Twitter, Twitter India, India Internet, India broadband

Twitter took India by storm or India took Twitter by storm.  Either way Twitter and India are inseparable. Thanks to Mallika Sherawat for bringing Twitter to India. Twitter now needs no introduction. Real thanks to Shashi Tharoor, Shah Rukh Khan, Chetan Bhagat and other celebrities who took on to the platform which catapulted Twitter to stardom.

India ranks in the top 10 countries using Twitter. Not the kind of statistic or the top list India associates with. Especially when it has only 8 million broadband connections, 50 million Internet users and 512 kbps qualifies as a broadband speed.

Celebrities in India are using it to reach out to fans.  Politicians are using it to get into trouble . Here’s the latest comment from BJP politician Venkaiah Naidu on Shashi Tharoor -- @shashitharoor‘s tweeting will lead to him quitting.

 People like me are use it to consume news, ideas and information. How are the companies using it?

Many companies are using Twitter actively and many users are on Twitter but not much activity. Iffort Consulting, a NCR based social media consulting firm has researched the Twitter usage by companies in India.

The study which profiles 66 companies from 9 different verticals analyses them on different quantitative & qualitative parameters like no. of tweets, tweet type, conversation type. (Source)

Here is what they found :

Companies are using it for many purposes. Mostly companies are on Twitter for brand building and user engagement.

MSN India is the top news brand. Didn’t know that. I thought I follow all the news brands financial express, economic times, dna, indiatoday, livemint. I will start following MSN India now.

Tata DoCoMo (@tatadocomo), the mobile telecom arm of Tata group has used it very well to get through to early adopters when it launched. It has 7,500 followers on Twitter and few million mobile subscribers. As per Iffort’s survey @tatadocomo is the most re-tweeted brand on Twitter.

MTV India (@mtvindia) is the most followed brand with 59,644 followers. Must be the Roadies.

ICICI is the most conversational brand. ICICI has at least 3 twitter handles (@ICICIbank_care , @ICICIFoundation, @ICICIElemEduc) and none of them are verified. Not sure which handle was referred in the survey.

BookmyShow.com is the oldest brand (since Oct 2007).  Acer India and Apollo hospitals are the most inactive brands. (source)

These are fairly early stages for Indian companies. Many other companies can find real use in Twitter be it with brand promotions or solving user problems based on their complaints. How else can the companies use Twitter?

PS : All of the Twitter accounts of the companies above are not Verified. Isn’t verification necessary for companies too? In fact, companies are at a greater risk than celebrities.