Author Apurva Chamaria's book talks about how niche social media is the next big thing

BENGALURU: There are umpteen number of books out there on social media marketing, creating one's own brand in the digital age and selling oneself in a world that faces the problem of plenty. A new book written by Apurva Chamaria, head of digital marketing at HCL Technologies, called 'You are the Key - Unlocking doors through Social Selling', stresses on the need for targeted social selling for successful digital presence.

"There is a huge gap between sales and marketing. Most sales professionals are still trained in conventional ways but the world has changed with digital media. One cannot use age-old techniques and expect results," Chamaria told ET.

His book talks about how to have a targeted one-to-one approach instead of generating mass appeal that do not necessarily translate into sales. "Social selling is especially relevant to B2B and high value products. It takes a very targeted vs spray and pray approach."

He added that most IT companies including IBM, TCS, Wipro and Oracle are using social selling with varying degrees of maturity. "The beauty of social media is that it democratises knowledge. It will hardly take us one-two years to get this right."

Chamaria stressed on the rise of niche social media in the near future where people will create personalised content towards particular users they are targeting. "Evolved marketers are asking hard questions like whether social media buzz is translating into increased market shares or product sales," he said.