In the last few years, the IT industry has drastically increased its presence on social media platforms for its communication; be it with clients, customers or other businesses. Online presence of any organization speaks in copious amounts of its work and credibility. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that a lot of relevant IT giants like Wipro, CTS, TCS, Infosys etc firmly rooting themselves in social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc.
These virtual landscapes are useful in divulging the on-goings of the industry which aids in attracting a large number of customers, clients and other business industries. Updates Many companies post updates and posts that engage their audience with some interesting facts, humorous quotes and also contests giving out coupons or other promotional gifts. From our research, we have analysed how companies have used social media to their benefit. A major part of our analysis lies on the strength of our online presence and the platforms they’ve most commonly used. The data in the below infographic is compiled from the activities that took place in January 2014 in IT brands social media channels.
The IT giants taken into account are:
- Accenture
- Cap Gemini
- CGI Information Systems
- Cognizant Technology
- Genpact India Pvt Ltd
- HCL Technologies Ltd
- Hexaware Technologies Ltd
- IBM,
- iGate
- Infosys Ltd
- Infotech Enterprise Ltd
- KPIT Technologies Ltd
- MindTree Ltd
- Mphasis Ltd
- NIIT Technologies Ltd
- Oracle
- Polaris Financial Technology Ltd
- Ram Co Systems
- Syntel Ltd
- Tata Consultancy Services Ltd
- Tech Mahindra Ltd
- Wipro Ltd
- Zensar Technologies Ltd
Of the list of observed companies on Facebook, Wipro seems to have a robust fan base (1261668 fans) after which, HCL Technologies has a wide fan base (575261 fans). Third in the ranking comes Infosys (432450 fans). While having fans for the brand is good, how the number expands is an issue of concern. As observed, growth is more in Wipro first; next in line is Infosys and then Oracle. Fan Growth rate is a factor that is crucial in determining the success of any established business. The top three companies with highest growth rates are Wipro (9.77 %), Tata Consultancy Services (7.86%) and Mindtree Ltd (7.12%). Updates from Mindtree Ltd were impressive to the audience i.e the highest engagement rate was recorded for Mindtree Ltd (14.31%). Second highest engagement rate was recorded for Infotech Enterprise Ltd (8.44%). NIIT Techonolgies Ltd come with a figure of 6.60%.
Likes are an indication of how many people have seen a particular post on Facebook and also to see if the post was impressive to them or not. Therefore they are a direct manifestation of the success of the post. Majority of the posts came from Wipro, Infosys Ltd., and Tata Consultancy services. The top three IT Companies where more traffic in the form of comments are generated by Infosys Ltd, Polaris Financial Technology and Tata Consultancy Services with an average of 695,633 and 295 comments per day respectively. Shares are used to spread messages. In terms of business, a large number of shares from the people means the information reaches a wider number of people. Therefore, it is a significant measure of the success of a post and invariably, the brand too. Quite surprisingly, Infosys has the highest number of shares even though it got lesser likes and comments. It is ahead of Oracle, which is ahead of Capgemini.
Conclusion:
From the above, it is fairly clear that Wipro has the strongest social media presence of all the IT Companies that were considered for the research. It is found to give whereabouts of the company, current projects, technical advancements etc as posts on Facebook. Wipro also conducts polls and asks questions to study customer or people’s response.
Twitter:
Twitter undoubtedly is one of the pillars of social media. With about more than billions of people active on Twitter, it is mandatory to hold a significant presence on Twitter to gain support and brand value for the business. Therefore, a considerable amount of IT industries has now set up platform on Twitter for assisting their businesses. In Twitter, the top three pages of the total number of followers belong to Oracle, HCL Technologies Ltd., and Wipro Ltd with figures 227169, 210633 and 205168 respectively. Since Twitter is mostly about tweeting and conversations, the number of tweets published in a page is a direct measure of the page’s or brands’ success in the social media platform of Twitter. All in all, statistically, it was found out that Cognizant Technology Solutions has the highest number of tweets (499), ahead of Genpact India pvt ltd. (358) which is in turn ahead of Ramco Systems (289). Finally, the top three pages based on response to queries are HCL Technologies Ltd, Hexaware Technologies Ltd and Ramco Systems in order.
Conclusion: On the basis of the above research on Twitter, no company is said to have the strongest presence as different companies have proved their significance in different measures. However, a general conclusion would be that CTS is the most active on twitter given that it has the most frequency and highest number of tweets.
It is necessary for every professional to stand out in their appeal on LinkedIn to attract clients and grow network with like minded individuals. Therefore, implicitly, the motive of every business is to look appealing on LinkedIn. Although the last few years have seen many companies striving to achieve a strong presence on LinkedIn, only a few IT Companies have managed to do so. The number of followers they carry is a direct reflection of their success. Topping all IT companies, IBM, Accenture and Oracle are observed to be the most active holding as many as 1694058, 1381552 and 1024497 followers respectively. However, the above statistics does not take into account companies like iGate, Mindtree Ltd, Mphasis, L&T and Infotech.
Conclusion: Being a professional networking platform, it is imperative that these companies take LinkedIn a little seriously. The employees can list the companies they have worked for and are currently working for in their profiles, raising the credibility of their profiles and theri employers respectively. Making this practise mandtory could elevate the brand’s level greatly. Since LinkedIn mainly has CXO level individuals interacting more with updates, brands should take responsibility in managing LinkedIn Pages in exclusive and wise way. Many IT companies didn’t show any interest in showcase pages which is a novel feature of LinkedIn Company Pages. Brands should leverage showcase pages for their products / verticals and run competition amongst the verticals to compete on engagement levels.
IT Companies on Google+
Even though Google+ seems widely unpopular on the social media platforms, a lot of companies do seem to have a rather significant stand on Google+ as well. Companies have successfully reached out to people with a significant number of responses. On Google+, Accenture has the largest number of followers (19280). Following it is Congizant Technology Solutions (5526) and third, comes Wipro ltd (4064). Accenture has nearly four times the number of followers CTS and Wipro has. On grounds of +1’s, IBM ranks number one, way ahead (almost twice in number) in figure in comparison to Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant Technology solutions. However taking everyone by surprise, even though Accenture has the largest number of followers, it is replaced by Capgemini in the number of posts. The next highest number of posts has been observed in CTS which is ahead of TCS.
Conclusion: The significance of IT is misunderstood to the common man. Social media bridges this gap. The importance of IT in social media may be missing but clearly these firms have channeled their resources and efforts to platforms like LinkedIn as their target audience is prominent there. Facebook’s significance may not be felt at this point for these IT companies as the audience is more into light content, instead of technical based content. Therefore, as can be seen from the above statistics, a large number of IT Companies are burgeoning in the social media platform, making them more involved with their people and customer base. Though their success may vary in different platforms, their root objective of establishing their brands and gaining support has been accomplished.
Please Note: YouTube, Slideshare, Blog – Social Publishing Platform has not taken into account here.
