360DigitalInfluence

Compared with their peers globally, the Millenials in India obsess more about the technology of their employers than youth of any other nation surveyed in a recent poll, while Chinese use real-time chat and speak about themselves more in online fora.

These results come from a recent survey by Accenture on how the Millenial generation uses technology. The intention of the report was to look at Millenials from the perspective of how companies should manage technology, but the survey is also interesting for cross-cultural comparison of Internet usage.

Chinese Millennials spend an extraordinary amount of time in the virtual world for both business and personal use, especially engaged through real-time communication tools. Young Chinese in the workforce spend an average of almost 34 working hours a week on communication tools, versus almost 11 hours for the rest of the world. For leisure, the Chinese spend 14.8 hours a week playing video games (versus 3.4 hours for the rest of the world), 5.1 hours shopping on the Internet (versus 1 hour), and 5.3 hours in a virtual world such as Second Life (versus 0.4 hours).

China and India topped the charts in three respects:

1- Tech-Obsessed India
Indians are more obsessed about finding employers with great high-tech infrastructure than any nation surveyed.

2- Chinese Chatting
Chinese are more obsessed with real-time chatting at work than any nation surveyed.

3- Sharing with Friends
Chinese are more enthusiastic about posting personal information on blogs or social networks than any nation surveyed.

Survey details: Acccenture surveyed 5,595 employees and students, ages 14-27, in 13 countries: Brazil, Canada, and the United States in the Americas; Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom in Europe; Australia, China, India, and Japan in Asia-Pacific.

Details and charts:

1- Tech-Obsessed India

Millennials want to choose what technologies they use, especially in emerging markets. Globally, almost one in two mid-Millennials in school (ages 18-22) expect not only to use the computer of their choice once they are on the job, but also to access their preferred mobile and technology applications. By contrast, only one in four want the employer to choose these technologies, and one in four remain uncertain. This sentiment is even stronger in Brazil, India and China. Indeed, in India, only 6 percent of mid- Millennials expect to use only corporate applications at work.

2- Chinese Chatting

Asia-Pacific Millennials spend the most time, and the highest share of time, on real-time communications technologies like instant messaging. China and India lead the pack in emerging methods of employee communication: 27 percent of employers in China already use online chat and 20 percent use mobile texting to communicate with employees.

Millennials in China, India, and Brazil lead the world in use of emerging technologies for work purposes, while most European countries and Japan are lagging.

Young Chinese employees, in particular, are pushing the boundaries of multi-tasking. While the time spent on email is similar to their U.S. counterparts, the Chinese outpace the rest of the world in using real- time communication tools. Working respondents ages 18-27 in China tell us that, during an average week, they spend 9.2 hours on email, 9.2 hours on instant messaging, 6 hours texting, 3.3 hours in a blog or tweet, 3 hours in a virtual community, and 2.9 hours on a social network site – a total of 33.6 hours per week.

3- Sharing with Friends

Related to IT security, Millennials sometimes have a much looser notion of online privacy than do older workers. Some 30 percent of global working Millennials write openly about themselves and friends online. The most open, as shown above, are in China (51 percent), Germany (42 percent), Japan (37 percent) and Brazil (36 percent).
The most discreet, who say they never or rarely post information about themselves or friends online, are in India (50 percent), Canada (50 percent), and France (46 percent).
Social profiling is most common in China and India, where more than three in four Millennials use social networks more than half of the time when trying to learn more about peers or superiors. Similarly, Brazilians use social networks more extensively than their peers in other countries to investigate prospective employers, service providers, or clients.

You can see the full study here.

Mobile is increasingly becoming a medium for access of social networking.  According to a study conducted by e marketer on the mobile social network users, it was observed that the percentage of people accessing the social networking sites through mobile has increased at a rate of about 100% for the year 2007 to 2008 and by more than 50% by 2009 and is expected to continue at the same pace ultimately exceeding  800 million by 2012.

 Be it networking  by face book,  microblogging by twitter or videocasting by youtube,    mobile has  created an easy and seamless way to drive consumers to mobile content.

According to Nielsen, Facebook is the No. 7 mobile website in terms of reach. About 15% of Facebook users (11 million) in the U.S. regularly access the social network’s mobile web version (not to mention various downloadable versions and the roughly three million users who use SMS). More than 3 million Twitter users in the U.S. alone regularly access the service via the mobile web. Besides,  large number of  consumers are frequently using Twitter through SMS and a range of downloadable mobile applications for iPhone, BlackBerry and other mobile devices. The native versions of YouTube that come pre-installed on iPhones, Android phones like the G1, and the Palm Pre offer the best mobile user experience. However, the mobile web version is also outstanding, and has well over 4.6 million users that log in many times a month. This has all been possible owing to the success of internet growth across the globe.

 Therefore, as the telecom sector is one of the most successful  stories for India and is increasingly revolutionizing the way we  connect with the world, the widening of spectrum will  enhance the experience of the subscribers  thereby generating more and more demand for  staying connected and  also accessing social networking platforms through mobile .   It seems that  ICT success story in India will generate a sequel in the form of mobile social networking success story in India

The very name of India brings to our mind a country known for rich culture and heritage. Though India is progressively moving towards higher standards of professionalism, the human bonds that bind the culture are still ingrained in the life of average Indian. This is even reflected in the way Indians use the social networking space. The social networking site which have been popular in India( like Orkut, Face book , Bharatstudents,Hi5, Myspace, etc)are the ones which have been able to create a difference in the life of the average Indian online user by bringing professional and personal worlds together. Recently I came across a survey by Plugged in done for a period of 3 weeks (across 1100+ members) . It has interesting statistics that reveals the general awareness about Twitter in India:  16% use Twitter to stay updated with news  11% prefers to stay in touch with Friends using Twitter.  11% enjoy updating their status (gives them Ego boost)  10% use Twitter for Research  17% are not at all sure of Twitter usage.  14% of the members polled are not on Twitter  12% of the usage happens on work related areas.  Only 10% use Twitter to meet interesting people Even this survey points to the fact that friendship drives this social media space. It seems that Indians use social media mainly to stay connected to people for strengthening personal relations to drive the professional network.

We have all read about how, Facebook is growing in India. But it seems that now following Obama, even the Indian government is trying to make its presence felt in the social media. The most recent addition to the list of Indian political leaders trying to connect with the one billion populace of India, of whom only 5 per-cent can  be on internet, has been our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. After reading a Reuters article on how our PM has been spotted on Facebook, I could hardly contain my curiosity and ended up finding Dr Singhs’ profile on Facebook. What I found looked authentic enough, though I have a few questions.

Since  Government officials are barred from the use of social networks, how did Dr Singh actually get around to doing this? Also somehow the picture of our Prime Minister, updating his status on Facebook, while at work, just doesn’t quite ring the right bell in my mind. It would be interesting however, if he does come up with a “How well do you know Manmohan Singh quiz”

Also why isn’t the national portal being used for this? According to me, the Indian government could have taken inspiration from the White House and established a Government page on Facebook. Sooner or later this needs to happen as a lot of business decision makers and practically the entire urban youth is on these sites and this segment is quite important for the government to connect with.

A social media element which can be mashed up with the national portal to enable the citizens to make maximum use of the services can also play a very important role in promoting democracy in its true sense, in the world’s largest democracy.

However, to summarize, whether it is the Government’s PR machinery which has made this page or Dr Singh himself, what is heartening is that a change is happening and sooner or later, the day won’t be far when the government utlises social media more actively to communicate with the people.

As for now what next Dr Singh? A twitter account? Infact Shashi Tharoor recently tweeted that the PM had enquired about what was twitter. Which shows his interest in twitter as well.

In traditional Facebook style” I Like This”.

The austerity drive is on! Yes by now, we all know that our ministers are travelling economy class to set an example

shashi tharoor

for us mere mortals, in these times of economic recession. So when a minister and that too an erudite one, decides to use twitter to express his point of view on this topic, it snowballs into a crisis. This is a classic example of the growing influence of social media in our lives. Here was a minister, writing away on his personal twitter account, in less than 140 words his jocular take on the entire topic and before he knew it, the media was on it, the parliament was in uproar, and editorials were being dished out faster than you could change channels. Tharoor’s unfortunate remark, that he would travel “cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows”, had come a day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi travelled by economy class in a flight to Mumbai to set an example for the party to follow austerity measures that could help the government redirect funds for welfare programmes in the wake of deficient rains.

What however interests me is how increasingly social media is changing our lives. For one thing, journalists have more sources to get stories for an ever hungry media. Then again everything you write, becomes available for the world to see, comment on and build opinions. dangerous  because it can swing public opinion in seconds, if you are a public figure. The trick therefore lies in not just using social media but knowing how to use it and how to leverage it to a maximum. A perfect example would be Obama’s election win, which I believe  was predominantly won on the web.

So even though Minister Tharoor has apologized, “It’s a silly expression but meant no disrespect to economy travellers, only to airlines for herding us in like cattle. Many have misunderstood… To those hurt by the belief that my repeating the phrase showed contempt: sorry”, this controversy has not yet died down.   The worrisome news is that for a government which came to power on the mandate of the common man ( who travels economy or lives below the poverty line) this is sensitive territory.

The good news for us social media enthusiasts is that India is tweeting.

In an interesting turn of tables, Yahoo bought a full front page of the Times of India. Perhaps there is hope for print medium yet? (h/t TechCrunch)

In the beginning there were reality shows. Then there were a few more of them. And now there are reality shows which are piggybacking on the sheer reach of social media. Standing testament to Asia’s prolific love affair with Social Media, is IT super brand HP’s newest marketing campaign aimed at finding Asia’s best creative designer. Titled HPSpace ( surely they could have found a better name rather than going for a MySpace clone!) this is an online contest across ASIA but supported by a Television tie up with STAR TV and Channel V. Personally I would have loved it had they continued to build a pure social media campaign without tying up with TV and advertising about it, but even then the idea is worth talking about.

So what is this campaign all about? HP is calling for audition tapes from creative designers across Asia from which they are going to select 12 contestants who would be put through a reality show on Channel V and the winner among them would be given the job to work in the production of cult anime classic ” Bubblegum Crisis” which hits the production floor for filming in Australia later this year.

So apparently this campaign has two legs. The initial leg of asking for video resumes is being done using their site and building buzz on other social media channels, utilising the reach, WOM advocacy and inter connectivity that social media sites provide. Post this initial stage they would choose 12 of the top contestants and put them through a reality show on Channel V, once again a channel which has good reach among the youth in the reality show space. All in all a thought out marketing plan which not only captures HPs wish to get more deeper into the Asian market, but also HPs awareness about how much Social Media has grown as a brand builder and influencer in Asian countries.

Though the campaign has not had much buzz in social media channels and their facebook and twitter pages are a bit of a drag, yet their usage of their own webpage is worth mentioning.

According to Alexa though, the site rank( HPspace.com)  is at 196,578 with the Indian rank being 11,432 , showing that the site has done better in India than in Asia, another proof point of how social media is rising in popularity in India, but overall it isn’t good rankings for a social media campaign.

What lacks  is the amount of genuine interactivity and the lack of buzz about this campaign in the blogosphere or offline media, or come to think about it even on their own site. Though its being backed by heavy advertising, google blogsearch shows roughly 290 odd posts on this topic and many of them are not even directly related.

HPs Youtube Channel for this also hasn’t had that level of hits. With 2,214 channel views and 11 uploads it would seem that we are still  waiting for the real action to start with only 7 days for auditions on ground to start.

The numbers can keep coming, but what has interested me is again the smart use of social media by a brand to ramp up its presence and create advocates for itself. Regardless of how the campaign does it is interesting to see an brand like HP building a marketing campaign targeting creative designers ( an Apple doing it would have made sense to me) and utilizing social media and a yuppie music channel to market it. Proof of the fact, that the brand is looking to create advocates among the youth of Asia. Also what has been extremely interesting is the fact that they have rolled out this campaign in Asia and not in their home country of America!

By the time the campaigns picks up steam and the reality shows starts on Channel V on November 10 am sure more people would be talking about it. For now the web is watching. And so am I.

However would like to know what you think about this campaign. So if you have an opinion, post it here.

HPs Socila Media Program