Ignore social networking at your peril: Marketers

Social media sites are a rage, both with consumers and marketers, agreed advertisers and marketers on the first day of the two-day Brand Summit 2010 here. They largely dwelt on the impact of new media such as social networking websites on conventional marketing strategy.

Given that India is expected to have the third-largest Internet user base in the world by 2013, companies have realised they can ill-afford to give the medium a miss. Marketers have begun devising ways to ensure they could appeal to youth on social networking sites, if the indications at the summit are anything to go by.

Unilever used social media sites successfully to push up sales of its toothpaste brand, Close-up, in Vietnam, said Rahul Welde, vice-president, media services, of Unilever Asia, Africa, Middle East and Turkey. He was speaking on 'Mass Media to Social Media' today.

Welde said, referring to a global survey, that 81 per cent of companies are planning to increase their spending on social media marketing in the near term. "Social media is a reality today. You can't ignore it," he added.

What has been driving the social networking phenomenon is the need to be heard and expressed, Welde asserted.

Srinivasan K Swamy, chairman and managing director, RK Swamy BBDO, and chairman of Brand Summit, 2010, concurred that the new-age consumer is highly connected. "Indian youth, for instance, spend about 60 per cent of their time on the Internet or using their mobile phones. An average Indian youth spends 25,800 minutes a month, over 14 hours a day, in the digital world," he said, adding: "This is an indicator where marketing should head."

Tim Love, chairman and chief executive officer, Asia Pacific, India, Middle East, Africa, Omnicom Group, said the marketing and advertising industry needed to be at the forefront in seeking a deeper insight into the emerging world of technology. "Think global, act local has become a bit obsolete in my view," he said. "We should broaden our horizons to include a lot more," he said.

This includes 'disruptive' forms of advertising such as using chat applications and gaming modules to propagate a brand's message, he said.

Swamy said 82 per cent of Indian youth use chat applications, while 40 per cent are on Orkut, Facebook and Twitter. All on the back of a growing internet base, Swamy added, noting there were 52 million internet subscribers in India for 200 million people living in urban areas. "Over 44 per cent of the people in India already have mobile phones, which is only growing over time," he said.