The real lessons learnt from our ‘samosa eating experience’

We always wonder whether putting out good, humorous content on facebook can help increase our fan base. How much can we expect from one content piece in the ideal case? Most importantly, whats the ROI of good content on facebook?

GenY Medium did a little experiment, although inadvertently, which answers some of these questions. A simple facebook post to start a series called: “Social Media Explained.” became a run away viral, garnering over 500 likes, over 600 shares and indirectly leading to over 50 likes!

The impact

• Weekly reach of the page grew 131x.
• 111x more people were ‘talking about’ the page.
• More importantly page likes grew ~50% over a period of 2-3 days!

One content piece impacted the popularity and acceptance of the page significantly – More fans were added in 2-3 days as compared to the past 2-3 months! The content itself was immensely popular with over 600 shares! The content piece had 500+ likes, implying that 10% of the content likes actually led to page likes as well.

ROI

The implication of the getting a like is akin to acquiring a qualified lead. The cost of lead acquisition varies from industry to industry. For GenY Medium’s industry, lead acquisition rates might be $20-30/lead or so. Therefore, 50 likes would transform into $1000-$1500 return. The investment? 30 minutes of creative input! $2000-3000/hour is a great return on the creative effort!

Take away

A well thought through content strategy can lead to very economical lead generation directly translating into an attractive ROI – perhaps much better than search marketing!

 

Earth Hour 2012 – Make it possible!

Significant impact is possible with Earth Hour 2012. Share this infographic and further the cause!

War of the Smart Phones!

The big question – how to meaningfully engage consumers on social media?

Continuing from where we left off in the last topic, a little digging throws insights on what SpiceJet has been able to do on social media. Here are a few bullets which CMOs & marketing execs can draw from:

1. Engaging posts every day – 3-4 on an average (seems like a reasonable frequency, definitely not over-the-top)
2. Open ended questions very relevant to both the audience and the business which prompt users to key-in a response!
3. Using polls for engagement and more importantly for research/analytics

But first off, lets start off with how consumers reacted to the announcement of the addition of Surat to the list of connections. 145 or so ‘likes’ and congratulatory comments are no mean feat. See below!

Examples from SpiceJet’s FB engagement on #2 (open ended but relevant questions) are below. Notice the engagement levels (number of comments, likes etc.) which are one of the important measures for campaign effectiveness:

The response to the simple question above (both relevant and open ended) was huge with over 40 comments with suggestions. Similar response can be had with a ‘quiz style’ question which again is relevant to the audience and the business.. See example below which subtly announced the addition of Kathmandu as a connection, but through a simple quiz!

Or the one  below, again subtly but interestingly announcing new flights to Pune which had a similar effect…

Examples of #3 (research and analytics) include asking questions similar to a market research, which indicates popularity of destinations – a very actionable result for an airline. The below is awesome because this question evinced 980 responses and a hand full of qualitative comments. How much would this cost had SpiceJet engaged a multi-city market research firm? The best part is that the young upwardly mobile Sec-A audience is right here engaged on social mediums like facebook!

SpiceJet’s consumer-connect on Facebook leads to action

Team GenY Medium will present (or re-present) some examples of companies who have used social media to their advantage. One such recent incident is from the beleaguered Airlines Industry in India. Selection of routes, cities, connections etc. is an involved optimization task. How does an airline estimate which routes to pick and which to leave.

 

Well, given the overlap of airline travellers and their propensity to use Internet actively, monitoring online activity of consumers can lead to cues and potent data.  A group on facebook named “We want a working airport at Surat” which boasts of over 2000 members have been posting, blogging and commenting on the need for more connections from Surat. Seeing this consistent and growing demand on facebook, SpiceJet has decided to connect Surat with Mumbai, Delhi and Mangalore. Is this an emotional response? Unlikely because of 2 reasons.

First, all airlines are now thinking beyond the larger cities to Tier II cities. Surat is the second fastest growing city in India after Ghaziabad and is an important city in the fastest growing state in India (Gujarat). Data from social media networks such as facebook in combination with these macro factors make a very strong business case for selection of Surat in the list of cities connected by SpiceJet.

SpiceJet’s facebook page has over 300,000 fans and is a very active one – allowing users to discuss, comment and also book tickets. Better analytics, consumer demand understanding can lead to better prediction of load factors which today is the single biggest driver of profitability and sustainability for airlines. GenY Medium believes that digital media research and analytics is an important tool in the hands of marketeers as well as strategy folks to bring offerings more relevant to the consumers.

Media usage – changing paradigms

‘The only thing constant is change’ goes the famous saying. The speed of change ever since internet and mobile telephony was born has been amazing. Its difficult to imagine that now too long ago, mobile phones were a thing for the elite and communication happened through ‘snail mail’ as it is referred to today. Marketeers are realizing how more time is spent in ever changing new media forms. Facebook has become one of the essential life processes; millions of content pieces are uploaded instantly; connecting with people has become so much more easier. There are some ‘old-school’ marketeers who still believe that this is a fad which shall also pass. Look below and you will realize the extent of the change and why its very important to embrace this change to succeed in the marketplace.