A cousin of mine, aged 22,
can always be seen tapping fervently on his mobile. For someone sporadically
glancing at this exercise, it might seem as a new generation rhythm. For others
who are forcefully but passively involved in this so called music, it is a
mobile-centric social paranoia that is seizing especially the young ones. The
culprit is the ever increasing mobile messaging apps.
The recent announcement by
social media firm Facebook about the acquisition
of WhatsApp will only trigger the obsession towards real-time content
sharing. It is soon turning into an emotional activity. And, such emotional
activities are what marketers are increasingly trying to tap. It is also a
great handle for customer engagement. Consider this; the 22-year old spends
more time on his mobile than chatting with his family members staying with him.
He is just one among the 70% of WhatsApp users that use its services every day.
Facebook comparatively has only 61% hooked onto it every day.
It is clear that social
media gorillas are transitioning to the traditional mainstream industries ousting
well entrenched and seemingly unshakable giants. Consider the case of telcos. The
goings on hitherto indicates that they completely missed the social media
phenomenon. Grappling with continued operating challenges, telcos’ rhetoric of
continued innovation to create new revenue streams from analyzing user behavior
is increasingly seen as yielding no outcomes. Communication tools like
WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber to name a few are in fact overtaking telcos initiatives
towards meaningful customer engagement.
The recent announcement by
WhatsApp CEO is further damaging to telcos already waning significance in the
communication ecosystem. Beginning Q2 2014, WhatsApp
will enable voice within its app. And, like how the communication tools
previously chipped away the once prominent SMS from telcos, there is likelihood
of a threat on telcos’ voice revenues.
