India is no more a land of snake charmers and elephants but a nation budding with enthusiastic and passionate entrepreneurs.

These entrepreneurs are not out there to make another Facebook or Twitter but are trying to figure out ways how they can solve pain points of the common man. And I happened to meet one such startup called Chachii.com. Based out at Mumbai, the startup aims to solve your day to day errands and make your life easy. Apart from being an amazing idea, Nikhil Goel, Co-founder of Chachii.com, shared that they heavily rely on social media for awareness, promotion, sales and above all engaging with fans in a meaningful way. Definitely in todays times, startups having a social presence and trying to build a community adds value and Chachii.com stands by the same thought. Nikhil discussed at length on how he and Tanvi Surti, the other Co-founder started the whole initiative. Since labour is not centralized, Chachii was conceived to provide this but with a layer of technology. He added that they have used the simple feature of SMS to get in touch with labourers and have designed smart algorithms that help out to reach to the perfect labourer for the required task. So for example, you had a party last night at your place and today you want a person to help you to clean your entire house then simply register on the site. Once you are done, the site will search the right person and share the profile to you via email. The person does the work, you pay for the work and you rate his task too. Its that simple! Taking our discussions further, I jumped into the social side of Chachii.com as I had seen the Facebook and Twitter presence. Nikhil elaborated on how they have tried to build a very cute brand for Chachii.com and how Twitter as a channel has been quite effective. Indeed @Chachiisays is to be watched. The in-house social media team makes sure to share exciting news, popular links and resourceful information within 140 characters to its more than 1000 followers. Twitter is known for its one-to-one conversations and Chachii seems to have cracked the code. The tweets are funny, engaging with the community and also retweeting the influencers. This should be one of the takeaways for other startups who are still wondering about how Twitter works. The Facebook page has double the number of fans as compared to Twitter with a decent engagement too. Facebook is all about visuals and Chachii has taken care of it. The content is informative and witty too as seen on one of the content shared on the right. We know how relevant and interesting hashtags can make people talk about your brand on Twitter and the social media team at Chachii has used it effectively. #tweetatask has been one of the popular ones as informed by Nikhil. He also added about having clubbed contests on Twitter with some cool hashtags during Mothers Day, Valentines Day, etc. The response from people on social media has been very exciting and we really want to take it to the next level. We plan to invest more on the medium and take help of ads such as Google ads, Facebook ads and even Twitter ads. It was exciting to know that Chachii is open for experimentation; it is evident in their social media presence. But along with this, I was quite inquisitive to know what made Chachii look for an in-house team when most of them prefer to go the agency way. Nikhil shared that:

Cost concerns and our online brand mattered to us. Along with the social media person, we the co-founders pitch in the social media activities and we think that we are better persons to represent our business than an agency. Meanwhile, we have also tried to nurture our blog where every employee contributes on a weekly basis. Along with the social media presence, I was really charged to see the effective use of the blog by the brand. Another very important takeaway for startups that blogs are more than leads. It is a brilliant way of self-expression, not only about your product but also about your culture, team, daily happenings, etc. With this entire excitement around social media, Nikhil also pointed that startups or brands should know how to respect the space. He mentioned that one needs to maintain a balance between informing and annoying. Indeed a very big learning and since social media is all about fans and their friends so startups, SMEs, brands, etc. should respect that space. An inspiring startup without a doubt! Moreover, Chachii has adopted social media with open hands. Nikhil is quite bullish about the entire social media engagement that is being driven at their end. As told to me, last quarter Chachii received 19% traffic from Social Media that included 55% from Facebook and the rest from Twitter. Promising figures that could be increased with time and thats what the team at Chachii are going to do before they open up their next centre in Delhi.

Sony Mobile India Social Media Case Study

by Vinaya Naidu on October 13, 2012 A case study about Sony Mobile India that helped the brand raise awareness as the smartphone of choice amongst the Indian youth, through a series of campaigns that included crowdsourced phone reviews, theme-based photographs, dance choreography and quizzes. Sony Mobiles faced stiff competition in the Indian smartphone market from Samsung, HTC and Blackberry and needed to raise awareness as the smartphone of choice amongst Indian youth. The marketing team at Sony, together with 20:20 Social chalked out a plan to achieve this by leveraging the Facebook page. As a result of which the brand gained 800,000 fans in eight months with consistently increasing engagement levels. According to a Nielsen McKinsey survey, Sony Mobile is the 10th most socially engaged brand in India.

Campaign Objective:

Raise awareness of Sony Ericsson as the smartphone of choice amongst Indian youth, leveraging the Facebook page.

Research and Insights

Insights were gained to design a strategy. Desktop research and social media analysis that included listening to and monitoring communities and conversations gave the required insights. The findings were as follows:

Sony was perceived to be a youthful brand with music and sound quality being the unique selling points of its smartphones amongst the target audience. Peer-to-peer recommendations were one of the prime drivers of smartphone purchase decisions. Based on the analysis, 13 to 25 year-olds were identified as the key target for Sony smartphones and a campaign was built around the channels frequented by this audience Facebook and YouTube. Sound quality and looks are the most appealing attributes to the target group.

Based on the research, a strategy that reflected vibrancy and youth was crafted. It focused on engaging audiences through an integrated programme that straddled social media, TV commercials and product launches. A series of contests, quizzes and crowdsourced content were employed to generate widespread awareness and engagement on social platforms. Shiamak Davar, Indias best-known choreographer and youth icon, was roped in for a dance contest. Existing Sony relationships were leveraged upon using popular products like Bravia TVs and sound accessories as rewards and using the Sony Pictures association with Spiderman for a mini contest giving away Spiderman merchandise. Content strategy was to co-create maximum content through fans using contests. High levels of participation and engagement were ensured by sharing examples of what the brand was looking for, be it photo or video contests.

How they did it?

For a company in one of the hottest consumer markets in India the mobile phone, it was important to have a digital program closely aligned to the global and local sales and marketing teams of Sony mobile. It was also necessary to have competitive intelligence. As a result, they had the capabilities to seamlessly execute campaigns in tandem with new product launches on multiple social platforms. Their intelligence tools measured up Sonys competitors and planted the roots for a 360 degree Social Customer Relationship Management and a capability for social commerce. Campaign 1: A Facebook app was created that asked users for written and video reviews of Sony Mobile smartphones. This showcased the recommendations of technology enthusiasts so

that actionable changes to the product marketing and design teams, straight from the fans, could be made. Campaign 2: A Sony Mobile Arclight LookBook competition was launched for Facebook fans, asking them to send stylish images of themselves to feature in an official album to be launched on Facebook. This was for Sony Mobiles Arclight smartphone, which embodies superior design, feel and look.

Campaign 3: This was for the With Live Walkman smartphone, ideal for music lovers and began with featuring an upcoming TV commercial featuring a celebrity. The TVC featured the Facebook page, making it a truly cross-media promotion. It resulted in a second competition one of the largest online dance video contests, Go Thump! With Live Walkman. Users were asked to upload videos of dances to be judged by Shiamak. Contestants were asked to dance to the music of the commercial for their video, and an app on Facebook populated a specially created YouTube channel for Sony Ericsson in India. Additionally, the flagship Sony Mobile Xperia S launch events were supported by leveraging the audiences on existing platforms. All three launch events were livestreamed on Facebook, bringing hundreds more to the launch virtually. Campaign 4: Get Shorty, campaign was launched for the Xperia U smartphone, which allowed users to change the colour and appearance of the lower portion of the phone. Get Shorty asked users to upload photos showcasing their true colours, following which an app analysed the pictures to give the persons true colour. This campaign was coupled with a Spiderman Trivia quiz, timed to coincide with the release of Spiderman-3, and gave away Xperia U smartphones to winners along with Spiderman merchandise.

Achievements:

Xperia S sales targets were met within three days. The number of fans for Sony Mobile India quadrupled from over 500,000 to over 2 million within twelve months of managing the Facebook page. Sony Mobile was recognised as the 10th most popular brand on social media in India by NM Incite, a joint venture by Nielsen and McKinsey & Co. 95 million+ impressions and 35 million users were reached within the first eight months of managing the Facebook page. Engaged 600,000 non-fans, and added 2,000+ fans every day with over 10,000 stories created around posts each day. The viral effect of more than 1,000 dance videos brought more than 1,300 people every day to the Sony Mobile India Facebook page and subscribers to the associated YouTube channel. The Spiderman quiz had 5,000 registrations and more than 26,000 answers in the four days it was open.

How Standard Chartered India Built A Food Network

by Prasant Naidu on August 30, 201 Facebook case study on how Standard Chartered India created a foodie network to engage with fans on Facebook and also to promote credit cards. Standard Chartered PLC, a British multinational banking and financial services company, headquartered in London, has an old relation with India. The name Standard Chartered comes from the name of two banks and one of them is The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China. In fact, the Chartered Bank opened its first overseas branch in India, at Kolkata on 12 April, 1858.(1) Today the bank that is spread across 70 countries, is also one of the preferred banks. In due course of time, the bank has adapted itself to the times and today has a presence on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In addition to this, the bank made sure that it had individual presence on social networks for respective countries. However, it was facing challenges in establishing a social presence as the bank dedicated to Indians.

Objective

The bank that has been an early adopter in the social space, had two major problems in creating a presence in the Indian social media arena: 1. The bank had little or no presence on social media. 2. The bank also wanted to promote credit cards via social media. So the bank had a clear objective that they wanted to engage with Indians on social media but at the same time they wanted to promote their credit cards too. However, it was not ready to do a hardsell on social media.

Social Media Strategy

The brand had the choice of opting for a safe road by creating a presence on social media and engage with regular happenings of the bank, deals, etc. Like we have seen other banks doing and in fact Standard Chartered has been doing the same in countries like HK, Singapore, etc. But the bank chose to touch the hearts of Indians on social media in a very different way. After studying the Indian market, it found out that food was the second choice after shopping in terms of spends through credit cards. Thus the bank chose to be a food explorer on social media and launched a Facebook page India Food Explorer (IFE). Launched a year ago in the month of March, the community today stands as a food lovers community. Choice of Facebook was a rational move since Facebook is the network where Indians are spending time right now and Facebook is all about images and fun. IFE aimed to be a foodies community and at the same time a fun-loving one too.

India Food Explorer Facebook Page

The Facebook page is today a community of more than 600K fans. IFE as a community on Facebook made sure that they aligned to their objective and also kept the content aligned all the way. The content shared on the Facebook page is focused towards providing fans with suggestions for food joints, etc. The bank also made sure that it provided lucrative deals which could then be availed by fans using their Standard Chartered credit cards.

In addition to this, the page admins have made sure that the content is mixed well and rational queries are addressed.

Results/ROI
The brand has clearly met one of its objectives that is building a massive foodie community within a years time. The fan base is more than 600K and it has reached 52 million people on

Facebook. The community has also made sure that it has the leading presence in India followed by our neighboring countries. Cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad are the top five cities in terms of fan support for the IFE community.

The age group that the community has attracted most is between 18-24 years.

Content related to food and occasion have got more appreciation by fans in terms of likes and comments. Along with that, recipe posts have been appreciated more by women. However, it is not clear how successful was the bank in creating sales through the credit cards. Facebook Offers is something that the bank should consider to measure this objective of the community.

Final Thoughts
Over the time, Indian banks have shed their traditional approach to engage extensively on social media. We have spoken about this trend in the past and Standard Chartered is also opting for the same route. The banks intention to build a network for foodies and then market its products is a smart move. I am impressed by the Facebook presence especially with the content. I believe now its time for the bank to explore other networks to expand its wings on social media. Twitter has been lagging behind and the bank should think of using it effectively. Customer support via Twitter could be a good option. Using other networks like Instagram for certain contests would be a cool idea. Recently Zomato did the same since Instagram is recalled as a place to find lovely pictures about food. So the bank should spend time thinking on how it can drive this initiative on other networks too.