[Interview] Creating interior solutions through social media with Bedraj Tripathy, Godrej Interio

Bedraj Tripathy, AVP Integrated Marketing, Godrej Interio talks to Social Samosa on interior solutions, integrated marketing and upload & transform - their biggest social media campaign. 

How should home decor brands engage with users on social media?

Interestingly, brands want to be in the face of each socially active person as they believe that this will get     them to be seen and remembered. What one misses out is that the brand is not integrated to the social           circles of the user and hence it is more of an irritant rather than a good connection.

In the case of Godrej Interio, we integrate at three points with user needs on social media.

A) Driving interior related solutions from users’ standpoint rather than from brand’s standpoint.

B) Showcase some of the best done up homes (by Godrej Interio). In additon, creating enagement with the     owners.

C) Service issues management.

Godrej Interio does not see increasing the follower base drastically as we do not believe in ‘like’ mining.

We have close to half a million users and we ensure that we focus on creating engagement on a continuous basis.

Which social media platform has proved to be most fruitful for Godrej Interio? 

Each platform has an unique role to play in the social lives of the users. Hence, our focus has been to keep     increasing the engagement levels on each platform separately. There are integrations between the                 platforms, but this is based on the level and natural inclination of users in the way of usage of the                 platforms.

Godrej Interio ensures that specific social paths are followed by user groups to increase                 engagement across platforms.

Has new media helped in understanding consumer behavior better?  How do you use this data to your           advantage?

Absolutely!

This is a true, real-time, two way communication. A strong backend analytics engine ensures we get the right patterns of social media usage and anonymous views of conversations. This gives us real-time insights into user behavior, patterns, likes, dislikes, and psychographics.

This in turn helps us decide on designs, product, pricing, services, distribution etc. This is really the beginning of moving the brand closer to the user rather than retaining it with us.

Digital marketing v/s on ground marketing, what would you vouch for?

They are interlinked. Bringing digital to real and linking both of them is an essential part of marketing. Our users are not only digital or only real. Hence, a good integration of both is the basis of a strong marketing     strategy.

I would vouch for integrated marketing rather than taking sides.

Can you share details of Godrej Interio' one successful social media campaigns?

‘Upload and Transform’.

This is one of the most successful programs that Godrej Interio has launched as far as customer engagement is concerned.

Engagement wise, this is possibly the one that has broken all records. If you take another look at what I just spoke about, you will realize that we get direct insights from peoples’ homes – as images and aspirations of where they want to go. Imagine getting at least 10k entries. This means getting data of users of over 10k homes. Imagine the usage of this data for developing products, functionalities, design languages etc. Imagine what one can do for better engagement with users with this data.

What's your take on influencer marketing strategy?

Starting from curating existing content and providing this when the influencers need it, to developing fresh content that can add value for the influencer in selling to their customers.