Social Media

Marketing Globally with Social Media: Is Facebook all you need? Anne Kennedy , Beyond Ink - Mar 22, 2011

It's hard to argue against Facebook's juggernaut into global social media, growing to more than half a billion members in just seven years. At 600 million, Facebook members are outnumbered by the populations of only two countries: China and India. 

Right now, 70% of Facebook's user base is outside the US. Their goal is to have "everybody in the world on Facebook," according to Rick Kelley, head of Mid-Market Sales for Facebook in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Kelley says, "Globally, borders are being replaced with connections, and the web is being rebuilt around people," causing product development, human resources and marketing to shift to organizing around people, rather than the top down "push" of the 20th century. The power of Facebook can be illustrated by the Red Cross raising $35 million in donations for Haiti earthquake relief -- in the first 24 hours.

Facebook Opens Up Opportunities Worldwide

Is the growth of Facebook worldwide an opportunity to reach audiences beyond the borders of your own country? Yes. But don't expect to find in every country all the features you like to use on Facebook in the US. Like most search and social media, Facebook rolls out new features at home before other countries. For example, the newly launched Facebook "Places" will be implemented gradually in regions outside North America.

Furthermore, though Facebook is the most-used social network worldwide, it's not the top social media platform everywhere. For example it is fourth in Russia, though ahead of sixth-ranked Twitter. And in the People's Republic of China, the government has altogether blocked its citizens from accessing Facebook since 2009. In Brazil, Orkut four times more popular than Facebook.

Global heatmap of Facebook users (Image source: Facebook)

In the map shown, the bright areas indicate the locations of Facebook members -- the brighter the area the greater their concentration. As you can see, some areas are quite dark, especially Russia, China and Brazil.

If you want to engage your audience overseas, social media is an increasingly viable platform for doing so. That said, to engage your customers outside the US via social networks, you first need to know just what the most popular social networks are in other countries, and second, understand how Internet visitors use social networks outside the US. There are real cultural differences from region to region and even among neighboring countries.

Let's survey the differences in social media and social network use around the globe. Brazil, China and Russia are among the top export countries for US businesses and each of them has a local social media site that is more popular than Facebook by far.

Social Media Latin America

For example, Brazilians love to connect on social sharing sites -- 86% of Internet users. Orkut is four times more popular than Facebook. Twitter is quite popular. Even more, Brazilians really love video; more than 85% of Brazilians online have viewed a video.

In neighboring Peru, Hi5 is the most popular social network site and among the most popular sites in Peru. Hi5 is a broadly international site, popular in many South American countries, North Africa, and Asia. Hi5 lags behind Facebook and Myspace overall, but reports 40 million visitors every month, and is available in 50 languages. Hi5 is a social gaming site, and has spread rapidly by engaging visitors with a variety of interactive games.

Social Media in China

In China, 146 million of the 420 million Internet users there visit social networking sites, but not Facebook. Visits fell to 14,000 by late 2009 after Chinese authorities blocked access to Facebook. It's not clear why the authorities blocked it, but even if Chinese social networkers were able to access the site, what they could view would be subject to the same censorship imposed on all Chinese networks.

Where do Chinese engage? Mainly on Qzone, RenRen, and Kaixin001. Qzone owner Tencent has 637 million active users on its QQ instant messaging system, and 492 million active users on Qzone itself, making it China's most popular social network. In January 2011, Tencent merged members from its Xiaoyou network, launched in 2008, into Pengyou (which means "friends"), adding 80 million active student and white collar worker members to their QQ messaging base of mostly teens.

Renren has grown rapidly in popularity among white collar workers. This Facebook imitator targets business "friends" and is the leading social network for those who use their real name communicating online. Qzone has more members, but they are mostly teens who use nicknames. Renen tries to mimic Facebook features, in addition to Chinese-based brands, games, and emoticons. Putting your brand on Renren, however, can be expensive. Fan pages are reported to start at 600,000 yuan (about $90,000) and may be out of reach for all but the biggest brands

China also has its own version of Twitter, Sina Weibo, which has more than 100 million registered micro-bloggers. Sina Weibo has been growing fast,  attracting Chinese away from SMS to micro-blogging.

The rapid growth of Sina Weibo and Renren has in part come at the expense of Kaixin001, which grew on the back of social gaming and content sharing among white collar workers.

Social Media in Russia

Russia is one of the most active social networking countries in Europe. A whopping 89% of Russians online have an account on one or more social networking sites. Facebook is the least active, with about 1.5 million members in Russia. That's not much compared to VKontakte which has 88 million accounts or Odnoklassniki.ru which has 45 million members. Nearly one in four Russian Internet visitors says he or she relies on information from social media before making a purchase. However, the social network they rely on is not very often Facebook.

This chart shows the dominance of local favorites in Russia (image source: Yandex)

Social Networking in Other Countries

Countries where Facebook has become popular and gained significant market share, at least 50%, include the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Many of these countries have locally produced social media as well, but Facebook has acquired superior market share.

Some of the more notable countries where Facebook is bested by other social media include:

• Germany. StudiVz is more popular than Facebook, with students driving much of its success. Germany is the third largest network market in the world, after the US and China.
• Holland. The Dutch network Hyves, which was founded in 2004, has more than three times more members that Facebook has. Twitter, on the other hand, has become very popular, as micro-blogging played a role in the most recent elections there.
• Japan. Mixi is the top site for socializing in Japan; the second most popular is GREE. A mobile-only game site called Mobage Town is popular as well, particularly in light of the heavy use of mobile telephones in Japan, where many people have more than one.
• Portugal. Nearly 90% of Internet visitors in Portugal enjoy social networking online and the site they go to more than any other is Hi5, making it the most visited website in 2009 (the most recent year for which stats are available). Facebook and Twitter are growing fast, however.
• South Korea. Cyworld has more than 20 million members among South Korean Internet visitors, and Facebook is far behind. South Korea's second largest search engine Daum launched its own social network similar to Twitter in 2010.

Can Global Social Media Work for You?

In many countries, brands are beginning to experiment with social media by setting up fan pages and announcing products. Generally, however, people in many countries outside the US place a high value on privacy. If you are contemplating dipping your toe into the social media stream overseas, it is best to get help from a native speaker to guide you through the culture.

In the end, using social media is yet another way to reach your target audience with your message, but how to use social networking -- and which social network will work best -- varies from country to country. Begin by identifying your target audience and then find out where they gather online.

And it may not be Facebook everywhere. Yet.

Anne F. Kennedy, is an international search strategist, and the found of US-based Beyond Ink, with international partners in Iceland, China, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, and the UK. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Search Engine Strategies Conferences. Clients have included hundreds of companies, both large and small.