On the occasion of Social Media Day 2022, Aparna Kulkarni, Marketing Director at Natural Diamond Council, in an exclusive interaction with MediaBrief, speaks about how Social Media empowers marketing and how brands have modified their communication approach to leverage the medium. She underlines the role of Social in Natural Diamond Council’s media mix and highlights the importance of L&D for digital marketing teams.Read on.
Social Media Day is celebrated each year to recognise the impact that social media has had on communications around the world. So how has Social Media impacted your business and your communication approach?
Natural Diamond Council, and our consumer facing platform Only Natural Diamonds, have always been industry pioneers. As a digital-first company, we use social media to reach the younger, and more evolved, luxury shopper. Along with our website, which has had over 45 Mn visits in 2021 alone, our Instagram and YT channels are our primary modes of informing, educating and inspiring our consumers.
How are you celebrating the Day? What are your thoughts on moment marketing of commemorative days?
Moment marketing can be extremely beneficial to building your brand and making that instant connect with your audience, but can also have a very low impact if over-used or force-fit into your narrative.
In our industry, festive periods and certain buying occasions, like Valentine’s Day, continue to hold a lot of importance; but we are seeing a shift towards including other relevant days like an Emoji Day or an Environment Day, which shows that we trying to speak the language that our consumer wants.
List three strong ways Social Media empowers marketing. What role does it play in your Media mix? By how much is the pie for Social media in a Brands’ marketing mix increasing? By what percentage has your social media marketing budget grown over the past?
Social media empowers marketers because it offers instant gratification to your consumer and a window into your world, it is a platform for them to discover your brand and explore what you have to offer, and it allows you to bond with them in a more personal manner.
Gone are the days when brands would have a top-down approach of communicating with their target audiences. Today’s user wants to know everything about you, before he / she decides to invest their time and money in your brand, and social media is the tool that allows you both to stay connected. For us, social media is a large part of our overall digital budget, and we have seen it grow year on year.
How important is it for every marketing and brand and other vertical teams to be given L&D help on learning digital marketing (and social media as a part of it, of course)? What initiatives does your company undertake on this count?
The world of digital marketing is constantly evolving, and as marketers we need to adapt and adopt all the new tools available to us. While our company does offer learning opportunities for all employees, based on their area of specialization and interest, I don’t think you can solely rely on external courses for knowledge-gathering.
I believe that a large part of this learning happens on the job, as you get more exposure and try out new things. Not everything works, but the experience gained is invaluable. The time you invest in personal research, reading and keeping abreast of what’s new also plays a huge role in your individual development.
