Track2Realty Exclusive: The digital medium, however, seems to be evolving fast and some of the realtors have adopted pro-active social media strategy to focus on consumer connect, feedback, consumer research to identify their needs and requirements.
The fact remains that though most companies have Facebook buttons featured on their home pages and Twitter updates streaming down the side, there is still so much more that can be done to engage customers and take advantage of the full power of social media.
Unlike a tele customer support interface where one consumer is talking to one representative, on the web space one consumer is talking to thousands of customers. Tata Housing believes social media, with its capabilities of creating engagement, conversations and activation, allows them a perfect opportunity to connect with the customers. Keeping this in mind, online media strategy is aimed at creating brand experience, while converging the brand’s online and offline efforts.
“We have embraced all forms of leading social networks to be closer to the customer in order to listen and understand their requirements. The new-age customers are well informed and empowered. Organisations need to be a part of the customers’ conversations involving their product and to influence their choices. Hence, the adoption of digital channels such as social media, e-mail marketing, online search and display ads is growing steadily. Real Estate players are fast moving in to provide various online services and bridge the gap with new age customers in this burgeoning space,” says Brotin Banerjee, CEO & MD of Tata Housing.
There are others who believe digital media is all about economies of scale and hence should be added to the marketing portfolio for long term brand differentiator and not just sales tool. Kohinoor City has adopted a pro-active policy for what they call new age media where third party endorsement is the driving motive.
No wonder, the communication team has been briefed to explore possibilities to channelize communication with various news sites and independent bloggers.
“Users feedback, consumer connect, brand competitiveness, and then sales preference are my order of preference. The reason being a product can be designed with the help of users’ needs and consumer connect. Brand competitiveness will give us a USP and make us stand out in the crowd. Once we are in line with the above, we will automatically modify our sales preference. It will happen on the ground in reality once the customer is satisfied with the project. Nowadays people prefer to gain information about any and every product just at a click of a button. Be it their laptop or mobile phone sitting in their car or office; it’s all on their fingertips,” says Atul Modak, Head of Kohinoor City.
Saurabh Parmar, CEO of Brandlogist, the social media branding partner of Aamby Valley agrees all the online tools are interconnected and the mistake brands make is isolating one from another. According to him the focus must be on quality of conversation & be meaningful & offering in time response to the existing customer/audience base & reaching out to new relevant ones.
“Brand building does not depend on only one metric or measure–ORM (Online Reputation Management). We have been regularly monitoring the web for relevant conversations & responding to them which has helped build brand connect better apart from getting valuable consumer insights. For us it is not at all about buying & selling. Aamby Valley which is also a resort has managed to get more than 600 sales leads for room bookings from social media (avg 30,000 per customer per day) which is unprecedented in the category,” says Parmar.
…to be continued
