The Nielsen Company and McKinsey & Company have launched their global joint venture NM Incite in India. The JV has been created with the intention of enabling leading companies to harness the power of social media intelligence.
“Social media is a fast developing platform for consumer opinion and can emerge as an ocean of insight for brands that care to listen. NM Incite aims to help marketers understand this media better and leverage it for growth,” said Piyush Mathur, president, India, The Nielsen Company.
According to a study conducted by Nielsen Online among 800 online consumers in India to gauge the impact of social media in the country, 70 percent of all social networking users access it every day. Only two percent of the people surveyed are not on any social networking sites. 4.7 million messages were posted in the last one year across the top 25 Indian forums.
One in two people, across all age groups, have interacted with a brand on a social networking site in the last one year and 57 percent have reviewed at least one product in the last 12 months. Three out of four people have read expert reviews on consumer electronics/ durables in the last one year, with the highest reviews in the category done by 41-45 year olds. Three out of four teens has become a fan of a brand online. More women read expert car reviews than movie or clothing reviews.
Online reviews also appear to be influencing decision making today. 77 percent of the users visited a product’s website after reading its review on social media. 52 percent of those who read online reviews about a product bought it. Seven out of ten people who bought a product used online reviews as the main or only source of information.
Variation in social media usage can be seen across different age groups. 37 percent of heavy social media users in India (who use it multiple times a day) fall in the age group of 21-30 years. The most likely age group to click on an ad on a social networking site is the 31-40 year olds, with 69 percent of those surveyed in this age group having clicked on an ad on a social networking site. 89 percent of the 15-20 year olds access a social networking site everyday and 60 percent of them spend at least half an hour on social networking each day. A quarter of the social media users in the 15-20 age group read expert reviews on the stock market. Only eight percent of the total social media users surveyed have not read a product/ service review in the past one year.
“Our clients recognize the importance of social media today. They are now on the lookout for an opportunity to harness the potential of this rapidly evolving medium. NM Incite will help companies do this, by leveraging on the wealth of social media expertise that Nielsen and McKinsey bring to the table,” said Mathur.
NM Incite is headquartered in New York and is led by Dave Hudson (previously executive vice president, global client services of Nielsen’s Telecom Practice) as chief executive officer.
