E-commerce in India: Top 5 Social Media Campaigns

Internet has travelled from becoming the next big thing to the biggest thing in India. According to a report by Business Standard, the number of internet users in the country has increased from 50 million in 2007 to 300 million in 2014. This is almost a 6 times growth in just a period of few years. This also indicates the growing use of e-commerce retail sites for purchase and an obvious increase in the number of people using various social media channels.
Companies therefore, in today’s date are trying to think ahead of time. More than running offline campaigns which not just include a lot of monetary investment but also provides results which are difficult to measure, the focus has shifted to online campaigns. With most of the population being on social media, these online campaigns perform extremely well on channels like Facebook and Twitter. All one needs to do is select a witty hashtag, promote it enough so people notice it and voila! Your campaign starts trending!
Here’s a list of popular e-commerce companies in India and their famous ongoing campaigns on social media:
1. Amazon: Aur Dikhao Campaign
Amazon started off by introducing their offline campaign and running an interesting ad which displayed a series of funny incidents, such as tourists wearing an “I love India” t-shirt and asking to see places which are not present on the map and more.
The campaign was taken to social media by creating images from the ads and writing witty captions on it. Amazon took to tagging prominent people who are known to be funny or for their jokes and instigated them to take part in the campaign. This helped them gain a lot of visibility and attracted a lot of audience leading to an increase in their sales.

2. OLX: Bech De Campaign
OLX has used a slightly different strategy when it comes to campaigning for the online audience. While their initial and main campaign idea was “Bech De”, they slowly started incorporating a number of other hashtag campaigns and also made ads for them, the most recent in line being #KeematBhiKuchKeemtiBhi.
Parallel to the offline and television ad campaign, OLX also keeps running constant quizzes and contests to keep their audience engaged. This includes simple yes or no questions along with quirky images and videos, wrapping the audience with their creativity.

3. Snapdeal: Dil Ki Deal Campaign
Playing it extremely smart, Snapdeal has launched its Dil Ki Deal Campaign, which is both offline as well as online. The offline ad campaign makes use of the charismatic Aamir Khan, to make the ad more emotionally connectable. Interactive images for the same have been used in their online campaign.
However, interestingly, Snapdeal has also used a number of parallel running hashtag campaigns which help support the main campaign and also increase sales. For example the #DreamHouseFestonSnapdeal is an initiative to instigate people to buy interior decoration accessories.

4. Jabong: Be You Campaign
Jabong’s way of reaching out to their target audience is a little different. Just like the brand, it tries to express its trendy, creative, outgoing and divergent nature even through its campaign. Making use of its largest target group, the youngsters, Jabong’s new campaign plays with the mind.
This campaign shows the story of young people who live life on their own terms and fight against the ancient norms of the society. It brings about a ‘set free attitude’ among its audience through sensitive ads. Along with this, to keep their audience entertained on social media, they also run a number of contests with amazing offers as gifts. This keeps the audience engaged, entertained and satisfied at all points. They also put up a lot of promotional content on their twitter and facebook pages.

5. Flipkart: #GiftABookWithFlipkart
Unlike the others, Flipkart does not have a parent campaign running which is being supported by other hashtag campaigns. Instead, Flipkart is making use of one hashtag campaign after another to popularise their brand. Among these, #GiftABookWithFlipkart performed exceptionally well, with over 1K mentions on various social media sites.
The main strategy Flipkart uses is to drive sales and keep it increasing, therefore they do not stick to one idea. This has worked beautifully for the brand keeping in mind the response they get against each hashtag. For example, #ShopSmartWithFlipkart, #FasterThantheRest are hashtags which help enhance the brand image of Flipkart, yet is used widely by people while describing their experiences.