Social Media Strategy Review: Titan Watches

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.

In the '80s, when Titan came into being, HMT was the quintessential leader in watches, representing the values that society upheld at the time. Titan has come a long way since they first started out. Replacing then industry-leader HMT was not that big a challenge for the brand, and they continue to retain their top position inspite of the further competition they are facing these days from all types of brands.

It is commendable how Titan is holding its fort, assisted a great deal by its marketing efforts, and in the Internet-overrun world, it means a significant focus on social media. In this article, I am going to analyze Titan's social media strategy across social media platforms, primarily Facebook and Twitter – the two giants of social media.

Audience Analysis of Titan

People across age and gender divides follow Titan on social media, and this is because the brand caters to the needs of both male and female buyers from all age groups.

This is evident in the almost equal following from all age groups, which you can see in the following image, but it has been seen that the social media audience of the brand is primarily male (see the second image).

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

Overall Strategy

Keeping its audience informed of the new product launches and new promotions, the brand has not moved from these positions on the social media websites it participates in. They are under the impression that simply being present on social media is enough for the brand.

The brand recognition is quite high, and it enjoys top-of-mind recall in its industry, which may have led to the social media strategy it has adopted. Remaining present midst conversation is the goal of social media activities undertaken by Titan.

Titan on Facebook

Titan has more than 15 lakh fans on its Facebook Page, and these numbers do look impressive when read in isolation, but when we study it on the basis of engagement, a big hole appears in the claim supported by this number.

At the time of writing this article, hardly 32,000 people were talking about the page which makes around 2% of the total fan base. And now this number is reduced to 6,569. Although some of the recent posts have seen very high engagement.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

On the content front, most of the recent activities revolved around updating the wall with new product launches or ongoing promotions, as evident in the following post, where the brand tried to play on number 40 of up to 40% off sale that is going on.

But it was not this way all the time. Scroll down the timeline to May and earlier, and you will see some real engagement going on. Tagged by Titan, an event was juxtaposed around comic strips made around cricket and product shots (see the following two images). The content pieces were solid before the brand went to the all-promotion mode.

But if you compare the engagement rate of the above two posts with the posts shared above them, you will see that people get more excited after seeing beautifully designed products or a money-saving promotion.

Although Titan has been irregular in updating its page, as evident in the first image below this, the positive energy among fans has not waned out. It is good to see that negative emotions are restricted to less than 20% (18.71%) of the total posts, whereas, more than 60% talk positively about the brand (see the second image).

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

Titan on Twitter

Titan does not seem to have a thorough understanding of Twitter, and they are using the platform as any small-timer. In recent times, at the most, the brand has used its Twitter profile to promote Facebook posts, as you can see in the following image.

This is not a bad tactic, but it surely is a limiting one, more so, if promoting Facebook posts is all a brand does with Twitter.

Even the frequency of the posts is very haphazard. See the time stamp in the following image, and in the one posted just above this paragraph. Titan does not even use Twitter daily. The lag between two tweets has been of 22 days between 24 June and 16 July. There is nothing much in Titan's Twitter stream.

They are already missing out on a lot of conversations.

@titanbemore where can I get list of service centers in Bangalore?

— Suresh C (@iCSM) September 20, 2013

 

Brilliant ad by Titan for the world's slimmest watch @titanbemore https://t.co/0TRmnyhtZB

— Ashu (@Ashutoshsamal) September 16, 2013

 

Horrible customer service policies... (@ World of Titan - @titanbemore) http://t.co/63fHWQUERS

— Deepa Antony (@deetalkz) June 19, 2013

 

Comparison with competitor

Although Citizen is a bigger brand than Titan in watches, in India it is struggling to have the kind of fan following that Titan enjoys (see the image below). One reason behind such a dismal performance could be the price point (or the perceived one) at which Citizen is available.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

Citizen has hardly 50,000 fans, way below than Titan's more than 15 lakh fans, but in terms of per post engagement, Titan falls short of the mark Citizen has touched. The kinds of freebies that Citizen offers can be a reason behind it.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

Luckily for Titan, it didn't have to try very hard to get the kind of engagements it has created on Facebook. As you can see from the image below, in terms of types of engagement, Titan and Citizen have created almost identical pies. Overall, Titan has outscored Citizen, but that could also be because of the total number of fans it got.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

Titan on other platforms

Apart from Facebook and Twitter, Titan is also " target="_blank">present on YouTube, but the efforts here are not as spirited as on other two platforms. Like its updates on other platforms, the videos posted here are either commercials aired on television or product announcement videos. As expected, not many people watched the videos, except the ones in which Katrina kaif was in the frame, with a noticeable exception of the following Tagged by Titan video.

Conclusion

Although Titan has a very big fan following on Facebook, it does not translate into an awe-inspiring engagement. The watch brand needs to work more on its content plan.

It was doing well during IPL when it created some good content units, but of late, it appears to have changed track. Titan also needs to take Twitter and Youtube more seriously.

All in all, despite a good reputation, the social media strategy of Titan is in want of some real activity.

Expert View:

Titan has been responsible for some amazing TV advertising over the year. In fact, just the brand name makes you remember the jingle and its tune and that’s how impactful its advertising has been. This means the brand is one of the stronger players in the watch market in India. But social media doesn't seem to be a brand building platform for Titan.

In fact it can be looked at as a sales platform, as all updates have product codes and the sale offers ensure that its being promoted through social media.

What is slightly cumbersome and difficult to imagine, is someone actually noting down the product code and then going specially to a Titan showroom to buy the watch they liked. In the age of ecommerce, why wouldn't you just send these guys an order online? Maybe because the Titan ecommerce platform is yet to come into full force.

Nevertheless it seems a tedious approach to increase footfalls to offline outlets. Another thing lacking in the presence is the approach of generic ideas to connect with time and watches. For eg: Titan could easily introduce “best use of time tips” where in it could provide time management tips to its audience. The mature working audience among their base would certainly appreciate this.

Twitter seems to be more of a good to have rather than a must have presence for Titan which is also showcased in how it does not have a specific strategy beyond what’s being done on facebook. Overall, even though Titan has fans, its presence leaves much to be desired from a consumer standpoint.

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

Analytics support courtesy: Simplify360