SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IN HDFC AND ICICI

BANK

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 CHAPTER - 1

DEFINATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different
social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share
short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is a full-blown
social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a
variety of other activities.

INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Introduction to Social Media Internet Users in India 111 Million Active Internet
Users 89 Million Total Social Media Users 66 Million Internet Mobile Internet
39.7 Million Active Mobile Base in India 32.5 Million Active Social Media Users
in India With this magnitude of users present on the social media and exchanging
views/thoughts/ information ranging from “Current state of mind” to “How they
think things should be” day in and day out and open for the entire world to
see/read/interpret and spread, it provides tremendous amount of customer
information in terms of opinion/values/behavior/likes/dislikes out there on various
social media platforms. Indian Banks have started using social media in their
regular operations in various capacities and are at different stages of maturity. As
of April 2013, some private banks provide regular updates on the latest offers and
allow basic customer operations through popular social media sites. A large private
bank in India hosted Facebook application on its secure servers allowing balance
amount check, cheque book request, stop payment, etc. Some of the private banks
are using their Facebook page to provide customers, exclusive offers, product
details and customer care services. With a few banks taking the lead, the direction
is set for other banks to offer online financial services through such platforms

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sooner rather than later. ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are among the
top 10 Banks with Social Media presence as per a survey by Financial Brand in
July 2013. Banks in India cannot any longer live in denial. There could still be a
tendency to not use Social Media. Banks thinking on these lines may have to
remember that their competition is already active on Social Media, thus threatening
their own business.

The Social Media Phenomenon in India Social Media is “a group of Internet-based

applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web
2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content”. Easy
availability and cheap tariffs have boosted Internet adoption which in turn has
played a significant role in the emergence of a completely new medium called
“Social Media”. Increasing usage of smart phones in India and availability of
social media apps on phone is encouraging more participation in social media
networks.
In India, 40 million use internets on the go on mobile handsets and 82% of these
users use social media applications on mobiles.

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 CHAPTER - 2

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AND ITS FEATURES

Social media marketing is a new trend and rapidly growing way in which
businesses are reaching out to targeted customers easily. Social media marketing
can be simply defined as the use of social media channels to promote a company
and its products. This kind of marketing can be thought of as a subset of online
marketing activities that complete traditional Web-based promotion strategies,
such as e-mail newsletters and online advertising campaigns (Barefoot & Szabo
2010). By encouraging users to spread messages to personal contacts, social media
marketing has injected a new term of exponential dissemination and trust to mass-
communication and mass marketing. By this new approach of outreach and
marketing, new tools are being developed and increased in turn for businesses.
Social media marketers are now going better and more effective insight through
the introduction of analytic applications by official social network site platforms.

There are numerous different social media sites, and they take many different
forms and contain different features. Undoubtedly, the most common social
networking site that first comes to our mind is Facebook. Facebook was first
launched in February 2004, owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. As of May
2012; Facebook has over 900 million active users. Users must register before using
the site; they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and
exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their
profile (Facebook, 2012). In addition, users may join common-interest user groups;
categorize their friends into lists such as "People from Work" or "Close Friends".
Facebook main mission is to give people the power to share and make the world
more open and connected.

Other social network sites such as Twitter, Google plus, and LinkedIn may differ
in some ways, but essentially they work using the same principles.

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Marketing using social media such as these can take multiple shapes. The
traditional Facebook model, in particular, involves replacing the concept of a
human “friend” with a brand or tangible product or creating a page or group. A
user who elects to “like” a product or company advertises that connection to their
own private network of contacts. This concept extends to other forms of social
media as well. According to Bernie Borges (2009), Twitter is combination of
micro blogging and social network. Twitter, allows users to receive small updates
and advertisements from favored producers as well (Hafele, 2011). Twitter gives
opportunity to users to involve in real time sharing. A tweet is usually no more
than 140 characters, which followers of the user can see (Borges, 2009).

These two social media channels are among the most popular and heavily used
options now, but they are far from being the only ones. As observed by Kaplan and
Haenlein (2010) cited by Nick Hafele (2011) have identified several channels that
fall under the category of social media, each of which has opportunities and unique
advantages for marketing use. Collaborative projects, such as wikis, or editable
data-sources, are particularly poignant avenues of contact. In fact, trends indicate
that they are quickly becoming the predominant source of information among
consumer populations (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) cited by (Hafele, 2011).

Blogs, managed by either individuals or organizations, are another heavily used

marketing forum. Through blogs, businesses can promote brand awareness by
sharing insider information, updating customers on new products, as well as
providing links to the main sales channels. Fans will be updated time to time on
any special events, contests or a new promotion organized by the brand or product.
Blogs also facilitate the posting of comments and feedbacks, allowing fans and
detractors to post opinions and questions to producers. This encourages the
exchange of ideas between peers and can also promote honest discussion between
individuals and companies to improve their defaults (Hafele, 2011). Social media
approaches need to be considered to ensure the highest chance of success with a

5
social media marketing. According to Ray et al. (2011) cited by Nick Hafele
(2011) emphasize the need for diversifying a social media strategy to ensure that
messages are reaching appropriate audiences; there is no single correct approach.

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 CHAPTER - 3

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA

MARKETING

According to Watson et al. (2002) cited by Sheth and Sharma (2005) with the
popularity of digital marketing on the rise, many businesses are investigating how
social media can help them promote their products and services to potential and
existing customers. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have
transformed the way some businesses think about advertising. Some businesses
direct customers toward their social network pages more than they direct them to
their own websites. There are certain advantages to market via social media, but
there are also related drawbacks.

The primary advantages of social media marketing is reducing costs and enhancing
reach. The cost of a social media platform is typically lower than other marketing
platforms such as face-to-face salespeople or middlemen or distributors. In
addition, social media marketing allows firms to reach customers that may not be
accessible due to temporal and locational limitations of existing distribution

7
channels. Social media platforms increase reach and reduce costs by providing
three areas of advantage for customers.

First, the marketing firm can provide unlimited information to customers without
human intervention. This is an advantage over other forms of contact because the
amount of information that can be provided is much greater than in any other form
of communication. Additionally, and more importantly, the information can be
provided in a form that customers can easily process and understand. For example,
airline scheduling and reservation systems are very difficult to create and maintain
to serve individual needs. Additionally, in this context, the choices are large and
difficult to provide in any format that is better than web-based.

Second, social media marketing firm can create interactions by customizing

information for individual customers that allow customers to design products and
services that meet their specific requirements For example, online checking and
seat assignment can be done on the Internet. Finally, social media platforms can
allow transactions between customers and firms that would typically require
human contact as in the case of successful firms such as Dell and amazon.com.

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 CHAPTER - 4

ADVANTAGES

 Cost-related:

According to Weinberg (2009), the main advantage of social media marketing is

cost-related. The financial barriers to social media marketing are quite low
compared to others. The majority of social media sites are free to access, create
profile and post information. Whereas traditional marketing campaigns can cost
millions of dollars, many social media tools are free even for business use.
Businesses can run highly successful social media marketing campaigns on a
limited budget. The advantage of reaching your targeted market for little or no cash
investment is substantial, and the audience wanting your information voluntarily
joins or follows you. Pay-per-click advertisements on sites such as Facebook are
"geo-targeted" according to specific criteria, to reach the correct audience. The
viral nature of social media means that each person who reads your posts has the
capability to spread the news farther within his own network, so information can
reach a large number of people in a short time.

 Social Interaction:

One of the most notable phenomena of new media is how it has increased and
created new forms of social interaction. People spend more than a quarter of their
time online involved in communication activities (e.g., emails, IM chat, and social
networks), which is equivalent to the total time spent online for general leisure and
entertainment cited by. Social networking sites have become so pervasive that they
are the most popular Internet destinations. Not only has new media demonstrably
altered how often people communicate online, but it has also enlarged the pool of
individuals they communicate with, and led to new ways for behaviors to be
influenced. Consumer behavior studies reveal that individuals give greater

9
consideration to advice and information shared online, spending more time with
websites that provide third-party evaluations (Huang et al. 2009), and other studies
indicate such information can directly influence buying decisions, even if received
from purely „virtual‟ sources cited by (Hafele, 2011). Indeed many of the reported
benefits of new media usage (increased reputation, anticipated reciprocity) relate
directly to its social interaction aspects cited.

 Interactivity:

As observed by Steuer (1992) cited by Ronald P. Hill and Nora Moran (2011)
unlike watching TV or listening to the radio, the interactivity of new media lets
consumers become more than just passive recipients of stimulation. Interactivity
can be broadly described as the „extent to which users participate in modifying the
form and content of a mediated environment in real time .Interactivity is one of the
defining characteristics of new media technologies, giving greater access to
information as well as supporting increased user control of and engagement with
social media content cited by (Hill & Moran, 2011). Interactivity depends on the
context. In an online social networking context, interactivity refers to a user-
centered interaction with machines, messages, or other users, focusing on the
experiential aspect of networking process cited by (Hill & Moran, 2011).

While interactivity can be simple in certain contexts (e.g., simply filling out forms,
clicking links), it can also be more involved and elaborate, such as allowing
individuals to develop online content cited by (Hill & Moran, 2011). Studies show
that increased levels of interactivity can lead to higher involvement and more
positive attitudes toward websites along with higher source credibility. This user
interactivity enables consumers to participate in personal social networking by
selecting the content, timing, and communication act Specific applications of
social media empower consumers, such that they can take active control and
perform two-way communications. Active control takes place in a social

10
networking context and requires attention and participation from all participating
parties, including individual users, groups of networked people or communities,
and brands.

 Targeted market:

Social media provide marketers with the ability to target audiences and consumers
based on site users' personal interests and what their friends like. For example, list
country music as one of your interests on a social networking site; you will most
likely be seeing ads about country music concerts and artists. Some sites'
advertising will also highlight which country artists your friends like to provide a
personal connection. With such "smart" marketing, and advertising, marketers
effectively reach the people who are most interested in what they have to offer.
Furthermore, social networking enables word of mouth to promote products
beyond what advertising alone does.

A well-cited example of viral marketing combines network targeting market and

implicit advocacy: The Hotmail free e-mail service appended to the bottom of
every outgoing e-mail message the hyperlinked advertisement, “Get your free e-
mail at Hotmail,” thereby targeting the social neighbors of every current user while
taking advantage of the user’s implicit advocacy (Montgomery, 2001).

Traditional marketing methods do not appeal to some segments of consumers.

Some consumers apparently value the appearance of being on the cutting edge or
“in the know,” and therefore derive satisfaction from promoting new, exciting
products.

 Customer Service:

Customer service is another crucial area for social media marketing (Helmsley,
2000). Sometimes website designers cannot avoid a certain degree of complexity

11
in the architecture of a website. Therefore, it is necessary to have a thoughtful
customer service system. Links to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and links
to online representatives are useful in order to assist customers in the selection or
buying process. A marketer should not just offer online assistance. In many cases,
it is more convenient for customers to call a company. Therefore, the use of a toll
free phone number for customers should be considered.

According to Gommans et al. (2001), Order fulfillment and rapid delivery systems
are as critical to e-loyalty development as the other factors. A thoughtful logistics
system that guarantees a fast delivery after the checkout process contributes to
customer satisfaction, which in turn contributes to loyal behavior. In addition to the
speed of delivery, the logistics system should allow different ways of delivering
products. Some customers prefer to get the product delivered by parcel services,
like FedEx and UPS. Others might want to pick up a product in a physical store in
order to have somebody to talk.

A customer who buys something on the Internet has one major disadvantage
compared to a customer in real space. Internet customers cannot touch, smell, or
experience the good before they buy it. This makes a shopper insecure about
buying a product. In order to minimize this insecurity, an social media marketers
should offer brands that are well-known, good product quality, and, of course,
guarantee.

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 CHAPTER - 5

DISADVANTAGES

The online environment creates not only opportunities, but also complications and
challenges for the social media marketing process. The transparency of the web
makes online information available to all audiences, and reinforces the need for
consistency in the planning, design, implementation and control of online
marketing communication. There are five main disadvantages need to be
considered on social media marketing, which are:

 Time Intensive:

As the name implies, social media is interactive, and successful, two-way

exchanges take commitment. The nature of marketing changes in social networks,
with the focus placed on establishing long-term relationships that can turn into
more sales. Somebody has to be responsible to monitor each network, respond to
comments, answer questions and post product information the customer deems
valuable. Businesses without a service to manage these social networks will find it
difficult to compete. The first preliminary consideration and probably the most
important one is that social media marketing requires a significant time investment.
As a general rule, simply dabbling in a few social media resources and hoping to
realize enormous returns is fanciful. A company must realize the necessary time
commitment and either accept or reject that commitment as plausible for its
operation.

 Trademark and Copyright Issues:

According to Steinman and Hawkins (2010), it is of the utmost importance for

companies to protect their own trademarks and copyrights when using social media
to promote their brands and products. A company’s brands and other intellectual
property are often nearly as valuable as the products or services that they offer.

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Social media’s capacity to facilitate informal and impromptu communication often
on a real-time basis can aid companies in promoting their brands and disseminating
copyrighted material, but it can also facilitate third-party abuse of a business‟
trademarks and copyrights.

When using social media, whether via a third-party outlet or a company’s own
social media platforms, marketers should regularly monitor the use of their
trademarks and copyrights. Companies should monitor their own social media
outlets as well as third-party social media platforms to ensure that those providing
content through the media outlets are not misusing their intellectual property.
Internet tracking and screening services are available to monitor the use of your
business’s marks and copyrights on third-party sites, including checking social
media sites for profile or user names that are identical or substantially similar to
your company’s name or brands.

As stated by Steinman and Hawkins (2010), this form of business impersonation

can damage a company’s brand and reputation if left unchecked; such monitoring
can also serve as a positive indicator of business success. Companies should
consider reserving, on various social media sites, user names that match or closely
resemble their trade names and marks.

In addition, companies should have terms and conditions for their own social
media outlets, with provisions specifying how to properly use the companies or
third-party intellectual property. Marketers conducting certain types of social
media marketing campaigns, particularly promotions and user-generated content
campaigns, should have rules in place that include specific prohibitions regarding
trademark and copyright infringement and impersonation.

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  Trust, Privacy and Security Issues:

Using social media to promote one’s brand, products, or services can also
implicate trust, privacy and data security issues. It is important for companies to
aware of these issues and takes appropriate measures to minimize their exposure to
liability related to personal data collection, use, and maintenance.

Trust, particularly the unique dimensions of transactional security and privacy

(Hoffmann et al., 1999), play a critical role in generating customer loyalty to social
media marketers. A study by Ratnasingham (1998) has shown that fear of online
credit card fraud has been one of the major reasons customers have not done more
extensive online buying (Ratnasigham, 1998). Moreover, privacy concerns have
led to a public relations fiasco for some major social media marketing resulting in
substantial brand image erosion.

Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter generally have their own
privacy policies that govern their use of consumer data and third-party conduct on
the social media platform with respect to personal data. Marketers using third-party
social media outlets should ensure that their marketing campaigns do not
encourage consumers or any other parties to engage in practices that would violate
the social media company’s privacy policy and marketers should also ensure that
they are abiding by the policies as well. Companies that administer their own blogs
or other social media platforms should also maintain comprehensive policies that
disclose the company’s data collection, use, and storage practices, and any
responsibilities that third parties have regarding privacy and data security.

Trust, which is closely related to security, is a very important factor in the online
buying process behavior process. In general, you cannot feel, smell, or touch the
product. You cannot look into the salesperson’s eyes. Therefore, these ways of
developing trust are excluded on the Internet. Brand trust usually contributes to a
reduction of uncertainty. In addition, trust is a component of the attitudinal

15
component of loyalty. So it is obvious that loyalty in general and brand trust in
particular can help to overcome some of the Internet’s disadvantages, e.g. to
overcome perceptions that the Internet is an unsafe, dishonest, and unreliable
marketplace. In fact, these perceptions are still stopping some potential customers
from doing business on the web. A “third party approval” is a tool to generate trust.

 User-Generated Content (UGC):

During the last few years, users have spent more time and shared more
information, thoughts, and opinions with each other easily via the Internet. Also,
new forms of content generation, communication, and collaboration have come out
on the Internet. Oftentimes marketing strategies involving social networking sites
or other social media incorporate user-generated content (UGC) into the field. For
example, UGC allows Internet users to make comments in various forms, such as
photos, videos, podcasts, ratings, reviews, articles, and blogs. Whether it’s a video
or photo shared on a site or messages that site users disseminate to members of the
network, UGC holds much promise as a marketing tool.

In addition, user-generated content comes with a relatively high degree of

credibility in the eyes of consumers, particularly if someone created the content for
example or a tweet between friends. Soliciting user-generated content in
connection with a marketing strategy comes with some risk of incurring legal
liability for content created by an individual participating in the campaign
Marketers can, however, take certain steps to minimize legal risks associated with
marketing campaigns that involve the dissemination of user-generated content
through social media.

 Negative Feedbacks:

Social media, in a way, converts consumers into marketers and advertisers, and
consumers can create positive or negative pressure for the company, its products,
and its services, depending both on how the company is presented online and on
16
the quality of products and services presented to the customer. Consumer-
generated product reviews, images, and tags, which serve as a valuable source of
information for customers making product choices online, have increased rapidly
on the Internet and have had a great impact on electronic commerce.

One aspect of social networking that is especially damaging to marketing

campaigns is negative post responses. Unhappy customers or industry competitors
are able to post disparaging or offensive pictures, posts or videos and there is not
much a marketer can do to prevent these occurrences. Still, negative or other non-
constructive feedback cannot be ignored. Social networks must be managed
efficiently enough to immediately respond and neutralize harmful posts, which
takes more time.

 Discussion:

According to Gurau (2008), the online marketing environment raises a series of

opportunities and also challenges for social media marketing practitioners. The
audiences become more fragmented and proactive, but, on the other hand, the
company has the possibility to combine various modes and categories of
information in a complex message. Social media also permit the enterprises to
collect, register, analyze and use customer data and feedback for better targeting
online audiences and customizing its messages.

In fact, the specific characteristics of the Internet and social media applications are
making the implementation of integrated online marketing both inevitable and
efficient for an online approach. The cost-related factors, social interactions,
interactivity, targeted market opportunities, and customer services are excellent
features for organizations to adopt a proactive-reactive attitude and to succeed in
social media marketing. On the other hand, downside of social media marketing
such as time intensive, trademark and copyright issues, trust, privacy and security

17
issues, user-generated content (UGC) and negative feedbacks from customers are
major barriers facing by social media marketers.

According to Designing and implementing a specific model of integrated social

media marketing can integrate these characteristics. The message communicated
online should be first infused with the core corporate values, then adapted to the
online strategy and tactics of the organization, and finally customized for a specific
combination of targeted audience and online channel. The selection of the
appropriate communication-mix needs to take into account the characteristics of
social media marketing.

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 CHAPTER - 6

PURPOSES AND TACTICS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

MARKETING

One of the main purposes in employing Social Media in marketing is as a

communications tool that makes the companies accessible to those interested in
their product and makes them visible to those who have no knowledge of their
products. These companies use social media to create buzz, learn from and target
customers. It's the only form of marketing that can finger consumers at each and
every stage of the consumer decision journey. Marketing through social media has
other benefits as well. Of the top 10 factors that correlate with a strong Google
organic search, seven are social media dependent. This means that if brands are
less or non active on social media, they tend to show up less on Google searches.
While platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+ have a larger amount of
monthly users, The visual media sharing based mobile platforms however, garner a

19
higher interaction rate in comparison and have registered the fastest growth and
have changed the ways in which consumers engage with brand content. Instagram
has an interaction rate of 1.46% with an average of 130 million users monthly as
opposed to Twitter which has a .03% interaction rate with an average of 210
million monthly users. Unlike traditional media that are often cost-prohibitive to
many companies, a social media strategy does not require astronomical budgeting.
To this end, companies make use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube and Instagram in order to reach audiences much wider than through the
use of traditional print/TV/radio advertisements alone at a fraction of the cost, as
most social networking sites can be used at no cost. This has changed the ways that
companies approach interact with customers, as a substantial percentage of
consumer interactions are now being carried out over online platforms with much
higher visibility. Customers can now post reviews of products and services, rate
customer service and ask questions or voice concerns directly to companies
through social media platforms. Thus social media marketing is also used by
businesses in order to build relationships of trust with consumers. To this aim,
companies may also hire personnel to specifically handle these social media
interactions, who usually report under the title of online community managers.
Handling these interactions in a satisfactory manner can result in an increase of
consumer trust. To both this aim and to fix the public's perception of a company, 3
steps are taken in order to address consumer concerns, identifying the extent of the
social chatter, engaging the influencers to help, and developing a proportional
response.

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  Twitter:

Twitter allows companies to promote their products in short messages limited to

140 characters which appear on followers’ home pages. Messages can link to the
product’s website, Facebook profile, photos, videos, etc.

 Facebook:

Facebook pages are far more detailed than Twitter accounts. They allow a product
to provide videos, photos, and longer descriptions, and testimonials as other
followers can comment on the product pages for others to see. Facebook can link
back to the product’s Twitter page as well as send out event reminders.

 Mobile phones :

Mobile phone usage has also become beneficial for social media marketing. Today,
most cell phones have social networking capabilities: individuals are notified of
any happenings on social networking sites through their cell phones, in real-time.
This constant connection to social networking sites means products and companies
can constantly remind and update followers about their capabilities, uses,
importance, etc. Because cell phones are connected to social networking sites,
advertisements are always in sight. Also many companies are now putting QR
codes along with products for individuals to access the company website or online
services with their smart-phones.

 Instagram :

In May 2014, Instagram had over 200 million users. The user engagement rate of
Instagram was 15 times higher than of Facebook and 25 times higher than that of
Twitter. According to Scott Galloway, the founder of L2 and a professor of
marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, latest studies
estimate that 93 percent of prestige brands have an active presence on Instagram
21
and include it in their marketing mix. When it comes to brands and businesses,
Instagram's goal is to help companies to reach their respective audiences through
captivating imagery in a rich, visual environment. Moreover, Instagram provides a
platform where user and company can communicate publicly and directly, making
itself an ideal platform for companies to connect with their current and potential
customers.

Instagram has proven itself a powerful platform for marketers to reach their
customers and prospects through sharing pictures and brief messages. According to
a study by Simply Measured, 71 percent of the world’s largest brands are now
using Instagram as a marketing channel. For companies, Instagram can be used as
a tool to connect and communicate with current and potential customers. The
company can present a more personal picture of their brand, and by doing so the
company conveys a better and true picture of itself. The idea of Instagram pictures
lies on on-the-go, a sense that the event is happening right now, and that adds
another layer to the personal and accurate picture of the company. Another option
Instagram provides the opportunity for companies to reflect a true picture of the
brand through the perspective of the customers, for instance, using the user-
generated contents thought the hash tags encouragement.[49] Other than the filters
and hash tags functions, the Instagram’s 15-second videos and the recently added
ability to send private messages between users have opened new opportunities for
brands to connect with customers in a new extent, further promoting effective
marketing on Instagram.

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  YouTube :

YouTube is another popular avenue; advertisements are done in a way to suit the
target audience. The type of language used in the commercials and the ideas used
to promote the product reflect the audience's style and taste.

Also, the ads on this platform are usually in sync with the content of the video
requested; this is another advantage YouTube brings for advertisers. Certain ads
are presented with certain videos since the content is relevant. Promotional
opportunities such as sponsoring a video is also possible on YouTube, "for
example, a user who searches for a YouTube video on dog training may be
presented with a sponsored video from a dog toy company in results along with
other videos.

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 CHAPTER - 7

MARKETING TECHNIQUES

 Targeting, COBRAs, and eWOM :

Social media marketing involves the use of social networks, COBRAs and eWOM
to successfully advertise online. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter
provide advertisers with information about the likes and dislikes of their
consumers. This technique is crucial, as it provides the businesses with a “target
audience”. With social networks, information relevant to the user’s likes is
available to businesses; who then advertise accordingly.

Consumer’s online brand related activities (COBRAs) is another method used by

advertisers to promote their products. An Activity such as uploading a picture of
your “new Converse sneakers to Facebook” is an example of a COBRA.[62]
Another technique for social media marketing is electronic word of mouth
(eWOM). Electronic recommendations and appraisals are a convenient manner to
have a product promoted via “consumer-to-consumer interactions. An example of
eWOM would be an online hotel review; the hotel company can have two possible
outcomes based on their service. A good service would result in a positive review
which gets the hotel free advertising via social media, however a poor service will
result in a negative consumer review which can potentially harm the company's
reputation.

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 CHAPTER - 8

ICICI BANK AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

1. What is the core theme of ICICI Bank’s social media program?

An ICICI Bank, believe social media is strategically important. It gives us direct

online access to customers, helping us get their feedback on a real-time basis in a
cost-effective manner. Also, social media is becoming part of life of several
segments of the population, who are either existing or prospective customers.

ICICI BANK believe that the 21st century Indian consumer is digitally adept,
socially connected and wants the best value and service from any service provider.
We, at ICICI Bank, strive to be his/her financial brand of choice through
everything we do.

One of the important reasons why ICICI decided to be on social media was to
create conversations and be high on engagement with our customers and fans in
their day-to-day life. We have been the most-engaged Indian banking brand on
Facebook.

25
ICICI follow a well-defined process to ensure our customers get the quality of
service they seek online. The process begins with listening to our customers
posting online comments on hundreds of websites including Facebook, Google,
Twitter and forums 24X7. Our next step is respond to those comments. We, at the
same time, analyse the comment stream to look for trends to understand the
customer sentiment better.

Social media presence is spread over various platforms:

 Twitter: ICICI BANK established our presence on Twitter by creating a

very robust infrastructure to “listen” to our customers. This helped us to
effectively and efficiently address queries/concerns of our customers.
 Facebook: ICICI Bank launched its Facebook page in January 2012. We
wanted the launch to be not just another medium to connect with audience
but also provide value-added services on the platform. We launched the one-
of-its-kind application that allows a registered user to check the bank
account details while on the social media platform and also avail of a host of
services. We have always encouraged users to follow safe banking practices.
Indeed, we have received a good response on our safe banking tips. In a
short span of over a year, we have built a 2 million strong community on
Facebook. On Facebook, we engage with our fans not only by providing
them information on convenience of banking but also by educating and
increasing financial literacy among our young fan base. We always
encourage feedback from our fans to make the conversation a two-way
traffic. We have also gone beyond just disseminating information and
limiting our conversation to banking. We have created games, fun
applications and contests for our fans to keep interacting with them.
 YouTube: YouTube channel is a library to view our advertisements, watch
interviews of our senior management, view product videos and share them

26
 among each other. Our channel has garnered over 1 million views since it
was launched in January 2012. It helped us to disseminate video information
on other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. We increasingly look
towards adding video inventory to further engage with our online-savvy
customers.
 Customer Query Management: The social media platform also offers us a
great opportunity to manage customer expectations and experience. All
customer grievances are integrated at the backend with the Customer
Relationship Management module built especially for Twitter and Facebook.
We have created a separate form to capture queries posted on the social
media platforms. A real time online dashboard helps us keep track of all
comments about the Bank.
If we notice that there are unhappy customers, we reach out to them and try
to resolve their issues. Many customers, after being satisfied with our
service, have endorsed the brand. This is an extension of our ‘Khayaal
Aapka’ effort, and brings to life our commitment to be where our customers
are. We have observed that once customers’ complaint is resolved, they
come back to the same platform and appreciate our services.
The insights that we gain from consumers about our products and services
help us in improving customer satisfaction. We have also increased positive
perceptions of the brand by creating opportunities to listen to and engage
with customers. Our presence has helped improve brand saliency and
affinity among the younger age group.

27
2. On what basis does ICICI BANK choose the social media
platforms to be present on?

An ICICI Bank uses the social media platform to engage with fans, prospective
customers and help build affinity towards the brand. We try to reach out to
customers depending on their presence across digital medium. Our objective is to
provide various touch points to customers to engage with the brand at their
convenience. We provide our customers with a rich offering of apps, product
information, and utilize the social media platform to increase financial literacy. We
look at platforms depending on the type of audience and content consumption
pattern.

3. More details of some of the initiatives or applications introduced

on social media?

ICICI BANK believes that engagement and interaction with fans is vital for our
growth on the social media platform. In an effort to create that engagement,
keeping in mind the industry we operate in, we have created a one-of-its- kind app
through which a customer can conveniently check his account details while on
Facebook. After authenticating his/her ID, a registered user can do the following
transactions: account details, mini statement, open FD/ RD, cheque book request,
stop cheque request, cheque status inquiry, apply for email statement and upgrade
debit card.

Over last one year, we have created a bouquet of rich offerings on Facebook – a
bank account app, a money personality app, a deal-of-the-day offers sections,
offers on banking products/services and a mechanism for customers to write to us.

ICICI Bank has also gone beyond just disseminating information and limiting our
conversation to banking. We have created games, fun applications and contests for

28
our fans to enhance interaction. For example, we organized a photo contest on the
lines of our philosophy of “consumer first” – Khayaal Aapka – on Facebook. The
contest encouraged fans to upload an original photograph clicked by them that
conveyed the message or depicted a Khayaal Aapka moment. The contest received
more than 2,000 entries and all entries were judged by a special jury. The winner
was given a Nikon coolpix camera.

The latest addition to ICICI bank bouquet of apps on Facebook is iWish, a flexible
recurring deposit account which helps you plan and fulfills your wish. The app
shares the wishes of the users and also let them know about the people likely to
help them fulfill their wish. The experience on the app helps them understand the
product and encourages them to sign up for it.

ICICI Bank has been keen on engaging with its fan base and thus has launched a
number of social media campaigns in 2012 such as ‘Personality quiz’ and ‘Fan of
the month’.

5. How ICICI see the growth of social media in the near future?

Big companies now need to create content that connects with the fans. Fans will
dissociate themselves from overall “product” content and engage with content that
is “relevant” to them. Brands will have to, therefore, be creative in conversations
with their fans. They will need to understand fan clusters and analyze what is
relevant to these fans. Another big development for brands on social will be to
meet expectations of fans in terms of delivering experience on mobile. E-
commerce is one of the biggest successful stories recently.

29
Sujit Ganguli, Head – Corporate Brand and Communications Group, ICICI
Bank

With social media emerging as an integral part of the communication mix, ICICI
Bank is making a 360-degree use of this platform to display its products and
services, and helping businesses in getting leads and customer applications for
various products.

In an interview with Pitch, Sujit Ganguli, Head – Corporate Brand and

Communications Group, ICICI Bank talks about the use of this medium for not
just disseminating information, but to also educating users about safe banking and
resolving their queries. Excerpts:

What kind of challenges do you face in accepting social media for

the financial sector?

The social networking platforms are power media for communication. At the same
time, it is important for customers to understand that they should not divulge
personal information or information related to banking on Facebook in general
comments or messages on the social media. We as a bank do not ask for any
information on Facebook or Twitter; we ask customers to share their queries in

30
detail, but only in the form created especially for Facebook or write to the
customer care e-mail id for Twitter and other platforms. This ensures data privacy
and also helps us resolve issues in a faster manner. We continuously keep
educating customers through our safe banking series, which talk about various
ways that a customer can avoid being a victim of fraud. We ensure that we revert
to customers in the shortest possible time in order to build and maintain customer
expectations and experience.

How are you positioning yourself differently from your

competitors?
ICICI Bank has been the first to explore new technology mediums. We have been
the most-engaged Indian banking brand on Facebook, and that is testimony to the
way we consciously and continuously create relevant content. We try to add more
and more value to our customer lives by increasing the number of touch points
through the use of technology. When we launched our official Facebook page, we
launched a one-of-its-kind application that allows a registered user to check his
account details while on the social media platform and also avail a host of services.
This application has helped our customers to save time and also do banking while
socializing.

How has social media helped the Bank?

Social media has helped the Bank not only in interacting with customers, but also
engaging with prospective customers. The reach of the brand has increased
manifold through positive recommendations. We keep doing polls to understand
the needs of our customers, such as the banking channels they prefer, how they
spend time and the product improvements that they would like. All customer
grievances are integrated at the back-end in a CRM module built especially for
Twitter and Facebook. The Bank has created a separate form to capture queries
from the social media platform. A real-time online dashboard helps keep track of
31
all the comments about the Bank. If the Bank notices that there are unhappy
customers, it reaches out to them and tries to resolve their issues. This has been
endorsed by many customers whose problems have been resolved and is in line
with the brand philosophy of ‘Khayaal Aapka’.

What are your social media centric products?

Bank App:

The “Your Bank app” on Facebook is a one-of-its kind app, which allows users to
avail a host of banking services on Facebook itself. Now they can bank and
socialize at the same time. This app was developed indigenously by our technology
team and has taken into account the Facebook environment and safety while
developing the application. The features of ICICI Bank app includes – Check
Account Summary, Check Account details, Check Mini Statement, Apple for
Email statement, Cheque book request, Stop Cheque request, Cheque status
enquiry, Upgrade debit card. This app has been highly appreciated by our fans and
tech savvy bloggers.

IWish:

Flexible online recurring deposit- It allows you to deposit money regularly and it is
linked to a pre-defined goal. This product gives to you the flexibility to choose
when and how much to save. This makes iWish different from a regular recurring
deposit where a fixed amount must be saved every month. This deposit let’s you
earn Fixed deposit interest rate even while enjoying the freedom of not saving
every month. You can share your goal on Facebook and let your loved ones
contribute to your goals and help you reach them fast. This product was launched
recently and we have got an overwhelming response.

32
How do you measure the success of your social media strategy?

We make 360-degree use of the social media space for both displaying our
products and services. Two metrics through which we measure our success are
‘engagement’ and ‘reach’. Continuous analysis of these two metrics has helped us
manage an engagement rate that is higher than global Banking and Finance
Category, according to social bakers. Also, according to Unmetric, we have
consistently been one of the highest engaged corporate in the Banking and Finance
Category. The latest ranking done by financialbrand.com banks and credit unions
has rated us as the third best brand on social media. This along with fan sentiment
shown on the page helps us evaluate our efforts and quality of content on regular
basis.

33
 CHAPTER - 9

HDFC BANK AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Indian banking industry is booming & is on expansion spree. Indian banks

contributed 1.7 per cent to the total global brand value at US$ 14.74 billion and
grew by 19 per cent in 2011 as per the annual international ranking conducted by
UK-based Brand Finance Plc. Indian banks whether government or private have
started using social media to stay in touch with their customers but HDFC stands
out as far as leveraging social media is concerned both in terms of number of
channels being used as well as engaging with their customers.

34
As per the graph above HDFC Bank has presence across 8 social media channels
out of which the prominent presence is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube
& their official blog. Important aspect is the engagement which they do on all these
channels.

 Facebook:

HDFC’s page on Facebook generates admirable feedback from users which serves
as a ground for them to understand their fans as well as promote their banking
products. They have a money matters section where they provide interesting recent
financial news of interest to their fans. Also they keep on engaging the users with
interesting puzzles/jigsaws based upon financial terms.

35
  Twitter:

HDFC’s twitter approach is build upon again like their Facebook approach on
sharing interesting & relevant information with their followers, asking them
interesting puzzles, sharing new products & deals from their stable and so on. No
wonder that they have a healthy follower count of 1300+ which is growing on the
daily basis.

36
  YouTube:

HDFC lacks on its YouTube marketing aspect and needs to learn from other banks
like ICICI which is the second most active bank on social media in India. Although
HDFC has created some great commercials for their television audience which
have found their way on YouTube also and these commercials have large
viewership on YouTube too but they need to leverage YouTube by posting such
videos regularly on their channel & promoting it further. Here is one such video
with almost half a million views so far.

37
  LinkedIn:

Bank’s company page on LinkedIn has more than 13,000 followers. They haven’t
leveraged this platform to its full potential yet like they can display their products
on their page on which they can get recommendation from the users which will
serve as a live testimonial but still having a presence on LinkedIn is being helpful
to them as the company stats & employees list can be browsed through to get
interesting information about them.

Here’s a very good graph showing the comparison of different Indian banks on
social media which clearly out states the leadership of HDFC bank in this domain:

38
With the increasing digitization, banking sector has seen a lot many changes in
their approach to attract clients. Competition among the banks have led to the
marketing of various activities and products of the banks through different
channels. From past few years, Banks have been using social media to connect
with the consumers, make them aware of their offers and other activities.

To highlight how banks are using social media, Unmetric, a Social Media
Benchmarking company released its “India’s Banks on Social Media” report to
examine very aspects of various banks Q1 social media strategy. For analysis
purpose, 11 banks were taken into consideration and their Unmetric Scores from
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were added together to determine the overall
winner.

39
  Below are the few key points from the report:

 There are a total of 6 million Facebook fans, 50,000 twitter followers and
9000 youtube subscribers for Indian banks altogether. Also, for every 1,000
Facebook fans, there are just 8 Followers on Twitter and 1.5 Subscribers on
YouTube.
 HDFC (1.5 Mn), ICICI (2 Mn) and Axis bank (1 Mn) are the only banks to
cross the 1 million Facebook fan threshold.
 Only IDBI bank, out of the 26 public sector banks has its presence on twitter
and YouTube apart from Facebook.
 HDFC Bank is the leading bank on social media with a score of 110
followed by ICICI bank with a score of 108 and Axis Bank with a score of
93.
 Growth of Facebook fans:

During January and march 2013, Standard Chartered Bank leads with 2,780% fan
growth, as the account was created only recently in Dec 2012 followed by HDFC
Bank with a growth of 120%. IndusInd Bank with 90.6% growth also nearly
doubled their fans.

 Social engagement:

An algorithm based on the number of Likes, Comments, Shares and Estimated

Impressions was used to produce a benchmark able score to rate fan engagement.
IndusInd lead with a score of 390 as high percentage of fans interacted with the
posts followed by DCB bank (358) and ICICI bank (104)

40
  Content strategies:

On analysis, it was found that brand news, engagement oriented posts (for e.g.
“Like this post if…”) and posts about Corporate social responsibility have the
highest levels of engagement.

Ad Campaigns also saw high engagement, despite being one of the least posted
items.

 Presence on Twitter:

Only six out of the eleven banks under study have shown their presence on Twitter.
Kotak Mahindra Bank comes out on top with 17,409 followers followed by IDBI
(12,484) and ICICI Bank (7,483).

On an average 10 tweets are sent per day. HDFC bank acts as the most active one
with around 18 tweets per day.

 Time taken to reply to tweets

Banks are mainly using this network to reply to questions. IDBI replied to 25
tweets in an average of 9 hours per tweet, whereas HDFC Bank replied to 916
tweets in an average of 19 hours per tweet. It takes ICICI nearly two days, on
average, to reply to a tweet.

However, banks prefer to get customers send the questions directly to a specific
email address or to call the helpline.

 Presence on YouTube:

Again, only 6 banks are found to have YouTube account, however, only three
banks showed any activity in the last three months. With 260% growth in video
views in the last 3 months, Axis bank is found to be the most popular and most
watched banking channel in India. Axis bank is also having the highest subscriber

41
growth rate of 290%. While other banks average 3 or more minutes per video – the
average HDFC Bank video is over 7 minutes long – Axis keeps it short with an
average length of 57 seconds per video.

According to Lakshmanan Narayan, CEO and Co-founder of Unmetric Inc., there

is a clear division between the social media efforts of private sector banks and that
of the public sector banks. Private Banks are looking to reach the younger
generation and tap in to the socially savvy middle class that already does most of
its banking online and uses social media to keep in touch with friends & family
around the world. The private sector banks have made huge progress in the last few
months, but there’s plenty of scope for improvement when compared to other
sectors in India like Telecom.

42
 CHAPTER - 10

SOCIAL MEDIA FRAMEWORK FOR INDIAN BANKING

SECTOR

BANK'S communications can no longer ignore the Social Media. According to a

study, two-thirds of the global internet population visit social networking sites and
the time spent on these sites is growing faster than the overall internet rate. Social
Media, a non-traditional method of interaction is thus, increasingly becoming
important to all sectors and therefore holds an opportunity for banks.

Today, the international banking world is widely deliberating on the role of Social
Media in business. Banks are now beginning to understand that social media can
become a key component of their strategy to increase overall business. However,
an evolution does not happen just when we adopt new tools, it happens when we
adopt new behaviour and opt for a cultural change and not just technology.

43
The Social Media Framework for Indian Banks prepared by IDRBT is a
comprehensive document that covers all the aspects relating to the use of Social
Media by the banking industry from recommendations to a governance model,
security implications and a Social Media checklist for banks, etc.

Some banks have invested significantly in Data Warehouse and Business

Intelligence (BI) tools, but with little effect in capturing customer life-time value,
and increase in the number of products per customer. A blend of the physical and
digital is the way forward. Banks can mine and harvest rich information from the
social media and it is a good building block for economic and customer research
and trends. Existing organisation structures and business processes are the two
main challenges to be overcome in view of a serious social media foray. The
structures are still branch-led. Organisational structures need to evolve fast.
Another barrier to adoption of social media is delay in process upgrades and
updates. Initiatives such as centralised processing are not exploited enough.
Technology initiative not adequately backed up by enough process upgrades,
stymies return on investment. For instance, the Metro Group (cash and carry) had
reportedly carried out over 7,500 measures which helped in cost reduction, sales,
and margins. The proof of the pudding is converting information into revenue.
Another barrier is lack of social media skill sets. It is not enough to recruit top
experts in the area. Social Media is a rich source of information about existing and
potential customers for Banks.

44
 CHAPTER - 11

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRADITIONAL CRM AND

SOCIAL CRM

Identify customer pain points, delight areas, topic trends, sentiments and customer
demographics. This may be used for generating useful customer insights. The
'single sources' of data need to be aggregated and analyzed in an aggregated 'all-
source' fashion to obtain deeper insights and analytics and to gather a 360 view of
the customer. Identifying insights about emerging themes among customer
conversations allows banks to take corresponding actions to alleviate risks to
Brand Reputation.
Marketing leaders must take the first critical step of changing mindsets and
revising some long-held beliefs about building and managing customer
relationships. Social Media amplifies Word-of-Mouth and has a direct impact on
customer growth and the spreading of positive/negative feedback about a product
or service among the target customers. Social Media provides another avenue for
customers, for market research, to determine decisions. Hence, other customers'
reviews, ratings and Customer Acquisition 2.0

Social Media assists banks in increasing its customer base, by achieving the
following:
 Social Media plays an important role in differentiating brands and making
them more relevant to consumers. When consumers are enabled to influence
all things and become co-owner of the brand, they would significantly
impact reputation and trust.

45
  Brand Building:
Testimonies play a pivotal role in converting the thought of prospective customers
to an actual sale. From generic advertisements for your entire target customer base,
social media has changed the advertisements to be present, where the customer is,
according to particular tastes. Pixel tracking is available to follow conversion of
Rich/Targeted Advertising:
 Products
 Price
 Promotion
 Place
 People
 Reputation
 Responsibility
 Relationship
 Reward
 Rigor

Need to consistently deliver brand promise in a more transparent world both

societal responsibility and respect of individual privacy Recognize the balanced
nature of interactions, no more one-way Both add value to and derive from
conversations and interactions Ensure consistency and reliability of operations and
experience delivered Traditional Context New Reality From “Four P’s” to five
“R’s”.

46
  Marketing Management:

Customers and accordingly advertisements could be shown. Marketing cost on

social media is less compared to traditional channels. Brand information available
24/7 Reviews from friends and other customers Direct feedback available
immediately Ability to purchase with little or no interaction Robust customer
information generally available Segmentation targeted and measured marketing
campaigns Information availability makes this stage extremely short, so closure
must be possible immediately Salespeople must be prepared for more intelligent
consumers More important is influencing customers to relay satisfaction to their
growing sphere of influence Monitor customer relationships and track influence on
future purchases Inquiry Lead Qualified Prospect Customer.

Social Media can be utilized by banks to create a rich and integrated experience for
customers. A socially engaging bank fosters more customer- centric approach that
influences recommendations, boosts sales and alleviates customer frustrations.
Customer experience may be improved by the following means:
1. Social media enables banks to leverage the wisdom and availability of other
customers and consumers to answer service requests. Customers helping
others may enrich the customer experience.
2. Social media allows banks to put service representatives monitor social sites
frequented by customer base and gives them an opportunity to be able to
identify and resolve customer issues, if any. Also,
3. Negative customer sentiment has the ability to propagate rapidly, due to the
inherent nature of social media. Hence, it is necessary for banks to spot such
discussions at the earliest and contain them with appropriate resolution
before they impact the brand negatively. Customers as Service
Representatives Monitoring and Engagement Build Service Model Create
online communities Integrate social media service channel with traditional
47
 service and support function Apart from mitigating risk, socially engaging
banking can help build a “branded community” and motivate supporters to
act as advocates.
4. Social media facilitates the connection of 'many spheres of influence' –
internal, trusted and global – to keep pace with ever-shortening product
lifecycles due to changing market/customer requirements.
5. The use of social media in this capacity bolsters a bank's ability to
understand and target customer niches with new offerings. Banks may
utilize this opportunity to enhance understanding of customer segments by:
By capturing and analyzing the buzz created by the target customer base, the
bank can identify the pulse of the customers towards its various products and
services. Banks may in-turn use these explicit and implicit needs/
behavior/values to define new customer segments and target customer
experience.

48
 CHAPTER - 12

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Social Media Framework for Indian Banking Sector The framework has six key
elements:

Context includes external considerations such as regulations and competitive

dynamics as well as the information a bank gathers through its social media
listening activities. It also includes internal priorities and initiatives.

Culture includes habits, behavior, ways of working and sub-culture within the
bank. Banks that use social media collaborate well across and outside bank
boundaries leveraging technology. Social media could be an aid for promoting
Corporate Social Responsibility and community outreach activities.

49
In addition to the processes that social media will support or impact, it is equally
important to focus on the process of managing social media within the bank. Every
bank must define cross-divisional processes for managing social media. Such
common processes should include the following:
Context, Culture, Process, Identify, Prioritize, and Plan.
Social Media Investments Manage Social Media Efforts and Track Benefits
Achieve Business Objectives Establish and Manage Standards Develop Shared
Service Budgets Manage Social Media Partners Measure and Improve Empower
and Support Business. Social Media Management within the Organization
Metrics –
People –
Policies –
Banks could define measurements for each line of business participating in Social
Media. E.g. number of fans, likes, number of tweets, etc. To deliver its desired
business outcomes, banks will need to identify the skills requirement to deliver the
Social Media Strategy. Typical roles created or most impacted in banks using
Social Media are across Executive Director (Champion), Operations (e.g.
Marketing, Community Manager, Monitoring Analyst, etc.), Risk and Compliance
(Chief Information Security Officer, Legal and Inspection team), Public
Relations/Communication (Content Maker, Advertiser, Publisher, etc), Information
Technology (e.g. Listening Post Data Managers, Web Crawler Architects) and
Human Resources (e.g. Recruiter, Social Learning Architect, Employee
Community Manager). Policies define acceptable, unacceptable, desired and
undesired behavior among internal and external audiences including employees,
contractors, vendors, customers, and prospects.

The number of social media sites is only increasing and each of the social media
sites cater to different audience groups and serve different purposes. It is important
for banks to understand the available social media platforms and where their

50
customer base is before deciding on their social media presence. Some of the social
media categories are:
These sites allow connecting people of similar interests and background.
 Allows banks to create online communication channels for sharing
information and events with customers and engaging in conversation to
builds relationships.
 Banks may position their brand on social network as an expert information
source. May also be used for educating and training customers regarding
products and services.
 Some of the popular social networking sites are Facebook, Orkut, MySpace,
LinkedIn, etc. Blogs are used for creating online communities where
customers can seek out information and answers to their questions.
 An active, content-rich blog can take consumer trust and engagement to a
new level. Bloggers produce content to post on their blogs and build social
relations with their readers and other bloggers. Some of the popular blogging
sites are Word press, Blogger, etc. Social Networking Sites Blogging Micro
Blogging Collaborative Projects Podcasts.
 Micro-blogging social media tools push short updates to subscribers. It can
be used to start conversations and broadcast product updates. It is used to
listen and resolve customer queries/issues in banking and financial world.
 It creates a vast online, viral, and word-of- mouth, which is optimal for
establishing brand loyalty and monitoring reputation. Some of the popular
micro blogging sites are Twitter, Tumblr, etc.
 Allows people to add or edit the content about some particular topic, thus
providing the information to everyone using the internet. Some of the
popular Wiki sites are Wikipedia (Media Wiki), PhpWiki, etc.
 A podcast is a digital media having a series of video, ePub, PDF or audio
radio files. Available through subscription or being downloaded through
web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device.

51
Podcasts could be used for information dissemination, live updates,
engaging staff.

52
 CONCLUSION

Social media can be established anywhere with an Internet connection, and it

should be considered by marketers, advertisers, and online content creators as a
basic part of their communications because social media affects all aspects of the
Internet and transforms the role of Internet in people’s lives.

Today, consumers gain a new role with social media. Consumers are becoming
content creators and, thus, functional consumers instead of just consuming, as in
the past. Social media applications or tools that facilitate this are blogs, micro
blogging applications, social networking sites, podcasts, and video and photo
sharing sites. Given this reality, it is useful for companies, especially marketers, to
integrate social media into marketing and their marketing strategies.

This study has attempted to identify the major advantages and disadvantages
determined by the development of Internet technology in the area of social media
marketing. Social media is the modern tool for marketers who try every means to
get their message out to their target markets. The medium has many advantages
and disadvantages based on their firm, and many companies still struggle to find
the right way to use it. The average business owners or marketers do not fully
understand the risks and challenges in it. The field is still so fresh that it is difficult
to evaluate the qualifications of social media “experts” who offer their services
online.

So, before a company step into the field of social media marketing, they have to
complete full research on social media practices. An organization has to master
basic principles and tactics of using social media as an effective tool in order to
survive in the field of social media marketing. Main goals of a company or
organization have to engage customers, to protect company reputation, to provide
customers with good quality of product and services and to satisfy customer’s
need.

53
 REFERENCES

WEB SITE PREFERED TO….

http://www.rbi.org.in/home.aspx \Trends in International Banking.htm

http://www.rbi.org.in/home.aspx -Reforms, Productivity and Efficiency in Banking
the Indian Experience.htm
http://www.rbi.org.in/home.aspx -Seminar on Banking Reforms
andStrategies1.htm
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Monetary-policy-and-banking-
sectorreforms/ 172338/36/10/07
http://www.ifbi.com/IFBI_Background.pdf
http://www.banknetIndia.com/banking/71116.htm Accessed on 15/11/2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_India
http://epaper.timesofIndia.com/Daily/skins/ET/navigator.asp?Daily=ETA&login=d
rparimalvyastetp.9291007p.21

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