Presence of Indian Big IT Brands on Social Media: an Empirical Study Ramulu Bhukya* School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad, India

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Bhukya, 1:10 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/scientificreports.500 Open Access Open Access Scientific Reports Scientific Reports Research Article OpenOpen Access Access Presence of Indian Big IT Brands on Social Media: an Empirical Study Ramulu Bhukya* School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad, India

Abstract Social media has taken the world by storm and has quickly become an essential networking and Brand building tool. Irrespective of their size and nature of business, most of the Brands across the world have been able to some sort of social media presence as demanded by their customers. This paper explores the concept of social media presence and analyzes the social media metrics of Indian IT Brands viz. Wipro, Infosys, TCS and HCL. Based upon the data sourced from respective brands’ social media websites and after analyzed on a 5-point simple scale, HCL and Infosys have a remarkable social media presence with scoring 3.75 points and making presence on 7 social media channels each. Wipro with 1.75 points and making presence on 5 social media channels stands ahead of TCS which scores 1.25 and making presence on 6 social media channels.

Keywords: Social media presence; Brands; Social media metrics; 11 international brands spread across six product categories and their Indian IT brands results show that positioning the brand post on top of the brand fan page enhances brand post popularity. Social media have not just helped Introduction people make zillions of connections (via the social media websites) and With this rise in social media, it appears that corporate inspire Hollywood (as evidenced by the movie The Social Network) but communication has been democratized. The power has been taken also transformed the way consumers interact with brands [8]. from those in marketing and public relations by the individuals and Social media gives businesses a way to advertise and promote communities that create, share, and consume bogs, tweets, Facebook themselves in acceptable ways. When social media is used in entries, movies, pictures, and so forth. Communication about brands happens, with or without permission of the firms in question. It is now moderation, a business can be seen as a leader in its industry and can up to firms to decide if they want to get serious about social media gain a favorable reputation, both among its clients and its competitors and participate in this communication, or continue to ignore it. Both [9]. Slowly but definitely, social media are growing in popularity, trying have a tremendous impact. New media is about content and placing an to replace the corporate websites of small, medium and multinational ad alone won’t help. social media is being used not just for plain one businesses [10]. Social media networks are free to join because they will way advertising but also for customer engagement, marketing events, not expand without being freely available. And they earn money using generating sales, launching product buzz, introducing innovative customer or brand driven advertisements. Now, all kinds of brands can concepts and even creating new markets for their existing brands. start their official accounts on these different social networks free of Social media contains a broad array of Internet-based applications but cost [11]. Burson and Marsteller study on ‘Global Social Media Check- it is mostly coined with applications such as You Tube, Wikipedia, up 2012’ has concluded that the fortune Global 100 brands have active Facebook, and Second Life and has the following elements. presence on social media. 67 % of the Brands have twitter accounts Literature Review while 57% have Facebook and remains have on Youtube, Google+, Pinterest and etc. Clifton [1] stated that, the brand appears in marketing literature as a powerful tool of differentiation for products and companies. Result of a Social Media Benchmark survey conducted by http://business.com shows that 2948 businesses were involved in Kim et al. [2] and Wang et al. [3] emphasized that the Social media decentralisation of marketing plan. Over 40 percent indicated they sites containing user generated comments and reviews can affect the maintained a social site presence. Further more, among then are 1,197 creation of the brand, providing companies with greater effectiveness respondents that indicated their company maintained a profile on one in the communication process for their goods and services, as well as or more social media sites, 80 per cent maintain a Facebook presence with greater awareness in brand loyalty, perceived quality and brand and 56 per cent have a company account on Twitter. associations. Accarrino [4] has stated that social media has changed everything. Mass communication with a niche community, or even Objectives of the Study the entire planet, is now direct, easy and instant. Because of social media and digital marketing, brands now have a real opportunity to 1. To know the importance of Social Media Presence create personal and genuine relationships with their customers. Just like people, company brands now need to communicate, to "network" *Corresponding author: Ramulu Bhukya, School of Management Studies,University and to reach out beyond their normal comfort zone [5]. Kim and Ko of Hyderabad, 500046, India, E-mail: [email protected] [6] have pointed out that, Brands and customers are communicating Received September 05, 2012; Published November 26, 2012 with each other without any restriction in time, place, and medium so that old-fashioned one-way communication is changed to interactive Citation: Bhukya R (2012) Presence of Indian Big IT Brands on Social Media: an Empirical Study. 1:500. doi:10.4172/scientificreports.500 two-way direct communication. Hanna et al. [7] have concluded that the unique aspects of social media and its immense popularity have Copyright: © 2012 Bhukya R. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted revolutionized marketing practices such as advertising and promotion. use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and de Vries et al. (2012) have conducted a study on 355 brand posts from source are credited.

Volume 1 • Issue 10 • 2012 Citation: Bhukya R (2012) Presence of Indian Big IT Brands on Social Media: an Empirical Study. 1:500. doi:10.4172/scientificreports.500

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2. To study the social media presence of Indian IT Brands exporter, Wipro is making full use of social networking media to accomplish their brand building goals. Positioning Wipro with the 3. To analyze the social media metrics of select Indian IT brands statement “Applied Innovation” had an impact on the awareness levels Research Methodology vis-à-vis competition as it articulated a powerful differentiator. The focused, low-cost, high-impact branding exercise undertaken by Wipro Being the study is involved with online kind of information, through innovative marketing channels moved Wipro to a new level. secondary data is collected from respective brands’ official social media web sites. The data is processes and presented in the forms of tables. They have a Twitter, Facebook accounts and are on LinkedIn, Further the data is analyzed by using a simple 5-point Interval scale. You Tube and Slide shares to make it interactive. They participate Unit of sample in content and whenever, say, there is a discussion around cloud computing, ecology or sustainability they would like to be present there Indian IT Brand (IT Organizations) and branding will follow. Figure 1 shows the social media presence of Size of sample Wipro. Wipro is making its presence on 4 Facebook profiles (i.e. wipro. com, careers@Wipro, Xperience@Wipro and careers@Wipro BPO), 3 4 (Wipro, TCS, Infosys and HCL) twitter profiles (@Wipro, @WiproCareers and @XperienceWipro), Indian IT Brands on Social Media Presence 1 LinkedIn and 1Youtube accounts. Table 1 show the social media metrics of Wipro. Many Indian Brands have already cashed in on this trend and only more are jumping onto the bandwagon of using innovative advertising Infosys campaigns on social media. No other Indian industry has created the Infosys Limited, formerly Infosys Technologies Limited is an same impact globally as IT. Infosys, Wipro, TCS and HCL are now Indian multinational provider of business consulting, technology, preparing to compete with global giants. As the cost advantages of engineering and outsourcing Services Company. Infosys is a powerful cheap labor get reduced, it is the value created by intangibles such as brand in the world of information technology. Infosys Technologies brand and intellectual property that will take these companies to the next orbit. Interestingly, all four companies are looking at this aspect introduced a new brand positioning and vision statement for itself, and far more seriously than in the past. Global positioning statements, it’s stepping into a whole new phase that it describes as Infosys 3.0. big marketing budgets and brand valuations are being aggressively Figure 2 shows the social media presence indications of Infosys. Infosys churned out. has presence on 7 social media channels and grabbed good numbers in social media metrics. Table 2 shows the social media metrics of Infosys. Here are social media metrics of how Indian IT companies are making presence on social media, either for direct advertising or for enhancing their brand profile. Social Medium Name Metrices • 175,864 like this page Wipro technologies • Life beyond Work @ Infosys • 5,391 talk about this page The country's third largest information technology (IT) services Facebook • 28426followers • @Infosys • 5324 tweets Social Medium Name Metrices • 335 followers • 10,102 like this page • @InfosysEdge • www.wipro.com • 372 tweets • 348 talk about this page • 31 followers • 18,636 like this page Twitter • @Infosys ThoughtFloor • Careers@Wipro • 184 tweets • 553 talk about this page • 103 followers • @InfosysFinSpeak • 5041 like this page • 74 tweets Facebook • Xperience Wipro • 113 talk about this page • Building Tomorrow’s Government • Software Tools @Infosys • 6706 like this page • Careers@Wipro BPO • Next Generation Insurance: • 127 talk about this page Leading from the front. • 17450 followers Blogs (Major) • @Wipro • Research @Infosys Labs • 2697 tweets • Supply Chain Management • 8546 followers • @WiproCareers • 682 tweets • Infosys • N/A Twitter LinkedIn • 3013 followers • XperienceWipro • 2395 tweets • 188 Slide shares • Infosys • 190 Followers • Wipro Technologies N/A Slideshare LinkedIn

• 78 Slide Shares • Infosys • +596 users in circle • Wipro Technologies • 2 Followers Slideshare Google + • 89 Videos • 300 Videos • Wipro • 385 Subscribers • Infosys • 1147 Subscribers Youtube • 46791 Video views Youtube • 340,541 Video views Note: Metrics as on 01/09/2012 *Note: Metrics as on 01/09/2012 Source: Compiled by author from Wipro official social media channels. Source: Compiled by author from Infosys’s corporate social media sites.

Table 1: Social media presence metrics of Wipro. Table 2: Social media presence metrics of Infosys.

Volume 1 • Issue 10 • 2012 Citation: Bhukya R (2012) Presence of Indian Big IT Brands on Social Media: an Empirical Study. 1:500. doi:10.4172/scientificreports.500

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Social Medium Name Metrices Presence Social media Channels score Total Social on number Face- Rank • 35, 278 like this page Twitter Youtube Scribd/ Score Score of Channels book • Tata Consultancy Services • 1, 106 talk about this Facebook page Wipro 5 1 3 2 1 7 1.75 3 Infosys 7 2 3 5 5 15 3.25 2 • 18,972 followers • @TCS_News TCS 6 1 2 1 1 5 1.25 4 • 1,556 tweets Twitter HCL 7 5 5 3 2 15 3.75 1 Source: Compiled by author. • Tata Consultancy Services N/A LinkedIn Table 5: Social media Presence Ranks of Indian IT Brands. • 29 Videos • Tata Consultancy Services • 137 Subscribers Youtube • 26,439 Video views

• 7 Slide share • Tata Consultancy Services • 8 Followers Slideshare

• Tata Consultancy Services N/A

RSS Feeds Note: Metrics as on 01/09/2012 Source: Compiled by author from TCS’s official social media channels.

Table 3: Social media metrics of TCS.

Social Medium Name Metrices • 5,27,071 like this page Source: Wipro official website: www.wipro.com • HCL • 3069 talk about this page Figure 1: Screenshot of Wipro Corporate website indicating social media • 230,878 like this page • HCL Technologies presence. • 1599 talk about this page Facebook • HCL Technologies Official • 10,092 like this page Career Page • 140 talk about this page • 63416 followers • @heltech • 4088 tweets • 2819 followers • @HCLTechJobs • 165 tweets Twitter • 1626 followers • @_HCL • 695 tweets

• HCL Brand N/A LinkedIn

• Brand HCL’s photo stream • 23 photos

• 12496 total read • HCL Brand • 25 uploads 59 followers • 24Videos • HCL • 585 Subscribers Youtube • 4,32,487 Video views Source: Infosys’ official web site: www.infosys.com

Figure 2: Screenshot of Infosys corporate website indicating Social Media • Brand HCL • +155 in circle presence Google + Note: Metrics as on 01/09/2012 TCS has a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Slideshare Source: Compiled by author from HCL’s official social media Channels. accounts apart from bogs. Table 3 shows its social media metrics. Table 4: Social media presence metrics of HCL. HCL (Hindustan Computer Limited) TCS (Tata Consultancy Services Limited) HCL is a leading global Technology and IT Enterprise with annual TCS is an Indian multinational information technology (IT) service, revenues of US$ 6.2 billion. The 35 year old enterprise, founded in business solutions and outsourcing Services Company. It has been 1976, is one of India's original IT garage start ups. Its range of offerings named as the world’s fourth most valuable information technology span R&D and Technology Services, Enterprise and Applications (IT) services brand by leading global brand valuation company Consulting, Remote Infrastructure Management, BPO services, IT Brand Finance. It has been investing heavily to build up its brand Hardware, Systems Integration and Distribution of Technology and presence worldwide through a range of activities. It has recognized the Telecom products in India. It has presence on 7 social media channels importance of social media presence and put steps forward toward it. which fetched a good quantum of Brand promotion. The figure 4 shows Figure 3 shows its presence on social media presence. it clearly. HCL has 3 facebook profiles, 2 twitter profiles, LinkedIn,

Volume 1 • Issue 10 • 2012 Citation: Bhukya R (2012) Presence of Indian Big IT Brands on Social Media: an Empirical Study. 1:500. doi:10.4172/scientificreports.500

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media channels it stands behind Wipro which presences 5 social media channels. It is shown in figure 5. Conclusion Based upon the data available on respective Indian IT Brands’ official social media web pages, HCL technologies and Infosys have a remarkable presence on social media by making presence over 7 each social media channels, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Flicker, scribd and google+ with Social score of 3.75 on 5-point scale. But compare Infosys, HCL brand has good brand following on Facebook and Twitter, while Infosys brand has on Youtube and Slideshares. The other IT brands Wipro and Tata Consulting Services are Source: TCS official website: www.tcs.com behind Infosys and HCL. With 1.75 social presence score Wipro stands ahead of TCS which has 1.25 score. Figure 3: Screenshot of TCS corporate website indicating of Social Media presence. Limitations of the Study 1. Author has considered only 4 Indian IT Brands for his study which are in top 5 in India based upon their revenue. Hence we cannot generalize it to all Indian IT Brands. 2. The result of the study is purely drawn based on the statistics available on respective Brands official social media channels. 3. The data used for this study was taken from respective brands official social media website till, so result may vary after this period. References 1. Clifton R (2003) The future of brands. Brands and Branding. (2ndedn.), Bloomberg Press, New York, USA.

2. Kim WG, Lee C, Hiemstrac SJ (2004) Effects of an online virtual community on Source: HCL corporate web site: www.hcl.in customer loyalty and travel product purchases. Tourism Manage 3: 343–355.

Figure 4: Screenshot of HCL corporate website indicating Social media 3. Wang Y, Hsu K, Hsu S, Hsieh P (2011) Constructing an index for brand equity:A presence. hospital example. The Service Industries Journal 31: 311–322.

4. Accarrino J (2011) How Social Media Revolutionized "Fandom" Forever.

4 5. Davis P (2012) Branding Your Business Through Social Media - 3 Keys to 3.75 Getting Started. 3.5 6. Kim AJ, Ko E (2011) Do social media marketing activities enhance customer 3 equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand. J Bus Res 65: 1480-1486.

2.5 7. Hanna R, Rohm A, Crittenden VL (2011) We’re all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem. Business Horizons 54: 265–273. 2 1.75 8. Singh S, Sonnenburg S (2012) Brand Performances in Social Media. Journal of 1.5 Interactive Marketing 26: 189-197. 1.25 1

Social media presence score Social media presence 9. Hanford JG (2012) 3 Tips for B2B Branding throgh Social Media. B2B 0.5 Marketing, Social Media, Texas, USA. 0 10. Ben Uzor JR (2012) Social media may replace corporate website- Experts. Source:0 Compiled 1 by author 2 based 3 upon data4 analysis 5 6 7 8 11. Singh H (2011) Thoughts on Social Media Marketing. Number of Channels Figure 5: Graphical view of Indian IT Brands’ Social media score.

Flicker, Youtube and Google+ accounts each. The social media metrics of HCL is Shown in the table 4. After compiling and considering data into account, points were assigned on the basis the fall in to group on 5-point scale. And only Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Slideshare/ Scribd accounts were taken for preparation of data analysis. It has been presented in table 5. Based upon the above metrics ranks are assigned to each Brand, with 3.75 social score HCL and Infosys stand ahead of all two Brands Wipro and TCS. TCS with 1.25 social score stands behind Wipro with 1.75 social score and the rest of the two follow them with 1.25 social score each. Though TCS has presence on 6 social

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