Maruti Suzuki Ritz has become the most popular brand in India by clocking a record fan base of over 1 million (1,018,000+ members) on popular social networking site Facebook. Maruti Suzuki Ritz made its debut on Social media in August 2010.
The success of Ritz on social media front is attributed to the various user engagement programmes and initiatives on social media activities done by the Company. Ritz took up the Social media route to engage with its customers through dedicated pages on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube etc, to engage and effectively connect with users.
Speaking on the occasion Mr. Shashank Srivastava, Chief General Manager (Marketing), Maruti Suzuki India said, “Today India has over 100 million people using internet. As a market leader it is of prime importance for us to make our presence in the social media space. The growing digital media is cost effective and highly efficient way to build relationship with our target audience. Ritz clocking over a million fans reinforces our leadership on the social media spectrum”.
Maruti Suzuki with dedicated social media pages for its each brand has increased its digital media spends hugely.
India’s bestselling car, the Maruti Suzuki Alto has also made its mark on the social media with over 4.14 lakh fans. Alto sells close to 3 lakh units annually, way ahead of any competing model.
Some of the social media activities undertaken for engaging existing as well as future customers of RITZ are:
Ritz ‘Moment of the Day’ – The brand philosophy of ‘Live the Moment’ was taken forward on the virtual space by creation of a daily property Ritz ‘Moment of the Day’. The most engaging story of the day was adjudged the Moment of the Day by means of polling by the fans themselves. This ongoing initiative has gained huge popularity amongst its fans. The success of the campaign flowed into the next level by creation of Ritz ‘Moment of the Year’.
http://tinyurl.com/6qkttrp
‘Live the moment’ contest – Ritz users were invited to share their driving experiences on an interactive website. The best entry was awarded a brand new Ritz. It was the first time that a car was given away as a prize in India through Facebook. The contest saw participation of around 49,000 stories being shared by Ritz owners and the User Generated Content (UGC) was further used to build a national brand campaign on magazine media.
http://livethemoment.ritzbymaruti.com/homepage.aspx
Ritz is even active on other Social Media apart from Facebook. Ritz created a page on Google +, prior to the Auto Expo and used its innovative engagement tool ‘Hangout’ to interact with its fans during the Auto Expo. Hangout allowed fans to experience the Auto Expo through a live video web-chat. Ritz is the only individual product brand currently in India to have a fan page on Google+. LinkedIn Polls have also been used quite effectively by the brand.
These special initiatives have made Ritz to become the biggest community in the India Auto Category and the first one to achieve a fan base of over 1 million fans.
https://www.facebook.com/ritzbymaruti.
