Facebook most important platform for marketers in India: E&Y report

Facebook is the most popular social media marketing platform in India, followed by Twitter and YouTube.

According to Ernst & Young's new report titled 'Social Media Marketing - India Trends Study 2013', Facebook is the favourite playground for social marketers in India, both for everyday conversations and organisation of engaging promotions and contests for fans.

The findings of the report are based on a survey of 48 social media savvy organisations in India as well as secondary research. Key questions that the study attempts to answer include what is the business objective for using social media, what are the commonly used strategies and measures, the average social media budget and its future prospects.

The marketing teams of some of the organisations that were surveyed include Bharti Airtel, BMW India, Café Coffee Day, Citi India, Cleartrip, Flipkart, Ford India, Honda Cars India, Maruti Suzuki India, Microsoft Corporation India, MTV India, Network18, Pepsi India, P&G India, Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, SAP India, Shoppers Stop, Tata Motors and Yatra.com.

Among these organisations, Ernst & Young quizzed one person each from their respective social media marketing teams. According to the report, Facebook is the most popular social media platform in India, with more than 62 million users. It is the favourite playground for social media savvy organisations for everyday conversations and engagement through promotions and contests for fans. Additionally, almost half of the organisations surveyed are already using emerging platforms such as Pinterest, Google Plus and Foursquare.

"Social media is fast emerging as a means of partnership between organisations and their customers, leading to continuous engagement and deeper loyalty. Many Indian organisations are already using social media in an advanced manner, even though there are ample growth opportunities. The future is looking bright with increase in scale and sophistication; however, social media savvy organisations need to analyse their maturity levels and explore new opportunities. They can move beyond marketing and see which other departments can benefit from using social media. Clarity of purpose and engaging universally accepted approaches in calculating ROI from social media marketing will help organisations make bigger investments in this area," opines Dinesh Mishra, advisory director and leader, customer practice, Ernst & Young.