The FINANCIAL — Facebook was revealed to be the most popular social network according to research carried out by career development network MyCareer.ge and The FINANCIAL.
Certain online networks are used by executives, decision-makers, and other high spending segments of society. However despite such popularity and scope, social networks are rarely used by Georgian companies for marketing or PR purposes.
The popularity of social networks among Georgians is quite high. The research showed that most of the people interviewed tend to surf social networking websites every day. 80% of respondents told the FINANCIAL that they visit online networks daily. The other 20% revealed that they log in to such sites only 3 times a week.
The questionnaires were sent to more than 2,200 persons registered on MyCareer.ge. This website assists people in career building and development. The majority of its users are people working in different companies, alumni and students. The aim of The FINANCIAL’s study was to reveal how actively social networks target business audiences.
The rate of internet usage turned out to be high. 35% of interviewees claimed that they use social networking for more than 5 hours every day. 25% use it for only 1 hour. 22% for 4 hours and 18% – 2 hours.
Facebook is more popular among the business network in Georgia than Russian social network Odnoklassniki which follows MySpace in third place.
The popularity of Facebook is due to the services it provides free of charge. Moreover, Facebook offers a number of services such as uploading photos, chat and various games, but more importatnly companies can promote their business for free. Facebook is used less for dating purposes.
The number of odnoklasniki’s users in Georgia has been decreasing sharply since the August War, but is still more popular than facebook if we look at the whole picture. Facebook is ranked among the top 5 websites in Georgia according to Alexa.com. But a study reveals that odnoklasniki is less popular among business audiences.
The rapid growth of facebook users is significant. The majority of questioned people said that the last account they created was Facebook (87%), followed by Myspace (6%), Odnoklassniki (5%), and Twitter (2%).
Though Facebook is a fast growing social network in Georgian cyberspace it is not well adapted to by Georgian businesses. Facebook allows users to create business pages and organize advertising campaigns, targeting customers according to sex, age and other categories, services that odnoklasniki does not provide.
The networking account most often closed by people turned out to be Odnoklassniki (20%), the rest said that they have not cancelled any account recently.
More and more famous Georgians have become involved in facebook. Politicians, ministers, celebrities and representatives of non-governmental organizations are creating pages, inviting friends and fans to join them. But still you can’t find any company ads there, which are often seen on odnoklasniki. Facebook has no its official representative office or marketing department here in Georgia. Facebook is not advertised as broadly as odnoklasniki that already launched Georgian company to sell its online ad space.
Due to the fact that Georgian companies are failing to promote their businesses on Facebook, that is probably the main reason why the research showed that Georgians do not seek out Georgian companies on social networks and discussion groups are quite rare.
The highest percentage of respondents said that they do not look for Georgian companies in social networks. Moreover they said that they don’t even join the discussion groups of companies such as banks, retail outlets and other business organizations.
The research showed that social networks are used more for entertainment by Georgians. The smallest percentage of users said they use social networks for business purposes.
The English language turns out to be the most preferred mean of communication for Georgians surfing social networking sites. 90% of people asked said that they prefer to communicate in English, followed by a smaller percentage of those preferring Georgian and Russian languages.
Most of the respondents say that they do not access social networks through their mobiles. Only 2% of them said that they sometimes access such sites from their mobiles.
One of the main reasons for that is likely that in general people spend so much time sitting at a computer that they don’t need to access any sites from their mobile. Browsing social networks by mobile phone is not comfortable. Thought, odnoklasniki’s users visit mobile website more often than others.
Another reason might be that prices on mobile internet are quite high from GSM operators.
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