We had covered how the tourism industry was using social media and now there is data to support mentions of travel industry. Omllion , social media monitoring service, setup keywords for leading travel portals in India and assessed their social media mentions during the period of 19^th March, 2011 and 18^th April, 2011.

This study was conducted on 15 travel portals with Yatra and Make My Trip being the most talked about. MakeMyTrip received 3000 mentions and Yatra received 2500 mentions in the month long period. Other travel portals in Cleartrip, TravelGuru and TravelChacha received 318, 115 and 99 mentions respectively in this period.

Yatra

The report establishes that the tool detected 8150 mentions of the keyword ‘Yatra’ which in most cases wasn’t related to the brand at all. Yatra is a common word meaning ‘trip’ so it was necessary to filter mentions which only spoke of the brand. Of these 8150 mentions, only 2500 were related to the brand; thereby indicating a majority of the mentions were unrelated or talked of other aspects.

MakeMyTrip

MakeMyTrip amassed the most mentions amongst the top 15 travel portals with 3000 mentions. Interestingly, 1601 social media mentions came on a single day on April 14, 2011. These 1600 mentions weren’t due to concerns or positive feedback but negative in nature. On April 14, an unsatisfied user of MakeMyTrip’s services launched Ruined My Trip which was a take on the poor management of MakeMyTrip. This forced the company to apologise through a blog post. Otherwise, the company receives an approximate 50 mentions a day.

Most of the conversations that take place in social media towards travel industry take place on blogs, microblogs and social networks (in that order). Most users prefer to share their experiences over travel blogs while microblogs and social networks are used for quick experiences or for sharing videos/images of the travel.

[Image via Flickr]

One of  the great analysis around the IndiaSocial Case Challenge has been undertaken by Anand Pillai, a  Phd scholar (Marketing) with MDI for the Telecom Circle.

Anandan undertook an analysis of  the similarities and dissimilarities in the social media strategy adopted by the long term winners of the IndiaSocial Case Challenge . In a very comprehensive manner, he has analyzed their social media strategy based on the criteria of – platform selection, stakeholders targeted, activities undergone and the impact measurement.

H ere are some of the overall learnings shared in the post -

Depth and not the breadth of social media platform that matters.

Firms should be prepared to face the negative discussions on social media

Synchronization between the product category and social media platform is very essential

Identifying the presence of right target audience on right social media platform is the key.

Conducting appropriate activities and measuring their impact in the most suitable manner is what matters at the end of the day.

These are the parameters taken into consideration -

Source : Telecom Circle

To read the full post, go here – http://www.telecomcircle.com/2010/04/social-media-success-dawning-in

Source : Telecom Circle

To read the full post, go here – http://www.telecomcircle.com/2010/04/social-media-success-dawning-in-india/

-india/

There were no cash rewards, no award ceremonies, no festivals… just pure rigour. From the submission form (not for the faint-hearted), to the  judging process that our esteemed panel of judges adopted, it has been about recognising the best social media work in India. We received a total of 37  submissions  of  social media work in India, of which 3 winners each under, Long-term initiatives and Short-term project categories have been selected.

There are several ‘non-winning’ entries that missed by a small margin; the quality of insights and work on these and many other was fantastic and we’d be sharing many of these with you over the next few days and weeks.

Here are the winners!

Long-term Initiatives

Position # 1

Pratham Books – Social Publishing Strategy at Pratham Books (Score – 8.1 : 10)

We’d like to think that we spread the love, so to speak, but realistically, we’re going to have to build a platform sometime soon to engage our community to co-create and do so much more to contribute to the cause of a book in every child’s hands…

Read case-study here.

Position # 2

Fastrack  – Fastrack Fans (Score 7.6 : 10)*

Our initiative is focused around the experience we deliver to the fans and both current and potential, driving them toward a better, and more personalized connection with the brand…

* One of the juges abstained citing conflict of interest.

Read case-study here.

Position # 3

Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd. – How the Cleartrip brand travels through social media (Score 7.3 : 10)

Cleartrip has upheld integrity and transparency as foundational values of our brand. Embracing these values has made it incredibly easy for the brand and the organization to have an active social media presence…

Read the case-study here.

Short-term Projects

Position #1

Hindustan Motors – Mitsubishi Cedia – The Great Driving Challenge (Score 7.0 : 10)

Consumer research reiterated that a loyal Cedia owner loved to get behind its wheels and just drive. So when it was time to launch the new Mitsubishi Cedia sports, HML wanted to reach out to their target audience and engage the travel fanatics in conversations around “a long drive”

Read the case-study here.

Position #2

Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation – The Heart Kids Tweetathon – And How Twitter Helps Save Lives (Score – 6.5 : 10)

…even in the midst of a deep recession, the 2010 event held on February 14th, brought in close to $5,000. As the Foundation’s cost to sponsor a child’s operation is around $1,250 the Tweetathon alone will be responsible for healing more than 10 little hearts!

Read case-study here.

Position #3

WWF – Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour (Score 6.3 : 10)

Earth Hour is a global awareness programme by WWF to create awareness on climate change and fight global warming. People participating in the Earth Hour voluntarily choose to switch off their lights of their homes and offices for one hour to make their stand against climate change.

Read the case-study here.

Final Shortlist

The entries that made it to the final phase in the case challenge were –

Long Term Initiative	Short Term Project
Fastrack	Channel V – Using Twitter to create buzz around the relaunch of Channel [V] in August 2009
Hard Rock Café	Hindustan Motors – Mitsubishi Cedia – The Great Driving Challenge – India’s Most Succesful Social Media Campaign.
MTV – NO. 1 Social Brand in India	UBL – Kingfisher Beer
MTV – Best use of Social media: Sony Ericsson MTV Roadies Battleground	Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation
Pratham Books	KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd – WidUS (Widget designing for University Students)
Breakthrough	WWF India – Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour.
8 Day Academy
Celebrity – Priyanka Chopra
BLANK NOISE
BookMyShow
Tata Docomo
Nokia Email With Ease Campaign
Nokia “Search for N”
NASSCOM
Goanet
Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd.

Evaluation Process

• Step 1 – All judges evaluated each entry and categorised them as ‘Keep’ or ‘Drop’
• Step 2 – For any entry which had votes between 2, 3, 4 or 5 ‘Keep’ votes, the judges who had voted for ‘keep’ stated, briefly, why they had voted so
  • If there were 5 votes out of 6, against a case, it was dropped
  • If there were 5 votes out of 6, for a case, it was promoted to Phase 3
  • Only the ones with 2, 3, 4 or keep 5 votes were voted upon again by all
  • A simple majority again decided who got promoted to Step 3

• Step 3 -  All the finalists got another detailed viewing by the judges, who then rated the case studies on a scale of 1-10
• Step 4 – Scores as given by all judges (if a judge was associated with a programme, he/ she would abstain and no scores would be granted), was averaged by the total number of judges who voted and winners selected

The evaluation process ensured that all the judges on the panel reviewed each case study and also evaluated over several phases.

Since the judges did not have access to one another’s scores prior to submission of their own scores, their own evaluation was independent and totally unbiased.

Judges Speak

The final results were arrived after a rigorous evaluation process by the panel. Here is what some of our judges had to say on the case challenge –

When it comes to effective social media usage, we often hear only about success stories in the US. There are wonderful, innovative usage in Indian companies and the IndiaSocial case study challenge has unearthed many such gems by crowdsourcing” – Kiruba Shankar, CEO, Business Blogging

I hope this encourages social media marketers and agencies to craft strategies that are realistic, achievable, innovative and sustainable, those which effectively engage the community and deliver a delight” – Dina Mehta, Co-Founder & Head of Research, Mosoci

On behalf of allof us at IndiaSocial, I’d like to thank all our judges for putting in their time, effort and rigour to identify the best social media case studies in India. We’d also like to thank impact weekly and exchange4media.com, our partners for the initiative, for their generous support like always

Infact, pick up a copy of impact magazine’s latest issue (on stands tomorrow) which features all winners of the IndiaSocial Case Challenge – 1. Do share your thoughts and comments – it’s an Open invitation.

Cheers

IndiaSocial Case Challenge – edition 1

Category: Long-term Initiatives

Winner of Position #3

Title: How the Cleartrip brand travels through social media

Share a little about your organisation

Launched in July 2006, Cleartrip is one of the top online travel companies in India with a claimed 35% market share. Based on a straight forward premise of “making travel simple” for its customers. Cleartrip has recently launched Cleartrip for Business , a product that claims to change the way India Inc. travels.

Offering convenience, choice without confusion, multiple payment options, competitive prices and exclusive destination information, Cleartrip promises a customer oriented approach.

Paying testament to service excellence, Cleartrip was adjudged India’s Favourite Travel Website at Condé Nast Traveller’s Readers’ India Travel Awards 2010. Other accolades include the recognition of being adjudged as one of “India’s Best Companies to Work For” in the 2010 Study, conducted by The Great Place to Work® Institute, India, in partnership with The Economic Times where we won a Special Award for “Unique Company Initiatives – Employee Events and Social Networking”.

We have retained the case-study in first person, as submitted by Cleartrip, using our discretion to edit, compress, add links etc.

Executive Summary

Cleartrip has upheld integrity and transparency as foundational values of our brand. Embracing these values has made it incredibly easy for the brand and the organization to have an active social media presence–tapping every viable social media touchpoint we can to engage customers in dialogue and share with the online world.

Background

Cleartrip’s web marketing strategy is still evolving and it sees the web as just one part of the overall marketing strategy. Cleartrip’s initial marketing strategy relied heavily on print and television advertising to build brand awareness and search advertising to drive traffic. After establishing a threshold of brand awareness using traditional media, Cleartrip now use online display ads for brand building and product launches, something we were not previously investing in.

Approach/ Strategy

Please share details about the initiative stating clearly the strategy, objectives, goals, the duration, resources and budgets allocated.

We’ve always been early adopters of social media tools with a blog, customer forum, Twitter presence and Facebook page. Social media marketing is easy if you avoid the cardinal sin of using the platform to deliver a sales pitch. It’s counter-intuitive, because marketers want to sell; but the key to success here is not to be selling, but to be building relationships and encouraging conversations around the brand.

Stakeholders

Which stakeholders did you engage through this initiative and how? How was/ has this initiative been received by them so far?

We believe that for any social media strategy, the customers (or the end users of the product) are really the most relevant stakeholder to engage. Our social media strategy has been built around this belief.

We’ve used our various social media touchpoints to gather feedback and improve products, provide troubleshooting, offer customer service.

We have multiple cases where extremely irate customers ( the Cleartrip episode by Kiruba Shankar , post 1 and 2) have been vocal on their blogs or Twitter and we’ve successfully reached out to them, taken care of their problems and turned them from complainers to evangelists. Our openness and willingness to admit our mistakes (the Kiruba incident, post 1 and 2) has established a high level of trust and prefrence among savvy users of social media (1). The proof of this lies in the level of chatter around the Cleartrip brand as compared to other brands:

(chart from http://blog.socialwavelength.com/tag/cleartrip-social-media/)

(Also see this video)

About the initiative

Share details about your activities, touch-points that you created/ channels you used to reach the stakeholders.

We have used the following channels/touch-points to announce product launches, share interesting information/statistics related to the travel industry, educate the customer about this segment, share our opinions on happenings in the online travel segment and the online world at large.

1. Cleartrip Blog
2. Cleartrip Customer Support Forum
3. Twitter
4. Facebook

Impact – Outcome

What was the impact achieved vis-à-vis goals set? How did you measure the impact/ results?

Social media is too new, but we would say the key measure here should be how much “chatter” is being created about the brand. On Twitter, for instance, Cleartrip far outstrips its competitors as the most referenced and recommended online travel brand. This “chatter” demonstrates that we have a high degree of engagement with our customers.

There are three key ingredients to executing a successful online marketing strategy

1. Understanding the options: there’s an ocean of options in online marketing and it’s critical to understand the strengths and weaknesses of all these options, because if you pick the wrong option, you’ll just be pissing away money without meeting your goals.
2. Using the right tool for the job: since there’s a lot of options, you need to make sure you’re aligning your budget with your goals and using the most appropriate tool to meet your goal. If your goal, for instance, is to double your traffic, search advertising is the best tool and your spending should reflect that.
3. Measuring and tweaking: since online media are so highly measurable, one would do well to lay out the metrics for a campaign in advance of launching the campaign and then constantly looking at the data for patterns. Simple things like words and colours should constantly be tweaked, tested and measured to see which creative execution is best at meeting goals.

Learnings

What were the key learnings? Positive and things to do better; share any challenges you might have faced.
In our opinion, it isn’t really necessary for a brand to be present and firing on all cylinders on all web marketing outlets. Again, this comes back to the brand’s overall marketing goals at a specific moment. If the goal is brand-building, display ads, viral and social media are good tools; whereas, if the goal is traffic-building, nothing beats search advertising.
Being present on all outlets at all times can actually be very confusing because all web marketing is highly measurable when compared to traditional marketing.

Because it’s all so measurable, marketers may find themselves drowning in a glut of data and unable to measure cause and effect.

What Next

Where is the programme/ initiative now? Where will it go from here?
We’re fairly happy with how all our social media initiatives are faring. The next challenge for us here is to scale the initiatives up and get a little more organized with respect to how we use these media as a company. Until now, all of the effort has been unstructured with ad-hoc support from various team members as necessary. Moving forward, we need to get more structured and involve more people from within the company in connecting with customers via social media.

Reasoning

What in your opinion makes your programme/ initiative/ activity a case-study/ best practice case.
The key thing that sets Cleartrip apart is our willingness as a brand to enter the realm of social media without fear. Most brands, established or new, are always concerned about “negative” brand feedback in social media channels. Cleartrip has never shied away from negative feedback. Starting with our blog and then in our forums, Twitter and Facebook accounts, we’ve always been open and welcoming of all feedback. There’s nowhere to hide on the internet and we look at all negative feedback as an opportunity to improve our products and services.

Strategy and Execution

Team Cleartrip.com

Factsheet

Name of the company: Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd.

Number of Employees: 101-500

Category: Internet – Online Travel Agency (OTA)

Case submitted by: Hrush Bhatt, Founder and Director, Product and Strategy

Website: http://cleartrip.com