Social Networking - A Global Perspective

Sometimes we get so caught up in our market or niche that we assume that everyone knows about it. Social networks is an example of this. Just because we read, blog and use social networks on a daily basis does not mean that everyone does. More than one-half of adults surveyed in 17 countries do not know what social networking is, according to Synovate.

Global head of media research for Synovate, Steve Garton, said the survey was conducted to explore some of the myths and facts that have built up around the online social networking phenomena.

“It seems everyone is social networking. Or are they? “We spoke with over 13,000 respondents aged 18-65 years in 17 markets around the world to find out who’s connected and who’s not, as well as attitudes and online behaviors. We started our study by simply asking ‘do you know what online social networking is?’. “And that’s where our first myth was debunked. It turns out social networking is not taking over the world. Well, not yet anyway.”

Across the 17 markets surveyed, 42% of people know what online social networking is, which leaves 58% in the dark… either saying ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’.

My takeaway from this data us that social networks have a lot of growth potential, especially in the developing countries. That almost 60% of those surveyed have not heard of social networks shows how much growth and potential their is in this area.

Who uses social networks?
There was some really interesting data here, the most interesting point being that social networking is definitely not US-centric.

Synovate’s study showed that overall  26% across the markets surveyed are members of social networking sites. This peaked with the Netherlands at 49%, United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 46%, Canada at 44% and the US at 40%.

The United Arab Emirates is the one that stands out here. The UAE is becoming a financial hub so it makes sense that users in the UAE are using social networks to meet and interact with other people, both in the Middle East and around the world.

What social networking sites do they use?
In the U.S. we focus on MySpace and Facebook while in the U.K. the top social site is Bebo. From a marketing perspective if you only focus on these three sites you are missing a large percentage of users. The survey asked an open-ended question about site membership and the responses included around 150 sites across the 17 markets surveyed.

For example, 91% of Japanese social networkers are on a Japanese-language site called mixi. Synovate’s Managing Director of Japan, Rika Fujiki, points out that attitudes and thinking on social networking are impacted by the site that created the boom in each market.

“In Japan, social networking has become very popular in a short period of time due to mixi, especially among younger people. One of the major features of mixi is that it’s invitation only. Because of this feature, mixi’s networks are based on friendship in the real world. So it’s not used the way some sites are… it’s not for broadening networks, rather for strengthening existing networks.”

Raise your hands, how many of you had every heard of Mixi? How many of you sell in the Japanese market and realize you should be on Mixi?

Users do notice advertisers
On of the complaints that marketers have about social networks is that nobody notices their ads. Interestingly,  Synovate asked social networkers around the world whether they noticed site sponsors, advertisements and interactive profile pages. The results were encouraging for marketers.

Overall, 53% of social networkers notice site sponsors. In good news for the sponsors, these seem to have the greatest impact in the US (where 66% notice), Serbia (65%) and Russia and Germany (both 64%).

Interestingly if you look at who notices advertisements for products you get a different set of result. Product advertisements are most noticed in Indonesia (86%), Poland (83%) and South Africa and Germany (both 80%). They are least noticed in the Netherlands (52%), Taiwan (49%) and France (40%).

Also 31% of social networkers notice interactive profile pages featuring brands. These pages are most likely to be noticed in Serbia (69%) and Indonesia (61%).

So just because ads for products or interactive profile pages do not work well in one country (say the US) that does not mean that they do not everywhere.

Other Social Media Findings
Some of the other findings from the survey were:

• Forty percent of people who engage in social networking agree that online communication can be just as meaningful as face-to-face communication, versus 26% of people who are not members of any of these sites.
• And who’s losing interest? When asked if they agree with the statement “I am losing interest in online social networking”, 36% of the social networking site members were in the affirmative; led by Japan (55%), Slovakia (48%), Canada (47%), Poland and the US (45%). Social networkers in Indonesia and France are the least likely to be losing interest in the activity (82% and 79% are going strong respectively).

I am a little surprised that more than a third of social networkers overall say they are losing interest in social media. For some markets like Slovakia (48%), Canada (47%), Poland and the US (45%) those numbers are almost 50%. It would have been really interesting to learn more about why such a large percentage of users are becoming tired of social networks.

Overall I thought this was a fascinating survey that illustrated that social network members are very different across the world. So if you are conducting a global social marketing campaign you need to be aware of not only what social networks users in that market are using, but also what types of advertisements will resonant best with them.