KarthikNagarajan : Director, Nielsen – Online Divisions

In Mr.KarthikNagarajan’s opinion, social media is just an extension of what we have been doing for many years. The information disseminated via social media could also be equally communicated via traditional media. Even though the concept is not an alien one, there still prevail a lot of doubts and myths about social media in the minds of people. The reality about social media is thatan astounding 74% of world’s internet population visits social networking sites regularly. Threeout of every seven global brands are social media brands like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Social media has made it presence felt in India quite recently. More than 50% of the Indian Internet users have started using social networking sitesbeginning from last one year. This shows that social media in India is currently in its nascent stage. This can also mean that the growth potential of social media in India is 100% per year.

The real question is how many of these users actually make buying decisions online.70% of all Social Networking users access sites everyday.70% of all users read discussion boards once a week.57% of all users have reviewed at least one product in the last year.Are these statistics engaging enough for marketers to consider using social media?The targetsegment for marketers is users who spend on an average more than 30min. on the internet.This segment as per research constitutes 36% of the internet population.

Another interesting fact is how cultural differences affect the social media. It has been proven that Indians are more likely to share positive product experiences whereas Chinese are more likely to share negative product experiences on social media.Hence can this be an opportunity for Indian marketers?

The tool to measure what goes on online is Buzz metrics. The results of BuzzMetrics state that Bollywood is not the only topic of online discussion in India. Social media is not atool for entertainment. There are far greater uses for it.

Social media can also be used as a great consumer research tool. To illustrate his point, Mr.Nagarajan took up the example of P&G cloth diapers. P&G wanted to find out why its cloth diapers sales had increased despite the presence of disposal diapers in the market. A traditional survey revealed that environmental friendly people use cloth diapers. However, Buzzmetricswas able to pin point a more specific profile of parents preferring natural methods like home birthing, home schooling, natural parenting, etc. Thus with the help of Buzzmetrics they were able to build a more accurate profile of the consumer.Asking helps determine how many consumers chose cloth diapers. Listening helpsdetermine a consumer profile.

A video about consumer revolution was shown that clarified that social media empowers consumers to make better buying decisions. In order to make sense of social media we need tools that will effectively sift through the garbage data in social media and give relevant output to marketers.