Dan Okpara had an urgent question for Coca Cola. He had consumed some Coca Cola but was keen to know the sugar content level in the beverage.
He requested the company for an honest answer. Less than 45 minutes later, Coca Cola responded with the specific measurements of sugar in the drink. Okpara was relieved.
His is simply a case in point.
Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Orkut are being increasingly used for promotional activities that engage audiences for a certain activity in an effort to create a buzz and get feedback from the community.
However, it is also being used by disgruntled customers to air their greviances, drastically altering the traditional role of brand managers.
"Today's brand manager's job is like that of an air controller. He has to handle above the line, below the line as well as social media activities to navigate a brand.
As a result, today a brand manager is far more important in an organisation," explains Hareesh Tibrewala, Joint CEO of Social Wavelength -- a social media management firm.
"Now a customer service issue is a branding issue," he adds.
Some companies have understood this trend well. Titan's Fastrack, for instance, now has a separate two-member digital brand team.
"Two years back, we hired one person purely for digital marketing. We knew this would require different skill sets since communication and instinct are a very important part of this brand manager's role," says Simeran Bhasin, Marketing head, Fastrack and new brands.
Moreover, Bhasin says Fastrack's fan page has grown from just 30,000 in January to about 2,10,000 members at present.
"It's not a job that needs one hour a day, we need them to track online trends and we need people who are on the ball."
FMCG major Marico, too, uses social media sites to its advantage, particularly for its Safola brand. "The point is to interact with the consumer and make him a part of the brand and that's tricky business," says Sameer Satpathy, head of Marketing for Marico.
More importantly, though, has been the learnings the company has got from this. "We've picked up little cues particularly when it comes to communication.
For instance, one particular ad featured this lady who was much-talked about on Twitter, and we realised people reacted positively to that particular protagonist.
Similarly for Arise, there was a gap in communication that we picked up from there and we later plugged the information in," he adds.
But not all companies understand social media well. According to Tibrewala, companies in the Cola and entertainment sectors are doing a commendable job in this space, while manufacturing firms are lagging.
"Perhaps it's because these companies see this is a business opportunity and monetise the social media platform, this eventually convert into profits," he points out.
Experts feel brand managers in India are not adept at handling negative comments and feedback. Many of them are not sure how to handle negative feedback.
Bhasin of Titan concurs: "It's important to have a quick response no matter what." Still, there are exceptions the team makes. For example, if a customer is merely making a passive comment on the brand's communication, brand managers are likely to overlook it, on the other hand if it is a product or service complaint, the response is immediate.
Others like Cadbury India, meanwhile, have yet to make their presence felt online.
According to a company executive, the confectioner is more selective about what it does online.
At present, it uses social media for its premium products like Bournville and Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk where it has about 12,000 and 10,000 members respectively, and for the rest it still largely uses traditional media like television and radio. Interestingly though, its digital media happens to be its fastest growing in terms of expenditure.
Likewise for telecommunication service provider Idea Cellular.
Says chief marketing officer Pradeep Shrivastava, "As a marketer our model is to reach out to as many people as we can in a cost effective way. That happens through TV, radio, on-ground, and it is not feasible for us to turn that model upside down."
Having said that, he adds that he and his brand team use social media for their larger theme campaigns, "Does it deliver a good and strong message -- yes. Will it replace mass media? No."
