Trends can be another brilliant way to know what’s buzzing. The best part is
you can choose the country, and even the category for the given date.

52
Figure 4-55: Stay Abreast with Trends
That being said, going too micro could hurt long term goals, specially when a
brand has a multinational presence. Keep in mind, your messages can be viewed by
anyone anywhere, and not just by people in your country/region
It’s A Two Way Street
Conversations should be two-way, only then can real engagement occur. So
how can one encourage engagement?
 Ask Questions
 Conduct Polls
 Organise Contests
 Encourage Ideas
GET INTO THE CONSUMER’S SHOES
● Look at your page’s Top Influencers, or people who often engage with your
Social profiles. Gather a database of what pages they like and what
communities they are a part of.
● Identify common or popular communities that are liked by majority of your
influencers or engagers.
● Follow these pages. Perhaps even create a new ID from scratch without adding
any friends (to prevent cluttering your newsfeed by posts from Friends) and

53
‘like’ just the selected pages to get a fair idea what posts your
influencers/engagers get to see on a daily basis.
● These pages can help you identify what clicks with your target audience and
post accordingly.
● This also helps you stay abreast with trending topics which may not be
featured in the “Trending” section but are generating a lot of activity
nevertheless.
RESULTS OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS
All the questions posed at the beginning of the study have been answered
in the data analysis and the case studies that have been taken up. However, one
remains to be answered. Can there be a universal winning formula for success
that a brand can use as its social media strategy? This has been the end goal of
this study from the very beginning. In the course of this two month internship and
with the help of the case studies and takeaways from there, it seems like there
might be afterall a winning strategy. Social Media is a fair and challenging mix of
some rules of thumbs, scientifically tested principles and of course experience.
One may not be wrong in saying Social Media is a Soft Science. This study lays
out the rules of thumbs and the scientific principle, but a little adaptability might
be needed on a case to case basis, and therein come into play the skills and
experience of a Social Media Manager.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
A final checklist that can take any brand looking to build engagement arises
from the consolidation of all the takeaways from the individual summaries. Here’s
what your brand ought to keep in mind:
When Setting Up the Page
 Fill up the bio/about me of your brand portraying a consistent image across
different platforms.
 Link your Website, Blog, Social Media Accounts.
 Determine your target audience based on the type of social media network and
your current objectives.

54
 Follow/Like other brands in your Industry or catering to the same target
audience as your brand to get their updates and also to have it shown up as
“Pages liked by xyz(your brand)” on your public profile.
 Encourage your employees, specially the upper management and top leaders,
to create a social media presence so that you can link your brand to them and
give it a human touch.
When Looking for Content to Post
 Consider hiring a Social Media Content expert or groom your own people to
rise to the task.
 Content aggregation is as lucrative as content creation. Follow blogs or social
profiles of your Industry experts and influencers and share their content.
 If you have the budget for it, consider collaborating with the influencers to
amplify your reach and engagement.
 Look at what communities your target audience is a part of, aggregate content
from those communities as well.
 Keep abreast of current trends and topical news.
When posting
 Explore different emotions. Try to evoke nostalgia, happiness, excitement.
 Ensure a stable mix of promotional and content based posts. Excessive
promotion leads to short term gains only.
 Questions are a good way to start conversations. However you need to give
non-generic replies to ensure genuine engagement.
 Use hashtags.
 Follow trending topics and post about them, specially if they relate to your
domain.
 Use rich images and audio visuals to capture attention.
 Stay updated with latest algorithmic changes and features to implement them
early, but don’t just reply on technical gimmicks to build the brand connect. It
comes with patience and perseverance.

55
When Replying to People
 Keep your tone casual and candid instead of giving formal and generic
responses.
 Address concerns and queries, don’t just keep redirecting people to customer
care.
 Retweet/ Repost success stories or positive comments that people have posted
about you to your page. Convert this into a “What people are saying about us”
or “Reviews” tab if you’re worried about creating too much clutter on your
page.
Bonus Tips
 Share your success with your fans.
 Create posts about your leaders and CXOs. People want to know other people
not just the brand.
 Offer sneak peeks of what goes on in your office, through short videos.
 Share fun facts about your product/organisation. Try a “How it’s made” video.
 Provide services that are complementary to your product either through
creation or collaboration. Aim for product depth
 Don’t leave offline out. Integrate offline promotion with online promotion
 Socially integrated loyalty programs= increased loyalty + enhanced consumer
insights + better marketing communications.
 Consider selling your products on Facebook itself.
 Save brainstorming hours by creating a space/community for your fans to
come up with new ideas for your product and compete among themselves for
the same. Keep in mind you have to actually implement some of the ideas.
 Revolutionise your FAQ and self-care systems through crowdsourcing.

56
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
DISCUSSION OF RESEARCH QUESTION
The research questions are largely related to identifying top brands and
communities in order to learn about engagement and brand connect on social
media from, to come up with a comprehensive social media strategy for Tata
Docomo, which can then be modelled around any other brand/product/public
figure through adapting to respective context. All the questions posed at the
beginning of the study have been answered in the data analysis and the case
studies that have been taken up. However, one remains to be answered.
Can there be a universal winning formula for success that a brand can use
as its social media strategy? This has been the end goal of this study from the very
beginning. In the course of this two month internship and with the help of the case
studies and takeaways from there, it seems like there might be afterall a winning
strategy. Social Media is a fair and challenging mix of some rules of thumbs,
scientifically tested principles and of course experience. One may not be wrong in
saying Social Media is a Soft Science. This study lays out the rules of thumbs and
the scientific principle, but a little adaptability might be needed on a case to case
basis, and therein come into play the skills and experience of a Social Media
Manager.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The checklist provided in the summary, although a good starting point, is
not the ultimate guide. The true challenge for a Social Media Manager is to keep
coming up with content that attracts, captivates and engages the target audience.
Metrics must be used for control and evaluation but Social Media is more
about qualitative than quantitative aspects. Since there are no standard metrics yet
and variability exists from one tool to another, the final call should rely on
experience of the manager as well.

57
LIMITATIONS
Even if one follows all the steps given in the checklist, it is not a sure shot
formula. The whole affair is, at the end of the day, subjective and depends on many
other factors that just content. You may be posting the best content out there but still
may not see that reach or engagement that you were hoping.
With organic reach declining as much as it is, social media is no longer the
free ride it used to be, the social space too is slowly turning into traditional media in
terms of pay-to-reach where the ones with the deepest pockets find things easier than
new entrants.
You may have the greatest market share in terms of likes, follows, reach or
engagement, but at the end of the day, what matters the most is company profits. Just
because someone follows all your posts and engages actively with your page, doesn’t
mean he will be as loyal a customer for your product, or for that matter even a
customer at all. In India specially, parents still get the greater say in terms of product
purchase for a large segment of population, suppose your brand targets the youth, you
may be reaching the end user and impacting him but the purchase decision maker
could be someone else entirely, and the real challenge becomes influencing the
decision maker then.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
Although the checklist isn’t the ultimate solution to all Social Media
Marketing woes, it surely is a good starting point. Implementing the suggestions in
this study will in the long run certainly have some impact, when compared to if the
practises hadn’t been followed.
Metrics must be used for control and evaluation but Social Media is more
about qualitative than quantitative aspects. Since there are no standard metrics yet and
variability exists from one tool to another, the final call should rely on experience of
the manager as well.

58
IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Future research can be in terms of linking influence of your brand using social
media on a person with his actual purchase behaviour in real life.
As this study lacks any primary data, future research could incorporate the
same to get a better picture of what clicks with people when they browse through
social media websites, that is, what finally gets them to click the like, share, comment
button.
A research could be undertaken comparing the full-fledged premium versions
of Social Media Analytics tools and seeing which tools fare better that the rest for
different aspects.

59
CHAPTER 6: REFERENCE MATERIAL
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