By Our Reporter
Management on Friday. (ST)
SHILLONG: A passionate circuit rider for social media, Deepak Goel, CEO and Founder of Drizzlin Media, a firm that assists companies to deal with the changing landscape of empowered customers, held an interactive session for the first year students at the Indian Institute of Management, Shillong on Friday.
This was the first of the guest lecture series for the IIM students in the academic year. Speaking on Social Media – The phenomenon and its applicability, Goel, through his presentation, laid stress on the relevance of social media and its impact on business and marketing strategies.
“The reputation of a brand on Internet is volatile as it is an interactive platform and upholding image can be a daunting task,” highlighted Goel who stressed that social media allowed the spread of customer views faster and has the potential to damage brand image more quickly than it takes to build.
Relevant case studies perused in between the session to elucidate the underlying concerns under the fabric of social media.
Since advocacy is well known to have a proportional impact on marketing, the case studies chosen threw light on how companies could remain exclusive and yet, not alienate itself from the people.
“Most brands, upon being confronted, look at a situation as a conflict right away but the focus should always remain on customer care and how you rebuild your trust,” pointed out Goel while analyzing the well known case of Bodyform, a company dealing in women’s products who tactfully handled negative social media posts on its advertisements.
This was followed by a case study on the whole uproar involving ‘derogatory remarks’ by the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, an apparel and lifestyle brand.
The other important aspect touched upon was the impact of advertisements and in this regard, the case study was the infamous provocative ad of Ford done by staffers of JWT advertising agency.
Goel, shifting topics, laid special emphasis on ‘online privacy’.
“We have to be particularly careful about what we share online as it becomes available in the public domain,” said Goel who cited examples of companies like ‘Target’ and ‘Netflix’ that track customer data through the choices they make and pages they visit online.
The session focused on almost all the domains that revolved around social media and its impact and ended with an important message that though social media can be considered to be a miniature form of conventional marketing, digital launches eventually goes to mainstream marketing and understanding its facets is highly important.