SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

A Report for Leeds Metropolitan University

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ?

Social media, or social software, have been developed through web 2.0. Social media is any content that forms our social networks on Internet. Social media includes a large number of tools used for online communication, such as instant messaging, text chat, forums, social bookmarking, wikis, blogs and social network services (Warr 2008, p.593) ; (Eley & Tilley, 2009).

‘Social Media’ is a platform where one can share any information with our social network using online tools like (E-mails, Blogs, News-Letters, Audio and Video Files, Photos) through ‘Social Networking Websites ‘etc. Eley, B., & Tilley, S. (2009).

TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS AVAILABLE FOR PROMOTION

Text Posting

Webcasting

Machinima

RSS Feeds

Blogs (Splogging, Weblogs)

Wikis

AIMS & OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH

To get maximum admission in M.A International Communication course.

To Promote our course through ‘Social Media Websites’.

To identify various Social Media Websites across different countries.

To find out, the best method to promote M.A International Communication course across various countries.

To search for alternate websites to so called popular international websites if any in ‘Vernacular languages’ of various countries.

To evaluate the cost for various Social Media Websites across different cities within and outside countries.

Aims of the Research Objectives of The Research

SURVEY - 300

UK - 63Europe - 25Turkey - 21China - 73India - 39Africa - 27N.America - 1Australia - 1Asia - 15Nigeria - 16Russia - 19

DEMOGRAPHICS

Age

15-19 = 820-24 = 15325-29 = 8530-34 = 3435-40 = 14above40 = 6

RUSSIA

Social Networking Sites

Odnoklassniki - 12Youtube - 9Twitter - 6Facebook - 8Linkedin - 2MySpace - 1vkontakte - 15

RECOMMENDATION

It is recommended that vkontakte.ru and odnoklassniki.ru are used for advertising in Russia

Preferably advertising should be done in St. Petersburg and Moscow

These adverts should be in Russian if possible as that is the preferred language from the survey.

The target audience should be in the age group 20-35.

COST (VKONTAKTE.RU)CPM

Russia - 5,000,000 hits

Moscow - 5,000,000 hits

St. Petersburg - 1,000,000 hits

CPC

Russia - 5,000 clicks

Moscow - 5,000 clicks

St. Petersburg - 1,000 clicks

COST (VKONTAKTE.RU)

Fixed Advertising

COST (ODNOKLASSNIKI.RU)

TURKEY

Social Networking Sites

youtube = 1twitter = 7facebook = 19linkedin = 6myspace = 2friendfeed = 1 windows live profile = 8

RECOMMENDATION Since Facebook is ranked first in Turkey

from survey of comscore.com and even our survey, it is recommended to advertise on facebook.

Windows live profile is the second highest used website which can also be used for the same.

Target audience should be in the age group of 20-35 as they are the ones who do Masters.

Preferred language by the people from Turkey is Turkish therefore it is highly recommended to use that language in adverts.

COST Facebook

Based on the target audience of age group of 20-35 years, the suggested bid by Facebook GBP 0.08 per click excluding Tax.

Windows Live ProfileThe cost of advertising on Windows Live Profile GBP 0.10 per click excluding Tax.

CHINA

Social Networking Sites

Ren Ren = 55youtube = 31twitter = 6facebook = 23linkedlin = 1Baidu = 43QQ = 33

CHINA

In China, Internet landscape is very different from other countries. All the information put online should be censored by Government, and any information which has bad impact on government will be forbidden to put online, if found, the government will delete the information and block the website. Because of this reason, many international websites are blocked; China’s digital media landscape is dominated by local players.

The reasons why Chinese access the web could be classified into four categories by use rate: Entertainment, Information acquisition, Communication, and business transaction.

(CNNIC’s 24th Statistical Report, June 2009)

Secondary Information

CHINA•Bulletin board systems (BBS) The Bulletin Board System (BBS) or online forum is extremely popular in China. According to a report by iResearch Consulting Group, 36.3% of users spend 1-3 hours on BBS, about 44.7% of users spend 3-8 hours and15.1% of users are even on BBS for more than 8 hours a day.

•Social networking sites (SNS)

There are 124 million SNS users in 2009. Each user has on average 2.8 accounts. Primary purpose is entertainment, 27.4% log in just to play games. (China Internet Watch)Renren was often coined as a Chinese Facebook clone because of its close similarities with Facebook. Nonetheless, Renren is extremely popular in China and has captured more limelight than any other social sites in China.

At present, 32,000 universities and colleges, 56,000 high schools and 85,000 companies in China and 1,500 universities in 29 other countries are available on Renren’s confirmation system. The social networks for each of these specified colleges, schools and companies have been established.

When we speak of instant messaging in China, QQ is at the top of the Chinese mind. Founded in 1998, QQ currently holds 77.90% and is China's largest online community with over 377 million active accounts.

•Instant Messaging

CHINA•Video-sharing websites

65.8% of netizens use online video sites. The rise of video broadcasting platforms is very fast such as youku.com and tudou.com like YouTube, which deliver as much as 100 million video views daily to 12 million users directly and through national broadcast sites. (CNNIC’s 24th Statistical Report)

According to CrunchBase, Tudou.com hosts over 20 million videos and attracts over 100 million viewers each month. Content on Tudou.com includes both user-generated content and professional content (movies and television shows).

The average time spent on a Youku page view is 10 minutes, compared to YouTube which is only two to three minutes. As of mid-2008, over 150 million videos were being viewed each day. Youku users are spending an average of 35 minutes per session, and 60 minutes per user per day on the site.

•Search Engines

Source: CR Nielsen, http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_081010.pdf

RECOMMENDATION Bulletin Board System (BBS) or Online Forum

is really famous in China therefore they should definitely be used for marketing.

Taisha.org is very famous in China for doing research for studying abroad. Therefore even that can be used for marketing.

Baidu is the most popular search engine in China which is more famous than google.com.

A video advertising on youku.com and tudou.com is also recommendable in order to make it more presentable.

Any of the above advert should be in chinese language as that is more preferred by students compared to english.

COST Renren

It is cheap to advertise on renren as the cost is only 0.5 Yuan per click excluding tax.

Baidu 5600 Yuan needs to be deposited in

your account and then be charged by CPC based on the competition.

QQ There are different ways in which we

can advertise on QQ, they are:-1. Mini Banner – 80,000 Yuan/day2. Video Ad – 120,000 Yuan/day3. Rich Button – 80,000 Yuan/day

INDONESIA

Social networkers in the Indonesia showed the high level of engagement on social networking sites averaging 5.4 hours per visitor, with visitors frequenting the social networking category an average of 22 times during the month. (Source: ComScore World Metrix)

Secondary Information

As of April 2008, Friendster has over 1,000,000 registered users under its Indonesia network, Facebook's number is 152,432. For lack of better data with the precise number of Indonesians using such services, through these searches, we see that Friendster appears to be the most popular social network of choice for Indonesians online.

On contrary, this graph from Google Trends shows the trend of Facebook is much better than Friendster, and the number of daily users to Facebook already surpasses the competitor in 2009, going up very fast.

INDONESIA

Rank Country

Number of Facebook users 1st July 2008

Number of Facebook users 1st July 2009

Number of Facebook

users 1st July 2010

12 month growth %

24 month growth %

1 USA 27,811,560 69,378,980 125,881,220 81.4% 352.6%2 UK 11,171,540 18,711,160 26,543,600 41.9% 137.6%3 Indonesia 209,760 6,496,960 25,912,960 298.9% 12253.6%

Comparing to other countries, though the total number of users in Indonesia is less than USA and UK, growth speed is the fastest of all the countries in the world, and now it is amazingly expanding.

People in Indonesia are used to use Bahasa Indonesian language on Facebook, and now Bahasa Indonesian is the 5th largest language on Facebook.

(Facebook’s Top Ten Languages, and Who is Using Them, 2010)

RECOMMENDATION

As we could see the trend in Indonesia, where Facebook has been dominating, it is recommended that adverts are placed on Facebook.

For most of the Indonesian speak and read in Bahasa Indonesian so preferably the advert should be in that language.

Cost Per Click in Indonesia is GBP 0.11 per click on Facebook

COST

INDIA

Growth of Top 10 Social Networking Markets WorldwideJuly 2010 vs. July 2009Total Worldwide – Age 15+, Home & Work Locations*Source: comScore Media Metrix

Social Networking Unique Visitors (000) Jul-2009

Jul-2010

% Change

Worldwide 770,092 945,040 23% United States 131,088 174,429 33% China N/A 97,151 N/A Germany 25,743 37,938 47% Russian Federation 20,245 35,306 74% Brazil 23,966 35,221 47% United Kingdom 30,587 35,153 15% India 23,255 33,158 43% France 25,121 32,744 30% Japan 23,691 31,957 35% South Korea 15,910 24,962 57%

Approximately users of internet is twenty one million of which two third are effective internet audience.

Social Media marketing websites in India is growing annually with a growth rate of almost 100 %.

A usual social media marketing site visitor in India uses 110.4 minutes on websites and 10.4 minutes per month to a social network.

INDIAPrimary Information

Social Networking Sites

youtube = 25twitter = 16facebook = 36linkedlin = 12myspace = 2friendfeed = 1

Top Social Networking Sites in IndiaJuly 2010 vs. July 2009Total India – Age 15+, Home & Work Locations

India Total Unique Visitors (000)

Jul-2009 Jul-2010 % Change

Total Internet : Total Audience

35,028 39,562 13

Social Networking 23,255 33,158 43

Facebook.com 7,472 20,873 179

Orkut 17,069 19,871 16

Bharatstudent.com 4,292 4,432 3

Yahoo! Pulse N/A 3,507 N/A

Twitter.com 984 3,341 239

LinkedIn.com N/A 3,267 N/A

Zedge.net 1,767 3,206 81

Ibibo.com 1,562 2,960 89

Yahoo! Buzz 542 1,807 233

Shtyle.fm 407 1,550 281

•Age group -18-45

•In Facebook there were only 1.6 million users in early 2008 but 3.5 million in early 2009. (179% Growth rate

•Twitter is the one of the fastest growing Social Networking Site with a growth rate of 239% in last year.

SECONDARY INFORMATION

RECOMMENDATION It is highly recommended to use

Facebook for advertising in India as it is the highest used social networking site in India.

It won’t be recommended to use Orkut for advertising as the increase in population using Orkut is too less and at the same time is expected to decrease by time due to Facebook’s popularity.

Twitter can also be used for advertising as it is a very upcoming social networking site with an increase of 239% in a years time.

COST

A bid of GBP 0.20 per Click is the approximate price to advertise on Facebook when targeting the age group of 18-30.

Creating adverts in terms of Blog is the best way to advertise on Twitter. This is free of cost.

SRI LANKA1)Social Media Marketing in Sri Lanka

Social media marketing in Sri Lanka is a growing trend with internet users’ reaching 1.776 million in 2010 and this present 8.3% of the population (Internet Usage and Population Statistics)

Facebook is the most used social networking site in Sri Lanka.

Most people in Sri Lanka use social networking sites to follow and monitor politics.

These networking sites are also used to share information like awareness of volatile areas during election.

RECOMMENDATION Since Facebook has more users in Sri Lanka, it is

recommended to advertise on it.

Twitter can also be used for advertising as it is an upcoming social networking site in Sri Lanka.

COST

Challenges of e –marketing in Sri Lanka

In Sri lanka there are several online advertising options such Google Adwords, Yahoo Ads etc but there is relative lack of internet users and even from that users only a very few purchase anything online.

Despite the development of digital media and the Internet and social media sites marketers in Sri Lanka have resisted embracing these new possibilities,

The cost per Click on Facebook is approximately GBP 0.08 for targeted users between the age group of 18-30 years.

Twitter is free service so it is wise to take advantage of that.

NIGERIASocial Networking Sites

youtube = 1twitter = 9facebook = 16linkedlin = 8

RECOMMENDATION With more than million users on Facebook

between the age group of 20-35 years, it will be proven to be fruitful to advertise on it.

On later stages also if other African countries need to be targeted, then also Facebook can be used to advertise.

Twitter can also be used to advertise as it is an upcoming market online in Nigeria.

Cost of advertising on Facebook in Nigeria is GBP 0.59 per Click.

Creating a blog, only way to advertise, on Twitter is free of cost.

COST

CONCLUSION We see that most of the countries have

common social networking sites in use but still costs different to advertise.

At the same time there are countries like China and Russia that have their own social networking sites in their own vernacular language .

Therefore it needs to be a quick process to create adverts on all these social networking sites as it is time consuming due to different languages to be used for some countries and it even takes time to update it from time to time due to changed language.

PRESENTED BY :-

Hitesh Deepak (77073807)

Vinit Ajmera (77072146)

Yang Shi (77073105)

Monik Mehta (77076458)

Lawrence Makhaya (33210138)

THANK YOU !!!

ANY QUESTIONS ???