Social media marketing is a great tool for marketers to identify and redress customer dissatisfaction issue early, engage customers and citizens into meaningful conversations, and build customer loyalty at a low cost.
It is more important for reputation-based, service-oriented, consumer-fronted sectors like auto/ telecom/ financial services/ travel and hospitality. However, over time, social media will become important for all types of companies and brands.
In India, where most marketers are still coming to terms with digital marketing, there’s no compelling reason as of now for brand managers to include social media in their marketing mix. Brand managers are also wary of experimenting with social media because it requires very high involvement levels, advertising agencies don’t yet understand social media, the measurement metrics are not yet established, and companies are still wary of negative publicity, which means that all communication has to be vetted by the corporate communications department. However, marketers who do experiment with social media now are likely to differentiate their brands and build a first mover advantage.
In summary, while the significance of social media is still limited in India, brand managers in India should start seeding small social media initiatives to build capabilities and communities for the future.

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