Tweet to reach out to your customers

While most Bollywood actors, writers, select politicians and India's working class have warmed up to social networking tools like blogs, Facebook and Twitter, India's corporates seem slow to tap these channels of communication.

Creating awareness on the reach and need to utilise social networking tools, three young entrepreneurs — Preetham Venkky, Arvind Sundararajan and Shyam Swaraj — are hosting a workshop in Bangalore

The workshop, titled 'Social Campfire', is slated to be held at Hotel Grand Magrath from 8.30am to 6pm on Friday.

“Websites like Google and Twitter should be used more by companies to reach out to customers. When a company reaches out to consumers, it may fail. But if people reach out to the company, it works for cent percent. For instance, if a tele-sales representative calls us to detail about an offer, we may not entertain the caller. But when we call a company or store for information, we are more open to knowing about their offers,” says Preetham.

“People don't really know how to access these social networking tools. It is an interactive medium. You cannot open a Twitter account and be inactive on it. Be it the recent spat between author Chetan Bhagat and the filmmakers of Three Idiots which gathered momentum on Twitter or Nithyananda controversy, which saw the godman uploading speeches on YouTube, social networking tools have demonstrated great reach and impact,” he adds.

Firms need to tap the right channel and provide information, says Shyam Swaraj. “For instance, IT companies should not use Facebook for professional purposes or for creating brand awareness, a better option would be to join LinkedIn,” he adds.