The year 2019 has been a whirlwind in terms of growth in the digital space. The number of internet users has gone up to a number that was previously unprecedented - from 483 million users in the year 2018, India has now crossed half a billion internet users at a whopping 566 million. This means brands and companies have a whole new audience to market to and multiple innovative ways to do so! If you are keen to learn more about digital marketing, do check out our digital marketing training arm, DigiGrad.
Here are 7 digital marketing trends for 2020 that we expect will see the most traction:
While user growth has slowed down across most key markets, India has shown no such trend. This is a direct result of easy accessibility to mobile internet and cheaper smartphones with the advent of Jio. This has consequently led to the huge influx of new social apps in digital markets, like TikTok, Helo, Sharechat, Vigo, Bigo, Firework and some more in the pipeline.
The year 2020 will likely see a rise of even more such apps as these have proved to be a hit with new data users, having tapped into vernacular content and the interests of people in smaller towns. And since a large chunk of internet users from rural India - 251 million to be precise - have contributed to the growth in the total number of Indian internet users this year, 2020 can expect to see a higher demand for social apps that cater to this demographic.
It also doesn’t hurt that these media conglomerates have figured out a key factor in driving growth - offering social apps with access to entertainment like short-videos, gaming and live-streaming. 2019 has already seen these newer social apps climb the rankings on Google’s Android PlayStore, with TikTok ranking number one, and Helo at a close second. Facebook currently holds the third position, which may indicate that the dominance the Facebook family of apps has had may see a negative impact.
On that note, with so many first-time internet users, the rise of a lot of social platforms have seen their tremendous growth simply because they offer their content and services in vernacular. Language-driven services have had such an impact this year, that even Amazon and Flipkart are planning to get on this bandwagon soon to catch up with new age players like niki.ai, bulbul tv and Shop101. With a higher demand for vernacular content online, brands across segments will be forced to explore and deliver too if they want to see bigger growth. Storytelling is an impactful way to engage and connect with customers, and when done in a native tongue, the outcome is very personal and unique. This is evident in the thumbstopper format that Facebook offers, which intends to tell a story without sound, in order to capture the essence of a story and be able to tell it to speakers of any language.
Featured below are the thumbstopper videos we did in collaboration with Malabar Gold to promote their ‘Men in Platinum’ collection. The campaign dismantles stereotypical gender roles and highlights the fact that men are at their best when they are in their element. With an overall reach of 13 lakh views across Facebook, Instagram and Youtube, the brand’s Facebook page witnessed a 450% increase in user engagement proving that relatability is a language in itself.
Speaking about breaking language barriers, Swiggy recently ran a campaign titled #SwiggyStarhunt - a platform for delivery partners to showcase their talent by uploading videos on popular video-sharing app TikTok. These videos come under the categories of acting, dancing, singing and musical instruments. Since the campaign was targeted at delivery partners, we created a robust social media strategy in 11 languages to grab their attention and encourage them to participate in the event. The campaign resulted in an outpour of uploads onto the video-sharing app, with a whopping 44+ million organic views, reaching a pan-Indian audience and giving Swiggy the uplift it deserved. #SwiggyStarhunt is also a testament to the fact that leveraging new social media platforms like TikTok, along with the relatability of vernacular content, is a great way to connect with consumers.
4G has taken India’s markets by storm, and Indian service providers are eager to capitalize on this moment to drive user and customer engagement. Augmented Reality can be used in a multitude of ways, changing experiences across different sectors, be it retail, live events, museums, real estate, education or automobile.
Facebook introduced Spark AR this year for the general public, which allows users on Facebook and Instagram to create filters and upload them online. Other users can then save these and apply them to their stories. Facebook has been seeing a lot of success with the launch of this product and this will probably ‘spark’ AR trends even more. Google had already rolled out Google Lens which is an image recognition technology that uses the point and shoot feature to show fitting search results. These two giants have showcased the diversity in the use of AR and how successful it can be when implemented right, driven by function.
VR will also start to pick up more as we enter 2020, but since VR devices are still too expensive for the Indian market, it is unlikely that it will pick up at the same pace as AR will.
E-commerce is the way of the future, and with search interaction having increased, leading companies will find voice a profitable technology to drive sales and revenue. This has already been evidenced in the huge investment Amazon has put into Alexa and Google into Google Home and its Google Assistant. Businesses will see voice user interface as an innovative tool that enables faster, more efficient customer engagement as voice commands surround every sphere of life, driving purchases, payments and more. Voice ordering, already a popular phenomenon in the US, will start picking up in India as well. Brands are also tying up with new-age start-ups like niki.ai to engage with the next billion internet users. These AI powered start-ups build user experiences that are not just intuitive but also in a language that the customers in the Tier II and III cities are comfortable in, making it easy for them to place orders using voice commands.
Looking for a few tips on voice search marketing? Here’s our tell-all guide:
It’s quality over quantity, always. Which is why many brands are now wanting to capitalize on their first-party data, instead of opting for second and third-party data. First-party data allows for exact, valuable insights into a customer’s direct engagement with the brand, whether it’s their individual interests, which ads they engage with, or how much time they spend on the brand’s website. This information is unfiltered, specific, and relevant, which helps to build an audience profile that is an exact match with the product or service in question. It is also cost-effective, as it’s free, and is lawful and transparent. Nike is one such company which has already announced that they will be selling only directly going forward.
Artificial intelligence fits into this equation as it can prove to be extremely beneficial in sifting through these data sets, which for a team of actual people, can be daunting. AI could uncover insights that could have been missed otherwise, identify critical data and trends, and all at unmatched speed with extreme accuracy. Thus, AI and first-party data may hand-in-hand serve to drive more personalized communication soon.
Social media platforms have seen quite a few changes this year, which were a little surprising for everyone. At one end, there are platforms like TikTok and Sharechat, which incentivized influencers, and at the other end, Instagram rolled out an update that removed the like count. The Advertising Standards Council of India has also announced that they are framing new guidelines and rules in a bid to protect consumer interests, which will include influencer marketing under its purview. With the aim to curb forms of misleading information, the reach influencers have, the kind of information they put out, and the engagement brands have with influencers may all change in 2020.
It is commonly believed that as the world became increasingly digital over the years, physical stores began to see less engagement. But this doesn’t hold true for brands that rely heavily on location, like hotels, restaurants, and auto dealerships. For such brands, online to offline attribution is extremely relevant and useful, as this metric helps brands to trace and identify which online ads can be attributed to driving in-store foot traffic.
While Google Store Visits is already live and being used across brands, other platforms will also start leveraging location data, combined with first party and CRM data, to showcase what results digital is driving for retailers and offline stores. This can be a game changer for traditional brands that did not have digital as a key aspect of their marketing campaigns. The start of the next decade will likely see a lot of brands who are not yet using digital come online to use this tool to engage with customers better and drive sales insightfully.
Store visit ads were an integral part of our campaign with retailers like Malabar Gold, Khadims and Specsmakers. We leverage a mix of Google products using detailed demographic targetting as well as geo-fence the retail stores. The ads used online to offline attribution data to measure the increase in footfall to their stores. The below case study of Malabar Gold showcases how thousands of shoppers were targetted and tracked, for the recent Brides of India campaign.
All that being said, the trends predicted show a range of exciting opportunities to be used for growth. We at Social Beat are definitely eager to see what the start of the new decade has in store for the digital marketing sector and are excited to grow with it, scaling new heights.
This article was originally published in The Economic Times Brand Equity.
Internship is the most stressful period in any student’s college life, but my experience with Social Beat has changed the whole mindset of it. I joined Social Beat three months back and I have learnt a lot in this period. In these three months, I have not only learnt about HR functions but also how to handle people around you.
The team is very welcoming and they always give the opportunity to learn and implement your subject. The culture of the organization is very different from other organizations where I have interned; they have a very warm and energizing environment. This helps any intern to explore the subject as well as their other interests.
The HR team with whom I interned always treated me as one of their team members and did not hesitate to teach or to assign any task. The team is very supportive and helps you to learn and understand your subject. They always give you space to work according to your preference and also gives you the liberty to learn from your mistakes. The team makes sure that your style is exhibited in your work and does not restrict you to work in a particular manner. When I compare my previous internships with the present one, I can see myself learning a lot in terms of my subject.
The team always encourages their interns to think out of the box, and helps them to act upon it. They are always open for any discussion, which can be with anyone from the team. They have freely adopted an open door policy, where everyone is approachable including the founders. In fact, I’d say Social Beat is the perfect example for exhibiting open door policy. This has helped me interact with different team members, and have an insight on digital marketing as well.
This internship is a valuable one as I have learnt to prioritize my work, be independent, and also pay attention to my values and follow them. I am thankful for this internship opportunity and it has been a great experience working at Social Beat.
Social Beat has got Arunima Singh on board as the executive vice president – growth in Mumbai. She will help the agency drive success with existing and new clients for the west region. Singh will work closely with the core team to drive growth and move closer towards the company’s vision of being India’s top independent digital agency by 2021.
Singh comes with more than 19 years of marketing experience, on both client and agency side. A media professional, she has a background in brand management, and marketing. Throughout her nearly two decade long career, Singh has held multiple positions, her last one being business director at Wonderman Thompson. Her journey also includes stints at AdFactors PR, L&K, Saatchi and Saatchi, and Mirum in the past. She brings with her experience in content management, SMM/SEO, website building and management, and business development.
Singh said, “Joining Social Beat, a young & agile agency, beautifully nurtured with a class apart culture and an apt environment where creativity is nurtured and nourished, is indeed a challenging platform for widening my portfolio in digital advertising. It is said that when a drop of waterfalls in the pool, it has no value, whereas if the same drop of waterfalls on a lotus leaf, it can shine like a pearl and a diamond. I am excited & looking forward to working with Social Beat and contributing to taking it to the next level with my team.”
She has worked on brands like Pidilite, Kalpataru, Godrej Group, Essar, KPCL, Parle, HCC, Lavasa, Magma Fincorp, Force Motors, Kotak Mahindra, HUL, Apollo Clinics, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Tata Housing, Intel, Piramal, Kellogg’s, HSBC,Colgate, and Flipkart during her career so far. She has also won multiple awards during her career.
Social Beat co-founder Vikas Chawla said, “We are ecstatic to have Arunima on board as an EVP in Mumbai. We look forward to working together towards realising our 10X vision to being the no.1 independent digital agency in India. With her immense experience in mainline and digital, she will be a great addition to the team and our journey.”
Social Beat is delighted to strengthen its leadership team by bringing on board Avinash Shenoy, Pratiksha Sinha and Tuhina Bapuli as Executive Vice Presidents (EVP) for Mumbai and Bangalore. They will be working closely with the team to drive growth and move closer towards the company’s vision of being India’s no. 1 independent digital agency by 2021.
Avinash Shenoy hails from a core advertising, brand management and marketing communications background. His professional journey spans across management and execution of strategies for various marquee brands. His 17-year-long professional journey includes working at various key roles in brand marketing and customer marketing at PepsiCo, in addition to managing key personal care brands for Unilever at Lowe. He was also a part of a key online jewellery brand where he worked towards delivering their growth hacking and digital marketing initiatives.
Talking about his new role as an Executive Vice President in Mumbai, Avinash stated, “The new world of the consumer is fast evolving in terms of consumption and communication, thanks to digitisation and e-commerce. It is imperative that brands and businesses are on top of the game to match these needs. I really believe that the team at Social Beat has the right passion and purpose to deliver these evolving digital needs. I am delighted to be a part of this journey and look forward to working with this young and dynamic team to create winning ideas, and solutions to build business for our clients.”
Pratiksha’s career in marketing took shape 6 years ago, with her gaining expertise in creating and executing GTM strategies for known brands across various verticals, including building client relations and business development. Her stint at Sokrati and Anarock has been instrumental in shaping her career in performance marketing. In Anarock, she was also given the opportunity to onboard and work with established brands such as Piramal Realty, TATA Housing, Mahindra, Shapoorji, Viacom, Swiggy and AJIO, to name a few.
Joining Social Beat as an Executive Vice President in Mumbai, Pratiksha shared, “In Social Beat, my key focus area would be to grow our business by almost 10x in the next 18 months, by helping our existing clients scale their customer growth through paid marketing and also onboarding new clients who are looking at driving significant scale through digital.”
Tuhina Bapuli has over 10 years of experience in the craft of core marketing having worked in brand awareness, consumer marketing and brand building. She has also gained exposure in corporate events including MICE and trade meets, and managed dealer engagements with CHA, IT, FMCG, Apparel, BFSI and automotive brands. In addition to this, she has explored structured social and digital marketing attributed to her stint at Autumn Grey - WPP.
Expressing her excitement, Tuhina said: “The digital marketing field is ever-evolving, with the need to stand out in the crowd. It is indeed exciting to step into a new journey in my professional career, working with a company that recognises talent and brings the best results. I look forward to contributing my skills and expertise at our Bangalore office, and utilising digital marketing’s dynamic nature to the fullest.”
Co-Founder, Suneil Chawla said, “As we move towards our goal of being the no. 1 independent digital agency in India, we are really excited to have Avinash, Pratiksha and Tuhina join us and play a crucial role in our growth journey. With each of them having varied experiences across branding, storytelling and performance marketing - we look forward to them accelerating our growth, nurturing talent and taking our work across some of India’s best brands. We are delighted to have the three of them be a part of this journey.”
When I was interning at Social beat, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. It was my first time coming to an office every day and all I wanted to do was learn. I interned for about 3 months with the video team before becoming a full-time employee. I’d like to thank my mentor Ananyaa who guided and taught me everything - from how to ideate, how to coordinate, to giving writing exercises and literally making me realise my true potential.
One month into the internship, I developed an interest in scriptwriting and wanted to focus on that. The next two months, I worked on honing my script writing skills. I learnt everything from how to write without any grammatical errors, how to shorten sentences, and how to visualize. I also had the chance to face the camera for Social Beat’s youtube channel “Arrear Irundalum Career ''. My internship was definitely a learning experience that led me on a successful career path. It taught me to be confident, work independently, be organised, prioritise my work, manage my time efficiently etc.
I also wanted to thank my team manager Divya Ram for being warm and supportive from the time she interviewed me and then on. I still remember the day I told her that I was worried I wouldn’t get the chance to work here. She has always been there whenever needed help or guidance or had doubts about the simplest things.
Apart from work, I really love the people and work culture at Social Beat. They are really friendly and welcoming. The game nights, hangout sessions and the movie nights are great avenues to communicate and bond with the team members. I also look forward to the chit-chat sessions every month where they celebrate our work and talk about our learnings.
One of the things that I really love about being in the video team is that you have the freedom to go crazy with your ideas, think out of the box, be as creative as possible. They are always open to new ideas and trying out new things which gives me the motivation to be better.
Overall, my 3 months of internship is an experience that has shaped me in more ways than one. It helped me discover my creative side. It was really difficult at first but after hours of research and a better understanding of the target audience, I am a lot more confident now. In fact, I am really excited about what new ideas I can bring to the work that I do and learn more every day. I’ve grown as an individual and a professional and it was made possible with Social Beat.
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.
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.
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.
Traditionally competitive advantage was factored in on the basis of 2 key points which are:
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:
Digital Capabilities today are spread across 3 different functions.
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.
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.
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:
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.
2019 marks the 11th year since YouTube’s entry into the Indian market. To help marketers and creators understand the massive impact YouTube has made in India and its importance in the digital ecosystem today, Youtube hosted the 2019 Brandcast in India.
YouTube currently has over 265M users in the country and this number is expected to reach 500M by 2020. This incredible number is in relation to the increase in the total number of internet users in India that has grown from 15M just five years ago to 100s of millions of users today. Its ability to provide a personalised media experience and offer content in various languages has made YouTube one of India’s most-used platforms.
Over the last 11 years, YouTube has become a platform for storytellers and creators to share content in different languages and reach an engaged audience in rural areas and big cities alike. It has become a success story for numerous YouTubers like ‘Mostly Sane’ who uses YouTube to discuss social issues such as mental health (the channel is currently at 3M subscribers) and more recently Priyanka Chopra, who chose YouTube to extend her audience reach with hew new show ‘If I could do just one thing’.
Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, says it is the preferred social platform for creators and businesses alike due to its ability to reach out to a large audience pool in a personalised way. When Pepsi ran an ad campaign on YouTube, it saw a 14% increase in sales and 3.3x return in ad spend. Alternatively, Hyundai’s ad campaign had a massive audience reach of 221M. The ability to scale and impact on YouTube can result in business leading results. Currently, vernacular content is taking centre stage and has helped increase engagement across all channels.
Mark Patterson of Group M discussed the video revolution in India and how it has changed the way brands communicate with their customers. Group M is a media advertising company that has had a presence in Asia for more than 2 decades and is responsible for 1 in 2 ads in India.
Mark highlighted the evolution of the media landscape and how mobile video has become a secret weapon for many marketers. One of the main reasons for this is the change in the way users consume content and seek entertainment. They look for three things: convenience, customisation and choice. Statistics show that 60-70% of people in India consume content on mobile video every day.
The digital spends in India remain comparatively low when compared to China where 64% of ad spends is digital while this is only at 18% in India. However, India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world at a 14% GDP and digital ad spends is expected to catch up soon.
Mark Patterson also discussed the three main themes on the why and how of digital advertising in India and how YouTube affects these themes.
1. Driving results across through the funnel
YouTube has allowed marketers to have a mass reach and gain more awareness of their brand with tools such as YouTube Masthead.
2. Unlocking creativity
YouTube allows for personalised messaging that has helped deliver performance. This has resulted in a 20% uplift inconsideration, a 31% increase in awareness and a 900% increase in search queries.
3. Cross channel planning
While this is still a fairly new concept for most media agencies. Group M has taken a step in this direction by integrating YouTube reach data with Group M planning tools. This has helped them optimise maximum reach across multiple devices.
It is no secret that Youtube has become the secret weapon for many marketers to reach their target audience. To take advantage of the immense reach that Youtube offers, Social Beat collaborated with our client Sundaram Mutual to create a masthead ad to promote their new fund. This campaign generated incredible results, proving the effectiveness of Youtube as a medium to reach out to the target market.
Sundaram was launching an open-ended equity scheme and wanted to create awareness around their product within a short period of time. Digital marketing has been proven to provide finance companies with the reach they require so Youtube was the obvious choice when it came to achieving the objective.
Mastheads are usually charged on a daily basis so we used the 24 hour period we had as effectively as we could. To enable maximum viewership we ran the campaign over the weekend. For the entirety of the day any individual that accessed Youtube through their desktop, tablet or mobile device saw the masthead ad at the top of their pages. This helped us increase our subscriber base and drive traffic to the website.
The 20-second Sundaram masthead achieved phenomenal results. Sundaram’s subscriber base grew from 356 to an outstanding 56,000! It has increased since then and is currently standing at 57,000 and growing every day. The video also generated 14 million views in a span of 24 hours.
To achieve these incredible results, we adopted a digital-first marketing strategy to reach the target audience. We were also able to track and measure our results to scale the brand to new heights.
You can read more about our Youtube ad campaign with Sundaram Mutual here.
Ben Jones, Creative Director at Google says that 30% of ROI is driven by media elements and targeting data. The other 70% comes from creative. There are three elements that affect ROI in digital:
Many people assume that with all the content out there, the consumer’s attention span is decreasing but this is not true because people today prefer long-form content to short-form content. What has changed is how quickly consumers reject and accept the content they consume. The content needs to be longer, richer, deeper and grab the attention of the viewer faster.
Another way a brand can improve ROI is by understanding the customers better with more personalised messaging. They should change content according to the target audience and in a way that will allow the brand to relate to the customer better. Statistics show that customisation of the ads specific to the target market can result in a 10% lift in ad recall.
Research has shown that In India 60-70% of content is consumed via the mobile device. Therefore, when creating content, brands need to keep in mind that the shots framed and the stories told are optimised for the mobile user. It is important for agencies to rethink their digital content strategies this way so they are able to get the brand message to the target audience better.
To help agencies adopt the above strategies in their content plan, a new Rethink Council has been created to identify how brands can rethink their marketing and targeting to measure and maximise creativity to connect to the customer.
YouTube Brandcast India 2019 ended with an insightful discussion with world-renowned director Zoya Akhtar. She highlighted the importance of the role YouTube played in her recent film ‘Gully Boy’ and how she was able to discover and do in-depth research for the movie through YouTube. YouTube also played a huge role in promoting the supporting content for the movie such as trailers and interviews.
YouTube has played a crucial role in the evolution of digital media in India and YouTube Brandcast 2019 highlighted the importance of the digital platform and how it has changed the way people consume content in India.
Our co-founders, Suneil and Vikas Chawla, were recently featured in the March 2019 edition of Insights Success magazine, as part of “The Top Ten Mind-Blowing Corporate Media Solutions Provider”.
Digital solutions today are an indispensable part of any brand or company’s marketing mix. While there are several digital agencies in India, the founding brothers spoke in-depth about what sets Social Beat apart from their peers – a client-centric approach backed by creativity.
Suneil and Vikas opine that while multiple agencies are churning out impressive results, one of the biggest challenges facing India’s digital marketing landscape is attracting and retaining quality talent for both the creative and digital marketing areas. The other challenge lies in the dynamism of the landscape and its ever-changing trends. You can take a look at the top digital marketing trends in India that will shape 2019.
To overcome these challenges, the founders speak about adopting new technology for better solutions for their customers including influencer marketing platform Influencer.in and multilingual content marketing platform 22 Languages.
The duo also spoke in depth about Social Beat’s YouTube knowledge series – Digital Bytes that sheds light on current and upcoming digital marketing trends, as well as Social Beat’s book, “Digital Marketing Industry Report 2018” – that provides comprehensive insights into how brands today leverage the power of digital to intensify their marketing efforts.
The success of any company lies in the well-being of its employees. And Social Beat prides itself on creating an inclusive, transparent and empowering work-culture. The founders allude to creativity and enthusiasm running high throughout the organisation that has helped Social Beat grow from strength to strength since its inception six years ago.
Read the entire article on Social Beat: A Homegrown Digital Marketing Leader here.
We are excited to announce that Social Beat has earned the Google Premier Partner Shopping Ads Skills for Google Ads/Pay Per Click Advertising. Our newly acquired Google Premier Partner badge for Shopping Ads certifies that we have demonstrated expertise and sustained client performance in shopping advertising.
Unlike traditional text ads that focus on the keywords you choose, Google Shopping ads determine when your product listing ads show up. Google considers the feed, the site and the bids that determine what search queries show your ads.
The success of Google Shopping ads depends on three elements:
We have successfully incorporated these elements and leveraged the use of Google Shopping Ads to sustain client performance in shopping advertising.
Premier Google Partners are required to demonstrate that they are maximising their clients’ performance by implementing Google’s recommended best practices in client accounts using Shopping Ads.
As a Google Premier Partner in Shopping Ads, Social Beat can help us place our client’s products on Google Search, set up inventory on the Merchant Center and create Google Shopping campaigns.
The new badge is designed to recognise Partners who manage a substantial portfolio of Google advertising campaigns and deliver great results for their customers.
Social Beat works with Google Sales Representatives to promote new and effective Google strategies to our clients. As a Google Premier Partner, we use proven techniques to help our clients increase their digital ROI. We aim to deliver the best results to our clients using Google’s strategies such as Mobile Innovation and Search Mobile and Display Innovation.
Contact us to get your Adwords campaign started or to optimise an existing campaign for better ROI.