Social Beat is proud to be featured in the Social Samosa Yearbook 2017 for our spectacular campaign executed for our client, Notion Press. Our featured campaign is listed under the Media and Entertainment category. The objective of the campaign was to create a buzz about the launch of the book, The Great Indian Obsession by Adhitya Iyer. The book is an interesting read on how Indians are obsessed with Engineering with a twist of humour. The campaign too, was a reflection of the book, with a funny hand-drawn cartoon sketch. Titled as Bizzare Engineering Facts, it took a light-hearted approach in showcasing quotes from the book, throwing light on hypocrisy in education. The campaign was exclusively posted on Facebook and Twitter and clocked a reach of half a million, with 21k likes and 986 shares. Its relatable context made it an instant hit amongst the target audience and eventually landed us with a feature in the much-awaited Yearbook of Social Media Campaigns 2017.

The updated 2017 version of the book is packed from cover to cover with over 60 eye-catching social media campaigns which are guaranteed to inspire you. These campaigns have created a stir in the digital space and are the best performing campaigns of the year.

Apart from mind-blowing campaigns, the yearbook also features a foreword by Kunal Jeswani – CEO, Ogilvy India – and expert insights from social media biggies like Umang Bedi , Managing Director, Facebook India and South Asia, Taranjeet Singh, Country Director, Twitter India and Rajesh Ghatge, CEO, Indigo Consulting. Grab your copy today for an awe-inspiring read.

There is no doubt that digital technology has engulfed our world with a blanket of convenience. There is an app in our phones for literally every day-to-day activity, from booking a cab to ordering pizza. However, the lack of storage space and increased consumption of mobile data and time has led to stagnation in the number of app-users worldwide.

To address this issue, websites are now being re-designed with app-like behaviour. Frequent visits to these websites will lead to a pop-up in your phone prompting you to add a direct shortcut to the website in your main menu. The progressive functions of these app-like websites have led to the emergence of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). This new technology has taken the digital world by storm and is here to stay. Social Beat is one of the few digital marketing agencies who has incorporated this technology in our website. Following is an article from Times of India in which Vikas Chawla, our co-founder, has given us a closer insight into the benefits of Progressive Web Apps and their impact on the consumers.

We, at Social Beat, are proud to announce that our co-founder, Vikas Chawla, has been listed as part of the prestigious Pluralsight Digi100 List powered by Paul Writer. The objective of this list is to recognize the top 100 Digital Marketers in India and it’s an honour to be enlisted in it. Last year, Vikas was also awarded As One of The Most Influential Digital Marketing Leaders in India.

The list was unveiled during the Futurist Business Conclave on August 18, 2017, at the Leela Ambience, Gurgaon. Apart from revealing the reputed list, the event also featured the master class - The Futurist Marketer - hosted by the CEO of Paul Writer, Jessie Paul. The day-long event was concluded with the revelation of the CX100 and Content 100 lists, along with a keynote delivered by Jaspreet Bindra, Vice President, Digital Transformation, Mahindra and Malcolm Frank, EVP, CSO and CMO at Cognizant and Co-Author of What to Do When Machines Do Everything.

For a closer insight into the listing, please visit the Pluralsight Digi100 List Powered by Paul Writer and get inspired!

Since becoming a Google Premier Partner a year ago, we have constantly pushed the bar up to leverage Google AdWords and other advertising channels to deliver the best ROI. We are happy to announce that Social Beat has been awarded for Innovation in Display Advertising at the recently concluded Google Premier Partner awards in Mumbai. We were the only agency in India shortlisted for both Search Innovation & Display Innovation category.

The award is a testimony to the fabulous team at Social beat, which constantly pushes the bar to deliver results for clients. There are only 65 Google Premier Partners in India of which 13 were shortlisted for the awards and 5 won them.

Above is a picture  of Vikas Chawla collecting the award on behalf of the team, from Rajan Anand, Vice President, South East Asia and India of ‎Google India and below is a picture of the team that made it happen.

To learn about the innovation we do for our clients, please visit our blog showcasing the case studies.

Since becoming a Google Premier Partner a year ago, we have constantly pushed the bar up to leverage Google AdWords and other advertising channels to deliver the best ROI. We are happy to announce that Social Beat is the only agency in India that is shortlisted for the Google Premier Partner awards for both Search Innovation & Display Innovation category. Below are two case studies showcasing some of the work we have done.

Success in Search Innovation for India’s leading self-publishing company

We work with Notionpress, India’s leading self-publishing company and our goal was to increase the number of leads by reaching out to potential and budding authors. The publishing space is an extremely competitive space, we used Google Search campaigns a key channel to achieve this goal. Right from creating a structured AdWords campaign to daily optimisation of the campaigns, we experimented with every feature that Google offers such as

RLSA & IF function

Understanding that the people who already know us and have interacted with us through the website have the highest potential to convert as a lead, we used the RSLA feature to do just that. This feature helped us target the website visitors to convert them into potential leads. This audience, however, was from different categories and their search queries were different and we couldn't show them the same ad.  The messaging needed to change and utilising the “IF Function”, we were able to dynamically change ad copies to RLSA audiences where we created a sense of urgency, which helped in increasing the conversion numbers.

Keywords of different match types to expand the audience

The self-publishing industry in India is not only a competitive one but also a fairly new industry. In order to understand the market and deliver the best results, we had to constantly think of something new and experiment with different strategies. As part of this strategy, we used keywords of different match types to engage with our target audiences to the maximum extent. This process gave us a broad list of keywords to target and understand what exactly people are searching for and gave us a 3X increase in lead flow.

Managing negative keywords

When we tried out keywords of different match types, not only did we identify many more keywords to target but also found certain irrelevant ones. These keywords were not ideal for our client so we constantly managed and added them to the negative keywords list so that it does not affect the quality of our leads. Over 6000 such words were identified and managed and this list continues to grow every day.

Use of dynamic keyword insertion to show relevant ads to the target audience

Targeting a wide variety of keywords from different categories meant that the ad copies cannot be constant. It needed change depending on what people are searching for. Using the dynamic keywords insertion, we were able to dynamically change the ad copies based on the search query and connect with our target audiences very well, thus contributing to increase in conversions.

Leveraging CPA bidding option

We explored the CPA bidding mode to optimise the bids automatically and moved most of the campaigns to this. We started focussing on other aspects such as changing the bids based on devices, hour, time and day of the week and so on.

Leveraging Dynamic Search Ads

We used Dynamic Search Ads, which is normally used for e-commerce business as DSA provides additional text on the headlines which is not possible through the expanded text ads. This unique method helped us expand our keyword base, thereby helping us get more conversions.

We also worked on creative writing and focused on engaging ad copies in increasing the number of leads.

Results

With the help of search campaigns, we were able to achieve a whopping 561% increase in the number of conversions, and 154% increase in CTR with optimal CPA. We also had a weekly check in with the client on the quality of leads. With this effort, we were able to reduce the % of qualified leads and improved the final conversion of leads to sales.

Success in Display Innovation for South India’s leading real estate company

Casa Grande, a leader in the real estate space in South India, came to us with the objective of driving sales to their properties through Google Display advertising. With the help of every functionality that Google offers, such as responsive ads, similar audiences and smart display ads, we were able to drastically increase the number of site visits and conversions for the brand.

Tapping vernacular content

In India, vernacular content via digital has been growing at a fast pace in India. Of the literate 74%, only 10% read English while the rest consume content in the vernacular medium. In fact, according to statistics, Hindi Internet users (at 201 million) are said to outnumber those accessing the web in English at 199 million by 2021. Keeping this in mind, we used vernacular language as part of our advertising strategy as well as a part of our overall digital media strategy. For a real estate company such as Casa Grande, the audience is spread across Tier I, II and III cities and are not just restricted to the metro cities. It is also true that some of the metro city audiences are more comfortable with the regional language.

Purchasing a property not only involves a lot of money but is also an emotional decision so it is highly essential to talk to them in a language they are comfortable in. We tried out display ads in Tamil, which not only helped us reach a varied set of target audience but also played a substantial role in generating high-quality leads.

Doubleclick Bid manager

When Google Adwords stopped language targeting in Tamil, we quickly turned to Doubleclick and got a license to use the platform. With the help of Doubleclick Bid Manager, we were able to explore placements outside of Hindi language, which helped us achieve great success for Casa Grande, whose target audience is predominantly non-Hindi speakers.

Smart Display Campaigns

In order to always keep a track of the latest trends in advertising, we contacted our Google support team to get us whitelisted and try out new features in the beta stage itself. Our client was delighted with the huge jump in ROI generated with a visible increase in conversions.

Similar Audiences

When the concept of similar audiences was introduced, we immediately tried it out for some of our clients and realised the huge potential it has. We’ve also executed new features such as similar audiences to generate sales and help our clients broaden their reach.

Common Strategies used for both Search & Display

Proprietary CRM for better attribution

Knowing the source of the leads generated from various platforms is highly essential. This helps us to identify which campaigns, placements, topics, and audiences are driving qualified leads in order to improve our quality and quantity of leads. Using this, we are able to understand which platform and source are working better, thereby knowing exactly where to put our money to achieve better results.

A/B Testing to understand consumer behaviour

 No advertising works well without knowing what the target audience exactly wants. Keeping this in mind, we constantly test and refine our landing pages in order to improve the % and quality of conversions that we get. We use Crazy Egg, Zarget and Optimizely for the same. From the designs to the call to action, our team proactively uses heat maps and test various permutations and combinations to understand the consumer better and give them exactly what they want. For example, we did this exercise for our Casa Grande and understood that most of the target audience is looking for floor plans and brochures when they click on the ad. So, the landing pages were optimised to give them just that. This increased our lead flow massively.

Competitor Tracking

The publishing industry being a highly competitive one with reputed and well-established players such as Amazon, we not only need to keep trying something new but also keep a track on the competitors. We use SEMRush and Ahrefs to explore the activities of our competitors to stay ahead of them in our campaigns. We also get new Campaign/Ad Group/Keyword ideas by analysing the competition.

Scripts and Third Party tool to automate smaller tasks

As a team, we are constantly on the lookout to do more in less time and deliver big for our clients. In order to automate the day to day tasks, we use scripts and third party tools, to expand and optimise the campaigns. This process saves us a lot of time and cuts down monitoring simple monotonous processes, which in turn helps us focus on other aspects of optimizing the ad campaigns. It also helps in keeping a close track of the Google Adwords Account Health Score to optimise the campaigns.

Effectively leveraging Google Analytics and Audience Insights

We use advanced audience insights to understand our customer and target them. It also helps us with creating smart remarketing lists and use it for RLSA to get better conversions and results out of our advertising efforts.

One of the key reasons that we were able to produce such results is due to our ROI driven focus. To ensure that we push our boundaries and achieve the set targets for our clients, our team relies heavily on knowledge sharing and staying up to date on the new trends. We look forward to continuing pushing boundaries for our clients.

Since our inception in 2012, we have posted more than 200 blog posts around digital marketing, which have received cumulative page views of over a million. In 2017, we have taken one more step towards sharing our knowledge and learnings and launched our first book titled ‘Digital Marketing Insights 2017’. As the name suggests, the book provides its readers with a close understanding of the tips and tricks involved in digital marketing, with deep insights on its diverse platforms.

‘Digital Marketing Insights 2017’ was launched during the second edition of the Facebook Digital Marketing Masterclass conducted in Mumbai. The workshop focused on how to approach digital marketing to build a brand and to acquire quality sales or leads. This insightful session was aptly concluded with the book launch as we presented the first copy to Meera Parthasarathy from Facebook.

The book deals with the various aspects of digital marketing and the methods marketers use to leverage the medium to grow their sales and revenue. It also provides readers with a better understanding of the digital marketing trends you must watch out for in 2017 and insights from key areas of digital marketing such as social media, content and SEO, video, digital advertising, mobile app marketing and user experience design. If you are unable to get the right business results via your digital marketing efforts, then this book can provide you insights on how to make the most of Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Pinterest. Insights in the book have been compiled with contributions from digital marketing experts from across India. Kudos to the team at NotionPress (India's largest self publishing company) for editing, designing, publishing and distributing the book in record time.

You can buy the e-book through Amazon. You can also find a hard copy at all leading online retail stores such as Amazon,Infibeam and Flipkart. We look forward to receiving your feedback on the book so please do share your comments below!

The Internet Society’s (ISOC) Chennai Chapter held a Round Table discussion on how Security has become a mainstream concern as part of the ICANN’s Domain Name Security Seminar (DNSSEC seminar) in Chennai on Sunday, 9^th July 17. David Appasamy, Head-Brand & Strategy, Social Beat co-chaired the event along with M Sivasubramanian, President, Internet Society, Chennai Chapter, who organized the event.

The Round table was made possible by host ICANN as part of their DNSSEC initiative represented by Samiran Gupta, Head India for ICANN, and Champika Wijayatunga, Regional Engagement Manager, Security, Stability & Resiliency for ICANN Asia Pacific, who were also part of the Round Table.

The Round Table was attended by a multi-stakeholder group comprising law enforcement, academia with both students & faculty, business & start up representation, civil society with NGO participation and solutions & network representation. The discussions were wide ranging and served to sensitize those present to the increased security risks in today’s environment, both online and offline.

The conclusions arrived at during the Round Table were:

• That most participants felt an increase in security risks in both offline and online worlds today.
• The world today is far more complex than even a decade ago with issues of terrorism, a divided society, external threats, internal unrest, fake news, online fraud etc. all contributing to the rise in perceived increased security risk offline and online.
• Governance & regulation cannot be left to only the experts and law enforcement but must be the collective responsibility of everyone who uses the internet.
• Every user must display responsible behaviour online much as they do offline to ensure that security risks are mitigated.
• However, this is far easier said than done in a country like India where online user growth is significant month on month and digital marketing is growing leaps & bounds. And when new users are from all strata of society, and not well versed with online etiquette and secure behaviour. In rural areas, for example, bank accounts are operated by groups of people using the same PIN at a government centre from where they have online access. Even in urban areas, people routinely give their credit card PIN numbers to petrol pump attendants or at restaurants while settling their bills.
• Society is much more complex, demanding & divided today across the world, with law enforcement increasingly having to request online content sites or applications to remove content or pages placed there with the express purpose of inciting division and violence.
• The Internet began from a defense research project, and was further developed by academia and think tanks. In the early days, users were responsible, aware and value driven so that the idea of the Internet being free, open and available to all made sense and was easily developed. Today, however, whilst it remains free and open (in varying degrees depending on countries), the need for oversight to ensure content is not misused is a reality.
• While the need for oversight is a reality, self-regulation is still the best approach as a best practice. This is widely seen across the world where light touch regulation, ie facilitation, is the best way. Estonia and France were cited as benchmarks for Internet regulation. Law enforcement officers present also stressed that individual responsibility is still the key.
• The Round Table concluded with the realization that to facilitate individually responsible behaviour online is a humongous task and will take enormous and sustained effort, especially in a country like India. It will have to be not just and individual responsibility, but a collective one across all multi-stakeholders.

The need for widespread awareness, and for key stakeholders to take the lead in this effort, whether governments, ISPs, online sites or applications, banks & financial services companies, payment or other apps, educational institutions, companies & businesses, parents and role models becomes key. Today, with close to 4 billion people online, the need for secure behaviour online is felt more than ever before. And will only increase in future.

Banking on a series of successful editions of Digital Chai Pe Charcha in Chennai and Bangalore, we conducted the first edition of Digital Chai Pe Charcha in Mumbai. We had close to 30 participants comprising of entrepreneurs and marketers from across industries. The topic of discussion was getting ROI from Digital Marketing.

A quick recap from the session

• Digital Marketing Comprises of various activities like Landing Page Creation, Search Engine & Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, Display Advertising and Influencer Marketing.
• Digital media can be segregated into 3 types: Owned Media, Paid Media and Earned Media.
• While building digital assets, it is important to understand that the key is to provide a great user experience across platforms. A smooth User experience helps in driving conversions.
• A Landing Page is essential for lead generation and helps in faster conversions.
• According to a research done by Buzzsumo and Moz and Video content gets shared the most across platforms followed by Lists, how to posts and Infographics. While creating content, it is extremely important to focus on the relevance of content to the viewers. The content dynamics have been changing rapidly. From images to videos to gifs to VR, there is a wide range of options to experiment with, to create the right communication piece for your audience. Great content is generally considered as content that provides solutions to the viewer’s problems. Thus, research reports, E-books and guides are some more examples of content that can be created to strike a chord with the audience.
• Non-branded content helps in gaining engagement. Create content that focuses on the viewer and not essentially on the brand.
• Vernacular marketing and multilingual content is rapidly gaining importance. Vernacular content helps to create a local connection with the audience.
• Measuring your digital marketing results is essential as it helps to better strategize your digital marketing efforts. There are several tools available to analyze and measure your results.

Below is the presentation that was discussed during the session which will provide you with more information on the above points:

We are delighted to share that Rachna, the dynamic Head of Business Development & Strategy of our Social Beat Team, recently won the Women Super Achiever Award at the World HRD Congress at Taj Lands’ End, Mumbai.

The award commemorates women across the globe who are leaders, executioners and decision makers in the various fields they represent.

“I am honoured and humbled by the jury of the World HRD Congress to have conferred the Women Super Achiever Award to me. I am extremely proud that I represent Social Beat an organisation that believes in nurturing and encouraging talented professionals. It was amazing to be placed among so many talented professionals across the globe. A big thanks to all the wonderful inspiring women in my life”

The World HRD Congress celebrated its Silver Jubilee this year and is the only known event to encompass all elements of HR. Over 133 countries and 1400 leaders attended the event, giving HR professionals a unique opportunity to connect, share and learn on a global level.

This is the second award we have received for the calendar year of 2017. Casa Grande and Social Beat previously won the BBC Knowledge Award for the Best Search Marketing and Display Campaign.

We are delighted to share that Social Beat and Casa Grande, a leading real estate developer in South India, were recently awarded the Best Search Marketing and Display Campaign at the BBC Knowledge National Digital Marketing Awards at Taj Lands’ End, Mumbai.

Casa Grande was looking to scale up its digital presence and sales through lead generation online. We ran highly successful Ad Campaigns across Facebook, LinkedIn & the Google Search and Display Network leading to a 10x growth in number of leads generated and a 30% reduction in cost-per-lead.

Key Results achieved:

• Number of leads generated increased 10x.
• Organic Traffic increased 3x
• Leads from organic Traffic increased 4x
• Fan base on Facebook grown to an engaged community of over 1,40,000 fans

The Digital Marketing Awards recognises extraordinary work done by the marketing fraternity to take their brands into the digital era and we congratulate the entire Casa Grande Marketing team and Social Beat team on this milestone.