Contents

Contents..................................................................................................................... 1 Research Methodology................................................................................................4 1.1 Introduction to Social Media:.............................................................................5 1.2 Current Trends in India:.....................................................................................7 1.3 Literature Review, Identification of Gap ............................................................9 1.3.1 Identification of Gaps:................................................................................10 1.4 Objectives of the Research Study:...................................................................10 1.4.1 Research Questions:..................................................................................11 1.5 Need For The Research Study:.........................................................................11 1.6 Scope of the Research Study:..........................................................................11 1.7 Description of Research:..................................................................................13 1.7.1 Type of Research Design:..........................................................................13 1.7.2 Data Collection:.........................................................................................13 1.7.3Sample Design:...........................................................................................14 1.7.4 Data Analysis:............................................................................................15 1.7.5 Chapterisation scheme:.............................................................................16 1.7.6 Limitations of Report:................................................................................17 An Introduction to the Social.....................................................................................18 Media Landscape......................................................................................................18 2.1 Introduction..................................................................................................... 19 2.2 Social Media.....................................................................................................20 2.3 Distinction from Traditional Media...................................................................22 2.4 Forms of Social Media......................................................................................23 2.4.1 PHOTO SITES.............................................................................................23 2.4.2 BLOG.........................................................................................................25 2.4.3 MICROBLOGS.............................................................................................27 2.5 Some of the famous Social Media Networking Sites........................................30 Twitter..... Introduction to Features and Processes...................................................35 3.1 Twitter - Introduction.......................................................................................35 3.2 Functioning of Twitter......................................................................................36 3.3 Twitter User..................................................................................................... 37 3.4 Twitter Popularity............................................................................................37 Page | 1

3.5 Twitter as a marketing tool..............................................................................38 3.6 Get Started on Twitter.....................................................................................39 Twitter- A powerful social Media Tool....................................................................54 4.1 Twitter and Its Successes................................................................................55 4.2 The Power of Twitters Immediate Feedback...................................................58 4.3 Instant Access .................................................................................................60 Brand Building with Twitter.......................................................................................62 5.1 Introduction..................................................................................................... 62 5.2 Create a Story..................................................................................................66 5.3 Portraying Brand with Companys Profile.........................................................68 5.4 Tweet Style - Creating Value...........................................................................70 5.5 Repetition........................................................................................................ 81 Third-Party Tools of Twitter.......................................................................................83 6.1 Tweet Later......................................................................................................84 6.2 Twitterific.........................................................................................................86 6.3 Twhirl...............................................................................................................87 6.4 Twitterfeed...................................................................................................... 88 6.5 Twist................................................................................................................90 6.6 Twellow............................................................................................................91 6.7 TweetBeep.......................................................................................................92 6.8 TwitterCounter.................................................................................................93 6.9 Tweet Deck......................................................................................................94 6.10TwitThis.......................................................................................................... 95 6.11TwitPwr.com...................................................................................................97 Indian Companies on Twitter - A Usage Study..........................................................98 7.1 Introduction..................................................................................................... 99 7.2 Social Networking in India Milestone @2009.................................................99 7.3 Twitter and Indian companies........................................................................101 7.4 Observation Criterion:....................................................................................103 7.5 Key Findings:................................................................................................. 103 7.6 Twitter Applications ......................................................................................106 7.6.1 Customer service.....................................................................................107 7.6.2 News Broadcast ......................................................................................107 7.6.3 Promotion & Buzz....................................................................................107 Page | 2

7.7 How Indian Companies Use Twitter...............................................................108 7.8 The Road Ahead:...........................................................................................111 Questionnaire Analysis...........................................................................................112 8.1 ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONNAIRE.......................................................................113 8.2 ANALYSIS OF HYPOTHESES............................................................................154 8.3 FACTOR ANALYSIS.........................................................................................163 Key findings:...........................................................................................................170 Recommendations:.................................................................................................174 References:............................................................................................................. 175 Annexure................................................................................................................ 177 Glossary..................................................................................................................187

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Chapter 1

Research Methodology
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1.1 Introduction to Social Media:

Social media involves a natural, genuine conversation between people about something of mutual interest, a conversation built on the thoughts and experiences of the participants. It is about sharing and arriving at a collective point, often for the purpose of making a better or more-informed choice. Social Media isnt about the content itself: it is about the way in which consumers of content are connected and about the conversations that result. Social media is an effective guidepost. Social media can be used to gather valuable information about how the product, service, and brand are perceived in the marketplace. Social media in the business context is based on the degree to which the actual experience matches the expectation set.: Recent studies of Nielsen have shown that of the estimated 3.5 billion word-of-mouth conversations that occur around the world each day, about 2.3 billion of them roughly two out of three make a reference to a brand, product, or service. Word of mouth is increasingly manifesting itself through digital social media, where it spreads both farther and faster. This use of the Social Web is increasingly important to marketers. Social media differ from traditional media (industrial media) like television, newspaper and film by its nature of interactivity. Users generate as well as consume content which is shared, distributed and discussed. Photos, videos, audio or text are the formats this content is shared in. Facebook, Flickr, YouTube or Slide Share are a few of the most known websites reflecting the typical characteristics of Web 2.0. These websites and alike are summarized under the term social media.
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One of the youngest and currently most referred to social media services is Twitter. Twitter is a so called micro-blogging service that allows users to exchange short text messages. This research paper introduces Twitter and investigates its potential for customer service and branding for Indian companies. Finally recommendations show best practice to use Twitter.

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1.2 Current Trends in India:

Corporate social media presence: Many corporate In India now has started up with the social media marketing, In India, Kingfisher was the first airline in India to build a full-fledged formal presence on Twitter and embrace social media. This initiative has added to Kingfisher Airlines convenience factor because it allows the airline to send instant updates to its customers. Kingfisher Airlines is also putting the Twitter platform to good use to enhance its service, get feedback and interact with its customers directly without the use of intermediaries.

Emphasis on real-time data: Sites that provide transactional data and news in real time will always be in demand. These include news sites, Google Blog Search for updated blog commentary, Marketwatch.com for US stocks and Moneycontrol.com (Indian stocks), Twitter.com for the latest news, and Twitter commentary.

Twitter in India: Twitter is witnessing a mind-blowing traffic growth worldwide and India is no exception the micro blogging site has registered 74% traffic jump (in terms of unique users) in the month of March.(Source: www.com score.com).

Infosys team recently closed a deal successfully using Twitter. The prospective buyer posted a query on Twitter, which Infy team tracked (yeah, a lot of B2B companies track keywords on social media sites).
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Infys sales team got in touch with the buyer and closed the deal, marking their first successful sale in the twitter world.

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1.3 Literature Review, Identification of Gap

For the purpose of getting more insights about the social media and twitter the researchers have made brief literature review and found out that, Twitter was launched in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noha Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams (CEO). Twitters capital consists of founding and venture capital and is valued at around 60 million US dollar (Arrington, 2008). Around 6 million people are signed in to Twitter and 55 million people visit Twitters homepage monthly (Kazeniac, 2009). Twitter is a messaging service that shares a lot of characteristics with communication tools you already use. It has elements that are similar to email, IM, texting, blogging, RSS, social networks and so forth. But a few factors, particularly in combination, make Twitter unique:
Really easy to write and read. One can readily meet new people on Twitter. One gets an opportunity to be interesting for people opting for

his/her Updates
Fit with nearly anyones workflow.

Twitter for Business: Recently, Twitter has been adopted by companies of various professions. In the USA companies have been using Twitter earlier than in India. The American carriers Southwest Airlines or JetBlue, the communications company Comcast or the online shoe retailer Zappos have become well known for their Twitter usage(SOURCE:www.twitter.com). Twitter becomes better known in India, too, as companies are discovering this service as well. The way companies use Twitter differs highly.
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1.3.1 Identification of Gaps:

The researchers has found out how Twitter could be utilized by companies to extend their customer service approach. Since Twitter has been launched in mid 2006 companies used it for different purposes.

E.g. Dell and Vista Print give out discounts exclusively via Twitter and CNN and the New York Times feed short news and links to their articles via Twitter. Now, some companies start to provide customer service via Twitter (Source: Perez, 2009). In India however things look differently. Twitter has not yet established very well in India and even unknown by most India. Thus only few companies can be found on Twitter and those using this service are mostly from the field of media, advertising or marketing . To find Indian companies providing customer service in the proactive and communicative way American companies do is very hard. Some of the companies mentioned above do however communicate actively with their followers and use Twitter to exchange information rather than to solely give out information. Thus, in order to give insights to the various companies in India about the various use of twitter in their branding exercise and also about the twitter users profiles in India their preference and expectation from the twitter, the researchers had decided to execute the research.

1.4 Objectives of the Research Study:

To evaluate Tweeter as a social media and identify its unique propositions. To evaluate Tweeter as corporate strategic tool for brand building.

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To obtain insight in the current twitter behavior of Indian twitters in order to define a set of criterion & rules that gives advice to Indian companies how to use twitter for their customer service approach.

1.4.1 Research Questions:

As a part of to achieve the objectives of the research the researchers has tried to get the answer of the following research questions.

What value does twitter have for Indian twitters? How Indian companies currently using twitter in respect to their customers?

How ready are Indian twitters for company approaching them via twitter?

1.5 Need For The Research Study:

The researchers wanted initially to find the gap existing in the Indian market wherein extensive use of Twitter as a marketing tool was still not established. Thus, to justify the existence of this gap and to propose better options to Indian corporate for flourishing, this research study was conducted.

1.6 Scope of the Research Study:

The study of the Twitter users had been done to understand the usage pattern of the users and accordingly suggest Indian corporate to make use of Twitter as a marketing tool. Research for the preference for twitter was carried out randomly online, which includes places around India . Respondents from various cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Masoori, Baroda, Bangalore had submitted their responses online. And from various places within Ahmedabad city personal survey has been conducted. Twitter users who were focused for the survey are a homogeneous mixture of men and women again of different age groups.
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The users comprise of skilled working men and women, businessmen, housewives, students, college goers (youth). Educational Background of the target audience would be classified into the following categories. College goers (Graduates and Post Graduates) and School goers.

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1.7 Description of Research:

1.7.1 Type of Research Design:
As the researchers wanted to know about a particular group of people, i.e. youth and were trying to describe its characteristics for twitter usage. The other reason was that the research was pre planned and structured .Therefore descriptive research design has been used in this project.

1.7.2 Data Collection:

To achieve the objectives stated, the researcher has collected the data of both the kinds, primary as well as secondary data. To analyze it was necessary to collect the data. Secondary data collection: The secondary data is necessary to get the information about Twitter, its usage all over the world and particularly in India. Some of the key statistics are only derived by the externally published online secondary sources. So the researchers have made secondary data collection. Methods of secondary data collection: Secondary data is mainly collected by the following means:
o

Internet databases

o Industry Publications o Catalogues & brochures o Journals o Research papers Primary data collection: The researchers have found out that in order to gain insights about Twitter user of India, it was necessary to collect the primary data, which means that

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the data obtained for this research only. The primary data is mainly quantitative in nature and has been collected through questionnaire.

About the questionnaire: The questionnaire has been designed to collect the primary data. It includes both open ended and closed ended questions. It also includes questions wherein statistical scales like rank order scale, likert scale etc.

Methods of primary data collection: The following methods of primary data collection were used:

Online Survey Tool i.e. www.surveygizmos.com Personal survey using questionnaire The link of the online questionnaire was published on the various social media platforms e.g. Face-book, Orkut, LinkedIn etc. so as to get the questionnaire will be submitted by the relevant user only

1.7.3Sample Design:
Sampling Unit The sample consisted of the internet users, mainly youth, which includes students, executives and professionals. Sample Size 500 Internet Users as defined in the sampling unit. Sampling Technique The sampling techniques used for the research are
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Non probability sampling Convenience sampling.

1.7.4 Data Analysis:

The researchers have used inferential statistics in order to draw conclusion. Result of the study has been put in tables and graphs for easy understanding of the findings of the research. Also SPSS 17 software has been used for the same.

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1.7.5 Chapterisation scheme:

The Chapterisation scheme for the research is shown as follows:

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1.7.6 Limitations of Report:

Some of the respondents who have been contacted online have left some of the question unanswered and Reluctance on the part of the respondents to provide exact details when contacted personally.

Time constraint as stipulated by university norms

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Chapter 2

An Introduction to the Social Media Landscape

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2.1 Introduction
Once upon a time, anyone could be a media publisher. All one needed was several million dollars, a team of editors and writers, a printing press capable of shooting out a dozen copies a second, and a distribution network that would put the publication in stores across the country. Unless, of course, someone wanted to go into radio or television. In that case, things were just a little harder. The result was that information came down. People didnt talk among themselves; they were talked to by writers, editors, and producers, who chose the subjects and told them what they thought. If people liked what they were reading, they kept tuning in and the company made money. If people didnt like it, they stopped buying the magazine or they switched channels. When that happened, advertisers turned away, and all of the millions of dollars required to create the publication disappeared. Today, its all so very different. It can cost literally nothing to create content and make it available for other people to enjoy. That low cost means that it doesnt matter if its not read by millions. One can focus on a small market even one interested in stamp collecting in Mozambiqueand still find enough people to form a community and maybe even make a profit through advertising and product sales. Its called the long tail, and the Internet has made fantastic use of it. But the low cost of publishing online has had another effect: People arent being talked to by professional writers and publishers anymore; theyre talking to each other.

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Average folk like you and methe kind of people who didnt study journalism at university, who never spent years as a cub reporter covering local court cases, and who were never even very good at Scrabble, let alone putting together articlesare writing about the topics they love and sharing their views. And theyre hearing back too. The conversation is flowing in both directions. Anyone now can launch a Web site, write articles, or even create videos and put them live. And anyone can comment on that content, affecting both its nature and the direction of the publication. Thats social media, and its a publishing revolution.

2.2 Social Media

Social media can be all sorts of different things, and it can be produced in all sorts of different ways. Perhaps the best definition of social media, though, is content that has been created by its audience. Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one too many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to social media as usergenerated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM). Social media can be said to have 3 components
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1. Concept (art, information, or meme). 2. Media (physical, electronic, or verbal). 3. Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral,
electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print).

Facebook, for example, is not a publishing company. It doesnt create any of its own content. It doesnt write articles or posts, and it doesnt upload films or images for people to view and enjoy. It allows its users to do all of that on its behalf. Create a group on a site like Face book and users wont be expected to supply all of the text and all of the images. Youll be expecting other group members to add their stories and photographs too. Even bloggers, when they write a post, expect their readers to join the discussion by leaving comments at the bottom of the post that take the argument in new directions and add new information. This is the social part of social media, and it means that publishing is now about participation. Someone who uses social media successfully doesnt just create content; he or she creates conversations. And those conversations create communities. Thats the real beauty of social media, and while it may or may not be the goaldepending on the sitethe result of social media can always be firm connections between the people who participate. When those connections are formed around businesses, the results can be the sort of brand loyalty and commitment that sales professionals have been dreaming about since the first days of direct marketing.

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At its narrowest, it describes one way in which publishers and marketers can put their messages in front of thousands of people and encourage them to build strong connections and firm loyalty. However its defined though, social media has proved incredibly popular. Twitter, which was launched more than two years after MySpacea lifetime in Internet termsisnt quite in the same numeric league, but its growth has still been phenomenal. According to the sites own blog, around half of all Twitterers follow and are followed by just 10 people. The top 10 percent of Twitterers have more than 80 followers and follow more than 70 people.

2.3 Distinction from Traditional Media

Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film. While social media are relatively inexpensive and accessible tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media generally require significant resources to publish information. Examples of industrial media issues include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license. One characteristic shared by both social media and industrial media is the capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach zero people or millions of people. The properties that help describe the differences between social media and industrial media depend on the study. Some of these properties are: 1. Reach - both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience.
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2. Accessibility - the means of production for industrial media are typically owned privately or by government; social media tools are generally available to anyone at little or no cost. 3. Usability - industrial media production typically requires specialized skills and training. Most social media do not, or in some cases reinvent skills, so anyone can operate the means of production. 4. Regency - the time lag between communications produced by industrial media can be long (days, weeks, or even months) compared to social media (which can be capable of virtually instantaneous responses; only the participants determine any delay in response). As industrial media are currently adopting social media tools, this feature may well not be distinctive anymore in some time. 5. Permanence - industrial media, once created, cannot be altered (once a magazine article is printed and distributed changes cannot be made to that same article) whereas social media can be altered almost instantaneously by comments or editing.

2.4 Forms of Social Media

2.4.1 PHOTO SITES
Ever since cameras went digital, theres been a need for a low cost or even freeway to share those images with anyone who wants to see them online. Both Facebook and MySpace allow their users to upload their images, but neither of them is a dedicated photography site. Images are just one form of content that users are free to share on those sites, together with videos, personal histories, group discussions, etc. There are sites, however, that specialize in photography. They depend entirely on the photos that users upload to bring in other users. That broadbased content sourcing already makes sites like Flickrone of the most popular photo-sharing sites, and now

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Figure .Flickr is the big daddy of photo-sharing Web sites. Owned by Yahoo!part of the social media phenomenon, but Flickr also has the networking power of those sites. Like Facebook and MySpace, its possible to create long lists of friends, and you can join groups where you can submit images, enter competitions, and join discussions about the best way to light a childs portrait or which lens to use in which conditions. Flickr also allows its members to mark images as favourites and to place comments beneath them. Both of those activities can be valuable ways of adding new friends. Pro members, who pay a subscription fee of $24.95 per year, can even see stats that indicate how many views, and comments each image has produced, and even where their visitors came from. Every day, images are licensed and prints are sold on Flickr, and its all based on content created by the sites users and promoted through careful networking. Thats classic social media.

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2.4.2 BLOG
A blog (a contraction of the term "weblog") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. HISTORY:
The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly

broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.
Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a

noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms. TYPES OF BLOG: Personal blogs The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. Blogs often become more than a way to

just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. A type of personal blog is referred to as "micro blogging," which is extremely detailed blogging as it seeks to capture a moment in time. A site, such as Twitter, allows bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family and is much faster than e-mailing or writing.
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 Corporate blogs A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs.

Genre

Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs. Two common types of genre blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog featuring discussions especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog. While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog. By media type A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a link log, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketch blog or one comprising photos is called a photo blog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumble logs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs; see typecasting (blogging).

By device Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a mob log. One early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and Eye Tap device
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to a web site. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as surveillance. Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.

2.4.3 MICROBLOGS
Social media sites tend to want their members to contribute as much content as possible. They may restrict that content to just photographs (or, on Flickr, video now as well), or they may restrict membership to a select few (in the case of my membership site, to dedicated Internet marketers; in the case of dating sites, to dedicated singles), but on the whole, they want their members to offer as much content as possible. Microblog sites place strict limits on the content that can be uploaded . . . and they find that those limits encourage creativity.

Twitter
Twitterthe site that has really set the standard in microblogging.

History
The service was founded by programmers Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, and Biz Stone in July 2006. Williams was a serial An Introduction to the Social Media Landscape 19 entrepreneur who had founded a company called Pyra Labs that made project management software. A note-taking feature on that software went on to become Blogger, the free blogging service later bought by Google. According to one theory, it was Williams who first used the term blogger to describe people who write Web logs.

In 2004, Williams left Google to form podcasting company Odeo and, two years later, created Obvious with Biz Stone, a programmer who had joined Blogger after its acquisition by the search engine giant. The new company
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bought Odeo, which it later sold to a company called Sonic Mountain. It now focuses on Twitter. The original idea for Twitter came from Dorsey, an Odeo employee. In an interview for ReadWriteTalk.com with Sean Ammirati, VP of Business Development and Product Management at mSpoke, Stone described the moment when they first discussed the idea: A few of us were thinking about what are some interesting ways that maybe we can merge SMS to the web, he said. [Dorsey] had come up with this idea where if you just look at only the status field of an instant message application like AIM, and you just look at that as a sort of really small version of what people are already doing . . . and you just make it super simple, Heres what Im doing. . . . [W]e kind of went off in a corner and we worked for two weeks and we created a prototype. We showed the rest of the team and everyone just sort of giggled. They all kind of loved it. It was really fun. We used it over the weekend. We found it very compelling and we decided that we would keep working on it. That was in March 2006; initially, Twitter was used by the companys employees as a fun form of internal communication. (Tech companies, it seems, might have lava lamps and space hoppers, but they never seem to have water coolers!) The service launched officially in October 2006, picked up a South by Southwest Web (SXSW) Award in March 2007, and by April was a separate entity headed by Dorsey.

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Twitters iconic fail whale. Designed by Yiying Lu, the beluga whale supported by twittering birds is now a brand in its own right after its frequent appearance on an overstrained Twitter site. Helped by the publicity generated by the SXSW award, boosted by references on Blogger (where the company had good connections, of course), and most importantly making itself attractive with an open platform that let other developers extend the service, the site started to take off. That has led to some problems. In 2007, Twitter was reported to have had just 98 percent uptimea loss of three whole days over the yearand tended to suffer

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Particularly badly during major tech conferences (which says something about many of its users, too). There are two things that really distinguish Twitter, though. The first is its simplicity. Although the service now has piles of additional tools and add-ons which extend its use, at its core, Twitter remains nothing more than a way of describing what youre doing in no more than 140 characters. That brevity and simplicity have always been key, and theyre what brought Twitter its second characteristic: critical mass. It takes a special push to get a social media site snowballing to a size big enough for everyone to feel comfortable about climbing on board. For Twitter, it was the boost it received with its SXSW Award, which had everyone talking about the service as the next big thing. As long it has that critical massand with more than three million members it certainly has that Twitter is always going to be the microblogging service to beat.

2.5 Some of the famous Social Media Networking Sites ORKUT

Orkut is a free-access social networking service owned and operated by Google. The service is designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. HISTORY:

Orkut was launched on January 22, 2004 by Google as project of Orkut Bykkkten, a Turkish software

independent engineer.

The community membership was originally by invitation only. At

first year, United States had the largest user base.

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Although Orkut is less popular in the United States than

competitors Facebook and MySpace, it is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil.

In fact, as of May 2009, 49.83% of Orkut's users are from Brazil,

followed by India with 17.51%.

FEATURES:

A user first creates a "Profile", in which the user provides Users can upload photos into their Orkut profile with a caption. Users can also add videos to their profile from either YouTube or

"Social", "Professional" and "Personal" details.

Google Video with the additional option of creating either restricted or unrestricted polls for polling a community of users.

There is an option to integrate GTalk (An instant messenger from Currently gtalk has been integrated in orkut. Users can directly Scrapbook: "Scrapping" is popular among the Orkut community

Google) with Orkut enabling chatting and file sharing. chat from orkut page. as a form of offline and online communication. In December 2007, the ability to pop up alerts when a scrap is received was added.

Themes: The new features in orkut is Themes. Users can change

their interface from a wide range of colorful theme library.Themes are currently only available in India and Brazil.

FACEBOOK
Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

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Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. HISTORY:

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with his roommates and

fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University.

The website's membership was initially limited to Harvard

students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later expanded further to include any university student, then The website currently has more than 250 million active users high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. worldwide.

FEATURES:

The media often compares Facebook to MySpace, but one

significant difference between the two websites is the level of customization.

MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and They include the Wall, a space on every user's profile page that

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook only allows plain text.

allows friends to post messages for the user to see, Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification that tells a user that they have been poked)

Photos, where users can upload albums and photos, and Status,

which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.
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A user's Wall is visible to anyone who is able to see that user's

profile, depending on privacy settings. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content only.

LINKEDIN
LinkedIn (pronounced /lkt.n/) is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003. It is mainly used for professional networking. As of 11 February 2010, LinkedIn had more than 60 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

HISTORY: Founder Reid Hoffman, previously CEO of LinkedIn and now executive vice president of PayPal, oversees day-to-day operations and is also Chairman of the Board. Dipchand Nishar is Vice President of Products. LinkedIn is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with

offices in Omaha, Chicago, New York and London. They are funded by Greylock, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and the European Founders Fund. LinkedIn reached profitability in March 2006. On June 17, 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, and other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of approximately $1 billion. FEATURES:
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The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a

list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:

contact

network

is

built

up

consisting

of

their

direct

connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of seconddegree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual, trusted contact.

It can then be used to find jobs, people and business Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates. Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and

opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.

discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.

Chapter 3

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Twitter..... Introduction to Features and Processes

3.1 Twitter - Introduction

Twitter is a micro-blogging site - meaning user can state his thoughts, views, opinions and links, but in a super-compact way. In fact, with Twitter, user only gets to use 140 characters for each post, affectionately known as a tweet. At first glance, someone may think 140 characters can't possibly give
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him enough room to say anything of value, but once he jumps into the flow, he'll be amazed at the way Twitter can change his social media marketing world.

3.2 Functioning of Twitter

Twitter works as a real-time social media platform for users to update their followers with tidbits of information, chitchat, tips and tricks and other short messages that are broadcast to a group of users who have chosen to stay updated to your messages. While there are over 6 million users on Twitter, according to the latest statistics, individuals choose who they want to interact with by "following" them. Every user gets a profile page, with room for a short bio, a photo and a link to the site of his choice. The profile page also includes a button people can click on to begin "following" him - which means they will have access to all of the updates from that user. The more followers user acquire the stronger his networking capabilities become on Twitter. Twitter functions as an ever increasing network as each person interacts with their following, who then connects them to their own group of followers and on and on it grows. When the user create his user account and choose some people to follow, they have the opportunity to follow him back. As users followers start to get to know him, they will look

to him to promote other people on Twitter and when they find people they relate to, they will begin following them as well. This tell two friends who tell two friends who
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tell two friends" networking will expand the users network faster than he can possibly imagine.

3.3 Twitter User

At the rate Twitter is growing, it won't be long before the answer to this question is EVERYONE! Twitter is growing at a pace of over 7500 users every day, with a total right now of over six million users! Twitter is a great place to connect, both in business and personally, for anyone who is looking for a platform where they can reach out to a wide network of people at one time. Twitter is popular with many different kinds of people. In business, the users will find lawyers, realtors, writers, web designers, Internet marketers, coaches, entrepreneurs, bloggers, small business owners, large corporations, and politicians - even the President of the United States! Users'll find famous people, infamous people, unknown people - the truth is, Twitter is being used by folks from every walk of life you can imagine to connect with others and market their businesses.

3.4 Twitter Popularity

One of the reasons Twitter is so popular is that Twitter is so popular! In other words, so many people are using Twitter that it is rapidly becoming THE place to connect on the web. In fact, mainstream media has started using Twitter- and talking about it. CNN and Fox News both discuss Twitter and use it as a way for viewers to offer input on various stories. In the recent Presidential election of USA, President Obama's campaign used Twitter as part of their massive campaign efforts - with obvious success!

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Twitter's popularity comes from its ease of use. It's also quite addictive! Many people who questioned whether Twitter was worth the effort find they love the fast-paced interaction of the site. Twitter is all about immediate connections and real-time relationship building. Human beings are social animals who thrive on relationships and interaction with each other. Twitter provides immediate contact with others- no waiting for return emails or finding people on various Instant Messengers. The users can jump on Twitter any time, day or night, and connect with someone immediately. Often, just taking five or ten minutes to tweet with others is all it really takes to build the list followers, bring people to the users website or break through a struggle.

3.5 Twitter as a marketing tool

Twitter works for marketers for a couple of reasons. The first, and most important one, is Twitter is different from a lot of marketing techniques. It really is all about making connections and creating relationships. Yes, it sounds impossible to believe that communicating in short little bursts can actually foster real relationships, but it's true. Perhaps it's because of the real-time interaction. It could be because when someone has to focus on the word choice, with only 140 characters, He/she takes the time to make sure every word counts. It could come down to the fact that Twitter is downright fun - and addictive! Of course, some folks will tell that, Twitter is a great marketing tool because the marketers can find a targeted audience who CHOOSE to follow them and read their messages and they'd be right.
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The truth is Twitter works for a variety of different reasons. The good news is, those reasons all add up to the reality that Twitter DOES WORK! Even though it is a serious marketing tool, there is something about the way people get real on Twitter that someone just don't see in many other platforms, that lets him get to know people's real personalities. That is what inspires trust and creates bonds that lead to sales. Let's look a bit closer about how to get started on Twitter, so anyone can begin using this amazing networking tool in his business today.

3.6 Get Started on Twitter

The easiest way to get a real understanding of the power of Twitter is to create an account and get started. It only takes a few minutes to set up the account. Setting up an Account Go to http://www.twitter.com and click on the Get Started - Join link.

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The interested person will be taken to a form to create his account that looks like this, where hell enter his first and last name in the Full Name box. (Easy so far, right?)

Then follow the steps to create the username. The username is the name everyone will know him by, so give some thought to the name before choosing it.

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Every time user posts a message, known as a tweet, on Twitter, users name and profile picture will be displayed, so users definitely don't want to choose a username made of random numbers and letters. Twitter lets user to use up to 15 characters (with no spaces) for the username, so use them wisely. If he chooses not to use his actual name, try to create a name that tells people what he/she is doing. The users can use his business name, but very often,

Something a little more personal is more effective. Remember the key to social media is the social part, so you want to choose a username that lets people relate to you as a person. Keep in mind, also, that if you choose a random username made up of assorted letters and numbers, people may think user is a spammer and block him. The next step is to enter the email address. Make sure to enter an actual email address that is being used on a regular basis. Twitter will not send spam email, but they will use the email address to alert to new followers and direct messages, if the user chooses to be alerted later in his profile. He will also be notified, via email, if he loses or forget his username or password. Once user creates the account, he will be taken to a screen where he can check to see if anyone he knows is already using twitter based on various email address. Next is a screen with some suggested followers. User can scan through if hed like or he can choose to skip this step as well. Now the user reached the area that will help him market himself and his business. This is where user starts personalizing the profile.
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In the upper right hand corner is the navigation panel, with links to move around the backend of the Twitter account. Click on Settings to continue personalizing theTwitter account.

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Once user reaches the settings page, hell notice some things are already filled in for him. The name of him, Username (this is what makes up the URL to the profile page) and the

email address. If user wants to change them feel free to do so now. Hell need to re-enter the password if he does.

After user gets those items the way he wants them, there are two important fields he needs to fill in so that people can find him and his business. 1. The first is the "More Info URL." Use this to add a link to the website, blog, Facebook page or any other significant link user has that gives people an opportunity to find out more about user and/or users business. 2. The other field user needs to fill in is the "One Line Bio" field. Here he has one line (160 characters) to share some more information about himself. Make this as interesting as one can in the space allotted. This bio will be one of the ways people decide if they will follow the user or not, so tell them who you are and what you do. The settings page also allows user to add the time zone and the location. So be sure to complete those too. Finally, on the bottom of the page is a box user can check if he wants to protect the updates. If user checks this box, people will only be able to see his/her updates if they have special permission. This option is not recommended especially when user is trying to build a network of followers. Unless he plans to use the Twitter account to communicate only with a select group of people, you should leave this box empty. When user is
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finished filling in the settings, be sure to click on Save at the bottom of the page.

Use of Twitter with the Cell Phone

On the right hand side of the home page, user will see section towards the bottom labelled Device Updates with a link Set up SMS Device.

If user wants to send and receive the Twitter messages from the mobile phone or an instant messenger, he can add that information here. Keep in mind however, if he uses his cell phone to communicate on Twitter, he may be charged standard text messaging rates for your tweets.
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Notification Options
Click on the Notices tab and user will find options for receiving email notifications when people follow him or when he receive a direct message. A direct message is a private message sent from one follower to another, without showing up in the general stream of tweets for others to see.

It's a good idea to select the email option for direct messages (or DM's, in Twitter-speak) as user doesn't receive any other notification that he has one. All DM's he receives do show up in a special section on the home page (labelled Direct Messages) but other than checking this area periodically, he won't know they are accumulating without the email notifications.
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It's also nice to receive an email when user gets a new follower so he has the opportunity to follow them back and/or send them a "welcome" message. (This is a great opportunity to let them know a bit more about user and his website, but dont make it too sales pitchy.)

Show them:
The next step in preparing the Twitter profile is to upload a picture to be shown with the tweets and on the home page. Click the Picture tab and upload the photo of choice.

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This isn't the time to be shy. Use a real photo of ones own self. User should want the followers to see him as a real person, so they choose to interact with him and a real photo goes a long way toward helping people connect with him. It helps to use the same photo user uses on other social media sites as well as on the own site or blog.

Give Page Some Personality

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Finally, user can customize how the homepage looks under by clicking the Design tab. This feature allows him a small amount of flexibility in the look of the homepage.

There are a few default design backgrounds user can choose and he can change the colours of the background. It can be helpful to use colours that complement the website or blog

colours as part of the branding strategy. The design feature in Twitter is pretty limited. If user is interested in a custom background, he can design his own in

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Photoshop, hire a designer or use a service like TwitterWebs.com or TwitDesign.com for a custom Twitter background. If user has a custom background made, he can share more links with the people who view it. Although these links are not clickable, the background is a place user can at least let people know how they can connect with him. It's a great place to share the other social media profile names or links, like Facebook and LinkedIn. User can post a phone number if he likes or any other information about his business.

Chapter 4
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Twitter- A powerful social Media Tool

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Its big, and that makes it unique among microblogging services (if not among social media sites). Its got buzz that other sites just dont have. And its growing at the kind of phenomenal rate thats already forced the social media giants to look over their shoulders and copy it. But its not the only service that allows people to broadcast short messages. People already seen that there are plenty of other sites that offer the same service in one form or another. But Twitter is by far the most powerful microblogging service currently available, and marketers absolutely need to be aware of it.

4.1 Twitter and Its Successes

Researcher mentioned that at its simplest; Twitter is just a means to send short updates to people who want to receive them. The most basic way to do that is to log into your Twitter account on the Web and type tweet into the text field. Anyone can see all of the outgoing tweets if they choose to look at users profile. Followers can also see a list of tweets from everyone they follow when they log into their Twitter home pages. User Twitter experience, then, will be made up of sending their own updates and reading tweets from others. But thats just the start.

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One of the inspirations for Twitter was the idea of combining Web-based updates with mobile information. So Twitter makes it possible for mobile phone users to send updates from their handsets, and in some places to receive them on their handsets, too. So if user had just agreed a joint venture with a marketing partner while sitting in a bar at a conference, and user wanted to share the news right away, user could just pull out their mobile phone and send a quick message to twitter. Yes, user might have to pay for that SMS message. User wouldnt pay Twitter. But user would pay to their mobile phone company . . . for one message. Twitter will then pass that message on to all of their followers, including by broadcasting further SMS messages to people who have chosen to receive their updates on their mobiles.

Initially, Twitter footed the bill for that service; later, they negotiated agreements with companies in the United States, Canada, and India. However, users in the United Kingdomwhere Twitter failed to broker a deal with communication companiescannot receive updates by SMS and have to use one of the other mobile services, such as m.twitter.com or Twitter Berry. For the rest of us though, Twitter can function as a powerful, low-cost SMS broadcasting station. The benefits that can bring can be huge. Researcher mentioned that the Red Cross have already spotted Twitters potential and use the site to provide updates related to ongoing disasters.
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Thats a service that relies on Twitters speed, numbers, and mobility.

The American Red Crosss tweets (twitter .com/redcross) provide information and disaster-related updates. Red Cross volunteers are able to send an SMS about a new shelter opening or the changing direction of a brushfire and have lots of people read it at the same time.

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But Twitter also brings the benefit of immediate feedbackand that can have tremendous advantages for individuals.

4.2 The Power of Twitters Immediate Feedback

Twitters speed means that user can send out an SMS to Twitter from wherever they are and have lots of people read it immediately. Thats a service that was really meant for fun, but its proven itself to be hugely valuable as a way of asking for help. In June 2008, Pastor Carlos Whittaker (twitter.com/loswhit), Service

Programming Director at Buckhead Church in Atlanta, Georgia, found he stuck at the airport in Dallas and was told he would have to wait six hours for the next flight. Tired and not too happy at the thought of spending a night on the airport floor, he sent a tweet about his predicament. Within just two minutes, he had received seven e-mails, three phone calls, and a huge number of tweets. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter) In April 2008, for example, James Buck (twitter.com/jamesbuck), a journalism student at the University of California at Berkeley, was arrested with his interpreter, Mohammed Maree, while photographing an anti-government rally in Egypt. Sitting in the police van, he was able to use his mobile phone to send the one-word message arrested to his followers on Twitter. They immediately alerted the U.S. embassy and his college, which quickly obtained a lawyer for him. James continued to provide updates about his arrest via Twitter, and was released the following day, which he announced on Twitter with the word free.

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His interpreter was less lucky: Maree was held for 90 days, beaten and abused, and was only released after a hunger strike. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter) Both of those examples relied on Twitter followers taking action outside Twitter. But thats not usually where the responses take place.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Twitter isnt updating friends and family about the small details of your life. Thats fun, but it only works one way. Twitter is a two-way communication tooland thats very important.

The tweet that freed journalism student, James Buck,

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From an Egyptian jail. It means user can ask questions and request help to very specialized problems, and get the expert advice you need.

4.3 Instant Access

Usually, people will be holding that conversation with friends or customers. But because Twitter has such a well-educated and professional group of followers, it can also function as an always-open help centre for just about any subject user can imagine. Look at peoples Twitter pages and user will see this time and time again. Hidden among the announcements about the type of music theyre listening to or the work theyre doing, youll see questions About how to fix this problem, where they can buy that gizmo or even what they should have for supper. (Twitter users do seem to think about food a lot!) Some of those questions are a bit silly. Some, though, are very technical, but Twitter can actually answer them. If you want to know what that is, dont ask me; ask someone on Twitter.
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So thats the history and thats where Twitter came from. Its an incredibly simple tool that has already had a massive impact on peoples lives. Growing out of social media sites to focus on just one tiny action, its become hugely popular with some of the worlds smartest people and highest earners. Its pulled innocents out of prison and given a lost pastor a place to sleep. Its useful, its important, and it can generate earnings for any business, online or offline. But user has to know how to use it.

Chapter 5

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Brand Building with Twitter

5.1 Introduction
Online advertising has really spoiled everyone. Not only can advertisers now finely target where their ads appear, making sure that theyre only shown to

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people most likely to find them interesting, they can also track what happens after those ads go up. They can measure how many people see the ads, how many clicks on them to learn more, and most importantly, how many actually buy as a direct result of seeing their commercial. With that kind of targeting and data, its no wonder that Google, with its leading Ad Sense system, is worth billions of dollars. But the old advertising system didnt disappear. Drive down any highway, and youre still going to see giant billboards drawing your eye and advertising businesses. Times Square still has its neon lights, and even TV hasnt rid television programs of commercial breaks every 10 minutes. The Internet might have changed some of the ways that advertising works, but brand-building is still important. If you want people to know who you are and remember the name of your business, you have to keep putting it in front of them, and you have to continue to interact with your buyers. Thats what traditional advertising has always aimed to do. An advertiser who bought a radio spot in the 1950s wasnt expecting to see a spike in sales immediately after his ad was broadcast. But he was expecting to see his products name recognition increase.

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Southwest Airlines is just one company that uses Twitter to talk to customers and build a brand.

Customers would become familiar with the product and, over time, as they absorbed the advertising message, theyd trust it and theyd buy it. On the Internet, thats been done with banner ads that keep a products name visible at the top of a Web page, and with campaigns that pay for each 1,000 views rather than for each click that the ad receives. And it can be done now with Twitter, too.

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Twitter has proven a very valuable branding tool, and it hasnt been lost on many big corporations. Just some of the companies you can find on Twitter include Carnival Cruise Lines (twitter.com/CarnivalCruise), Delta Airlines (twitter.com/deltaairlines), JetBlue (twitter.com/JetBlue), Dell (twitter.com/Direct2Dell), Amazon (twitter.com/amazondeals), Forrester (twitter.com/forrester), GM (twitter.com/GMblogs), and my favorite, M&Ms (twitter.com/msgreen and twitter.com/mmsracing).

All of these companies (or products) are using Twitter to build a loyal following with their customers and promote their brand. In this chapter, Ill explain some of the most important things to bear in mind when you do the same thing for your business.

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5.2 Create a Story

At its most basic, branding can simply mean putting the name of a product or a company where people can see it. That makes the name familiar so that a customer recognizes it on the shelf. In practice, of course, branding does much more than that. It also attaches the products name to a story, so that when the customer sees it, he trusts it and associates with it. Its that trust and attachment that are key to successful branding and both start with a story. Before user begin using Twitter to brand their company then, they first need to think about what they want that brand to say. Do they want their product to look cool and streetwise, or luxurious and exclusive? Do they want it be associated with ideas of health and nature, or would it sell better if customers considered it to be at the peak of technological development? Take a look at how competing products sell themselves and decide how users want their product to appear in the market. Usually, rather than trying to create a brand from scratch, they will be able to create a variation on a general theme used in their industry. Internet marketers, for example, might be a pretty mixed bunch, but many of people like to appear in suits. That shows that while we might spend our days writing Web content and creating products, they are really traditional business people who broker deals and negotiate partnerships. They will then try to mark themselves out within that niche with a brand that represents their own unique personalities.

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One product that does a very careful job of creating the right story for its marketand which also does it through Twitteris M&Ms. By giving different colored candies different personalities, Mars, the manufacturer, is able to appeal to different kinds of buyers.

Twitter therefore, has a timeline for green M&Ms (twitter.com/msgreen) which is targeted towards women, but it also has another timeline written by the red M&M (twitter.com/mmsracing) which associates itself with NASCAR to appeal to men.

M&Ms uses two types of brand images on Twitter. The green M&Ms are more popular.

Its likely that you already have a good idea of the kind of story you want your brand to portray. So how can you use Twitter to put that story across?

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5.3 Portraying Brand with Companys Profile

Background of the profile can be a useful way of providing companies followers with more information than one can squeeze into a bio data. By creating a sidebar on the left of the page, company can send followers to their other Web sites, where they might be able to do a range of different things from clicking your ads to making purchases. Those are direct results. When company using Twitter to build a brand, though, they dont need their followers to type a URL into their browser or make a purchase right away. Company just want them to remember brand. That means producing a design that makes companys brand memorable and that sums up their company. Southwest Airlines, for example, uses an image of its planes tail as its photo and chose the sky as its background image.

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M&Ms old Twitter page used the green candy to push the brand in the run up to Valentines Day. Note how they matched the color scheme and graphics with the subject of the campaign.

See immediately whose page theyre reading and they understand what the company does. Mars has gone a little further in its branding of M&Ms. Not only did the company create two pages, but it also changes the pages designs so that the brands image suits the current campaign. For Valentines Day 2008, for example, the company used Twitter to promote the idea that green, not red, is the color of loveand that their green candies were symbols of love too. The profile used a green background with a picture of Eros as a green M&M, and the companys Web site linked to the Twitter page, where people could discover love tips, quips, and personal appearances. It was certainly memorable, and the image alone was enough to help the page to stand out. But the profile doesnt have to be spectacular to convey the story of your brand, be instantly recognizable, and stick in the mind. Whole Foods Market
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(twitter.com/wholefoods), for example, simply uses a plain green background to match its green image and uses its logo as its picture. Thats very simpleand still very effective.

Whole Foods Market goes for green, pure and Unadulterated, for its Twitter background.

When company are using Twitter for branding, then, their background image is going to be important. They can choose an image thats complex and carefully designedand change it as they change their marketingor they can opt for something very simple that still does the job. More important is the style company use in their tweets.

5.4 Tweet Style - Creating Value

Clearly, there is a danger for companies using Twitter to communicate with customers and build their brand. When they put themselves in the public arena, theres a chance that they can do more harm than good. Firms that

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get social media wrong look like interlopers, uninvited guests who have gate crashed the cool peoples party. That doesnt just mean that theyre missing out on all of the opportunities that the social media site offers. It can also show that the company just doesnt get it. That could have as negative an effect on their sales as good tweeting can have a positive effect. There are a few things that the company needs to do to blend in on Twitter and make sure that the image its putting across on the site strikes a chord. The first thing it needs to do is to be human. Comcast, for example, takes a huge amount of flack on Twitter. Twitterers are constantly complaining about the companys poor phone-based customer service. No one though seems to be complaining about its Twitter-based customer service at twitter.com/comcastcares. Its run by Frank

Comcast shows that it cares by giving its tweets a human face.

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Eliason, the Director of Digital Care for Comcast, who puts his own picture rather than the company logo on the bio, includes an e-mail address for people to contact the company, and broadcasts tweets that look like theyre coming from a Twitterer, not some company rep. Note how the company puts together a whole bunch of different strategies here:

Its chosen a name that doesnt just reflect the company but that refutes a common criticism made of the corporation on Twitter.

Its used the background image to keep pushing that message home. Its tweets are written by a named individual who converses with the companys customers, and doesnt just broadcast messages to them.

And it follows about the same number of people that follow its tweets to show that its listening as well as talking.

As well see, these are characteristics that appear in the timelines of many other successful companies on Twitter. Theyre also characteristics that are missing from companies that are really trying to make the most of Twitter . . . and failing. Like Comcast, BestBuy (twitter.com/gina community) also uses a real person rather than a logo to front its corporate Twitter page. Unlike Comcast though, BestBuy makes all sorts of mistakes that serve up a valuable lesson for any business thinking of using Twitter for branding.
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First, the name is wrong. Twitter.com/bestbuy has been taken, but it has no updates, is following no one, and only has 26 followers. Twitter doesnt allow cyber squatting and has been known to take away accounts from individuals who tried to use a company name, so that URL should be available to BestBuy if they wanted it. Its possible that there is a good reason that the company doesnt want to use twitter.com/bestbuy . Unless its so that no one actually sees the profile picture. While Frank Eliason looks happy, friendly, and approachable in his image, Gina looks like shes been locked in a hotel room with a laptop. Worst of all, the tweets themselves consist of little more than cut-and-pasted statements made in response to alerts of the company name. The overall impression isnt that this is a friendly, helpful company that wants to improve its customers experience, but that this is a company that just doesnt care.

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How not to build a brand on Twitter. BestBuy gets it all wrong with a poor image and creepy tweets.

Having a humanrather than a corporatepresence on Twitter might involve actually showing a human face in the way that Comcast does. But it will always involve tweeting in an informal, friendly manner. Twitter, after all, is a very personal place. Its a site that asks a personal question and lets people share their random thoughts with the world at large. Businesses that tweet like a corporate executive addressing a board meeting will stand out on the site and scream that they have no idea what theyre doingor who theyre talking to. Starbucks (twitter.com/starbucks) timeline, for example, consists mostly of a customer representative answering questions. The company appears to be using the site as an extension of its customer serviceone very simple corporate use for Twitter. It uses a logo instead of a personal image, but the employee responsible for managing the account isnt afraid to talk about his own personal experiences. They discuss the branches they have worked at and, of course, their own favourite drinks.
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Although its clear that this a corporate Twitter account, the tweets are written in a friendly, laid-back manner that creates the impression that the followers are chatting with the barista exactly as

Starbucks shows that its a relaxed place to hang out with friendly, easygoing tweets. They might do at the caf itselfand that the caf itself is a friendly, relaxed place to be. Thats good branding. So companys tweets should be friendly. They have to sound like theyre coming from a real person, another member of the Twitter community, not from some creepy company thats listening out for a mention of their name. But what should those tweets say to build a brand image thats positive and memorable? In practice, corporate tweets that try to build brands tend to fall into four broad categories: Company news Customer support
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Feedback Special offers

NEWS
Including some carefully chosen news posts can have a positive branding effect. They reward the follower with useful information and they also show that the company is enthusiastic about what its doing. That enthusiasm can be infectious. Clearly, company have to be careful to make sure that they are broadcasting the right kind of news and that they are doing it in the right way. People wouldnt care unless that information actually affected them. If the clinic had changed its phone number or fired their doctor, then they had wanted to know. If its changed its design, you probably wouldnt want to know. On Twitter, that rule still holds to some degree. News announcements that affect the reader are always going to be the most interesting. But even an announcement that a company has changed its blog design or squished another bug in its program can be interesting if it looks like gossipy fun.

The best way to handle news for branding, then, is to mix it in with other kinds of content and to add a personal comment so that it sounds like its coming from a real person, not from a company.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT
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Customer support on Twitter is often seen by companies as the only reason to use the site. Once they have someone twittering away and answering questions, they feel that theyve done their job and that theres nothing else to do. Thats a big mistake.

Its not just a mistake because doing it badlylike Best Buycan actually put people off. Its a mistake because good customer service itself can be good branding. It shows that the company is available to anyone who needs their help and that it listens too.

Figure: Sarah from The Home Depots corporate

communications department shows off the companys customer service.
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The Home Depot (twitter.com/thehomedepot) does this very, very well. Their tweets offer short seasonal tips to keep people reading but their real strength is the quality of its customer support. Even though one Twitter account can only address a fraction of the questions the companys customers are going to have, the impression it creates is that followers will find even better help at the store itself. Thats exactly what branding should do: make potential customers feel that the real thing is even better. Include great customer service tweets in your timelinetweets that address problems and tell people exactly where they can find solutionsand youll add one important characteristic to your branding story.

FEEDBACK
Feedback tweets are similar to customer service tweets, but with an important difference. Customer service tweets are likely to be initiated by the customer. Instead of sitting on a phone line for half an hour wondering whether they should press 1, press the pound key, or hurl the phone at the wall, a customer can send a quick direct message to a company rep on Twitter and receive a response. The customer gets the answer he or she needs almost right away. The company gets to help one customer and show lots of other customers that its helpful, friendly, and keen to lend a hand. But not all customer service comments are sent as direct messages or even as replies to tweets on the companys own timeline. Often theyre just commentsusually ranton their own timeline. A company looking to use Twitter for branding can spot those tweets through
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alerts and react to them in the hope that it can stop negative publicity from spreading. Thats not always possible, but it does show that the company cares and that even if its not perfect, it is trying to improve. That can be an important part of a brand image too. Feedback, though, isnt just about listening to what people are saying about your company. It can also mean inviting people to say something about your company. Starbucks has a second Twitter account (twitter.com/mystarbucksidea) that supports its My Starbucks Idea Web site

MyStarbucksIdea gives customers feedback and shows that the coffee chain is listening. (mystarbucksidea.force.com). The site lets customers send in their proposals to improve the company and see how theyre implemented.
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The Twitter timeline allows the company to thank the customers for their ideas and explain whats happening to them. Its a great way for the company to show that it sees itself as just one part of the Starbucks communityeven if it doesnt produce immediate, direct sales.

SPECIAL OFFERS
Special offers are standard marketing practice and, can work on Twitter as well as anywhere else. Reward followers for reading your tweets by giving those exclusive deals that they feel they cant get anywhere else, and youll give them an incentive to keep reading. Even an online publisher could do this by mentioning a great deal being offered by one of its affiliates. Include either their affiliate link in the code or link back to your Web page, and they could well generate some useful commissions. Companies using Twitter for branding, though, have to be a little careful with the way they use special offers. While discounts can be a very powerful way to drive customers to take immediate action, branding doesnt demand action. It simply requires the follower to keep reading and to think about the company in a certain way.

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If company make lots of special offers, their customers wont be thinking about the company as a trusted friend that always delivers quality goods and servicestheyll see it as a corporation keen to push its products. Those special offers start to look like a hard sale, and hard selling doesnt work on Twitter. If company want to make immediate, direct sales through Twitter, then regular special offers could be very effective. If they want to use the site to build a brand and create a community around their firm, then special offers should be scattered throughout their timeline just to reward their followers and keep them interested. Theres no golden rule about how many promotions is too many. It all depends on what else company saying and whos following that company.

5.5 Repetition
To keep tweets on message, though, company will have to repeat them. One of the challenges of any branding campaign is that the effect is never long-lasting. Thats why even companies like Coca-Cola have to keep spending millions of dollars every year to keep their products in the public eye. When company using Twitter for branding, they dont have to spend millions of dollars to keep their markets attention. They just have to keep sending out tweets. There are companies that make the mistake of starting a Twitter campaign to promote a particular product, drop Twitter when the campaign ends and
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then try to pick it up again months later. Its a strategy that can workif they are not sending out tweets, they are not bothering anyone, so few followers will block company tweets. But company will lose momentum and their community can disappear. When company using Twitter as a branding tool, they need to be tweeting at least once a day, and ideally far more often than that. That doesnt have to be as hard as it sounds.

Chapter 6

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Third-Party Tools of Twitter

One of the things that really makes Twitter fun is that it comes with lots of optional add-ons. Twitter allows programmers to write applications that anyone can use and that extend the power of the service. Some of them are a little odd. But some of them are extremely helpful. For example, there are all sorts of applications that let user send and follow tweets without opening the browser.
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6.1 Tweet Later

Follow someone on Twitter and theres a good chance that theyll follow user back in return. Its not guaranteed, but it does happen a lot and its why one strategy to pick up followers is to do a lot of following. The reason it happens a lot is that reciprocal following looks like good manners. If someones following any user, then it only seems right he should follow them back. As the researchers seen, that might not be the smartest moveit can make user look like a spammer, and

TweetLater lets you schedule your tweets in advance.

he cant possibly follow everyone on a long list closelybut many people do it anyway. And one reason they do it is that its easy. TweetLater (www.tweetlater.com) lets user set up auto follows. Whenever someone follows him, user will automatically follow them in return. That can be a pretty neat trick but its not the services main function. The biggest reason for using TweetLater is that it lets user to set up tweets in advancea bit like an auto responder. That really can be valuable.
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It means that user can keep the timeline ticking over even while he is sleeping, working his day job, or spending the weekend with the kids. The user wouldnt want to create a false impression on the timeline by preparing tweets that say he is hard at work on a blog post while in fact he is relaxing at a spa, but he can prepare some random thoughts and other tweets to keep him timeline active. Best of all, he can use TweetLater to prepare a series of tweets that lead up to a link he wants his followers to click through. TweetLater is free and available atwww.tweetlater.com, but someone might also want to check out Twittertise (www.twittertise.com). This does almost exactly the same thing, but also lets user sees the number of click through on links that you insert into the tweet.

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6.2 Twitterific
Twitter might have been designed with mobiles in mind, but it was never very mobile-friendly. Fortunately, developers have come up with some pretty cool alternatives. Twitterific is a Twitter client that sits on a Macs desktop. It shows tweets from users followers and lets user tweet back in return. The interface is attractive and fun, and the program means user doesnt have to work with his Twitter page open in his browser.

Twitterific Best of all, Twitterific is also available for the iPhone. It even comes with a mini browser so that user doesnt lose his timeline every time he clicks a link, and it lets followers see where user is. Its a very neat solution for Twitterers on the move. Twitterific is available for download from Icon Factory at http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific.
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The free version is funded by ads, but user can get an ad-free version for $14.95.

6.3 Twhirl
Twitterific is very cool and a neat solution for iPhone users (and Tweetie, available from the iPhone app store, is great too). Owners of other types of mobile phones can try TwitterMail (www.twittermail.com) for e-mailenabled phones; Cellity (www.cellity.com) for Java-enabled phones; and Twitter Berry (www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/) for BlackBerry phones. For desktop Twitterers, Twitterific is also limited: it only works on the Mac. PC users have to look elsewhere for a Twitter client. Many of them look to Seesmics Twhirl. Like Twitterific, Twhirl frees Twitterers from Twitters Web page, letting them send and receive tweets from an attractive, instant message-style client. Its packed with all sorts of other useful

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Twhirl goodies too, such as automatic short URLs, search, and image posting to TwitPic. Its built on Adobe AIR, so userll have to download that first, but both are free and available from www.twhirl.org.

6.4 Twitterfeed

Twitterfeed As a way of adding one particular type of content to timeline of user, Twitterfeed can be very useful. But do bear in mind that the price user is paying for the ease of providing blog updates through Twitter is a loss of the personal touch. If users blog is hugely popular, user can get away with a Twitterfeed timeline dedicated solely to informing followers of him latest posts. For most people, though, Twitterfeeds updates become just one kind of tweetbut one that they can set up and leave.

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Page | 89

6.5 Twist

Twist There are a number of different services that allow Twitterers to keep track of the popularity of various topics and keywords on Twitter. Some use a frequently updated tag cloud to show relative popularity, but someone like the graphs on Twist. It is accurate and detailed; user can make comparisons between different terms, and even see samples of the tweets he is examining. It can be a very useful way to make sure that user is targeting the most popular terms and look for other people Twittering about users topic, And it looks very neat too. Use it at twist.flaptor.com.

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6.6 Twellow
Twist can help in finding people with similar interests to users own, but Twellow makes it all much, much easier. Run by WebProNews, its supposed to be a kind of Yellow Pages of social media, but it operates more like a Twitter Yahoo! The site tracks conversations on Twitter and places the Twitterers behind them into various categories. Click one of those categories and user will be able to see a list of suitable Twitterers.

Twellow Complete with sample tweet, bio, image, and the number of their followers. For Twitterers looking for interesting and useful people to follow, its a fantastic resource. And clearly, for Twitterers who want to be followed, its hugely valuable too. Once user starts sending tweets, he should find that he is been added automatically, but if he cant find his name on the site, he can add it himself.
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In any case, its certainly worth checking the categories that user has been listed under and self-editing them if necessary. Keep Twellow close by at www.twellow.com.

6.7 TweetBeep
Twellow tells you who tends to talk about what, but youll also want to know whos talking about your topics now.

TweetBeep TweetBeep, which as weve seen sends out regular alerts whenever a keyword is used on Twitter, is really a must for anyone thinking about marketing through microblogging. Remember that tracking your username or your company name and diving right into a conversation can look a little creepy. If you see someone has mentioned you, its often a good idea to follow them before replying. You can set up your alerts at tweetbeep.com.

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6.8 TwitterCounter
Theres one more useful matrix user might want to know when he is looking for people to followand when he wants to know how he is doing, tooand thats the rate of follower growth. When user is tracking his own tweets and their results, he should have those figures handy, but when user looks at someone elses profile, theres no way of knowing whether they picked up all of their followers a year ago or whether their tweets are still generating interest. TwitterCounter lets user to see anyones follower numbers over time. Just toss a name into the site and he will receive a graph showing how the follower numbers have risen and fallen over the last week.

TwitterCounter

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6.9 Tweet Deck

Twitters strength is its simplicity. Short posts, short replies, and quick conversations make for a service thats simple to use. But its also very limited. Its not easy to keep track of conversations, for example. User will be holding multiple chats with multiple followers

TweetDeck all at the same time and often on different topics. As one tweet comes in, the last one will be pushed down the list, making it difficult to follow the course of an exchange. Nor does Twitter allow user to group tweets and followers according to subject. TweetDeck lets user to do that. This service really is a must-have for anyone with a large list of followers. User can create multiple columns and group them according to topics. Its the closest user is likely to get to Face books groups.

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6.10TwitThis
TwitThis isnt exactly a Twitter application, but its certainly useful nonetheless and should be a basic tool for any Twitter-based marketer. All of us probably seen all the buttons at the bottom of blog posts urging people to Digg the article or send it to Stumble Upon.

TwitThis With TwitThis, user can also ask them send a URL of the page together with a brief description to their Twitter followers. Its a simple and effective way to help users blog or Web site make the most of Twitters viral power. These are just 10 of the most useful tools that Ive found for Twitter. There are plenty of others, and new ones are coming out every day with better interfaces, more features, and neater designs. You can have hours of fun downloading them and trying them out until you create the toolkit that works best for you. Because many of them are fairly similar, much comes down to personal taste.
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On the whole though, the toolkit should contain applications that let user find people to follow, track keywords, organize the followers, and tweet and reply easily. Those are the basics. In addition, some companies have begun experimenting with using Twitter as an advertising channel. Magpie (www.be-a-magpie.com) inserts targeted ads into the timeline, and Twittad (www.twittad.com) allows Twitterers to turn their background images into advertising billboards onto which companies can place their own ads. While both of these programs look interesting, both have problems. Twitterers who use Magpie have no control over the ads that appear, and its not yet clear whether followers will accept ads in timelines. Twittad means losing what could be the most important branding tool, and with prices that range from $20 a week for a timeline with 259 followers to $45 for a timeline with more than 7,500 followers, youll probably be better off putting users own links on the background.

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6.11TwitPwr.com
If user pastes a long URL into a tweet, Twitter will automatically create a Tiny URL to shorten it. However, there are many other sites that one can use to shorten his own URLS. TwitPwr.com not only shortens URLS, but also provides a unique Twitter tool that has viral appeal. Not only are all clicks through your TwitPwr URLs tracked, but accounts are ranked to show their power. The premise is that true Twitter power is not to be judged by the number of followers, but rather by the influence the account holder has over the followers.

TwitPwr.com One Twitterer may have 10,000 followers and 50 people follow a link he or she tweets. But another may have 1,000 followers and 75 people follow a tweeted link. Which is the more powerful Twitterer?

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TwitPwr.com adds a unique twist to creating and tracking URLs that is sure to bring out competitive behaviour in more than just a few Twitter users.

Chapter 7

Indian Companies on Twitter - A Usage Study

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7.1 Introduction
Social Media is the latest buzz word in the internet world. Everything around us over internet is turning social, and internet users now have social media stalwarts like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter as new-age internet heroes. While everywhere social media is being touted as next stage of evolution over internet. By-and-large most of us would agree with that Social media is still in a nascent stage in the Indian context and there is a lot that remains to be explored in the Social media space. Having said that the ripples in the social media wave created by many Indians involved are ensuring that Social Media is taken to the next level.

7.2 Social Networking in India Milestone @2009

By all means, 2009 is a milestone for social networking, especially for Internet-devoid-and-chatty citizens of India. Most of homegrown social networks took the back seat and the ones to survive are driven by media companies. Expectedly, Orkut / Facebook ruled the charts (the gap), but Twitter is the one who will potentially disrupt the social networking game in India.

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Graph 1 : social networking sites in India - 2009 traffic Inc).

(Source: Comscore

Twitters explosive growth in 2009 is being reinforced by the tool being embraced by Indian media. Indian media missed the blogging bus, and they couldnt afford to miss the micro blogging one. Apart from integrating their news rss feed with Twitter, whats really happening is that media celebrities (and of course, bollywood celebrities) are using the new channel to share their candid opinion bypassing the BS surrounding journalism (and the need to stay neutral). Nevertheless, whats really happening in the entire process is that Twitter is getting all sorts of media attention (news channels keep promoting their twitter channel) and is being introduced to layman (at least there is curiosity about the tool). Most importantly, the always-on-access via sms (e.g. Airtel twitter partnership) is where user will see Twitter beating the heck out of Orkut, when it comes to engagement and attention.

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7.3 Twitter and Indian companies

What seemed like chirps from birds some years back has now become an integral part of the daily lives. Such has been the impact of Twitter that everybody in Indian environment, ranging from the common man to celebrities has become an integral user. In India, Twitter usage picked up slowly, but today India ranks in the list of top 10 countries in terms of twitter users.

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Source http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/geography

(Fig 1: % usage of twitter in different country)

The growth of Twitter has spurred beyond leisure usage and now everyone is witnessing brands embracing the medium and engaging in meaningful business-specific conversations through this channel. Whether it is B2B or B2C, there are many companies out there which are using twitter for reasons like brand-building, marketing, staying connected with customers, taking their feedback etc.

This study presents a brief summary about the Indian businesses that have established presence on Twitter & also underlines the purpose/s for which they are using it. The study was conducted with a reason to demonstrate the value aspect of twitter as a micro-blogging tool when used by a brand. To conduct this study the researchers have selected few brands from different industry verticals.
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7.4 Observation Criterion:

The respective Twitter account profiles and the tweets were observed on the following parameters Quantitative Joining date (date on which account was created) Number of tweets (volume) Last tweet date No. of followers / No. of following/ No. of lists No. of Retweets and reply via @

Qualitative Conversation type (one-way, two-way) Tweet type (Informational, Retweets, Conversational@) The cut-off criterion for selection was Brands with
Minimum 100 followers Activity period spanning for minimum 1 month At least 50 tweets

7.5 Key Findings:

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A blueprint sketch, circa 2006, by Jack Dorsey, envisioning an SMS-based social network

Before starting this report, the assumption was that the bulk of brands would be using twitter as a broadcasting platform. From the nature of the tweets, it
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becomes

evident

that

several

brands

are

focused

towards

the

conversational aspects with emphasis towards customer-service. The leader-board is as follows: How did they fare? Most active account MSN India with 38,857 tweets Most followed brand MTV India 60,560 followers Most conversational brand ICICI Bank Most Re-tweeted brand Tata docomo Oldest brand Bookmyshow.com (Present since October 2007) Top Inactive Brands Acer India (Inactive since November) & Apollo hospitals The most tweets are made by a news brand, MSN India with almost 40,000 tweets. MSN Indias twitter account is setup using twitter-feed which automates the tweets from the news site every time it is published. MTV India is the most followed brand, showcasing its popularity amongst the youth and also the fact that Indias twitter audience comprises of youngsters. ICICI Bank is the most conversational brand on twitter and is primarily using it for responding to queries from both current & prospect customers. In fact, it wont be surprising to see other banks joining twitter to engage with their customers. One classic example of how banks can use twitter is through Bank of Americas twitter account http://twitter.com/bofa_he. They maintain complete transparency for their customers and their profile also shows the employees who are managing the twitter account.

Top Inactive Brands However, not all the brands have been able to use the medium in the right way. One classic example of that is Acer Indias twitter account
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which has been inactive since November 2009. The other prominent profile is that of Apollo Hospitals who havent posted a single tweet since July 2009. Airtel Broadbands case Airtel Broadband had marked its presence on twitter with its account impatient ones. However, after some initial tweets the account was inactivate, starting from period of June 2009 and at the beginning of this year the account was surprisingly deleted. Despite the research, the real reasons for the deletion of the account are not known.

7.6 Twitter Applications

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7.6.1 Customer service

Twitter is a fantastic tool for resolution of customer problems, not only is it fast but it also provides cost advantages for businesses when compared with other methods like phone etc. Through Twitter when the company staff, provides replies to customers, it creates a positive image for the entire brand. Dell India has a twitter account to handle customer queries related to showroom info, personal computer details, computer shipment and payment details info. Dells India account is in-line with the computer manufacturers global initiatives. Dell has a dedicated section of its website, www.dell.com/twitter that provides details of the name and purpose of its more than 30 different feeds.

(Fig 2: Dell India twitter page)

ICICI Bank offers support through twitter to their banking customers.

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(Fig5. Nokia & Colours twitter page)

7.7 How Indian Companies Use Twitter

Illustrations
Customer Service (Tata Photon)

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Consumer Recommendations (SuKam)

Community Feedback (Cafe Coffee Day)

Company/Industry Updates (Infosys)

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Product Promotion (Samsung Mobiles)

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7.8 The Road Ahead:

Twitters penetration in organizations will continue to increase on both sides of the spectrum. Conversations between users and brands which are managed by humans with an emotional quotient would continue to thrive. It also implies that the focus would lessen on one-way broadcasts where twitter accounts simply translate into monotonous RSS feeds. More companies will start using twitter for conducting market research, listening to users and keeping a track on the competition.

Chapter 8
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Questionnaire Analysis

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8.1 ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONNAIRE

1) Do you have account in any social media networking sites?

Particula rs yes no Total

Frequency

Percent

490 10 500

98.0 2.0 100.0

[Table 8.1.1 Social Networking A/C]

[Graph 8.1 Social Media A/c]

Interpretation: From the above given pie-chart the researchers can say that the 98% of the respondents are having their account opened in to any of the social
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networking sites. The increasing interests towards the social networking sites have been verified with this statistics. Only 2% of the respondents are not having their account opened up in the social networking sites. The higher interests of the internet users towards the social networking sites have created the new avenues for the marketers to enhance their brand image and equity. The concept of the affiliate marketing has emerged out of increased popularity of social media networking sites.

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Page | 115

2) Which are those sites of social networking?

[Graph 8.2 No of users]

Interpretation: This question was only to those that had answered yes on the question Do you have account in any social media networking sites? From the bar-graph given above it is clear that the face-book has the highest no of users from the respondents. The no of respondents, who are having face book account are 445 out of 500. The Orkut stood second in terms of the no of respondents having their account on it. The no of respondents are 435. The 2nd position of Orkut shows the increasing popularity of face-book among the Indian social networking site users.

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The twitter comes third by no of accounts which is 285 out of 500.Twitter was launched in 2006 ,and started gaining popularity during last 2 years. That clearly shows twitter is witnessing a mind-blowing traffic growth worldwide and India is no exception. So if you are a social media marketer You just cant ignore the twitter any more. The linked in has 270 no of respondents, which is equally popular but amongst executives and professionals, followed by buzz which has 105 no of respondents.

3) Which social media do you use the most?

Frequen cy 30 5 5 Percen t 6.0 1.0 1.0 Valid Percent 6.0 1.0 1.0 Cumulative Percent 6.0 7.0 8.0

Particulars all of above ticked & messenger All of them

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All which i have accounts in Face book facebook Facebook and Twitter facebook n twitter facebook, buzz facebook,orkut facebook,orkut,twit ter Facebook/Twitter gmail Internet internet sites/orkut Linkedin None in particular orkut orkut & linkedin orkut, face book twitter Total

5 15 225 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 10 5 10 5 95 5 5 45 500

1.0 3.0 45.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 19.0 1.0 1.0 9.0 100.0

1.0 3.0 45.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 19.0 1.0 1.0 9.0 100.0

9.0 12.0 57.0 58.0 59.0 60.0 61.0 62.0 63.0 64.0 66.0 67.0 69.0 70.0 89.0 90.0 91.0 100.0

[Table 8.1.2 Most Social Media Usage]

Interpretation: Our main purpose behind asking this question was to know about the likability amongst the no of accounts respondent hold. From the above given table it is clear that Face book is the most likable social media networking site among the users. The reasons behind this might be the no of applications, games, various interesting tests etc.

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4) How much time in a week are you spending on social media networking?

Time

Frequency

Percen t 10.0

<1 hour 1-3 hour 3-5 hour 5-7 hour >7 hour Total

50

152

30.4

68

13.6

65

13.0

155

31.0

490

98.0

[Table 8.1.3 Social Media Frequency]

[Graph 8.3 Social Media Frequency] Page | 119

Interpretation: The amount of time spent on social media sites by the Indian users is critical aspect of our study. This directly leads towards to the behavior of users on social networking. 31% of the total no of respondents are spending more than 7 hours a week on social networking. From this it is evident that the users are roughly spending an hour on daily basis for doing social networking. That clearly suggest the amount of time users spend communicating online has risen significantly. Social networking has become such an essential part of peoples lives nowadays.

5) Do you own a hand-held device from which internet is accessible?

Out of the 500 respondents 54% are having handheld device eg. PDA, i-phone, other smart phones from which the internet was accessible and 46% of the respondents are not internet enabled hand-held device. having this kind of

[Graph 8.4 Hand-held device] Page | 120

6) If yes, do you access internet from that device?

Out of 270 respondents who are having internet enabled handheld device 82% are actually accessing internet. While, rest 18% of the internet enabled handheld device holder are not utilizing the internet facility from their device. That shows substantial no of users are utilizing the facility of Internet from their device.
[Graph 8.5 Internet access]

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7) For what purpose do you access the internet from that device?

[Graph 8.6 Purpose of internet from hand-held device]

Interpretation: Here the researchers have found out interesting result out of the 222 users who are accessing the internet through their handheld device 220 users are using it for checking E-mails. The second most activity done by the user are for the checking various information. 180 respondents have checked this option. The surfing through the handheld device stood third by 175

respondents agreed to it. Only 65 out of the 222 respondents are using micro blogging services from their handheld device. Almost 80 respondents are carrying their e-commerce transaction in form of online banking and shopping through their handheld device.
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The proportion of respondents who are updating and following micro blogs and downloading music are very low in comparison of others. They are only 65. So, there is a huge potential lies for the telecom service operators to provide this kind of service by coming up with a lucrative plans.

8) Do you use twitter?

Twitter user

Frequenc y 285 215 500

yes no Total

[Table 8.1.4 Twitter Users]

[Graph 8.7 usage]

Twitter

Interpretation:

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Out of the 500 respondents 57% are having their account opened up in twitter, while 43% are not having their account opened up with the twitter. The results show that the lack of proper awareness of twitter to the youth. Though the 43% of user are not having their account with the twitter, the twitter in recent times has started to grow. The recent results of twitter are showing that it has grown to a level of 1444% (source: A.C. Nielsen) over last year. Surely the twitter is now in the main stream of all social media networking sites.

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Twitter user profile:

Catego ry UG Gradua te Post gradua te

Frequen cy 40 105

Percen t 14.0 36.8

140

49.1

[Table 8.1.5 Education]

Total

285

100.0

Catego ry Male Female Total

Frequen cy 160 125 285

Percent

56.1 43.9 100.0

[Table 8.1.6 GENDER]

Page | 125

Category

Frequen cy 50

Percent

Full-time profession al Business man Student Service Unemploy ed Total

17.5

40

14.0

110 60 25

38.6 21.1 8.8

285

100.0

[TABLE 8.1.7 OCCUPATION]

Catego ry 18-24 25-35 Above 35

Frequen cy 130 105 50

Percen t 45.6 36.8 17.5

[Table 8.1.7 AGE]

The profile the twitter users among the respondents are as shown in the table sequentially Education, Gender, Age and Occupation wise.

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The various hypotheses related to the usage of twitter and its related demographics have been stated in the chapter of analysis of hypotheses.

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9) How often do you log on to a twitter in a day?

No of login Once Twice Thrice More than four times Total

Frequen cy 170 30 25 60 285

[Table 8.1.9 LOGIN FREQUECY]

[Graph 8.8 login frequency]

Interpretation: Answer to this question suggest the usage pattern of the twitter user .Out of 285 only 60% of the respondents are logging in only once, 10% are logging in twice 10% are logging in twice,9% are logging in thrice, 21% are logging more than four times. The twitter has been designed to be in real-time touch with the world. According to the
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Numbers obtained, yet the usage pattern of twitter is not happening what was planned when it was launched or the kind application happening in other countries. 10) Do you use twitter as an alternative mode of communication technology (e.g. sms, chat etc.)?

Out of the entire twitter user only 37% of the user uses twitter as an alternative mode of communication. The rest of the users think that it cannot be replaced by the sms messaging software. They are using twitter as other social media networking sites.
[Graph 8.9 Alternative mode of communication]

existing and other

mode Instant

communications, which are

11) Are you ready to spend extra money for getting the twitter service on your mobile phone?

To gain the insights about whether twitter users are ready to spend extra amount for getting the benefits of the twitter service as a whole. The kind of response , 88% said

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no and only 12% said yes ,shows that they are considering twitter along with the other social media ,wherein the Internet access suffice the purpose.
[Graph 8.10 ready to spend extra money]

12) What is the purpose of twitting?

[Graph 8.11Purpose of tweeting]

Interpretation: To find out the basic motivation behind doing twitting the researchers have asked this question. It is clear from the statistics that 190 out of 285 users are sharing new information with each other using the twitter. Connecting with friends is also important motivation behind twitting, which is evident from the 175 respondents out of 285 have selected this option.
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For killing the time there are 125 respondents who are twitting. 95 out of 285 users are twitting for the work related matters. As, twitter is an excellent platform to be remain connected with world , they can share real time problems and get the solution immediately. Initially the social media was considered as an entertainment platform, but results of twitting purposes are showing that the trend is moving towards more serious talk like sharing new information ,work related tweets etc. Now if we look at the occupation and sharing new information crosstab in the following table and bar graph.

[Table 8.1.10 Cross-tab of Occupation v/s Information]

Sharing new information Total

Unchecked Full-time professional Business man Student Service Unemployed Total 15 15 25 25 15 95

Checked 35 25 85 35 10 190 50 40 110 60 25 285

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[Graph 8.12 cross-tab of occupation v/s information sharing]

Interpretation: The results show that 77% of the students are sharing information with each-other and that is how they are keeping themselves updated. Out of the full time professional who are twitter user 70% are sharing new information regarding their fields, new development, new opportunities etc. Out of the service class respondents of twitter user 62% are sharing new information with each other.

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13) What do you tweet about?

Very often Private Stuff (What I am doing?)/ Status Thoughts & Feelings I am undergoing Links of various websites / resources Work related tweets Comments /@ tweets News/Updates Photos 25 25 50 35 45 60 0

Often

Neutr al 65 45 60 65 60 65 65

Less

Very Less 60 55 50 70 35 30 115

WAM

105 105 90 50 120 85 40

30 55 35 65 25 45 65

3.86 3.54 3.19 2.7 3.4 3.35 2.1

[Table 8.1.11 Tweeting Subject]

[Graph 8.13 tweeting subject]

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Interpretation: To get the information about what user are generally twitting the researchers has asked this question. To every option weights has been assigned in the descending order starting from 5 to 1 and then weighted average mean has been calculated. According to WAM the most frequent twitting is about the private stuff (What I am doing?) like activities of routine life . The WAM assigned to this is 3.86 .Most of the celebrities e.g. Chetan Bhagat ,Shashi Tharur are sharing their routine life on twitter starting from good morning to good night . The second no of twitting is about the Thoughts and feelings I am undergoing having WAM 3.54 Most of the users are many times writing about their own feeling and thoughts of particular organization, political party , country , friends etc. The comments /@ tweets and News /Updates are almost on the same position having their WAM 3.4 and 3.35 respectively. It is evident from this figures that those who are using twitter regularly are using it as News channel or service. The last frequent activity done by users are sharing their photographs with the friends, the application twitpic is interesting but might be due to the constraints of internet speed on mobile and lack awareness about this preventing many users to explore this application. Its interesting to note that the results arent skewed towards any specific usage area. And that means, Twitter is still being experimented for different reasons.

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14) I would like to follow tweets of

Particulars

Frequen cy

Perce nt 42.5 18.9 26.7

Valid Percent 42.5 18.9 26.7

Cumulative Percent 42.5 61.4 88.1

Celebrities Politicians Business persons others Total

121 54 76

34 285

11.9 100.0

11.9 100.0

100.0

[Table 8.1.12 Persons Tweet]

[Graph 8.14 Persons Tweet to be followed]

Interpretation:

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Recently in India twitter is gaining its popularity, one of the main reasons behind that is various renowned celebrities, business tycoons, entrepreneurs, famous politicians and other field experts are having their account on the twitter. Celebrities as expected by the researcher has got the largest amount of response, which is 42.5% . The second largest no of response is obtained by the business persons which is 26.7% , the application of twitter like @exectweet allows the interested user to follow the CEOs , MDs, chairman of the various organization . Around 19% of the user are also wanted to follow Politicians .The reason behind this in recent times the politicians like shashi tharoor has huge fan followers .The tweeter also allows the politicians to stay connected with the people ,voters of their constituency . In general, celebrity, business persons and politicians have major influenced on the people, which create opportunity for the marketers to promote their services and products.

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Respons e yes no

Frequency

15) Would you like to follow tweets of any company / organization?

235 50

[Table 8.1.13 Company Follower]

[Graph 8.15 Organizations tweets]

Interpretation: The purpose of the researchers behind asking this question is to gauge interests of the users for the various organizations. 82% of the respondents have replied affirmative while 18% of the respondents have replied negatively.

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The twitter user who has showing the readiness to follow the organization on twitter are amongst the right group of people towards which the company has to direct its marketing efforts. This is the main reason why many of the famous brands are having their account opened up in the twitter. 16) What kind of companies` tweet would you like to follow on twitter?

[Graph 8.16 Type of

organizations tweets]

Interpretation:

The IT companies are having maximum no response, which is 160 users want to follow the tweets of IT company. The large-scale Indian tech companies are driven by processes and proven methodologies. They use open conversation social media platforms like Twitter are certainly very interesting.
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E.g.

Every third tweet that Microsoft India sends is conversational & is

marked with @ reply. A key reason is that their official twitter account isnt automated and is managed by a team of real people. The second maximum no of response are for Electronic companies, as the respondents are interested in knowing the new developments in this particular fields, offerings by the company and the product reviews about the various electronic gadgets. The third maximum no of responses are for the stock-broking companies, which indeed due to the fact that respondents want to know about the various tips, call, portfolio management services etc.

8.1.15.1 Cross- tab of Occupation v/s IT

What is your occupation status * IT Cross tabulation

IT

Unchecked

Checked

Total

What is your occupation status

Full-time professional

20

30

50

Business man

15

25

40

Student

45

65

110

Service

30

30

60

Unemployed

15

10

25

Total

125

160

285

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The Highest percentage of the business man would like to follow the IT companies on the twitter, which is 62.5% The second highest no percentage wise is of full-time professionals, which is equal to 60% which shows their inclination towards to the IT company. The third highest no. percentage wise is of the students which are almost equal to 59% of all the student categories. The no. of students is highest in the absolute terms. For the service class people it is 50-50 kind of situation. Half of them would like to follow but half of them would not like it at all.

8.1.15.2 Cross- tab of Occupation v/s Electronics:

What is your occupation status *

Electronics Cross tabulation

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Electronics Unchecked What is your occupation status Business man Student Service Unemployed Total 25 75 20 10 150 15 35 40 15 135 40 110 60 25 285 Full-time professional 20 Checked 30 Total 50

Thus by looking at the table and bar-graph the researcher can infer that the service-class people would most like to follow the Electronics organization, which is evident from the statistics of 66% of all the service persons do like to follow tweets of this kind of organization.

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The second highest no. in terms of the percentage is full time professionals, who would like to follow the service organization. This might be due to the fact they want to keep updating themselves with the development of this particular kind of industry. The no of students are 35 out of 110 would like to follow tweets of the electronic company. This might be due to the fact that students dont want to get news related updates but they are more oriented towards the socializing instead of getting this kind of news and other thing.

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17) In future which mode of communication would you prefer from the company whose products / service you are availing?
Particulars Very likely 95 190 135 140 110 Eventually Unlikel y 70 10 60 50 90

Store-manager E-mail Call Twitter Blog

120 85 90 95 85

[Table 8.1.14 Future Mode of Customer service]

[Graph 8.17 Future Mode of Customer service]

Interpretation:

33%

think it is very likely that the customer service will not contact them but

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the Store manager will handle the complaint. 42% think the store manager would handle the complaint and the customer service eventually contacts them and slightly more than 25 % think it is unlikely that the store manager would handle the complaint and the customer service would rather not contact them.

66% find

it very likely that the customer service will contact them via e-mail. 30% say they eventually contact them via e-mail and 4%think it is unlikely that they receive an e-mail by the customer service.

47%

think it is very likely that the customer service contacts them via the telephone, 32% think they eventually might call them up and 21% find this unlikely to happen.

49%

think it is very likely that the customer service contacts them via Twitter, 33% think this eventually might happen and 18% find it unlikely that the customer service contacts them via Twitter.

39% find

a comment on their blog or an e-mail via their blog very likely, 29% think the customer service eventually might contact them via their blog and 32% think this is unlikely to happen. Thus

from the results the researcher can say that in future people are receptive to the E-mail customer service and twitter in the future.

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18) I would use Twitter more often when (Rank 1 is your most likely option and rank 7 is your most unlikely option)
Ranks Weights Interesting Spare time Mobile Unlimited Plan More Followers Mobile Internet More Often thinking Not at all 1 1 54 23 74 68 39 27 25 2 2 96 26 93 25 24 13 8 3 3 38 82 24 73 30 24 14 4 4 34 53 43 65 34 29 27 5 5 35 46 25 30 115 7 27 6 6 4 43 12 13 35 112 66 7 7 24 12 14 11 8 73 118 3.028 3.87 2.8 3.16 4.049 5.11 5.43 WAM

[Table 8.1.15 Response Table of more often usage]

Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 WAM 2.8 3.028 3.16 3.87 4.049 5.11 5.43 Particulars I would have a mobile unlimited plan. I would know something interesting to twit about. I would have more followers. I would have spare time I would have mobile Internet I would think of it more often I wouldnt. Im using it quite extensively

[Table 8.1.16 Rank Table of more often usage]

Interpretation:

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This question is applicable to the twitter user, the purpose behind asking this question is to find out the motivation behind using it more often. The first rank according to WAM of 2.8 is mobile unlimited plan , as twitter is compatible with any of the mobile phones and its due to its 140 characters limits the respondents want to have unlimited plan so that they can twit more frequent.

Second rank , researchers have found from the results is ..Something interesting to tweet about .That means if the users are having an interesting information about something or someone, they would like to share it with others using twitter. Here the researchers has got interesting finding about the reason when the respondents use twitter more often, I would have more followers stood third having WAM of 3.16 .This clearly indicates that increasing in no of followers would directly lead to increasing the usage frequency because the respondents wanted to share more . The 4th rank according to WAM of 3.87 is if the respondents are having spare time. The 5th rank according to WAM of 4.049 is if they are having access to the mobile internet. The 6th rank according to WAM of 5.11 is if the respondents are thinking about the twitter more often. And the last rank according to WAM of 5.43 is the respondents are not ready to use twitter anymore because they are using twitter quite extensively.

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19) Why do not you use twitter?

Particulars I am already registered with a social networking site I dont know what to tweet. I think it is a waste of time. SMS and E-mail is enough. I dont see any use of twitter. Total Frequency 125 Percent 25.0 Valid Percent 58.1

30 15 35 10 215

6.0 3.0 7.0 2.0 43.0

14.0 7.0 16.3 4.7 100.0

[Table 8.1.17 Reason for not using twitter]

[Graph 8.18 Reason for not using twitter]

Interpretation:

This question is only applicable to those who has answered no in the Q-8 , Do you use twitter?

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Out of 43% who are not the user of the twitter but already associated with any other social media, 58.1% of the respondents said that they are already registered with the other social networking site. This clearly shows the lack of interests towards the twitter. 16.3 % of the nonusers are satisfied with the use of SMS and E-mail services .This shows twitter has not created a different space in their minds apart from the SMS and E-mails, which is actually not true because twitter is much beyond the SMS and E-mail. 14% of the nonusers dont know what to tweet, i.e. they are aware about the twitter but due to lack of knowledge about what to tweet they are not using twitter. 7% of the non users think that twitter is a waste of time. 4.7% of the nonusers dont see the use of twitter that is why they have not opened up their account in the twitter. 20) I will create my account in twitter because In this open ended question the researcher wanted to know about the drive behind using the twitter. Most interesting and important answers the researchers have got are as below:

It helps me in keeping pace with new technology. Try new Social Community. I like to update myself regarding the news about the celebrities and new product launches especially. It is a new and interesting way to express oneself. It is something different from routine social sites.

21) I will use twitter more if In this open ended question the researcher wanted to know about the source of motivation that makes the user to use twitter. Most interesting and important answers the researchers have got are as below:
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There is something really important to know. I am getting more information on businesses and stock markets. It adds more application for entertainment. If it offers features which are genuinely new or something which has not already been covered by others.

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Demographics:
1) GENDER:

Catego ry Male Female Total

Frequency 285 215 500

[Table 8.1.18 gender]

[Graph 8.19 Genders]

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2) AGE- GROUP:

Categor y Under 18 18-24 25-29 30-34 40-44 Total

Frequency 30 230 160 65 15 500

[Table 8.1.19 AGE]

[Graph 8.20 Age]

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3) EDUCATION:

Category High school Diploma Bachelors degree Masters degree Doctorate degree Law degree Total

Frequency 25 20 195 250 5 5 500

[Table 8.1.20 Education]

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[Graph 8.21 Educations]

4) OCCUPATION:

Category Full-time profession al Business man Student Service Unemploy ed Total

Frequency 85

70 190 110 45 500

[Table 8.1.21 Occupation]

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[Graph 8.22 Occupations]

8.2 ANALYSIS OF HYPOTHESES

H0: There is no association between gender and usage of twitter. H1: There is an association between gender and usage of twitter.
Crosstab Table 8.2.1 Do you use twitter If no go to question no 23 Yes Gender Male Female Total 160 125 285 No 125 90 215 Total 285 215 500

Value Pearson Chi-Square .200a

df 1

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .655

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Value Continuity Correction Likelihood Ratio Fisher's Exact Test Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases .199 500
b

df .127 .200 1 1

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .722 .655

.655

Decision Rule: In a chi- square test for a 95% confidence interval if the significance level is greater than or equal to 0.05 it signifies that there is no association between two variables in the cross tabulation and if the significance level is less than 0.05 then it signifies that there is a significant relationship between the selected variables. RESULT of Chi- square test: From the output tables the chi- square test read a significance level of 0.655 at 95% confidence level. As it is greater than 0.05, we should accept the null hypothesis that, There is no significant relationship between gender and usage of twitter.

H0: There is no association between age and usage of twitter. H1: There is an association between age and usage of twitter.

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Crosstab Table 8.2.2 Do you use twitter ? Yes age group Under 18 18-24 25-35 above 35 Total 20 110 105 50 285 No 10 120 55 30 215 Total 30 230 160 80 500

Chi-Square Tests Value Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 14.885 14.944 4.623 500 df 3 3 1 Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .002 .002 .032

RESULT of Chi- square test: From the output tables the chi- square test read a significance level of 0.002 at 95% confidence level. As it is less than 0.05, the null hypothesis gets rejected. Hence, there is an association between age and usage of twitter.

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H0: There is no association between education and usage of twitter. H1: There is an association between education and usage of twitter.

Crosstab Table 8.2.3 Do you use twitter If no go to question no 23 yes education high school Diploma Bachelors degree Masters degree Total 20 25 105 135 285 No 5 5 90 115 215 Total 25 30 195 250 500

Chi-Square Tests Value Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 15.593a 17.117 13.104 500 df 3 3 1 Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .001 .001 .000

RESULT of Chi- square test: From the output tables the chi- square test read a significance level of 0.001 at 95% confidence level. As it is less than 0.05, the null hypothesis gets rejected. Hence, there is an association between Education and usage of twitter.

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H0: There is no significant relationship between occupation and usage of twitter. H1: There is a significant relationship between occupation and usage of twitter.
occupation * Do you use twitter Cross tabulation Table 8.2.4 Do you use twitter If no go to question no 23 yes occupation Full-time professional Business man Student Service Unemployed Total 50 40 110 60 25 285 No 35 30 80 50 20 215 Total 85 70 190 110 45 500

Chi-Square Tests Value Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases .487a .486 .303 500 df 4 4 1 Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .975 .975 .582

RESULT of Chi- square test: From the output tables the chi- square test read a significance level of 0.975 at 95% confidence level. As it is greater than 0.05, we should accept the null hypothesis that, there is no significant relationship between occupation and usage of twitter.
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H0: There is no association between occupation and log on frequency on twitter. H1: There is an association between occupation and log on frequency on twitter.

What is your occupation status

* how often do you log on to a twitter in a day Cross tabulation Table 8.2.5 If yes how often do you log on to a twitter in a day More than Once Twice 15 15 Thrice 5 four times 15 Total 50

What is your occupation status

Full-time professional Business man Student Service Unemployed

15 58 40 9 137

6 7 10 5 43

6 19 5 6 41

13 26 5 5 64

40 110 60 25 285

Total

Chi-Square Tests Value Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 36.293a 37.753 6.946 285 df 12 12 1 Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .000 .000 .008

RESULT of Chi- square test:

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From the output tables the chi- square test read a significance level of 0.000 at 95% confidence level. As it is less than 0.05, the null hypothesis gets rejected. Hence, there is an association between occupation and log on frequency on twitter.

H0: There is no association between age and the kind of personalitys tweet one would like to follow on twitter. H1: There is an association between age and the kind of personalitys tweet one would like to follow on twitter.
What is your age group * Tweets Cross tabulation

Table 8.2.6 Tweets Business Celebrities What is your age group 18-24 25-35 Above 35 Total 84 30 7 121 Politicians 15 15 19 49 persons 20 50 15 85 others 11 10 9 30 Total 130 105 50 285

Chi-Square Tests Value Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 68.380 67.216 31.079 285 df 6 6 1 Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .000 .000 .000

RESULT of Chi- square test: From the output tables the chi- square test read a significance level of 0.000 at 95% confidence level. As it is less than 0.05, the null hypothesis gets
Page | 160

rejected. Hence, there is an association between age and the kind of personalitys tweet one would like to follow on twitter.

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H0: There is no association between occupation and the kind of personalitys tweet one would like to follow on twitter. H1: There is an association between occupation and the kind of personalitys tweet one would like to follow on twitter.
What is your occupation status * Tweets Crosstabulation

Table 8.2.7 Tweets Business Celebrities Politicians What is your occupation status Full-time professional Business man Student Service Unemployed Total 22 59 18 5 121 7 19 13 5 54 5 23 24 10 76 6 9 5 5 34 40 110 60 25 285 17 10 persons 14 others 9 Total 50

Chi-Square Tests Value Pearson Chi-Square Likelihood Ratio Linear-by-Linear Association N of Valid Cases 26.459a 26.987 1.185 285 df 12 12 1 Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) .009 .008 .276

RESULT of Chi- square test: From the output tables the chi- square test read a significance level of 0.009 at 95% confidence level. As it is less than 0.05, the null hypothesis gets rejected.

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Hence, there is an association between occupation and the kind of personalitys tweet one would like to follow on twitter.

8.3 FACTOR ANALYSIS

The factor analysis has been done in order to reduce the no of factors, the factors which are correlated internally after conducting the factor analysis the no. of factors can be reduced to a manageable level so the researchers have conducted factor analysis. The list of factors has been shown below.

Table 8.3.1

List of Factors The tweets are Informative. The tweets are entertaining. The tweets are too small to express my feelings. The short messages of tweets are more sensible to me than long paragraphs of blogs /Orkut/face book. The twitter could be utilized by the company for their customer service approach. I would like to know about the New product launches. I would like to get announcements of Sale, Offers from the company. I would like to give suggestion about the Product/Service difficulties. Twitter is not a place to broadcast messages of company but building relationship with customers. I like to shareKMO and Bartlett's about what I am with my friends Test doing using tweets. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling I like to know about what my friends are doing.621 Adequacy. using twitter. I like to share photos from my mobile on Bartlett's Test of Approx. Chi-Square 1140.462 twitter.
Sphericity Df Sig. 78 .000

Conducting Factor Analysis:

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Measure of sample adequacy such as Bartlett's Test of sphericity (Approx. Chi-Square is 1140.462, degree of freedom is 78, significance is 0.000) and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value (0.621) showed that data were fit for factor analysis. Principal component analysis was used for extracting factors and four factors were retained and depending upon Eigen values and variance explained. Eigen value represents the total variance explained by each factor as shown in the figure. The standard practice normally used is that all the factors with an Eigen value of 1 or more should be extracted. Hence from the table given below four factors will be retained.

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Table 8.3.2 Total Variance Explained Extraction Sums of Initial Eigenvalues % of Compone nt 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Total 3.210 2.086 1.525 1.300 .976 .839 .690 .640 .599 .394 .281 .252 .209 Varianc Cumulati e 24.689 16.044 11.727 10.003 7.508 6.452 5.308 4.923 4.609 3.029 2.162 1.939 1.604 ve % 24.689 40.734 52.461 62.464 69.972 76.424 81.733 86.656 91.265 94.294 96.456 98.396 100.000 Total 3.210 2.086 1.525 1.300 Squared Loadings % of Varianc Cumulati e 24.689 16.044 11.727 10.003 ve % 24.689 40.734 52.461 62.464 Total 2.727 1.842 1.794 1.758 Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings % of Varianc Cumulati e 20.973 14.167 13.801 13.522 ve % 20.973 35.140 48.941 62.464

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Principal component analysis was used for extracting factors and four factors were retained and depending upon Eigen values and variance explained.

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Eigen value represents the total variance explained by each factor as shown in the figure. .

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Table 8.3.3 Rotated Component Matrixa Component 1 I would like to know about the New product launches I would like to get announcements of Sale Offers from the company I would like to give suggestion about the Product Service difficulties The twitter could be utilized by the company for their customer service approach I like to know about what my friends are doing using twitter I like to share with my friends about what I am doing using tweets I like to share photos from my mobile on twitter tweets helps my buying decision The tweets are too small to express my feelings Twitter is not a place to broadcast messages of company but building relationship with customers The tweets are entertaining The short messages of tweets are more sensible to me than long paragraphs of blogs orkut face book The tweets are Informative .440 -.279 .207 .606 .239 -.059 .030 .108 .134 -.266 .831 .747 -.491 .139 .516 .108 .336 .153 .077 -.071 .687 .580 .178 -.160 -.051 .193 .700 -.011 .028 .881 .082 .034 -.011 .924 .126 -.003 .511 .020 .003 .221 .679 -.184 .210 .007 .810 .114 .173 .041 .845 2 .072 3 -.034 4 .144

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

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From this rotated component matrix the following table has been derived about the various factors.

Table 8.3.4

Facto r No. F1

Name of Factors

Variables

Factor Loadings

Commercial Usage of twitter

I would like to know about the New product launches I would like to get announcements of Sale Offers from the company. I would like to give suggestion about the Product Service difficulties The twitter could be utilized by the company for their customer service approach

0.845 0.810 0.679 0.511 0.924 0.881

F2

Getting Connected with friends

I like to know about what my friends are doing using twitter I like to share with my friends about what I am doing using tweets I like to share photos from my mobile on twitter tweets helps my buying decision The tweets are too small to express my feelings Twitter is not a place to broadcast messages of company

F3

Tweeter as an Influencer

0.700 0.687 0.580 0.516 0.831 0.747

F4

Infotainment

but building relationship with customers. The tweets are entertaining. The short messages of tweets are more sensible to me than long paragraphs of blogs , Orkut, face book The tweets are Informative 0.606

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F1: Commercial Usage of twitter:

This is the most important of all the factor with highest variance of 24.689% .This factor has made up of all the commercial use organization can make up from the twitter. From the responses and factor analysis the researcher has reached to the consensus that from the perspective of the organization it is the most vital factor, as it creates the whole relationship between the organization and consumer.

F2: Getting

connected with friends:

This factor is next important, which has the variance of 16.044% .The researchers have found out that this factor is positively perceived by the respondents .i.e. they would like to stay connected with the friends and also would like to share what they are doing with their friends.

F3:

Tweeter as an Influencer:

This is the third important factor which is made up 11.727% of the variance. The researchers have found out that the respondents also perceive that the tweeter can be added tool to shape the purchase decision and the can be used by the organization to build up the loyalty towards the organization.

F4:

Infotainment:

This the last important factor to be considered which is made up of the 10% variance .The researchers have also found that the respondents also believe that tweeter is also useful tool in getting the information as well as entertainment simultaneously.
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Key findings & Conclusion

Key findings:
98% of the respondents are having their account in social media networking site. 31% of the respondents, who are having their account with the social media, are spending more than 7 hours in a week on social media. 57 % of the respondents are having their twitter account. 190 out of 285 are using twitter to share new information. Amongst the students the ratio is the highest with 77% of the students are using for this purpose. Status messages and News/updates are the most common purpose of twitting. 42.5 % of the twitter users would like to follow tweets of celebrities. 160 out of 285 twitter users would like to follow tweets of an IT company. 49% of the users would very much likely to get their future customer service using twitter. There is no association between the gender and usage. So, keeping aside the gender difference respondents are using twitter.
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There is no association between the occupation and usage of the twitter.

There is association between the age and usage of twitter. o Respondents who are falling in the age group of 18-24 and 25 -35 are more making use of twitter than the respondents, who are above the age 35.

There is an association between the Education and usage of the twitter. o Graduates and post graduates are making more use of twitter.

There is an association between the occupation and the log on frequency of the twitter. o Students are more logging on to the twitter than business-man and professionals. o Out of the respondents, who are Students are often logging in once in a day on to the twitter.

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There is an association between the occupation and the kind of persons tweet respondents would like to follow. o Respondents, who are falling in the age group of 18-24, would like to follow celebrities than any other. o Respondents who are falling in the age-group of 25-35, would like to follow tweets of Business-persons e.g. Managers, C.E.O. o Respondents, who are falling in the age-group of above 35, would like to follow tweets of politicians.

There is an association between the occupation and the kind of persons tweet the respondents would like to follow. o Students would like to follow tweets of celebrities. o Service class people would like to follow tweets of Business persons. o Full-time professionals would like to follow tweets of Politicians.

There are main four factors which have been derived from the list of 13 factors. o Commercial use o Connectivity with friends o Infotainment o Influencer

The respondents start using twitter more often, when they have unlimited sms or internet plan.

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The main reason for not having account opened up in the twitter is that they are having registration with other social media.

Conclusion:
After analyzing the research outcomes, this chapter concludes with the research results. There is one thing that really distinguishes Twitter i.e. its simplicity. Although the service now has piles of additional tools and add-ons which extend its use, at its core, Twitter remains nothing more than a way of describing what youre doing in no more than 140 characters.

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In practice, Indian corporate are using one of the following four kind of tweets for building the brand o Company News o Customer Support o Feedback o Special Offers This survey shows that Indian tweeters are ready for companies approaching them via Twitter. The online survey showed that many tweeters follow twittering companies and brands. They value the tweets and are interested in the businesses. Further, they would value such an approach as impressive customer service. This is another great chance for Indian companies to get in contact with their customers and engage in dialogue via Twitter.

Recommendations:
After concluding the research several advices can be extracted from the outcomes. This topic informs about the way Twitter should be used and how customer service via Twitter should be carried out. Advice for Business Customer Conversations Be authentic. Reflect the core values and mission statement of the business. Be personal. Show that behind the business there are people. Try to implement the whole business in your tweets. Engage in dialogue and conversations. This is what Twitter is all about. Follow customers. Most of them will like it that the business or brand they like is interested in what they say.

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Annexure

Page | 177

SURVEY FORM
Dear sir/madam
This survey is conducted as a part of the study; we are pursuing MBA at NRIBM AHMEDABAD. Details provided by you in the survey will be used for academic purpose only. Information will be strictly confidential. In advance we sincerely thank you for your time. 1) Do you have account in any social media networking sites? Yes No

2) If yes which are those sites? (you can tick more than one ) Face book Orkut Twitter Others (Please Specify)_______ My space LinkedIn Buzz 3) Which social media do you use the most?

__________________________________________________________

4) How much time in a week are you spending on social media networking? <1 hour 1-3 hour

Page | 178

3-5 hour 5-7 hour

>7 hour

5) Do you own a hand-held device from which internet is accessible?(If no go to question no-8) Yes 6) If yes, do you access internet from that device? Yes No No

7) If yes, for what purpose do you access the internet from that device? E-mail music Follow or update micro blogs Check information Other please specify _________ 8) Do you use twitter? (If no go to question no- 23 ) Yes No Surfing Online banking, Shopping etc. Download

9) If yes, how often do you log on to a twitter in a day?

Once

Twice Page | 179

Thrice

More than four times

10)

How long have you been a twitter user? < 1 year 1-2 years 2-3 years >3 years

11) How many followers do you have? __________________________

12) To how many are you following? ____________________________

13) Do you use twitter as an alternative mode of communication technology (e.g. sms, chat etc.) If yes which forms? Yes No

If yes ________________________________

14) Are you ready to spend extra money for getting the twitter service on your mobile phone? Yes No

15) What is the purpose of twitting? (you can tick more than one ) Connecte d with friends new information Page | 180 Sharing

Work related tweets Passing time ___ _______

Other_____

16)

What do you tweet about? Very often Often Neutra l Less Very Less

Private Stuff (What I am doing?)/ Status Thoughts & Feelings I am undergoing Links of various websites / resources Work related tweets Comments /@ tweets News/Updates Photos 17) I would like to follow tweets of Celebrities Business persons (CEO, Chairman etc.) Politicians Others please specify_______

18) Would you like to follow tweets of any company / organization? Yes No

19) If yes, what kind of companies` tweet would you like to follow on twitter? (you can tick more than one ) FMCG Retail

Page | 181

Consumer Durables Electronics NGO

IT Stock- broking companies Hospitals Others (please Specify) _____

Page | 182

20) Please respond the following sentence to reflect your opinion as accurately as possible. Mark against the option you would like to choose. Strong ly Agree Agree The tweets are Informative. The tweets are entertaining. The tweets are too small to express my feelings. The short messages of tweets are more sensible to me than long paragraphs of blogs /orkut/face book. The twitter could be utilized by the company for their customer service approach. I would like to know about the New product launches. I would like to get announcements of Sale, Offers from the company. I would like to give suggestion about the Product/Service difficulties. Twitter is not a place to broadcast messages of company but building relationship with customers. I like to share with my friends about what I am doing using tweets. I like to know about what my friends are doing using twitter. I like to share photos from my mobile on twitter. Tweet helps me for my buying decision. Strongl y disagre e

Neutr al

Disagr ee

21) In future which mode of communication would you prefer from the company whose products / service you are availing? Very likely Storemanager E-mail Call Twitter Blog Eventu ally Unlik ely

Store: The store manager will handle the complaint. E-mail: E-mail from the customer service department. Call: Call from the customer service department.

Twitter: Tweet or direct message from the customer service department. Blog: Comment or E-mail via my weblog

22) I would use Twitter more often when..( Rank them according to order of preference , for example : rank 1 is your most likely option and rank 7 is your most unlikely option) ______ I would know something interesting to twitter about. ______ I would have spare time. ______ I would have a mobile unlimited plan. ______ I would have more followers. ______ I would have mobile Internet. ______ I would think of it more often. ______ I wouldnt. Im using it quite extensively.

23)

Why do you not use twitter? I am already registered with a social networking site, I dont need any more. I dont know what to tweet. I think it is a waste of time. SMS and E-mail is enough.

I dont see any use of twitter.

24) I will create my account in twitter because____________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

26) I will use twitter more if ___________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ ____________________________________________________________________________ ___

DEMOGRAPHICS:

GENDER: AGE: Below 15 15 25 EDUCATION:

Male

Female

26 35 Above 35

Under Graduate

Graduate

Post Graduate

Professional Other__________________________ OCCUPATION: Student Professional Businessman Housewife Service

Other ____________

Glossary
@Reply: A tweet that is directed to one specific person. The tweet is still visible to others, yet it is saved to a Replies section of the recipient. @Twitter name: See @Reply. The Twitter name of a person behind an @sign Addresses the tweet to this very person.

Avatar: A graphical representation or artificial person often used in the Internet. Blog: Or weblog. Derived from the term Web for Internet and log for journal; a chronological online journal often photos or videos are added to the website. Blogs mostly represent a view of one person or small group and subjectively comment on happenings or specific topics. Blogger: A person writing a blog. Blogging: Writing a weblog entry. Blogging sphere: The weblog writing scene. Often bloggers refer to each others articles, blogs or comments and quote each other. This creates a certain community feeling, sympathy and scene.

C-Level (Tweeter): From CEO tweeter; a tweeting CEO. Clients: A software program that connects with other program in order to use a computer service on a web server. Direct Message: Or DM. A message send to a person on Twitter that is private and not visible to anybody else than the recipient. It is saved to a special Direct Message section on the Twitter profile page. Feed: A feed is a continuously updating stream of information of a specific website. The stream can contain text, links and pictures to articles or sections of the website. Follow, to follow: To subscribe to another persons status updates on Twitter. Follower: A person who follows the status updates of another person. Following: To receive another persons status updates. Hashtag, hash-tagging: By writing a hastag # in front of a word (e.g. #christmas) this word is searchable via a website and can be used to connect a message to a certain topic. This topic can then be searched and all messages containing the word with the hashtag in front of it are displayed.

Knowledge Base: A knowledge database that contains explicit knowledge about specific topics. Often used on websites of technical products. Lifestreaming: An Internet feed that connects to other online services like Youtube or filckr and makes their functionality useable to the user. Open source: The accessibility of a programs code or source available to anybody. Open Source programs are mostly free to download and can be used, changed and developed by any person. Plugin: An additionally piece of software that can be added to a program in order to extend its abilities. Post, a post: An entry on a weblog or in the commentary section of a weblog. Post, to post: To write and publish a piece of text via a service or website. Public Timeline: The main timeline of Twitter where every status update of any tweeter is published. Repost or Retweet: To send a tweet a second time by referring to the original author. Often marked with the word Repost, Retweet or RT. Authors often ask their followers to retweet a certain message when they regard it as worth sharing with a large audience.

Status update: A message published on social networks or services like Twitter. Templates: In this case: A predefined message that can be partly edited or adapted or a specific purpose. Tweet: A message of a maximum of 140 characters published via Twitter. Tweeter: A person using Twitter. Tweeting: Writing and publishing status updates or tweets via Twitter. Twitter Client: A software that connects to the Twitter service and let the user write and read tweets. The extent of the software is different among the various clients. Twitterer: Another term for a person that uses Twitter. See also tweeter. Twittering: Another term for writing and publishing status updates or tweets via Twitter. Unfollow, to unfollow: To stop following a persons status updates.