In the eighth installment of the “One Size Fits None” blog series, we take a closer look at how social media is being used in Asia and how the social norms of different cultures in the region has led to the development of highly country-specific online communities.

As elsewhere in the world, Asians use social media not only for networking, but also for researching, promoting or criticising brands, companies and celebrities. They also use it to raise awareness of issues, and even for finding a partner to suit both them and their family’s preferences. However, most Asians use social media predominantly as a means of communication with friends and other audiences. Three quarters of 16–25 year-olds in China report using the Internet to make friends (compared to 30 per cent in the U.S.), while 72 per cent express personal opinions or write about themselves online (compared to 56 per cent in the U.S.). 

In China, where much of the population would prefer not to interact in English-language cross-cultural online forums, local alternatives have grown exponentially. These provide alternative social media networks to accompany alternative search engines and other culturally specific tools. For example, social network QQ.com is the second most popular site in China, claiming some 200 million unique visitors; 150 million of them actively contribute by posting blogs, sharing photos and so on. Furthermore, in February of this year, the company’s instant messenger, QQ, reportedly recorded more than 50 million concurrent users. In Japan, one of the region’s most established internet markets,  Mixi is the most popular social network, with over 15 million users. 

The way Asians use these sites also differs from elsewhere in the world. For example, the Japanese culture does not tolerate open interactions with strangers, and almost all social media interaction in Japan is anonymous. People rarely give their first names to those they don’t know well. The Japanese often employ multiple identities when interacting with online social communities, although their close friends usually know their true identity. Anonymous Japanese bulletins are highly popular, with active forums discussing news events minutes after they occur. 

A good example of how understanding local culture can help businesses leverage social media are India’s innovative ‘matchmaking’ sites. Marriage in India is traditionally a union of two families, as much as two individuals. The participation of the parents is of great importance and 95 per cent of all marriages are still arranged by families, based on social and cultural grounds such as shared religion, caste, education and family background. Therefore when matrimonial sites appeared in India a few years ago, young Indians suddenly found themselves empowered. They could now search for someone who satisfied their parents’ expectations, but also matched their own preferences. 

A user of one site, MatrimonialsIndia, says: “My parents contacted Akash’s parents and discussed the alliance. On everybody’s consent, an auspicious date was decided for us to tie the knot. With the help of MatrimonialsIndia and the blessings of our elders today we are a happy couple.” This growing trend has given rise to the term ‘planned marriages’ – effectively arranged marriages with pre-selection using these online matchmaking sites.

Moreover, one multinational site, Matrimonials.com, adapted its services to suit Indian needs. Users can search for a partner by religion (Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Jain or Buddhist), region (Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, Bengali, Guajarati), occupation (doctor, telecoms, admin, corporate) or caste (Ezhava, Khatri, Brahmin, Arora). There are now 100 matrimonial websites operating in India, and nearly 20 million members are registered worldwide on the two leading sites alone.

It is interesting to note that in a region that is refereed to simply as ‘Asia’, the approach to social media can be so different. In Japan people interact online anonymously, yet in India people interact online to find a life partner. These differences need to be understood by companies that wish to engage online audiences. Moreover, companies need to be aware of the increasing activism found in online communities in China, which is the focus of the next blog in our series.

Back in August I wrote about the re-launch of the Wispa Gold chocolate bar and another great online engagement campaign by Cadbury. The re-launch of the Wispa Gold followed the successful re-launch of the basic Wispa bar in August 2007. The original Wispa bar staged a comeback after one of the best online marketing campaigns conducted in the UK, which saw huge fan groups develop on Facebook and Bebo. Cadbury fed this grassroots demand for the old chocolate bar with numerous PR events, such as auctioning the first box off the production line on eBay. The re-launch helped Cadbury boost UK sales by 11 per cent

How did Cadbury follow this successful social media campaign for the re-launch of Wispa Gold? By allowing ‘fans’ to design their own adverts. Now, this sounds like a great idea, and from a customer engagement perspective, it is. But from an advertising point of view it falls pretty flat, which I suppose is no surprise considering all the adverts are created by amateurs.

Take this example, currently up at Old Street Tube station. It’s great that Nancy and Anthony have had a baby boy, but is it going to make me buy a chocolate bar? Not really. Top marks to Cadbury again for being innovative, but when the campaign is assessed I suspect that the results attributable to the adverts will be far outweighed by the social media and traditional PR elements of the campaign.

One company that should take note of this is PepsiCo, which, as Steve ‘RepMan’ Cody highlighted last week, has decided to grant its Mountain Dew advertising budget to an agency selected by consumers. Consumer engagement is a crucial element of today’s B2C campaigns, but engagement shouldn’t mean handing over control. Cadbury seems to have struck the right balance, but Pepsi could well learn they have taken engagement a step too far.

Part 7 of 12

In Europe, the use of social media in business and politics lags far behind that of the U.S. Blog seven of the "One Size Fits None" series examines what companies and politicians are doing and how far they have to go to catch up with their American counterparts. 

Social media is becoming an increasingly important tool for business in Europe. A report from Survey Sampling International (SSI) found that the Spanish are most commonly members of business social networks, with ‘networking’ itself given as the biggest motivator for signing up in Spain (50%), the U.K. (49%) and Italy (42%). Business social networking is becoming an integral part of many Europeans’ lives, with more than 50% of businesspeople logging on to networking sites on a daily basis. 

Meanwhile, the fragmented nature of European social networks is reflected in the business space. Many professionals across Europe are members of LinkedIn. In the Netherlands – a small country that is used to having to do business outside of its borders – 25% of the population are members of LinkedIn; in the U.K., that number is 13%. 

Moreover, the chances are that LinkedIn users are also members of a business social network specific to their country, and in some countries these local sites have a particularly strong presence. In Germany, that is Xing.com; in France, it is Viadeo.com. The language barrier has enabled the likes of Xing and Viadeo to establish themselves, so much so that half a million Xing users pay a monthly subscription of €6. 

Despite the growth of business social networks in Europe, few business-to-business users have incorporated the new technology into marketing and brand-awareness plans, according to the SSI survey. Even in Spain and Germany - the leaders in the use of social networks for business - only 25% of people said Web 2.0 is part of their marketing strategy. Figures from other countries are even lower: Italy 20%, France 19%, the UK 11% and the Netherlands 8%. 

European businesses certainly lag behind their American counterparts in the use of social media. An example of this is the difference in how companies are using sites like Twitter. A BusinessWeek article examined the Twitter habits of CEOs from 16 American companies, including IT systems and network provider Sun Microsystems, Zappos and Technorati, an indexing and search engine for blogs. No such article could be written about European CEOs at this point because, in Europe, the rate of incorporating this technology into corporate communication has been slower. 

According to Twitter’s search tool, Twitter Scan, there is a corporate account for Tesco and for J Sainsbury, two rival U.K. supermarket chains, but neither have been updated more than a handful of times. Other divisions of Tesco’s have dipped their toes into the Twittersphere, most notably TescoEntertain, (twitter.com/TescoEntertain) Tesco’s Book, DVD, CD and Games outlet, which has almost 400 followers and 250 updates. But it is the U.S. division of Tesco that is showing its British parent how to do it; the West Coast Fresh and Easy chain has more than 5,000 followers. As Tesco faces regular accusations in the UK of monopolistic behaviour, it would perhaps benefit more than most from engaging with consumers on a one-to-one level through Twitter. 

The low take-up of Twitter is not confined to UK retailers: a Forbes article in January quoted a spokesperson for the Swiss food group Nestlé as saying, "Twitter just never came up within the group strategy.” At Total, the French oil and gas corporation, a spokesperson said the Chief Executive had no idea what Twitter was. But despite the relative lack of brand engagement, there are some notable European examples of using social media as a marketing channel, such as the Cadbury campaign to bring back the Wispa chocolate. 

Another implication of social media on business is the time spent by employees logging on to social media sites at work. According to a recent survey by TNS, the use of social networking Web sites like Twitter and Facebook was costing British businesses £1.4 billion ($2.3 billion) a year. While there is undoubtedly work time wasted on the personal use of social media sites, the figure of 1.4 billion pounds was widely derided, with the positives of social media use at work being highlighted. The editor of Management Today even went so far as to suggest that the personal use of social media at work could help resolve the problem of more than half of small businesses in the UK not having a Website.

In the world of politics, no European politician has used social media with the same success as President Barack Obama. But the growing importance of social media as a way to reach people is illustrated by the increasing number of European leaders with an active presence online; in part to communicate directly with the electorate, but also to demonstrate their ‘cool’ credentials. 

One of the forerunners of this trend was the leader of the U.K.’s Conservative opposition party, David Cameron, who launched WebCameron in 2006, a regular blog and videocast featuring his take on current issues. Meanwhile, Hyves, a Dutch social networking site, boasts its most popular user as none other than the country’s Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende. He has some 150,000 online friends and sometimes invites people he meets on the site for a visit to his office.

Social media will become an increasingly important part of the political landscape, not least in the UK with imminent general election. The recent #welovetheNHS campaign on Twitter, to protest against American attacks on the British healthcare system, demonstrated the power social media outlets have to galvanise a community and propel it to the top of the news agenda. The success of the Obama 2008 campaign has been dissected by political strategists in Europe. The question remains, however, whether the success can be repeated.