Social Media and Business Practices During Covid-19 crisis

“Marketing one’s presence on social media is as important as creating one’s presence.” In a world of physical distancing, aspiring entrepreneurs and managers need to have an understanding the know-how of the digital spectrum called social media to succeed. The BBA Department of The Bhawanipur Education Society College presents a webinar on “Social Media and Business Practices During Covid-19 crisis” on the 29th of September 2020.

The first acclaimed speaker for the event was P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan (PhD – IIT Kanpur), Professor of Information systems at the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He researches and teaches about interaction of information and communication technologies (ICTs), Society & Business. Dr Ilavarasan had taught at Pondicherry Central University and Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, Indore and Amritsar. His present teaching interests include: Social media & Business practices, Management information systems and many more. Dr. Ilavarasan has been a Visiting Research Fellow at United Nations University – School of Computing and Society (Macau) and School of Management, Curtin University (Perth). He is a recipient of the Outstanding Young Faculty Fellowship Award at IIT Delhi and Prof. M.N. Srinivas Memorial Prize of the Indian Sociological Society. He has received large research grants from Dept of Science & Technology (Govt of India), IPTS (European Commission) and many more reverenced institutions.

The second renowned speaker for the event was Mr. Bibek Sur has vast and illustrious experience in Sales and Strategy. He has been associated with Pepsico for the past 21 yrs. Currently, he is working in the capacity of Associate Director, Franchise Operations, East India. Earlier, was the Rural Go-to market head for India. He has worked in various geographical areas of India, and has taken the company forward with his extraordinary leadership skills.

The webinar was commenced by the moderator Dr. Suman Kumar Mukerjee, Director General, The Bhawanipur Education Society College. He postulates that social media marketing is about creating content that brings one’s audience together as a community and inspiring authentic conversations while increasing one’s brand awareness. He believes that during such times of Covid-19 where people need to physically distance from each other, social media bridges the gap between customers and existing business enterprises. He was also an avid person to cross-examine the speakers and be a spokesperson for the enthusiastic audience members wanting to grasp all the speakers proficiency of the related topic.

Dr. Ilavarasan shared his expertise on the vestigial business institutions during this pandemic while building their foundations on the pillar of social media. He also spoke about types of branding, first being internal branding, explaining with example of that of Amazon that is connecting employees to one’s company’s external brand. Thus, meaning that showing one’s team what that brand means and to ensure they understand and believe in the company mission. Secondly, he spoke about info-branding/ gamification that is advertising the product of the company along with raising customer awareness about the on-going crisis. Preaches that during this era of the 21st century that is technologically driven the organisations have adopted the new marketing schemes and use influencers with millions of followers to promote their products. This pandemic era has caused the companies to become creative in order to thrive and thus including strategies such as contactless delivery by Swiggy, Zomato etc. and augmented reality to shop for products without requiring the physical need to be present at the shop.

Mr. Bibek Sur believes that “change is the only constant”. He sermonizes that social media is such an important communication tool in 2020, and we know as we all try to navigate unexpected and unprecedented challenges, many of the customers and teammates will turn to social media for some form of support. And as many around the globe isolate, social media might become an even more important channel for communication and a sense of community. The co-speaker renowned orator Om Jha, with 13 years of experience across different industries and organizations. Lead media for PepsiCo in India region and has been in the role for more than a year now. Mr.Om spoke about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM), gave the audience of how to utilize keywords to get optimal solutions in order to shop at a time saving speed. He also explained the companies bid on the former keyword, so their advertisement is placed first and thus reach the favourable number of customers. He also enlightened the audience about e-commerce, digital marketing, and Stockdale Paradox.

The convenor for the respected event was Dr. Tridib Sengupta, HOD, Department of Management, he interacted with the speakers, cross- questioning the marketing theories and providing his inputs of the same.

The audience were rendered speechless with the knowledge provided to them.

The event was a huge success owing it to the organisers of the event Professor Jayjit Chakraborty of the BBA Department and Dr. Tridib Sengupta. Presidents of the BBA- Event Management committee Dikshya Jha and Suyash Somvanshi along with Prof. Kaushik Banerjee Event Management Teacher Coordinator played a pivotal role for the success of the event.