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Mr. Vikram Kharvi on ‘Future of Social Media Marketing’
Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Nagpur had the privilege of hosting Mr. Vikram Kharvi- Vice President - Adfactors PR for a guest lecture on November 6, 2020. Mr. Tyagi is an experienced professional and is currently working in the field of Marketing Communication. He delivered an insightful lecture on the topic ‘Future of Social Media Marketing’
The following is an excerpt from the interview with him-
Q1) Being recognized amongst the 100 Most Important Professionals of 2020 for setting up the Indian PR Forum, how big a role would you say, social media plays in implementing a PR strategy?
Ans) Social media takes a center stage when a PR strategy is implemented. The lag on traditional media or traditional publication is there but digital publications like social media are doing quite fast and in real-time as the audience is commenting and liking at that point in time only. So, communicating with the audience using social media should be the first thing any brand would think to use in their strategy. Using multiple platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram for youth, LinkedIn for business professionals to communicate the message to target customers and making sure that it is reaching them faster than any other traditional channel available.
Q2) Of all the domains that you've worked in, which domain did you find the most challenging? How has your experience from these diverse fields aided your journey?
Ans) After working in multiple domains, I have concluded that communication has been more challenging because it is like convincing an audience and making them act in a certain manner in a way you want them to. So, a lot of mind games, strategies, and technologies are used to understand business and data. This is the only domain that forces you to bring together the amalgamation of multiple things and making a way forward to work towards that. So, communication is the most challenging and interesting domain.
Q3) How effective is influencer marketing with the menace of fake followers and trolls being a norm, how can brands distinguish between a phony and an actual influencer?
Ans) The easiest way to do it is by the kind of engagement an influencer is getting despite having a lot of tools available. There might be millions of followers but the engagement on each post is not similar then it means that the followers are fake because if the followers are real, all the posts would be shared or commented on and would have a similar amount of engagement. So, understanding the engagement rate will help in evaluating the value and worth of that influencer. Some tools give a specific engagement rate of each influencer by putting the handle it throws out the engagement rate.
Q4) How did you manage to revamp the social media presence of the Tata Housing Finance Company and how did you make it a consumer-friendly brand?
Ans) Tata Housing Finance Company was into real estate and was a consumer-facing brand. So, I had gotten the opportunity to set up a social media app entirely from fresh and got to learn from it. By setting up social media pages from Facebook to Instagram and YouTube, we ran a lot of campaigns and a lot of engagement was seen. Tata Housing was one of the first real estate development companies to come into IPO kind of allotment of homes and was one of the first companies to sell homes online using Google, Shopclues, etc. It was a new experience and we did quite well as compared to other real estate developers at that point in time.
Q5) Since everything these days has moved online, so have our seminars. So how was your experience with IMT Nagpur?
Ans) So it's my first time that I’m interacting with IMT Nagpur and it happened to be online. It was an amazing experience, the questions that came were quite intelligent, and was happy to respond to all of them. I’m looking forward to meeting you guys in person so whenever that will be possible, I would like to visit your campus and meet you guys personally.