It was a mixed year for social networking sites, which began the year with
a bang. Social media sites like MySpace, BigAdda, Ibibo, Orkut and Facebook
firmed up operations while sites like Yahoo Mash, popularly touted as competitor
to Facebook, shut shop in September 2008 after a year of being launched. Earlier
too, Yahoo had shut its experimental social network sites like Mixd and Yahoo
360, within some months of inception.
“Local marketers are becoming familiar with the best ways to promote their
businesses and by crossing online and offline campaigns, they are getting more
bang for their buck,” said Shivanandan Pare, COO, BigAdda, that commenced
operations 15 months back. The brands that are promoting themselves on BigAdda
include Nokia, Lenovo, Sony Ericsson and Intel among others.
Analysts also believe that voice search in social networks will begin to boom
in 2009. Currently, voice search is still in the beginning stages but platforms
like Google, Vlingo and Tellme are paving the way to more consumers’ mobile
devices. BigAdda nurtures similar plans too. “There are plans of getting Adda,
content and mobile blogs on to the MobileAdda platform and we are also working
towards something on the voice platform, beta testing of which is on. It will be
the next big thing that everyone will keep talking about for long,” promises
Pare of BigAdda.
Ibibo, which calls itself a ‘talent based social networking site’, is willing
to bet that 2009 would be the year when targeting consumer on social sites will
have a far bigger payout than any other media. Ashish Kashyap, CEO, Ibibo, has
built traction for his site among the 14-28 year olds by running talent-based
contests since its inception.
Recently, Ibibo tied up with Yash Raj Films to launch a Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
application where a video featuring Shah Rukh Khan urges users to share their
talent — be it acting, dancing, singing or mimicry on the site. “Such promotions
and brand campaigns would be a major revenue earner for us in 2009,” says
Kashyap. After just a year and a half of operations, Ibibo claims to have 31
lakh registered users, growing at an average 40 per cent month-on-month
basis.
IDC reveals that social networking sites need to prove ad effectiveness, “and
the only way to fix it is to get people to do stuff on social networks other
than communicate,” reports IDC. This means encouraging activities that readily
lend themselves to advertising such as sharing media, consuming media, playing
games and collaborating on applications.
BigAdda is already carefully positioning its platform as a branding solution
provider. “We are pitching advertisers to use BigAdda.com for brand building
activities, rather than just carrying out lead generation and returns on
investment (ROI) driven campaigns,” insists Pare.
Meanwhile, international players like MySpace are trying to build on their
user base in India by experimenting with various social platforms. With a new
service called Data Availability, MySpace users can share their public profile
data with other websites like Yahoo, Twitter, eBay, and Photobucket, where users
can exercise control over what information is to be shared. MySpace’s mobile
version, which was launched for Blackberry users, touched 1 million download
mark within a month of its launch.
Hari Krishnan, country manager, MySpace India, feels confident that mobile
could be the trick for them. He says, “We will invest heavily in mobile building
a mobile platform for Indian users.” Mobile remains a central element of
MySpace’s global business strategy, providing a new channel for users to connect
with each other and for advertisers to target a highly engaged audience, adds
Krishnan.
Facebook too announced a similar platform, called Facebook Connect, following
MySpace’s announcement. Facebook’s also hopes to allow its users to link their
Facebook identity to various social media across the web.
