New Delhi: At the prestigious Indian Icons Convention & Awards organized by Kitestar Production & Global Chamber Of Consumer Rights held at Hotel Vivanta by Taj, Dwarka it was an occasion to celebrate India’s booming economy and honour its entrepreneurs and business houses. The event had many prominent personalities grace the occasion by their presence especially the chief guest Hon. Dr. Kiran Bedi (Ex Lt. Governor of Puducherry), Maj. Gen. Sanjay Suri (Retd.), Dr.DiwakerGoel, His excellency J.K Tripathi (Retd. IFS), Mr. Teerathram (Former IES) &Dr.ShashankKharabanda (CEO: AngelLife Cosmetology & Wellness).
Before the award ceremonies there were discussions and talks, where the honourable guests spoke on multiple topics ranging from A.I, Chat GPT and Social media as the new market place in India. Dr.ShashankKharabanda was applauded for his views on the topic, here are some excerpts from his talk at the event.
As we entered 2023, many world economies went into a recession and this put restraint on marketing budgets and programs. But astute marketing managers and companies saw the importance, power and reachability of social media as the new market place. India, one the most promising and emerging economies of the world, filled with budding entrepreneurs and business houses utilized and used this influential market to help their businesses and defy the global trend of recession.
May it be old established business or a new ventures, chances are that it’s always hard to get new customers in this age of competition where the client is aware and looking for the best deals and options and, just as importantly, keep your existing customers is always a challenge as well. It’s not just about fresh leads, but keeping revenue up across every front. The use of social media marketing is a critical and effective way for engaging existing customers, reaching new audiences, building trust and loyalty (that carries into renewals, upsell and cross-sell growth, etc), and much more.The focal reason why social media marketing is becoming more important and relevant now more than ever is because of the cost effectiveness in reaching your target consumer and because social media is where buyers and customers are engaging with each other along with their companies.
The fast growth of social media market in India
With an estimated 1.4 Billion mobile phone users, of which about 800 Million are smartphone users, There were 516 900 000 Facebook users in India in February 2023, which accounted for 35.9% of its entire population. The majority of them were men – 68.4%. People aged 25 to 34 were the largest user group (173 000 000). These figures speak volumes as per the reachability of social media is concerned, and with the rising purchase capacity of India. On June 12, 2023, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s office tweeted that India’s GDP touched the $3.75 trillion mark in 2023. The Ministry also confirmed that India has now become the fifth largest economy in the world, moving from the tenth spot.
The growing GDP, the rising purchase capacity, the consumer awareness and influence of buying decisions through social media make it an excellent tool for businesses, entrepreneurs and companies to directly present themselves and their products to their target clients at a reasonable financial cost.
To keep it simple, social media market is the web space that processes the customer through attaining attention or traffic through social media sites. Basically, marketing is based on customer usage regardless of the era. This means when we look back to history when there was the radio as the medium, advertising, and marketing through radio were quite popular. Later, when Television came into place, companies have started with TV ads. TV advertising has been a boom even today also. Now with the internet era of new marketing called as internet marketing or digital marketing; Social media is the new market place.
At present, India is the second-biggest client of Facebook and YouTube on the earth and if this pattern is to be accepted, traditional marketing mediums like TV, Print will soon initiate social media marketing as being each brand’s pack of marketing cards. The other prime social media platforms being WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora and Instagram.
Summary
As smartphones and internet grows in numbers and reach in the nation, more and more businesses will concentrate on reaching and providing their consistent shoppers involvement with promo offers, mobile updates, events and contents based on the conduct and interests. Moreover, with the ascent of WhatsApp and Facebook for organizations, brands will concentrate on additionally improving their advertising efforts to speak with clients specifically where they are destined to be discovered i.e. on their smartphones.
The average Indian spends over 28 hours of the week online, which is a cause of immediate access to a world of data and media readily available. For utilizing the web for different purposes in life, Indians following the global phenomenaare relying more on digital mediums to search for items and associate with brands on the web. With the developing requirement for visual information, brands will keep on relying on recordings and pictures which attract the population, giving ever increasing power to social media as the market place.
