Social Media as a Tool of Marketing: A Study of Indian Automobile Industry

Abstract

The automotive industry is a sector that combines innovation, creativity, science, technology, ideas that bring momentum to the economy, people and the whole nation. The “YouDrive” Mercedes advertisement of 2013 is one example of social media marketing creativity in the automobile industry. The Mercedes team reported 3.8 million views of their YouTube channel in the 3 weeks following the campaign (Mercedes-benz website, 2013). Automotive industry has widely accepted this digital platform and Fans growth is considered as the most preferred method to measure success of social media marketing. The objective of this paper is to understand the concept and to study the current scenario of social media marketing in the automobile industry. This paper further considers the various key performance indicators (KPIs) used for social media measurement and the reasons behind adopting social media marketing. This paper also tries to identify the relationship between social media marketing, fans growth and sales generation.

Keywords: Social Media Marketing, Automobile Industry, Fans Growth, Sales generation

JEL Classification: M31, M37