For IT firms, it pays to be on networking sites

Recently, a prospective buyer of information technology services posted a query for Infosys Technologies on networking site Twitter. The Infosys team that tracks the online world forwarded the query to the sales team, which got in touch with the prospective buyer. The client was pleasantly surprised with the prompt reply and awarded the contract to Infosys.

In a month, the two joint CEOs of Wipro Technologies, Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, are expected to become active on Twitter. The IT firm agrees that leads coming from its online presence on sites such as Linkedin, Webcasts, Webinars, and others have gone up by 50 per cent.

Bangalore-based Mindtree has created a community on professional networking site Linkedin. The company uses this as positive referral traffic, which can be converted into business.

These are examples of how Indian IT companies are using networking sites —social and professional. Traditionally focused on using business-to-business (B2B) tools, these companies are using business-to-consumer (B2C) tools like networking sites to gain attention.

IT companies are not new to the virtual world, having made their presence felt in secondlife.com — a three-dimensional virtual world where registered users socialise and connect with one another. Wipro has set up a virtual lab and uses 3D technology. The company boasts of 9,000 unique visitors and uses its virtual presence to showcase its technology offerings to clients.

But moving on to sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook is an altogether different thing. “It is about engagement and getting insight. What it gives an organisation is participation with stakeholders, opinion sharing, and co-creation. This does not replace the need for creating awareness (branding), but it does give a huge insight on the target audience,” says Aditya Jha, assistant vice-president, marketing, Infosys. He believes that in future research on any organisation will be done online. “Those who do not join now will lose big in this segment,” he cautions.

India’s second-largest IT company has a sizeable presence in the online world. For instance, the company started its blog almost three years back. It ventured on slideshare — a presentation sharing site — 15 months ago, has had videos on Youtube for over a year, and started on Twitter nine months ago. Recently, when the company was jolted by a bus accident, it immediately posted it on Twitter.

The target audience for IT-services companies are media, analysts, potential employees and, in some instances, clients.

Jessie Paul, chief marketing officer of Wipro, agrees that these sites are typically targeted at the B2C segment, but are relevant even to IT companies. “The impact of traditional media is diminishing. Sites like Linkedin are being used by sales teams to get in touch with business people. Analysts follow you, but, most importantly, so does competition,” she says. Wipro has a community on Linkedin. Its human resources department uses the site for hiring.

Wipro started its online foray (other than having a corporate website) with secondlife.com two years ago. After that, it ventured into Youtube and joined Twitter in August last year. “We will launch our new website next month and it will have all these clubbed together. Our CEOs will also start twittering,” says Paul. The company plans to have a one-day workshop on social media for its top executives.

At the same time, lessons are being absorbed. “I think earlier the objective was not clearly defined and hence the Second Life presence did not make much of an impact. But that’s not the case now. Apart from creating communities and blogs, this medium is being used for hiring as well as for extending the CSR (corporate social responsibility) reach. Most importantly, companies are trying to monitor the negative as well as positive press. Not being at these places creates more criticism than being there,” says Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst, Gartner.

Pratheep Raj, responsible for the online marketing initiative at Mindtree, says every networking site has its own relevance. “We are using Twitter and Facebook for attracting talent and the younger crowd. Our presence on Linkedin is to get positive referral traffic.”

A Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) spokesperson agrees, “TCS Twitter, started early this year, has received overwhelming response from followers who want to know more about the company’s new initiatives. We have seen traction from analyst, opinion makers and journalists who are subscribing to news alerts.”