Russia shows social networking strength

02 July 2009

Russia has the world’s most engaged social networking audience, according to the latest research from comScore. 

Visitors in the market spend 6.6 hours on social networks, viewing over 1,300 pages each a month. Russia’s leading social networking site is Vkontakte.ru, which has 59% reach among the total online market, followed by Odnoklassniki.ru (7.8 million visitors), Mail.ru – My World (6.3 million) and Fotostrana.ru (1.6 million). Facebook.com attracted 616,000 Russian visitors, up 277% year on year.

In terms of engagement, Brazil came a close second (6.3 hours), followed by Canada (5.6 hours), Puerto Rico and Spain (both 5.3 hours).

The UK came in seventh, Germany eighth and US ninth. France lagged a little in 16th and Italy ranked 20th.

Two-thirds of global internet users, more than 734 million people, now access social networking sites on a monthly basis.

Mike Read, senior vice-president & managing director, comScore Europe said: “In a country as geographically large as Russia, social networking represents a way of connecting people from one corner of the country to the other. The highly engaged behaviour of social networkers in Russia offers significant opportunity for marketers and advertisers seeking to reach these audiences.”
 

Pip Brooking, London