'Social Media for Social Change' celebrated at SMW' 2014!

Social Media Week, touted as a unique crowd-sourced event culminated last week in Mumbai. Keeping true to the spirit of nature of the medium, the theme this year was “Social Media for Social Change”. SMW (Social Media Week) Mumbai 2014 had four focus stages: First, a Social Stage was dedicated stage to cover social media’s impact on social change. Second was Pioneers stage which was a dedicated track to focus on trends and opportunities in social media technology, internet of things, connected economy, big data & analytics, security & privacy of social data. Then there was a Startup Stage which was a dedicated track focusing on showcasing start-ups and entrepreneurship opportunities powered from and on social media and lastly, there was a Community Stage which was a dedicated stage for communities like healthcare, ecommerce, retail & fashion, gaming, music sharing, media & marketing agencies, sports & entertainment, education, lifestyle businesses, fund raising, the world of community economy.

The first day started off with an opening address by Rohit Varma, Director of SMW and Co-founder of R Square Consulting wherein he spoke that a brand is no longer what it tells its customers; it is what the customers tell each other. This was followed by some stats of the previous two editions of SMW (the first one was held in Mumbai in September 2013 followed by the second edition in Bengaluru in February 2014) and how the presence had increased through Facebook and Twitter.

Another session that grabbed the attention of all the attendees was by CVL Srinivas, CEO, Group M wherein he spoke about how Social Media is changing India. Also interestingly Group M was the first ever sponsor for Social Media Week and Srinivas shredded some light about studies conducted by McKinsey and Deloitte. The study by McKinsey showed that usage of social media actually improved a company’s productivity by 20-25% whereas Deloitte’s study (for Facebook for the European Union) revealed that Facebook had improved the European Union society by adding EUR 15 billion to the revenue.

The next example was that of the Jammu & Kashnir floods disaster. He stressed upon how social media helped spread the word to send necessities and search for missing people. A few companies jumped on the b(r)andwagon to help out as well; Uber and Paytm being the two prime examples. Uber took the responsibility of delivering basic necessities to the affected areas, donated by the citizens of the country and Paytm released offers to attract people into helping the victims.

Then he stressed upon influencing advertising and then while concluding shared some key trends of Social Media, which included better products and more meaningful brands; research and Measurement Change; millennials will diversify; Content requirement will explode and early signs of real time Marketing.

The five day affair saw eminent speakers like Ashvin Vellody, Partner, Management Consulting, KPMG; Sanjay Tripathy, Sr. EVP, Marketing, Product, Digital, and Ecommerce, HDFC Life; V Vasantha Kumar, Director of Marketing & Communications, IBM India & South Asia, Rishi Jaitly India Market Director , Twitter, Kunal Jeswani, O&M; Ekalavya Bhattacharya, Head Digital, MTV, Sumeli Chatterjee, Head – Marketing, Media & Insights, MTV India and MTV Indies; Harshil Karia, Co-founder, Digital Strategist, FoxyMoron and a lot more. 

Panel discussions and sessions like ‘Social media- Disruption & Viral’ by Kunal Jeswani, Chief Digital Officer, The future of now: connecting the dots between the virtual and real worlds which highlighted how our heightened connectivity through technology is changing the way we live, work and create as a civilization; 14 Social Media Trends to Watch out for in 2014; Content Marketing - The Flash Forward' -What Content Marketing in the future; Social Media Listening- From Theory to Practice; Are you making a difference in Social Media and alot more saw a power packed attendance and made the event conclude is high spirits.

Adgully spoke to few speakers to take their view on Social Media Week’14. Edited excerpts:

Harshil Karia, Co-founder, Digital Strategist, FoxyMoron said, “Social Media Week 2014 has been an extremely interesting platform to be a part of especially with the recognition it has received internationally. With the growth of social media in the Indian market today, more than anything it is important to utilize its potential 'to spread the word within minutes' for the good of our society. Social media has the power to make the world a better place and our talk on 'Social Media for Social Good' will always be very close to my heart. Attending the talks by renowned business leaders was not just inspiring but also educative and it was an honour to speak along with them." 

Sanjay Tripathy, Sr. EVP, Marketing, Product, Digital, and Ecommerce, HDFC Life, said, "The way Social Media Week - Mumbai has managed to bring together professionals & organizations are really impressive! The event is a perfect culmination of experiences, case studies & quality of work that is being done by brands across geographies & I'm sure all participants have returned, enriched with knowledge, which will be applicable to their work in one way or the other. I look forward to attending the event in future too."

Sumeli Chatterjee, Head – Marketing, Media & Insights, MTV India and MTV Indies said, “Today Social media platforms and consumer data available on these platforms have increased. And also the brands have started deriving insights from this data. Even we have our own theories like Curious Minds which help us implement the needs and demands of our consumers in our programming strategies. With a forum like this we get a lot to learn and teach how social media can be further evangelised to the core.”

As Social media becomes an extension of our lives, a festival like this surely enhances and celebrates the spirit to connect, collaborate and create!