Everything you need to know about social media in Russia
1. Everything you need to know about social
media but were afraid to ask / Russia
2. Contents
Chapter 1: About Publicity PR & ECCO 4
Chapter 2: Country Research 6
Chapter 3: Different Social Media Types 8
Chapter 4: Case Study Examples 10
Chapter 5: Online Social Media Tools, Tricks and Listening to the Online 13
Conversation
Chapter 6: Popular Blog Tools and Blog Posts 16
Chapter 7: Other Useful Social Media Tools 18
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4. About Publicity PR and ECCO
Publicity PR have been the exclusive member for ECCO in Russia since 2008.
Publicity PR
00 7 (495) 775 1550
www.publicity.ru
ECCO
+44 (0)20 7592 3102
www.ecco-network.com
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6. Country Research
Recent years saw substantial development of the social media in Russia. The process of
gaining popularity was very rapid. First Russian social media were launched around 4 years
ago.
They were started by Russian entrepreneurs as start-up projects. Even despite huge
number of visitors they enjoy now they are still are. There is a rumor that none of them
break even so far. Some of them started to charge a registration fee from new users, but to
no avail.
Most popular of them are Vkontakte, MoiMir and Odnoklassniki. When they were started
the internationally-known Facebook and Classmates did not have Russian versions.
So these two Russian social media were made very similar to their international rivals.
Almost all other domestic social media are Russian adaptations of foreign media. Later
on the owners and management of international and foreign social media seeing that they
loose a lot started Russian versions as well. But it was too late. So Facebook and other
international media are not very popular in Russia and the situation is not likely to change.
Some experts believe that the international media will buy Russian media to get the good
market share.
Today there is a kind of after-party for the social media in Russia. They were extremely
popular in 2008, than people got accustomed to them and some – even fed up with. Many
fishy activities and schemes in the most popular social media make people to start more
exclusive, club style media, like, for example, styleforum.ru.
Below top-20 of the Russian social media. The figures shows the ratio of global Alexa
Traffic Rank (www.alexa.com/help/traffic_learn_more) to traffic rating of the site in Russia.
Percentage shows a share of members from the territory of Russian Federation among the
members of the particular media. .
01. Vkontakte, vkontakte.ru, 30/2; 78.8% It is 30th most popular social media in the world
and 2nd most popular social media in Russia. 78.8% members of the media live in
Russia.
02. Moi mir, mail.ru, 31/3; 72.0%
03. Odnoklassniki, odnoklassniki.ru, 86/5; 67,5%
04. Youtube, youtube.com, 4/4; 1.7%
05. Wikipedia, wikipedia.org, 6/6; 3.4%
06. LiveJournal, livejournal.com, 78/10; 34.4%
07. Blogger, blogger.com, 7/8; 1.2%
08. Facebook, facebook.com, 2/3; less 0.4%
09. Party Poker, partypoker.com, 137/36; 14.2%
10. Ru Tube, rutube.ru, 944/40; 68.6%
11. Dairy, diary.ru, 1160/41; 82.1%
12. Mamba, mamba.ru, 1421/63; 64.5%
13. Love Planet, loveplanet.ru, 1678/65; 79.4%
14. Travian, travian.ru, 1505/69; 70.9%
15. Beon, beon.ru, 1942/69; 77.6%
16. Twitter, twitter.com, 13/13; 0.9%
17. Flickr, flickr.com, 32/21; 1.3%
18. Mir Tesen, mirtesen.ru, 2015/90; 69.7%
19. MySpace, myspace.com, 11/5; 0.8%
20. Moi Krug, moikrug.ru, 2636/93; 82.0%
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7. Top 20 present social networks of the general character where people find friends,
schoolmates, create diaries, blogs and thematic social networks, video sharing,
playgrounds.
Source www.sarafannoeradio.org/analitika/183-kakie-socialnie-seti-lubjat-v-rossii-top-20.html
/ Russia’s place in the global Internet.
According to comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world,
Russia to have the world’s most engaged social networking audience, with visitors
spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month.
Of the 1.1 billion people age 15 and older worldwide who accessed the Internet from a
home or work location in May 2009, 734.2 million visited at least one social networking
site during the month, representing a penetration of 65 percent of the worldwide Internet
audience. The Russian social networking audience had the highest engagement among
the 40 individual countries reported by comScore, with an average of 6.6 hours and 1,307
pages consumed per visitor. Brazil ranked close behind at 6.3 hours, followed by Canada
(5.6 hours), Puerto Rico (5.3 hours) and Spain (5.3 hours).
“Social networking has become a popular online pastime not only in mature Internet
markets like North America, but also in developing, high-growth Internet markets such
as Russia,” said Mike Read, SVP & managing director, comScore Europe. “In a country
as geographically large as Russia, social networking represents a way of connecting
people from one corner of the country to the other. The highly engaged behavior of social
networkers in Russia offers significant opportunity for marketers and advertisers seeking to
reach these audiences.”
Top 20 Highest Engagement Social Networking Country Audiences*
Ranked by Average Hours per Visitor* (May 2009)
Total Worldwide, Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations Source: comScore World Metrix
Country Average Hours per Visitor Average Pages per Visitor
World-Wide 3.7 525
Russia 6.6 1,307
Brazil 6.3 1,220
Canada 5.6 649
Puerto Rico 5.3 587
Spain 5.3 968
Finland 4.7 919
United Kingdom 4.6 487
Germany 4.5 793
United States 4.2 477
Colombia 4.1 473
Mexico 4.0 488
Chile 4.0 418
Ireland 3.8 462
Turkey 3.7 427
Venezuela 3.7 454
France 3.6 526
Australia 3.4 374
New Zealand 3.4 386
Switzerland 3.2 430
Italy 3.2 39
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8. * Out of the 38 individual countries currently reported on by comScore around the world.
** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile
phones or PDAs.
Vkontakte.ru is Russia’s Largest Social Networking Site
Of the 31.9 million people who accessed the Internet in Russia in April, 18.9 million visited
at least one social networking site, representing a reach of 59 percent of the total online
population. The most popular of these sites was Russian-based Vkontakte.ru with 14.3
million visitors, followed by Odnoklassniki.ru (7.8 million visitors), Mail.ru – My World (6.3
million visitors) and Fotostrana.ru (1.6 million visitors). Facebook.com attracted 616,000
Russian visitors, up 277 percent versus year ago.
A Selection of Leading Social Networking Sites
Ranked by Total Unique Visitors (000)* (May 2009)
Total Russia, Age 15+ Home & Work Locations Source: comScore World Metrix
Property Total Unique Visitors (000) % Reach of Total
Online Population
Total Russian Internet Audience 31,907 100%
Social Networking 18,877 59%
Vkontakte.ru 14,310 45%
Odnoklassniki.ru 7,750 24%
Mail.Ru – My World 6,321 20%
Fotostrana.ru 1,624 5%
Privet.ru 942 3%
Moikrug.ru 839 3%
Facebook.com 616 2%
Steamcommunity.com 433 1%
MySpace Sites 371 1%
Vkrugudruzei.ru 214 1%
* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile
phones or PDAs.
Some facts about Internet audience in Russia:
> The biggest quantity of Russians with more of two active accounts in the social networks
lives in Saint Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Moscow.
> There are around 20.5 million Internet users in Russia, that use it on every day basis.
> More than 63% of the Internet users watch videos in youtube, rutube and vkontakte etc.
> Also it is possible to understand the social status of the user of a network by its accounts
(many brands, choosing the audience, create a psychological portrait of the potential
customer. For example, in a social portrait of the consumer of Johnny Walker Red Label,
it is underlined that it is man, from 22 till 26 years, with the confident vital item, having
profile on FaceBook.
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13. Case study examples
A good example of personal approach shows us forum.awd.ru
This is a social network of Russians that enjoy travelling to different exotic destinations –
from Tahiti to North Korea – on their own, without assistance of travel agencies and other
related services except that of Expedia and Travelocity. So contrary to the expectations
to use this media to promote travel services is a bit pointless. But taking in considerations
high income and level of education of the members, their occupations and other elements
of social status, it proved to be very effective to promote luxury SUVs, law and dental
services, private banking, etc. At first it started on personal level. Most of the members
are owners of businesses and top-managers and their family members. So one of them
asked who may sell him a brand-new Mercedes with good discount. Another member did
it and the discount was very good, but confidential. Later it evolved in a club, that gives you
exclusive opportunities and discounts.
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15. Online social media tools, tricks and listening to
the online conversation
Social media can demonstrate what is being said about your brand, you should also track
what is being said about key competitors and topics specific to your business.
The basic resources for monitoring situation:
> HowSociable?
> Integrum
> whostalkin.com
> Google Alerts
> Yahoo Alerts
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17. Popular Blog Tools and Blog Posts
General blogs resource in Russia is Live Journal (LifeJournal.com)
Blogs searchers:
> Yandex
> Rambler
> Technorati
> Google Blog Search
> IceRocket
> Blogdigger
> Sphere
> Linkloo
> Wikio
> menéame
> Bitacoras.com
> Ask.com
> gennio
> BlogPulse
> Bloguzz
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19. Other useful social media tools
Mail.ru – mail service with additional features (photo gallery, agent mail.ru – chat, share
documents, and its own social network MIR TESEN, which is the number 3 in Russia) e
Gmail.com with also network tools. (with new option LIVE LINE)
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