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35 Indian Social Media Marketing Case Studies

A case study is a real-life report which is related to a particular event over a period of time. They play an important role in the understanding of an event and facilitate the information presenting process of any event. Similarly, case studies on social media marketing brands bring out creativity and innovation.

Indian social media landscape is a fantastic way for promotion. By using social networking sites the growth was not just seen, even there was a massive interest shown by a lot of Indian brands on this platform. Where is the list of brands whose case studies have been described above by social media:

Online digital wallet Paytm has launched many successful companies. The “seal of trust” and “#paytm Karo” were successful. Paytm uses the concept of cashback, partnering with all the operators, brands, and dedicated customer support to give it a great increment.

The digital mascot of ICICI’s “live without cash” promotion and the concept of teaching youth about the benefits of debit and credit cards.

• Housing.com

With the title of “lookup”. The brand creates responses with “lookup moments” where people share their pictures and keep the momentum.

• Tata Motors

Tata motors were launched in a very unique influencer-based promotion . In this brand 4 social media influencers with a large following compacted in a reality-based event.

This is a smart advertisement promotion launched by this brand.  The “Todo Nahi Jodo” was a campaign that was not done on a large scale and still managed to talk about during the time period.

Ariel detergent brand from P&G in a smart digital marketing question about gender equality.

Me too Movement in India which turned out to be one of the biggest movements of the kind in social media in India.

• Swiggy Voice of Hunger

Swiggy India as a food delivery after that has become a leading player in the sector within a short time of four years. The new feature of voice message where people can interact with the post by voice is 1 minute long.

• Spotify India IPL campaign

Spotify was the leading music streaming app in many countries, this suggests that each occurrence in a cricket field should be merged into an IPL game with Spotify.

•  Chowkidar

This Idea was launched by the intern students of the digital marketing course in Delhi. They used a counter-offensive marketing strategy in which a brand attacks the market by targeting the weakness of the competition.

• # BringBackRolaCola

Rola Cola was a Cola flavor parle Candy that was sold on the Indian market in the nineties but later discontinued during a consumer relation life cycle by the company.

• Beyond frames

The brand of digital cameras from Panasonic and pioneer in 4K mirrorless cameras.

Shaadi.com is India’s largest wedding portal that was launched on Valentine’s Day.  #wohekbaat where a couple posted there one common thing which brought them together.

• Idea’s # Merireallife

Which social media having a big impact on the life of people today, the brand Idea campaign #Meri real life was designed to propagate responsible use of social media.

• The tweeting newspaper

It was taking newspapers in the past and tweeting newspapers this time. In that, a question from the newspaper was asked and many users tweet with answers and win daily prizes.

• Bewakoof.com

Bewakoof.com is not aligned to the E-commerce market which started in 2012 by the members of a digital marketing course in West Delhi. It was about changing Trends, not just fashion.

• Star Sports

What is Star Sports ICC event promotion, the sports channel brand known for its updates?

• Sundaram Masthead

This highlights the power of YouTube and video marketing techniques to increase brand awareness.

In this brand awareness increased by showing the brand’s modern and premium range to make it the perfect choice for gifting.

Greeting card touching and significant component for the saviors of India’s furry friends.

Zest money is a first payment platform that permits clients to make buys without a credit card.

Shop 101 presents a brief of reaching out to female Shoppers all over India and converting them as their customers.

• Airtel road to Vegas

Actor smartly integrated with the overall Integrated Marketing campaign of the brand.

• Adidas on Facebook

Cricket is my religion in India in order to connect to the target audience on the online space they had to connect Adidas with cricket.

• AXE angels club

The proposition of axe has always been the same: use the product in order to get an edge over others in the mating game.

• Asian Paints

It requires a social media marketing campaign that would convey the core message of the Asian Paints brand.

• HDFC Bank on social media

HDFC bank has a presence across eight social media channels out of which the present is on the social blog.

• Jugnoo Funding

Jugnu is a one-stop-shop for all your local needs. It provides a large range of local services on demand.

• ScoopWhoop Funding

It is an internet Media company from India that initially started as a content-generating company but now the company has also started serving as a news portal.

• Onlinetyari model

Onlinetyari.com is India’s web and mobile app form to provide a complete solution for online preparation for competitive exams .

BankBazaar is an online Marketplace for bank loans, credit cards, and insurance policies.

• RailYatri Train Travel

Rail Yatri is a traveling platform that provides the most up-to-date information to a million passengers.

The car trade is one of India’s leading online auto Marketplace transacting in new and used vehicles.

Nayika is an eCommerce platform for beauty and cosmetic products.

Lime road is a fashion and lifestyle e-commerce social shopping platform for women.

The social media scene in India helps gain the interest of youth where they choose to express themselves, communicate and respond to their favorite brand. This interaction caught the attention of brands that make the future of digital marketing.

Varsha Tiwari

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35 Indian Social Media Marketing Case Studies

Case study is a “real life report relating to a particular event, over a period of time.” They play a vital role in the deep understanding of an event and facilitate the information pertaining to process of such event. Similarly, case studies on social media and marketing brands brings out the creativity and innovation. Brands […]

by Sorav Jain | Dec 6, 2011 | Case Studies , Digital Marketing Practices

Case study is a “real life report relating to a particular event, over a period of time.” They play a vital role in the deep understanding of an event and facilitate the information pertaining to process of such event. Similarly, case studies on social media and marketing brands brings out the creativity and innovation. Brands from all sectors have been actively creating strategies to promote their campaigns through social media.

The last 5 years has been fantastic in the Indian Social Media landscape. The growth was not just seen in the usage of Social Networking sites, there was a massive interest shown by a lot of Indian brands on this platform. In no particular order here is the list of few brands whose case studies have been described in their blogs / website / nominated for award / written by blogger / analyzed by social media enthusiast.

1 Gionee India

The launch of Gionee E7 was one of the most unique launches in India. The product was launched at Buddha International Circuit, a recently built premium F1 Racing track. With hashtags #GioneeE7, #MadeForShooting and #RaceWithGionee, it was able to create a buzz on social media. With an incredible opportunity for participants to win a chance to witness the launch event, the Campaign received overwhelming response and was a great success. [Read More]

2. Housing.com

With the campaign “Look Up” and a logo projecting the same, the brand underwent change with new logo and an optimistic brand identity. The brand generated responses with #lookupmoments where people shared their pictures and kept up the momentum.

Vogue, a leading magazine brand teamed up with Bollywood’s popular face Deepika Padukone for a social media awareness campaign. Vogue’s #MyChoice and #VogueEmpower speaks about Women’s choice for equality. A two minute short film featuring Deepika and Homi Adajania created massive following and received words of appreciation from Amitabh Bachchan. [ Read More ]

4. Star Sports

For the Star Sports’ ICC Event promotions, the Sports Channel brand known for its quirky take in its ad campaigns brought on board the “Mauka Guy” who dons opposition’s jersey (against India) with every match. The back to back witty ads built buzz for the campaign on social networks. [ Read More ]

5. Tata Motors

Tata Motors’ hatchback Bolt was launched in a very unique influencer based campaign. Four social media influencers with huge following competed in a reality based event. The influencers needed to get a digital bolt key to their locked glass cubicles by creating maximum digital buzz. The winner took home the new bolt and his followers won prizes too. [Read More]

 6. Fevikwik

A smart advertisement campaign launched by Fevikwik when the sentiments of Indians were all time high during an India-Pakistan fixture. The #TodoNahiJodo campaign though not done on a larger scale, still managed to be talked about campaign during the period. [ Read More ]

Cashvenger, digital mascot of ICICI’s #LiveWithoutCash campaign, and the protagonist who teaches youth about the benefits of Debit and Credit Cards. The campaign for focused on six plans for youth to go online and cashless with the help of credit and debit cards. It also included a series of digital creative images posted on social media. [Read More]

Online Digital Wallet and Marketplace Paytm have launched many successful campaigns. “Seal of Trust” and #PaytmKaro were successful. The concept of cash backs, partnering with all the operators, brands and dedicated 24×7 Customer Support gave it a great push ahead of other rivals. [ Read More ]

The launch of Chumbak’s Delhi Store was done with a quirky campaign. The #bobbymissingcampaign was staged in a series of edited pictures where bobby was seen at different places and finally reached Delhi. Bobby being a popular character from their bobble heads was able to create a good following and yet another successful campaign for Chumbak. [Read More] 10. Ariel

11. Why this Kolaveri Di – Youtube Case Study – How it became a Overnight sensation.  ( Read Case Study )

12. How Facebook Applications are used by brands – Technology based Social Media engagement campaign. ( Review of 4 Apps) 

13. Adidas on Facebook – Cricket based Social Media marketing case study (Read Case Study)

14. Axe – Facebook Marketing Case Study (Read Case Study)

15. Asian Paints  – Tag a Holi Friend Campaign on Facebook (Read Case Study)

16. HDFC Bank on Social Media – How they listen customers on Twitter ( Read Case Study )

17. Kingfisher Beerup – How Kingfisher Beer organizes Tweetups and helps promote brand value   ( Read Case Study )

18. The Tweeting Newspaper – Volkswagen – Fair integration of Traditional and Social Media  ( Read Case Study ) | How volkswagen uses Social Media using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube (Read Case Study)

19. Listening on Social Media – Snapdeal.Com | How poor advertising leads to bad online reputation  ( Read Case Study )

20. Evalueserve – Using LinkedIn for lead generation and brand building (Read Case Study)

21. Volkswagen India Campaign Inspires 2,700 Recommendations in 4 Weeks on LinkedIn (Read Case Study)

22. Dance India Dance-2- How engagements were created on Social Media for the popular TV show- Social Media Case Study ( Read Case Study )

23. How Anna Hazare Used Social Media for Anti Corruption Campaign in India  ( Read Case Study )

24. MTV roadies- complete Social Media integration – The most explosive youth brand in the country (Read Case Study)

25. How unbranded community on Facebook works out- Shari Academy of Photography Case Study ( Read Case Study )

26. How Nando’s Peri-Peri Discount Offer worked out On Facebook ( Read Case Study )

27. Channel V Using Twitter to create buzz around the relaunch of channel[V] (Read Case Study)

28. IPL multiplied with the power of social media with spectators worldwide- YouTube case study (Read Case Study)

29    Maggi Noodles India : Social Media Marketing Efforts (http://ravindrakhandelwal.com/2011/07/maggi-noodles-india-social-media-marketing-case-efforts/)

30. How JustBooks Clc uses Facebook to connect with their target audience by creating memory games. ( Read Case Study )

31. 7UP Lemon Pattalam – Facebook Marketing Case Study (Read Case Study)

32. Hard Rock Cafe Battle Of The Bands Facebook Voting ( Read Case Study )

33. How Indian Magazines are using social media |Mentioned: Vogue India | Forbes India (Read Case Study)

34. How health care sector in India Use Social Media – Case Study of Narayana Netralaya ( Read Case Study )

35. Ching’s Secret – The most popular Indian Social Media brand ( Read Case Study )

The social media scene in India has begun to gain interest of youth where they choose to express themselves, communicate and respond to their favourite brands. The interaction has caught the attention of brands and such campaigns are slowly becoming the future of Digital Marketing. Do share your favourite campaigns in the comments below.

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16 Comments

Please check link for point no. 19 Sorav. It is re-directing to the home-page of your site.

you should add LIC (LIC Indiaforever) case study. Good one. around 4lac fans and best engagement. in a difficult category. Krishnan.

Thanks for the suggestion Krishnan.

Jack in the Box Worldwide is the content-for-brands arm of Bang Bang Films. We are a thinking & doing company that combines film & animation, on-ground activation, mobile applications, television programming and digital platforms to create and distribute customized content for brands across multiple platforms and geographies.

Hiii Sorav, Great collection of case studies. Can you explain the strategy behind the facebook apps used for fun like, When you will Die, What’s your name worth and what’s your nature like that, why the create these type of apps. For branding or other purpose, thanks in advanced.

Its a tactic to build database 🙂 + drive traffic to their site and create impressions!

Hi Sourabh! Can u please tell me how to design a a digital marketing campaign for a politician and his party?

Hi, can you please be little elaborate with your query? In terms of which city, audience definition etc.

We would like to submit a few social media case studies of our clients which can be featured on the website. Please let me know the procedure for the same. It would be great if you could suggest me the format to submit it.

Drop me an email at sorav at echovme dot in.

Hii Sorav, Great collection of case studies browsing the internet to get new ideas to boost traffic but after reading this post thanks

Hi bro Now i have start new website http://www.digitalmarkethubs.com . i have improve my site so i will follow your ideas and you have send your case studies

[email protected]

I agree with you! I have to learn lots of things from this post, social media marketing is the important part of Digital marketing. Thanks!

This is excellent information. It is amazing and wonderful to visit your site.Thanks for sharing this information,this is useful to me…

Hiii Sorav, Great collection of case studies. We are the best SEO company in Delhi, India.

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How Brands are Nailing Social Space in India: Social Media Marketing Case Studies

“Online is old news.

Online in Social Media is today’s news.

Social Media is no longer a subset of Internet.

Social Media is the Internet. ” – Anonymous

This is not an exaggeration by any means but the reality of our times. Social Media controlling our behavior and defining not only our interactions but our lives at large, is no longer a far-fetched science fiction. Social Media is where we live now.

Social Media is the Internet. Give yourself some time to let it sink in with its complete force. Because this reality is not going anywhere, not anytime soon at least. Especially in the context of a vast, diverse and complicated developing country like India.

It’s a well-known fact that smartphones have led the Internet wave in our country over last half a decade. Thanks to the smartphone revolution and falling telecom prices, people in the remote areas of our country are using Internet in some or the other ways. And one can easily argue with authenticity and conviction that for most of the early internet users, Social Media really is all the Internet that they know.

On the onset, this seems to be one of the primary contributors to the immense growth that Social Media giants like Facebook have experienced in the last five years.

For marketers, advertisers and brands, this presents huge opportunities to experiment with Social Media as a key marketing communications platform. And the opportunity presented by Social Media to reach out to a large targeted audience is not lost on anyone.

Brands have rolled out many interesting campaigns across Social Media to communicate with their audience in different ways. Be it a small brand or behemoths like Google, Social Media has emerged as the go-to channel to reach out to the audience with their offering.

Let’s take a sneak peak into four interesting and successful Social Media Marketing case studies of campaigns rolled out by different brands during the last year, and see how it panned out across sectors.

Social Media Marketing in India: Case Studies

1.) avon india presents #payattention: a clutter-breaking breast cancer awareness campaign.

Campaign Objective

One of the key concerns about dealing with Breast Cancer is the lack of awareness and knowledge, especially on the parts of the victims. Not to forget the role that social stigma plays into keeping this ignorance going.

The marketing team of Avon India developed a strategic brand communication campaign with the central theme of #PayAttention , to address these concerns.

Early detection plays crucial role in treating a deadly disease like Cancer. Regular self examination is a simple and effective way to detect early signs of onset of Breast Cancer and if further diagnosis is required.

The objective was to spread awareness on breast cancer prevention protocol – the Breast Self-Examination – just 4 easy steps and a few minutes in a month when made a ritual, could help in an early detection of this disease and prevent countless lives.  (Source: Social Samosa)

The campaign faced the challenge of breaking the clutter of other Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. The challenge was not only to stand out with an effectively executed communication campaign but also to invoke sustained dialogue so that a behavioral change can be brought in to drive early detection of the disease.

To deal with this, the brand executed the campaign in four stages. To break the clutter, the campaign was launched a month prior to the arrival of Global Breast Cancer Awareness Month which is observed in October.

“We launched our campaign in September – way before the Breast Cancer Month in October to ensure our messaging does not get lost in the clutter of campaigns that arise specifically in October. Owing to this strategy we were able to organically gain influencers/ partners who willingly joined hands with us without expecting a penny in return of their associations.”

– Swati Jain, Avon India, Director of Marketing

The four stages of execution were as following:

Stage one: learning.

Marketing research was performed to understand Breast Cancer in depth and the finding were shared with key stakeholders like media, medical fraternity and celebrities etc. This helped in creating the groundwork in order to understand the gravity of the situation and that it can affect anyone.

Stage Two: Engagement

Avon India launched an official campaign website ( www.payattention.com ) to engage with and provide information around Breast Cancer to its audience.

A demonstrative video was also created and shared across channels including Social Media which helped generate awareness, create engagement and also drove engagement via influencers.

Sharing real-life survivor stories also generated engagement. All these engagement initiatives and Digital Marketing activities helped in creating buzz around the campaign.

Stage Three: Association

In stage three, the campaign went for on-ground association by taking influencers, bloggers and oncologists on board for this. Interactive sessions were held across many cities and an awareness marathon was also held in Kohima, among other impactful initiatives.

Stage Four: Partnership

At the last stage of the campaign, the brand partnered with the Indian Cancer Society to activate its medico vans in 7 cities, helping people understand the importance of early Breast Self-Examination.

In another important collaboration with DIVA – Centre for Breast Care, the brand conducted 10,000 free Breast exams across cities to include the marginal sections of the society in this fight against Breast Cancer.

As per Avon India, the campaign owned the highest Share Of Voice (SOV) with 15% of the total conversations, as against 1% SOV by the second best campaign.

On the offline platforms, the campaign reached out to 1.09 Billion people. The company claims to have generated PR value worth USD 206.7 Million with a media spend of just USD 2.5K, which is a huge RoI.

On social media, the brand managed to clock a reach of more than 917 million on Facebook, 101 million on Twitter, 109 Million through PR stories and 29 influencer videos with 36 million impressions. Additionally, over a 185 thousand interactions were created on Instagram, followed by 199 thousand interactions on Facebook posts.

#PayAttention also managed to become one of the top trending hashtags around Breast Cancer Awareness in the country during its run-time.

(Source : Social Samosa)

2.) Comic-Con India pulled off an organic Influencer Engagement Campaign with 57 Influencers

For its last edition, the marketing team of Comic Con India wanted to pull off a one-of-its-kind Influencer Marketing campaign. They wanted to leverage the fandom of its fans to promote the event across the country

The concept behind the campaign was to only generate authentic word-of-mouth on Digital Marketing channels via the truest of the true fans.

To ensure this, the team decided that they won’t pay the influencers for content creation or for promotion of the event. Hence, they needed to create a strong pull for the influencers so that they engage with the brand on their own.

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The team faced two main challenges in planning the execution of the campaign:

• How to find the truest of true comic fans in India?
• Since the campaign was non-paid, how would they plan the campaign structure and engagement?

Comic-Con brought team Qoruz on board to help them with both the challenges.

To zero in on the best possible influencers for the Comic -Con India events, Qoruz scanned through more than 2 lakh Indian influencer profiles using an advanced discovery engine, and found the people best matching the criteria laid down by the brand.

To activate these influencer and to also acknowledge Comic Con’s association with them for the activity, the team deployed Qoruz Rewards- a unique wizard-based proposition. The ultimate reward for these comic fans was a Super Fan VIP passes, a privileged all-expense paid VIP entry to the Comic-Con event fully loaded with free access to the event and loads of goodies and merchandise!

Through Qoruz Rewards that automates outreach, campaign management, and campaign analytics, Qoruz helped bring this unique non-paid influencer engagement campaign to reality for Comic Con India.

A total of 57 social media influencers participated in the campaign. They generated more than 225 pieces of original social media content, and created an unprecedented buzz around any such event in the country, purely via organic engagement.

The campaign received total engagements exceeding 31,000, with a unique reach of 1,75,000.

With this unique campaign, Comic-Con reached the right people, through the right people, at virtually no cost. Now that’s a successful Social Media campaign story to take inspiration from.

3. Mahindra LifeSpaces Builds a Green Army: #IAmGreenArmy

Mahindra Lifespaces intended to establish a deeper connect as an eco-friendly and as an eco-conscious brand. The brand wanted to strengthen its association with sustainable and eco-friendly communities.

A Social Media campaign #IAmGreenArmy was launched to communicate the brand philosophy to the social media audience by helping them inculcate eco-friendly habits in their daily lives.

The campaign was strategized around the insight that it takes at least 18 to 254 days to form a habit. Taking a cue from this the brand devised the initiative as an 18 day challenge.

The idea was to activate the audience to take simple steps in their day-to-day lives that would collectively have a significant impact on the environment.

Facebook and Twitter were chosen as the primary social media platforms for the campaign. The initiative was focused on inculcating green and sustainable living habits to promote energy conservation, and preservation of water and natural resources by recycling/ reusing materials and reducing waste.

A video was released to raise awareness around the #IAmGreenArmy challenge and to encourage people to participate in it. A simple challenge was posted everyday for the audience to take on. The challenge would include a simple yet effective task around eco-friendly behavior. Along with the tasks, the brand also would put out informative communication on how our behavior and actions impact the environment.

There was a daily winner who would be rewarded with prizes. Three ‘Green Challengers’ were selected as grand winners who completed all 18 challenges.

The launch video received more than 1,00,000 views across both Facebook and Twitter. This helped the brand receive a huge amount of entries for the challenge.

The campaign clocked a whopping 42 million impressions across platforms, whereas the engagement received on both Facebook and Twitter was over 2,60,000.

Over the course of 18 days, the page received 4,753 comments reflecting the power of successful and meaningful engagement by the campaign.

4.) A Ride to Remember: Ola Prime Time with Celebrity Influencers

Ola wanted to launch a dedicated campaign to promote new and improved offering from Ola, Prime Cab Service in Bengaluru with superior amenities such as free WiFi, best-rated drivers, and premium vehicles in the city.

The brand brought celebrity influencers on board to ride with the users when they requested for Ola Prime, so that the users could experience one of the most memorable rides. The ride was planned as a surprise to sweep the users off their feet.

Ola signed up with celebrities Milind Soman, Narain Karthikeyan and Abish Mathew, who not only have a great recall but also have a huge fan following on both online and offline channels.

When a user booked an Ola Prime during the campaign, these celebrities arrived in their cab to ride with them.

The idea was to bank on the popularity and brand value of these celebrities to spark interest, curiosity and strong brand recall among their audience.

Though we don’t have the access to the exact numbers, the company is reported to have received an increase in the number of Ola Prime bookings directly attributed to the campaign. The number of bookings are believed to have shot through the roof for Ola Prime as a result of the campaign.

Thrilled passengers, and the social media promotion around the activity helped the company drive conversation around their new service. Create Your Own Social Media Marketing Case Study

Writing an analysis of a Social Media Marketing campaign helps understand the mechanics of a successful campaign. This approach of constructive criticism helps shape our campaign strategies as Social Media Marketers.

Learn to evaluate Social Media Marketing Case Studies in effective manner and utilize the learnings in your own campaign planning. This is an effective yet not so explored method of learning from real life examples.

Do you agree?

Image Courtesy : Pitchonnet.com, Social Samosa, Ola

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The Facebook Papers

In India, Facebook Grapples With an Amplified Version of Its Problems

Internal documents show a struggle with misinformation, hate speech and celebrations of violence in the country, the company’s biggest market.

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By Sheera Frenkel and Davey Alba

On Feb. 4, 2019, a Facebook researcher created a new user account to see what it was like to experience the social media site as a person living in Kerala, India.

For the next three weeks, the account operated by a simple rule: Follow all the recommendations generated by Facebook’s algorithms to join groups, watch videos and explore new pages on the site.

The result was an inundation of hate speech, misinformation and celebrations of violence, which were documented in an internal Facebook report published later that month.

“Following this test user’s News Feed, I’ve seen more images of dead people in the past three weeks than I’ve seen in my entire life total,” the Facebook researcher wrote.

From the Document: An Indian Test User’s Descent Into a Sea of Polarizing, Nationalistic Messages

“The test user’s News Feed has become a near constant barrage of polarizing nationalist content, misinformation, and violence and gore .”

The report was one of dozens of studies and memos written by Facebook employees grappling with the effects of the platform on India. They provide stark evidence of one of the most serious criticisms levied by human rights activists and politicians against the world-spanning company: It moves into a country without fully understanding its potential impact on local culture and politics, and fails to deploy the resources to act on issues once they occur.

With 340 million people using Facebook’s various social media platforms, India is the company’s largest market. And Facebook’s problems on the subcontinent present an amplified version of the issues it has faced throughout the world, made worse by a lack of resources and a lack of expertise in India’s 22 officially recognized languages.

The internal documents, obtained by a consortium of news organizations that included The New York Times, are part of a larger cache of material called The Facebook Papers . They were collected by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager who became a whistle-blower and recently testified before a Senate subcommittee about the company and its social media platforms. References to India were scattered among documents filed by Ms. Haugen to the Securities and Exchange Commission in a complaint earlier this month.

The documents include reports on how bots and fake accounts tied to the country’s ruling party and opposition figures were wreaking havoc on national elections. They also detail how a plan championed by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, to focus on “meaningful social interactions,” or exchanges between friends and family, was leading to more misinformation in India, particularly during the pandemic .

Facebook did not have enough resources in India and was unable to grapple with the problems it had introduced there, including anti-Muslim posts, according to its documents. Eighty-seven percent of the company’s global budget for time spent on classifying misinformation is earmarked for the United States, while only 13 percent is set aside for the rest of the world — even though North American users make up only 10 percent of the social network’s daily active users, according to one document describing Facebook’s allocation of resources.

Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesman, said the figures were incomplete and don’t include the company’s third-party fact-checking partners, most of whom are outside the United States.

That lopsided focus on the United States has had consequences in a number of countries besides India. Company documents showed that Facebook installed measures to demote misinformation during the November election in Myanmar , including disinformation shared by the Myanmar military junta.

The company rolled back those measures after the election, despite research that showed they lowered the number of views of inflammatory posts by 25.1 percent and photo posts containing misinformation by 48.5 percent. Three months later, the military carried out a violent coup in the country . Facebook said that after the coup, it implemented a special policy to remove praise and support of violence in the country, and later banned the Myanmar military from Facebook and Instagram.

In Sri Lanka, people were able to automatically add hundreds of thousands of users to Facebook groups, exposing them to violence-inducing and hateful content. In Ethiopia, a nationalist youth militia group successfully coordinated calls for violence on Facebook and posted other inflammatory content.

Facebook has invested significantly in technology to find hate speech in various languages, including Hindi and Bengali, two of the most widely used languages, Mr. Stone said. He added that Facebook reduced the amount of hate speech that people see globally by half this year.

“Hate speech against marginalized groups, including Muslims, is on the rise in India and globally,” Mr. Stone said. “So we are improving enforcement and are committed to updating our policies as hate speech evolves online.”

In India, “there is definitely a question about resourcing” for Facebook, but the answer is not “just throwing more money at the problem,” said Katie Harbath, who spent 10 years at Facebook as a director of public policy, and worked directly on securing India’s national elections. Facebook, she said, needs to find a solution that can be applied to countries around the world.

Facebook employees have run various tests and conducted field studies in India for several years. That work increased ahead of India’s 2019 national elections; in late January of that year, a handful of Facebook employees traveled to the country to meet with colleagues and speak to dozens of local Facebook users.

According to a memo written after the trip, one of the key requests from users in India was that Facebook “take action on types of misinfo that are connected to real-world harm, specifically politics and religious group tension.”

Ten days after the researcher opened the fake account to study misinformation, a suicide bombing in the disputed border region of Kashmir set off a round of violence and a spike in accusations, misinformation and conspiracies between Indian and Pakistani nationals.

After the attack, anti-Pakistan content began to circulate in the Facebook-recommended groups that the researcher had joined. Many of the groups, she noted, had tens of thousands of users. A different report by Facebook, published in December 2019, found Indian Facebook users tended to join large groups, with the country’s median group size at 140,000 members.

Posts Recommended to the Test Account

The “Popular Across Facebook” feature began recommending viral, unverified material about military action following Indian airstrikes against Pakistan in the wake of a suicide bombing in Kashmir.

The feature also began recommending military-themed posts unrelated to the strikes.

Graphic posts, including a meme showing the beheading of a Pakistani national and dead bodies wrapped in white sheets on the ground, circulated in the groups she joined.

After the researcher shared her case study with co-workers, her colleagues commented on the posted report that they were concerned about misinformation about the upcoming elections in India.

“These groups become perfect distribution channels when they want to promote bad content within short period of time.”

“The admins of these groups tended to take a lax position/hands-off attitude towards ensuring that the content shared in the group was on a particular topic of focus, and allowed users to freely post whatever they found interesting/wanted to share.”

Two months later, after India’s national elections had begun, Facebook put in place a series of steps to stem the flow of misinformation and hate speech in the country, according to an internal document called Indian Election Case Study.

The case study painted an optimistic picture of Facebook’s efforts, including adding more fact-checking partners — the third-party network of outlets with which Facebook works to outsource fact-checking — and increasing the amount of misinformation it removed. It also noted how Facebook had created a “political white list to limit P.R. risk,” essentially a list of politicians who received a special exemption from fact-checking.

The study did not note the immense problem the company faced with bots in India, nor issues like voter suppression. During the election, Facebook saw a spike in bots — or fake accounts — linked to various political groups, as well as efforts to spread misinformation that could have affected people’s understanding of the voting process.

In a separate report produced after the elections, Facebook found that over 40 percent of top views, or impressions, in the Indian state of West Bengal were “fake/inauthentic.” One inauthentic account had amassed more than 30 million impressions.

A report published in March 2021 showed that many of the problems cited during the 2019 elections persisted.

In the internal document, called Adversarial Harmful Networks: India Case Study, Facebook researchers wrote that there were groups and pages “replete with inflammatory and misleading anti-Muslim content” on Facebook.

The report said there were a number of dehumanizing posts comparing Muslims to “pigs” and “dogs,” and misinformation claiming that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, calls for men to rape their female family members.

Much of the material circulated around Facebook groups promoting Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an Indian right-wing and nationalist group with close ties to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. The groups took issue with an expanding Muslim minority population in West Bengal and near the Pakistani border, and published posts on Facebook calling for the ouster of Muslim populations from India and promoting a Muslim population control law.

Facebook knew that such harmful posts proliferated on its platform, the report indicated, and it needed to improve its “classifiers,” which are automated systems that can detect and remove posts containing violent and inciting language. Facebook also hesitated to designate R.S.S. as a dangerous organization because of “political sensitivities” that could affect the social network’s operation in the country.

Of India’s 22 officially recognized languages, Facebook said it has trained its A.I. systems on five. (It said it had human reviewers for some others.) But in Hindi and Bengali, it still did not have enough data to adequately police the content, and much of the content targeting Muslims “is never flagged or actioned,” the Facebook report said.

Five months ago, Facebook was still struggling to efficiently remove hate speech against Muslims. Another company report detailed efforts by Bajrang Dal, an extremist group linked with the B.J.P., to publish posts containing anti-Muslim narratives on the platform.

Facebook is considering designating the group as a dangerous organization because it is “inciting religious violence” on the platform, the document showed. But it has not yet done so.

“Join the group and help to run the group; increase the number of members of the group, friends,” said one post seeking recruits on Facebook to spread Bajrang Dal’s messages. “Fight for truth and justice until the unjust are destroyed.”

Ryan Mac , Cecilia Kang and Mike Isaac contributed reporting.

Sheera Frenkel is a prize-winning technology reporter based in San Francisco. In 2021, she and Cecilia Kang published, “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination.” More about Sheera Frenkel

Davey Alba is a technology reporter covering disinformation. In 2019, she won a Livingston Award for excellence in international reporting and a Mirror Award for best story on journalism in peril. More about Davey Alba

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Meta projected that revenue for the current quarter  would be lower than what Wall Street anticipated and said it would spend billions of dollars more on its artificial intelligence efforts, even as it reported robust revenue and profits for the first three months of the year.

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A new category of apps promises to relieve parents of drudgery, with an assist from A.I . But a family’s grunt work is more human, and valuable, than it seems.

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Which A.I. system writes the best computer code or generates the most realistic image? Right now, there’s no easy way to answer those questions, our technology columnist writes .

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UPSC Essentials: Case Study of the week- The impact of social media on young India’s mental health

The best things carried to excess are wrong. this is true for social media as well. this case study talks about how social media is impacting the mental health of youth. aspirants may take down value addition points for upsc-cse. don't forget to solve the mcq below..

Articles from The Indian Express fit as case studies or simply as enriching fodder for GS I, IV and Essays. The power of a tool is only as good as how we use it. One such tool is social media affecting mental health especially of youth. We will go beyond the case study to discuss a few things about mental health issues. Articles by Sukriti Chauhan, Shireen Yachu, Virander S Chauhan and Dalbir Singh will be useful.

Case studies are an important part of the UPSC civil services exam, especially the ethics paper. But case studies can also be very beneficial for value addition in the essay, GS mains and interview. With a dearth of examples, try to enrich your answers with articles and stories in  The Indian Express .

One cannot deny that Social media has become a daily habit in our lives, especially among youth. Individuals across different age groups use social media platforms for communication and networking. Clearly, there is a growing dependency on social media. What is worrying is that constant use of social media leads to many problems like

—exposure to risky content

—changes in behavioural patterns

—inferiority complex

—cyber-bullying

This results in grave mental health challenges and illnesses.

Impact of social media on youth. It is imperative to address the current challenges to regulate social media use, especially among the young generation.

The Problems

There can be many problems which can be highlighted, but let us focus on three of them-

1. Depression-

According to UNICEF, 1 in 7 Indians aged 15 to 24 years feel depressed. Depression is linked to lack of self-esteem, poor concentration and other maladaptive symptoms, and can lead to difficulties in communication, failure to work or study productively, amplified risk of substance use and abuse, as well as suicidal thoughts. One of the key risk factors for these prevalent rates of depression is social media.

2. Internet Persona-

As social beings, we inherently have a need for social acceptance, and social media often becomes a tool for validation. The number of likes one’s posts or images garners becomes a quantitative measure for many, in relation to their looks, and intelligence, and even extends to their worth as a person. Individuals strive to maintain an ‘internet persona’ which paints a rosy picture of one’s life, using filters to hide parts considered ‘not good enough. Body dysmorphia- It is common among young people and has increased over the past few years. Use of algorithms on these platforms forces people to only watch similar content.

3. Lack of socialization-

Excessive social media use takes time away from doing other things that may benefit your mental health like connecting with others in person, spending time in nature and taking care of yourself.

The Suggestions/Solutions

1. We must take action on mental health seriously and monitor the incidence of psychiatric disorders (like, depression, anxiety) and identify the factors of risk and resilience. Do not shy away from accepting the overuse of social media as the reason behind the psychiatric disorder.

2. There is a need to conduct a disaggregated situational assessment of the diverse young demographic in our country. Such an assessment should keep in mind the differences associated with class, gender and other social factors.

3. Need to focus on socialization in family schools and professional spaces along with physical exercises and meditation. Let us bring ourselves closer to nature and natural things.

4. Need of creating awareness and dialogue that would help in de-stigmatising the issue, in order to allow autonomy for the individual to share feelings in a safe space.

5. Support systems like family and peers, need to be equipped with understanding the factors related to the issue and initiate supportive steps. Family members and teachers are seen as role models. Restricting them from social media will inspire youth too.

6. Additionally, to address the structural challenges, there is a need to reimagine the workspace and educational framework. Social media dependence in such spaces can be reduced to an extent that it doesn’t become addictive.

7. Pragmatic government policies based on empirical evidence, strong political will, social inclusion, mental health literacy, vibrant media and responsive corporate sector coupled with innovative technologies and crowdsourcing could mitigate this apathy.

Beyond the case: The Mental Health Issue

—Mental illness is an amalgamation of biological, social, psychological, hereditary, and environmental stressors.

—The World Health Organization defines mental health as a state of well-being, where an individual realises their capabilities, can cope with the normal stressors of life, work productively, and is able to contribute to their community.

—In India, according to NIMHANS data, more than 80 per cent of people do not access care services for a multitude of reasons, ranging from lack of knowledge, stigma and high cost of care.

—The “Global prevalence and burden of depressive and anxiety disorders in 204 countries and territories in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic” study, published in Lancet public health, has estimated an increase of about 35 per cent in the prevalence of anxiety and depression in India during the COVID-19 pandemic.

—As per the National Mental Health Survey, 2016, the prevalence of mental disorders in the age group 13-17 years was 7.3%. The most common prevalent problems were Depressive Episodes & Recurrent Depressive Disorder (2.6%), Agoraphobia (2.3%), Intellectual Disability (1.7%), Autism Spectrum Disorder (1.6%), Phobic anxiety disorder (1.3%) and Psychotic disorder (1.3%).

—Currently, as per WHO, for 1,00,000 population India has 0.3 psychiatrists, 0.12 nurses and 0.07 psychologists and 0.07 health workers. These reflect an alarming shortage of human resources and a dire need to scale up investment to address the issue.

—Though Mental Health Act 2017 has granted patients the legal right to live with dignity without discrimination, coercion and harassment, the endeavour in this segment is too scattered and lacks focus and coordination. It should be noted that this act envisages the establishment of the Central Mental Health Authority and State Mental Health Authority.

—The Union Budget 2022-2023 took the consideration the issue of mental health, and announced the National Tele-Mental Health Programme in India, for 24*7 free tele counselling services.

—To address the mental health issue promotion of awareness through campaigns, utilising celebrities and social influencers, mobilising the support of NGOs, deeper engagement of local communities and local governments are some of the measures which could improve outcomes.

— An efficient and robust community-integrated model will have the ability to build a response system of cadres of community volunteers and leaders to create ‘safe spaces’. They would build upon locally established peer support networks such as Self-Help Groups (‘SHGs’), activity-based groups, and civil society organizations to provide care.

—It is important that any community-based mental health program provides access to institutional social care benefits by building strategic partnerships with the local governments, panchayats, educational institutions and other stakeholders to enable referrals and access to existing social benefit schemes.

—Prioritizing availability of essential psychotropic drugs at all levels of healthcare.

—The theme of World Mental Health Day 2022 (10th October) is ‘Make mental health & well-being for all a global priority’.

—In 1982, the Indian government launched the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) to improve the status of mental health in India. It has three components- treatment of the Mentally ill, rehabilitation, prevention and promotion of positive mental health

—WHO’s Comprehensive Mental Action Plan 2013-2020 was adopted by the 66th World Health Assembly. The Mental Health Atlas was launched by WHO in 2017.

—The Sustainable Development Goals target 3.4 and 3.5 talk about reducing mental illness.

—The Supreme Court has held healthcare to be a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Point to ponder: Can you think along the lines of community participation and awareness campaigns that could address the issue of mental health?

Consider the following statements and answer the following questions-

1. The Supreme Court has held healthcare to be a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.

2. The Union Budget 2022-2023 announced the National Tele-Mental Health Programme in India for 24*7 free tele counselling services.

3. NIMHANS is the apex centre for mental health and neuroscience education in the country which comes out with Mental Health Atlas.

Which of the following statements are correct?

a) 1 and 2                         b) 2 and 3

c) 1, 2 and 3                     d) Only 2

(Answer in the next article of UPSC Essentials )

( sources: PIB, Mental health in India: Impact of social media on young Indians , Mental health in India: Community-based interventions as the answer to India’s mental health burden )

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Manas Srivastava is currently working as Deputy Copy Editor with The Indian Express (digital) and majorly writes for UPSC-related projects leading a unique initiative known as UPSC Essentials. In the past, Manas has represented India at the G-20 Youth Summit in Mexico. He is a former member of the Youth Council, GOI. A two-time topper/gold medallist in History (both in graduation and post-graduation) from Delhi University, he has mentored and taught UPSC aspirants for more than four years. His diverse role in The Indian Express consists of writing, editing, anchoring/ hosting, interviewing experts, and curating and simplifying news for the benefit of students. He hosts the YouTube talk show called ‘Art and Culture with Devdutt Pattanaik’ and a LIVE series on Instagram and YouTube called ‘You Ask We Answer’.His talks on ‘How to read a newspaper’ focus on newspaper reading as an essential habit for students. His articles and videos aim at finding solutions to the general queries of students and hence he believes in being students' editor, preparing them not just for any exam but helping them to become informed citizens. This is where he makes his teaching profession meet journalism. He is also currently working on a monthly magazine for UPSC Aspirants. He is a recipient of the Dip Chand Memorial Award, the Lala Ram Mohan Prize and Prof. Papiya Ghosh Memorial Prize for academic excellence. He was also awarded the University’s Post-Graduate Scholarship for pursuing M.A. in History where he chose to specialise in Ancient India due to his keen interest in Archaeology. He has also successfully completed a Certificate course on Women’s Studies by the Women’s Studies Development Centre, DU. As a part of N.S.S in the past, Manas has worked with national and international organisations and has shown keen interest and active participation in Social Service. He has led and been a part of projects involving areas such as gender sensitisation, persons with disability, helping slum dwellers, environment, adopting our heritage programme. He has also presented a case study on ‘Psychological stress among students’ at ICSQCC- Sri Lanka. As a compere for seminars and other events he likes to keep his orating hobby alive. His interests also lie in International Relations, Governance, Social issues, Essays and poetry. ... Read More

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Top 10 Instagram Marketing Case Studies in India

• July 4, 2022

Table of Contents

We have seen very sharp changes in how we deal with and filter the world since Instagram was developed. Its photo and video sharing features go beyond what one may expect from a ‘for-personal-use-only’ app. Businesses can use Instagram to inspire audiences, recruit new talent, showcase products, and services, and personalize their content. We can see how companies have utilized Instagram in the Top 10 Instagram Marketing case studies in India addressed below in the article.

In comparison to any other social channel, Instagram drives the most engaged traffic. Instagram has the best time on site, beating out other sites like Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Reddit among various social channels.

(Source- YotPo)

Further, Instagram engages your audience on the social media platform, which increases the likelihood of repeat purchases from customers. People who follow your brand on Instagram are likely to stay loyal to you and purchase from your brand repeatedly instead of your competition. 

Customer loyalty is a key component of eCommerce success, as returning customers account for almost 33.3% of all money spent and nearly three times what regular customers spend. A lot of brands like Adidas, Zomato and Swiggy India have increased their follower count and engagement rate with the help of Instagram Analytics as seen in the Instagram Marketing Case Studies in India mentioned below.

What are 6 Major Benefits of Using Instagram for Businesses?

• Free! – Your account can be set up quickly and easily. Don’t spend big bucks on marketing agencies. Instead, be your expert and use Instagram to promote your business.
• Communication on-target – Instagram allows you to portray your core marketing message through photos and videos creatively.
• Informal – It is no longer necessary to make your audience feel obliged with flowery and formal language. You can influence your audience in the way they prefer with this young, creative app.
• Connect with customers – Boost your engagement with customers by utilizing Instagram for your business. Your marketing insights would be more accurate this way since you would know what your target audience likes, dislikes, preferences, etc.
• User-Generated Content – This allows your audiences to understand better what you do. Furthermore, this makes them trust you more profound, so they begin to feel loyal to your business.
• Instant analytics – With your business profile, you can quickly analyze all the Instagram posts you boost. You can map your brand’s marketing, content, and sales strategy using this instant analysis.

Apart from these , Influencer Marketing is the newest concept on Instagram and the next big thing on Instagram.

Influencer marketing uses endorsements of and mentions of products from influencers, often those with large social followings, and are seen as experts within their niche. Influencers market your product on their page which increases the visibility of your and drives sales. Many brands seem to have included Influencer Marketing as a part of their marketing strategies ever since.  You can learn about real-life examples where Influencer Marketing has been used in the list below mentioning the Instagram Marketing Case Studies in India.

(Search Engine Journal)

Thus, Influencer Marketing on Instagram can be seen as an emerging concept, and brands should try and incorporate this.

Let us now read about the Top 10 Instagram Marketing Case Studies in India. Each brand listed below has used the power of Instagram Marketing in unique ways to drive sales, increase engagement and brand recognition and achieve various other milestones in their digital marketing journey.

TOP 10 INSTAGRAM MARKETING CASE STUDIES IN INDIA

1. swiggy india.

In addition to having over 35,000 restaurant partners, Swiggy has over 40,000 delivery executives across 15 cities in India. The company’s application, a first of its kind in India, provides ease of use and a consistent delivery experience to its customers.

Swiggy wanted to expand its customer base, increase the number of mobile installations, and increase its reach.

Instagram Stories presented a potential for Swiggy to expand its user base and increase its global reach. Therefore, they carefully created creative resources for Instagram Stories to drive app installations and tested their performance. New customers rose significantly in the results.

Swiggy was one of the first Indian apps to implement ads on Instagram Stories and has successfully attracted new users .

• Advertising on Instagram Stories reduced the cost per installation by 30%
• Instagram Story ads lead to an increase in app installations by 17%

2. Audi India

With this International Women’s Day campaign released by Audi India, BBH India conceptualized women smashing stereotypes under their cars.

For the Audi India team, Women’s Day this year was extraordinary. They were able to advocate against stereotypes about driving that are very tiresome to women, using their brand’s motto, Future Is An Attitude. Their resolve was only strengthened as they listened to over a hundred women. We created the #DriveTheChange campaign as a result.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Audi India (@audiin)

With a concept and execution by BBH India, Audi’s #DriveTheChange campaign took a direct shot at the age-old supposedly comical remarks women drivers receive. Audi India invited eight women from diverse industries to the event to expose these sexist and outdated stereotypes. These stereotypes, painted on the road, were driven over by these women.

Taking part in the initiative, Gaurav Sinha, Head – Marketing & PR, Audi India, said, “Through this campaign, we are celebrating women who are the strongest driving forces in our lives. We recognize that women are strong influencers and are constantly confronting and breaking pernicious stereotypes about women being bad drives. Taking this forward, we have developed a campaign that encourages and celebrates women by reinforcing the messaging of breaking down gender stereotypes.”

3. Tata Sky 

“Har Ghar Ki Khidki” – Tata Sky’s latest social media campaign, rolled out alongside the launch of its new brand purpose, “Tata Sky exists to make tomorrow better than today for families and homes.”

The social media campaign, which Tata Sky’s digital marketing agency Chimp&z Inc. designed and launched, showed unfiltered and candid emotions from viewers’ perspectives as they responded to Tata Sky’s status as the “Khidki of entertainment in every home.”

It is designed to spread awareness about the brand’s new TV commercial and engage its young audience.

To execute the campaign, Instagram’s Reels feature was utilized.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tataplay (@tataplay)

Anushka Sen, Sameeksha Sud, Awez Darbar, Tanzeel Khan, Siddharth Nigam, and Just Neel were among the Internet sensation who participated. 

Over 7.83M views were observed on the influencer’s REELS, resulting in 9.02M engagements on the social media handles of the influencer and Tata Sky. By presenting clips of everyday life captured by influencers in a household and using the very melodious tune of the TV commercial, the campaign was able to bring life to its essence. A ‘Khidki Anthem’ will also be compiled by Tata Sky from the best entries.

In this case study, we analyze how KFC India leveraged Fried Chicken Day to create engagement & encourage consumers to showcase their love for chicken in a quirky and creative manner.

For decades, Consumers of the Fried Chicken brand have looked forward to Fried Chicken Day.

KFC provided consumers with an opportunity to come forth and share their love for Fried Chicken in a quirky and exciting manner through social media this year due to the extended lockdown period.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by KFC India (@kfcindia_official)

A week-long celebration started on Fried Chicken Day (6th July), when social media users were invited to post stories about chicken love. Throughout the contest, participants from all over the country submitted their entries decorated with stickers, emojis: GIFs, poems, memes, and more.

The obsession with fried chicken continued. During such times, long video calls that people were often a part of were also used by the brand. The brand added an extra zing and crispiness to such conversations by using KFC chicken leg emojis on these video calls.

Results from the campaign

• Impressions of over 1.5 million
• It attracted more than 1.3 million chicken lovers
• Engaged over 225K people

Airtel India turned avid Instagram users into detectives with the launch of their #T20VillainHunt, with digital agency Dentsu Webchutney. During the final stage of the T20 fever. Here, T20 villains represent anything and everything that interferes with a viewer’s experience.

Two parts were released on Instagram as part of the #T20VillainHunt. To reveal the T20 Villain, users were encouraged to hunt through a given story for hidden clues.

Instagram’s “Save to Collection” feature was used creatively by customers to achieve this.

They would recognize the villain’s face if the clues were cracked, and the images were saved in the correct order in the ‘Saved’ folder.

It was tedious to solve the clues, but that didn’t discourage Airtel’s detectives from tracking down the villains.

Over 250 fans correctly and successfully cracked the puzzle within 3 days. A unique use of Instagram!

6. L’oreal Paris India

L’Oréal Paris offers a wide range of products, including makeup, skincare, hair color, styling, and hair color products that universally cater to women and men of all ages.

Its products and ambassadors exemplify a beauty ideal summed up by its legendary signature: “Because you’re worth it.”

Reaching out to make up lovers.

The brand wanted to build brand recognition among makeup enthusiasts in India and raise awareness and sales for its limited-edition makeup line, L’Oréal x Sabyasachi.

 A dedicated Instagram approach. L’Oréal Paris offers a diverse range of products for skin, hair, and makeup. However, millennials are less likely to associate it with makeup in the Indian market. L’Oréal Paris India created a limited-edition, signature collection of makeup with renowned Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee as part of its efforts to strengthen its reputation as a makeup brand.

To highlight high-quality beauty products, the brand discovered Instagram had a large female audience. Besides having over 3 million followers on Instagram, Sabyasachi also had a significant social media presence. Thus, the L’Oréal Paris campaign was exclusive to Instagram, the only medium that allowed the collection to be promoted to these consumers.

Instagram Stories, videos, and photo ads in single and carousel formats have been used by L’Oréal Paris to promote and spread awareness for its makeup line. The brand customized its video ads to fill the dimensions of each ad placement to maximize their impact. Using Instagram’s best practices and thoughtful, creative development, the videos were designed to introduce the brand and product range within a few seconds.

L’Oréal Paris India conducted an efficacy study to evaluate the Instagram campaign. This resulted in the company realizing that Instagram could be a highly effective marketing platform for its upcoming campaigns due to the strongly impacted brand metrics the company experienced with the campaign.

 L’Oréal Paris’ decision to create an Instagram-only campaign was a success, and it has been engaging effectively with women aged 20-44 who love beauty, fashion, shopping, and makeup. During the period November 28-December 31, 2018, the campaign led to:

• Women aged 35–44 show a 20-point increase in purchase intent
• Women aged 25-34 have a 13-point lift in brand awareness
• A 9-point surge in ad recall

(Source- Instagram Business)

7. KitKat India

Around the world, 12 billion KitKat fingers are consumed each year. Nestlé’s KitKat brand is one of India’s most successful chocolate brands, and the company introduced KitKatSenses, a premium “slow-churned” chocolate.

Nestlé’s goal was to use Instagram to amplify its ‘Celebrate the Breakers’ campaign, focusing its efforts on generating awareness and message association (through website clicks and video views) among 15 to 34-year-old Instagrammers.

KitKat is a well-known snack with the prominent tagline ‘Have a break, have a KitKat.’ Nestlé launched a global advertising campaign to put a fresh spin on the campaign. In the new concept, ‘Celebrate the Breakers,’ the goal was to recognize the different types of breaks people take. The idea was realized as a series of animations featuring KitKat fingers that brought each break to life. This story was told visually through Instagram for Nestlé in India.

In a series of posts with the hashtag #mybreak, the brand featured people taking various breaks, such as relaxing at their desks, listening to music, and partying all night for 7 whole weeks.

Instagram is a place where people share their daily experiences and moments causes KitKat’s photos to resonate with many people. 

An increase of 42 points in ad recall and 6 points in message association were the results of this campaign.

8. FBB India

In India, FBB has become synonymous with affordable fashion since 2008. There is something for everyone at this aspirational apparel brand, with everything from festive outfits to business attire to ethnic pieces and casual resort wear. As a retail destination and fashion hub, it boasts 373 stores in total.

Engaging fashionistas, driving sales

During Durga Puja, celebrated in West Bengal as one of the most important festivals, FBB aimed to increase sales and brand awareness. To appeal to trendy Indian millennials, the brand needed to come up with an innovative marketing strategy.

Telling an interactive love story. FBB wanted to create a campaign that captured the spirit of the Durga Puja festival, which is all about new beginnings. As part of its #PujoPerfect Love Story web series, it created a five-day Instagram story with Nishtasha Digital Media Private Limited (NDMPL). Episodes, which ran as ads in Stories and feed, conveyed the excitement of a budding relationship between young couples. With Ananya and Roy as the main characters, the audience fell for the spirit of Pujo and spent time experiencing FBB’s Pujo collection.

Rather than giving people a passive, one-sided experience, FBB allowed people to choose what happens next at the end of each episode. FBB asked them to share their opinions and preferences about relatable situations-such as deciding what outfit to wear. Depending on their responses, the story would develop. FBB used all of the features available as part of Instagram Stories, including emoticons, GIFs, polls, answers, and filters, to encourage audience interaction and engagement throughout the series.

As a result of the campaign, customers were encouraged to visit FBB’s Instagram profile, brand affinity was increased, and the design of its clothes was showcased creatively. By compelling viewers to “Swipe up,” the brand effectively generated leads and pushed sales through its campaign microsite. On that page, they could fill out a form and provide their name, email, and phone number to receive a voucher code that could be redeemed for discounts at a store.

FBB’s Instagram Stories story was a hit. From September 17 through October 8, 2019, the campaign accomplished:

• 28% increase in coupon redemption rate from Instagram campaign compared to other channels during the same period
• A total of over 20,000 store visits were prompted by Instagram in West Bengal in comparison with other channels during the same period
• Overall campaign sales drove store visits of about USD 900,000
• In contrast to In-season visits in the previous year, Instagram campaign period visits increased by 22%.

9. Zomato India

In 2012, Zomato’s Vice President of Marketing, Pramod Rao, received a direct message from a Twitter user suggesting the company uses Instagram. When that happened, Instagram also decided to be included in their Marketing Strategy. This experience inspired the #Zomato Instagram contest – Zomato was all about food and what better way to interact with food than by sharing photos through Instagram.

Utilize the popular trend (Use of Instagram) with the Zomato brand essence (Food) and the need to share experiences on social media (Zomato).

It was a simple two-step contest: 1) you took a picture of food, 2) you shared it on Instagram and with #Zomato. You could submit multiple times.

In addition to this, it enabled users to connect with the brand quickly and did not require much thinking. Moreover, the grand prize was a digital camera, which had relevance to the activity.

• Over one month, 1267 food shots were received.
• 65,000 votes were generated.
• A total of 100,000 page impressions, widely shared on social media.
• This led to creating one of the most delicious websites on the internet – http://zomato.com/instagram, which has been up for a while now.
• The brand had 0 Instagram followers before the contest but nearly 150 afterwards.

10. Clovia India

Clovia is a lingerie brand in India catering primarily to urbane young women living in big cities. This group is well accustomed to ordering lingerie online. To reach Clovia’s target audience, Instagram was the best choice.

Clovia was looking for ways to get women comfortable enough to buy lingerie on a mobile phone. The company hoped to obtain a digital channel that could increase sales by at least 10% in the year’s final quarter. Instagram advertisements were used for the first time to reach India’s core target audience of 20–45-year-old women.

Because the brand was focusing on conversions, it used Instagram’s visual aspects to showcase their products, along with a short copy and a bold call to action to encourage consumers to act.

Using segmentation based on age and location within major metropolises, Clovia’s ‘Shop Now’ button led users to the brand’s website, which helped track conversions.

(Source- Social Samosa)

From February to April 2016, Clovia’s Instagram campaign ran for three months and achieved its goal with a significantly lower CPA.

As of 2020, there will be nearly 112.5 million Instagram users. Instagram keeps adding tools to help entrepreneurs succeed on the photo-sharing social media platform, from gathering insights to selling products.

Creating an Instagram profile for your business and marketing well seems to be the requisite nowadays, no matter how big or small your business may be. You can gain more visibility for your brand, boost sales, and increase customer loyalty by using an Instagram business profile.

Check out this video to learn “Instagram Mistakes that 1000s of People Make” and you should not make.

If you have yet to join Instagram, there is still time to succeed. By using the right marketing strategy, businesses can open doors to promote their products, increase sales, and enhance their brand on Instagram.

Join Instagram Growth Stack course and learn lots of you things to grow your followers and brand visibilty by learning from the World’s #1 Instagram Infulencers – Sorav Jain. The Course has 26+ Modules and Life time access to the course .

Thanks for Reading!

Written By Digital Scholar

Digital Scholar is a premier agency-styled digital marketing institute in India. Which offers an online digital marketing course and a free digital marketing course worldwide to elevate their digital skills and become industry experts. Digital Scholar is headed by Sorav Jain and co-founder Rishi Jain, who are pioneers in the field of digital marketing. Digital Scholar’s blogs touch upon numerous aspects of digital marketing and help you get intensive ideas of different domains of digital marketing.

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Social Media and Protest: A Case Study on Anti CAA Protest in India

The study aims to understand the role of Social Media in the current chain of events of various activist protests that have happened in the 21 st Century or are going around the world. It specifically focuses on the student led protest in India against the Citizenship Amendment Act (bill) which was floored in the Lower House of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) meeting on December 09, 2019 and passed on December 11, 2019. Starting from NorthEast to rest of the cities in India, the protestors took over the street in numbers to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act (bill) or commonly to be called as the CAA protest. Role of Social Media thus was recognized as one of the major influences in organizing and facilitating these protests across the country. In this study we unfold the active role of Social Media Apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram into creating awareness about the issue, advocating for one's rights and organizing protests. Thus, looking at a new narrative of activism through online means or to say emergence of "Online Activism" and its impact on on-ground protests.

Related Papers

Roohani Nayyar

This essay takes a look at how and why digital activists are tapping the Internet-based communities for political movements and what are the strategic digital and social media practices used to encourage users to participate on ground. To support this, this essay highlights key digital and social media activities of the “India Against Corruption” movement (IAC) in 2011 to determine whether the use of digital platforms was helpful to establish communication and mobilize Indians to come on ground to protest and whether the activities on the Internet were instrumental to success of the overall movement especially with a lower Internet user-base as compared to its total population. It concludes with mapping the recent political developments as a result of this movement.

New Media & Society

Devam Thapa

In India, online availability of information has created several new ways of communication and interaction through Internet relay chats, messaging email, video and voice chat, file sharing, blogging and discussion groups. Social media, particularly the Social Networking Sites, have enabled communication anywhere in the world and to anyone who shares interests and activities across political, social, economic and geographical boundaries. Of late, there has been intensive discourse and debate among intelligentsia about the perceptible impact of social media on opinion building and expression. Some civil society movements are also said to be accelerated by social media. This paper, through an empirical study, attempts to understand and analyse how social media, especially social networking sites, change the ways of communication, allow the public to critique and discuss fearlessly different social and political issues thereby becoming a force to reckon with for civil society movements and agitations in India. To study this phenomenon, Dehradun city, an education hub of India having a sizeable number of young active new media users, was chosen as a reference point. The study suggests that social media is yet to emerge as a definite force multiplier for civil society movements in India.

Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation

Just as internet has touched and transformed every aspect of human life in present times, its significant effects on the realms of politics and governance is captured in this essay through some real world events like the social movements. Internet and social media have given new strength to social activism and in the process have laid the path for a new form of govern-ance model – open, consultative and inclusive. India has witnessed social movements that have resulted in significant policy related decision making. In the recent times, such social movements have gained much of its momentum through internet and social media. In this essay, three social movements from India are compared and analysed through case study research in order to draw attention to the growing prevalence of a new form of open consultative policy making process that is both leading to a learning experience for the networked society and also creating newer responsibilities for citizens. The three social movements analysed are the Right to Information Act movement (2005); the India Against Corruption movement (2011); and the Net neutrality movement (2015). The case studies are analysed in terms of their unique features of fostering deliberative democracy under the possible influence of internet and social media. The case studies generate data that could be used to study similar practices with a global comparative perspective.

International Symposium on "Digital Politics in Millennial India

Aniket Alam

The societies of the information age that we live in are characterized by large scale communication networks, which have had a direct bearing on politics. The spontaneous, leaderless mass movements for justice, or micro-managed election campaigns with a unprecedented level of granular targeting of voters are two examples. But the political resides not only in these obvious examples, but is widespread in the manner in which digital media helps bring people together; or not. The proposed paper is an outcome of research on how curiosity and outrage help draw people to online communities, even if temporary. This paper will study the online life history of outrage & trace the various paths of it's political life. Conventional theories of outrage, which give insights about why and when people get outraged and how organizations like corporations and governments deal with them, are unable to explain the manner in which outrage builds up, grows and influences politics in the internet age. Protest cultures triggered by public outrage spreading through social media networks inhabit times and geographies which are alien to the explanatory framework on conventional theories. The proposed study is a novel attempt at quantifying digital protest and outrage movements in the Indian context. There has been previous work in these aspects, Conover et al (2011) show that political retweets have a highly segregated partisan structure in the context of 2010 U.S congressional elections, similarly Iyengar et al(2012) have shown the magnitude of polarization during election campaigning online. However, the dynamics of political tweets in protest cultures with completely different origins and goals are yet to be examined. The feeling of denial of justice is expressed as outrage and social psychologists have found that higher degree of concern for justice is often expressed by higher outrage. Rothmund et al(2014) have shown that individual differences in perceived justice from different perspectives, like victim & observer, account for people engaging themselves in political actions. Bekafigo et al (2013) demonstrated that online political participation on social media correlates with offline participation, and supports the idea that a real world protest culture originates and grows from social media engagement. This paper is an attempt to bring some of these insights to the study of the politics of social media in India. It studies the response on social media to two major incidents in the recent past which were based on the use of outrage. The first incident studied is the gang-rape and murder of a 23 year old student in Delhi in December 2012 and the second one is the recent murder of an activist journalist in Bangalore. We have collected the twitter responses of the second incident, using a standard scraper tweaked to our needs. The facebook data collection for the first incident is underway. We plan to collect all the facebook posts shared by different individual profiles that are public, public pages, and the corresponding influence parameters like likes, shares etc. All the tweets which have a reference to the murder incident of the activist journalist have been collected with keyword gauri lankesh, they appeared in the window of 05/09/17 to 05/10/17. The total dataset of size 103,601 tweets and facebook posts will be used for our research. We will analyse the group dynamics during the period about both the narrated incidents, the conversations and responses between like-minded and different-minded people using clustering algorithms and the consequent implications and semantics for group identity. Also we propose to analyse the emergence of public conversation and how they take a political shape. We will try to construct alignments and partisanship based on hashtag usage and retweet network. Further based on the established personality-strength models we attempt to study the formation of opinion leadership and political involvement. We will also use tools to examine the clustering and communication dynamics of ideologically similar / heterogeneous groups and individuals. We propose to analyse from the large set of twitter & facebook data whether outrage is triggered by influential social media users which could be individuals or groups and try to alienate the chain of causation: where does outrage originate and how it moves on digital media. We will conclude by explaining whether and in what ways is it similar to and different from the experience already noted in the literature.

Journal of Media and Communication

T. Kumar , V. Vijay Kumar , Dr. Sanjay Mohapatra

In the last decade, there has been a phenomenal increase in the usage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially in the social media sphere. As in every epoch in history, the current age is also frequently witnessing social activism and social movements. The social movements of the current age are characterised by the comprehensive and frequent usage of social media. In this article, the role of social media in a social movement 'Jallikattu' (movement) in India has been analysed. There are two theoretical perspectives regarding the role of technology and social change: 'Technological Determinism' and 'Social Determinism of Technology'. In this study, it is found that the correct theoretical perspective that should inform the relation between ICTs and activism is neither of the two, but a third perspective called 'Social Shaping of Technology' perspective.

International Journal of Law and Political Sciences

Prof.(Dr.) Priya Sepaha

Social media has loomed as the most effective tool in recent times to flag the causes, contents, opinions and direction of any social movement and has demonstrated that it will have a far-reaching effect on government as well. This study focuses on India which has emerged as the fastest growing community on social media. Social movement activists, in particular, have extensively utilized the power of digital social media to streamline the effectiveness of social protest on a particular issue through extensive successful mass mobilizations. This research analyses the role and impact of social media as a power to catalyze the social movements in India and further seeks to describe how certain social movements are resisted, subverted, co-opted and/or deployed by social media. The impact assessment study has been made with the help of cases, policies and some social movement which India has witnessed the assertion of numerous social issues perturbing the public which eventually paved the way for remarkable judicial decisions. The paper concludes with the observations that despite its pros and cons, the impacts of social media on the functioning of the Indian Government have demonstrated that it has already become an indispensable tool in the hands of social media-suave Indians who are committed to bring about a desired change.

aishwarya sawarna

The following research deals with the relationship between social media and modern day activism. As our means to network virtually have begun to grow so too have our platforms for voicing our opinions. In this scenario social media such as ‘Twitter’ and Facebook have become important forums for one to not just sustain a protest activity but also inform and organize activism around a cause. Tweets relating to Occupy Wall Street and the Nirbhaya Rape case , both causes which generated headlines and widespread activism have been analyzed on the basis of the nature of their content, using pre-defined codes . Another crucial aspect to this is if people just voice out their opinion like a slacktivist giving birth to the notion of armchair activism or are they engaged on ground as well. In both cases it has been found to be true. In addition to that the tweets in case of both Occupy Wall Street and the Nirbhaya rape case had political as well as emotional content. Therefore an attempt has been made to analyze the role of social media in contemporary protest culture and the scope of it as well. The scope of this research is that it can help readers in determining how and why social media is influential as a tool for modern day activists. Earlier it was banners and posters, which helped activists, organize a crowd for a certain cause. However now, with social media at their disposal it hasn’t only increased their reach, but has disciplined and enhanced their functioning to ensure visibility and influence for a given cause. Keywords: social media and activism, modern day activism, Occupy Wall Street, Nirbhaya rape case and social media

Summer Harlow

Adrija Dey , Carolyn M Byerly

Over the last few decades, while information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social media have been increasingly popular and a widely used tool for activism around the world, it is only in the recent past that people have started using these technologies as an alternative platform for activism in India. One of the most extensive use of digital technologies was witnessed in the nationwide protests in India post the Delhi Nirbhaya rape case on December 16th 2012 making it one of the biggest gender movements that the country has witnessed. The focus of this research is to investigate the use ICTs and social media by civil society actors, activists and organisations specifically for gender activism in India. The cyberconflict framework forms the foundation of this paper. The cyberconflict framework developed by Karatzogianni (2006) uses elements of the social movement theory (Mc-Adam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996), including the mobilizing structures, political opportunity and framing process, and combines it with media theory and conflict theory in order to understand the use of ICTs and social media inconflicts occurring in the cyberspace. In order to develop a critical analysis, a case study approach was adopted for this paper. The data was collected by conducting qualitative interviews along with analysing news reports published online, videos, articles on blogs and posts on social media sources such as Facebook and Twitter. Further thematic analysis was used to understand the nature and impact of use of ICTs and social media for gender activism in India

Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

Riddhima Sharma

In December 2019, massive protests took place across India, in Indian diasporic spaces, and on social media platforms to resist against the passage of the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which for the first time introduced provisions to grant citizenship based on a person's religion and explicitly excluded Muslims from its scope. The protests were sustained well into 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and put a brake on the momentum the movement had gained thus far in person. The protests, led largely by women (particularly Muslim women) and marginalized groups in India saw huge participation across digital and off-line spaces. In this essay, I examine ways in which marginalized groups in India connect with what Radhika Gajjala has referred to as "digital diasporas" and use social media platforms to build transnational solidarities around the anti-CAA protests. 1 Additionally, I also map the ways in which online and off-line anti-CAA protests negotiate with, and are constrained by the state through instances of controlling internet access, creating counter-hashtag campaigns, and in extreme circumstances, blocking access to the internet altogether. When the anti-CAA protests began unfolding in December 2019, I was in India and had the opportunity to closely witness and participate in several online and off-line protests. Thus, the arguments in this essay draw considerably from my personal experiences of participating in the anti-CAA protests both online and in person.

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Impact of social media advertisements on the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic in India

• Original Research
• Published: 27 February 2021
• Volume 68 , pages 19–44, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

• Rajanish Kumar Rai 1 ,
• Subhas Khajanchi 2 ,
• Pankaj Kumar Tiwari 3 ,
• Ezio Venturino 4 &
• Arvind Kumar Misra 5  

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In this paper, we propose a mathematical model to assess the impact of social media advertisements in combating the coronavirus pandemic in India. We assume that dissemination of awareness among susceptible individuals modifies public attitudes and behaviours towards this contagious disease which results in reducing the chance of contact with the coronavirus and hence decreasing the disease transmission. Moreover, the individual’s behavioral response in the presence of global information campaigns accelerate the rate of hospitalization of symptomatic individuals and also encourage the asymptomatic individuals for conducting health protocols, such as self-isolation, social distancing, etc. We calibrate the proposed model with the cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases for the Republic of India. We estimate eight epidemiologically important parameters, and also the size of basic reproduction number for India. We find that the basic reproduction number for India is greater than unity, which represents the substantial outbreak of COVID-19 in the country. Sophisticated techniques of sensitivity analysis are employed to determine the impacts of model parameters on basic reproduction number and symptomatic infected population. Our results reveal that to reduce disease burden in India, non-pharmaceutical interventions strategies should be implemented effectively to decrease basic reproduction number below unity. Continuous propagation of awareness through the internet and social media platforms should be regularly circulated by the health authorities/government officials for hospitalization of symptomatic individuals and quarantine of asymptomatic individuals to control the prevalence of disease in India.

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Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

The coronavirus pandemic and their new strains are major threat for mankind. The world globalization has accelerated the rapid spread of infections in a short period of time. This affects the public health care system and also hinders the economic development of the developing and underdeveloped countries. Since the start of the epidemic outbreaks, it is estimated that the global disease burden due to COVID-19 amounts to over 92 million reported cases and 2 million deaths worldwide [ 1 ]. COVID-19 virus constantly changes through mutation and a new variant has begun circulating in UK, as a result, a novel complete lockdown has been imposed to cope up with the new epidemic wave. COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on the whole world at present, after its emergence in Wuhan in December 2019 and the subsequent global spread since February 2020. The disease, being caused by novel coronavirus (nCoV-SARS), is a new member of the coronavirus family. Although researchers are actively involved in studying and trying to understand the virus features and its epidemiology, the accurate knowledge about the disease is still very limited. This calls for scientific studies to explore and understand the mechanism behind the spread of virus and to examine the impacts of various pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical measures on its control [ 2 ]. The spread of COVID-19 across 223 countries is causing a serious threat to the world population [ 3 ]. During the lockdowns people in different countries have patiently been waiting for the development of an effective treatment strategy and the development of a vaccine. But it is imperative to be able to forecast the COVID-19 cases for designing effective strategies and policy making to fight the pandemic, and heal the scars that it is leaving behind on the lives of the people and on the global economy [ 4 ].

At the time of a pandemic, during the early stages of the spread of the infection, when health care demands and other biomedical interventions are not sufficient to protect the people against the new emerging disease, the best way to reduce the disease transmission is to adequately inform the people about non-pharmaceutical interventions and extreme precautionary measures. This can be peformed through social media in an easy, fast and inexpensive way and can help in suppressing the disease spread: e.g. by using radio (which is cost effective and responsive medium in remote areas), TV, internet [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. In contemporary times, media coverage is identified as an alternate control measure which brings behavioral changes among susceptible individuals, can be seen as partial treatment at no cost [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. People become alert due to media campaigns and take necessary precautions to avoid their contacts with infected individuals [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. The individuals who are substantially aware of transmission mechanisms, adjust their routine work, travel and pay significant attention on isolating themselves and use precautionary measures, and hence reduce their possibility of contracting the infection. Thus in India and other countries, the severity of COVID-19 diffusion can be reduced by the regular use of media to inform people on the preventive measures to be taken.

A plethora of modeling studies confirmed that awareness programs have the capability to reduce the epidemic threshold and thus control the spread of infection [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. Mathematical models have been used to predict the disease dynamics and also to assess the efficiency of the intervention strategies in reducing the disease burden [ 20 , 21 ]. A number of modeling studies have already been performed for the COVID-19 pandemic [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. Imai et al. [ 27 ] conducted computational modeling of potential epidemic trajectories to estimate the size of the disease outbreak in Wuhan, with a focus on the human-to-human transmission. Their results imply that control measures need to block well over 60% of transmission to be effective in containing the outbreak. Several studies have been done using real incidence COVID-19 data of India and examined different characteristics of the outbreak as well as evaluated the effect of intervention strategies implemented to curb the outbreak in India [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. In India, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported on 30th January, 2020 [ 1 ]. Government of India declared a countrywide lock-down as a preventive measure for the COVID-19 outbreak on 24th March, 2020 [ 33 ]. The government is also continuously using various media and social networking web sites to aware the citizen regarding the current scenario of disease threats and their control mechanisms. They are employing different modes of propagating informations including social media, TV, radio, internet using various types of slogan such as “Stay home, Stay safe”, “Be clean, Be healthy”, “Jab Tak Dawai Nahi, Tab Tak Dhilai Nahi” (No carelessness till a medicine is found), “Do Gaj ki Doori, Mask Hai Jaroori” (Mask and maintaining distance of two yards is necessary), etc. The main motive of such social media campaigns is to stimulate people to adopt healthy sanitation practices, frequent hand washing, use of face mask, sanitizer, maintain social distancing, avoiding touching eyes/nose/mouth etc., [ 34 , 35 , 36 ]. The findings of [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ] suggest that the early implementation of social lockdown and awareness among the individuals regarding social distancing (to avoid inter-individual physical contacts) has drastic impacts on the prevalence of COVID-19, and it also efficiently reduces the environmental pollutants in India. Chang et al. [ 41 ] have assessed the impact of media coverage on the spread of COVID-19 in Hubei Province, China. Continuous propagation of information through media campaigns is found to encourage the people to adopt preventive measures to combat the pandemic together. Findings of Zhou et al. [ 42 ] suggested that besides improving the medical levels, media coverage can be considered as an effective way to mitigate the disease spreading during the initial stage of an outbreak.

However, the factors like very high population density, the unavailability of specific medicines or vaccines, insufficient evidences regarding the transmission mechanism of the disease also make it difficult to fight against the disease in India. Srivastav et al. [ 43 ] have investigated the impacts of face mask, hospitalization of symptomatic individuals and quarantine of asymptomatic individuals on the prevalence of coronavirus pandemic in India. Their findings suggest that the frequent use of face mask while in public places together with hospitalization of symptomatic individuals and quarantine of asymptomatic individuals have potential to suppress the burden of COVID-19 in India. Motivated by the works of Misra et al. [ 5 ] and Srivastav et al. [ 43 ], and keeping in mind the importance of broadcasting through social media advertisements to encourage people to adopt non-pharmaceutical interventions, the present study aims to assess the impacts of social media advertisements to flatten the disease progress curve on the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic in India. Our model is different from the model proposed by Srivastava et al. [ 43 ] in the following sense. In [ 43 ], it is assumed that the constantly and correctly use of face mask reduce the diseases transmission whereas in the present study it is assumed that the broadcasting of global information campaigns through social media advertisements changes the individuals behavioral response towards disease and they adopt practices that are requisite for disease prevention along with use of face mask while in public such as having social distancing, proper sanitation, frequent hand washing, that reduce the contacts between susceptible and symptomatic/asymptomatic individuals. Further, in [ 43 ], it is assumed that the recovered individuals do not acquire infection again while medical reports suggest that the recovered individuals may also get infection via losing their immunity as time flows and become susceptible for the disease [ 44 ]. Thus, considering reinfection make the model more realistic. Further, in present study, it assumed that the presence of global information campaigns encourage the asymptomatic individuals for conducting health protocols, such as self-isolation, social distancing, etc. We study the effectiveness of social media advertisements in reducing the contact rates of susceptibles with symptomatic/asymptomatic individuals, hospitalization of symptomatic individuals and quarantine of asymptomatic individuals due to influence of social media advertisements on flattening the disease progress curve. Our aim is to investigate how much these intervention strategies can control the spread of coronavirus and whether these control strategies can reduce the burden of COVID-19 in India.

Remainder of the paper is organized in the following way: Sect.  2 contains model formulation and underlying assumptions. In the following section, we obtain disease-free and endemic equilibria of the system. Sufficient conditions are derived for the global asymptotic stability of the endemic equilibrium. We simulate our model in Sect.  4 . The model is calibrated using cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases of India. Sensitivity analysis is performed to identify parameters having crucial impacts on controlling the disease. Finally, the results are compiled and discussed in the closing section.

2 Mathematical model

Here, we formulate a compartmental model for dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic in India by considering human-to-human transmission of the disease [ 45 ]. We divide the total human population N , into eight compartments: susceptible individuals S , exposed individuals E , symptomatic individuals \(I_s\) , asymptomatic individuals \(I_a\) , home quarantined asymptomatic individuals Q , aware individuals A , hospitalized individuals H and recovered individuals R . Thus, we have

It should be emphasized that the compartment \(I_a\) also contains individuals showing mild symptoms of the disease but are not recognized as COVID-19 infected. Furthermore, the compartment H for hospitalization also includes those with clinical symptoms of COVID-19 who are self-isolating at home. Represent by M , the cumulative number of social media advertisements which includes internet information as well as TV, radio and print media. Suppose \(M_0\) stands for the baseline number of social media advertisements i.e., this number of advertisements are always maintained in the region under investigation. Notably the aware individuals do not mean only the human populations having knowledge of COVID-19 but also those persons who possess the knowledge of avoiding disease transmission and further implementing the prevention mechanisms.

Schematic diagram for system ( 1 ). Here, the color of the terms indicates their function. In particular, the red color denotes the impact of awareness programs on the reduction in contact rates of susceptible individuals with symptomatic/asymptomatic individuals, blue color stands for the effect of broadcasting information on awareness of susceptible individuals and green color represents the impact of awareness on the quarantine of asymptomatic individuals

For developing the mathematical model, we make the following assumptions.

The population is homogeneously mixed and the individuals are recruited in the region at a constant rate \(\varLambda \) and join the susceptible class.

In the absence of broadcasting through social media advertisements, the susceptible individuals join the exposed class on effective contacts with symptomatic and asymptomatic infectious human population at the rates \(\beta _1\) and \(\beta _2\) , respectively, following simple law of mass action.

In the presence of broadcasting through social media advertisements regarding possible control mechanisms and its protective measures, the individuals change their behaviors and adopt practices that are requisite for disease prevention such as wearing face mask, having social distancing, proper sanitation, frequent hand washing, that reduce the contacts between susceptible and symptomatic/asymptomatic individuals [ 18 ].

A fraction of exposed individuals show clinical symptoms and join the symptomatic class while the remaining join the asymptomatic class. Some of the asymptomatic individuals show clinical symptoms with passage of time and join the symptomatic class at the rate \(\beta _a\) [ 43 ].

During an endemic outbreak, information is propagated through media and health authorities to warn people through different modes of social media like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp.

Information broadcasted in public do not remain constant but depend on prevalence of infection, i.e., the growth rate of information campaigns increases in proportion to the number of infected individuals [ 15 ].

Following [ 5 ], we assume that the growth rate of social media advertisements is a decreasing function of aware population in the region. The reason behind such consideration is the involvement of cost in broadcasting the information.

As time passes, information broadcasted in public lose their impact. Thus, depletion in cumulative number of advertisements is also incorporated in the model. Moreover, a baseline number of social media advertisements is always maintained in the region.

The information broadcasted in public changes individuals’ behaviors towards the disease and the susceptible individuals avoid their contacts with symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals by forming a separate aware class, the individuals in aware class possess the knowledge of avoiding disease transmission and further implementing the prevention mechanism [ 15 ]. However, individuals in aware class may lose awareness with the passage of time and become susceptible again at a constant rate \(\lambda _0\) .

The symptomatic individuals are hospitalized at the rate \(\phi _s\) while in the presence of broadcasting through social media advertisements, the individuals in asymptomatic class move to the quarantined compartment at the rate \(\gamma _a\) .

The hospitalized and quarantine individuals recovered from COVID-19 through proper treatment or naturally by his/her bodily immune power at a rate \(\phi _h\) and \(\nu _h\) , respectively and join the recovered class.

The individuals in recovered class lose their immunity as time flows and become susceptible again at a rate \(\delta \) .

The symptomatic and hospitalized individuals can proceed to severe complications of COVID-19 and experience COVID-19 mortality at a rate \(\alpha _s\) and \(\alpha _h\) , respectively. Humans in each class undergo natural mortality at a constant rate d .

These assumptions can be represented by a schematic diagram as depicted in Fig.  1 , and the proposed model is given by

The initial conditions are considered as,

Here, \(0\le c_{m_s},c_{m_a},a,\theta \le 1\) with \(c_{m_s}\gg c_{m_a}\) . That is, the efficacy of social media advertisements to reduce the contacts of susceptibles with symptomatic individuals is comparatively more in comparison to that with the asymptomatic individuals. It may be noted that \(\beta _1\ne \beta _2\) , stand for the possible heterogeneity in contact rate in presence or absence of clinical symptoms of COVID-19. For the feasibility of model system ( 1 ), we must have \(\beta _1\ge \beta _2\) . All the parameters involved in system ( 1 ) are assumed to be positive and their description is given in Table  1 .

Using the fact that \(N=S+E+I_s+I_a+Q+A+H+R\) , the model system ( 1 ) reduces to following system of equations:

The feasible region for system ( 2 ) is given in the following lemma [ 46 , 47 ].

For the solutions of system ( 2 ), the region of attraction is given by the set

which is invariant and compact with respect to system ( 2 ).

3 Mathematical analysis of system ( 2 )

3.1 disease-free equilibrium and basic reproduction number.

For model system ( 2 ), the disease-free equilibrium is

The equilibrium \(E_0\) always exists in the system.

Using the next generation operator method [ 48 ], we determine the expression for basic reproduction number. The basic reproduction number, \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) , an index worldwide commonly used by public health organization as key estimator of severity of given epidemic.

The new infection terms and transmission terms of system ( 2 ) is given by

Now, we find the matrix F (of new infection terms) and V (of the transition terms) as

The basic reproduction number is given by \({\mathcal {R}}_0=\rho (FV^{-1})\) , where \(\rho \) is the spectral radius of the next generation matrix \(FV^{-1}\) . Thus, from the model system ( 2 ), we obtain the expression for \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) as

Following [ 48 ], regarding local stability of the disease-free equilibrium \(E_0\) of the system ( 2 ), we have the following theorem.

For system ( 2 ), the disease-free equilibrium \(E_0\) is locally asymptotically stable if \({\mathcal {R}}_0<1\) and unstable if \({\mathcal {R}}_0>1\) .

3.2 Endemic equilibrium and its global stability

From system ( 2 ), an endemic equilibrium is \(E_*=(E^*,I_s^*,I_a^*,Q^*,A^*,N^*,H^*,R^*,M^*)\) whose components are positive solutions of equilibrium equations of system ( 2 ).

From the third equilibrium equation of system ( 2 ), we have

Now, from the second equilibrium equation of system ( 2 ) and using Eq. ( 3 ), we have

From the fourth equilibrium equation of system ( 2 ), we have

From the seventh equilibrium equation of system ( 2 ) and using Eq. ( 4 ), we have

Further, from the sixth equilibrium equation of system ( 2 ) and using Eqs. ( 4 ) and ( 6 ), we have

From the eighth equilibrium equation of system ( 2 ) and using Eqs. ( 5 ) and ( 6 ), we have

Using Eqs. ( 3 )−( 8 ) in the fifth equilibrium equation of system ( 2 ), we get

Using Eqs. ( 3 )−( 9 ) in the first equilibrium equations of system ( 2 ), we have

Using Eqs. ( 4 ) and ( 9 ) in the ninth equilibrium equations of system ( 2 ), we have

Note that Eqs. ( 10 ) and ( 11 ) are two isoclines in M and \(I_a\) . It is difficult to analyze the behavior of these isoclines mathematically. Let \((I_a^*,M^*)\) be unique point of intersection of isoclines ( 10 ) and ( 11 ).

Regarding global stability of endemic equilibrium \(E_*\) , we have the following theorem [ 49 ].

The endemic equilibrium \(E_*\) , if feasible, is globally asymptotically stable inside the region of attraction \(\varOmega \) if the following inequalities are satisfied;

Can be easily proved by considering the Lyapunov function

where \(m_i\) ’s \((i=1-8)\) are positive constants to be chosen appropriately. \(\square \)

4 Numerical simulation

4.1 model calibration.

We have calibrated our model system ( 1 ) with the cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases for the Republic of India. The cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases are obtained from World Health Organization (WHO) situation report for the period April 01, 2020 to September 07, 2020 [ 1 ]. We have estimated eight parameters among 24 model parameters by using sensitivity analysis [ 50 ], namely \(\beta _1\) , \(\beta _2\) , \(\sigma \) , \(\lambda \) , \(\lambda _0\) , \(\alpha _s\) , d and \(r_0\) for the system ( 1 ) by using least square method. The values of these model parameters and the initial size of the population plays an important role in the model simulation. The parameters are estimated by assuming the initial size of the population. The initial population are as follows:

Three days moving average filter has been employed to the cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases to smooth the data. The cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases are fitted with the model simulation by using the least square method. The estimated parameter values are listed in Table  2 . Parameter values locally minimize the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), which gives the realistic value of the basic reproduction number \({\mathcal {R}}_{0}=4.8273\) and show that the trend of cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases is increasing. RMSE is the measure of the accuracy of the data fitting and can be defined as

where n represents the size of the observed data, O ( i ) is the cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases and M ( i ) represents the model simulation. Figure  2 represents the cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases and model simulations has been shown in the blue curve for India. The RMSE for India is 175.65. As \({\mathcal {R}}_{0}>1\) , so the disease-free equilibrium point \(E_0\) is unstable. The basic reproduction number for India is greater than unity, which represents the substantial outbreak of the COVID-19 in India.

Plots of the output of the fitted model ( 1 ) and the observed active corona cases for India. Red dotted line shows real data points and the blue line stands for model solution. The figure shows that the cumulative number of COVID-19 increases exponentially as time progresses

For parameter values in Table  2 , we obtain the components of equilibrium \(E_*\) as

Eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix of system ( 2 ) at the equilibrium \(E_*\) are obtained as

Since eigenvalues are either negative or have negative real parts, the equilibrium \(E_*\) is locally asymptotically stable.

Global stability of the endemic equilibrium \(E_*\) of system ( 1 ) in a \(I_s\) – \(I_a\) – M and b S – E – R spaces. Parameters are at the same values as in Fig.  8 . Figure shows that solution trajectories starting from four different initial points ultimately converge to the components of endemic equilibrium \(E_*\)

In Fig.  3 a, we have portrayed the global asymptotic stability of the endemic equilibrium \(E_*\) in \(I_s\) \(-\) \(I_a\) \(-\) \(M\) space. The figure depicts that all the solution trajectories of the system ( 1 ) originating from four different initial conditions ultimately converge to the point \((I^*_s,I^*_a,M^*)\) . The global asymptotic stability of the endemic equilibrium \(E_*\) in \(S\) \(-\) \(E\) \(-\) \(R\) space is shown in Fig.  3 b. Using this approach, the global asymptotic stability of the endemic equilibrium \(E_*\) in other spaces can also be extrapolated. Thus, the statement of Theorem  2 is validated numerically.

Semi-relative sensitivities of the symptomatic infected population with respect to model parameters using automatic differentiation. The observation window is [0,400] and the sensitivity of a parameter is identified by the maximum deviation of the state variable (along y -axis) and it also identifies the time intervals when the system is most sensitive to such changes. Parameters are at the same values as in Table  2

Sensitivity quantification by calculating sensitivity coefficient through \(L^2\) norm. Ranking of parameters from the most sensitive to the least ones yields the ordering \([\sigma ,r_0,d,\beta _1,\alpha _s,\lambda ,\phi _s,r,\lambda _0]^T\)

Normalized forward sensitivity indices of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) with respect to model parameters. Parameters are at the same values as in Table  2 . A lower value of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) is preferable since it enhances the possibility of disease eradication. Therefore, above all an increase in the parameters \(\varLambda \) , \(\beta _1\) , \(\sigma \) and \(\lambda _0\) must be prevented by all means, while an increase in \(c_{m_s}\) , a , \(\phi _s\) , \(\lambda \) , \(\alpha _s\) , d and \(M_0\) should instead be favored

4.2 Sensitivity analysis

Here, we perform sensitivity analysis to identify the most influential parameters concerned with the symptomatic infected population in agreement with the model assumptions. Following [ 52 , 53 ], we draw sensitivity graphs by using the code myAD (automatic differentiation), Fig.  4 . To measure the sensitivity of the model parameters from Fig.  4 , we compute the sensitivity coefficients by normalizing the sensitivity functions and deriving the \(L^2\) norm of the resulting functions, obtained by

Among many identifiability strategies implemented to calibrate the sensitivity coefficients, the easiest strategies imply that the larger the coefficients, the more mastery the model outcome with respect to that parameter. In this case, a parameter with a greater sensitivity is more likely to be identifiable. Since the sensitivity functions are evaluated at some nominal values for the parameters, the analysis is only local. After ranking the sensitivity functions, we categorize the most sensitive parameters (in descending order) to the least ones, Fig.  5 . Our case yields the ordering \([\sigma ,r_0,d,\beta _1,\alpha _s,\lambda ,\phi _s,r,\lambda _0]^T\) , that is, out of the 24 parameters, only the first nine ranked parameters are the most identifiable and sensitive parameters. Since other parameters are not sensitive, they will not affect the equilibrium number of symptomatic population much. Looking at the identifiable and sensitive parameters, it is worth saying that the intervention strategies must focus on the reductions in the parameters which can trigger the symptomatic population viz. \(\sigma \) , \(r_0\) , \(\beta _1\) and \(\lambda _0\) . Instead, the parameters \(\lambda \) , r and \(\phi _s\) should be fostered to reduce the severity of the outbreak significantly. Therefore, awareness programs must be continuously propagated for understanding the pattern of disease transmission. In this way, behavioral changes among susceptible individuals are induced, and hence their rate of contact with the symptomatic infected population will be reduced. Also, the symptomatic infected individuals will be hospitalized immediately.

We also establish the normalized forward sensitivity indices of the basic reproduction number with respect to model parameters [ 54 ]. The normalized forward sensitivity index of a variable to a parameter describes the ratio of the relative change in the variable to the relative change in the parameter, i.e., the normalized forward sensitivity index of a variable \(\gamma \) that depends differentiably on a parameter \(\delta \) . It is defined as: \(\displaystyle X^\gamma _\delta =\frac{\partial \gamma }{\partial \delta }\times \frac{\delta }{\gamma }.\) In Fig.  6 , we plot the sensitivity indices of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) with respect to the parameters of interest. Evidently, Fig.  6 suggests that the magnitude of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) increases with increase in the values of parameters \(\varLambda \) , \(\beta _1\) , \(\sigma \) and \(\lambda _0\) as these parameters possess positive indices with \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) . Similarly, the parameters having negative indices with \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) are \(c_{m_s}\) , a , \(\phi _s\) , \(\lambda \) , \(\alpha _s\) , d and \(M_0\) . Hence, increments in these parameters cause significant decline in the values of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) . We find that the parameters \(\varLambda \) , \(\beta _1\) and \(\sigma \) have sensitivity index 1 with \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) . It means that 1% increase in the values of these parameters will result in 1% increase in the value of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) . It is clear that achieving a lower value of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) helps to prevent the disease spread. Thus, to wipe out the disease from the system, we must control the increase of the parameters having positive indices with basic reproduction number whereas parameters which have negative indices should be sustained. Despite these significantly sensitive model parameters associated with the disease transmissibility, the parameters related to social media advertisements can also help to curb the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, Government and health-care officials should adopt practical and effective intervention strategies that can keep potential audience updated about the ongoing health issues and their possible solutions. We find that the control parameters such as dissemination rate of awareness among susceptible individuals, rate of hospitalization of symptomatic individuals, baseline number of social media advertisements etc., which are negatively correlated with \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) should be implemented by means of proper broadcasting of information through social media advertisements and efficient health-care services.

Plots of basic reproduction number ( \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) ) with respect a \(\lambda \) and \(M_0\) , and b \(c_{m_s}\) and \(\phi _s\) . Rest of the parameters are at the same values as in Table  2 . The figures show that the values of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) can be maintained below unity by boosting up the parameters \(\lambda \) , \(M_0\) , \(c_{m_s}\) and \(\phi _s\)

4.3 Impacts of some key parameters on disease control

As pointed out in the introduction, now, we are interested to see the impact of broadcasting the information through social media advertisements on disease control. For this, we select four parameters related to social media advertisements and plot the basic reproduction number \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) by varying two parameters at a time viz. \((M_0,\lambda )\) and \((\phi _s,c_{m_s})\) (see Fig.  7 ). It is apparent from Fig.  7 a that the epidemic potential can be drawn below unity for higher values of \(M_0\) and \(\lambda \) . That is, increment in the baseline number of social media advertisements and dissemination of awareness due to popularity of new advertisements among susceptible individuals at a higher rate can help to control the spread of coronavirus in India. It can be noted from Fig.  7 b that for lower values of \(\phi _s\) and \(c_{m_s}\) , \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) becomes greater than one whereas increasing values of these parameters push back the value of \({\mathcal {R}}_0\) to less than unity. This shows the importance of efficacy of awareness programs to reduce the contact rate with symptomatic individuals via propagating awareness among susceptible individuals and the hospitalization of symptomatic individuals in controlling the disease. The public health implication of this is that, COVID-19 can be controlled effectively and will be eventually eradicated from India by social media advertisements which influence the public for compulsory face masks wearing while in public, frequent sanitization, social distancing, hospitalization of symptomatic individuals and quarantine of asymptomatic individuals.

Contour lines representing the equilibrium values of symptomatic individuals ( \(I_s\) ) as functions of a \(\varLambda \) and \(\beta _1\) , b \(\phi _h\) and \(\beta _2\) , c r and \(r_0\) , d \(\lambda \) and \(\delta \) , e \(c_{m_s}\) and p , f \(c_{m_a}\) and p , g \(M_0\) and \(\lambda _0\) , h \(\phi _s\) and \(\beta _a\) , and i \(\gamma _a\) and \(\theta \) . Parameters are at the same values as in Table  2 except \(\varLambda =100\) , \(\beta _1=0.000004\) , \(\beta _2=0.0000012\) , \(\lambda =0.0012\) , \(p=1200\) , \(\lambda _0=0.008\) , \(\sigma =0.19\) , \(\gamma _a=0.002\) , \(\delta =0.0005\) , \(d=0.00003518\) , \(r=0.01\) , \(r_0=0.005\) , \(M_0=500\) . The figures clearly indicate that behavioral changes induced by propagation of awareness through social media advertisements can help to reduce the active symptomatic infections effectively

Next, we plot the symptomatic infected population by varying two parameters at a time viz. \((\varLambda ,\beta _1)\) , \((\phi _h,\beta _2)\) , \((r,r_0)\) , \((\lambda ,\delta )\) , \((c_{m_s},p)\) , \((c_{m_a},p)\) , \((M_0,\lambda _0)\) , \((\phi _s,\beta _a)\) and \((\gamma _a,\theta )\) (see Fig.  8 ). We see that with increase in the contact rate of susceptible individuals with symptomatic or asymptomatic infected individuals, the symptomatic infections rise up in the region. This shows that in order to control symptomatic infections, attention should be paid on reduction of contact rates of susceptibles with symptomatic and asymptomatic infected individuals, which can be achieved by raising awareness through media programs. It is apparent from the figure that increase in the rate of broadcasting social media advertisements decrease the number of symptomatic population to a low equilibrium value while diminution in the advertisements cause climb in the symptomatic infections. We find that with increase in the dissemination rate of awareness due to popularity of new advertisements among susceptible individuals \(\lambda \) , the number of symptomatic infected population decreases. The parameters \(c_{m_s}\) and \(c_{m_a}\) representing the efficacy of social media advertisements in reducing the contacts of susceptibles with symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals respectively, significantly decrease the symptomatic infections. Loss rate of awareness by aware people, \(\lambda _0\) , boost up the symptomatic infections, thus this should be prevented. Maintaining the baseline number of awareness \(M_0\) , keep the infection at low level. Immediate hospitalization of symptomatic individuals greatly reduces disease prevalence. Increment in the rate of quarantine of asymptomatic individuals, \(\gamma _a\) , lessen the number of symptomatic infected population at a very low rate.

Variation of symptomatic individuals ( \(I_s\) ) with respect to time for different values of a r and \(M_0\) , and b \(\phi _s\) and \(\lambda \) . Parameters are at the same values as in Fig.  8 . The figures show that symptomatic infections can be completely eradicated for higher rates of hospitalization and broadcasting of information through social media advertisements

Now, we see the equilibrium level of symptomatic infected population as time progresses, Fig.  9 . First, we plot the equilibrium number of symptomatic infected population by picking four different combinations of r and \(M_0\) , Fig.  9 a. Impact of social media advertisements in reducing the number of symptomatic infected population is apparent from this figure. In the absence of social media advertisements, the symptomatic infected population is at higher equilibrium level with very high initial peak. But, the infective population decrease if social media advertisements come into scenario. The growth rate and baseline number of social media advertisements are found to effectively decrease the symptomatic infected population, driving the equilibrium level of symptomatic infected population to zero if the social media advertisements are continuously broadcasted at higher rates. Figure  9 b indicates that raising awareness among susceptible individuals about coronavirus and hospitalizing the symptomatic individuals greatly reduces the symptomatic infections in India. We observe that high rate of hospitalization of symptomatic individuals together with continuous propagation of awareness among susceptible population have potential to suppress the burden of COVID-19 in India.

5 Discussion and conclusion

COVID-19 is now one of the deadliest pandemic in human history and has had tragic consequences affecting millions of people worldwide. In India, the outbreak of coronavirus started on 2nd March 2020 and after that, the cases are on an ever-increasing trajectory. With very high population density, the unavailability of specific medication or vaccine and insufficient information about the transmission mechanisms of the disease makes it extremely difficult to fight against the disease effectively. In such a situation, designing an efficient control strategy is one of the crucial factors to curb the disease spread. In this study, we have proposed a mathematical model to investigate the role of social media advertisements on the control of novel coronavirus pandemic in India to assess the impacts of broadcasting through media coverage and social networking web sites (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other modes of information propagations including TV, radio, print media) and individuals behavioral responses regarding protective measures. We analyzed our model for the stability of the disease-free and endemic equilibria, and the corresponding results indicate that disease can be eradicated if the basic reproduction number is below unity that can be maintained by broadcasting of information through social media advertisements.

Our proposed model is fitted to the cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases in India and we estimated eight epidemiologically important parameters. By looking at the estimated parameters, it is observed that the rate of disease transmission is very high in India which basically implies the high infectiousness of the disease. We have also estimated the basic reproduction number to get an overview of this phase of the outbreak. This suggests that the rate of disease transmission needs to be controlled otherwise a large proportion of population will be affected within a short period of time. Results of sensitivity analysis explored the importance of social media advertisements in lowering the disease transmission rate. Further, a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of parameters associated with social media advertisements (efficacy of social media advertisements in reducing the contact rates of susceptibles with symptomatic/asymptomatic individuals, hospitalizations of symptomatic individuals and quarantine of asymptomatic individuals) is performed numerically. Our results suggest that higher intervention efforts are needed to control the disease outbreak within a shorter period of time in India. Our analysis also reveals that the strength of the interventions should be increased over time to eradicate the disease effectively.

The results reported in this paper suggests that publicizing information through social media services can be an important factor in the suppression of disease transmission and may be used as a potential disease control strategy. The level of awareness should be increased and efforts should be made on radical behavioral changes among susceptible individuals in order to completely eradicate the COVID-19 in India. In this context, the public-health authorities and policy makers should have major contributions in monitoring the situation to ensure that intervention strategies are being implemented properly. The targeted population must be vaccinated to stop COVID-19 infection. This will increase immunity to fight against the disease and helps to run the economic activities in efficient ways thereby lessening the economic crisis during the pandemic. Media campaigns should be conducted to develop the awareness of the community to the danger of COVID-19 [ 36 ]. After the media reporting about COVID-19, people became aware of the disease threat and started reducing their contacts with others. The Government of India imposed complete countrywide lockdown to flatten the curve of the infection and to reduce social contact, educational institutions arranged online classes, webinars etc. Recently, after successful trail of the vaccine for COVID-19, the Government of India decided to vaccinate the targeted population. For this, vaccination campaigns are being implemented, and most of the people are getting vaccinated. These behaviors overall resulted in reduced contact with others and delayed disease spread, and suppressed the burden of disease. Our findings suggest that to eradicate the coronavirus pandemic in India, continuous propagation of awareness through social media advertisements is needed to encourage people for adopting preventive measures and undertake vaccination. Finally, it is worthy to mention that the results of this study can be used for any future pandemic.

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Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to the reviewers whose comments and suggestions have helped the improvements of this paper.

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Department of Mathematics, Institute of Engineering and Rural Technology, Prayagraj, 211002, India

Rajanish Kumar Rai

Department of Mathematics, Presidency University, Kolkata, 700073, India

Subhas Khajanchi

Department of Basic Science and Humanities, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bhagalpur, 813210, India

Pankaj Kumar Tiwari

Dipartimento di Matematica “Giuseppe Peano”, Università di Torino, Via Carlo Alberto 10, 10123, Torino, Italy

Ezio Venturino

Department of Mathematics, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India

Arvind Kumar Misra

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Rai, R.K., Khajanchi, S., Tiwari, P.K. et al. Impact of social media advertisements on the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic in India. J. Appl. Math. Comput. 68 , 19–44 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12190-021-01507-y

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Received : 28 November 2020

Revised : 22 January 2021

Accepted : 01 February 2021

Published : 27 February 2021

Issue Date : February 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12190-021-01507-y

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2024 Theses Doctoral

Modeling User Engagement on Online Social Platforms - A Context-Aware Machine Learning Approach

Peters, Heinrich

This dissertation examines the predictability of user engagement on online social platforms by integrating theoretical perspectives from the literature on media and technology habits with principles of context-aware computing. It presents three studies, each targeting a different facet of technology-mediated communication, from social media use in general to more granular behaviors like active and passive use and instant messaging. The first chapter proposes a novel approach to the study of social media habits through predictive modeling of sequential smartphone user behaviors. Using longitudinal smartphone app log data, it examines the predictability of app engagement as a way to capture a critical yet previously neglected aspect of media and technology habits: their embeddedness in repetitive behavioral sequences. The study employs Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and transformer neural networks to demonstrate that social media use follows predictable patterns over time and that its predictability varies substantially across individuals. T he second chapter shifts focus to the potential of context-aware modeling as a holistic yet parsimonious and privacy-preserving approach to predicting user engagement on online social platforms. Analyzing over 100 million Snapchat sessions from nearly 80,000 users via deep LSTM neural networks, the study demonstrates the predictability of active and passive use based on past behavior and a notable improvement in predictive performance upon integrating momentary context information. Features related to connectivity status, location, temporal context, and weather were found to capture non-redundant variance in user engagement relative to features derived from histories of in-app behaviors. The findings are consistent with the idea of context-contingent, habit-driven patterns of active and passive use, highlighting the utility of contextualized representations of user behavior for predicting user engagement on online social platforms. The third chapter investigates the predictability of attentiveness and responsiveness in instant messaging on a large online social platform. Utilizing metadata from over 19 million messages, the study examines the predictive power of a wide range of predictor groups, including message attributes, user attributes, and momentary context, as well as historical communication patterns within ego networks and dyadic relationships. The findings echo the overarching theme that habitual behaviors and contextual factors shape user engagement. However, in this case, dyad-specific messaging histories account for the overwhelming share of explained variance, underlining the socially interdependent nature of user engagement in instant messaging. Collectively, the three studies presented in this dissertation make a theoretical contribution by establishing media and technology habits as a suitable framework for the study of user engagement and by introducing a novel perspective that emphasizes the repetitive, predictable, and context-dependent nature of media and technology habits. The research makes an important empirical contribution through the use of novel, large-scale, objective behavioral data, enhancing the ecological validity and real-world applicability of its findings. Methodologically, it pioneers the use of context-aware sequential machine learning techniques for the study of media and technology habits. The insights garnered from this research have the potential to inform the design of engaging and ethical online social platforms and mobile technologies, highlighting its practical implications for the billions of users navigating these digital environments on a daily basis.

• Instant messaging
• Computer science
• Social media
• Machine learning
• Neural networks (Computer science)
• Longitudinal method
• Snapchat (Electronic resource)

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What is a destination dupe? Bengaluru just ranked 6th on an Instagram list, btw

According to a recent study, bengaluru has been named the 6th most photogenic destination dupe, with 18.8 million instagram posts..

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• 2024 has seen a rise in travel trend called destination dupe
• The trend involves travelling to cheaper places with similar aesthetics
• In a recent survey, Bengaluru was named the Silicon Valley dupe

Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in people wanting to travel. In fact, the global tourism market is expected to reach a whopping 16.9 trillion (yes, trillion ) USD by 2030.

Indians are also not far behind in their urge to travel, with our market size projected to grow to $131.7 billion by 2030.

However, not everyone has access to travel to high-end places, nor do they want to encounter huge crowds of tourists wherever they go, and let them photobomb every photo (we see you, Santorini) .

But what is a destination dupe?

Niyati Saxena, founder of Migrant Musings & Co, a group travel company from Noida, says that even though the concept of travelling to a much cheaper place with the same aesthetic is not new, now 'we have a name for it'.

She says, "Two places may have very similar terrain, landscape and even overall vibe and social setups. When one place resembles another (generally more popular) place in such a manner, it is referred to as a destination dupe."

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mohnish Doultani | Lifestyle and Travel (@mohnishdoultani)

“People choose these spots because they get a similar experience without the usual downsides of busy tourist areas. So, it's like finding a great alternative that's just as good but without all the fuss,” says Ahuja.

What is the new survey?

• Travel experts at 1st Move International, a moving company, analysed Instagram data to reveal the most picturesque holiday destination dupes.
• They have named Bengaluru as the 6th most photogenic destination dupe (similar in photos ) of the famous Silicon Valley (a region in California) - with 18.8 million Instagram posts.
• "Considered the next Silicon Valley, Bengaluru is rising in popularity with over 18.8 million posts presenting its appeal. Renowned for its beauty, the city offers an array of picturesque spots for Instagram-worthy moments," the study reads.
• Pranav Dangi, founder & CEO, of The Hosteller, a hostel chain, agrees with the study and says, Bengaluru's recognition as a top destination dupe for Silicon Valley isn’t surprising.
• He describes Bengaluru as the epicentre of India’s tech industry and further adds that Bengaluru is bursting with innovation and startup culture, much like ‘Silicon Valley’.

Another reason, according to experts, is the ‘realness’ of these lesser-known destinations portrayed on social media, which has also made this destination dupe trend a hit.

Why are Indians opting for destination dupes?

Indians are known to be “ jugaadu s (make-shifters)”, and destination dupes are nothing more than a form of make-shift travel to a place which is much cheaper and less crowded.

Jokes aside, experts think there are various reasons why Indians travel to places that are dupes of much more famous places.

Like Dangi says, Indians are increasingly opting for destination dupes for: cost efficiency, easier access, and a growing desire for quick getaways due to busy lifestyles.