Different countries- different users

Infographic design by Nick Sigler from http://mashable.com/2011/09/23/world-social-networks-infographic/

Friday’s seminar on social media and The Yellow Social media statistics given in the lecture about how Australian people and business use social media got me thinking about what and how people outside of Australia is using social media. Since we are living in such a connected and time compressed world, social media use seems so widespread and homogenous- especially with Facebook and Twitter. But is it really? How are different users in different countries using social media? How is this important to marketers both here in Australia and overseas?

Obviously this is very important for large multinational companies that have consumers in different areas of the world. This is also not only relevant for Australian based companies that are either trying to reach a global audience and more consumers, but for Australian marketers to learn and understand what others are doing overseas. Having a quick squiz on the net, I found the above infographic from Mashable.com and found it very interesting.I was somewhat surprised that Facebook did not have a bigger presence in Japan and Brazil.

One of the main criticisms of the graphic I have is that it does not take into account other countries that have a high internet usage or high population such as China , India and South Korea.

This is very important to marketers, especially those who are serving overseas customers. They need to understand this to be able to effectively reach and target the right consumers. I believe it’s not enough to just place an ad on Facebook or setting up a Twitter just because a large number of people worldwide have a Facebook or Twitter account. From the infographic, we can see that people in Brazil and Japan, Facebook isn’t considered one of the main social media platforms. This clearly aids that in order to connect with customers in those two countries, other platforms and social media must be effectively used in order to reach the right customers to the best effect.

Social Media useage and popular sites in Asia from Endelman Digital

This graphic here provides us with a more regional look at how social media is used in Asia and the Pacific. This obviously gives us a better idea of which sites and how people are using different media platforms on the internet. From this, marketers can gain an important insight on how social media is being used. For example, for a marketer looking to reach customers in China, it might be more effective to create videos on how to use products or for promotional activities through RenRen compared to users in Australia where more time is spent on Facebook. What are your thoughts on the different variations of social media use around the world?