"Socially active consumers are looking for meaningful connections with brands": Vikram Menon, OgilvyOne Worldwide

A new research by Social@Ogilvy and SurveyMonkey has found that Indian consumers are increasingly proactive and influential social media users. The need to be more relevant and authentic with their social media content to transform and grow their reputation therefor has become all the more important for brands in the current scenario.

The survey has been done in 11 countries with more than 5,500 social media users. One of the key findings of the survey has been that Indian consumers, in particular, are more likely to interact with brands via social media than in many more mature markets, like the US, UK and Japan.

“Sharers”, “followers” and re-tweets are crude measures of true brand advocacy.

Are people that “like” and follow everything true brand promoters? According to the study, in India, almost all respondents to the survey (93 per cent) say they had “liked” or followed a brand, product or service – a trend seen in other emerging markets. Indian consumers cited their desire to hear about product offers and news (73 per cent) and their desire to give direct feedback (54 per cent) as the main drivers for engaging with brands via social media. Of those Indian consumers who have “liked” or followed a brand, over two-thirds (68 per cent) have interacted directly with a brand and a higher percentage (87 per cent) reported receiving a response back (shout out to social media managers in India!).

These social addicts, who typically stay glued to the likes of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter on a daily basis, exhibit similar behaviours, but there are still key differences and steps to transforming 'sharers' into real brand promoters.

How do Indian promoters interact via social media?

According to the survey, 74 per cent Indians follow brands on a regular basis, while 70 per cent can be defined as sharers. Promoters follow brands in order to interact directly with them. 56 per cent of sharers do this, compared to two-thirds (65 per cent) of promoters.

One of the prime reasons they follow brands is to be associated with them, which 58 per cent do, versus only 47 per cent of sharers. They prefer to link a brand to their own personal identity, with 54 per cent saying they feel better about themselves after using a brand; while 51 per cent of sharers say the same.

For brands, this means people are now moving towards more private and closed places of individual relevance. While it is clear that people are more connected than ever - demonstrated by the sheer breadth of networks available to us - the research shows that it is the depth of connections that change our lives and the world around us.

Ultimately, brands need to build relevance and trust through content and connections, if they wish to use social media to transform their brand, business and reputation.

Five steps to building brand relevance and trust in social media

Precision: Move from broad demographics to using behaviour, interests and friendships

Moments of truth: Connect naturally with the right audience, in the right place, at the right time

Inspire: Use culturally relevant storytelling that flows across platforms and markets, in real time

Bond: Move from community management to customer engagement

Measure: Focus on harder business metrics, such as leads, sales, performance, loyalty

Five ways to build a brand:

Identifying social media's global brand promoters: