Brandwatch Telecommunications Report Finds AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Leading in Social Visibility

NEW YORK, Nov. 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Brandwatch, the leading social intelligence company, today launched its Telecommunications Industry Report featuring social insights and analysis around 25 telecommunication businesses across the globe. The report findings show that telecom companies like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint all have high social visibility and while the telecom industry is fairly mature in terms of social customer service, an opportunity exists to take advantage of applying social intelligence to support other business initiatives. 

Of note, the report revealed findings around users' intent to switch telecom services (AT&T, Sprint or Verizon), generally peaking around brands' major offers and campaigns. Sprint drove the highest volume of mentions when they offered the iPhone 6S for $1. DirectTV's offer to pay customers $500 to switch to AT&T drove over 1,000 mentions. Meanwhile, Verizon actually generated more organic intent to switch over to their service despite having fewer sales campaigns – for example, their "Share a Bad Experience" social campaign generated over 800 mentions.

This type of research allows brands to identify which events and campaigns are actually creating an interest to switch services; data they can bring to the boardroom.

In comparison to other industries, telecom brands are ahead of the game when it comes to Twitter adoption and are considerably active on the social network. The Brandwatch findings showed that telecoms brands tweet 156.98 times and post on Facebook 2.44 times per day. As compared to other industries:

• Food & Beverage industry brands tweet 26.32 times per day and post on Facebook 1.55 times
• Fashion & Luxury industry brands tweet and post on Facebook less than two times per day

Brandwatch's report revealed that for telecoms brands, the audience is not only driving but initiating most of the social conversation, controlling nearly 80 percent of the total chatter on Twitter. Yet 32.7 percent of that conversation is audience responses to brands' Twitter posts. Meanwhile, brands are responsible for 20 percent of the conversation, consisting mainly of replies to users concerns and questions.

The methodology behind the report was to measure telecom brands across five categories: social visibility, general visibility, net sentiment, reach growth, and social engagement and content. The report was created from the analysis of over 3.27 million social conversations from Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums and news sites, focusing on 25 telecommunication companies including, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, DirecTV, and BT.

Other key findings include:

• AT&T, Globe Telecoms, Verizon Wireless and Sprint all scored highest within the Telecommunications Social index (the total scores combining all five categories), while Centurylink, Swisscom and TeliaSonera scored lowest.
• AT&T ranked highest in social visibility with a score of 100. Virgin Media ranked highest in social engagement and content with a score of 100.
• The majority of complaints directed at social care Twitter channels are regarding coverage issues and long wait times.
• Sprint has driven more campaigns and intent around switching to their service than AT&T or Verizon.
• Sixty percent of the conversations directed at telecommunications brands on Twitter are driven by men.

"Telecoms brands have been quick to improve responsiveness and lower call center costs by implementing robust social customer service programs, but they've yet to fully realize the potential for social intelligence to support other parts of their businesses," said Alberto Ares, telecommunications sector lead at Brandwatch. "The good news is the industry trend is to adopt more social-driven strategy and the winning brands will be the ones infusing social insights into business operations in a nimble and actionable way."