Social Media Growth
Growth in consumer use of social media is changing the media landscape across the world. Social media usage has seen an unprecedented growth in all regions in the world and the Asia Pacific is not far behind.Asia Pacific is a diverse region with different cultures, languages and levels of economic development. Access to the internet is also different – in South Korea and China, broadband connections are available virtually everywhere, while Japan’s internet population is heavily reliant on mobile. The way people access the internet and these networks might be different but the adoption rates are high across the region.The report from Nielsen shows how social media usage dominates internet usage in the Asia Pacific. It is having an increased impact on consumers’ purchasing decisions and spending patterns.The Asia pacific region Facebook’s fastest growing region and accounts for a large percentage of Facebook’s 500 million user base. For example, half of all internet users reported using Facebook as their primary social network.Twitter also has been strong in the Indian market, with more than nearly 6 of 10 users having signed up in the past year. This is also the case in the rest of the Asia Pacific region, Japan’s twitter population has exploded from 200,000 to 10 million in the past year. Asians are the most prolific users of Twitter and they now account for up to 37% of all tweets sent according to this analysis by Semiocast
Source: Semiocast
Australia leads the world in social media engagement, with the highest global average for time spent per month engaging with social media while Japanese internet users are the most avid bloggers in the world, posting over one million blogs per month. Bulletin board systems are the most popular platform in China with over 80% of social content being posted there.These statistics show that social media technologies have entered the mainstream and have a real impact on the lives of people in this part of the world. In a region as large and diverse as the Asia Pacific, each country has its own way of using the same technologies.One point that caught my attention is how even though users are adopting global networks – local realities trumps global trends as this summary shows:
There is so much innovation happening in these regions yet we rarely hear about it in the mainstream media. Most technology blogs and news sites are also pre-dominantly US focussed with Asia being just a footnote.There are billions of conversations that are taking place right now, some of which might be relevant to us here in New Zealand – considering we are located in this part of the world.How are social media technologies forming and being shaped by the users in Asia? How can we be a part of this conversation? What can we learn from some of the innovators and thought leaders in this region and what can we teach them? Are there opportunities for collaboration that we are missing out on?I would like to explore more of this in the following weeks in a series of posts where we will discuss social media usage, innovation and adoption in the Asia Pacific region.I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue. How are you keeping a track of innovation in this part of the world? What resources do you use?What issues/areas would you like me to explore?