Do you have 300 friends on Facebook ? Wish to get rewards ? Here is the way…

Bengaluru, Aug 03: Advertising and marketing is evolving at a rapid rate. Word of mouth remains the best and most convincing form of advertising today.

Not only is it cheaper than hiring celebrities, but it ensures a one on one targeting, and let’s customer database do the advertising for themselves.

FamousEnuf have launched the first platform in India where you can post real reviews of things you’d normally try, from food to services to start-ups. There’s finally a way to utilize that social media fame to yield actual benefits – from a beer to a discount coupons and so much more.

The way it works is simple. All you need is 300 friends or more on Facebook for you to register. Once you select a product or service to review, post a genuine review of the same on your social media, and then check your dashboard for rewards. The system works brilliantly for you to utilize your social media fame as well as get neat rewards for the same.

Entrepreneur magazine had an exclusive chit-chat with the founder couple, Rachita Pandya and Aditya Shah, which might just revolutionize the way we look at marketing and the power of social media to generate rewards. Here are some excerpts:

What was your first job, and how well did it pay?

We both got placed in Tata Consultancy Services through campus placement after graduation. It was a decent paying first job. Not pay scale but the immense learning opportunity that the work presented led us to make that choice. Again it wasn’t the money that prompted us to leave TCS. It was the hunger to do something different, to be independent and to carve a niche for ourselves.

How was the idea of your startup conceptualized? What is the need you are addressing in the market?

Today, more than ever, it is no longer about communicating to the consumer but it is all about communicating with the consumer. The most significant change of the past few years has been that of the consumer taking complete charge. Digital technology era has opened up a two way channel for consumers to talk with, to and about their brands. It’s no longer a one way street.

A connected consumer behaves very differently and brands recognize that. Moreover, consumers are relying more and more on peer reviews. With start-ups like Tripadvisor and Zomato validating the popularity of peer reviews, brands need to tell good and positive stories about themselves to be told by people who matter to the consumers. And these people are no longer the celebrities in the conventional sense. According to Nielson, 90% people trust recommendation from peers over celebrity endorsements. That is telling, isn’t it?

But brands are at a loss to identify brand loyalists. Not only that, they have to deal with a plethora of advertising agencies and struggle to craft the right message and share content the audience will love.

FamousEnuf offers a solution to all these problems. There are 3 cogs driving the wheel of FamouEnuf – crowd-sourced UGC (user generated content), word of mouth and barter.

We thought why not de-centralize this huge and scalable advertising market. How great it would be if the consumers themselves create and promote campaigns for the brands they love.

Which goes on to say, now your Facebook posts can get you awesome branded products.  Plus, now brands not only identify and reward brand loyalists but also convert them to brand evangelists. This creates enormous value for both brands as well as consumers.

Is there a story behind the name of your startup?

Yes, we firmly believe that today, because of the power of social media, we are all micro-celebrities. An average Facebook user has about 300-350 friends and the inner circle of influence has grown to 100-150 for everyone. Which means, users are in a position to influence that many more people. People in their social circles believe in them, think of them as a “knowledgeable” friend or someone whose choices, opinions they admire and follow.

So, FamousEnuf, asks the pertinent question to all social media users – Are you Famous Enough (Enuf) ? To be able to steer thought and action in your circle and be the brand ambassador for the brands you love.

What is your business model?

Brands pay us per campaign.

We are set to launch our Android mobile app in the next 7-10 days. We recently wrapped up a private beta with one brand and 30 users, which gave us a decent taste of the market and also gave us more confidence to go to market with blazing horns. Our users are typically active social media users in the age group of 18-35 and all brands who want to advertise!

What was it that attracted investors to your business according to you?
Today it is all about automating activities and driving engagement. How to make lives easier for users. How to involve community to give inputs. We are doing exactly that. We are shifting the power from a few powerful players to the community at large. User generated content is king. We are tapping into the creativity of the masses rather than just the classes.

This process of automating advertising by crowd-sourcing campaign creatives and promotion in an organic way, evoking only natural behaviour on both sides is what is most interesting about FamousEnuf.

We are to advertising as Uber is to cabs and Kickstarter is to fundraising – shifting the power to the larger community. We are the only customer focussed platform. No influencers, no celebrities, no advertising agency. A pure platform for people like you and me, to share and spread the word for our favourite brands.

What has been your biggest challenge since its conception? What is your personal style of addressing the challenges you faced?

Social media is changing so rapidly from introducing new features to changes in how users see content that we have to be quick enough to keep pace. Being flexible is important but at the same time it is important to also maintain the core essence of FamousEnuf. That is challenging.

As with all start-ups, we too face new challenges every day. Some big enough to rattle us and some small enough to be solved in a jiffy.

How do you see the growth scenario is this business? What do predict for the future of your business?

The business opportunity is huge. With close to INR 17 billion spent on social media marketing alone, we now see brands willing to spend more than 15% of overall marketing budget on social media which earlier used to be about 3-4%. This shows a shift in the preference which is hugely because social media platforms are strong, powerful platforms where users speak their mind. Social media marketing is increasingly becoming the preferred choice of CMOs.

There are about 200 million social media users in India, of which 130 million are on Facebook. With about 60 million daily active users, India is poised to become the country with the largest number of Facebook users.

Today when the average time spent on Facebook has increased to 40min, we see a trend that is not only here to stay but transcend to a level where these communities become our first avenue for discussions.

You can get into this website and experience #BarterisBack http://www.famousenuf.com/