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My Internship Experience At Social Beat : Rakshika

Posted on by Vimal Michael
Reading Time: < 1 minute

I joined as an intern in Social Beat a few months after graduation. The first time I entered Social Beat, I was nervous and was worried about accustoming myself to a new organisation. However, I overcame that fear very easily. All the employees were welcoming from the first day and ensured that I felt like a part of the team.

As someone from a commerce background, I had a lot to learn about the digital world. However, my teammates have taken efforts in building my learning and understanding. They ensure that my learning is continuous and never fail to recognise and appreciate a job well done. This acts as a motivation for me to improve my quality of work. My teammates and mentors Srinidhi, Sanjana and Darshana help in enhancing the standard of work presented from my end.

I am in a client-facing role which can be tedious to handle. However, my transition was smooth with their guidance.

Apart from the work, Social Beat as a whole has been a great environment to be in. It is important that we feel comfortable in an office surrounding. I felt comfortable instantly because of the friendly attitude of my co-workers.

In such a short time, I feel like a part of the organisation. I would like to thank all those who have been a part of my journey and hope to continue at Social Beat.

Google introduces AMP for emails

Posted on by Ayesha Rafeeq
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Page loading speed and mobile-friendliness have been among the most important Google ranking factors. To combine the two, Google has worked towards making mobile pages load faster with the help of an open-source framework which is called AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). AMP is considered to be one of the best ways to build good web pages that rank on Google and drive higher organic traffic. With the success of mobile AMP, Google developed other versions like desktop AMP. The most recent innovation with AMP involves a platform people spend a considerable amount of time on: the email.

AMP in email is offered by the Gmail Developer Preview. This helps developers in creating a more engaging and interactive email experience. Here are some of the advantages of AMP for email.

Faster actions

Completing actions with the help of AMP will be much faster, like sending RSVP for an event, scheduling appointments, or simply filling up a questionnaire within the email message.

AMP helps in keeping information of the email relevant and content accurate so that emails don’t become stale. This also makes it easy to keep information updated. A simple example would be confirming an account on a website, with the help of AMP for Emails one can access the confirmation page instantly without having to open a new tab. This makes the overall process more efficient and time saving. This new update also offers a preview for websites like Booking.com and Pinterest within the email.

To optimise your page for a faster load time check out Google PageSpeed Insights.

Benefits for SEO

AMP-powered email has potential that can be beneficial for email marketing, because the engaging content can increase CTR while also generating more interest when compared to a regular email.

Content marketing benefits from this update, as users can receive and access content on their email itself. This again improves the users experience making going through emails a more pleasant experience. This holds true even for users accessing emails from their mobile device.

To make the most of your email campaigns, check out our blog to know more about How to build a strong email marketing database.

Third party content

Companies are working on creating new customer experiences by using AMP for emails. Adding this functionality to emails helps in eliminating the need to open a new tab to finish the task; instead it can be done within the email itself.

The new format of AMP for Emails is supported by Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Outlook.com, Mail.Ru, Verizon owned Yahoo Mail to list a few while it is open to other providers as well. With security and protection of personal information becoming increasingly critical lately, Google has taken several measures to safeguard this.  This is why companies creating dynamic emails will need to seek approval from Google first.

Companies which have already started supporting this format are:

  • Booking.com
  • OYO Rooms
  • Freshworks
  • Pinterest
  • redBus

The format supports AMP features like carousels, lists and forms among others, while also including the standard HTML markup for email clients supporting AMP. Google has brought in other partners who will also support the AMP for Email on their respective platforms as well. Some of these partners include:

  • SparkPost – a platform for email delivery and analytics
  • Litmus – a tool that helps in designing and marketing of emails
  • Twilio Sendgrid – an email and marketing tool
  • SES and Pinpoint – tools by Amazon used for email and marketing

AMP for emails is a much needed update for emails making them more engaging and interactive. This update for emails opens up opportunities for content creators as well as advertisers to roll out fresh content for email marketing.

Social Beat bags top awards at Maddys 2019

Posted on by Divya Premkumar
Reading Time: 2 minutes

2nd April 2019: Social Beat, one of India’s leading digital marketing agencies,  bagged two top awards in the ‘Digital’ category at the recently held ‘Maddys 2019’ in Chennai. The first, a Gold Award, is for the Best Use of Digital for Klay Schools, and the second, a Bronze, for the Best Digital Public Service for Social Beat’s road safety awareness video.

‘Maddys 2019’ is an annual award event organised by the Ad Club of Madras to honour the most creative minds of the Indian advertising industry.  This is one of the top advertising awards recognising path-breaking campaigns in various categories such as Print, Radio, TV and Digital.

Commenting on the digital initiatives for Klay Schools, Vikas Chawla, co-founder of Social Beat, said, “Klay is one of our premier clients in the educational sector and our specialised digital initiatives have played a significant role in establishing them as one of the preferred pre-schools in India. We began with a refresh of their website keeping in mind factors like design functionalities and user – experience.  We also leveraged their YouTube channel with a series of videos highlighting the environment and the approach adopted by Klay schools in nurturing future generations. The center-specific digital campaign strategies proved to be a great tool for increased visibility, creating brand awareness and driving walk-ins.”

In addition to this, Social Beat also won an award for their unique video highlighting the importance of maintaining good road etiquette. Speaking about this recognition, Suneil Chawla, co-founder of Social Beat said, “The video titled ‘A Day in the office ft. Bad Drivers’ highlights the bad behaviour of drivers on the road compared to everyday work life. We projected basic road safety rules such as ‘Don’t text while driving’ and ‘Don’t drive on pavements’ using some common professional etiquette examples. This video was a huge hit on all our social media platforms.”

These awards follow close on the heels of the prestigious ‘Best Digital Marketing Agency of the Year’ that Social Beat won at the Marketing Maverick Awards held in Mumbai.

Multilingual Marketing: The Special Ingredient your Digital Marketing Strategy Needs

Posted on by Administrator
Reading Time: < 1 minute

India’s regional language internet users are estimated to grow at a CAGR of 18% versus English language users at 3%. In fact, by 2012, 9 out of 10 new internet users will browse the internet in their own vernacular. Affordable smartphones and low-cost data plans have also acted as catalysts, further driving the growth of regional content online. Brands will have to focus their efforts on creating an effective multilingual marketing strategy if they wish to cater to India’s next billion internet users.

If you are new to the multilingual marketing bandwagon or would like to learn more about this new digital marketing trend, take a look at our in-depth guide on multilingual marketing, that speaks in detail about:

  • What is multilingual marketing?
  • Why brands need multilingual marketing
  • Common challenges and
  • Tips to create a customised multilingual marketing strategy

Click here to read more!

Digital Transformation of B2B Customer Experience – Digital Leadership Summit

Posted on by Divya Premkumar
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Social Beat recently concluded the Digital Leadership Summit for 2019 held at Bangalore. The event was a grand success. With industry leaders sharing their insights. Mr. Atin Chhabra – General Manager, Marketing at Schneider Electric shed light on the digital transformation of B2B Customer Experience for large and diverse organizations like Schneider Electric. Here are some of the highlights of the session.

  • Linear supply models are outdated – customers now want experiences
  • Digital Customer Experiences help brands attract, engage and transact with customers
  • 70% of investments for Digital Capabilities go towards creating customer experiences
  • 86% of customers will pay a 16% higher price if satisfied with the experience

No more linear supply models:

Gone are the days when companies introduced a product in the market and it had to be accepted by the consumers. Times have changed, today there are more platforms for consumers, more architectures to experiment on and more connected products. This gives rise to a demand-side play, consumers these days do not demand more products or services but a more engaging customer experience.

Mr. Atin speaks about how it wasn’t long ago when the competition was determined on the basis of products or services. Another company selling similar products or services they were considered as competition. However, that isn’t the case anymore. For a company like Schneider which deals with energy, management, and automation, the competitor for Schneider would be Amazon. This is solely because of the customer experience offered by companies like Amazon. The thin line between who competitors are and who offers a better experience is diminishing.

Change in Competitive Advantage

Traditionally competitive advantage was factored in on the basis of 2 key points which are:

  • Lower cost
  • Differentiation

However, gone are the days when competitive advantage meant low cost and differentiation. Today there are a number of companies that offer both lower costs while also being highly differentiated. One of the most important takeaways from this differentiated competitive advantage is the scale of operations and the experience they have within the specific domain. This indeed is competitive for any traditional company.

To adapt to this companies may look at case studies on big internet giants like Google, Uber, and Amazon, but this constitutes only 6% of the total companies in the world. Other than these big companies that make the 6% while the rest of the 94% of companies which have existed for more than a century or two. What is it that these traditional companies that make up the 94% have done? How do they compete with the big names? According to the statistics, these traditional companies who have implemented digital transformation strategies have seen a 9% increase in revenue. They have seen a whopping 26% increase in profitability. Not only does the digital transformation for companies help in money making but also helps in saving costs. These companies are known as digital masters.

Digital Masters look at digital transformation on two dimensions:

  • Left-hand side – This side accounts for the Digital Capabilities (Google, AI, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc) introduced in the organization to be technologically sound and ready.
  • Bottom side –  This side accounts for the leadership capabilities. How digital talent is trained? How to upskill talent to think digital?

Digital Capabilities

Digital Capabilities today are spread across 3 different functions.

  1. Customer experience – How good the customer experience is
  2. Operations – this is all about the connected products, sensors, etc
  3. Business model – looking to reinvent business models or supplement existing business models.

According to public data, close to 70 percent of digital transformation investments go to digital customer experience. This is because over the course of time customers have also changed, this change is not limited to B2C but also B2B customers.

The change is such that 57 percent of the B2B customers have decided what to purchase even before contacting the vendor. Almost 55 percent are looking for B2B products on social media platforms other than LinkedIn. The most astonishing fact is that 86 percent is willing to pay 16 percent more price for an amazing experience. While a good digital experience is important for the digital footprint, it is important to have content to offer a good experience. 

Digital Customer Experience

DCX or Digital Customer Experience is becoming the forefront to interact, engage and transact with customers. It is very important to get the basics of user experience correct.

Here are the four pillars for creating a digital customer experience function or strategy.

  1. Frame the digital challenge: At any large organization, the digital transformation is primarily run across various departments.
  2. Sustain the transformation
  3. Keep customers at the core
  4. Mobilize the organization

These four pillars need to be kept in mind while creating a digital customer experience strategy. As each pillar looks into important aspects of a digital customer experience this ensures the strategy covers these aspects.

Here are 4 pillars looked upon for the digital transformation agenda at Schneider:

  1. Secure: this function deals with cyber security which is essential when taking functions digital.
  2. Eco-Structure: these are the connected products, sensors that can provide data giving predictive analytics
  3. Operate for efficiency: integrating different platforms to create one platform with multiple functions
  4. Engage through experience: Schneider defines the metric of experience by looking at the digital net satisfaction score. When this score is equal to the country’s net promoter score it is considered to be delivering an experience. This translates to the customer being happy with the platforms as well as the services.

Digital Marketing was considered to be the future of marketing until a few years ago but of late it has all boiled down to digital customer experience. This digital customer experience works across the entire company. It is important to increase the competence of the people, while hiring is possible, the most effective way is by upskilling and strong digital community program. The top-down approach helps in building a stronger digital community within an organization rather than hiring a small group.

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