Social Media Case Study - Social Listening Report on E-retail Brands

Reference No.: AA112

© 2013, Social Wavelength. All Rights Reserved 2

India's retail market was estimated at $470 billion in 2011 and is

expected to grow to $675 billion by 2016 and $850 billion by 2020, at

an estimated CAGR of 7%. According to Forrester, the e-commerce

market in India is set to grow the fastest within the Asia-Pacific Region

at a CAGR of over 57% between 2012 and 2016.

India's e-commerce market in 2011 was about $600 million and is

expected to touch $9 billion by 2016 and $70 billion by 2020, at an

estimated CAGR of 61%.

A study by Assocham, states that India is one of the three fastest

growing internet markets in the world and about 75% of online

audience lies between the age group of 15-34 years. This makes the

nation one of the youngest online demographics, globally and social

networking is the most popular online activity of this age group.

From the above statistics, it is easy to understand that a large number

of people use social media to share their shopping experiences. These

experiences, in the form of conversations on social media, are read by

millions and have an impact in influencing their decision for the next

purchase. So it is necessary that these are tracked consistently and

meticulously.

Introduction

http://socialwavelength.com


We used Radian6, a part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud – a

sophisticated, easy-to-use, real-time monitoring tool – to extract

conversations about the following e-commerce brands in India,

through the use of keywords:

Conversations about the above brands that happened between

February 12, 2013 and March 11, 2013 were analyzed. The buzz and

sentiment for these brands were measured and compared. The key

topics of discussions were identified to understand the kind of

conversations that happened during the period. The keywords used

were brand names and their variations.

Abstract



Volume of Conversations for eCommerce Brands on Social Media

Share of Voice

Flipkart, Snapdeal, Homeshop18 and Myntra evangelize their brands

through extensive use of hashtags on Twitter. These Twitter hashtags are

often part of contests, where users also need to mention the brands’

official Twitter handles. This causes better online visibility for these

brands, especially when such hashtags trend on the microblog. Brands

with a higher share of voice also seem to benefit from 'word-of-mouth'

across social media, where their buzz increases in a compounding

manner. More well-known brands have a higher share of voice, and these

brands are more well-known.

ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT (ORM) HELPS BRANDS

INTERPRET 'WHAT' KEEPS THEIR BUZZ HIGH OR LOW, AND 'WHY'.



Top Brand Conversation Topics



Sentiment and the BRI Brand wise Sentiment

The BRI also shows why social media monitoring is essential for brands. A

larger volume of conversations can also mean more negative feedback

for the brand, as seen here for Flipkart and Homeshop18. A platform to

track complaints about a brand and respond to them real-time, greatly

enhances how people perceive a particular brand.

Online Reputation Management plays a key role in enabling brands to

respond to customers. Likewise, sentiment and volume of conversations

across the industry, is essential for brands with low buzz, to attain more

brand visibility online.

ORM HELPS BRANDS UNDERSTAND THEIR SENTIMENT, WHILE

IDENTIFYING THE KEY POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE DISCUSSION TOPICS IN

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THESE BRANDS.

Brand Reputation Index is a metric introduced by Social Wavelength to identify relationships

between a brand’s volume of conversations and sentiment against those of the industry.



The Brand Advocacy Matrix

The Brand Advocacy Matrix is a tool derived by Social Wavelength, to correctly gauge the Volume

vs. Sentiment positioning on social media for brands in an industry.

Despite the highest volume amongst brands, Flipkart was seen to have the

lowest positioning in the Matrix, an indication that more popular brands are

also more prone to more negative feedback. Other brands like HomeShop18

and Infibeam also contribute a sizeable volume of negative conversations in the

industry – consistent CRM is recommended for such brands.

For Snapdeal, which has positive feedback and high volume, it becomes

necessary to protect the brand from any potential online crisis through ORM.

We also see a large number of brands clustered in the opportunity quadrant –

these brands need to leverage industry conversations and opportunities to

enhance their online visibility.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A GOOD INDICATOR OF PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION ABOUT

BRANDS. ORM HELPS THESE BRANDS UNDERSTAND HOW THEY ARE

POSITIONED ON THE BASIS OF THE VOLUME AND SENTIMENT OF THEIR

ONLINE CONVERSATIONS.



Media Type Analysis

Types of Media That Contributed Conversations

Brands use Twitter extensively for hashtag campaigns and due to the

public nature of this very platform, Twitter is the number one medium to

share thoughts and opinions alike. The fact remains that it is a public and

real-time medium, thus amplifying any threat against it.

Blogs have been used mainly to share offers and schemes. As for Forums,

they contribute only 3.4% of the overall data and have had the highest

concentration of negative posts amongst all other platforms. This, in

particular, is an alarming indication, because unlike other media,

conversations on Forums can last years and its members often converse in

depth about the topic. Other platforms have contributed very little to the

overall dataset.

ORM HELPS BRANDS IDENTIFY THE PLATFORMS THAT DRIVE THEIR

CONVERSATIONS AS WELL AS POTENTIALLY HARMFUL MEDIA THAT MAY

BE DENIGRATIVE FOR THE BRAND.



Influencers

Influencers Amplify Reach of Content

Influential users on social media, even upon positive experience while

using a brand, will usually abstain from commenting positively about

it. Conversely, negative brand experiences have the tendency to be

shared more readily by these users which, in turn, has a viral effect.

AS EVEN A SINGLE POST BY AN INFLUENTIAL AUTHOR ON SOCIAL MEDIA

HAS THE POTENTIAL TO IMPACT A BRAND’S ONLINE REPUTATION,

TRACKING THEIR CONVERSATIONS IS AN ESSENTIAL STEP.



Some Tweets by Prominent Authors



ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT HELPS BRANDS INTERPRET

'WHAT' KEEPS THEIR BUZZ HIGH OR LOW, AND 'WHY'. THIS IS

ESPECIALLY APPLICABLE IN CASE OF ECOMMERCE BRANDS, WHICH

DEPEND A LOT ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR THEIR VISIBILITY.

ORM WILL HELP ECOMMERCE BRANDS UNDERSTAND THEIR SENTIMENT,

WHILE IDENTIFYING THE KEY POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE DISCUSSION

TOPICS IN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THESE BRANDS.

SINCE MOST REFERENCES ON SOCIAL MEDIA ARE PERSONAL OPINIONS

AND ACTUAL EXPERIENCES, IT IS A GOOD INDICATOR OF PEOPLE’S

PERCEPTION ABOUT VARIOUS PRODUCTS AND SERVICES OFFERED BY

ECOMMERCE BRANDS. ORM HELPS THESE BRANDS UNDERSTAND THEIR

POSITIONING RELATIVE TO OTHER BRANDS, ON THE BASIS OF THE

VOLUME AND SENTIMENT OF THEIR ONLINE CONVERSATIONS.

ORM HELPS BRANDS IDENTIFY THE PLATFORMS THAT DRIVE THEIR

CONVERSATIONS, AS WELL AS POTENTIALLY HARMFUL CONTENT ON

THESE PLATFORMS.

EVEN A SINGLE POST BY AN INFLUENTIAL AUTHOR ON SOCIAL MEDIA

HAS THE POTENTIAL TO IMPACT A BRAND’S ONLINE REPUTATION.

HENCE, TRACKING THEIR CONVERSATIONS IS AN ESSENTIAL STEP FOR

ECOMMERCE BRANDS, MOSTLY BECAUSE PEOPLE REPORT NEGATIVE

EXPERIENCES MORE THAN POSITIVE ONES.

MONITORING ONLINE CONVERSATIONS THROUGH ORM IS NECESSARY

IN A BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER INDUSTRY LIKE ECOMMERCE TO ENSURE

THAT THE REPUTATION OF BRANDS REMAINS FAVORABLE AND THEIR

ONLINE VISIBILITY STAYS POSITIVE.

Closing Thoughts



Social Wavelength is India’s largest social media agency with presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai

and Bangalore. Its’ suite of services include social media monitoring, online-reputation management,

online PR, social media management and building online communities. Social Wavelength is also the

authorized reseller for Radian6 for the Indian market. More information is available on

www.socialwavelength.com

Services we offer:

Social Media Communication

Social Media Monitoring

Social Media Analytics

Social Media for HR

How can Social Media Monitoring help you?

So you’ve just spent the last ten or so minutes browsing through our report on e-commerce in India.

Now you’re wondering what to make sense of all of this – how does this apply to you? Well it does!

Hundreds of millions of ‘Likes’, ‘Comments’, ‘Shares’ happen every day; and that’s just Facebook. Add

Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, thousands of blogs, and the countless online communities, and you get a

veritable social media soup!

At Social Wavelength, we spend countless hours sifting through the hundreds of thousands of

conversations about the brands we manage, making sense of it all.

Some of the cool services we offer include:

Sentiment Understanding

Business Intelligence

Social CRM

Customer Insights

Sales Opportunities

Contact:

Mihir Karkare

Vice President, Social Wavelength

[email protected]

+91-22-61274301

We are located at:

About Social Wavelength


http://www.socialwavelength.com/

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Social Media Case Study - Social Listening Report on E-retail Brands