Who is really on top of the social media ladder

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Who is Really on Top of the
Social Media Ladder ?

Who is Really on Top of the Social Media Ladder
© Globalization Partners International. All rights reserved.http://blog.globalizationpartners.com/ 2
Facebook is
everywhere, right?

Well, not so fast. Although Facebook, Twitter
and LinkedIn dominate the social media
landscape in the US, we don't necessarily give a
lot of thought to which social media networks
are most frequently used in other parts of the
world.

So how does social media in the United States
compare to the rest of the world?
In today's global social village it is
an interesting question as there
may be many differences between
"villages."

First, let's take a look at the overall
social media landscape. Who are the
biggest players and are the big players
in the US really the dominant social
media drivers everywhere else on the
planet?

Let's start with a quick snapshot of
our digital footprint, globally:

Source: www.wearesocial.net

What's interesting is not only are 40% of the
global population active internet users, which
was expected, but there are over two billion
active social media accounts and 81% of those
accounts are active mobile social accounts.

Social Media Channels and
Global Ranking

Let's now look at the world's largest social
media networks based on the percentage
of global internet users:

Source: www.techhive.com

According to the graph above, Facebook,
Google+, YouTube and Twitter still dominate the
social media landscape. However, it's worth
noting that Chinese only sites, such as Qzone
and Sina Weibo, and Russian only sites, like
vkontakte, are growing fast in numbers and may
play a more prominent role within their borders
than we may have initially realized.

The majority of social networks that exceed 100 million
users started in the US, but European platforms, such
as VK (Europe's largest social network with more than a
100 million active users, over 66% in Russia alone), and
even Chinese social networks, like Qzone, have
increased their number of loyal followers partially due
to providing local content and much needed context.

To remain competitive and relevant in the global
social media space, the top social networks are
typically available in many different languages to
allow their users to build connections across
geographical, political and socio-economical
divisions.

Time Spent on Social Media
So what does this mean in terms of social media
usage regarding active accounts and time spent
on social media? Are there differences between
the US and other countries and regions? Of
course there are.

Singapore, Hong Kong, Argentina and the UK all
have more active accounts on top social media
sites than the US. Additionally, a dozen or so
countries spend more time overall on social
media networks than the US, including countries
as diverse as the Philippines, Brazil, Malaysia,
South Africa, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Quick and Fascinating Social Media Stats
From Around the Globe

• In Asia, 4 out of 5 of the top social networking
sites originated in China.
• Only 67% of Americans are on social media
networks as opposed to 91% of the Chinese
online population.

• YouTube's highest popularity ratings are in
Saudi Arabia.
• Japanese only spend 30 minutes a day on
social media networks (among the lowest).

• In the US, we spend an average of 2 hours on
social media platforms.
• Among Finland's top 3 social media platforms,
2 are Finnish.
• 660 million Chinese social media users access
social media on their mobile device(s),
opposed to only 72 million in India.

Mobile Social and Instant
Messaging

We also see that the increase of mobile usage
for social networks goes hand in hand with the
increase of global instant messenger (IM)
applications, such as WhatsApp, WeChat and
Viper, which have all reported upwards of 100
million monthly users in the last year. These
same IM applications now account for three out
of the top five social media platforms.

Mobile Social Commerce
Increased mobile net speeds, particularly in east
Asian countries, have also contributed to an
increase of eCommerce on mobile devices.

• 37% of South Koreans have made a purchase on
their mobile device in the last month.
Source: http://www.adrecom.net

• 27% of Chinese have made a purchase
through their phone in the last month.

Conclusion
Social Media Marketers need to take notice. If
you are going global with your eCommerce
strategy keep in mind that more and more
transactions will be made on mobile devices
globally, often much more frequently than in the
US. Target and adapt your global Social Media
Marketing Campaigns accordingly and make
them mobile-friendly.

Additional Resources from GPI
Globalization Partners International (GPI) has developed a suite of globalization tools to achieve
internationalization. You can explore them under the Tools sections of our Translation Services.
GPI also offers internationalization and globalization consulting services and can evaluate your
application. Partnering with GPI before you localize or translate your application will ensure that
you avoid many mistakes and will also save you considerable time and money on your localization
projects.
For more information about mobile application translation and localization please check our
services and blogs:
Mobile Application Translation
What to consider for mobile application localization
Online and mobile shopping in UAE and MENA region
Website translation: Personalized user experience for your target markets
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Who is really on top of the social media ladder

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