Richard Martin Blog: Can Telcos Do Social Media?

For that matter, should they even want to? Last week, fresh on the heels of its $9.7 billion purchase of a majority stake in Brazilian wireless carrier Vivo, Telefónica consummated its long-rumored deal to buy Tuenti, the “Spanish Facebook." In a statement, Telefónica said the $90 million purchase of a 90 percent stake in Tuenti will enable it to offer the vibrant youth market in Spain increased social-media services.

It’s clear that big carriers, watching a large portion of their future customers migrate to nontraditional Web-based communications media like Twitter and Facebook, are scrambling to a) shore up their youth-focused, social media offerings, and b) figure out how to cling to their under-30 customers. The track record of telecom companies getting into social media is scanty at best, though. Ovi, Nokia’s attempt at a multimedia/social networking site, has basically gone nowhere, and while AT&T has been among the rumored purchasers of Facebook over the years, such a deal seems exceedingly unlikely. Telcos are seen by most teens and 20-somethings as a necessary evil – a way of getting to the Web applications they actually want to use.

Nevertheless, in a study titled “The Changing Face of Communications" last fall, IBM made the case that social media is a boat the telecom industry can’t afford to miss.

“The widespread social networking phenomenon reflects shifts in two long-term communication trends," the study authors wrote. “First, a shift in communications patterns from point-to-point, two-way conversations, to many-to-many, collaborative communications; and, second, a transition of control of the communications environment from Telcos to open Internet platform providers."

The telcos must “take bold, significant steps to embrace the emerging broader definition of communications," IBM concluded. “Doing nothing is an option few providers can afford."

So, bravo to Telefónica for doing something, rather than nothing. Other major carriers will be watching, con interés.