Social Media Strategy Review
Oral Healthcare
Brands
ANALYTICS POWERED BY
Author Bio
Mrinil Mathur
With a love for coffee and reading, passion for social media and
a flair for perfection, Mrinil comes from a computer science
background. Her diverse experience in social media marketing
and digital marketing speaks for itself. She believes in adding
value to work every day. An amazing cook, and Angry Birds
enthusiast she loves playing basketball too.
Introduction
Brands of Oral Care Sector have a proud history of their existence
but most of them have recently made their entry into Social Media
world. The industry in India entails some brilliant brands who are
trying to build their Social identities and make a mark in the digital
space. Since the sector is still in the beta stage of Social media
campaigning thus ideas and content plans are naïve, which calls for
attention from social media enthusiasts and requires monitoring,
tracking of their performance.
This study includes in depth analysis of brands like – Colgate,
Pepsodent and Vicco on two major platforms, Facebook and Twitter
for time duration of 30 days (15th May to 15th June).
Colgate was started in 1806 in New York and was incorporated into Indian market in the
year 1937 with the launch of Colgate Dental Cream and became a company committed
to oral health and care. Ever since Colgate is occupying a legendary market share with
completing 75 years in 2012. Dedicated to the sector of oral health and care, the brand
believe in promoting healthy habits through its annual national awareness program,
Oral health Month.
Colgate joined Social Media in 2009, but it started using it to the max potential from
2012 only.
My study period is based on the last 30 days (15th May to 15th June 2014) and in depth
analyses of Colgate on two major platforms, Facebook and Twitter
Monthly Timeline Chart
Audience Analysis
Colgate has slightly more of female follower
base than male customers interacting with the
posts. While the difference is not much, 53.5%
of followers are females and remaining 46.5%
are males. This almost equal gender proportion
can be attributed to the fact that Colgate is a
neutral brand and caters to both the genders.
*These are stats of people talking about the
brand.
1
Buzzword Chart
Colgate on Facebook
This week Colgate India achieved the mark of 2 million fans on Facebook ever since
they joined in 2012. Owing to brand’s recent entry 65.9 K people talking about it is
remarkable.
The frequency of content
is 1-2 posts per day which is
too low for engagement for
a brand of this stature and
follower base. With a total
of only 61 posts the brand
holds a negligible share of
posts which is 0.1 % and a
greater amount of content
which is a total of 113745 is
by the stakeholders which
is approx. 99.9 %.
2
Content Strategy on Facebook
The brand’s content strategy majorly focuses on showcasing the benefits of their
products, oral health and life’s goodness related to it, like aid in bleeding gums and
other gum problems, relief from sensitive teeth, freedom from yellow teeth etc.
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The brand also brings out the essence
of life and small happy moments in life.
One interesting thing to notice is that brand uses Facebook applications a lot to run their
campaigns. Recently they are running 2 Facebook apps for Earth Day and Selfie. The
brand shows concern towards environment and water conversation this Environment
Day.
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5
Overall engagement quotient on Facebook page is low considering the huge fan base
they have. Only a few posts gets 40-50 comments and few posts get none. The number
of likes when compared to fan base is also negligible. The posts which got maximum
comments and likes attained that because of the picture used and not for the product
or the benefit of the product.
In terms of customer service, Colgate rarely
replies to the comments. Although on few
instances the brand tried to second any
remark in the comment, which is a good
initiative to make a conversation with fans
and customers.
One noticeable and good activity of
Colgate on Facebook is that their ‘About’
page and ‘Timeline’ gives the full history
about the brand, from its foundation day
to till date. In fact such a glorious history
is need to be showcased.
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Another current campaign of Colgate is
for their newest product Colgate Visible
White. Banking on the obsession of selfie
amongst everyone they have made an app
for perfect selfie attaching the fact that
for best selfie you need to have perfect
white teeth.
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Colgate on Twitter
Although in short time span Colgate managed to garner a good amount of fan base
on Facebook, the brand has very poor presence on twitter. The only verified account
of Colgate is @ColgateSmile which is used by Colgate across the globe. Another
official Twitter account is of Colgate-Palmolive Co with the twitter handle @Colgate.
Colgate uses this account as its official account to share global, company news and
information. Both the twitter handles are associated with Colgate India’s official
website. @ColgateSmile being used globally have merely 28.8K followers. In addition,
Colgate tweets 2-3 per week and majorly believe in Re-Tweeting.
Content Strategy on Twitter
Content wise, the approach on Twitter is totally different. Although they joined Twitter
before Facebook but brand doesn’t use it to best of its capability. Brand despite of
being less frequent, tries to interact with few customers on twitter by retweeting or
replying to followers.
Along with re-tweeting brand tries to add a comment with it thereby acknowledging
the conversation. This method helps them to maintain engagement with followers and
encourage them to tweet more about the brand and its products.
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Brand also patiently replies to any query posted by the customer.
Thereby making it a customer service oriented brand.
Unlike Facebook where an organized campaign was run, content strategy of Twitter is
not focused. Also the content on both the accounts differed in their approach as well
as strategy.
9
Online Buzz
Most of the online buzz of Colgate is through microblogs, twitter being the most
dominant platform from where most brand mentions and conversions occur. One of the
reason for more number of impression through Twitter was the #ColgateTOTAL booth
in an international fest called as “Essence Festival” and second one being retweets
and interaction done by brand on this platform. Out of all 60.2 % of mentions happen
through microblogs, 34.6% mentions are by social networking platforms like Facebook
and remaining 5.2% mentions are contributed by blogs.
Service Feedback
Out of all the posts, 66939 posts
i.e. 58.2 % are written across
microblogging sites, majorly
Twitter, which accounts to be
a major platform. The other
important platform is social
networks where 38521 posts
i.e. 33.5 % of posts are posted.
Around 5751 i.e. 5 % blog posts
have been written and only 954
news articles about the brand
are published. Rest all the other
platforms are negligible.
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Sentiment
A huge amount of positive
sentiment of brand is present
across online platforms. 76.8 % of
users are talking positive about
the brand on Facebook and
Twitter and only 23.2 % negative
sentiment is spread across. It is
a winning situation for a brand
to achieve such an amount of
positive sentiment, which adds
great credibility and makes it
everybody’s favorite brand. The
reason to lot of positivity can be
attributed to the two campaigns
themed around most in trend
topic – environment and selfie.
While analyzing the sentiments
around the major reasons
attributed for positivity, there
are two major reasons. Branding
and Advertising being the major
factor of positive sentiments
overall, itself has 72.8% positive
sentiment
which
becomes
obvious
because
of
their
campaign around hottest topic
of the year selfie.
Another factor contributing for positive sentiment is pricing, it accounts 62.1 % positive
sentiment.
Conclusion
Colgate portrays itself as a family brand that makes everybody’s life happy. It managed
to garner a decent amount of fan following across different platforms but they are
overshadowing the benefits of social presence and not using it to its max potential.
Brand can have more engaging content on Facebook and if their current frequency
on Twitter can make such a huge amount of impressions online the increased regular
activity can do wonders for the brand.
Overall the brand has decent positive sentiment but there lies a great scope for
improvement and development in their social media strategy. Maybe monitoring and
tracking their impressions can help them to devise a focused campaign strategy on
both social platforms.
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Pepsodent belongs to HUL family. It was launched in India in 1993 and since then
brand has raised the standard of Indian Oral Care market. Pepsodent has a wide range
of products making it expert in oral care solution for germ check, bleeding gums and
sensitive teeth.
Pepsodent uses an approach to appeal kids, thereby their communication revolves
around cartoons and fancies. Brand seems to underestimate the hidden power of Social
Media thus is inactive on major social networks. It made its entry in social networking
world in May 2010 with the bollywood star Shahrukh Khan as its brand ambassador.
My study period is based on the last 30 days (15th May to 15th June 2014) and in depth
analyses of Pepsodent on two major platforms, Facebook and Twitter.
Monthly Timeline Chart
Audience Analysis
Pepsodent has uneven follower base talking
about the brand on social media. More of male
customers interact with the posts than female
customers. Out of all 62.1 % of fan base is male
and remaining 37.9% are females. This scattered
gender distribution of a unisex brand may be
because of its previous advertising campaigns
like “Pappu and Papa”. Contrary to this uneven
gender distribution where interaction with
males is more, the brand’s recent campaigns
are themed around mothers.
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Buzzword Chart
Pepsodent on Facebook
Pepsodent’s fan base on Facebook is only 1.8 million considering the fact that they
joined 4 years ago. Also, number of people talking about the brand is 35.6K which is
really low for an internationally famous brand, that too belonging to Unilever family.
But such a low amount of fan base
can be reasoned to their less frequent
updates and disappearance from
Facebook for longer time intervals.
Brand’s last update was on 13th May
2014 and they are absent on Facebook
ever since. This sort of carelessness
is not appreciated from any brand as
it reduces the engagement on page
thereby losing the trust of fans and
followers. Before this absenteeism
phase also frequency of posts was 1
/ day, which is quiet a low count for
any brand if they want to have some activity on their page. For the past one month’s
post brand had zero contribution and stakeholders made 100% contribution with 18314
posts. This distribution of voice amongst stakeholders and brand is inappropriate.
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Content Strategy on Facebook
Prior to absenteeism phase brand’s communication was based on cartoons and fancies.
The content of these posts were tooth tips, simple quizzes like match the following,
multiple choice questions, spot the difference, which of them look alike etc. and posts
related to relationship between parents and their kids. Last time they were seen on
Facebook was wishing mothers on Mother’s Day.
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All these posts witnessed less interaction from fans, therefore overall the engagement
on page is relatively low. May be the brand needs to rethink about their communication
and content strategy along with correct targeting.
While considering the customer service factor the brand replies personally to all the
participants of small quizzes they hold to build engagement. This is a great approach
by brand to motivate others to participate in these activities alongside maintaining
interaction and engagement with them.
Pepsodent’s ‘About’ page and ‘Timeline’ is very well
crafted and gives a snapshot of growth history and
success of brand in Indian market. Although they
joined Facebook in 2010, they have Timeline posts
dated to previous years to showcase their activities
and campaigns of that time.
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Pepsodent on Twitter
As mentioned earlier, it seems like brand does not believe in social media and multichannel communication. There is no other justification for a brand like Pepsodent to be
totally absent on a major microblogging and social networking site like Twitter. Being
away from Twitter they are losing on the opportunity to get into direct conversations with
their followers and prospective customers. They can tap on these customers present
on Twitter by interacting with them, addressing their issues and finally converting them
into Pepsodent’s brand advocates.
Online Buzz
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As Pepsodent is present only on one Social Network i.e. on Facebook, most of the online
buzz comes from Social Networks. 56.7% mentions happened through Social Networks
and 42.6% mentions occur from microblogging sites like twitter. These mentions are
totally contributed by consumers and other fans and not a single impression is because
the brand.
Service Feedback
Out of all the posts, 9934 posts i.e. 54.2
% were written across Social Network,
especially Facebook which is the only
platform where brand is officially present.
Another important platform are microblogs
where 7459 posts i.e. 40.7 % of posts are
posted. Around 639 i.e. 3.5 % images are
shared and rest all the other platforms are
negligible.
Sentiment
Even though brand was not
active for the past one month
it still managed to gather
enormous amount of positive
sentiment around it across
online platforms. 92.9 % of
users have positive sentiment
about the brand and only 7.1 %
negative sentiment is spread
across. It is a matter of pride
for a brand that their absence
on social platforms is not
hampering their positive aura.
This positive sentiment shows
that the existing followers have
trust in brand’s offerings. This
may be because of neutral
and funny approach used in
their campaigns, which adds
great credibility and makes it
everybody’s favorite brand.
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Branding and advertising is a major contributor to positivity of brand and itself has
97.0 % positive sentiment and the reason for the same can be attributed to the comical
and engaging activities put up by the brand. Also the way brand personally replies to
all the entries of quiz makes it a very approachable brand. The factor which is majorly
responsible to bring negative sentiments is pricing, itself has 66.8 % negativity.
Conclusion
Pepsodent is neutral and a family product which aims to become an essential part for
Oral care. While pepsodent is worried about customer’s Oral health, its Social Media
health is very poor. Agreed it managed to garner lot of positivity around it which is
majorly because of its name, its parent family Unilever and branding done, but it fails to
build a good social community which can later on be converted into brand advocates.
Brand being inactive on Facebook and absent from Twitter is not justified in the times
of digitization. The brand should rework their communication plan and analyze the
huge opportunity they have to tap customers online. May be monitoring and tracking
digital impressions can help in revamping their Online personality.
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Vicco Paste belongs to Vicco Laboratories founded in 1952 by Vicco Group of
Companies. The group manufacturers Indian Ayurvedic Herbal Medicinal Oral Care
Products like herbal tooth paste Vicco Vajradanti Paste, Herbal toothpaste, Sugar Free
Vicco Vajradanti SF Paste, Herbal Tooth Powder, Vicco Vajradanti powder etc.
Vicco recently made its debut on Social Media, 2013 on 2 major platforms. My study
period is based on the last 30 days (15th May to 15th June 2014) and in depth analyses
of Vicco’s Social Media Strategy.
Audience Analysis
Vicco has highly uneven gender distribution on
social media. Major contribution in interacting
with posts is by male followers than female
followers. Out of all 75.6 % of customers are
males and remaining 24.4 % are females. It is
strange to have imbalanced gender distribution
especially when brand tries to target both the
genders equally and takes a neutral approach
in their communication.
Monthly Timeline Chart
VICCO on Facebook
Being a new entrant on Facebook, Vicco’s fan base is only 199.5 K and only 1000 people
are talking about it, which is an alarm for the brand to buck up and try more innovative
and resilient approach to increase their follower base. Vicco’s Facebook page is not
only dedicated towards their oral care products, it caters all the products. Brand is
very irregular in posting content on their page and amongst it they rarely post about
their Oral care products.
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In last one month voice
generation on Facebook
was done by stakeholders
through 7933 posts, i.e 96.7
% out of all and remaining
3.3 % was through brand’s
269 posts. This is very
uneven distribution of
voice.
Content Strategy on Facebook
As the products of Vicco are ayurvedic and natural, the content strategy is also themed
around nature and its benefits with the usage of a hashtag #GoNatural. Wherever possible
brand very cleverly tries to use general and searched hashtags relevant to their posts like
#natural, #BeAwesome, #BeOriginal, #monsoons, #umbrella, #HappyMonday etc.
Vicco runs a series of post with their hashtag #Viccology through which they showcase
benefits of ayurvedic ingredients used in their products.
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In an attempt to post content which can
engage people and increase interaction
level on page brand publishes some puzzles
related to the product. It is an intelligent
way to advertise product as well as engage
people with the product.
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Strangely display picture of brand is not the logo or any product, it is of a beautiful
smiling woman. This gives a wrong impression that the page belongs to women oriented
product and clearly does not gives an insight about the brand.
Despite of all the efforts posts receives less interaction and thereby reducing engagement
score on page. May be the brand needs to rework their content and communication strategy
with an effort for collaborative agenda to gain more followers and make it a unisex brand.
One noticeable and appreciating effort by the brand is that they try to initiate a
conversation with people who engage with
posts either through like or comment. This adds
to their engagement score and it is a great way
for customer service.
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VICCO on Twitter
Twitter is only used to increase digital footprints and it is not leveraged the way it is
meant to be. Facebook page of Vicco is linked to their Twitter account @Vicco_Labs,
each and every post published on Facebook automatically gets tweeted through their
twitter handle with a fb link attached to it.
Brand takes no initiative
to communicate with
followers on Twitter and
indulge in conversation
with them. It looks like
twitter account is not of
their concern and the
brand resorts to an easy
route to manage both the
platforms. Vicco has only
31 followers on twitter
which is almost negligible
for any brand if they want
to make presence felt
digitally.
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Online Buzz
As Facebook is an important social networking platform for Vicco where most of the activity
is done, maximum online buzz about the brand comes from Social Networks. Surprisingly
91. 7% mentions happen through Social Networks and as less as only 7.5% mentions occur
through microblogs like Twitter. It is justified as there is almost no activity done by brand
on this platform. This huge difference is justified as every tweet by their twitter accounts
brings back to Facebook, thereby increasing traffic on their Facebook page. Blog mentions
are negligible.
Service Feedback
Vicco is majorly active only
on Social Networks especially
Facebook therefore out of all
the posts, 7495 posts i.e. 91.2 %
were published across Social
Network. Another important
platform is microblogs where
614 posts accounting for 7.5%
are posted. Rest all the other
platforms are negligible.
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Sentiment
Although Vicco recently joined
digital world yet it managed
to garner positive sentiments
for itself. 70.7% of users have
positive sentiment about the
brand and only 29.3 % of them
have negative sentiment. This
positive
sentiment
shows
that although they have small
follower base the existing ones
have trust in brand’s offerings.
This may be because brand
highlights the hidden benefits
of their products and tries to
maintain transparency in terms
of their product offerings.
The dedicated efforts done to
interact with followers adds to
positive sentiments.
Vicco
is
a
non-cosmetic
ayurvedic brand therefore all
its branding and advertising
is based on it, highlighting a
natural and healthy approach
through their communication.
Brand tries to personally
suggest and guide followers
to use natural products this is
the reason why branding and
advertising itself has 84.3 %
positive sentiments. Another
feature for positive sentiment
is pricing, but it plays negative
role
when
compared
to
branding and advertising.
Conclusion
Vicco provides unisex oral care products still its follower base includes more of males
than females. The communication strategy used by the brand is in line with product
but it is not channelized. There is an urgent need for a focused and state-of-the-art
campaign strategy to bring in more followers and engagement on the page. Monitoring
their activities on different platforms can help them in utilizing the platforms to the
best of their potential.
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Comparative Analysis of
Oral Care Brands
After analyzing brands individually here is the comparison
of these brands on few parameters like number of posts,
sentiments, features distribution and mentions.
Oral Care Industry offers products which are unisexual and
are targeted neutrally to both the genders. There is an almost
equal gender distribution in the industry but a few brands
individually have more of male followers.
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Number of Posts
All the brands are irregular in
posting content on their social
profiles but amongst all the
frequency of content posts
from Vicco are relatively high,
this can be attributed to their
new hashtags #GoNatural
and #Viccology. Pepsodent is
absent on social media since
mid May and thus contributed
zero posts in studied time
frame.
Colgate
manages
average
content
posting.
Vicco’s number of posts, 177
was the highest amongst the
three brands.
Source of Posts
The various sources of post are social networks, microblogs, blogs, news, reviews,
complaints etc. Social Networks are major contributor for almost all the brands but for
Colgate highest number of mentions occurs through Microblogs. Colgate received 59.2%
mentions from microblogs. On the other hand, Vicco and Pepsodent received 91.4% and
56.4% of mentions from Facebook respectively.
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Surprisingly not even a single brand studied above believes in using Twitter as their prime
social media platform to showcase their products and to connect with their prospective
customers.
Features Distribution
Most
brands
receive
mentions and positive
sentiment because of
Branding and Advertising.
Vicco leads the chart of
mentions about branding
and advertising by 98.8%.
This list is followed by
Colgate by 87.1%mentions
for the same feature.
In case of Pepsodent it
receives approximately
26.1% of mentions for
Pricing.
Sentiment
Most brands manage to get positive sentiment across digital platform, mainly because of their
branding and advertising. The idea of content plan themed around nature and family adds an
emotional touch to the approach but what these brands need is a revamp in approach and
retargeting. Irrespective of the fact that
Pepsodent is absent on social media for longer period it still manages to get 92.2% positivity.
The reason for the same can be attributed to product’s performance. Colgate and Vicco have
negative sentiment in the range of 20-30%, which can be reduced easily.
In terms of customer
service, Pepsodent and
Vicco replies to all the
participants
engaging
with quizzes and other
similar activities on page
but Colgate rarely replies
to any on the comment. It
is necessary that brands
involve in one-to one
communication
with
followers as this add a
personal touch to the
relationship
and
rises
engagement score of the
page.
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Conclusion
Three brands studied earlier – Colgate, Pepsodent and Vicco, all have
distinctive content strategy but since the products are family oriented,
and their communication strategy is themed around family and nature.
There is a thin line to differentiate the approachamongst three of them.
Usage of Social media is new for Oral Care industry and most of them
made their debut recently, therefore there lay an opportunity for this
sector to uncover the benefits of having social presence. Brands need
to understand that socially active profiles of them can indirectly lead
to generation of brand advocates and prospective customers. The
Oral Care sector being a sub part of FMCG sector holds the potential
to artistically device a content plan which captivates the audience
and engages them with the brand. Current content strategy of brands
involves less of innovative posts to interact with fans and followers.
Colgate is active on Twitter but is not leveraging the medium to the
max of its potential. Therefore despite of the fact that most mentions
of Colgate take place because of their twitter activity the overall
engagement for the brand is really low, which suggest that they can
still tap on lot more followers. Vicco is a recent entrant to social media
and therefore it makes honest effort to garner more followers but the
approach used by them is not up to the mark, the brand really needs
to buckle up and work hard to refine their strategy. Pepsodent lags
behind in the race for Oral Care Brands on Social Media. The Brand
is not present on twitter at all and is inactive on Facebook from past
1 month. This kind of approach can eventually lead to fall in trust
bestowed on Pepsodent by their customers thereby losing them.
They really need to rework on their communication plan and practice
regular consistency in content.
These brands should start monitoring and analyzing their activity on
Social Media, and they will definitely realize their short comings and
which might help them in devising focused and impactful campaigns
which make greater impression on brand’s profile.
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