Web savvy consumers in emerging markets, such as China
and India, are more inclined to use social media for customer service as
opposed to consumers in developed countries. They are using social media to ask
and respond to questions in communities, as well as to complain about or
promote products and services,” said Aphrodite Brinsmead, Customer Interaction
Analyst at Ovum.
Geosocial networks to drive mobile social media users to touch
650 million in 2011
Increase in smartphone adoption and the rise of geosocial
networking will push the number of mobile social media users from 650 million
in 2011 to 1.3 billion by 2016.
Recently, Juniper Research said that spend on advertising targeted at
tablets is expected to account for almost half of total mobile social media
advertising spend by 2016.
Facebook
is the most popular social media site accessed by mobile browsers
According to a recent Airtel survey, Google is the most
visited mobile internet site by Airtel
customers. Gmail and Facebook are in second and third position. The most
popular social media site accessed by mobile browsers is Facebook (21 percent).
Orkut (6 percent) and Twitter (4 percent) occupy second and third slot,
respectively. According to industry estimates, Facebook has around 34 million
users in India, while Orkut and Twitter has 18 million and 14 million
customers, respectively.
According to Ovum, the results from emerging countries do
not entirely represent the behavior of those countries’ populations. Since the
respondents are more web savvy than the average individual, this trend is
compelling.
The new trend shows that those consumers with greater
purchasing power in emerging countries have a preference for using social media
for customer service. While social media is talked about in today’s market, it
has a long way to go before it can be used effectively by consumers and
enterprises.
Relatively few customers, across both emerging and
developed countries, are able to resolve their issues using social media tools
because enterprises are not yet doing enough to encourage or support them.
Though social media is not yet a mainstream tool for customer service, vendors
must help enterprises integrate it within their contact center operations.
It makes sense for those in emerging economies to
develop better social media and web self-service capabilities in order to
target those consumers who are readily adopting these channels,” Brinsmead
added.
