If you aren’t already on board the social media train, now is a good time to hop on. With one-third of the global population online, recent studies show that about 79% of all telecommunication customers are now relying on social media networks for information regarding products and services. In other words, over half of these costumers are logging on to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln, etc. to learn more about telecommunication providers.
Why Social Media?
Telecom companies connected through social networks have 2 main advantages:
1) The ability to build customer/employee relationships though social engagement
2) Access to valuable customer insights generated through social media networks
Telecom CEOs/CMOs are focusing more on personal relationships to increase company growth, gain customer loyalty and to provide an overall happier and more productive workplace. According to the 2010 IBM Global CEO study, 93% of telecommunication CEOs are focusing on customer centricity to better understand customer trends. It was also noted in the 2011 IBM Global Chief Marketing Officer study that 90% of telecommunication CMOs plan to use social media networks to connect and engage with customers and employees for the next three to five years.
Telecom Companies Advancing Through Social Media:
AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile have already started using social networks to track conversations, provide support/tips to customers via chats, posts and tweets and to announce their upcoming events and new products. These service providers have also taken customer engagement a step further and have started transforming the Big Data generated from these social networks into valuable insights.
For example, a well-known U.K. telecommunications provider has just launched a platform which monitors and analyzes their social media activity taking place throughout the U.K in real-time. This allows the telecom company to track customer trends while transforming the data generated from their social media platforms into valuable insights.
Telecommunication providers are also analyzing Big Data from their social networks. Pursway, for example, uses a database to create a social-graph for companies to identify their customers’ 10-25 closest contacts. Once this has been completed, Pursway analyzes the transactions within the social-graph to generate valuable customer data based on spending patterns.
Social networking within companies is also creating a happier and more productive workplace for employees. Motorola is a great example of a telecommunications company using social media to connect with their employees. Motorola’s “Intranet 2.0” initiative has been extremely successful, with over 70,000 people using it daily – partners included. Motorola already has a whopping 4,400 blogs and 4,200 wiki pages, which in turn has led to their very own virtual company community for insights, knowledge, publicity and much more.
Keeping Up With The Joneses:
Although social media networking has become a top priority, many telecommunication companies are still lagging behind in the process. About 85% of telecommunication companies have not even started to use social media for customer outreach, and the companies that have can hardly track the ROI (return on investment) made from their efforts. However, understanding both the opportunities and challenges of social networking can transform telecom companies into real customer based service providers, allowing them to create valuable customer experiences, drive innovations and create a stronger and closer workforce.
What’s Next?
Start implementing your social media strategy today. Get connected with the relevant social networks, find a suitable Big Data technology and start reaching out to your customers and employees. At SQream Technologies, one of our main goals is to help telecommunication companies better understand the opportunities associated with Big Data. Learn more about our Big Data technology and keep in mind that social networking is an opportunity that you don’t want to miss out on!
This article originally appeared on SQream Technologies’ Blog: Let’s Talk Big Data