Social Media in India

by deep on October 9th, 2010 2

What does it take for anyone to venture into a different market sector? Opportunity? Profit? Trend? Social Drive? Technology? Innovation? I could go on and on with the list. But there are certain facts which drive me to think that more than anything, cultural framework of the society plays an important role.

By this I mean to point to the structure of a community and its tendency to accept new trends. The inertia of a community plays a major role in defining new markets and new opportunities. The Social Media has been around us for more than decades – forums, discussions, feedbacks.

But for last few years, Social Media has become revolutionary rather than evolutionary.  Revolutionary in a sense that it’s still not being accepted by market as a main stream media in many countries. Revolution always takes time to be accepted. But there is a difference between acceptance and facts.

Facts have pointed out that though markets(businesses) have turned deaf to the situation, the community is heavily involved in the revolution making changes.

Especially in India, whose economy is blooming towards becoming one of the most influential market in the world, the wave of social media is hitting hard. But there are few ventures in the space. Many are still on the wait and watch mode. But the time is never ripe, and many early starters are benefiting from the trends.

Here I will present some of the most optimistic views and facts over the social media in India. It will amaze most because unlike in west, the social media is in different form in India. The research data is from comScore.

Data shows that in December 2008, Orkut had 12,869 unique Visitors from India and Facebook had 4,044 unique visitors. Similarly on the same year, Bharatstudent.com had 3,269 visitors, LinkedIn had 513 visitors and hi5 was in position 4 with 2,012 visitors. But the latest record shows a different trends.

Unique Visitors in July 2010

Total India – Age 15+, Home & Work Locations

You can see that Hi5 is out of the list and new players like Twitter.com has entered into the space. The importance of Facebook has become an undeniable fact in the web space. Moreover the increase in use of LinkedIn shows the popularity of networking between professionals in Online Space. This shows the changing trends in how businesses are communicating with each other.

*Note that these details does not count any mobile devices and cyber cafes.

Here is the detail user base of networking sites in India recorded in 2010.

1. Facebook : 20.87 million
2. Orkut : 19.87 million
3. BharatStudent : 4.32 million
4. Yahoo Pulse : 3.5 million
5. Twitter : 3.34 million
6. LinkedIn : 3.26 million
7. Zedge : 3.2 million
8. Ibibo : 2.96 million
9. Yahoo Buzz : 1.8 million
10. Shtyle : 1.55 million

Beside the networking sites, I believe social media is more than just networking but also a means to gather information. Therefore, more than just networking sites, the social media is also a change in a way consumers are connecting with brands and services online for support and information.

Here is an interesting statistics regarding the Business and Finance sites, and Sports Site.

Top Business/Finance Sites by Unique Visitors

Most Visited Sports Sites by Unique Visitors

These facts and figures show that Indian public is getting increasingly aware of online portals and their benefits. With time as more crowd join the online space, it will provide every reason for businesses to jump onto the social media wagon.

Coming back to my initial point that the structure of a society defines a lot about the market. Hence, it might not be reasonable to expect similar results from social media as from west. Look at mobile phones and the revolution it has  brought to the Indian Business. It has made its own mark on India, irrespective of how it went in other places.

Therefore, on personal note I believe that social media will similarly take its own form in India. With time, the community around the technology is soon going to find its way to leverage social media.

Research Data Credit to comScore.

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