Analytics of Russian giants: VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. Infographics

If you want to successfully promote products and services on social networks, then first of all you need to get to know the visitors of the platform you are interested in. In this article we will find out who the target audience of Odnoklassniki is, which has been among the top 10 most popular sites in Russia for several years and hardly needs any introduction.

"Age" social network - myth or reality?

The stereotype about the “age” of “Odnoklassniki” can be compared to an annoying song that is attached against one’s desire. As a result, even people far from social networks believe that the audience of the Odnoklassniki website is “older” users. The vagueness of the wording “older” gives free rein to interpretations: “middle-aged people”, “those over 40” and even “retired people”. Let's try to understand the true state of affairs.

Probably, any stereotype has some truth behind it. This is also true for OK.ru. If you think about it, some information is already contained in the title itself: find those with whom you once went to school (it is assumed that you graduated from school a long time ago, and connections from that time are not maintained). At the dawn of Odnoklassniki’s existence, their “age” status was not a myth, but a reality, but this was fully consistent with the original concept of the site. According to data for 2008, the majority of OK users at that time were people aged 25 to 34 years.

But we must not lose sight of the volatility that is inherent to the entire Internet and, in particular, social networks. “Odnoklassniki” is not a static and fossilized formation; they do not stand still, they transform, they evolve. Almost a decade has passed since their launch, and the 2008 statistics today seem, to put it mildly, irrelevant. Experts note that modern Odnoklassniki seeks to expand its audience to young people, without losing the proven “mature” segment.

This idea has every chance of being successfully implemented, because OK.ru is an entertainment platform where everyone will find interesting content, as well as games, films or music to suit their taste. But only time will tell whether these efforts will lead to the desired result, but for now the Odnoklassniki audience is distributed as follows: the majority of users (35%) are people 25–35 years old, with women and men equally divided in this category. But in other age groups the ratio of women to men fluctuates:

According to other data, Odnoklassniki is a distinctly “female” site (almost 70% women versus 30% men). In this regard, “female” and “family” content is constantly popular here.

It is important to take into account not only the gender and age characteristics of users, but also their geographical distribution, interests and much, much more. For example, the audience of the Odnoklassniki website is more “regional” compared to the metropolitan audience of Facebook or VKontakte.

A typical Odnoklassniki user - what is his character like?

Despite the many variables, it is quite possible to draw some kind of average “portrait” of a visitor to Odnoklassniki.

The Odnoklassniki audience is concentrated primarily on internal communication, that is, viewing profiles and exchanging messages. People are much less interested in the news feed. Users are not very picky about the quality of photo content and illustrations, but at the same time they love graphics and videos more than texts. This distinctive feature of perception is quite easy to take into account when adapting content to the platform, so ignoring it would be a serious mistake.

From a marketing point of view, the audience of the Odnoklassniki website is ideal for promoting the mass segment. Here are a few characteristic features: high purchasing and user activity, low average bill, active user participation in competitions and a large number of likes to publications.

However, analysts do not advise marketers to “fly around the top” and be content with the average user image. There are a limitless number of nuances here, so clumsy methods of work are unlikely to be effective.

Brand Analytics presented data from a regular study of the active audience of social networks in Russia, winter 2015-2016.

The study provides data on the audience, age, gender and regional distribution of authors of social networks in Russia and includes data on the most popular authors and groups for each social network.

The main focus of the study is on the active (writing) audience, since Brand Analytics studies social networks as a means of public communication and their influence on the formation of public opinion.

Social media activity

One of the key indicators of the “vital activity” of a social network is the number of “speaking” users who openly express their position through public messages on social media. There were about 37 million such active authors in Russia in December 2015; they generated 588 million messages per month. Active authors creating public content make social networks a relevant indicator of public sentiment, allowing one to catch “living” social problems at the very beginning of the formation of significant trends.

In terms of the number of Russian authors writing, VKontakte is in the lead - 18.8 million unique authors. Instagram, which is next in second place, has incredible growth rates; in December, 10.6 million authors were recorded on this network, almost 5 times more than in the spring of 2015. Third place is Twitter - the number of active authors here continues to decline; just over 1 million people.

When it comes to the number of messages posted on social media every day, there is no such drastic change. In first place, as before, is Vkontakte, second is Twitter, then Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter traditionally leads in terms of engagement, although the average number of messages became slightly lower in the winter - per active author on this network there are an average of 90 messages per month. Second place - LiveJournal - on average, 49 messages per author, third - Facebook - 39 messages per author. VKontakte and Odnoklassniki are very close in this indicator - 15 and 14 messages per author, respectively.

Social media audience

According to TNS, the monthly audience of most social networks has decreased slightly, but there are also sources that have shown growth. Thus, the VKontakte audience stood at 46.6 million people, second place went to Odnoklassniki (31.5 million people). The Facebook audience in December 2015 amounted to 21.7 million people, closely followed by “My World” - 16.6 million people and “Live Journal”, with an audience of 15.2 million people. By December 2015, the Instagram audience increased by 2 million people. and amounted to 12.3 million people. The Twitter audience remained virtually unchanged and equaled 7.7 million people.

Statistics for Russia for each social network

The monthly audience is 46.6 million people, 40% of whom (18.8 million) are publicly active.

As for the age structure of VKontakte authors, one can note an increase in the number of authors 25-34 years old, their share was 32.1%, a slightly higher share of authors aged 18-24 years old - 32.3%, authors under 18 years old - 24%, Only 11.6% of active authors are over 35 years old.

The geographic distribution of VKontakte authors is smoothly redistributed towards more uniform regional penetration - in first place is St. Petersburg with a network penetration level of 31.7%, in second place is Moscow with 23% of the registered population, then the Murmansk and Kaliningrad regions and Sevastopol - 19 .4%, 19.3% and 18.8% of population activity, respectively.

The monthly Instagram audience in November 2015 was 12.3 million people, and the number of active authors was 10.7 million people.

Instagram remains the most feminine of all social networks in Russia; in the winter of 2015-16, 77.1% of active authors were representatives of the fair sex.

The level of penetration on Instagram has remained virtually unchanged - the Leningrad region is still in the lead - 38% of the population, Moscow - 22.3% of the population and the Sakhalin region - 17.2%.

In the age structure of Facebook, the categories from 25 to 34 years old and 35-44 years old are still leading - their share was 35.3% and 32.6%, respectively. 6.1% of authors are under 24 years of age, and a total of 26.1% of authors are over 44.

It is worth noting that Facebook remains a unique social network in the Russian Federation both in terms of the age structure of its authors - more than 65% of whom are aged 25-44 years, and in terms of public content - it is a network focused primarily on business contacts and businesses.

The gender distribution of the Russian-speaking part of Facebook continues to shift towards the weaker sex (58% of authors).

The geographical cross-section demonstrates stability - most regions retained their positions: Moscow - 6.4% of the population, Altai - 3.75%, Yaroslavl region - 3.2%.

Odnoklassniki, as before, remains primarily a platform for interpersonal communication. The network's monthly audience is 31.5 million people, while only 1.1 million authors are publicly active in groups.

In Odnoklassniki, as before, the bulk of active authors are in the age group of 24-34 years old - 26.6%. Almost equal shares fall on the groups 35-44 and 55 and older - 20.7% and 20.9%, respectively. There are only 15.8% of active authors under 24 years of age.

In November 2015, the Twitter audience was 7.7 million people, and the number of active authors was 1 million people.

On Twitter, the share of men among authors continues to grow; in December 2015, the share was already 51.6%. A year ago, in December 2014, men on Twitter were 45.6%, and in the spring of 2015 - already 50.6%.

In terms of Twitter penetration, the leadership remained with St. Petersburg - 2.1%. Almost the same penetration was recorded in Moscow - 2% of the population. The third place was taken by the Novosibirsk region, penetration there was 1%.

The network's monthly audience decreased by 10 million people and amounted to 16.6 million, and the number of active authors was 830 thousand people.

The gender structure of My World has remained virtually unchanged, 41.8% men and 58.2% women.

LiveJournal remains a platform for those who like to “read, not talk”: out of a monthly audience of 15 million, only 111 thousand authors are active.

The age structure of LJ is stable, the largest share of authors falls in the groups of 18-24 years old - 37.2% and 25-34 years old - 35.8%.

Comparison of socio-demographic characteristics of authors

Over the past six months, social media has managed to mature, the proportion of authors under 18 years of age has decreased, authors aged 18-24 and 25-24 years predominate in LiveJournal and VKontakte, in other networks - authors aged 25-34 and 35-44 years old.

For Twitter and Instagram, there is no data on the age of active authors.

Trends and Forecasts

There is a significant increase in the activity of the Russian segment of Instagram. Moreover, most of the authors of this social network are active users of other social media - the share of cross-posting from Instagram to other social networks exceeds 50% of messages.

The Russian part of Facebook continues to grow. Moreover, this growth is observed primarily in the field of business contacts and business. Facebook's share in analyzing business topics often accounts for more than 30% of the total volume of social media data on the topic.

The active growth of sites with reviews continues - both in the number of new reviews and in traffic.

The Russian part of Twitter is slowly losing activity. At the same time, the activity of spam bots on Twitter is also decreasing, but nevertheless it still accounts for more than 30% of the flow.

Basic research terms:

Message - any open (public) post - in status, on the wall, in groups, comments, etc. Messages in personal correspondence or in the “friends only” mode are not taken into account.

Audience - the number of people who visited the site at least once a month.

Odnoklassniki project's response to Brand Analytics research

Last week, Brand Analytics released a study on the audience of social networks in Russia. Unfortunately, this is not the first study that has been published on behalf of the agency. According to our observations, report data is often used by brand managers and SMM specialists for work and strategic planning. We not only disagree with the results of the study, but we are also forced to report that the numbers and data collection methods are incorrect. We would not like our partners and colleagues to be misled by false information. We took the amazing BA methodology as a basis and calculated real data. We share them with you.

In December 2015, in Russia, Odnoklassniki registered 24 million “authors” according to Brand Analytics terminology, compared to the 1 million they mention in their study. The Jewish Autonomous Region, which is in first place on BA's list, is actually in 7th place from the bottom.

Krasnodar region

Samara Region

Khabarovsk region

Moscow (as a city)

Sverdlovsk region

St. Petersburg (as a city)

Primorsky Krai

Voronezh region

Saratov region

Irkutsk region.

And here is the top region by absolute number of authors, in which Moscow is expected to be in first place:

Moscow

Krasnodar region

Sverdlovsk region

Saint Petersburg

Samara Region

Rostov region

Stavropol region

Novosibirsk region

Saratov region

Irkutsk region.

Last year, based on the results of a similar Brand Analytics study, we decided to open the data and provided expanded access to the API for more correct data processing. Unfortunately, this did not affect the relevance of the study.

Starting today, we are officially closing Brand Analytics’ access to our API and prohibiting the use of grabbers.

If your company is engaged in data analysis and processing, you can get advanced access to the API by writing a request to [email protected] with the theme "Analytics".

Comment Brand Analytics

Brand Analytics is in dialogue with representatives of all major social networks, seeing its mission in the further development of measurements of the social media market, in the development of technological cooperation to solve the stated problem. The level of discussion of recent data once again proves that we are only at the beginning of this path. We appeal to all market participants with an open proposal to discuss mutual steps in this direction and will continue to invest our own resources in the development of research.

A little more about the figures for Odnoklassniki (OK). The study is based solely on data from 100 thousand OK groups. An explanation about the use of data only by groups is given in all relevant places in the presentation - next to the tables and diagrams. This decision is due to the fact that, unlike the APIs of other social networks Mail.ru Group that we use, the Odnoklassniki API provides data only for groups and does not provide data outside of groups.

Despite the insufficient completeness of the data, even such figures, assessment of the social demographic, activity and geography of OK authors in a situation of lack of information on this social network are important for the market - the target audience of many brands is concentrated in Odnoklassniki.

Incorrect interpretation of the presented data on geography by the OK authors in a number of discussions of the research results also requires comment. The figures for the number of authors in groups and penetration in regions are sorted precisely by the second metric - by the penetration of authors in the region, normalized to the number of population of the region. Correct reading of the presented data eliminates questions about the activity of OK users in the regions.

In conclusion, we once again note the usefulness and importance of the current discussion for the further development of measurements of the social media segment. We are confident that our partners from OK will be able to find the right organizational and technical solution to expand the availability of data on one of the main Russian social networks in the near future.

Ever wondered how much bigger Facebook is than VKontakte? Or what do the Chinese do without Twitter?

And we thought.

Practically every an Internet user is registered in one or another social network. Today these are not just communication tools, but entire media platforms owned by world-famous IT giants. Here are some of them.

Facebook

from left to right: Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes

The most popular social network in the world needs no introduction. It was created by Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. On February 4, 2004, a social network called Thefacebook was opened to Harvard students. The worldwide launch took place on September 26, 2006.

Geography of distribution

according to Bitly Science Team

Today's Facebook received ubiquitous spreading. Of course, the popularity of the network differs in different countries. For example, in China it is banned, in North Korea things are no better, and in Russia VKontakte and Odnoklassniki have pulled the blanket. Nevertheless, about 25,000,000 users use Facebook in our country.

Audience

in Russia, based on Brand Analytics materials

QZone is the most popular social network. China network.

Its audience numbers 755,000,000 users, which is second indicator among all the social networks in the world.

The Qzone members are predominantly men (57% versus 43% women) aged 26 to 30 years. For some reason, there is no data on those who are under nineteen, either these are the peculiarities of the legislation, or they hide their age. :)

Owners

from left to right: Founder Ma Huaten, Executive Vice President Seng Yee Lau

The network is owned by the telecommunications giant Tencent (messengers QQ and WeChat are also their work). By the way, the CEO of the company, founder Ma Huateng acquired 10.26% of the shares the familiar DST fund, and this is the part of Mail.ru that is responsible for foreign investment.

Comparison

For more and visibility, we have summarized the above indicators into charts. Everyone loves diagrams? To estimate the real audience, we usually take the number of active users per month or per day.

number of social network users who have been active over the past month

The fact that Facebook is the most popular in the world did not raise any questions. This preponderance is amazing; the number of active Facebook users is almost equal to the audience everyone else mentioned social networks in total.

capitalization of companies owning social networks

The Chinese telecommunications giant is not far behind the undisputed leader. Not surprisingly, in addition to QZone, Tencent owns other social networks, several instant messengers and free-to-play games. Reminds me of Russian Mail.ru, increased several times. By the way, despite its modest capitalization compared to others, the Russian company pursues a bold investment policy and diversifies its assets. Of the six social networks reviewed. networks, Mail.ru capital is represented in four directly, and in one indirectly.

(5.00 out of 5, rated: 3 )

website Ever wondered how much bigger Facebook is than VKontakte? Or what do the Chinese do without Twitter? And we thought. Almost every Internet user is registered in one or another social network. Today these are not just communication tools, but entire media platforms owned by world-famous IT giants. Here are some of them. Facebook from left to right: Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz...

Today about Instagram Perhaps only infants and some tribes of Amazon Indians do not know. Of course, this application for quickly editing and posting photos has made a truly dizzying career. The application, most of which was created literally “on the knee” and in just a week, was purchased by Facebook for $1 billion less than two years later.

Agree, good motivation for those who are still looking for their path in the IT field. However, let's talk about everything in order.