A recent report from Pew Research Center: “Global Digital Communication: Texting, Social Networking Popular Worldwide” found evidence that in these large emerging markets, including Mexico and Indonesia, social network penetration ranged from 56% to 86% of internet users.
In some markets, especially those with relatively low overall internet penetration, that put social network usage higher than the US’s 60% of internet users.
In September 2011, eMarketer estimated worldwide social network ad revenues would surpass $8 billion by the end of 2012, with the US accounting for just under half of the total.
Non-US revenues were expected to grow faster, as marketers attempt to increase brand awareness, market share, and profits in fast-growth countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) and beyond.
Social networks growth in these countries is supposed to be a two-figure percentage: Indonesia and Russia, for example, had 86% of internet users spending time on some kind of social network.
Is there an explanation to such a difference between wealthy and emerging nations?
In wealthy nations, users are aiming essentially towards friendship and relationships, since e-commerce is well estabilished and has been in use for quite a long time.
In emerging countries, e-commerce is substantially brand new and there’s still a lot to build about people and brands relationships – as well as about trust.
Via Pew Research and eMarketer]
