National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) in association with National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Limited (NFCSF) organized a webinar on social media (SM) awareness for member institutions of the sugar federation last week.
The objective of the webinar was to highlight the importance of SM for coops, its utility in communicating with internal & external stakeholders, discuss ways to initiate steps for handling SM a/c, content building & enhance SM followers’ count.
In his inaugural speech, NFCSF MD Prakash Naiknavare exhorted the participants to give due weightage to SM handles to ensure sugar coops turn into ‘vibrant business entities’, well-equipped to compete in the market economy as envisaged by the Ministry of Cooperation.
In his Keynote address, IFFCO PR Head Harshendra S. Verdhan said that sugar coops should establish strong connect with the farmers through social media, & must think of ways to utilize each SM platform according to their needs e. g, he said that FB page should give emphasis to experiences of sugar farmers, while Twitter can be more opinion-oriented on topical issues confronting the coop sugar sector.
Verdhan highlighted the importance of customer-centric stories & experiences on SM handles for enhancing the business of sugar factories and showcasing the uniqueness of the co-op model.
Founder of ISRA & Resource Person at the NCUI Incubation Centre, Abhishek highlighted the tech aspects of SM platforms like usage of tags/hashtags, managing pages & profiles on SM handles etc.
Sanjay Verma, Director (Pub/PR), NCUI, said that social media being cost-effective & advancing reach can be a game-changer for coops whose communications strategy is weak compared to corporates.
Anuradha, E&CA, NCUI, moderated the webinar & presented a SM strategy document, primarily focusing on 3 basic aspects of posts’ content ? creation, quality & variation, & shared ways in which SM handles can be utilized by sugar coops in their various areas of functioning with a target-oriented approach.
An interactive Q&A session was organized towards the closure of the webinar.
