Myntra's Social Media Strategy with Manu Prasad - Head, Social Media at Myntra.com [Interview]

Myntra.com, one of India’s largest online shopping destinations has been doing a great job in the online space. It has overtime built a sizeable community around itself. With more than a million members on its Facebook Page, highly interactive Twitter handle, a blog, and also a well updated Pinterest Presence , Myntra has been awesome on Social Media.

In this interview, let us Understand Myntra's Social Media Strategy with Manu Prasad, Head, Social Media at Myntra.com

What are Myntra's business objectives from Social Media?

We have stayed away from treating social as a silo and creating specific objectives exclusively for it. Our objectives on social are built around being an enabler and amplifier of various functions. We augment efforts in marketing, customer care, acquisition and sales, and retention.

Apart from Marketing, what are the other social media avenues Myntra is exploring?

We do use social platforms as media channels – to accentuate our positioning as a brand that understands fashion, to announce our campaigns, promotions, and also from a corporate brand perspective – showcasing awards, recognition.

But as mentioned earlier, social serves other functions as well. One key area that we have worked on is customer connect. We started using a dedicated platform called GetSatisfaction in April last year – probably the first e-com company to do so, and that has helped us quite a bit in our issue resolution efforts.

As an Ecommerce portal on social media, where does you priority lie: Engagement or Sales?

We actually think that sales falls within the ambit of engagement. Engagement, in our opinion, is not a standalone entity and is not for its own sake. It has to answer the ‘why’ question. i.e. needs an objective. ‘Sales’ is one of the objectives we have defined for our social engagement. Engagement, being the master set, automatically becomes our priority.

Are paid ads on Facebook effective in driving sales? How does it perform as compared to sales coming from Search ads?

Facebook has evolved as a digital sales channel over time and it is currently at a point where it is a particularly effective and substantial channel to drive sales for Myntra.com. Facebook's targeting options coupled with new innovations like FB Offers, News feed ads and Custom Audiences has shown promising results in recent times.

Facebook has been very competitive, in terms of RoI, when compared to Search ads. We are working towards driving scale with Facebook ads to match Search. Since this is a relatively nascent advertising medium (compared to search), it would take some time before the industry evolves to identifying and adopting best practices to drive scale on FB without impacting RoI.

A 'like' or a follower does not necessarily mean a customer. What is Myntra doing to convert the community members into customers?

A Like or a follower probably means that the person is interested in us. The typical next step from a marketing funnel perspective would be creating the desire in the consumer to purchase. At one level, we do this through the marketing communication – brand or promotion related.

In addition, we believe that our public resolution of issues faced by existing consumers builds a certain amount of trust in the potential set. We have specific plans for first mapping our Likes to our customer database and then converting more Likes to customers.

In your experience, what is the best way to use Twitter for an Ecommerce brand?

I’m not sure if there is a ‘best way’ that can apply to all brands, even within a category. Each brand has a different set of objectives, focus areas, style of communication, and diverse inherent strengths that can be amplified on various platforms. So the best way to begin using Twitter is to listen, and build a strategy that aims to match user expectations with business objectives.

Please share with us the process that goes on at the backend once you get a complaint on Twitter.

We raise the issue on GetSatisfaction, ensure that the Customer Connect team follows up on it and resolves it, all the while communicating the progress to the customer.

How has the blog, Style Mynt, helped Myntra in attaining its social media objectives?

Style Mynt is less to do with social media objectives, and more to do with the overall brand strategy of Myntra.com It showcases Myntra’s understanding of fashion and trends and aims to help the consumer make informed consumption choices in apparel and accessories. In the process, it gives a lot of talking points on social media, and contributes to sales as well.

You have a huge community on Facebook and a lot of conversations to monitor on Twitter. How do you manage these huge communities? What tools do you use to make your work easier?

At this point, Hootsuite and Get Satisfaction are the only external tools we use on a consistent basis. When we run hashtag based contests, we do use a few other tools to track metrics.

They say it's tough to figure out the ROI of social media activities. How do you calculate your social media ROI? What are the key parameters that you evaluate?

There are two ways we look at ROI. We track platform specific metrics – increase in Likes/Followers, PTAT etc. Additionally, since the strategy is to amplify various functions, the evaluation is also on parameters relevant to those functions. Eg number of issues resolved and Turn Around Time on Customer Care, number of transactions via social media for Sales, Reach in Marketing and so on.

Please introduce us to the team behind your social media efforts.

We are a two member team including my colleague Supriya, and we work with 22feet on some specific areas. In addition, we have a disaggregated model, with one person in our Catalog team who helps out on Instagram, Pinterest and our corporate blog, and several people in the Customer Connect team helping us in issue resolution.

How integrated is social media with other divisions in Myntra such as recruiting, market research, sales etc?

Sales, as mentioned earlier, is a part of our overall approach on social platforms. We also use our community to get a sense of popular sentiment – from website imagery to celebrities. On the other hand, our offline market research questionnaires also have queries pertaining to social. With regards to recruitment, we’ve not used social platforms much in the classic sense i.e.LinkedIn, but one tangential attempt has been to showcase our culture at the corporate blog.

Myntra has also dabbled with TVCs. Please share with us as to how the traditional media fares in comparison to social media.

The two media work differently so it’d be unfair to compare. The attempt is to get the media to complement each other, and provide a cohesive narrative to the consumer.

What are your views about Social Commerce? Do you think it will be a great addition to an Ecommerce brand like yours?

Social commerce has been changing its definition every now and then. From shops inside Facebook to the ‘build your shop with our products and sell to your friends’ model that is probably an online version of MLM, a lot of things have been called social commerce. Having said that, integrations at the product level that allow users to share information in context, and with relevant people, do have potential. That’s an area we are working on.

Key Takeaways:

• Facebook’s targeting options coupled with new innovations like FB Offers, News feed ads and Custom Audiences has shown promising results in recent times.
• Facebook has been very competitive, in terms of RoI, when compared to Search ads.
• The best way to begin using Twitter is to listen, and build a strategy that aims to match user expectations with business objectives.
• Get the traditional as well as new media to complement each other, and provide a cohesive narrative to the consumer.
• Social commerce has been changing its definition every now and then. From shops inside Facebook to the ‘build your shop with our products and sell to your friends’ model. Having said that, integrations at the product level that allow users to share information in context, and with relevant people, do have potential.

Read on: Social Media Strategy Review: Myntra