Image credits: tehelka.com
Vodafone is ahead of other telecom players in social media in most of the parameters. Vodafone scored 83.4 in the Simplify360 Social Index (SSI) while Airtel and Reliance scored 81.6 and 72.4 respectively coming as second and third in the ranking. Vodafone has the highest share of fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter respectively. Airtel despite having a share of 25% of the entire social media buzz in the industry with a good number of buzz in both the earned and owned media is second only to Vodafone. Airtel was the number 1 telecom company in March.
Vodafone has highly engaged fans and followers on both Facebook and Twitter thanks to their campaign during the Cricket festival, IPL.
Owned media is the mention of the brand on their owned social media channels. For example, the comments and posts on the official Facebook pages are considered as owned media mentions. Similarly for mentions, retweets of the official handles and customer care handles are considered as the owned media mentions. While on the other hand, the mention of the brand elsewhere without tagging the official handles and pages is considered as earned media.
Airtel has the highest social media buzz despite their average performance on specific company owned channels on Facebook and Twitter. While complaints and queries of brands contribute an industry average of 40% of the social media buzz, larger part of the buzz on the brand is as a result of several reasons including, marketing push by the brand, promos and offers, news about the brand etc. There is always news about Airtel in the mainline media which leads to brand buzz in social media. Traditional or mainline media and social media are not so different after all.
“Another consolation for Airtel and the characteristics that set them apart from other players is their pro-activeness on social media. They have dedicated customer care handle which none of the other telecom service providers have”, stated Vang Lian and Mohan Krishna in the report. Any complaint on the brand is responded within the next 1 and half hour while the industry average is 1 day and 6 hours that is more than 24 hours.
“Other service providers in the industry have a lot of catching up to do. With Airtel responding to customer complaints and queries within an hour and a half, Airtel is on track to gaining social media share of voice which may eventually lead to increase in market share” said the report.
According to the report by Simplify360, Vodafone has the highest number of fans on Facebook and does well on Twitter with the highest number of followers and second highest in terms of mentions.
Highlights of the report:
• Vodafone overtakes Airtel as the most active brand on social media followed by Airtel and Reliance. Vodafone scores high on social media primarily because of the good performance of the brand on Facebook and Twitter.
• Airtel is the most responsive on social media. While other players in the industry took a day on an average to respond to complaints, Airtel responded to customers within the next hour and a half. Despite having the maximum number of complaints compared to others
• Reliance communications tops in terms of owned media coverage due to the campaign #Twee20
• Vodafone dominated Facebook. Compared to other brands, Vodafone has the highest number of fans and the most engaged fans due to the Vodafone Zoozoos campaign around IPL.
• Vodafone leads in terms of followers and second highest in terms of mentions. Vodafone, Airtel and Reliance are the leaders on Twitter.
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