Social Media The New Business Catalyst

Off late Indian politicians and senior bureaucrats have taken the social media course to reach out to a greater number of populace, in their initiative to connect to the internet-educated mass of the country. The trend became more popular with Kiran Bedi, Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi and fellow politicians taking the Twitter route to connect with people.

Following the trend, some of the solution providers as well as associations in India took to the social media not just to connect better with fellow colleagues, but also to discuss trade issues and maximize sales. Twitter has always been the hot favorite of the mainstream IT companies posting regular updates. The trend also went over to LinkedIn and Facebook, each of the medium having their own set of characteristics; but Twitter continues to rule the chart. The fact remains simple that Twitter doesn't call for 'confirmations' by means of 'Friend Requests' and can simply be 'Followed' unlike other mediums.

However, SPs took over to Facebook mainly because it provides a higher level of interactivity, has several personalization options and can be used to form groups which has become to dominate the social media of the channels. Mostly, groups are centered around associations and interest groups (having a particular issue) but also expands to include trade ethics as well.

Among these, the interest groups have been noteworthy in not just bringing in disputes like billing, service and MOP issues to the forefront, but is now also evolving around issues related to online pricing with Flipkart and some other websites coming under fire.

SPs alike have been promoting their services through the social media.

As an example, Alok Gupta of Softmart has been actively promoting his solutions suites in Facebook with posts like "~50+% Discount* on Adobe CS6 Design Standard Suite for Advertising Agencies, Garment and Apparel Manufacturers / Exporters, Book Publishers, Printers and ~50% Discount offer for Adobe® Photoshop CS6 for Photographers" appearing frequently.

Of the vendors, Amkette Kolkata has been vehemently promoting their products and portfolio in the homepages of various associations and trade bodies and is stated to have had a good start with this.

On the other hand, association presidents like Pawan Agarwalla of North East Computer Traders Association (NECTA), Swarn Singh, secretary of ADCTA and others has been very active in recent months bringing in trade issues both generalist as well as particular ones to the forefront.

Some SPs have claimed to have met with professional success by leveraging Facebook with their 'offers and price cuts', but it happened in very limited scale and not significant of large deals. Large deals, till now, even after the advent of online trading and social media continues to be done through the sales team and powerpoint presentations in a group or one-to-one interaction.

Some of the SPs from this lot, however, have preferred to keep the social media space "personal" for themselves showing a higher level of professionalism. The very basis of the formation of sites like Facebook and Twitter was to share and connect with fellow individuals and groups where a "personal" touch could be added to make the connectivity space 'more iniviting'. LinkedIn on the other hand provides for more professional approach which has not been leveraged fully (except a few SPs from the south) as most of them prefer to use Facebook for promotions.

From the branding perspective, Twitter is perhaps the best platform as can be seen by most of the modern icons and celebrities resorting to promote themselves by using Twitter, but SPs have a tendency of using Facebook as the medium. This has allowed in creation of innumerable groups which often not just contradicts each others' purpose but steals away the very flavour of social media from the network.

It has been argued by a large number of SPs that using Facebook for both professional as well branding purpose is the best way to leverage social media as it is most popular in India, Twitter stands utterly neglected; perhaps "time constraint" and the pressure of posting "regular updates" is hindering the ambitions of the SPs leveraging the social media.

Online publishing platforms like Blogger or Wordpress work particularly well for B2B businesses. They allow companies to highlight their own expertise and knowledge, establishing credibility and exclusivity of content. A firm's insight into the world of financial investment, for example, is communicated much more effectively through a whole blog post than in 140 characters on Twitter. If a B2B business wants to utilize Twitter, they would be better off using this particular social media solution to promote blog posts or news, rather than communicating entire company ideals.

Even then, if one needs to argue over the feasibility and the professional approach, groups can be easily created in LinkdIn as with Facebook which could help SPs becoming more professional in their approach and help in branding; after all, across the globe, companies as well as agencies refer to one's LinkedIn profile and not Facebook. The case with Twitter can also be addressed by hiring communication experts who can handle social media across platforms. After all, if SPs are serious about branding and has ambitions to evolve into recognized and reputed IT players and shed off their tag as local deployers and box-pushers, having a professional social media approach is the need of the hour.