Is Facebook’s Acquisition of WhatsApp a Threat to Telcos

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.   

Conversation is the New Advertising

Popular social media sites Facebook and Twitter enable aggregation of related conversations. Example, favorite television shows to sporting events to the latest news. One who wishes to amass data on couch potatos can now do it effortlessly. For marketers, destinations like Facebook and Twitter are gold mines with specific details - how many people on Facebook or twitter talked about a particular subject, where exactly is the buzz, popularity among males or females, and age groups – all available in a jiffy. 

I was privy to a quick but slightly lengthy conversation about the best calling cards outside India. While several of them narrated their ordeal after using a particular brand while traveling abroad, some of them passed on suggestions of other brands adding their wonderful experience having used it. For marketers, it will help if they keep in mind that such conversations can be easily recalled these days by potential customers who increasingly rely on user reviews. An airline’s alleged fascist approach to some of its select passengers; ill-treatment of guests by a renowned hotel are conversations that are unbridled in the social media. Can marketers intervene and protect or promote their brand? Yes, of course. Having complained about a new Nokia smartphone that I had bought on social media, the company’s social media custodian quickly reached out to me to resolve the issue. The immediate response put me to ease and reinforced my trust in the brand. 

According to Nielsen’s 2012 State of the Media Report, 1 in 3 social media users now prefer to contact brands using social media rather than the phone. In this increasingly transparent world, businesses would do well if they lower their center of gravity to the digital realm. And, embrace a culture that encourages continuous engagement of customers and employees rather than a one-way communication. Forward looking businesses have a top-down approach to this. In an article that appeared in Forbes, CEO of Weber Shandwick had this to say. “To give you a sense of how valued a social CEO is, our global study found that 76 percent of executives think that it is a good idea for their CEOs to be social. Among their reasons for favoring their CEO’s social participation is how it reflects internally – 52 percent feel inspired by their CEO’s sociability. Looking externally, 69 percent say that it enhances the company’s market credibility. And in general, social CEOs are much more likely to be seen as good communicators than unsocial CEOs – 55 percent vs. 38 percent, respectively.”