Social Media Strategy Review: Colgate India

This review is a part of our ‘Social Media Strategy Review’ series where we do a 360 degree analysis of a brand’s entire social media activity. You can read the reviews of more brands here.

Introduction:

Colgate is one of the most trusted oral care brands in India since the 1930s. "Colgate" is almost synonymous with toothpaste in the Indian market.

Overall Strategy:

First of all, I cannot see any mention of Colgate India's social media presence on their official website. Social Media Icons on the homepage makes a brand easily accessible. It helps to spread the word about the brand's social media presence. Most of the conversations around the brand are sourced from Social Media platforms.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

In addition, I feel the overall Social Media strategy of Colgate India is scattered. It is not compact.

Platform-wise Strategy

Facebook:

Colgate India has individual pages for Colgate for its different target segments. For example, Colgate Max Fresh India, Colgate Sensitive Pro-Relief India, Colgate Plax India. All these pages have built a huge community around themselves with interesting campaigns running on Facebook. However, I found the official Colgate India page quite dull in front of these sub brands.

In fact, it is very disappointing that there is no integrated effort. An integrated digital approach enhances a brand's overall Social Media presence with a consistent branding across multiple platforms.

Although there is no interconnect, these pages have been doing well individually.

Coming to Colgate India's official page, its content revolves around children, brushing and flossing tips, dentist advice, key to a healthy smile, etc. The page keeps its audience engaged with interactive updates, questions and opinion polls. The periodicity of updates is only once in two days which I feel is should be more frequent. Maybe that why the engagement on the page is low. Apart from the regular updates, I cannot see any other recent campaigns.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

I have observed, that they have been using the same images again and again over time, with different captions. They can be more creative with their content. After all content rules the internet world!

Update 1:

Update 2:

Update 3:

One thing that I liked, they have used the timeline feature effectively to show their history and their mile stones.

Twitter:

Just like Facebook, it has different twitter handles for its sub-brands. However, I cannot see ColgatePlaxIn and MaxFreshIndia taking part in conversations. They have been using twitter as one sided platform. Its a sad story that brands forget, the sole purpose of Social Media is to have conversations.

I could not find a Twitter handle for for the parent brand - Colgate India

YouTube:

Colgate India does't seem to have an official YouTube Channel. Colgate Plax and Colgate Max Fresh Gel do have one.

Colgate Max Fresh India had been running a contest, in association with MTV named "Maxfresh MTV R U Fresh Enuf?" where users could record a song using the computer mic. Each of these entries can be seen on their YouTube Channel.The winner gets a chance to sing with Amit Trivedi.

Comparison with Competitor:

Pepsodent India has a smaller community as compared to Colgate but they have been doing a good job with their overall content strategy. They have also been doing interesting engaging activities on Facebook.

There doesn't seem to be an official Twitter handle of Pepsodent India.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

Comments on Strategy:

The overall strategy of Colgate India is average. It could work to integrate its Social Media presence. The content is also mediocre. However, it has managed to get satisfactory online sentiments.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

Feedback on Strategy:

Colgate India has a scattered social media strategy which can be turned into a well coordinated plan. Considering the popularity of the brand in India, it has a huge potential to engage on the social space.

Expert View:

This case of Colgate reflects on how brands work with individual brand managers and forget that in social media nothing works in a silo. The integration impact is something Colgate as a brand is missing. Also the over dependence on Facebook is clearly pointing at the lack of maturity on the brand managers end wherein the focus would largely be on numbers - hence, the step motherly treatment given to Twitter.

This is where brands need to start looking at social not just at a brand level but at an overall level wherein they think about it from a mother brand perspective as well as an individual brand perspective. Clearly a need of the hour is for multi brand companies like Colgate to sit together across brands and address the social opportunity rather than going at it piece meal per brand basis.

Expert View by Rajiv Dingra, the Founder & CEO of WATConsult – An Award Winning Social Media Agency

Analytics support courtesy: Simplify360