People are increasingly turning to the networking sites for suggestions, recommendations and information about things that matter most to them in their routine. There is 15% growth in daily internet usage. Penetration of internet and mobile in the developing world has provided better reach and availability to corporate. More and more companies are investing in development of society to increase their goodwill and trust in the market. Some companies undertake this developmental activity genuinely for the welfare of the society while others undergo the same to save themselves from the major crisis that have taken place or that are expected to take place, while some undergo the same having hidden agenda to increase the visibility of product in the market and to increase the sales of the product along with the welfare and growth of the society.
Using social media for this developmental activity is the new trend which has emerged with the growing use of social networking sites. Online activities have been more ubiquitous. 89% of business & IT professionals state that online content has a major impact on their vendor preference and selection. “Pink Chaddi” campaign was highly successful online campaign with great impact on people to stand against the injustice. It provided a platform to likeminded people to express their disgust and support the initiative. “Jaago Re by Tata Tea” has not only taught people the importance of voting but has also shown an easy way for online voting to youngsters residing in the country. Jaago Re has social media presence with more than 15000 members on Facebook, 13000 members on Orkut and has also managed to register 531,395 voters as per TOI.
Rufina Fernandes, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation (NF) expresses that “In India, the social and development sector has been impacted significantly in the last decade through the socio economic contribution of the IT/ITES industry. As the industry grows in stature and size, it will be expected to play an even larger role, especially in contributing to the marginalized and vulnerable sections of the community”.
Social Media has given a wide reach to the developmental activities and has helped in eliminating the limitations like geographical outreach of social initiatives, problem of monitoring and evaluation and fear of initiative being stand-alone and isolated. It has enabled an easy way to reach masses. According to one of the article in TechCrunch, every minute more than 20 hours of video is being uploaded to Youtube. For any business the challenges are same i.e to attract new prospects, to covert the prospects into customers and retaining the customers. New media has eased this process revolving around 3 E’s of social marketing i.e.
• Enticing people about the message.
• Educating them about the causes and spreading the message.
• Engaging them through an efficient workflow solution
Human nature is driven more by opinions as compared to facts and figures. Posting one opinion about the sexual harassment case will definitely dig up hundreds of similar case and encourage people to share similar happenings in their day to day life there by making an opinion an issue concerning not to an individual but to millions residing in the country. The next immediate step in this case would be educating and creating awareness amongst young women and girls about the measures to be taken legally against the happening. Further in order to engage the audience, women academy can be set up where they discuss the issue and help the victims to regain their self respect.
Lot of NGO’s in the development sector has use the new media effectively to spread the message. ‘Breakthrough’ is one of nonprofit organizations that work for transforming people’s attitude towards a cause. It has very innovatively made the use of new media in their “Ring the Bell” Campaign, where many women came up to share their story of violence and hatred faced domestically. Use of polls, online contest, tweets and blogs had blown in vigor in the discussion thereby spreading the message effectively. ‘WWF India’, an organization largely engaged in wildlife conservation had made its presence felt by sensitizing through its “Earth Hour Campaign” focused on energy conservation and global warming. It encouraged people to register themselves on the site by creating links on social media channels thereby engaging and educating them about the initiative. Within 18 days their, Orkut Community got 4,547 members, Facebook got 19,059 members, Flickr photostream received 1,700 views, Twitter got followed by 321. On the whole it generated 1,23,704 visitors and 28,484 people registered on the website which was a huge success for the campaign.
Thus there lies a plethora of opportunities with this new media followed up with ample of challenges to deal in. Firstly, timeline is one of the major constrain. Online audience has to be responded actively. Every comment, reply or message posted on new media has to be interactive, responsive and effective enough to channelise the discussions. Failing to do so may pose a threat on the goodwill of the organization initiating the cause and generate negative opinions which are difficult to moderate in this indefinite new medium. Secondly, there is no major cost involved in undertaking online campaign, however losing the track of discussion and negative opinions may cost badly for organizations to recover. One has to stay abreast all the times with new ideas, sites and new agendas to engross the audience holding their attention on the issue. One has to be very adaptive in nature to safeguard the business as social media by nature is very volatile to deal with. Thus it’s the time to grip new media rather than resisting it and getting wiped out from business. Thirdly, new media is highly cluttered. There are plenty of sites, contests and polls coming up to engage the audience. Hence one has to be very innovative in tackling the audience. Quality content addressing the social need with a tint of innovativeness is the mantra of communication in the development sector.
