I had earlier written my thoughts on bollywood celebrities on twitter at pluggdin wherein one of my observations was:
“Considering the influence which celebrities have on Indian consumers and twitter becoming twilmy I’m wondering if the next trend will be celebrities endorsing brands on twitter or promoting services amongst their followers”
So it comes as no surprise to me when I read the news of Gul Panag being the ‘Twitter Face’ of the forthcoming Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. Wills Lifestyle has initiated this association to explore the platform of new age media and to engage with the patrons of WLIFW in an interesting fashion. For the very first time in the world, a celebrity will tweet directly from the event venue on the on-goings of the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. Recognizing the growing popularity of Twitter in India and especially of Gul Panag on this platform, Wills Lifestyle decided to take on board Gul Panag as the ‘Twitter Face’ to cover the event for this medium. You can read more details of the story here.
Indeed a smart way of interacting with fans and viewers. And smarter is the choice of celebrity as Gul definitely knows the art of customer engagement and involvement in this space. With her loyal fan following and twee-peal (twitter-appeal), I’m sure Gul will manage to create enough word of mouth and viral effect for WLIFW this year. She has already started creating the excitement with special contests for tweeple where winners are going to get free passes for the event. With more and more Indian brands jumping on to the twitter bandwagon over last couple of months, I think it would be fair to say that twitter is one of the fastest adapted new age media by Indian marketers; it has proved to be a great communication medium, in fact in digital media right now it is definitely “THE” marketing medium so to say.
Image Source: GroveMarketingBlog
Presence on social media has become a hygiene factor for most of the brands and many Indian brands / events / services are using different social media platforms for different purposes. Some of them have been successful whereas some are still trying to figure out the use beyond posting links of advertising campaigns or PR coverages. But despite this mix, noteworthy thing is the innovative ideas which Indian marketers are coming out with for new age mediums like twitter. I personally loved this idea of a tech-savvy bollywood personality being “twitter face” of WLIFW and I think it’s one of its kinds in Indian market currently. Now let’s wait and watch which other brands follow the suit. Though a word of caution here for marketers would be to think carefully before deciding on this “me too” strategy as not all celebs can actually create the same aura in this medium and also not every product / service needs to be promoted through this platform.
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