MUMBAI: Indian users of Facebook, the social networking platform, are more likely than the global average to interact with brands, a leading executive has said.
Kirthga Reddy, head of Facebook India, told Campaign India that her insights team had been looking at users' experiences around sponsored content and found that they were more engaged than those in the rest of the world.
"We have a higher number of people participating in a conversation than just observing," she said.
Reddy also explained how brands were increasingly using the platform to complement TV. She cited the example of Dominos, the pizza takeaway chain, which sustained the buzz of a TV campaign on Facebook. And Unilever, the FMCG group, had taken advantage of the various solutions available, such as video on logout pages, to promote its brands.
She claimed to have "case study after case study on how the platform is helping businesses grow". Firms operating in the e-commerce sector did not discuss traditional budget allocation and where Facebook fitted into that, she said. Rather they simply declared that a certain percentage of their revenues came through Facebook.
When questioned on the issue of fake Facebook 'Likes', Reddy said she was "aware that there are agencies who indulge in this practice, and when we come across it we take appropriate action".
Metrics such as Facebook 'Likes' are in any case increasingly viewed as unreliable in judging the success of a campaign – marketers relying on this type of measurement are just fooling themselves, argued Bryan Urbick in a recent edition of Admap.
Separately, Indian authorities appeared high up on a list of bodies seeking information on Facebook users. A total of 3,245 requests for data on 4,144 users were made in the first half of 2013, putting India in second place behind the US. Roughly half of these were complied with.
Kirthga Reddy, head of Facebook India, told Campaign India that her insights team had been looking at users' experiences around sponsored content and found that they were more engaged than those in the rest of the world.
"We have a higher number of people participating in a conversation than just observing," she said.
Reddy also explained how brands were increasingly using the platform to complement TV. She cited the example of Dominos, the pizza takeaway chain, which sustained the buzz of a TV campaign on Facebook. And Unilever, the FMCG group, had taken advantage of the various solutions available, such as video on logout pages, to promote its brands.
She claimed to have "case study after case study on how the platform is helping businesses grow". Firms operating in the e-commerce sector did not discuss traditional budget allocation and where Facebook fitted into that, she said. Rather they simply declared that a certain percentage of their revenues came through Facebook.
When questioned on the issue of fake Facebook 'Likes', Reddy said she was "aware that there are agencies who indulge in this practice, and when we come across it we take appropriate action".
Metrics such as Facebook 'Likes' are in any case increasingly viewed as unreliable in judging the success of a campaign – marketers relying on this type of measurement are just fooling themselves, argued Bryan Urbick in a recent edition of Admap.
Separately, Indian authorities appeared high up on a list of bodies seeking information on Facebook users. A total of 3,245 requests for data on 4,144 users were made in the first half of 2013, putting India in second place behind the US. Roughly half of these were complied with.
Data sourced from Campaign India, Economic Times; additional content by Warc staff
