Royal Pingdom has posted a great article on the top social networking sites by country using data from Google Insights for Search.
So lets kick things off. Which countries are the following social networking sites most popular in?
MySpace: United States
Facebook: Turkey
Hi5: Peru
Friendster: Philippines
LinkedIn: India
Orkut: Brazil
Last.fm: Finland
LiveJournal: Singapore
Xanga: Hong Kong
Bebo: Ireland
Imeem: Philippines
Twitter: Japan
How many did you get? Not many I’m guessing.
Bebo is an interesting concept for PRs and Marketers. Despite reporting strong viewing figures (11.4 million in the UK with visitors averaging more than 3 hours and 30 minutes on the site during the month) how useful / ethical / effective is it really when engaging with consumers?
There are many upsides to it – huge levels of personalisation, open to application developments, a captive audience to engage in any activity – however, I wonder about a couple of aspects of Bebo.
One of my main concerns about using Bebo as a tool to engage with consumers is that the site is aimed at a much younger teen and pre-teen audience. With advertisers being clamped down on advertising fast food to children and toy manufacturers getting lambasted for the same reason is it ethical to target them on social media sites where we know that they are likely to be spending a great deal of time?
Personally, I’m dubious, if I felt that the consumer in question was genuinely getting something out of the campaign other than brand messages being rammed down their throat I’d be ok with it, otherwise, I think on an ethical basis I’d be forced to advise my client against it.
Also, whilst Facebook is embracing mobile technology left right and centre, Bebo seems slow on the uptake – my 13 year old cousin has a mobile phone and a Bebo profile but never uses them both at the same time whereas I use my mobile and iPod Touch to access Facebook. It seems to me to be a missed opportunity both for marketers and for Bebo (a recent study by “3″ showed that 45% of respondents access web sites every day while 62% check their mails. A further 24% are using their mobiles to access their social networking sites).
This is the area I feel will be the next step for social networking sites (SNS) and marketers – truly embracing the link between mobile and SNS. There is obviously a cost element involved which puts off most Clients however, I can’t help but feel that there is a real missed opportunity to combine the two elements together – all it takes is for one client to give it a chance, it might work, it might not, but someone needs to be brave enough to give it a try.
Alex is part of Hill & Knowlton’s Digital team in the UK.
