This social media case study is a social listening report on e-retail brands.

1. Reference No.: AA112

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India's retail market was estimated at $470 billion in 2011 and is
expected to grow to $675 billion by 2016 and $850 billion by 2020, at
an estimated CAGR of 7%. According to Forrester, the e-commerce
market in India is set to grow the fastest within the Asia-Pacific Region
at a CAGR of over 57% between 2012 and 2016.
India's e-commerce market in 2011 was about $600 million and is
expected to touch $9 billion by 2016 and $70 billion by 2020, at an
estimated CAGR of 61%.
A study by Assocham, states that India is one of the three fastest
growing internet markets in the world and about 75% of online
audience lies between the age group of 15-34 years. This makes the
nation one of the youngest online demographics, globally and social
networking is the most popular online activity of this age group.
From the above statistics, it is easy to understand that a large number
of people use social media to share their shopping experiences. These
experiences, in the form of conversations on social media, are read by
millions and have an impact in influencing their decision for the next
purchase. So it is necessary that these are tracked consistently and
meticulously.
Introduction

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We used Radian6, a part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud – a
sophisticated, easy-to-use, real-time monitoring tool – to extract
conversations about the following e-commerce brands in India,
through the use of keywords:
Conversations about the above brands that happened between
February 12, 2013 and March 11, 2013 were analyzed. The buzz and
sentiment for these brands were measured and compared. The key
topics of discussions were identified to understand the kind of
conversations that happened during the period. The keywords used
were brand names and their variations.
Abstract

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Volume of Conversations for eCommerce Brands on Social Media
Share of Voice
Flipkart, Snapdeal, Homeshop18 and Myntra evangelize their brands
through extensive use of hashtags on Twitter. These Twitter hashtags are
often part of contests, where users also need to mention the brands’
official Twitter handles. This causes better online visibility for these
brands, especially when such hashtags trend on the microblog. Brands
with a higher share of voice also seem to benefit from 'word-of-mouth'
across social media, where their buzz increases in a compounding
manner. More well-known brands have a higher share of voice, and these
brands are more well-known.
ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT (ORM) HELPS BRANDS
INTERPRET 'WHAT' KEEPS THEIR BUZZ HIGH OR LOW, AND 'WHY'.

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Top Brand Conversation Topics

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Sentiment and the BRI
Brand wise Sentiment
The BRI also shows why social media monitoring is essential for brands. A
larger volume of conversations can also mean more negative feedback
for the brand, as seen here for Flipkart and Homeshop18. A platform to
track complaints about a brand and respond to them real-time, greatly
enhances how people perceive a particular brand.
Online Reputation Management plays a key role in enabling brands to
respond to customers. Likewise, sentiment and volume of conversations
across the industry, is essential for brands with low buzz, to attain more
brand visibility online.
ORM HELPS BRANDS UNDERSTAND THEIR SENTIMENT, WHILE
IDENTIFYING THE KEY POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE DISCUSSION TOPICS IN
CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THESE BRANDS.
Brand Reputation Index is a metric introduced by Social Wavelength to identify relationships
between a brand’s volume of conversations and sentiment against those of the industry.

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The Brand Advocacy Matrix
The Brand Advocacy Matrix is a tool derived by Social Wavelength, to correctly gauge the Volume
vs. Sentiment positioning on social media for brands in an industry.
Despite the highest volume amongst brands, Flipkart was seen to have the
lowest positioning in the Matrix, an indication that more popular brands are
also more prone to more negative feedback. Other brands like HomeShop18
and Infibeam also contribute a sizeable volume of negative conversations in the
industry – consistent CRM is recommended for such brands.
For Snapdeal, which has positive feedback and high volume, it becomes
necessary to protect the brand from any potential online crisis through ORM.
We also see a large number of brands clustered in the opportunity quadrant –
these brands need to leverage industry conversations and opportunities to
enhance their online visibility.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS A GOOD INDICATOR OF PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION ABOUT
BRANDS. ORM HELPS THESE BRANDS UNDERSTAND HOW THEY ARE
POSITIONED ON THE BASIS OF THE VOLUME AND SENTIMENT OF THEIR
ONLINE CONVERSATIONS.

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Media Type Analysis
Types of Media That Contributed Conversations
Brands use Twitter extensively for hashtag campaigns and due to the
public nature of this very platform, Twitter is the number one medium to
share thoughts and opinions alike. The fact remains that it is a public and
real-time medium, thus amplifying any threat against it.
Blogs have been used mainly to share offers and schemes. As for Forums,
they contribute only 3.4% of the overall data and have had the highest
concentration of negative posts amongst all other platforms. This, in
particular, is an alarming indication, because unlike other media,
conversations on Forums can last years and its members often converse in
depth about the topic. Other platforms have contributed very little to the
overall dataset.
ORM HELPS BRANDS IDENTIFY THE PLATFORMS THAT DRIVE THEIR
CONVERSATIONS AS WELL AS POTENTIALLY HARMFUL MEDIA THAT MAY
BE DENIGRATIVE FOR THE BRAND.

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Influencers
Influencers Amplify Reach of Content
Influential users on social media, even upon positive experience while
using a brand, will usually abstain from commenting positively about
it. Conversely, negative brand experiences have the tendency to be
shared more readily by these users which, in turn, has a viral effect.
AS EVEN A SINGLE POST BY AN INFLUENTIAL AUTHOR ON SOCIAL MEDIA
HAS THE POTENTIAL TO IMPACT A BRAND’S ONLINE REPUTATION,
TRACKING THEIR CONVERSATIONS IS AN ESSENTIAL STEP.

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Some Tweets by Prominent Authors

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 ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT HELPS BRANDS INTERPRET
'WHAT' KEEPS THEIR BUZZ HIGH OR LOW, AND 'WHY'. THIS IS
ESPECIALLY APPLICABLE IN CASE OF ECOMMERCE BRANDS, WHICH
DEPEND A LOT ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR THEIR VISIBILITY.
 ORM WILL HELP ECOMMERCE BRANDS UNDERSTAND THEIR SENTIMENT,
WHILE IDENTIFYING THE KEY POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE DISCUSSION
TOPICS IN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THESE BRANDS.
 SINCE MOST REFERENCES ON SOCIAL MEDIA ARE PERSONAL OPINIONS
AND ACTUAL EXPERIENCES, IT IS A GOOD INDICATOR OF PEOPLE’S
PERCEPTION ABOUT VARIOUS PRODUCTS AND SERVICES OFFERED BY
ECOMMERCE BRANDS. ORM HELPS THESE BRANDS UNDERSTAND THEIR
POSITIONING RELATIVE TO OTHER BRANDS, ON THE BASIS OF THE
VOLUME AND SENTIMENT OF THEIR ONLINE CONVERSATIONS.
 ORM HELPS BRANDS IDENTIFY THE PLATFORMS THAT DRIVE THEIR
CONVERSATIONS, AS WELL AS POTENTIALLY HARMFUL CONTENT ON
THESE PLATFORMS.
 EVEN A SINGLE POST BY AN INFLUENTIAL AUTHOR ON SOCIAL MEDIA
HAS THE POTENTIAL TO IMPACT A BRAND’S ONLINE REPUTATION.
HENCE, TRACKING THEIR CONVERSATIONS IS AN ESSENTIAL STEP FOR
ECOMMERCE BRANDS, MOSTLY BECAUSE PEOPLE REPORT NEGATIVE
EXPERIENCES MORE THAN POSITIVE ONES.
 MONITORING ONLINE CONVERSATIONS THROUGH ORM IS NECESSARY
IN A BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER INDUSTRY LIKE ECOMMERCE TO ENSURE
THAT THE REPUTATION OF BRANDS REMAINS FAVORABLE AND THEIR
ONLINE VISIBILITY STAYS POSITIVE.
Closing Thoughts

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Social Wavelength is India’s largest social media agency with presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai
and Bangalore. Its’ suite of services include social media monitoring, online-reputation management,
online PR, social media management and building online communities. Social Wavelength is also the
authorized reseller for Radian6 for the Indian market. More information is available on
www.socialwavelength.com
Services we offer:
 Social Media Communication
 Social Media Monitoring
 Social Media Analytics
 Social Media for HR
How can Social Media Monitoring help you?
So you’ve just spent the last ten or so minutes browsing through our report on e-commerce in India.
Now you’re wondering what to make sense of all of this – how does this apply to you? Well it does!
Hundreds of millions of ‘Likes’, ‘Comments’, ‘Shares’ happen every day; and that’s just Facebook. Add
Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, thousands of blogs, and the countless online communities, and you get a
veritable social media soup!
At Social Wavelength, we spend countless hours sifting through the hundreds of thousands of
conversations about the brands we manage, making sense of it all.
Some of the cool services we offer include:
 Sentiment Understanding
 Business Intelligence
 Social CRM
 Customer Insights
 Sales Opportunities
Contact:
Mihir Karkare
Vice President, Social Wavelength
radian6@socialwavelength.com
+91-22-61274301
We are located at:
About Social Wavelength