This is a presentation on how companies' and brands can use social media sites / networks for business purposes. This presentation discusses various uses like Customer Service, Customer Engagement, Integration with traditional media etc. This may not be exhaustive and there could be many more innovative ways in which businesses can use / are using social media to achieve their business objectives, but effort is to share some most common purposes.

1. Social Media for Business
Presented by:
Harbinder Narula
Ex-Googler, Digital Entrepreneur,
Currently helping companies with their
Digital Media Strategies

2. Objective of this presentation
Social media sites help people communicate and converse online.
Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ are among the
most popular, and online users check these sites almost every day.
Over the last few years, businesses have started seeing value in
joining these conversations to engage with these users, who may be
either be their existing or prospective customers. This presentation
is an effort to share a few ways in which businesses can use social
media to better engage with online users, to grow their business.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

3. Improve Customer Care
Social Media Sites & Social
Networks give your customers
direct access to your business.
This provides an opportunity to
listen to what they have to say
and learn how they feel about
your business. Participating in
these online conversations by
being responsive and offering
access to you, works brilliantly
for your customer service.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

4. Manage Complaints
Social media sites allows
customers to leave comments on
how you're doing. You must
monitor these comments and
listen when they complain or
criticize your business. This not
only helps in getting valuable
feedback, but also a chance to
reply and repair your image into
a positive image of a business
that cares.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

5. Share Case Studies & Stories
Proof of happiness is powerful
in establishing the credibility of
the company. Social media
offers a lot of opportunities to
get real testimonials and share
them with others. Positive
feedback from customers can
be seen instantaneously by
anyone who accesses your
brand’s profile.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

6. Employee Engagement
Brands / Companies can use their
social media sites for idea
generation and development.
Companies can Give their employees
a platform where they share their
ideas. Such networking platforms
can be closely monitored (and even
be controlled) and could be used to
either keep in touch, offering
newsletters, sharing updates and
launching or managing employee
development and incentive
programs.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

7. Boost Customer Loyalty
Brands can use their social
media profiles to run their
customer loyalty programs by
offering incentives and
rewards. Applications &
widgets can be created on
these sites & platforms and
everything can be managed
right there without any more
punch cards.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

8. Generate New Business
Online Social Media presence
gives brands free advertising
on some of the largest
message boards. People can
find the companies’ business /
brand profiles through Web
searches and their friends'
profiles. This is a great way to
attract new customers and
scale businesses.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

9. Market Intelligence
Social Media engagement makes it
extremely simple to get to know
your target market. You can not
only find out exactly who enjoys
your products / services, but you can
also know what else they like.
Companies have traditionally spent
large amounts in market research to
gather this information and all they
need to do is invest a little time.
Brands can try & understand the
user behavior and consumption
patterns from such social media
interactions.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

10. Branding
Every company has a brand
message which they want to
share with their users. Social
Media offers an opportunity
to regularly reinforce this
message by easy shares
among their fans and groups
who may be existing
customers or prospects.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

11. Connecting the Dots
Social Media can easily be integrated
(& should be) with with the website
and other promotional & marketing
tools. This can not only help in
increasing traffic but also provides
opportunity to effectively use
traditional forms of advertising more
effectively by engaging with the target
audience and crating interactivity. With
widespread use of smart phones,
brands can also engage through
widgets and apps that allow the
brands to link everything together for
maximum exposure at the consumers
convenience.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

12. Multimedia Exposure
There was a time when expensive
television commercials were the only
way to share brand experience &
advertisement through videos. Now
most social media sites have
multimedia applications that can be
used. There is an opportunity for any
brand to create videos showing what
the company is all about or
demonstrate products to their
customers. This multimedia approach
helps in building the corporate
image, giving it more personal touch
and providing a strong top-of-the-mind
recall.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

13. Transactions
Making actual sales & enabling
transactions is one of the strongest
business use case of social media.
Through testimonials and
multimedia demonstrations the
probability of positive purchase
decision increases. Apart from
redirecting the purchaser to transact
on the business website through
integrated payment gateways, some
of the social media sites even offer
opportunity of serving as online
retail front & transacting there itself.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

14. Word of caution: When you put anything online, it is
difficult to retract from it, so it is important for you as a
business to spend time in planning this media, as
seriously as you would plan any other more expensive
traditional media like print or television. Social Media is
where your customers will be engaging in
conversations about your business and / or brand.
So, make sure that you define your objective, identify
the target audience and then continuously monitor the
campaigns to ensure the efficiency of your effort in
achieving the desired impact for the business.
Presentation by Harbinder Narula © www.harbindernarula.com

15. About the author
Harbinder Narula is an experienced &
resourceful professional who is focused on
New Media and Business Models around
Internet & Mobile. He has built cross
functional understanding across products,
technology and business models critical for
success.
Harbinder has worked at companies like
Google (including YouTube India), Indiatimes,
Aryty & Buongiorno and also co-founded
WonderDoctor –an online product focused
on preventive healthcare.
He currently advises businesses on digital
solutions that can help them achieve their
business objectives.
Contact: +91.9910773666 Email: mail@harbindernarula.com