We’ve been hearing about the benefits of 5G for a long time! The advent of 5G is supposed to have revolutionised the telecommunications industry but have you wondered why you still aren’t able to access it? We’ve had the same question in our minds and during a recent event on Propelling New Growth Opportunities in India 5G conducted by Madras Management Association (MMA), we finally got our answer!
During the event, a conversation between Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi (Former Director, IITMadras) and Josh Foulger (Country Head & MD, Bharat FoxconnIndia), moderated by V. Shankar included what 5G will change for us, from an Indian context. We are here to break it down for you and share our insights on the advantages of 5G over 4G and how it can impact brands. But before we get into this, let’s begin with answering the question- what is 5G technology?
5G is the 5th generation of mobile network that is designed to connect all of us together virtually, including machines, objects and devices. One great advantage of 5G over 4G is its speed; while the peak speed of 4G is only 1 Gbps, 5G technology has a peak speed of 20 Gbps- therefore improving the performance of all business applications and digital experiences.
The many benefits of 5G have left us all excited, but we haven’t been able to reap them, even if we are based in a city that is ready for 5G. According to the speakers at the event, this is because of a software update. Most earlier smartphones come with a Standard Configuration that doesn’t support 5G networks, With a software update and Non-Standard Configuration (Jio is a pioneer in India that plans to use this), we all should be able to use 5G soon enough. GlobalData estimates that only 27% of the country’s mobile subscribers (around 329 million) will be using 5G services by 2026.
Starting with the most obvious one, the main benefit of 5G is that it offers greater speed in transmissions, thereby improving efficiency and connecting new industries.
Access to 5G will lead to high reliability and low latency which is helpful for implementation around IOT/Autonomous driving and what Professor Bhaskar called Tactile Internet Remote Operation (TIRO). This could mean, in the future a highly skilled plumber can send a fresher with a device and remotely fix the plumbing issue at your house. This could also mean marketers can create richer digital experiences for their customers.
A great advantage of 5G over 4G is the capability of network slicing where multiple virtual networks are overlaid on top of a shared network domain. Network Slicing was always a reality but will become more affordable with 5g, leading to organisations having their own Private Network or what some countries call Local 5G. In places like airports, ports, stadiums, large enterprises/factories, etc. This could also be beneficial for public services like police, healthcare, etc.
Device to Device interaction will also be a reality with support from the telcos, without the need to go back to the cell tower. This could mean that autonomous cars could interact with each other to know where each car is at any point - to either give warnings or to take other actions. This could also positively impact the IoT ecosystem.
Besides these benefits of 5G, there are several other use cases that businesses can leverage. Location Accuracy is a key ask for many businesses and to be able to bring it down to an accuracy of just 10 cm in an indoor area is something that could become a reality in the near future. The future is indeed exciting!
With the launch of 5G in India, it is predicted that the entire digital landscape will change. When 4G was first introduced, it revolutionised social media and the kind of content brands were able to create. With the advent of 5G, we can expect a complete disruption in the digital landscape. Here are a few ways 5G can impact brands:
A key benefit of 5G is its speed and this could expand the usage of AR and VR content, allowing brands to create more immersive experiences for their core audience.
Explore how to leverage AR for brands on Facebook and Instagram!
With significantly higher speeds and ultra-low latency, brands will rely on high-quality video content to market their product. The world of advertising is also predicted to change significantly as more people will shift away from cable TV towards OTT content when 5G becomes the norm.
The increase in connectivity that 5G promises also means generating significantly more data and insights. This data can also help brands communicate with their audience through hyper-personalised content and creating real-time experiences.
Also Read: What are consumer insights and how can they help in creating a digital strategy for brands?
These are just a few ways 5G can transform the digital landscape and help brands effectively utilise every marketing dollar. The real impact will be seen very soon as 5G is predicted to reach all urban areas of the country by the end of 2023. So, what are your thoughts on how 5G will impact your future?
D2Scale is excited to have a new guiding figure in Arjun Vaidya who is going to mentor and groom them into becoming leaders in the D2C niche! He will be working with the core pillars of Social Beat’s D2C centre of excellence and guiding them through his extensive experience and accomplished success in building India’s biggest Ayurvedic online brand, Dr Vaidya’s, from scratch.
Arjun Vaidya is a D2C founder and investor who currently leads Venture investing for Verlinwest. Having amassed great experience in India’s consumer market as well as angel investing, he has now started mentoring numerous brands in the Start-up ecosystem.
But how exactly did he come up with the idea of building a market for the age-old teachings of Ayurveda? Well, it all started during his undergrad at the Brown Univesity where he witnessed a revolution pivoting around natural and organic products.
Moving forward, the sudden upsell of yoga into a multi-billion dollar industry manifested an opportunity for him to introduce and amplify the reach of Ayurveda amongst the newfound modern audience.
With the seed of opportunity already sowed in his mind, he learnt the ins and outs of the Indian E-Commerce market and this played a pivotal role in establishing and scaling Dr Vaidya’s, into the leading Ayurvedic solutions brand online.
With regard to his new role, Arjun said, “Social Beat’s D2C centre of excellence- D2Scale is a budding initiative that has already started making splashes in the marketing world. I am glad to be a part of their journey and am looking forward to bolstering their upscale. Having witnessed the advent of the e-commerce niche in India closely, I aim to share all my experience and knowledge in this field to help realize D2Scale’s ambitions of being the D2C leader.”
Co-Founder, Suneil Chawla said, “Arjun is a highly celebrated success story in the D2C world and we look towards learning and growing exponentially under his mentorship. We are really ecstatic to have him accompany us on this journey and guide us through every single nook and cranny of the D2C map.”
Arjun Vaidya was the first Ayurvedic entrepreneur to be accoladed with the Forbes 30 under 30 and 40 under 40 lists. He is also a world economic Global shaper, a Mentor at AIM and runs a podcast that runs by the name Direct to a Billion Consumers and guides his audiences through India’s FMCG ecosystem.
We look forward to a great learning experience with Arjun and are eager to augment our D2C campaigns under his guidance!
The best marketers are the ones who constantly try to improve their craft, no matter how good they are at it already. If you are looking to read some offbeat, lesser-known marketing books that will help you in enhancing your marketing skills even more, here is a list of such books written by our very own Indian authors.
Written by digital marketing experts from Social Beat, this book deals with the various aspects of digital marketing and the methods marketers use to leverage the medium to grow their sales and revenue. Much like the annual spectacle of millions of wildebeest and zebras migrating from the parched savannahs, humankind too witnessed an even greater migration over the last two decades where 500+ million Indians ‘migrated’ to the internet. Over the last few years, this migration has led to a phenomenal growth of digital marketing. This book will help beginners wade through this digital wilderness and is packed with case studies and infallible insights. Decoding the Digital Jungle takes the readers on a safari of marketing concepts transitioning from the traditional to the digital age. You can get a glimpse of the expertise of the team on their YouTube Channel which has a knowledge series called Digital Bytes.
Written by Anisha Motwani, this book is a unique collection of contemporary, true stories about Indian businesses and brands that rewrote the norms of their respective industries. All the twenty stories are not only inspiring, but they will also bring in some remarkable change in your approach towards marketing and business management.
This quirkily titled book written by Ambi Parameswaran, an ad veteran, discusses the story of Indian advertising over the past 50 years. Over a hundred ads have been studied and examined in this book by the author. This book will let you know how advertisements take inspirations and influences from politics, culture, society, etc. Reading this book will give you in-depth knowledge about Indian advertising scenario.
Written by one of the gurus of Indian advertising, Piyush Pandey, Pandeymonium is not just biography but also a brief history of advertising and how its evolved. He has put in some amazing tidbits and experiences from his life at Ogilvy as well his love for cricket. He shares how he helped build brands like Fevicol, Vodafone & IPL amongst others. Most importantly he talks how he draws inspiration from people and things around his daily life.
How interesting would it be if there is a toolkit of new techniques that you can use to come up with new, innovative marketing strategies? Well, that's what the Marketing Unplugged book has in store for you. This book written by Suman Srivastava is a book full of scholarly yet delightful ideas for marketing.
From humble beginnings as a Bollywood film billboard painter to the National Creative Director of Leo Burnett India, KV Sridhar (or Pops as he is known as) has seen it all and today is widely respected as a creative leader in the Indian Ad-world. He’s credited with the emergence of Leo Burnett as a creative powerhouse in India so that makes this book even more interesting.
The book is unique because it brings together behind the scenes of every loved ad, right from the Doordarshan days to today’s YouTube; right from ‘Chal meri luna’ to ‘Airtel smartphone ads’. It covers interviews of creative heads and directors of all generations, right from vintage to new age. Pops has handpicked each ad based on their popularity among viewers and met its creators and talked to them about the entire process. He had left out the marketing jargons and advertising sham and just weaved stories using wonderful stories.
Satish Y. Deodhar has written a series of management books under the IIMA book series title. If you are looking to read the series, Why I Am Paying More is the right choice. This book explains the dynamics of pricing with respect to demand, supply, market structures, etc. Beautifully illustrated through various case studies and examples, this book is something that you can never put down.
Dheeraj Sinha’s book on Indian consumer market is something that every marketing professional should read. Some brands and businesses fail in the Indian market mainly because of their assumptions about the Indian consumers. This book tries to break all those myths and misconceptions. It gives a fresh, new, and a genuine perspective about the Indian consumer market.
Have you wondered why some startups become hugely famous while some just fade away? This book published by Notion Press and written by Yaagneshwaran Ganesh gives you an in-depth knowledge of the various marketing principles. While most marketing books talk about the macro concepts, this book speaks of the micro concepts of marketing as well; this is quite crucial for new-age marketers.
As we all know the sweet spot is the optimum combination of factors or qualities to achieve success. True to the name, this book brings to your notice the sweet spots that you can explore and utilise in the field of marketing. In other words, just like how sportspeople make hardest shots or tasks look easy because of the sweet spot, this book also allows you to make your business grow in an innovative, seemingly easy way.
Mainak Dhar has written a dozen of books in multiple genres. Considered to be one of the best-selling authors in India, Mainak Dhar primarily writes on science, marketing, and management. Brand Shastra is one of his latest books and is also listed under the Amazon’s list of Memorable Books of 2016 So Far. This book discusses the various aspects of marketing, ranging from primary promotions to B2B marketing. More than talking about the theories of marketing, this book explains the science and logic behind the various marketing tactics.
Don't forget to check out our video on 7 Best Marketing Books Every Indian Marketer Needs to Read for a few notable additons to the list.
We hope, by now, you have a handful of books to be added to your to-be-read list. What are the other books published by Indian authors, that you would suggest for marketers to read? Let us know in the comments.
I joined Social Beat as an Analytics Intern in December 2020 during the pandemic. I came across this internship opportunity via a Linkedin post and applied for it and within a few days, I went through the process and got selected.
Being a fresher and having no experience with analytics and its tools, I had no idea what I would do and how would I learn this? But my TL Sundar has always given me so much time to understand things and learn at my own pace. In the first week, I was given time to learn and complete certification to build my foundations. Later, I was given tasks I didn't do quite well initially, but I was always encouraged and given time to understand everything, make mistakes, and learn.
With his guidance and constant support, I understood the work and learned something here every day. Other team members have also helped me understand how google ads, analytics, and many other tools work and how to use data to make the marketing efforts the team puts to success. These 5 months of internship allowed me to grow personally and helped me gain skills in Google Analytics, GTM, Marketing analytics, and data reporting. I never thought WFH could be fun and productive at the same time. The HR team created amazing events for all of us from gaming nights to musical nights, to learning sessions by team members and many more things I experienced has made my experience more valuable.
I am looking forward to learning many things about Digital Marketing in-depth and growing my knowledge here in Social Beat.
Being an AIESECer, I always wanted to work for Social Beat as Vikas sir is also an AIESEC alumnus. And it happened; I am glad that I got this internship and I am always grateful that I joined Social Beat.
“Consumer centricity comes from talking to consumers every few days and that should be a part of your organization culture” True words spoken by Manish Makhijani during our insightful webinar session with him.
Manish Makhijani is the Global PDC Director at Unilever and he is the Vice President of The Market Research Society of India(MRSI). He has spent more than twenty years in the research industry on both agency and client-side. Apart from India, he has worked with Unilever in the UK, Singapore, and Thailand across different categories and brands. Before Unilever, he worked on various brands and clients in Starcom and Kantar TNS. He is known for his expertise in the field of insights and analytics and is passionate about enhancing the insights capabilities of the organizations. He has written various papers for ESOMAR and MRSI, presented in different industry forums and webinars. He has helped many budding researchers in their journey as he has also been a visiting faculty and guest lecturer- from MICA in Ahmedabad to the London School of Economics. In 2013, he was awarded the prestigious Ginny Valentine Award for Courage in Research.
Market research should inform Strategy development. How do we ensure that they remain integrated from starting from research initiation to strategy execution?
" The journey needs to happen within an organization. The insights function needs to evolve from being a research provider to a strategic consultant to an advisor.
For that, you need to build that credibility with the marketing team and advertising agency first, by offering them a genuine market research insight as to why something like say a particular ad wouldn’t work? Apart from being good thinkers, insight managers should also have leadership capabilities - they should be able to drive a change agenda and be able to stand up and say - look this product is not going to do very well in the market and this is the reason behind it. The talent you hire, the grooming you do, and how insightful you make the team, it all makes a difference to the journey of a research function"
Do you also get into the kind of mapping that figures out the pillars on which a brand is built so that, no matter what the piece of communication is, you ensure that it stands on those pillars?
"We do see what are the various category drivers like how do people choose a brand within a category? Then we look at the brand drivers – for instance, the fundamental driver of Surf Excel is to be able to clean clothes properly, then comes the fragrance, and then we also need to see how our brand is performing on those parameters. There might be other emotional hooks as well. So, even before you show your brand in the ad, people should know that this is a Surf Excel ad and then you know that this is what the advertising of your brand is all about."
Could you paint this picture for us in terms of the needs a product addresses and the psychographic profile of the people who use it?
"Talking about beauty soaps, generally speaking, in India, women in the slightly lower than middle-class category don’t have access to too many makeup products because they don’t want to spend on makeup. They tend to feel a little guilty about spending the money on themselves. A strong part of femininity is that you want to feel good about yourself, not that men don’t want to feel good, but women want to feel soft skin, they want to have a good fragrance, and they want to smell nice because that gives them a sense of wellbeing. Now, can you provide all this in a bar of soap - a soap that keeps you smelling nice for a long period and makes your skin soft, that fulfills the need state of your mind – that is what beauty soaps like Godrej no. 1, Lux, and santoor do. Santoor takes a slightly different angle - it targets slightly older women and for years, they have been showing an ad where there is a young girl and a child suddenly appears and says, mommy. The surprise element is that she does not look as old because she is the mother of a young child.
For a simple humble category like a soap, where people switch brands without even blinking, they need to think about the need state of the consumers they are targeting and do their advertising accordingly. The point is to be consistent over time so that you own that position."
In the current environment, there is a deluge of data and information available. How do you deal with this amount of data and derive intelligence and insights out of it?
"It is very easy to get lost in the data that is available today. Hence, a sharp focus of what you are looking for is extremely critical and a clear understanding of where you are going to get it from is important as well and that is why your skill as a researcher comes in. For example, if I want to know why my sales are declining and I have loads of data coming in, I will run through a hypothesis similar to a typical critical thinking method. Let's say I identify the reason that I am not available anymore as much as I used to be – Now, I need the distribution data, like details about who is selling my brand and who is not selling it, and I will focus only on that data. I think the ability to think critically is far more critical today than it used to be 10 years ago because that gives you the ability to filter out what you don’t want to see and filter out what you don’t need to see. As human beings, we have got our own biases and filters which we need to be aware of and therefore set filters accordingly."
Can you tell us something about the PDC so that we can get an idea of how it is organized to be able to draw insights from multiple sources?
"There are two streams of insights in the people data centre out of the three streams - one is the social listening part, the second is the consumer engagement centre and the third is digital marketing. We use social listening tools extensively to listen to the conversations that people have on social media, of course, which are public - what people are thinking and how their emotions are changing. For instance, initially in the pandemic, people were excited about being at home for a few weeks because they thought they will have a better work-life balance then people started getting tired of that. This was all available on social media as a conversation. You need to make sure that you’re listening to people of different profiles, people from different parts of the country, enough men and women of different economic strata, and so on so that you’re not being biased by one segment. But you complement this with the primary research as well. This is one part of what the new way of doing research is, the other part is through the call centre route which is our global vertical that I lead. There, when we speak to millions and millions of consumers across the world, 30 percent of the time they spend reaching out to us is because they have a problem and they want to complain about a product, but 70 percent of the time they are reaching out to ask a genuine question or give a suggestion. That tells you how interested they are in these products and brands and that itself is a sign of involvement. The insights that we get from those unprompted conversations are huge, so we agree we have brought products back into the market which had been delisted due to this "
Can you tell us if there was a clear progression of how people were responding to lockdown and were you able to do something in terms of insights for marketing?
" Yes, we did through Analytics and Social listening. We couldn’t do research fieldwork for a few months so we recruited some panels of people and started having a conversation with them through WhatsApp every week. We were doing video calls with those ones who were affluent. Women, for instance, who were working but who were now at home because of the lockdown went through a really big problem. They said that at least they could get out of the house for eight to ten hours earlier. Now, they are expected to do all the housework along with the expectations for work from home. Their problems multiplied and incidences of home abuse went up dramatically, So, we did activities not just in terms of launching new things like surface cleaners and toilet cleaners which are very obvious recommendations but we took initiatives for their mental and emotional trauma and helped communities too. We took those kinds of initiatives where we look after people in terms of their well-being."
How can small businesses do research? Is it more like a DIY approach?
" It is not that you don’t need skilled practitioners but at the heart of it, market research is about understanding your customers, what is it that drives them to buy, when do your people leave and go to the competition. You can do it yourself by talking to a few customers and making your organization more consumer-centric or customer-centric. For example, in Unilever, we have a full consumer centricity program where people go and meet consumers and we call it a consumer connect program and even the leadership team spends at least 10 to 15 hours every month meeting and talking to consumers directly. We talk to them asking what they are using? How are they using our products? Have you seen our new ad? Thus, if you spend every month talking to consumers, it gives you a thorough understanding of the real situation. I think that consumer centricity is all about an organization's culture."
Today several brands do purpose-driven advertising - when do you think that would work and when would you recommend it?
"There is clear evidence that purpose drives a brand and in the last 10 years, brands with purpose have grown a lot more than brands without purpose. But it works only if the brand truly means what it says. This can happen only when the purpose is truly integrated into the brand. For example - Surf Excel's purpose is to provide the right parenting guidance so that they provide the right environment for their children. That is integrated into what the brand stands for and aligns with the brand philosophy, then it doesn’t feel like you are doing something else whereas if you just once in a while do some promotion then it doesn’t work. People will forget about it quickly. "
Does one need to know data science and have the technical knowledge to understand consumer insights?
"Consumer insights are more about the innate ability to connect the dots – For instance, if I see somebody eating ketchup and I see the same person watching Netflix, I should be able to understand if there could be a connection between these two? One gets very random pieces of data, the point is how do you connect them. Of course, you should have the technical knowledge and you might need to use analytics as well but that is not enough. It is only a foundation but it is your ability to connect intuitively and understand consumers is that matters. Insight is a true integration of both science and art."
Watch the complete session of this webinar on Youtube.
The Digital Leadership Summit 2020 by Social Beat was conducted online due to the pandemic. The agenda was to discuss the current and future trends of digital marketing. The whole country has gone digital these past few months and the discussion enlightened the road ahead. The program commenced with the National Anthem after which the audience was briefed on the agenda.
There were 17 experts from various fields and organisations covering important topics such as hyperscaling, vernacular marketing, consumer journey automation, building a culture for innovation, etc among many other insightful topics.
Dr.Pramath Sinha, Founder & Chairman of Harappa Foundation, believes that the combination of liberal arts combined with technology has a bright future. Digital marketing in education, and digitising education, in general, itself helps in targeting students better due to their constant online presence. Digital mediums help students experience one-on-one conversations which enhances their learning experience.
Ms.Meenakshi Singh, Agency Business Manager, Google tells us that consumers have started adapting to the pandemic. Users are spending more time on small screens. She said that going digital is the new store-front. Consumers are expecting brands to use their digital assets for personalising their experience. Convenience is a key factor that drives consumers to opt for online shopping over in-store shopping. Brands that establish their presence online, actively work on their website and mobile user experience, clearly inform consumers about delays and stock availability are the brands that have a higher chance of succeeding digitally.
Ms.Ruchi Kohli, Agency Business Lead, Facebook enlightened that brands need to embrace new media habits. There is a spike in the dependence of digital media which may even cause demand surges. Brands need to create virtual experiences, vernacular content, and develop content for every part of the business funnel, especially on Facebook. Digital spending concerning mobile wallets and net banking has also been on the rise. Users will also shop more during sales and offers offered by brands on digital platforms.
Mr.Amit Verma, Head of Growth & Marketing, Rapido said Digital marketing is a cross-functional tool that has a multitude of benefits. He advises start-ups and brands to focus on a full-funnel approach. Look for channels that bring you the most distribution. Marketing vernacularly impacts conversion by understanding customer preferences. Focus on what you want out of your marketing strategies.
Mr.Damandeep Singh Soni, VP- Marketing & Growth, boAT recommends brands to stick to two channels and focus on optimizing them to grow fast. He advises using the right instruments to gather data. Some brands use free tools, but the cost of change becomes high in the long run. He advises marketers to visualise the data to create manageable and efficient content.
Ms Shweta Sivasankaran, Director, Marketing, Unacademy shared that maintaining a strong social media presence with relevant and engaging content, marketing with a clear tone will boost your traffic online. She also recommends spending time measuring, listening and analyzing. Shweta asks companies to use accurate and exact keywords, use clear CTAs. She believes that a combination of simple and compelling display ads, along with videos that have clear CTAs have a very powerful impact on social media.
Mr Ajit Narasimhan, CMO, Sundaram Mutual says that going digital is no longer an enabler but a strategic leader. Mr Karanpreet Bindra, Head of Marketing, Rupeek agreed and added that offering both digital and physical transactions saw a hike in the conversion percentage for their company. Karanpreet also said that for wealth creation products, where trust is a key factor, building perception and awareness around the brand online will help. The demand for Vernacular content is high. This avoids the problem of loss in translation for complicated products like loans. Ajit says creating videos is one of the best ways to create a visual feel of the brand, where the focus is to educate the customer.
Mr Sandeep Shukla, Head, Marketing, Jaquar group says that a key factor in building a brand is reaching customers. Digital media needs to give all the information they need in one place. He says that everyone is an individual marketeer while talking about the power of sharing and circulating content. Creating videos on YouTube empowers consumers giving them all the data helping them to plan and decide. He requests brands to embrace technology while focusing on communicating and keep the message clear and simple.
This was an extremely interesting and insightful experience. Thanks to the virtual world, the panellists came together to give us their thoughts, opinions, advice on how to make the most out of this pandemic using digital media, and its trends. The summit was concluded after the rendering of the National Anthem. To know more about vernacular marketing, video creation tools, or to read more useful blogs on digital marketing, visit the Social Beat blog page.
YouTube Trueview campaigns on DV360 provide more precise tracking with comprehensive targeting abilities. Advertisers can leverage Google audiences, 1st Party and 3rd Party data and create combined audiences to reach just the right target audience. It can track even view-through-conversions along with click-through-conversions at scale, completed views and the cost for a completed view while automatically optimizing for lower CPCVs and higher view rates using AI & ML.
Sundaram Mutual is an Asset Management Company that manages funds that cater to the investment needs of investors with different risk, reward and liquidity preferences. It is committed to making mutual funds accessible to everyone and is backed with a strong research team and robust processes. It is also an innovative thought leader that is the first to launch funds in new themes like Mid-caps, Capex, Leadership, Rural India, and Micro caps and Services that enhance value for stakeholders while upholding the highest degree of ethics.
Sundaram Mutual wanted to launch a new fund called Sundaram Equity Fund and wanted to maximize the awareness of the NFO. It also wanted to increase consideration for the fund and drive conversions with the audience created in the branding campaigns to push them down the marketing funnel.
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87% of the views were completed views
63% decrease in CPV which drove 0.6x incremental views
66% decrease in CPM which drove 0.7x incremental impressions
50% higher views compared to YouTube Masthead in the previous campaign
161% increase in brand search queries on Google Search
I joined Social Beat Bangalore as a Marketing Intern for a period of 4 months. As someone with little to no experience in marketing, I was quite apprehensive of my job role in the beginning, but the assurance I had received from my manager Tejasvi Batria during the interview with regard to my learning curve at the organisation was very helpful in alleviating my anxiety. The work I did was enjoyable and extremely rewarding from day 1. Instead of mechanical/ backend work that I expected as an intern, I was asked to try and create campaigns for leading clients on the very first day, and continued to be one of my main tasks till the end.
This internship has provided me with confidence in tackling social media marketing campaigns, events, corresponding clients and the likes. Besides the immense learning curve, I have also built lasting relationships over the months with my colleagues who were not only warm, but very helpful at every turn. This surely made Social Beat stand out among all the other organisations I have associated with. I have never had to hesitate to seek assistance or inputs from even the senior most employees/ managers.
This internship has been a truly rewarding experience in terms of exposure to the industry, client allocation, the nature of my job, as well as the organisational culture. Not just professionally, Social Beat also allowed me to become more spontaneous and divergent in my thinking, more refined in executing assignments, and thus helped me grow personally too.
Lastly, but most importantly, I experienced "have fun while you work" quite literally at Social Beat!
23 January 2020, Mumbai - Social Beat’s fourth edition of its Digital Leadership Summit was held in Mumbai, in which the top industry leaders across sectors came together to share their insights and experiences, as well as forecast digital marketing trends for the future. Last year’s Summit, which was conducted in Bangalore and Mumbai, was a huge success, focusing on innovations across video, vernacular trends, voice marketing, and Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality. This year, one of the biggest talking points of the Summit was tapping into India’s next billion data users, how they will influence digital transformation across Bharat, and leading through disruption in various sectors.
The Summit focused on the prospect of the digital space this new decade, especially this current financial year. Sectors that are expected to see transformation were also discussed, including FMCG, retail, e-commerce, B2B, BFSI, real estate, and Internet businesses. Abhinav Jain, Co-Founder of Shop101 and Kaushik Mukhergee, Co-Founder and COO of SUGAR Cosmetics took up the first two sessions. They spoke about their individual brands, and how each of them introduced their products to consumers in the Tier II and Tier III cities - targeting to reach close to 400 million new Internet users. Abhinav also shared his insights on leveraging social relationships of sellers and democratizing commerce with a seamless product. He then spoke about creating micro-entrepreneurs in Bharat, driving 70% of transactions from outside top cities.
This was followed by a panel discussion on leading BFSI through disruption. This session included Ajit Narasimhan, CMO of Sundaram Mutual Funds, and MVS Murthy, Head of Marketing, Digital and Corporate Communications at Tata Mutual Funds. Moderating the panel, David Appasamy, Head of Brand and Strategy of Social Beat, said, “While the banking and financial service sector has been slow to adopt digital, many upcoming trends and new technologies are taking efficiency and outreach to new heights. Big data, AI, and voice are just a few major trends that are likely to make a huge impact on BFSI.”
The next series of talks were led by Ravi Saxena, CEO of Wonderchef, Sandeep Lodha, CEO of Weddingz.in and of OYO, and Arjun Choudhary, Chief Business Officer and Founding member of mfine. Mr Ravi spoke about how Wonderchef has built its brand name and become a digitally-led business in a competitive market, while Sandeep and Arjun spoke about the disruption of their business fields in India, and solving challenges using the right channel mix and building great community networks. Sandeep also shed light on how innovation can impact a digital user’s behaviour, and the influence innovation has which can potentially disrupt the wedding industry.
The event came to a close with a final panel discussion on innovation and trends for 2020, digital growth, and focus on digital strategy and performance by industries across their respective fields, moderated by Suneil Chawla, Co-Founder of Social Beat. He stated, “The last decade saw a quantum leap in the growing number of data users. This decade will now witness the digital medium open its doors to vernacular content and marketing to a brand new audience, radically changing the landscape of digital solutions. It will be exciting to see the impact unfold.” He was joined by Vinesh Gadhia, Senior Vice President of Lupin Ltd., and Juhi Singh, Digital Evangelist, Digital Transformation and Strategy Division of Marico.
I heard about Social Beat from my classmate who happened to be working there as an intern for digital media. I was searching for a good place to do my internship to gain some experience and I joined Social Beat as a web intern.
I had gained some experience in the domain previously by working on college projects. I had also completed my undergrad in Computer Science and Engineering from Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science.
After starting my internship with Social Beat, the first month was a tester for my skills where I was trained and later given tasks to complete, based on the training provided. I was mentored by a skilled designer who has now become a good friend. I learned quite a few things about designing from him.
In the second month, I was given client work which made me confident about my communication skills and also taught me to keep the client at the center for better client retention - one of Social Beat’s biggest values. I made mistakes and I also ensured that I learnt from them.
In the third month, I was mentored by a video editor. This time too, I didn’t just make friends but also got essential learnings for video editing.
When my internship came to an end, I understood that what I knew about my domain was just a bucket of knowledge compared to the whole sea. Over the course of my internship, I learned how to face and handle clients, how to work professionally, how to create impressive and impactful work, and how to take ownership.
I was also given the opportunity to work on other domains to experiment such as Voice-Enabled websites, Uber and Ola APIs for the clients. I also worked with Virtual and Augmented Reality as it was one of the domains I specialized in.
The atmosphere in the company is pleasant and everyone always greets each other with a smile on their face. Working as an intern made me realize that I have so much to learn. So, when I got the opportunity, I joined Social Beat as a full-time Web Developer. It's been 10 months and I get to learn something everyday from my colleagues and peers.
I don't know where to start but I would like to thank Vimal Micheal, my mentor. Vikas Chawla, Suniel Chawla, the co - founders and Arushi the head of the Tech Team for giving me this opportunity to work for the company and letting me contribute my skills and knowledge for the betterment of the company and my personal growth as well.