A look at 4 Indian founders who use Twitter to their advantage.

LinkedIn has a feature called “influencers” where people who are digitally savvy and at the top of their game are given a platform to post their insights. Most of these are celebrities, entrepreneurs, public figures such as T. Boone Pickens (founder-chairman-CEO at BP Capital), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (CMD at Biocon), Ariana Huffington (president and editor-in-chief at Huffington Post). Thus, LinkedIn sets a precedent in showing how important it is to be in on the digital space. To not have a social media presence for founders today, can almost sound a death knell for it is not only an exercise in personal branding but also helps to drive customer engagement for their organisation.

LinkedIn has of course always been around for the business community to engage professionally but recently Twitter gained traction with the digital savvy for its ability to make the big shots approachable. Many opinion-makers (from the likes of Barack Obama, The Dalai Lama, Bill Gates to Amitabh Bachchan) believe in extensively engaging their audiences and sharing insights via Twitter, promote their personal brands and sometimes even seek solutions to their daily issues.

An interesting phenomenon is when we see an entrepreneur stepping up and taking the stage in social media engagement and actually turning out to be a pro at it. Richard Branson is one such example. Apart from the sheer number of posts, the quality of the engagement can play a huge role in determining how you grab attention. Fast Company writes that it is easy to grab attention on Twitter just by giving your feed some variety, really acknowledging your followers (with a direct message or a tweet once in a while) and replicating your strong suite in your tweets.

However according to Huffington Post, globally only 20 per cent founders of midsize companies are active on social media, and the numbers are even less in India. We attempt to deconstruct four Indian founders and CEOs who have truly managed to rule Twitter for both their brands and themselves and are seen catching the eye of all those who matter, in this highly precarious space:

1. Anirban Blah (@anirbanblah) - Twitter Followers: 33.4k | Number of Tweets: 6k

 

When you are the founder of a young, dynamic talent management company (CAA Kwan) and are known as the person behind Sania Mirza’s fame, you are bound to have a fan following even among celebrities. Anirban Blah has this and makes sure that he leverages the unique position that he has by tweeting extensively about politics, football, books and all that catches his eye. He is in that rare league of businesspeople who are also social media influencers- a tag that is mostly hogged by Bollywood personalities, politicians or stand-up comics on Twitter in India. Right from the word “go”, his profile is engaging. His profile picture says, “Blah Blah: Something to talk about when you have nothing else to say”, thus bringing into picture his unique last name and actually getting some publicity out of it. He tweets extensively about sports (especially football), art, music and politics, writes sparingly about books and generally makes sure that he stays tuned in on the buzz. He claims that he avoids tweeting about his work and he uses Twitter for personal engagement.

2. Rashmi Sinha (@rashmi) - Twitter Followers: 19.7k | Number of Tweets: 5k

Rashmi Sinha, the founder of SlideShare (called the “YouTube for presentations”, now acquired by LinkedIn) was named one of the “World’s Top 10 Women Influencers in Web 2.0” by Fast Company in 2008. This is only reiterated by the fact that Rashmi tweets regularly about all things tech, work-life balance and current affairs. She also tweets about social software and entrepreneurship. More than that, she engages on a very personal level by targeting tweets regularly to her followers. She uses the Twitter platform to share her experience and encourage young entrepreneurs with life advice. She is followed by many industry-watchers, founders and CEOs who might want to pick up a trick or two on how to manage their social media presence from her.

3. Vijay Nair (@vijay nair) - Twitter Followers: 9k | Number of Tweets: 6k

Vijay Nair, or the “OML guy” as he describes himself, is the founder of Only Much Louder, the company that manages the popular music festival NH7 Weekender and popular stand-up comedy acts like AIB’s Royal Turds. Nair’s flair and energy for managing people, got noted long back in 2003, by Vishal Dadlani, who describes him as one of the most “efficient organiser of people” in an article in Economic Times 21 October 2014. This can be seen even on social media because of the flair with which he engages his followers with his company. Nair actively retweets everything related to the acts,  festivals and artists that OML is managing such as AIB, Vishal Dadlani, bands like The Police, Raghu Dixit, et al. His business and social media presence has been covered by news outlets such as Livemint, Firspost, ET and DNA, who also acknowledge how his engagement has helped in the scaling up the music festival NH7. The footfalls at NH7 has grown by leaps and bounds from 3000 when it started out in 2010 to 26,000 in the last year.

4. Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) - Twitter Followers: 9k | Number of Tweets: 19.1k

Vijay Shekhar, founder at One97-Paytm (India’s digital goods marketplace), is another Twitter celebrity who tweets about technology, his brand, employee satisfaction at his company, music and all things he finds funny. He is followed on Twitter by many entrepreneurs, startups, angel investors and business magazines. On the other hand Vijay very selectively follows back only about 500 people (as of 11th February 2015), among which are some journalists and other entrepreneurs – Ravish Kumar (journalist at NDTV), Ishan Gupta (CEO of Edukart), Ashish Kashyap (CEO at Ibibo), Poonam Saxena (editor of HT Brunch), Vindu Goel (tech reporter at NYT), et al. His tweets would show that Vijay Shekhar, much like the brand Paytm he owns, believes in being distinctive and relevant for his audience as he taps into the current buzz by tweeting about politics, business news, and his company.

Approximate number of tweets and followers, as of 24 April 2015.