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Be it the Indian politicians or our bollywood celebs, Social media has become the new trend to connect to the internet-educated mass of the country.

We all are taking the social media route to connect with each other. It’s now the addiction or can say the dependent factor of the society when it comes to marketing. People now interact with each other on Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms in different ways than they do with each other practically/ physically.

 Now when we all wake up early, we fumble blindly for our smartphones and take a look at our notifications, and begin the daily morning routine which majorly includes Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Linkedin and Pinterest scrolling and surfing.

 Surely it’s easy to set up a LinkedIn and Facebook account. Now this can be done by a kid in middle school also.

 However, it’s a challenge for some channel partners to interact and influence customers using social media.

 Most channel partners provide their customers with all sort of messaging on social media and then they hope that it sticks. This often confuses and annoys customers.

 For every business, the key to success is to know your customers which Social media makes easy; it’s just one need to mark that presence with style and manner.

Social networks allow you to see what your potential customers are talking about while getting to know them. Businesses should use these networks to gather consumer information to better cater to their needs and provide them with the information they’re looking for.

 Talking about the IT industry, Channels Partners in India are also using social media for their business promotions and marketing.

 Social media platforms allow businesses to reach customers easily. Such platforms provide the opportunity to question and to know well the concerns of the customers.

 While talking to some Channel Partners, DQ Channels explored some really different perspectives on the same.

Kshitij M. Kotak, CEO of Fortune Grecells Pvt Ltd, Mumbai use all of the big social media platforms which includes  LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to promote  business and build his  brand.

Kshitij shared, “We did use Youtube for a while, but it is too time consuming and expensive to build professional looking videos. We did try to use Blogs and Slide share as a medium but again it takes a lot of time and effort to be disciplined to write one every week”.

Kshitij expressed that out of all platforms WhatsApp messaging is a pure revenue generator for his business as with whatsapp groups and broadcast messaging, he now gets in touch with many business related people and its really easy to initiate the conversation with so many Good Thoughts and Good Morning messages which keep coming from other people to me and then forwarding the same among my list.

Apart from these selected platforms Kshitij just have started using Quora from a while now.

Social media boosts the business visibilities

“The advantages that social media has granted to my business are Visibility, Trust and of course it’s Price-less

1. Visibility

our product Blackbox Data Safe is on ‘the top of mind’ while looking for server, backup or business continuity

2. Trust

Creating general awareness with news and articles on the subject of backup, server, ransomware protection and cloud builds our credibility as data protection experts.

3. Price-less

it is almost free, doesn’t cost anything but a little time before you go to sleep and with tools like Buffer and Klout my posts appear exactly when I want. I have to post on WhatsApp though”.

Social media strategy has built the entire brand

“Social media strategy has not just helped”, says Kshitij; “it has built entire brand BLACKBOX DATA SAFE and GRE@CELLS (pronounced Great-cells” For an Indian high tech product with practically zero advertising budget, social media generated visibility and trust at practically zero cost. We have received plenty of enquiries from our LinkedIn and Facebook connects and a few of them have materialized as orders. Of course, there is an infinitely large scope to be tapped. I believe we have not yet tapped social media to its fullest potential that we can exploit to generate business”.

Writing social blogs built  contacts

“I registered on facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter @ 2009 but started using Facebook sometime in late 2010 and aggressively in 2011 onwards. I started using LinkedIn around the same time but found it slow and less friendly as an interface. It looked like Facebook was built by a businessman, easier for users; and LinkedIn by engineers, more complete but focused, technically sound but terrible to use. Now of course, since 2015 LinkedIn tools have improved and the site itself is much faster than what it used to be. I started using Youtube in 2011 and started writing social blogs in 2010 which built my contacts. I am on Twitter on-and-off as just 600 followers who may be hardly reading my tweets. We started using BlackBerry messenger as social media in @ 2009 and started using WhatsApp as social media marketing tool in 2013 when broadcast list size was increased to 256”.

Early in the morning, late at night is Social Media time

“When I am tired during the day for 5 minutes (I ensure I don’t spend more time there), early in the morning and late at night before I fall asleep for half hour or so when I create and schedule my posts. I do not spend time to post during the day unless something urgent like a virus attack, ransomware attack or something similar comes up of importance to my audience”.

Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp are for  customers

“All have their positives, but it is difficult to beat reach of facebook and focused audience of LinkedIn. Facebook is for branding and LinkedIn is for direct, focused posts that deliver the punch and generate direct results. WhatsApp is the best for us as it gives us an opportunity of direct interaction and results gauged with replies I receive in private as messages”.

‘Jo Dikhta Hai, Vo Bikta Hai’

“Social media has gifted superb visibility and credibility to my business. It is said ‘jo dikhta hai, vo bikta hai’, I am visible. I have forged partnerships with system integrators and resellers on the basis of my social media engagements so while we have less than 1% sales that is from lead to execution through social media like Facebook and LinkedIn, we clock almost 10% revenues from WhatsApp groups and broadcast lists. In fact, some much respected accounts have been bagged by us through WhatsApp messaging”.

Not all SI’s are effectively using Social Media for business

“We have encouraged our SI partners to use social media and WhatsApp and given them examples of how we do that. SI does not really tap into potential and some of them are content posting good mornings, etc. They use social media but not for business. On the other hand there are many dealers and traders who sell a lot of things on social media, from mouse to laptops and second hand computers, but those are really ‘cheap deals’. Don’t know if it is really helping them”.

Whoever is not there will not be there

“In this era to digitization and technology, whoever is not there on social media, will not be there in the business. We look forward to advertising on LinkedIn going forward”.

Harinder Salwan of Tricom Mutimedia shared that his team has been using a Page on Facebook and there is also a company twitter handle to promote the new campaigns and events happening in the line of business.

Harinder expressed that, “This is an era of social media where every person is using this 24x7 and is always accessing these platforms from his hand phone so it makes logical sense to move from the traditional print media to this social media”.

Social media has created visibility and reach

“Social media has created the visibility and reach for us and we are able to reach out to our customers with a much faster turnaround”.

First start on social media was with FB

“We have been on Facebook since over 8 years ago and have added the twitter handle to viral the activity of the organization over 4 years ago and currently using the whatsapp media to reach out to our customers for our promotions”.

Half an hour spent on Social media is worth spending

“We spend approx. 30 minutes per day on social media since we are using our observations and page tools provided by the vendors to analyze the responses and refine our strategy there”.

FB & Whatsapp strengthens the customer reach

“Facebook and Whatsapp are making it more personalized with customers using social media. It’s easy to connect and access”.

Social media helps in  business promotions

“We have been in business for over 25 plus years with over twenty thousand plus customers whom we are getting connected to our activities and promotions”.

 Reach to new generation  users have increased 

“Social media is helping us to reach out to our new generation of users who are more technology savvy and spending over 50% of their time on these mediums. We have been seeing a growth of over 20 % on Y-o-Y coming in from our social media activities”.

SI’s are not very active on Social Media

“We have observed SI’s not very active in that area as they are more active on a person relationship then social relationship and most of their business comes in from references”.

Medium of reaching out customers got changed

“Social Media is now a medium of reaching out to your customers in all the possible ways and we are observing that Whatsapp is now the defacto email option available to the customers where we can do much more and more quickly and handy and convenient”.

 K. V. Jagannath, MD and CEO of Choice Solutions told that his company has been using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus, Reddit and Stumbleupon as these are the most popular and effective platforms in communicating with others.

Jagannath added, “There are various advantages gifted by social media to the business which majorly includes the low cost of social media which makes it useful to small businesses. Social media tools are open and accessible to anyone, regardless of company size, turnover and contacts. Social media channels are extremely simple to use. Businesses can communicate information in a flash, regardless of geographical location. It offers unparalleled opportunities to interact with customers and build relationships. Social media’s adaptability makes content management generally more flexible”.

First flight on social media

“We started out at one go with Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus, and Stumbleupon together as these are most popular social media platforms”.

Sales Empowerment  On Social Media

“We are yet to explore that area of direct sale, though we did try out offers associated with product sale as well as recruitment drive”.

Preferred platform to reach customers

Facebook is always preferred.

Personal usage platform

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Google Plus.

Reach over  social media

“The company has nearly 300 followers on Facebook, over 1400 in Linkedin, around 50 on Twitter. Google plus and stumbleupon aren’t about followers these are more about link building”.

Business growth from social media

“We are yet to explore that area for direct sale, though we have garnered some attention with our postings”.

Future of social media in the era to digitization & technology

“In this era of digitization and technology brands will use social platforms to connect with their audience. The data that they collect from social media platform helps to shape the way they communicate with target audience online. Social Media will able to collate the data, and turn it into usable information. We are going to see more and more tools. Marketers will create more video content”.

Nityanand Shetty, Managing Director of Essen Vision says, “Branding and marketing are the two major factors on social media but people usually focus on the second part that is marketing and miss out the first major factor that is branding”.

Provide Relevant Content

“If you want people to pay attention, you need to post relevant content.  If they post things that customers can use, they’re more likely to share it with family and friends.  You’ll be a lot more relevant to customers then and even to other people following you”.

 Whatsapp; the widely used medium

 “The most widely used medium is Whatsapp, with social media people try to see what others are doing and then they try to copy it further. I strongly believe that your offline and online presence should be the same. In computer language we say, “What you see is what you get”.

 “People share intelligent quotes on social media but when you meet them, they are totally different. Brand identity is important with social media. It should be unique on social media”.

 Don’t Leave It Open Ended

  “Your conversations on social media should eventually lead back to your website or blog.  Think of social media as a road to your website where customers can learn how your products and services solve their problems. One should be active on regular basis with the posting stuff”.

Provide Valuable Information

 “No one is going to pay attention to you on Facebook or LinkedIn if you don’t provide valuable information.  It’s up to you to provide with relevant information that people can use to communicate via social media”.

 Think before you speak (tweet, post, like, and share)

 “You should know how to build up your brand over social media so that people should know you with your posts style. Of course, sharing opinions via social media is a great way to spark conversation, but sometimes it drums up the wrong type of conversation. Since everything on the Internet is eternal, help people learn to be careful when posting jokes, pictures and articles”.

 First start On Social media

 “First we started off with facebook and linked and much later with twitter. Whatsapp is a very strong medium right now. We have a group within our company, I share with the HR team and then we share with all. Some relevant videos are there that we share”.

 Preferred platform to reach customers

 “I try to maintain Linkedin account for customers”.

 Personal usage platform

“Whatsapp and Facebook are for personal use; but I blend them with work also”.

Followers & friends on Social media

 “1000+ followers and friends are there. I never send friend requests on social media actually have stopped somewhere back, people send it to me now”.

SI’s On Social media

 “Social media has made my brand stronger but on the other hand if I have to say about Sis they are still busy in marketing than building brand, people are just trying to copy each other”.

Future Of Social media

 “Social media is the way to go forward. Other mediums are expensive for marketing and advertising. Social media is cheaper as well as convenient but one need to be regularly. People need to build brands and then need to maintain them”.

Kailash Gupta of ETSC Computers Pvt Ltd shared, “We are using Facebook Page; Twitter; Linkedin, and whatsapp. Facebook page gives wider publicity, visibility and coverage. Twitter for trends in Technological space and technological groups. Linkedin for more of professional connect and recruitments and Whatsapp: More for instant messages and updates to team; customers and groups”.

 Larger reach + No cost =  Social Media

“Social media offers larger reach at almost no cost. No geographical limitation and hence can reach to customers even on move Instant communication and reach”.

Growth of business on Social media

“Surely Social Media has helped us network with people connected with diverse domains and we are able to communicate our offerings effectively through regular updates on technologies and solutions, Since most decision makers are on move and mobile ;hence it helps generate and resolve queries instantly ; thereby helping in faster decision making”.

Started on Social media as a hobby

“Started with facebook as hobby and later created the page as the numbers increased over 25; this was most popular at that time. Later other platforms were adopted”.

Social Media for Sales Empowerment

“We use social media for social empowerment also. Facebook page is used to upload latest product EDM’s and Video’s; whatsapp is used to instantly upload latest product brochures; offers and videos. This helps team in closing the sales faster by reducing sales cycle”.

Online time table

“Average: 1 Hours on facebook; 1 hour on whatsapp; 30 minutes on twitter and 10 minutes on linkedin”.

Preferred platform to reach customers

Facebook ; whatsapp

 Platform for personal usage

Facebook; whatsapp; twitter; Linkedin

Followers & friends on social media

Facebook: 469; Twitter: 867; Linkedin: 800

SI’s  On Social Media

“SI’s are using it effectively as it’s the best platform to reach larger audience and thus propagating your solutions; innovations and consulting in minimum time frame to maximum people. Also it generates online references and testimonials which help close the deals faster”.

Future of social media

“In the ear of digitization and with Mobiles becoming lifeline for all at workplace; social media will become defacto for even business communications and decisions within and outside organisations. With add one of cloud services ; it will become almost impossible to sustain without use of social media on business as majority of people will be connected through social media on one platform or the other ; thereby making it almost impossible to work in offline or isolated mode . However; there will be more and more innovations in all social media platforms to make it more suitable to business operations. facebook; Linkedin ; twitter and Instagram are alreadyprogressing in that direction” .

Chetan Shah, Managing Director of Xpress Computers expressed, “As an organization, we use linkedin, FB & twitter to communicate to our prospects and customers.

These are the most commonly used platforms and hence it would be easier to communicate our messages about new developments in our company”.

Social media to promote business

“Social media platforms help to promote business, it offers   mass appeal, its non-intrusive, cheap, and of course makes interaction possible”.

Building  reputation

“Social Media has helped us come closer to target audience, communicate about new technologies, offers & build a reputation”.

Accounts on Social media

“There is one on FB, on Twitter and on linkedin – for the company”.

Preferred platform to reach customers

FB

Platform for personal usage

Fb

Followers & friends on social media

Over 5000

SI’s On Social Media

“This is quite common now for SI to use social media”.

Social media to  eclipse email & phones

“Social media would slowly become the preferred choice of reaching out to target audience. It would eclipse email & phone based marketing mediums in 3-5 yrs in India”.

Sunny Sharma, CEO of Foetron told, “Although, we are active on all social media channels, we primarily focus our work around Youtube, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We have also built our own digital interaction tool which is accessible at cloud.foetron.com. With this portal, we have customer visiting us for service delivery requests. Additionally, we are sharing white papers and 'how to do videos' with them in private mode, using this portal”.

 Sunny added, “Social media has the highest recall value using which a great scale can be built. We get hundreds of requests on our portal on daily basis and our entire business is centered on digital outreach”.

Social media helps in business growth

“Our primary outreach has been digital only. We owe our entire success to it. The testimony to our success is this that we have been the Cloud Partner of the Year (SMB) 2016 for Microsoft. What better outcome could we have asked for?”

First start on social media

“We started with Facebook in year 2011. After that, we pivoted around Youtube and Linkedin”.

Social Media for Sales Empowerment

“We believe that social media has to be the core belief for everyone in the company including Sales folks. Our people are connected to customers on digital channels which gives maximum benefits”.

Online timetable

“We use social media 24*7. It cannot be and should not be some hourly activity”.

Accounts on Social media

“We have presence on Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Facebook. We are also exploring other upcoming social media channels like Instagram”.

Social media Activeness

“We have two dedicated resources to deliver the digital experience to our customers. Apart from this, our support team is using our portal to remain connected with our customers for service delivery requests”.

Preferred platform to reach customers

“Linkedin is our most preferred platform to connect with our customers”.

 Platform for personal usage

Linkedin and Youtube

Followers & friends on social media

“We have more than 30,000+ users interacting with us on cloud.foetron.com and total YouTube views of 17000+ in last 1 year”.

SI’s are using Social Media

“We have seen this space evolve quite rapidly since the time we had started with respect to its usage for business growth perspective. However, there is a lot of scope of improvement for its effective use”.

 Future of social media

“Social media will become the core of digital businesses. Every strategy will be built around it”.

 Rajeev Mamidanna, Co-founder of Technosprout Systems shared, “I have been using Facebook and Linkedin for the business promotions so far and the reasons are theseare most widely used social platforms also customers, alliances and partners are all active on these media”.

Advantages of social media

“Its reach and segmentation of target audience is really helpful in terms of business promotions”.

Social media to grow business

“It has helped in people recognizing what we want to convey.The time to get the message across has reduced drastically”.

 First start on social media

“Started with Linkedin, Moved to facebook even though we were not very sure if there are serious audiences”.

 Social Media for Sales Empowerment

“We use social media for sales, especially inside sales teams since they generally meet the customers on the phone and don’t meet them face to face. Social media are good platforms for this kind of networking”.

Social media time

“About 2-3 hours a week. Ideally organizations need dedicated marketing resources that are on these sites and keep updating data, call to actions and sending updates”.

Preferred platform to reach customers

Serious: Linkedin, Informal: facebook, Visual: youtube

Platform for personal usage

Linkedin, facebook and twitter

Followers & friends on social media

Linkedin: 1600+ and Facebook: 1132

Growth in business via Social media

“Good call to actions and Visibility in things that were new and we needed to communicate to people in a short time”.

SI’s using Social Media

“They are using regular media, new media need more resources. There is a lot of scope for new medium like videos”.

Future of social media

Visual media like Videos

Gautam Raj of Ecomp Technology says “We are using WhatsApp, Facebook, Twiter as a tool to send all our EDMs, promotions, offers scheme etc to almost 5k partners/individuals on daily basis.

We have created few broadcast groups and we keep them posting information which could help them in anyways. Also we are very much active on Facebook and time to time we keep connecting and promoting”.

Social media a blessing to promote business

“There are many advantages of social media but if I have to point few and they are: - cost effective, Save lots of time, Reaches to the mass very quickly, Gives you immediate connect to any individual. Less manpower required and yes boost to your business”.

Social media helps in business growth

“It has helped me a lot to connect with many customers and I got good mileage in my business. However I have seen an upscale growth in the enquiry/leads coming to us and also saving cost for generating it. It’s a wonderful platform for today’s market generation”.

First start on social media

“Initially we started with Facebook and linked in also we use to domass mailing and mass messaging to our customers. There was a cost behind each message and mail. However those days’ lots of people use to ignore the messages and also the mail use to sit in junk box”.

Social Media for Sales Empowerment

“I have a dedicated team for social media marketing. Who prepares EDMs on a daily basis and also we keep updating them with latest information on IT& Telecommunications”.

 Online time table

“Every day morning I personally send the greeting message with some EDM by 6:30 am to all my broadcast list groups and then by 10 to 11 we do the marketing activity on social media”.

Preferred platform to reach customers

“For me WhatsApp broadcasting has helped me a lot to reach to last mile and Facebook has given our company a good visibility”.

 Followers& friends on social media

“We have around 5k friends and followers”.

Business Growth via social media

“I have seen around 25% growth in my business from social media”.

 SI’s using Social Media

“It’s my feeling that majority of our Sl community is using social media for their business reach and growth. As most of them have come out from their traditional way of approaching the customers and they are using the social media platform”.

Future of social media

“Well I have seen the drastic change in the way of doing business in my past 15 years of experience, from the tradition way of going to customers and approach them for business and in today’s scenario things has become more convenient if you are present in social media. It is very good sign that our India is changing and moving towards technology and digitization and so do the market. I personally believe that every business person will be benefited from this move without any turbulence. There is a huge potential in social media and I suggest everyone to be part of it”.

 Limesh Parekh, CEO of Enjay IT Solutions Ltd expressed, “We have been using LinkedIn, FaceBook very extensively and also Twitter to some extent. Primarily we use LinkedIn, for obvious reasons that it's used by most professionals. People on LinkedIn are serious about business. It's very easy to connect to Senior Management people from LinkedIn and then take that relationship forward. If we consider Youtube as Social Media, we use that also very extensively. Even Slideshare.net has helped us to share our presentations with a vast audience. We have some PPTs which have been seen by more than 8000 people. This could have been possible only using Online Social Media”.

Social media to promote business

“It's fast; it's Direct, it’s efficient and you reach to anyone whom you want to target. Plus it's extremely cost effective. If we compare the cost of lead generation using any other means, Social Media is extremely cost effective”.

Growth in business via Social media

“1000% yes (extra zero is intentional). We have been operating Enjay from a small village in Gujarat. There couldn't have been a better way to find and connect with our potential customers and partners. Also, Social Media helps us to educate our Customer and Partners very quickly”.

First start on social media

“We started to use LinkedIn initially for business purpose. That was much before LinkedIn became known as the popular professional Social media platform in India”.

Social Media for Sales Empowerment

“Our product videos and presentations are hosted on sites like Youtube and Slideshare, and this helps our Sales Team and even our Partners to acquire and share information very efficiently”.

Online timetable

“Early Morning is the time for social media. In fact, that is the most active time, because most of the Professionals have the habit of checking out LinkedIn and Facebook before they hit the office”.

Accounts on Social Media

“We have accounts on LinkedIn, Slideshare, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. We have both companies, Personal and sometimes product related accounts also”.

Preferred platform to reach customers

LinkedIn

Platform for personal usage

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Followers & friends on social media 

“Collectively More than 25,000 individually and if we take everybody in Enjay (personal and corporate pages), we may be having more than 1 lac followers”.

Social media addition to business

“I can say 40-60% of Enjay's Leads come due to Social Media and its efficient use”.

SI’s On Social Media

“System Integrators don't use Social Media effectively. In fact, SIs don't use Technology properly. This is not an overstatement - but bitter truth. Since they don't use it, they think that no one is using it. However, Most of SME owners, CXOs of Medium and large enterprises are very active on Social Media. In fact, Social Media is where our customers are. But, unfortunately, SIs ignore it, Except few who use it efficiently”.

 Future of social media

“Social Media is going to become the primary tool for Customer Engagement and relationships. Ignoring it not a good idea”

Hemant Chabria of Chabria Infotech shared, “We use 80 % Videos for our marketing as Videos (www.justvideos.co  - my Video Marketing Service. Video Boosts Conversions and Sales, Video Shows Great ROI, Video Builds Trust,  Google Loves Videos – Video SEO for first Page on Google ( We guarantee first Page on Organic Search using Video – Since Youtube belongs to Google) .Video Appeals to Mobile Users, Video Can Explain Everything.

 Launching a new product or a service? Create a video to show how it works. 98% of users say they’ve watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service. That is why 45% of businesses who use video marketing said that they have an explainer video on their home page. Of those businesses, 83% said that their home page explainer video was effective. Video Engages Even the Laziest Buyers.

Video is a great tool for learning but it’s also super easy to consume. Today’s life is too busy to have time to read long product descriptions or dig deep into services. The modern customer wants to see the product in action. This is one of the most important driving forces of video advertising. Video Encourages Social Shares

In short 80 percent of the internet traffic will be video in the next 2 years and beauty of Video is that it can be repurposed based on need and messaging and becomes a digital asset and you get maximum ROI which no other medium gives you”.

Social media to promote business

“We use Facebook (targeted campaigns )  and Youtube ( Instream and Indisplay Ads )  mainly  because the wastage is less than 10 % and campaigns are highly targeted , Native video is given a very high priority in Social Media”.

Social media PROS

“Reach and Targeted Campaigns – Better ROI”

 First start on social media

“Facebook and Youtube .Started almost simultaneously, started getting results and good reference”.

 Social Media for Sales Empowerment

“We have whatapp groups for all projects along with customers so that we all are insync , earlier using basecamp and Teams from Microsoft , But whatsapp helps in immediate update. We also use sales navigator from Linked In, which is a very powerful tool”.

Accounts on Social media

“Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram & FB …Plus couple of other Social 2.0 sites”.

Online timetable

2 Hours to 3 Hours a day.

Preferred platform to reach customers

Google, Youtube and Facebook

Platform for personal usage

Facebook, Youtube

Business growth via social media

“Social Media in general has added a new dimension to my business and plus I see lot of potential in leveraging Social Media in overall space specially Social 2.0 Sites help a lot in gaining the advantages”.

Future of social media

“The platforms will evolve and something like “wechat” (which is currently being used in China mainly) customized business applications are the future with a single signon…”

Vipul Datta, CEO of Futuresoft Solutions says, “FutureSoft Solutions Pvt. Ltd. has been proactive in adopting social media platforms namely LinkedIn, Facebook, Online and Offline Press Release, EDM, Bulk emailing solution, Newsletters to name a few. Social media has generated tremendous online exposure for our organization; more insights are brought by displaying them to outside world”.

Pros Of Social Media promotions

Vipul added, “Indeed, it is a fact that social media has been used not only by big businesses, however is widely used by small businesses, as it provides cost effective marketing tools for all business segments.

• FSPL uses social media to increase our website traffic and linking with search engines to notice more.
• Social media is free of cost, which is most encouraging part for any organization to start using such platforms. We invest time& effort in performing various activities on LinkedIn, FB, etc., This way we can easily see whether social media provides us with a return on the investment of our time or not.
• We manage FSPL’s reputation well through social media; many businesses are afraid to put their name into world of social media. Rather than looking at it as a threat, FSPL works on it as an advantage and tackles bad perceptions created by outside world.
• Social media allows us to nurture leads and we can educate customers about issues surrounding our industry. It can be shared through articles, Blogs, videos etc”.

Business growth via Social media

“Definitely yes, Social Media has been most important milestone that we have covered within FSPL, as contacting our potential customers has become easier and fruitful. Besides this, we have noticed followership and interaction has increased on FSPL official pages and audience is keener to stay updated on our new initiatives and updates”.

First start on social media

“We initially launched FSPL Facebook page to bring excitement, and awareness of various activities done for FSPL employees. Very soon, we noticed wide acceptance, interaction, and happiness by employees and their groups”.

Social Media for Sales Empowerment

“Social media is widely used for sales empowerment. We generate leads through all the major social networking sites. This helps us to attract more customers, who we can dazzle by providing a personal touch, building relationships and driving loyalty. We also get references by word of mouth through such platforms. Social media helps us to listen to what audience is saying, including our customers, prospects, peers and competitors”.

Online timetable

“We are proactively working on social media platforms during business hours and on free time too. Our main marketing work resolves around social media, we work daily on different activities related to products, posts, various festivals, good learning and motivational posts, promotional offers on these sites”.

Accounts on Social media

“We have accounts on LinkedIn and Facebook currently. Our key initiative in FY2017-18 towards social media would be launch of Twitter and Youtube”.

Preferred platform to reach customers

LinkedIn

Platform for personal usage

LinkedIn, Facebook.

Followers & friends on social media

“From business perspective, FSPL would be having more than 2 lacs followers, groups and friend lists on all social media sites”.

Business growth via social media

“We have observed followership and Page likes, Group-joiningrequests have increased on all social media sites we work on. This leads to more comments, Likes and Shares from individuals and employees. In numeric term, we have analyzed around 35-40% business enquiries and leads come from this social media world”.

SI’s using Social Media

“From FSPL standpoint, social media is not happily welcomed by SI’s, hence not effectively and accepted well too. Reason is very simple. Social media is part of an ongoing investment, not just a one-off that magically continues. Content needs to be framed, designed, well placed, and then engagement needs to be carried to reach to our desired results and SI earns some value and revenue out of such initiatives. As marketing and social media is not seen as core element to the SI business, each individuals cost and material cost needs to be thought about, which seems to be a challenge.

On the other side, some well-established and progressive SI’s, take it as an opportunity to take the lead in creating a community, engaging potential end users, being thought leaders in their niche area and soliciting feedback from their community for improvement”.

Future of social media

“Social media world is changing and getting adapted well. There is no looking back on this. Sooner, social media will be most important initiatives run by all businesses in coming years”.