A Report on the Social Media State of Indian Ecommerce Industry

86
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY REVIEWS OF TOP 5 E-COMMERCE BRANDS ANALYTICS POWERED BY

description

social media marketing strategies

Transcript of A Report on the Social Media State of Indian Ecommerce Industry

  • SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY REVIEWS OF TOP 5 E-COMMERCE BRANDS

    ANALYTICS POWERED BY

  • Apeksha Harihar is a digital media journalist with a strong interest in analytics and strategy. She analyzes brands and their social media strategies and provides them with solutions that can help them derive real business results.

    APEKSHA HARIHAR

    AUTHOR PROFILE

  • E-commerce brands on Social Media are largely seen to be product oriented. Their strategy has been to drive sales through various content buckets and activities on Twitter and Facebook. This ebook throws light on the analysis of the top five e-commerce brands in India and their strategies in terms of content, customer service, engagement and campaign led interactions.

    These e-commerce sites have been studied for a period of 3 months between November 2013- January 2014. The following brands have been studied:

    1. Flipkart2. Myntra3. Jabong4. Homeshop185. Snapdeal

  • Flipkart, one of the biggest online retailer, is extremely popular on Social Media. Along with a series of creative TV commercials, the e-commerce giant has successfully generated leads and hugely promoted its products through social platforms. I am analyzing the brands performance between 1st August 2013 and 30th November 2013.

    STRATEGY REVIEW -

  • Flipkart has a young fan following between the age group of 21-40 yrs. 34.7% are below the age of 20, 22.4% are between 21-30 years and 42.9% are between 31-41 years. 63.4% of these fans are males while 36.6% are females.

    Audience Analysis

    Flipkart on Facebook

    With total fans of 2.2 million and only 20K people talking about it, Flipkart needs to look closely into its content strategy. Flipkart skips posting on certain days but maintains an average of 2 posts a day. The content strategy of the brand encompasses creative cover images, fun festive greetings, interesting content buckets and an attempt to understand their Facebook audience.

    The Cover image space is more often than not used by brands to showcase product offerings and sales. Flipkart however teaches us that creatively using this space can be enticing for fans and compel them to like the brand. It also increases interaction voluntarily by fans.

  • Another very interesting strategy of the brand is to wish their fans seasons greetings. Most brands do this but it comes across as a forced gesture than a proactive activity. Flipkart however takes the initiative to creative an artistic visual which attracts more traction.

  • However, there are certain activities that Flipkart can improve upon. They are currently not making use of any applications. They can integrate their other profiles through apps.

    Recently, Flipkart achieved 2 million fans on its page and ran a content to gauge audience feedback about its content. This is rare since brands usually try to gauge their brand image rather than Facebook content strategy. I find it very interesting that Flipkart took an initiative to delve deep into fan mindset.

  • Lastly, they also promote product offerings among various other creative content. These updates are receiving a good engagement too.

  • 94K+ fans on Twitter gives the e-commerce leader great exposure among Tweeples to promote its products, increase sales and drive interaction. Though the brand does not tweet many updates, it is high on communication on Twitter. They simply love interacting with their followers and it shows. These interactions are open ended and try to establish a personal connect with the brand.

    Flipkart on Twitter

  • What I find interesting is, this is also the case for customer service.

    As mentioned in the Facebook section, Flipkart is proactive when it comes to seasons and festive greetings. The brand has created different visual greetings for its Twitter followers on the occasion of Childrens day, instead of using the same image of Facebook.

  • They also have various interesting quizzes on Twitter which are aligned to their brand objectives. These contests are mostly related to product awareness. Recently, a contest #FergieTime was run and the prize was a copy of Alex Fergusons signed copy.

  • They also roped in Miss Malini, a famous influencer to run a contest for them called the Camouflage Quiz.

  • Flipkarts presence on Pinterest is almost negligible. Known by @FlipkartBoards, the brand has only 3 boards, 20 pins and 59 followers. Even though they have not began their full fledged marketing on this platform, I like the 3 boards and the brand is on the right track.

    For instance the board, Authors who said Hello is about an event which saw the gathering of many authors. The board depicts in pictures the different authors that attended the event.

    Creativity is at top with every marketing communication Flipkart executes. The Youtube channel name, MrFlipkart is worth a mention too. The channel has over 2000 subscribers and 1.7 million views. Though most videos are ads, 1 video caught my interest.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brin8knbqscFlipkart does not take part in the discussion forum but does reply to comments on videos. Unfortunately, it only copy pastes, 1 remark on most comments.

    Flipkart on Pinterest

    Flipkart on YouTube

  • Flipkart has a total of 134095 mentions online through various portals. A whopping 77.77% positive sentiment is doing the rounds online. This does not come across as a surprise owing to the wonderful conversations the brand is having online.

    On Twitter, the brand receives the highest number of mentions. It has an average of 1000 mentions in a day in form of tweets, retweets and replies.

    Online Buzz

    Followed by Twitter, Facebook and Google+ contribute to the online buzz. Facebook has average of 45+ mentions per day and a total of 4139 mentions in 3 months. Google+ has the least number of mentions which is 1228 in the last 3 months.

  • Service Feedback

    408 complaints are recorded according to the tool for the brand on various networks. 684 reviews have been posted while 183 images have been shared. 1227 videos have been shared related to the brand. Most number of conversations have been on Twitter and Facebook.

    I would also like to segregate the kind of conversations Flipkart is having on Social Media. In the last 3 months, the ecommerce brand has having maximum conversations regarding shipping, return, pricing, sales etc. The maximum conversation for any ecommerce brand would be regarding shipping and Flipkart has 10,680 mentions related to shipping & packaging.

  • Next in line is sales with the second highest mentions of 8,272 topics related to sales. 3,282 mentions of return and replacement is third highest. Remaining conversations are besieged with images, pricing, website and payment related talks.

    Flipkarts sentiment is clearly very positive online. This is definite because the brand does not try to suppress negative comments or ignore usual conversation. It strives to communicate with fans and followers as much as possible, maintaining a very friendly tone.

    77.8% mentions are positive as opposed to only 22.2% negative comments.

    Sentiment

  • Shipping and Packaging tops the list where 74% are positive sentiments while 26% are negative. Next is Sales with 58.5% are positive and 41.5% negative sentiments.

  • Trend Analysis

    The overall mentions of Flipkart reached its peak in the month of December 2013. As compared to November and January, it had over 64K mentions in December 2013.

    This is because the stakeholder and news mentions went up during this month too. Since Flipkart ran its Christmas contest #KartofJoy, end of the month, it spiked the mentions. January too has over 57K mentions but unlike December it has not run a contest end of month, hence the difference.

  • Since the brand spiked its mentions because of a campaign, it is also necessary to track whether these mentions made a difference in the sentiment of the brand. And it clearly shows that while the negative sentiment remains almost same in the last 3 months, in the month of December particularly, the positive sentiment has grown almost by double in the previous month.

  • Overall, Flipkarts Social Media Strategy is great but needs minor alterations. Some suggestions:

    -Should try and be more regular on Facebook in terms of posting content.-Can post more tweets on Twitter other than the usual sales tweets. -Needs to work on Pinterest content strategy, probably by integrating Instagram photos of their products, office, shipments etc. -Needs to put up more innovative and exclusive content on Youtube.

    Conclusion

  • Myntra.com has been a popular e commerce website on social media. Its social media strategy has been to promote products, run various interactive contests and use the micro blogging platform for customer service. It has a sizable community on 5 major platforms i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Google+.

    STRATEGY REVIEW -

  • Myntra has most number of posts updated between the age group 21-30. 166 posts have been posted by this age group while only 5% of the posts are below the age of 20. 72.2% of these fans are males while only 27.8% are females.

    The Myntra Facebook Page is 1.7 million strong and among the few eCommerce brands which has more than a million members in their community.

    Apart from the month of January, the brand has been inconsistent in its approach to post daily updates. In the months of October, November and December, the brand has skipped several days together too. However, on an average Myntra posts upto 2-3 updates.

    Audience Analysis

    Myntra on Facebook

  • Myntra has been promoting its #ShoptheHangout on Facebook which is a Hangout with Hrithik Roshan. Such innovative activities have stood out for Myntra.

  • The usual updates revolve around sales and discounts, product promotions and properties such as Brand of the Week and Style Mint links.

  • Though there is a huge community size, the interaction received on each post is not much. From time to time the site makes use of applications for running contests. Currently there is an application of a contest which is over but the brand has not updated the applications. It portrays a negative attitude if subscription renewal notices are visible.

  • Myntra has a total of over 20K+ followers on Twitter. The brand posted 103 replies, got 103 retweets and posted 386 tweets in the last 3 months. Myntras Twitter content strategy is

    similar to Facebook but there is a lot more on Twitter than mere product updates. The handle accepts and responds to a lot of customer queries. Unlike many brands, the customer support team of Myntra is doing a fabulous job on Twitter.The tone of these representatives remains friendly and patient. Though the brand does not tweet many updates, it mainly uses the microblogging site for conversations. They simply love interacting with their followers and it shows.

    Myntra on Twitter

  • Like Flipkart, Myntra too is proactive when it comes to seasons and festive greetings. They also have various interesting quizzes on Twitter which are aligned to their brand objectives.

  • Online Buzz

    Myntra has a total of 203146 mentions online across various portals. 81.8% sentiments out of these mentions are positive while only 18.9% are negative. Myntra has been successful in reserving a good online reputation. Out of most platforms, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are most dominant on conversations and brand mentions. While 77.3% of the mentions are made on Twitter, only 20.4% of it is contributed by Facebook and 2.3% by Google+. On Twitter, Myntra received 39K+ mentions in the last 3 months and 10K+ mentions on Facebook. Though its received only 1K+ mentions on Google+, it is still counted better than many.

  • Service Feedback

    67 complaints are recorded according to the tool for the brand on various networks. 40 reviews have been posted while 589 news related content has been posted about the brand. Most number of conversations have been on Twitter followed by Facebook.

    I would also like to segregate the kind of conversations Myntra is having on Social Media. In the last 3 months, the ecommerce brand has having maximum conversations about shipping and packaging followed by sales and the website in that order.

    The maximum conversation for any ecommerce brand would be regarding shipping and Myntra has 4,415 mentions related to shipping & packaging. This is half of what Flipkart received.

  • Next in line is sales with the second highest mentions of 3,229 posts. 1,609 mentions of the website is third highest. Remaining conversations are about image, pricing, customer service and return and replacement.

    Most of Myntras users who have posted on the page are from Mumbai which accounts to a total of 32.3% while Delhi is second on the list with 23.1% posts. Bangalore stands very close to Delhi with 18.8% posts. Less than 10% posts are posted by users from Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Gurgaon in that order.

  • Myntras sentiment is largely positive online. The brand has maximum conversations on Twitter and this is the reason why negative sentiments are fading overtime. Brands must converse on a regular basis to do away with negativity gradually.

    86.9% mentions are positive as opposed to only 13.09% negative comments.

    Sentiment

  • Users have largely expressed their sentiments on shipping and packaging, sales, pricing, images, website, customer service, return and replacement and payment. Shipping and Packaging is on top of the list where 71.4% are positive sentiments while 28.6% are negative. Sales has a more or less balanced sentiment where 56.3% are positive and 43.7% are negative.

    The website has a positive sentiment of 61.3% and only 38.7% negative. A very negative sentiment is hovering on social sites regarding pricing where 51.8% users are talking negatively. Myntra should be concerned about this since these talks can be damaging to the brand reputation.

  • The overall mentions of Myntra reached its peak in the month of December 2013. As compared to November and January, it almost had 24K mentions.

    Trend Analysis

  • Myntra had a mega sale which it promoted on Twitter in the month of December with the hash-tag #MyntraMegaSale. This is the reason why its mentions went up since many users tweeted about it.

    Myntra has a fantastic job on customer service support on social media and it shows through its positive sentiment analysis. The brand has managed to get a lot more positive mentions in the month of December by running a campaign.

  • Overall, Myntras Social Media Strategy is great but needs minor alterations. Some suggestions:

    -Should try and move from product oriented content on Facebook. -Can add up more content on Youtube channel and share it on social profiles.

    Conclusion

  • Jabong.com, an online retail website and is more oriented to fashion and lifestyle. It is popular among youth and has a sizeable community on both Facebook and Twitter. With close to 2 million followers on Facebook and 30K followers on Twitter, the brand is strong on content.

    STRATEGY REVIEW -

  • Jabong has most number of posts updated below the age group 20 and only 23% of the posts are posted by users between the age of 21-30. This is also because the brand does not allow user posting on its wall on Facebook hence such less figures. There have been no posts made by users above the age of 31. 62% of these fans are males while only 38% are females.

    The Jabong Facebook Page is 1.9 million strong and has more fan following than Myntra.

    Apart from the month of January, the brand has been inconsistent in its approach to post daily updates. Between 1st and 17th November, the brand did not post a single update. In the months of October and December too the brand has skipped several days together. However, on an average Jabong has been posting upto 2-3 updates per day.

    Audience Analysis

    Jabong On Facebook

  • Jabong is purely a product oriented brand and its communication clearly conveys so. Most of the updates are images of products and a link to the same on the website.

    Apart from the usual updates, in the month of October, the brand came up with a campaign #PatakhaFamily which was to promote its Diwali offerings. It created some fun designs and characters and this received a good engagement.

  • The interactions received on the above posts were far more than what the brand usually receives. This could also be due to promoting the post but the audience clearly liked it and thats the reason why it has been appreciated and shared. Once in a while, Jabong also gets social and has shared an image of their customer order.

  • Jabong has a lot of applications too. Support, Polls and various contests make part of the application tabs on their Facebook page.

    Myntra has a total of over 27K+ followers on Twitter. The brand posted 70 replies, got 679 retweets and and posted 92 tweets in the last 3 months.

    Apart from this, many users have posted positive comments about Jabongs customer support service. However, those posting negative comments occasionally get a reply.

    Jabong has similar content on Twitter when compared to Facebook. However other than customer service there is nothing new on their Twitter handle. Though there are occasional topical posts, most of the tweets are product oriented.

    Jabong On Twitter

  • It hosts a lot of contests on its Twitter handle which are aimed at increasing product awareness and followers. It recently launched a contest #NameItWinIt.

  • Out of most platforms, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are most dominant on conversations and brand mentions. While 56.9% of the mentions are made on Twitter which is maximum only 37.3% of it is contributed by Facebook and only 5.8% by Google+.

    On Twitter, Jabong has received over 54K+ mentions in the last 3 months and 16K+ mentions on Facebook. Though its received only 2K+ mentions on Google+, it is still double the mentions Myntra has received.

    Online Buzz

  • 117 complaints are recorded according to the tool for the brand on various networks. 138 reviews have been posted while 346 news related content has been posted about the brand. Most number of conversations have been on Twitter closely followed by Facebook.

    Service Feedback

  • In the last 3 months Jabong is having maximum conversations about shipping and packaging followed by sales and the website in that order.

    The maximum conversation for any ecommerce brand would be regarding shipping and Myntra has 2,468 mentions related to shipping & packaging. This is half of what Myntra received.

    Next in line is sales with the second highest mentions of 1,671 posts. Only 547 mentions of the website were recorded. Remaining conversations are about image, pricing, customer service and return and replacement.

  • Most of Jabongs users who have posted on the page are from Gurgaon which accounts to a total of 38.3% while Mumbai is second on the list with 19.1% posts. Delhi stands very close to Mumbai with 15.6% posts and Bangalore with 11.4%. Less than 10% posts are posted by users from Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Jaipur in that order.

    Jabongs sentiment is largely positive online. While 5633 posts have positive sentiments only 853 posts have negative sentiment. The brand must converse on a regular basis on Twitter and open their Facebook wall for conversation to do away with negativity gradually.

    Sentiment

  • Users have largely expressed their sentiments on sales, shipping and packaging, image, payment, website, customer service, pricing and return and replacement. Sales is on top of the list where 78.1% are positive sentiments while 21.9% are negative. Shipping and packaging too has more positive sentiment of 69.8% and negative sentiment of 30.2%.

    Images on the other hand have a largely negative sentiment of 91.9% and positive sentiment of 8.1%. This is way too negative and the brand must look into this closely. Pricing sentiment is balanced at 50% each.

  • The overall mentions of Jabong reached its peak in the month of December 2013. As compared to November and January, it had over 9K mentions in December 2013.

    Trend Analysis

  • This is also because brand and stakeholder mentions went up during this month too. Like Flipkart, Jabong too ran a year end contest #TwitterResolutions and the hash-tag was even trending long enough to give the brand a spike in mentions.

    Jabong managed to change its positive sentiment numbers by double as compared to previous month. Though there is a little rise in negative sentiment too, but what matters is the positive buzz about the site on the web.

  • Overall, Jabong need to improve its Social Media Strategy. Some suggestions:

    -Should try and move from product oriented content on Facebook and become more conversational.-Should open the page for user posting and take feedbacks.-Should reply to customers on Twitter more frequently and effectively.

    Conclusion

  • Homeshop18 is a popular e-commerce website and has been giving tough competition to Myntra, Flipkart and Jabong. The website has been executing interesting social media activities that fall in line with brand objectives. These activities are definitely more creative and innovative unline its retail counterparts.

    STRATEGY REVIEW -

  • Homeshop18 has most number of posts updated between by the age group 21-30. 65.8% of the total fans are males while only 34.2% are females.

    The Homeshop18 Facebook Page is 1.1 million strong. However only a little of 30K fans are talking about the brand. The brand has been maintaining about 4-5 posts per day on an average in the month of January. However, in October and November, it has taken the leverage of skipping consecutive days. In the month of October especially, the brand made very less effort with only 11 posts in the entire month.

    Homeshop18 recently launched the Micromax canvas exclusively on its website. To promote the launch it used both Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, it refrained from using the hash-tag that was made on Twitter.

    Audience Analysis

    Homeshop 18 on Facebook

  • Most of its usual updates are about products. There are very few interactive posts which are actually doing pretty well but the brand does not seem to realize its importance. For instance the post below has received a huge interaction in form of shares and comments. However, in the last 3 months I have only seen 1 such post.

    Though there is a huge community size, the interaction received on each post is not much because most of the posts are product oriented.

  • In terms of applications, the brand connects its users to other platforms by linking each within its tabs. The branding and the colors are also consistent. Apart from this, not many creative applications are present on the page currently.

  • Homeshop18 has a total of over 22K+ followers on Twitter. The brand posted 27 replies, received 139 retweets and made 114 tweets in the last 3 months

    Homeshop18 has a mix of product oriented tweets, contests and customer service support on its twitter handle. It ran a fun activity on Republic Day to promote its sale using hash-tag #RightTo. Its a fun topical content that the brand generated and many users participated.

    Also with its recent launch of Micromax Canvas which was exclusive to the site, the brand had run a content with #OnlyonHS18 which received a lot of online eyeballs too.

    Apart from this the regular customer service of Homeshop18 is far better than other ecommerce sites.

    Homeshop 18 on Twitter

  • Out of most platforms, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are most dominant on conversations and brand mentions. While 73.5% of the mentions are made on Twitter, only 24.1% of it is contributed by Facebook and 2.4% by Google+. On Twitter, Myntra received 61K+ mentions in the last 3 months and 20K+ mentions on Facebook. It received only 2K+ mentions on Google+.

    Online Buzz

  • 306 complaints are recorded according to the tool for the brand on various networks. Over 1K mentions are on classified websites while 1800 blog posts are about the brand. Also, 195 reviews, 299 news articles and over 2K+ forum mentions are present. Most number of conversations have been on Twitter followed by Facebook.

    Service Feedback

  • I would also like to segregate the kind of conversations Homeshop18 is having on Social Media. In the last 3 months, the ecommerce brand is having maximum conversations about shipping and packaging followed by website and sales in that order.

    The maximum conversation for any ecommerce brand would be regarding shipping and Homeshop18 has 2,849 mentions related to shipping & packaging. Next in line is website with the second highest mentions of 1,610 posts. 1,329 mentions of sales is third highest. Remaining conversations are about image, pricing, customer service and return and replacement.

    Most of Homeshop18 users who have posted on the page are from Mumbai which accounts to a total of 43% while Delhi is second on the list with 20.6% posts. Bangalore stands very close to Delhi with 10.8% posts. Chennai, Pune and Kolkata are similar with 7.3%, 5.9% and 5.1% posts.

  • Homeshop18s sentiment is largely positive online. 81.2% mentions are positive as opposed to only 18.8% negative comments.

    Sentiment

  • Users have largely expressed their sentiments on shipping and packaging, sales, pricing, images, website, customer service, return and replacement and payment. Shipping and Packaging is on top of the list where 45.9% are positive sentiments while 54.1% are negative. This is probably not very good for the brand since shipping and packaging is a major metric while measuring success of ecommerce sites. A equivalent negative sentiment might hurt brand reputation. Sales has 35% negative sentiment and 65% positive sentiment. The pricing conversations have a good 72.5% positive sentiments while customer service on the other hand has 70% negative sentiments. Return and Replacement too has 73.3% negative sentiment. This could be alarming for the brand.

    The overall mentions of Homeshop18 reached its peak in the month of January 2014. As compared to November and December, the brand mentions are rising month on month.

    Trend Analysis

  • This is also because the stakeholder and news mentions are going up in proportion. The brand has picked up activities and campaigns within the last few months and hence the difference. When brands begin conversing actively, their mentions are bound to go up.

  • Campaigns have a direct effect on positive and negative sentiments too. As the mentions rise, whether or not they are positive is also an important metric to track. Homeshop18 has a much higher positive sentiment than previous months due to the spike in mentions and the negative sentiment has also gone down.

    Overall, Homeshop18s Social Media Strategy is good but needs corrective measures. Some suggestions:

    -Should try and post more fun things that welcome interaction on Facebook. -Should be more regular with campaigns and try to launch integrated campaigns. -Should have a faster customer service on Twitter.

    Conclusion

  • Snapdeal which earlier started as a deals oriented website and soon capitalized on its popularity to launch a full-fledged online store, is strong on social media. Lets have a look at how the brand is doing on various websites and its overall conversations on the web.

    STRATEGY REVIEW -

  • Snapdeal has most number of posts updated between the age group 21-30. 328 posts have been posted by this age group while only 3.2% of the posts are posted by those below the age of 20 and 0.9% between age-group 31-41. 63% of these fans are males and 37% are females.

    The Snapdeal Facebook Page is 1.8 million strong and abour 28K+ users talking about the page.

    Snapdeal is very inconsistent with its post updates. A brand should post atleast 2updates daily to let their fans know whats happening and stay connected with them.

    Snapdeal again like all others is excessively product oriented. Most of the updates are linked back to the website in an urge for people to buy the products. However, these posts receive far less interaction than those which are interactive. Mostly Snapdeal promotes its offers on the website through its Facebook page.

    Audience analysis

    Snapdeal on Facebook

  • Currently, its running a Facebook contest where users are being offered 100% off on a weekly basis. A suggestion could be to tag the winners since the Facebook id is known. This will also be shared and spread since the user has won something.

    One piece of content which generated a good amount of shares and likes was a different attempt by the brand. Did you Know is all about fun facts which ofcourse users love to read and share. Unfortunately, Snapdeal has not posted similar content before or after this.

  • Even with applications, the brand has Google+ and Youtube channel integrated with Facebook but nothing innovative or inspiring at the moment. During Christmas the brand had created a Santa Wish application but it does not open and the brand has not removed it either.

    Myntra has a total of over 26K+ followers on Twitter. It also has city specific Twitter handles. The brand posted 22 82 replies, got 233 retweets and posted 169 tweets in the last 3 months.

    On Twitter, the same content bucket is being used as Facebook along with some additional tweets which mainly are motivational quotes. This does not fit anywhere in the marketing strategy of an ecommerce brand but the brand continues to post them. Seems like Twitter is in the hands of an intern.

    Snapdeal on Twitter

  • As if motivational quotes were not enough, the brand is also enlightening its followers with diet facts.

    Very Few interactive tweets are being made by the brand. Among these are asking people what their product choices are. These kind of tweets definitely fall in line with brand strategy as it helps a retail site understand c u s t o m e r preferences and behavior.

  • Out of most platforms, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are most dominant on conversations and brand mentions. While 64.7% of the mentions are made on Twitter, 32.1% of it is contributed by Facebook and 3.3% by Google+. On Twitter, Snapdeal received 42K+ mentions in the last 3 months and 20K+ mentions on Facebook and 2K+ mentions on Google+.

    Online Buzz

  • A staggering 865 complaints were recorded according to the tool for the brand on various networks. Over 1K news mentions, 529 reviews, over 3K classifieds and 5K+ blogs mentioned Snapdeal. Though there were lots of mentions as opposed to other websites, most number of conversations still remained on Twitter followed by Facebook.

    Service Feedback

  • I would also like to segregate the kind of conversations Myntra is having on Social Media. In the last 3 months, the ecommerce brand has having maximum conversations about shipping and packaging followed by sales,website and customer service in that order.

    The maximum conversation for any ecommerce brand would be regarding shipping and Snapdeal has over 12K mentions related to shipping & packaging. Not many have as many mentions about customer service as Snapdeal which is over 2K.

    Next in line is sales with the second highest mentions of 5,445 posts. 2, 964 mentions of the website is third highest and close enough is customer service with 2,145 mentions. Remaining conversations are about image, pricing and return and replacement.

  • Most of Snapdeals users who have posted on the page are from Mumbai which accounts to a total of 36.2% while Delhi is second on the list with 24.2% posts. Bangalore stands very close to Delhi with 13.5% posts. Less than 10% posts are posted by users from Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Gurgaon, Pune and Chennai.

    Snapdeal is bordering on crossing more negative sentiment online unlike its counterparts who largely have a positive sentiment. 58.6% mentions are positive as opposed to 41.4% negative comments.

    Sentiment

  • People have poured in with all the disappointment on Facebook too. The brands Facebook page is full of complaints.

    Users have largely expressed their sentiments on shipping and packaging, sales, pricing, images, website, customer service, return and replacement and payment. Shipping and Packaging is on top of the list where 44.4% are positive sentiments while 55.6% are negative. Pricing too has a largely negative sentiment with 81.3%. Sales has a more or less balanced sentiment where 52.2% are positive and 47.8% are negative.

  • The overall mentions of Snapdeal reached its peak in the month of November 2013. As compared to December and January, it had over 40K mentions in November 2013.

    Trend Analysis

  • Snapdeal executed a contest #WinATabOnSnapdeal, which was also trending on the No. 1 spot, as well as the Snapdeal #SnapdealNokiaSpeedChallenge in the month of November. Needless to say, brand mentions always rise when the accounts are buzzing with campaigns and activities.

    Snapdeal has a volatile sentiment on Social Media. Even though they have run some good campaigns, and the mentions have also gone up, it could be a alarming situation for the brand. This is purely because out of 20K+ mentions which is the highest among all brands, Snapdeals negative mentions are almost equivalent to the positive ones.

  • Snapdeal needs a social media makeover owing to its bad online reputation.

    -Should try and be more innovative on Facebook.-Should have a different content strategy for Twitter-Should try and build a team of customer care representatives on both Facebook and Twitter.

    Conclusion

  • COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TOP 5 E-COMMERCE BRANDS

    After analyzing individual brands, I will now go ahead with a few comparisons that you might find useful to read. Among Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong, Myntra and Homeshop18, there are lots of variations in terms of the number of posts, sentiment, features distribution and mentions.

  • In the month of November, Snapdeal had the highest number of posts followed by Jabong. The reason is probably quite clear. The trend analysis showed that Snapdeal ran 2 contests in November, hence the lead. Snapdeals number of posts, 500 was the highest in all 3 months among all brands.

    Number of Posts

  • There are various sources such as blogs, complaints, microblogs, news, reviews, social networks and video sharing. Microblogs are the highest source of mentions for all brands followed by social networks. Myntra received the highest number of mentions which is 71.6% from microblogs. On the other hand, Jabong received the highest mentions from Social Networks which is 40.4%. A stark difference between Flipkart and other brands is the source of Reviews. While Flipkart gets 8.4% mentions from reviews, other brands receive below0.5%.

    Source of Posts

  • As mentioned earlier, most brands receive maximum mentions about shipping and packaging since they are e-commerce brands. Snapdeal leads the mentions by 43.3%. This is followed by sales mentions and Myntra receives 30.5% of it.

    Features Distribution

  • The sentiment among all brands is largely positive except Snapdeal. Snapdeal has only 58.6% positive sentiment while Jabong has the highest at 87.2, closely followed by Myntra at 86.2%. Most brands have negative sentiment in the range of 12-18%. However, Snapdeal has a staggering 41.4% negative sentiment.

    Sentiment

  • CONCLUSION

    Brands must realize the importance of tracking their mentions, sources and sentiment. They can change plan their activities and drive more buzz online if they know what is exactly going on in the online space. Also, realizing the important of customer service, responding swiftly can affect all these areas.

  • EXPERT OPINION

    Ecommerce giants are all over Social Media and their experimentation with strategies has resulted in a pile of fans and followers. Possibly most of these ecommerce websites have been promoting their products directly on social media and have been using paid methods to increase their fan following. Though this is not wrong in anyway, they should revise their strategies to build engagement.

    Websites like Homeshop18 who are using Twitter for Customer Support are doing it right. There are no two ways about the fact that online businesses should build an online strategy to tackle customer service. This will not only elevate the brand reputation but also be helpful in building an effective reach among online user community.

    Flipkart has an upperhand over other websites when it comes to executing innovative campaigns. The content is also well thought out and planned coupled with professional designs.

    Much was expected from Myntra considering it being a leading website. However, the site is plainly product oriented and not interested in exploring the opportunities that social media has to offer.

    Jabong has been fairing well on Facebook and Twitter, churning out original content. However if the brand maintains consistency, it will augment the brand presence on these platforms.

  • Homeshop18 has launched interesting campaigns in the past couple of months as a part of their product launch. Their customer support strategy as I mentioned above is commendable. Having said that, the brand should also focus on regular content updates and daily interactions too.

    Snapdeal could easily damage its image on social media if it does not immediately take measures to revamp its strategy or rather make one. Being excessively product oriented has not helped any brand and relying on this is Snapdeals biggest mistake. Looking at the high negative sentiment of the brand among users, it is safe to say that Snapdeal must consider rebranding on social media.

    Ecommerce websites should begin looking beyond promotions of products and try to engage their fans with effective indirect marketing techniques. Building a Customer support team should be priority for these brand managers. Apart from campaigns and customer support my third and last suggestion would be to try and capitalize on Youtube and Pinterest too.

    Expert View by Rajiv DingraFounder & CEO of WATConsult An Award Winning Digital & Social Media Agency.

  • APUBLICATION

    ANALYTICS POWERED BY