Thaindian News

New Delhi, Oct.1 (ANI-Business Wire India): A recent in-depth independent study conducted by Iffort Consulting, a Noida-based leading web strategy and social media consulting firm, has described iXiGO.com as one of the fastest growing Indian brands on Facebook, through its fan page presence at http://www.facebook.com/ixigocom.

iXiGO.com is South Asia’s leading online & mobile travel search engine based out of Gurgaon, India. iXiGO.com searches across over 100+ travel websites and compares prices of airlines, hotels, trains and bus booking sites to find the best travel deals. Launched in 2007 by IIT, INSEAD and Amadeus alumni Aloke Bajpai, Rajnish Kumar and Dharmendra Yashovardhan, iXiGO.com has been recognized by NASSCOM, BusinessToday & Wall Street Journal/Mint as a Top-10 Emerging Company in India. iXiGO.com is backed by BAF Spectrum, a Singapore-based seed-investment fund. For more information about iXiGO.com, visit www.ixigo.com or m.ixigo.com (mobile).

In addition to iXiGO.com, the study applauds the efforts of brands such as MTV-India (most popular brand) and Delhi Traffic Police (most active brand) on the medium. A full copy of the study report is available for download at http://www.iffort.com/facebook.php.

The Iffort study titled “How are business entities in India using Facebook” selected and reviewed the Facebook fan pages of 25 select brands across seven industry verticals - Media, Consumer Durables, Food Chains, FMCG, Telecom, Online Portals and Publishing for over a one month period, and analyzed them against quantitative & qualitative criteria such as number of fans, growth rate, on-page activity, likes/discussions on walls, methods of engagement, responsiveness of admins & quality of content, in order to assess them for growth & engagement of their target audience on Facebook.

According to the study, iXiGO.com’s Facebook fan page experienced the highest percentage growth rates among all the Indian brands surveyed across verticals, with 148% fan-base growth during the period of assessment. iXiGO.com was also one of the Top-5 most discussed brands on Facebook with 200+ daily interactions. The study noted the use of innovative engagement strategies by iXiGO.com that were being replicated by other online travel brands on Facebook. Specific activities on the iXiGO.com fan page were quoted in the study e.g. - “a bunch of activities like active wall posts by the administrator are keeping community members busy with puzzles on site-seeing places, animals, buildings, trekking spots etc. In addition, there is a separate tab of “Contests & Promotions” on their fan page.”

“The Iffort study highlights the growing clout of social media marketing in India as a vital part of marketing & PR strategy,” said Aloke Bajpai, Founder-CEO, iXiGO.com, “Quality content, unbeatable travel deals, responsive admins & constantly listening to feedback from fans is the secret recipe of our growth.” It is notable that Facebook now has over 12 million active users in India and received 20.87 million unique visitors from India in July 2010 according to Comscore, thereby displacing Orkut as the largest social network in the country.

As of date, iXiGO.com has 18,000+ fans on Facebook and continues its momentum as India’s fastest growing travel site. iXiGO.com empowers consumers by providing them the ability to search prices and availability across 100+ travel booking sites globally for flights , hotels , buses, trains, deals etc. in a few seconds. In just 3 years, iXiGO’s deeply embedded global relationships in the Travel and Internet Industry have helped it successfully establish itself as a credible distribution and media platform for airlines, hotels, online travel agents as well as advertisers looking for consumers with an ability and willingness to transact online. (ANI)