Social media marketing in emerging economies: Case study of three Indian firms

Abstract

Nearly 30 million Indians who are online are members of social networking sites and popular surveys report that about two-thirds of them spend time daily on these social networking sites. More importantly, Indians spend more time on social media than they do using personal email. This has immense implications for a country which has been dubbed as one of the largest emerging markets and has multinationals vying to set up shop. This scenario in India is unique as Internet penetration piggybacks on the telecom boom, boosting online retail and advertising opportunities. Therefore savvy marketers will want to jump on this bandwagon. This chapter looks at the unique situation in India in context of the growth of social media usage and tries to find developed world theoretical models as to how companies are coping with this new phenomenon. The results indicate that the companies are eager to interact with their target groups in social media; however, few have found the path to full leverage the return on investments made on a social media presence. Much of their efforts remain confined to branding and therefore better metrics need to be developed for better analytics. © 2014 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.