What's Ching's Secret?

There was an ET article on brands doing well in social media. True to mass media understanding of social media, it was a bit sketchy, a bit rudderless & reflected the general lack of understanding of the social landscape.

My friend & fellow digital road warrior - Shubho has done some analysis on his blog here...That in turn inspired me to have a dekko at Ching's Secret, Barista Lavazza and Just Dial Facebook pages...

Here's my analysis and ranking of these 3 brands on a 5 point scale where 5 - excellent and 1 - very poor.

1. Intent
Ching's Secret - The top management buys into social media. Lives and breathes it. The only brand to talk about the ET article on its fb page the same day!!
Rating - 5

Barista Lavazza - Looks like the social strategy is still at the marketing department level. Top management says - Lets see what happens, then we will scale up guys!
Rating - 3

Just Dial Social media for these guys is just another mass media channel. Judging by the quality of the strategy, it's still quite low on intent.High usage of the medium, low social intent of the brand.
Rating - 1

2. Content
Ching's Secret- Recipes is a great long running idea. Cooking is a bestseller conversation topic, immenselty shareable. Doesn't really matter if the recipes appear cut-n-paste. Content repurposing is part of the social media strategy.
Rating - 5

Barista Lavazza- The content is still small print ads dressed up insufficiently as conversation!
Rating - 3

Just Dial- Very boring and repetitive, It's a shame because with a product as engaging and diverse as Just Dial they could have really capitalised on content. Bollywood and sports however keep the people involved on the page...
Rating - 3

3. Engagement & CQ(Conversation Quotient)
Ching's Secret - Pretty high engagement and CQ. Is genuinenly a social brand and not a pretender. Not trying hard at all. The frequency of content upload matches the social vibrancy of both the brand & fb!
Rating - 5

Barista Lavazza - Quite average. Again promos pretending to be brand conversations & driving social currency.
Rating - 2

Just Dial- Below par. The comments by 'fans' are solely for/ because of Bollywood. Zero engagement with the brand Just Dial.
Rating - 1

4. Community
Ching's Secret - Lots of traction and not merely transactional.
Rating - 4

Barista Lavazza - Casual connect.
Rating - 3

Just Dial - Akin to people at a railway platform. High traffic. zero connect.
Rating - 1

5. Voice & Personality
Ching's Secret- Has a unique voice , has a sense of humour. Very human , very Ching , very consistent!
Rating - 5

Barista Lavazza- Quite artificial, very mass media tonality. Quite 1 way...
Rating - 3

Just Dial - The voice & personality of a bulletin board with pictures:-)
Rating - 1

While putting this post up, I commented on the Ching's Secret fb page a little before mid-night and pat came their reply...That's some impressive commitment to social media and consumers as people. These guys truly walk the talk!

Cheers and Happy Diwali