The World Marketing Congress and CMO Asia recognised the 50 most influential strategy leaders around the globe at the Mobile and Digital Marketing Summit 2018 held on the 27th of November at Taj Land’s End, Bandra, Mumbai. We are extremely happy to announce that Mr David Appasamy – Head of Brand and Strategy, Social Beat – has been selected as one of the top influential strategists from across the world.
David has an exemplary career spanning over 35 years with several leading companies such as ITC Ltd, Mudra DDB and Sify Technologies covering Business strategy, Brand and Marketing Management, Digital Marketing and Audience Engagement. From 2006-2011, David was the Co-Chair for the International Chamber of Commerce’s Task Force on Internet, Telecoms, Infrastructure and Services. In 2010 and 2011, he was also part of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) guiding the UN Secretary-General on Internet Governance.
The 5th edition of the World Marketing Congress was held this year with the central theme of Futuristic Marketing. The conference covered various aspects such as digital initiatives, customer experience, advertising and branding. The conference also discussed the importance of linking sustainability with a brand’s identity and how to develop a sustainable brand by changing the dynamics of marketing strategies. Various industry experts also stressed the need for brands to focus on their marketing culture rather than only their products and services. The other key aspects that were highlighted are the role of brands in empowering customers by using interesting engagement initiatives to create brand perceptions and nostalgic memories.
This year’s World Marketing Congress also included the 8th edition of the Mobile and Digital Marketing Summit. This summit was organised jointly by the World Marketing Congress and CMO Asia. The main purpose of this summit was to discuss the future trends of digital marketing and the need for every brand to incorporate effective digital marketing strategies in order to establish a strong presence in today’s continuously evolving digital landscape. This summit was a great platform for industry experts to gather, explore, discuss and brainstorm ideas on formulating compelling strategies to reach India's next billion Internet users using digital marketing tools, case studies and global practices. 100 marketing wizards attended the summit from across the globe including market research experts, brand strategists and media professionals to discuss and ideate the best industry practices.
You can also read our other blogs on the top digital marketing events in India in 2019 and the second edition of our Digital Leadership Summit.
We are happy to announce that our co-founder Vikas Chawla, Head of Social Media Innovation - Anuradha Nair and Creative Head - Panisa Shah have received nominations under the first edition of Social Samosa’s 40 Under 40.
Social Samosa 40 Under 40 is a salute to pioneers in the field of marketing and advertising in India – to celebrate thought leaders and entrepreneurs who have disrupted and impacted growth within the ecosystem.
Google India’s Year in Search report estimates that by 2020, more than 650 million Indians will be online. In the last two years, digital underwent a major paradigm shift – from a support-marketing channel to a full-fledged business platform of its own. According to the Digital Marketing Industry Report 2018 that we recently released, 68% of brands leverage digital marketing to promote their products and services.
Those nominated for #SS40under40 are those individuals who strive to leverage our country’s growing digital audience and formulate the best strategies to engage with the next billion internet users in India.
The nominations are spread across 10 categories namely - Account Management, Analytics, Brand Management, Business, Content Marketing, Creative, Digital Marketing, Media Entrepreneurship/Leadership, Media Planning, and Strategy.
Each candidate is nominated and assessed based on creativity, planning and execution, strategy, ability to analyse numbers and trends and implement them, crafting their brand’s message and how effectively they engage with consumers.
After a whopping 450 plus entries, Vikas was shortlisted among 228 other nominees by a jury of marketing stalwarts namely:
We wish good luck to our Social Beat members in the final selection!
For more insights into the awards, visit 40under40.socialsamosa.com
Our co-founder Suneil Chawla was recently featured in the Times of India for his expert advice on taking the off-beat career path of a web developer. The article showcased valuable insights provided by professionals from various fields at an alternate career seminar. The objective was to inspire millennials to think out of the box and take the road less travelled when it comes to choosing a career path.
Suneil Chawla threw light on how the online industry is on the constant look out for individuals who are equipped to handle the digital marketing space. He also stated that people who are interested in Search Engine Optmisation and developing chatbots can particularly flourish in this field and help organisations engage with India’s next billion Internet users. Additionally, he highlighted the importance of regional content and the scope for digital marketing to grow locally.
The other industry experts who contributed to the article include Ms. Divya Satyam – associate professor at NIFT, Ms. Radhika Ramasamy – a wild life photographer and Mr. Arun Ram – resident editor at TOI, to name a few.
Want to know more about alternative careers? Follow our YouTube channel Arrear Irundalum Career for tips and tricks on making it big in life while following your passion. Here's a video to show you how. Don't forget to visit the Arrear Irundalum Career website for more information on career tips in Tamil.
With the Indian real estate space getting increasingly crowded, it has become a significant challenge for developers to differentiate themselves from their competitors. In order to stand out, real estate developers need to try something unique to gain the upper hand. With the tier II and tier III cities being active on the Internet and most of them using vernacular language to consume content, Casagrand formulated an innovative vernacular ad strategy to engage with India’s next billion internet users. Here’s how Casagrand utilised vernacular content in their ads as one of their key real estate digital marketing strategies to reach this market and achieve an incredible 90 percent increase in leads.
Casagrand Builders is one of the biggest real estate developers in South India, with a large presence in Chennai as well as projects in Bangalore and Coimbatore. They are committed to building aspirations and providing homes that offer families the highest quality and value. Casagrand had two main objectives:
In order to meet these objectives, we formulated a multi-targeted approach which would capture the attention of potential buyers at various stages of the buying process. This would ensure that Casagrand would occupy a high position in the consumer’s mind space and give it an edge over its competitors. To do this, we utilised three main strategies:
According to the Google and KPMG report, the number of regional language speakers online in India will reach 76 million within the next five years. As this audience base grows in size and influence, it’s important that brands start creating multilingual content targeted towards them. Casagrand capitalised on this opportunity and developed a regional language-focused approach in their marketing strategy. We identified the Tamil-speaking consumers as the primary target audience since most of Casagrand’s projects are located in Chennai. Based on this, we began developing vernacular ads in Tamil so we could reach out to these consumers directly. We used vernacular ads extensively for specific projects like Casagrand Uptown. Speaking to this regional audience in the language they were most comfortable with, Casagrand was able to develop a relationship built on trust and comfort with their target audience. This played a pivotal role in helping us generate high-quality leads for Casagrand.
We identified the Google Display Network as the most effective way to reach our target audience to create maximum impact. Google Display Network allows us to find the right target audience and deliver our message contextually. One of the tools we used to maximise reach through custom affinity audiences. Building bucketed Custom Affinity Audiences allowed us to reach out to our specific target audience to ensure the right people were coming across our message. Gmail Ads displayed at the top of a user’s inbox also proved very effective in creating awareness and generating leads.
One of the most important ways digital marketing is transforming the real estate sector, is by creating brand awareness right from the initial stages of the buying process. As one of Casagrand’s primary objectives was to occupy the mind space of potential buyers, maintaining a high impression share across relevant keywords was very important. Through competitive bids on generic keywords (eg. 2 BHK apartments in Chennai), as well a brand-specific keywords, we ensured that users would continuously come across Casagrand’s ads in their search results. This helped increase the number of quality leads generated.
Through this extensive and in-depth approach, we were able to generate an unprecedented increase in the number of leads for Casagrand. Our strategy of utilising vernacular ads helped grow Casagrand’s leads by 90 percent QoQ and also increased the overall click volume by 85 percent QoQ. Vernacular ads were extensively utilised in the Casagrand Uptown project marketing strategy, with 50 percent of total spends being allocated to Indic Display Creatives and targeting. This approach delivered significantly higher leads and a CPL that was 60 percent lower than that of normal display creatives. These results prove that vernacular ads offer massive benefits not just in terms of increasing brand awareness, but also in delivering higher ROI.
As the number of regional language users growing at a faster pace than English language users, they are quickly becoming one of the most important segments for brands to focus on. The phenomenal results Casagrand achieved by implementing a strong vernacular ad strategy is proof that brands cannot afford to ignore India’s regional audience. To learn more about our work with Casagrand, you can also read how we helped Casagrand generate a record 190 crores in revenue via Facebook.
Over the five years since our inception, Social Beat has consistently pushed the envelope and stood at the helm of digital innovations. This relentless drive towards perfection has been a key factor in the successful business results we have achieved for each of our clients. But the digital landscape within which we operate is continuously changing and with it, so are we. As we progress from being a startup to a meaningful player in the digital ecosystem, we are charging head-first towards a phase of rapid growth and impactful creativity. To keep up with our constantly evolving nature, we have re-launched our brand identity to better reflect the values we strive to embody today. But while the overall look of our brand might have changed, our core promise remains the same: to achieve measurable milestones for our clients through ROI-driven digital marketing.
Social Beat today is a powerhouse of talent, creativity, strategy and innovation. With our vibrant 80-member team spread across our offices in Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai, we have the best resources to help brands meet their business objectives. With our unparalleled capabilities in the field, we can say with full confidence that no one understands the digital landscape of India better than us. Social Beat has several unique tools at our disposal to meet the challenges and potential of India’s consumer audience today.
As the importance of video marketing continues to grow, our expertise in creating engaging, insightful video content is one of our biggest strengths. With a talented in-house video team, we offer brands a special edge to capture the attention of their consumers. Influencer by Social Beat is one of our most important services, capitalising on the rapid emergence of influencer marketing. Through Influencer, we put brands in touch with key influencers in the category, helping them achieve greater brand awareness and trust. As tier 2 and tier 3 cities in India benefit from easier access to high-speed internet and low-cost phones, regional language marketing is crucial to help brands engage with India’s next billion internet users. This is why 22 Languages by Social Beat helps brands create engaging content for their audiences in the language they are most comfortable in. This focus on results through a comprehensive marketing strategy is perfectly encapsulated in our new brand identity.
The new brand identity symbolises the progressive vision of our company. From the choice of contemporary fonts to the colours used, every aspect of the logo is an embodiment of the values, culture and innovative methods used by us. After weeks of brainstorming and ideation, our in-house creative team led by Creative Head Panisa Shah finally conceptualized a logo that was the best representation of all that our brand stands for. We adopted a clean, minimal and contemporary look to symbolise our progressive approach to digital strategy. Aside from our new logo, our brand relaunch also involves a redesign of the Social Beat website. In keeping with the minimalist theme, we are giving our website an uncluttered, clean layout that is captivating in its simplicity.
The brand new Social Beat logo is minimalistic and contemporary with clear-cut edges and a bold, yet refined design language that is reflective of our distinctive identity. It successfully captures our passion, energy, creativity and professionalism in a memorable way.
Every component of the logo has a symbolism of its own that throws light on the values, ethics and passionate spirit that defines who we are.
Solid colours with a rock-solid approach: The colour strategy behind the logo was to combine the enthusiastic vibe of orangish red with the reliability and expertise of royal blue. A typical day at Social Beat is replete with vibrant minds working towards reinforcing our clients’ trust and confidence in us. This is why we chose a vibrant red to represent our fresh ideas, passion, creativity and energy, while royal blue represents our dependability and trustworthiness.
Bettering the lettering: We opted for an uppercase, clean, sans-serif font to portray the professionalism we offer. The straight lines reiterate our commitment towards providing polished, masterful end-results for our clients.
Forward is the way to go: The forward arrows represent the result-driven business generation approach and the progressive vision of the company. We are constantly scouting for the latest trends in digital marketing to ensure that brands stay ahead of the curve.
Energetic, enthusiastic and youthful: The strategically placed flash symbol symbolises the energetic and dynamic nature of the team, driven by fresh ideas and new-age concepts.
Strategy comes full-circle: The circle encompassing the logo stands for the holistic digital marketing solution that Social Beat offers to each of our clients.
Our re-envisioned brand identity will accelerate us towards our goal of becoming amongst India’s top companies offering digital marketing solutions. This new identity resonates with our USP of boosting ROI for our clients across a variety of sectors like the finance industry, FMCG industry, real estate sector and more by being a holistic digital marketing partner. It's a brand new identity but the same bold promise!
Our co-founder Suneil Chawla was recently featured in Deccan Chronicle in a short article titled A more ‘personal’ Facebook. The article focused on how Facebook users felt the platform was primarily used to connect people together across the globe but is now like a Classified showcasing products, services and other events related to the them. To address this concern, Facebook has now changed its algorithm in such a way that it will favour personal posts which have more engagement with viewers rather than promotional posts put up by organisations and news hubs.
Suneil Chawla shared his thoughts on the same. According to him, “The new update continues Facebook’s approach over the last few years, with a pay-to-play model. So, organic or unpaid reach will drop and brands will need to advertise to be found by their target customers and the cost of acquiring a customer may marginally go up.”
“As a Facebook user I believe it is a great move as we can see more content from friends and family. As a brand, anything good for the user, can’t be that bad for a meaningful brand”, he added.
You can check out the entire article here.
Social Beat turned 5 on December 12th, 2017! This called for a much-needed celebration after all the hard work and deadlines that got us through yet another year. This time around, however, we went big and treated ourselves to a day of fun filled activities and adventure sports at Wild Tribe Ranch, ECR, far from the madding crowd of the city.
63-strong digital ninjas descended on the battleground with warpaint on Friday the 5th of January, 2018. The Bangalore and Mumbai bases added the much-needed tactical reinforcements and 6 strike teams were carved to carry out a common goal – teamwork, strategy, planning – which led us to realise the aspirations of our clients in the first place. All the combatants were wide eyed and geared for what was admittedly a much anticipated wild ride to pounce into position and trounce the opposition. From the enthusiastic Social Media Marketing team to the evergreen SEO & Content team, everyone put their best foot forward to win the battle.
The disciplines that followed were designed to bring out the child in you and also make a man out of you. Everyone was glad to be a gladiator and ready for a heady test of skill, strength and endurance to overcome the hurdles and come over victorious. The ranch witnessed the Social Beat platoon hold fort with their overwhelming presence and hold court with their shock-and-awe athleticism and enthusiasm.
It is often seen that the best man for a job is a woman – which is why some of the events saw the femme fatales rule the roost and the boys knocked off their perch much to everyone’s delight and surprise!
The warzone camaraderie was quietly documented blow-by-blow on camera by the inhouse photog who never missed a target. Intelligence reports confirmed that the exhibitionism portrayed by Social Beat members drew admiration from the other visitors and brought smiles even from the ranch staffers – something not seen often and something we all can be proud of!!
As the dust settled along with the sunset, all of us retreated with sweet pain and sweeter memories for working together to cross the next milestone in a hurry!!
A resounding high five for now and watch your six folks!
There is no doubt that digital marketing will transform the real estate industry in 2018. However, the recent implementation of RERA has caused a huge shift in the way marketing strategies are created and conducted in the property sector. The much-anticipated Real Estate Regulatory Act has made developers rethink and reformat their marketing strategies to comply with the guidelines for the promotion and marketing of properties.
Our Head of Brand and Strategy, Mr. David Appasamy, was recently interviewed by Realty Plus Mag about this topic. In this interview, David gives us his thoughts about how the game of real estate marketing has changed with the introduction of these major policies.
You can read the article here: http://realtyplusmag.com/the-post-rera-marketing/
Audience engagement has always been a challenge for most brands and companies. Reaching out to your target group is just half the battle won. The key lies in engaging your viewers to an extent in which they ultimately convert to loyal customers. One such digital marketing trend that has emerged as an effective tool to keep customers engaged with your brand is Live Videos.
The advent of live videos has changed the face of audience engagement for the better. The live video streaming option is available on all leading digital marketing channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, to name a few. With live streaming, like Facebook Live, companies have a cost-effective mode of promotion that audiences can easily view since studies have shown that there has been an increase in the viewing of live videos after the introduction of the 4G network. There are many benefits and drawbacks of the usage of live videos but overall, it has been found to be an extremely effective method of communication and engagement between brands and audiences.
Social Beat believes in the power of live videos for promotion and marketing. Featured below is Times of India's article where our co-founder, Vikas Chawla, gives us clarity on how live videos can benefit your brand and help you reach your marketing goals. For more insight on Live streaming, make sure you check out our blogs on the top 10 live chat software for your website and 4 tips to integrate social media for live events.
With Diwali around the corner, it was time for some festive celebrations at Social Beat. On a Friday morning, the office was lit up with people dressed in their ethnic attire be it Anarkalis, saris or the traditional kurtas and dhotis. Getting our work done for the day and shooting photos with our mates, we didn’t know how time flew.
No festivities are ever complete without some great food, right? To enjoy a delicious meal, we headed to Bombay Brasserie in Nungambakkam for a team lunch. It is one of the finest restaurants in the city, known for its authentic North Indian food and its ambience. From Dal Makhni to Garlic Naan and Punjabi lassis, we relished it all. After a hearty meal, we gathered as a team to take a happy team picture.
It was indeed a memorable day for all of us at Social Beat, as it was not just fun-filled but also improved the team’s bonding.
On behalf of the entire team from Social Beat, we wish you a Happy Diwali!
