What social network do they use? What social networks do I use, why and why is it bad?

Briefly about the main thing

The most popular means of accessing the Internet is a mobile phone/smartphone - it was named as a common device by 52% of Internet users
45% of surveyed Russians over 18 years of age use at least one of social networks almost every day, 62% - at least once a week

MOSCOW, February 12, 2018 The All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) presents research data on what social networks and instant messengers Russians use. Currently 45% surveyed Russians over 18 years of age use at least one of the social networks almost every day, 62% - at least once a week. Fully about a third are excluded from social media(20% due to the fact that they do not have access to the Internet and another 10% do not have a single account). Expected maximum level of involvement– among young people – in a group 18-24 years old use social networks almost daily 91%, among respondents 25-34 years old there are 69% (in the group over 60 years old - only 15%). Most mass coverage in our country, according to a survey, has a network VKontakte– among all respondents, 28% said they visit it daily, second place is taken by Odnoklassniki (19%), third by Instagram (14%); the share of the daily Google+ audience is 7%, Facebook and My World got 4% each, Twitter and LiveJournal got 1% each. Preferences when choosing a social network have age characteristics. VKontakte andInstagram can be classified as communities with preponderance of youth. The largest share of the audience of VKontakte users - 40% - falls on people aged 25–34 years. Among Instagram users, 38% are aged 18-24 years, 37% are aged 25-34 years. Among the daily audience Odnoklassniki the most common group is also 25-34 years old (28%). At the same time, the distribution of Odnoklassniki’s audience by age is the closest among all social networks to general distribution Internet audience in Russia. Social networks Facebook and My World dominate older audience. Among the Facebook audience, the majority of people are aged from 35 to 44 years (28%) and from 45 to 59 (26%), the core of the My World audience is 45-59 year olds (39%). Most Popular means of accessing the Internet is mobile phone/smartphone– it was named as a common device by 52% of Internet users. Access to the Internet via a mobile phone is maximum among daily users of Instagram (92%) and VKontakte (84%), for other networks – about 70%. Respondents were also asked about what messengers, programs for exchanging short messages they use it. Almost three quarters of respondents noted that they use such programs: 62% sent at least one message the day before the survey (90% in the group under 25 years old, the figure decreases sharply for older people - 57% in the group 45-59 years old, 32% - from 60 years and older). Among the messengers that Russians consider their main ones, the leaders are: whatsapp(44%), messages via messenger VKontakte (32%), SMS(32%) and Viber(30%). The choice of a program for exchanging short messages is also closely related to age - among respondents over 60 years old, SMS is most often used (43%), and in the group of 18-24 years old - the VKontakte messenger (69%). A comparison of the messengers and social networks used shows that it is enough high level of commitment to their way of sending short messages typical for VKontakte (67% of network users consider its messenger the main one) and Odnoklassniki (62%).

The most popular social networks among Russian-speaking users are three projects - Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and the world-famous Facebook. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. But which site is better? Which of them makes sense to register your own page?

In this article we will compare all three projects according to a number of criteria important for visitors - convenience, entertainment opportunities, information content, and others. This will help beginners make their choice. So, let's get to know the comparison participants in a little more detail.

Comparison of social networks VKontakte, Facebook, Odnoklassniki

Now that you have a brief idea of the projects, let's move on to their direct comparison. Let's start with the most important thing.

Popularity with the audience

Ease of interface and management

Information content

Social networks are now not only a means for finding people and communicating with them, but also an information environment. On social networks, users share personal experience, exchange valuable information on issues of interest to them, and so on.

Entertainment options

The modern social network is a real “food processor” of the entertainment industry. Resources of this type have already replaced many gaming sites, entertainment portals, and online cinemas. Why leave the social network if all this is already there?

There is quite a lot of entertainment content on Facebook - music, videos, online games, applications. The only problem is that the administrators of the social network adhere to a strict policy regarding the distribution of unlicensed products, so you will not find any pirated media content there (and some people go to social networks just for it).
Odnoklassniki provides its users with everything they need. Music, both licensed and pirated, is posted on the pages in tons. It's the same with video. There has also been progress with games - for last year the number of applications and games on Odnoklassniki has increased, and developers of this kind of content have been given more favorable conditions for their production.
Focusing on the youth audience, the VKontakte administration is simply obliged to provide users with the necessary functionality in terms of entertainment. And she copes with this task perfectly. Tens of thousands of applications and games of various types, a convenient music player, watching videos and listening to audio. A variety of legal and not-so-legal content. What else do you need for happiness?

Earning money on social networks

For most Internet users, it has long been no secret that not only their owners and those investing in development, but also ordinary users of these projects can make money on social networks.

Facebook provides the opportunity to earn money for users of various qualifications - both beginners and advanced. The former can engage in primitive activities: paid comments, placing “likes” on posts. For the latter, broader prospects open up - promotion and promotion of communities, development of browser games and applications, organization of trade. And the list doesn't end there.
Odnoklassniki has the most solvent audience on the Russian-speaking Internet, which makes them simply an ideal place to offer your goods and services. Create free apps with paid premium features, open your own online store, advertise your own brand - there are many options for earning money.
On VKontakte, as on Facebook, there is more than enough work for users. And if we take into account the fact that the project is focused primarily on Russian-speaking users, making money with it is much more convenient and profitable than with its direct competitor. Particularly popular on VKontakte is earning money by creating various communities and groups, on which advertising materials are subsequently posted and affiliate programs are promoted.

Mobile capabilities

Now there is a pronounced trend towards the “mobilization” of social networks. More and more people are accessing their pages from various portable devices such as tablets and mobile phones. Developers of social networks understand this very well, so they have taken care of ensuring the most comfortable experience on their projects for owners of mobile devices.

Let's sum it up

Analyzing the information written above, we came to the conclusion that that it is impossible to define a universal social network for all occasions. Everyone should choose the project that suits their interests. For example, if a person wants to be promptly informed about any events and receive first-hand information, then Facebook is most suitable for him.

If his choice falls on entertainment and games, then he won’t find anything better than VKontakte. And if you want to resume communication with people lost many years ago, then first of all you should look in Odnoklassniki.

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Everyone only knows about the 2-3 most popular social networks. But do not forget that there are many other thematic communities on the Internet in which people united by common interests or professional fields are constantly active every day.

The most popular social networks in Russia: 2018

The social network is available in 90 or more languages, is highly popular among the Russian-speaking audience, and is the largest in all of Europe. The headquarters is located in St. Petersburg. VKontakte makes it possible to send messages and images, share video and audio recordings, tags, create your own groups and communities, and relax playing browser games. The social network strives to remain the fastest and in a modern way communication on the Internet. This is the most popular social network in Russia (2018).

This domestic social network belongs to Mail.Ru Group and was created in March 2006. By popularity in this year it ranks 3rd in Armenia, 4th in Azerbaijan and Russia, 5th in Kazakhstan, 7th in Ukraine, 27th in the whole world.

According to a December 2017 survey, 19% of the domestic audience use the Odnoklassniki website almost every day or every day.

A free social network that allows you to share photos and videos. It incorporates elements of a social network. Instagram allows you to take photos and videos, use filters, and share them through your account or other social networks. On at the moment both from the user’s point of view and from the point of view of promoting your services and products

A popular video hosting site in the world that stores a lot of videos. A unique social network in which everyone can find both and make it their main one.

This is the most famous social network in the world, which appeared on February 4, 2004. Its creator was Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates while studying at Harvard University. The first name was Thefacebook, only university students had access to it. After this, students from Boston universities gained access, then students from all American universities with an email address at .edu. Since the fall of 2006, anyone can register on Facebook.

The emphasis in this social network is on personalization and ease of use. The content is divided into several categories - video and audio, chat, link, quote, photo and text. People subscribe to blogs that are interesting to them, the posts of which appear in the news feed. They also mark posts they like using the corresponding button and reblog to their page to comment on them.

There is support for automatic export of messages to Facebook and Twitter using the RSS protocol.

Social photo hosting, whose users upload images to appropriate collections and share photos with other people. Added images are called "buttons" and collections are called "boards".

Other most popular social networks in Russia

A popular portal where users create their own electronic diaries and communicate with each other. There are also counters for websites.

Russian-language social site, which is a collective blog. There are elements of a news site. Habrahabr is intended for publishing analytical articles and news. Topics: Internet, business, modern information technologies. Several years ago, a number of topics were separated into separate resources.

A popular platform on which users create their blogs and communicate with people. Popular social networks in Russia include it in their list.

The largest music catalog that creates separate and general charts for each user.

Not the most popular social networks and portals

This social network is designed for users to communicate with each other. With its help, you can find friends with similar interests and similar entertainment, create an individual personal page design, start a diary, become a member of communities or create your own based on interests, communicate on blogs, share videos, audio and images. About 300 thousand users maintain their blogs on Privet.ru.

This is a popular web service designed for blogging and communicating with like-minded people.

A social service for Russian news channels, which was launched in the spring of 1998. Designed for organizing and maintaining electronic mailing lists.

Specialized social networks

A business social network that brings together entrepreneurs and specialists based on certain characteristics (geography, profession, industry). It appeared in the summer of 2008, and today there are about 7 million registered users. The social network is intended for discussing professional problems, finding partners and investors, self-education and obtaining new ideas. The largest communities on the network have over 2 million people participating.

Social networks are a type of Internet resources with the ability to join different groups based on interests, discuss all sorts of links, videos, photos, etc. I don’t know any people who haven’t heard of at least a couple of networks from the list below.

How did you find out about this site?
- I am a registered user.
- Is it true? Are you doing this singles thing?
- I am a 32-year-old system administrator who works in the basement. Yes, I do this singles thing.

Facebook has an audience of 750 million users in 200 countries. The service began in 2004 as a site for communication between Harvard students, and what follows is a well-known story. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen Fincher’s film – it’s educational and 3 Oscars no matter how.

Forbes included the founder of the service, Mark Zuckerberg, in the list of the richest people in the world. There are many independent programmers working inside the site; the programs they created have brought the lion's share of success

LiveJournal is a blog platform that brings together the most... different people, be it age, social status, religious views, preferences and so on.

In 1999, American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick registered the domain livejournal.com and created a giant service virtual diaries. At first it was his personal blog site, then his friends and acquaintances began to unsubscribe there, and off we go. Fitzpatrick founded the company Danga Interactive, in 2005 the company was sold to the large corporation Six

Twitter is essentially a microblogging system where users can post short texts up to 140 characters using SMS, pagers and web interface. Twitter was created in 2006 in San Francisco by Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass and Biz Stone. IT specialists worked on an R&D project with Odeo.

In October 2006, they opened their own company, Obvious, through which they managed Twitter and Odeo. There was nothing like this before, so immediately after entering the market, the number of users of the tweeting network began to grow very quickly. In April 2007, Twitter split from Obvious and became

Tom Anderson and Chris DeWulf met at XDrive Technologies, which they left to form their own company, Response Base Marketing. The main task was the creation of a universal space for online activities. Initially, the guys focused on the interests of the creative part of users - photography, programming, music, cinema.

As of June 2006, the resource boasted 48 million unique visitors and 27.4 billion page views. Even the Pentagon decided to play on the popularity of MySpace: in the name of replenishing the ranks of the US armed forces, an official page of the American Marine Corps, equipped with a “Contract” button

Google+ is a social network of Google Inc. In 2010, there was information about the development of a new social network, Google Me, but it turned out to be a hoax. In the spring of 2011, information about the Google Circles social network was leaked, but when Google+ began operating in June, it became clear that Google Circles was its basis.

Circles divide the social circle into separate subgroups. The number of photos and videos is not limited by anything other than size; video duration is a maximum of 15 minutes with a resolution of 1080p. There are Video Meetings where users can set up video chat (maximum 10

Brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov were inspired by Facebook and created Vkontakte.ru. Previously, Pavel created Durov.com and Spbgu.Ru (by the way, it is still one of the largest communities for students in St. Petersburg and Moscow).

Due to the similarity of the interfaces, there were many disputes about copyright, but for Vkontakte it was necessary to write your own code, look through the Ministry of Education reference books, university websites and do a hell of a lot of work. So to be honest

Albert Popkov was on the team that created the social network Passado.com. Since 2000, I have developed a project similar to Classmates with my own money. This loud and at times scandalous network has gained an audience of 1.5 million users in Russia in 7 months.

The British company i-CD Publishing, Popkov's former employer, accused him of using Passado's ideas and other terrible sins. They also said that Odnoklassniki is a project of the FSB, this is how they monitor people and collect dossiers in leather folders. Or whatever it is

Today, social networks are so firmly rooted in our lives that the composition of the top five most popular social platforms remains virtually unchanged from year to year. However, the penetration and use of these social networks varies depending on geography and demographic factors. Understanding these differences plays a big role when targeting specific audiences. When comparing the most popular social networks, it is important to pay attention not to the number of registered accounts, but to the number of active users. From the review you will learn which social networks are growing faster than others, and which are currently in decline.

The most popular social platforms

The chart, produced by analytics agency Statista, gives a clear picture of the number of active users (in millions) on the world's most popular social networks. Topping the list is Facebook. This can hardly surprise anyone. Facebook holds the majority of the market share with over 2 billion active users. In January 2017, the giant's closest competitor was WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook. Then he was in second place. Today, YouTube is in second place with 1.5 billion active users. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp take third and fourth place respectively.

They are followed by platforms, the majority of whose audience is located in the Asia-Pacific region. These are QQ, WeChat and Qzone (with more than 600 million active users). This shows that there are a number of popular social media in APAC countries. After them, we see a cluster of platforms popular mainly in the West - Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter.

What about in Russia?

In Russia, the penetration of social networks is estimated at 47%; 67.8 million Russians have accounts on them. According to Statista, YouTube is used most actively in the Russian Federation (63% of respondents), VKontakte takes second place - 61%. Global leader Facebook is only in fourth place with an indicator of 35%. Skype and WhatsApp dominate among instant messengers (38% each).

Social networks that are growing faster than others

Marketers usually don’t spend much time on SMM. Which social network should you concentrate your efforts on? Twitter, which amassed 313 million users between 2010 and 2017, has seen the slowest growth compared to its biggest competitors Facebook, WhatsApp and China's WeChat. Founded in 2013, Instagram had already surpassed Twitter in terms of audience size by 2014.

A new study from Statista shows that Twitter fell far behind its peers in 2017. It saw the lowest growth in monthly active audience, with only 23 million from Q3 2015 to Q3 2017. Facebook, meanwhile, grew by 461 million.

How users interact with brands on social networks

Knowing how to behave and what posts to make on social media is also important, since it shapes the image of your brand and, as a result, encourages users to buy your products or, conversely, unsubscribe from your groups. Social media is increasingly being used as customer engagement platforms where customers, existing and potential, want answers to their questions in real time. A chart taken from a Sprout Social report shows that 48% of users can be persuaded to buy by quickly answering questions in a group. 46% respond positively to promotions, and 42% may choose a brand's product if its page provides educational content. 27% of surveyed users admitted that they would be willing to make a purchase if they were shown materials that are usually left behind the scenes.

Half of Sprout Social survey respondents said they would unfollow a brand's community if I posted content that they found offensive, and 27% said they would mark a brand and its page as spam and block it. This is why it is so important to reach and engage your potential customers by publishing relevant and interesting content that resonates with your target audience.

Social networks with the most active audience

An important factor that influences how much time we should devote to SMM on a particular social network is the level of audience engagement. Here again, Facebook dominates, and also has the highest engagement over time, according to data from analytics firm comScore's study of a panel of US consumers.

Facebook's success is amazing. In addition to the social network itself occupying the top spot, other corporate-owned platforms also took second and third place. Facebook Messenger has a 47% penetration rate, with Instagram right behind it.

From the latest data from Pew Internet, shown in the chart below, we can see that Facebook also leads in the number of active audiences per day. 76% of users log into the social network every day, on Instagram this figure is 51%. Only 42% of Twitter users check it daily, which is almost half that of Facebook.

The average daily duration of use of social networks in the United States is 2 hours 1 minute; in Russia, users spend a little more time on social platforms - 2 hours 19 minutes.

Engagement rates in different social networks

Marketing analytics company TrackMaven analyzed 51 million posts from companies across 130 industries to find out which social networks have the highest engagement rates. The results showed that the absolute leader in terms of engagement per 1000 subscribers is Instagram. This is so much higher than other social networks that we had to create a separate chart to illustrate the difference between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

As you can see from the second graph, Facebook is significantly ahead of Twitter and LinkedIn. This is largely due to the fact that more people post on Twitter because there is no algorithm to show content to only a small portion of the audience. Because of this, brands have to flood their feeds with posts to break through the information noise. This, in turn, reduces the response rate to publications. Below is the average daily number of posts per account on three social networks.

General statistics on social media usage around the world

Every year, WeAreSocial updates its comprehensive Global Digital Report, which compiles actionable data on social media around the world. From it you can find out how differently social platforms are used in different parts of the world. It is surprising that Western countries are seriously lagging behind in the rate of penetration of social networks.

Below are the main conclusions of the studies.

The number of Internet users in 2018 reached 4.021 billion people, which is 7 percent more than a year ago.
The audience of social networks in 2018 totals 3.196 billion people - 13% higher than last year’s figure.
Number of users mobile phones is 5.135 billion people, this means plus 4% compared to last year.

The numbers are growing rapidly, especially for active users of social networks on mobile devices - the penetration rate is 39%, which is 5% more than in 2017.

If we talk about the structure of web traffic depending on the type of device, then the most traffic is generated by mobile users (52%, which is 4% higher than last year). Only 43% of all web pages are visited from desktops, which is 3% lower than last year.

Northern, Western and Southern Europe, and also North America can boast of the most high level Internet penetration - 74%-94% of the total population uses the World Wide Web. In Russia, 110 million people use the Internet—76% of the total population.

The growth in the global audience of social networks since January 2017 was 13%. The fastest growth in the number of users is observed in Saudi Arabia. Since January 2017, their number has increased by 32%, the global average is 17%. Other countries with the highest growth rates include India, Indonesia and Ghana. The reason for the jump was the development of technology, which made it easier for the population to access social platforms. Social networks grew the slowest in the UAE, South Korea and Great Britain -<5%. В России пользователей соцсетей стало на 8 826 000 человек больше (+15% к прошлогоднему значению).

Since Facebook has the largest share of users, it would be useful to know how the content you post will perform on the social network and what features to use to increase its reach. According to social network statistics, the average reach of a publication is 10.7%, with organic posts having 8% (organic reach in Russia is 11.3%), and for paid posts this value is 26.8% (27.4% in Russia) . Organic and paid Facebook posts have huge potential. It is important to target publications correctly in order to receive quality leads.

You can get a more complete picture of the state of the global digital market in 2018 by studying our review of the Internet 2017-2018 in the world and in Russia: statistics and trends, which we prepared based on the Global Digital 2018 study.

Popularity of social networks by country

The graph below from the GlobalWebIndex report, based on a survey of Internet users, perfectly reflects the popularity of various social networks by country. Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, India and Brazil are among the top ten most active audiences on each social network, significantly ahead of the US, UK and European countries.

Of the four social networks presented (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google+), Russians are the most active users of the video service. Twitter and Google+ are used relatively often by only 20% of our compatriots, and Facebook is regularly viewed by just over 40%.

Demographic statistics of social media use

As can be seen from the graph, different age groups have a similar pattern of social media use. This suggests that social networks have reached a stage of maturity where they can reach all demographic groups, regardless of age and gender. The exceptions are Instagram and Tumblr, which have younger audiences.

Strategies for interacting with social media audiences

According to The State of Social 2018 study, 96% of brands have a presence on Facebook.

Moreover, only half of the respondents have a documented SMM strategy. Large businesses are a little more responsible about this issue than small companies (60% said they have such a document).

When it comes to the types of content brands publish, images, links, and text lead the way. Even though video posts tend to get the most engagement, video content only comes in fourth. This is primarily due to the complexity of creating such materials.

At the end of 2017, Smart Insights, together with Clutch, conducted a survey among business representatives, in which they asked which social networks were of the greatest value to them. It turned out that among B2C companies Facebook is considered the most effective (93% of respondents), and most B2B companies prefer LinkedIn (93%).

The Value of Social Media for Brands in 2018

If you think that your target audience is not on social networks, you are mistaken.

Through social networks you can reach any audience, regardless of gender, age, or social status. 98% of online consumers are registered on social networks, a fairly large part of them are adults 55-64 years old.

People devote a third of their time on the Internet to social networks.

The average user spends 2 hours 15 minutes a day scrolling through their feed and communicating on social platforms, and young people aged 16-24 spend almost three hours. If you do not consider SMM as a channel for attracting customers, then you are voluntarily giving up the attention of your target audience to your competitors.

Half of all social media users follow brand pages.

4 out of 10 internet users follow their favorite companies on social media, and a quarter follow brands when planning to buy something. People respond positively to such content, so an active presence on social media is of great value to companies.

Social networks are the main source of information for consumers.

People aged 16-24 prefer to look for information about brands on social networks rather than on search engines. A quarter of users in this age group admit that a large number of likes on a brand’s page can persuade them to make a purchase. In the group of 35-44 years old, 20% of respondents said the same. Social commerce can be considered one of the main channels for generating profit, which means it is important to diversify your efforts and not rely only on advertising.

Watching videos is a favorite pastime on social media.

Facebook is the largest social network in terms of number of users, but YouTube takes first place in terms of traffic and the reason is because of the video. Video posts receive the most active response, and that is why leading brands constantly publish videos on their pages.

The following materials were used in preparing the article:

Global Social Media Research Summary 2018 by Smart Insights
The State of Social 2018 report by Social Media Week
The Biggest Social Media Trends Shaping 2018 article published on the GlobalWebIndex blog
Social Networks Study: How social networks were used in 2017 by analytical agency Metricool
Global Digital 2018 report package compiled by WeAreSocial analytical agency

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