This is a repost from Microreviews.
Success keeps us motivated. We are elated to have received a huge response to our first two posts in this series( Facebook Presence and Twitter Presence of Indian telecom majors) . So we move on in our journey to check the website/blog presence of Indian telecom majors. Websites and Blogs, as you would all agree, are an extremely important as a part of a company’s social media portfoilo.
So, Here we go.
Airtel India : Airtel Website: It is an old thing, but it is true. http://www.airtel.com redirects to a vodafone site. An oldie but a goodie to say the least. Ethically speaking, I would love to see Vodafone gifting this domain name to Airtel in the true spirit of competition. So the official website of Airtel is www.airtel.in.The Airtel website seems simple and just serves the purpose. The latest stuff seem to be put up appropriately by their content managers. There is nothing like WEB 2.0 anywhere in the website. It is however, the usability and the ease of finding things which impresses me on the website. I am an Airtel Broadband subscriber too,and I must tell that, I found it very difficult to pay my bill after logging in to my account. It was one heck of an effort doing that. Airtel doesn’t seem to be targeting any specific segment through their website. They just know, that they have a big enough consumer base and hence a big enough word of mouth doing the job for them. For me Airtel deserves a better website.
Airtel Blog : Doesn’t exist. It could have been a good way to make their announcements loud and clear to the people. However, Airtel India’s non presence here doesn’t surprise. Airtel India has hardly recognized social media anywhere.
Vodafone India: Vodafone India website: The Vodafone Global site or the Vodafone U.K site for that matter looks much neater than the Vodafone India site and I just don’t see the rationale. What is one supposed to understand from this? Does Vodafone Global have no hand over what is happening in India? It seems so for sure. Vodafone India’s site overall is quite usable with everything right before you. But, whenever you set out to check the online presence of a global player like Vodafone, comparisons with their websites in other countries is quite natural.
Vodafone India Blog: Couldn’t figure it out.
Tata Teleservices: Tata Indicom Website : The Tata Indicom website looks better than Airtel India’s or Vodafone India’s website but I still don’t find that zing which makes me happy as a person visiting the website.
Virgin Mobile: Cool Website and I love it. There is a lot of stuff which says a lot of effort has been put to maintain the personality of Virgin Mobile ( Bitchy red), funky cartoon characters telling the offers put up by Virgin Mobile and a lot more. The language used is very funky and is meant to target the youth. ‘Think Hatke’ is what they stand for and their site does seem ‘hatke’ from the other Indian telecom majors.
Tata Docomo: Tata Docomo has given a lot of effort towards Social Media Marketing and can be considered as the pioneers of Social Media Marketing, at-least among Indian Telecom majors. Their website is again very cool, not as bitchy and funky as the Virgin Mobile Website but good to the eyes. Everything seems to have been put at the right places. Another thumbs up from the Microreviews Team as far as Social Media Marketing goes.( I am not too sure about their service as yet)
Tata Teleservices Blog: This happens to be a combined blog of Tata Indicom, Tata Docomo and Virgin Mobile India. The blog is simple and yet very elegant and serving its purpose quite well. It seems to be making all the announcements for these companies. This is something which we had expected from other telecom majors too.
Reliance Communication: Reliance Communication Website: The rcom website is a classic case of a zillion things to put in a single website and ‘more importantly’ they don’t really care much. Reliance communications, however has another website for Reliance Mobile. This website looks much neater than the rcom website. Overall, a huge improvement when compared to rcom’s presence in other social mediums.
Reliance Communication Blog: Couldn’t figure out.
Idea Cellular: Idea Cellular: A banner which promotes their facebook page ( Walk when you talk), which is very cool. However, as we enter the idea website after that, we feel the disappointment. There are many offers to catch the attention of youth but, really i expected a much better presentation. There are a lot of text links at the bottom and we don’t feel feel like figuring out what they are meant to do. Overall, Idea has been a youth centric company and deserved a better presented site.
Idea Cellular Blog: Could not figure out.
Aircel India: Aircel India: For a company which is trying to expand in India, for a company which spends millions on hoardings and on a brand ambassador[who is considered the biggest brand in India – M.S. Dhoni], the website is very disappointing. They need to get their act right and get it right quickly.
Aircel India Blog: Could not figure out.
MTS India; MTS India Website: Here is another small player,trying to expand all over India, and having a pretty cool wesite. We liked it. Red and happening is the phrase which describes their website. Their social media presence otherwise is negligible but the website is really good. Other than a bit of a mess that they have done with the drop down menu’s the website looks as cool as the virgin mobile website. Some cartoons in place of the model with a techie look does the job these days. MTS could look at these two issues and try to make the website a bit more social media friendly and they are right on their way to having the best website amongst all Indian Telecom giants.
MTS India Blog: Could not figure out.
Overall, the websites of Indian telecom majors are in a much better shape than their facebook and twitter profiles. But there is still a long way to go before India telecom major’s wake up to WEB 2.0.