Indian brands create consumer conversation using Twitter

A new report shows that Indian brands are gradually turning to Twitter to create business focused conversations with their customer base.

The study by web strategy and digital marketing company Iffort looks at 66 companies across 9 business verticals analysing the purposes for which they use the micro-blogging site.

India makes top ten of Twitter users

For context, India now ranks 10th in the list of Twitter users by country - totaling 1.27% of all users.

Tweets were monitored randomly during the working week between November 2008 and February 2010. To be considered brands had to have a minimum of 100 followers, an activity period of at least 1 month and at least 50 tweets.

Moving from broadcast to conversation

While brand "broadcasts" - steady streams of news - are widespread, Iffort found more brands than expected are using the tool to create conversation for the purposes of customer service.

Headline findings

• Most active account - MSN India (38,857 tweets)
• Most followed brand- MTV India (56,560 followers)
• Most conversational brand - ICICI Bank (98.32 % tweets)
• Most Re-tweeted brand - Tatadocomo (31% tweets)
• Oldest brand - Bookmyshow.com (active since October 2007)
• Top Inactive Brands - Acer India (inactive since November 2009) and Apollo Hospitals (inactive since July 2009)

Best practice on Twitter

Iffort single out a number of brands for praise. Dell India and ICICI Bank are highlighted for customer service. Nokia India and Colors TV use the micro-blogging site effectively for brand promotion. Café Coffee Day have successfully created an online community using Twitter and Infosys provide useful company and industry updates.

Future success

While Twitter penetration will inevitably increase across business sectors, Iffort conclude that to truly engage consumers, brands must present a human and emotional dimension within their content.

Iffort also expects usage to evolve further. More companies are likely to use Twitter to conduct market research, track trends and comments about their own brand and competitor activity.

You can follow Iffort here.

March 16, 2010 1 comment