Thursday, April 18, 2013

Handle with care : How hindi GEC's benefit from a Twitter handle.

It is common knowledge that the core Hindi GEC audience is not yet on Twitter. You would not really see tweets like "Cutting bhindi while watching Akshara and Naitik , hope I don't cut my finger. LOL" or maybe "Told my husband that dinner will be late today , its Balika Mahaepisode time #iloveanandi". Still every Hindi GEC has a twitter handle and probably a robust social media team which dreams everyday of the follower count going up along with their pay packets. So why do networks whose ratings are predominantly blessings from the heartland are going heavy on Social Media , especially Twitter ? The answer is simple - they have an eye on the future and rightly so.

The power and reach of 140 characters has spread out like wild fire in urban India , from ministers getting sacked to celebrities getting smacked , Twitter is seeing all the action happen on its ever increasing platform. But that's the case of urban India and by urban I mean the metro's and mini-metros , what about the rest ? the territory which is so precious to the hindi GEC's. Well the full power of Twitter has not reached there , not yet ; but a twitter feed is making its way to the core TG through other means.

It's common knowledge that the journalists in smaller towns are hungry for big town news. If you don't believe me do a small shoot , audition or press event in one of these towns and you will see a row of reporters from small local dailies walking in , even uninvited : mostly uninvited. These are the men and women who are the early adopters of Twitter in these towns , Why ? because it gives them the power to know first , something so crucial for a journalist. This small guy who is so insignificant in the scheme of things suddenly gets to know what Mr. Bachchan did this afternoon , at the same time as his brethren sitting in powerful dailies in Mumbai do ! The information is priceless for him and yes it makes way into his local daily or cable news and eventually to his readers or viewers , people who haven't heard of twitter just received a piece of news that originated there.   

This journalist sitting in Barabanki or Mau knows the target group which is so precious to the Hindi GEC and one can reach him through Twitter. Make no mistake Akshara and Anandi are as big a name as Priyanaka and Katrina in these places and they are newsworthy , provided you are sending out the right news about them. That brings us to the question , are the tweets originating from the GEC handles good enough? The plain and simple answer is No !

It is very clear that Hindi GEC's have adopted Twitter as a platform to promote themselves , the least they can do is not make it so obvious. It's high time that Twitter is not treated as place where show promo scripts are shortened and posted , mindless hashtags are created with unsuccessful attempts to make them trend and barrage of plot points are tweeted in hopes of RT and increased follower count. Broadcasters should treat twitter as  a vehicle to connect first , the promotion will happen on its own.

How about links to one or two really juicy behind the scene exclusive stories from top shows ,  few candid pictures of stars from the sets and why don't I see any of the GEC's using Twitter's latest service VINE already , its meant for them. Give the followers something which is not available anywhere else , exclusivity always works. The people in-charge of sending these tweets need to be content driven and not some techie with an additional job role. Every tweet you are sending out is telling your followers something more about your brand , make it count.

Another sphere where Twitter gets immensely important is International beams of Indian channels. While Indian viewers are exposed to multi-million rupee marketing campaigns involving outdoor media , radio , newsprint and cross channels , the audiences outside India have no such luck. Twitter in this case is a very potent medium to reach them and shape their viewing habits , either separate Twitter handles or few targeted tweets to these audiences can really add value in the mix.

Twitter and social media at large is a very big slice of the future media pie , its imperative that the first steps towards them is right. Going forward it will be interesting to see how various broadcasters develop their Twitter strategy.