The document summarizes the results of a study on social media usage in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Some key findings include: - Social media engagement is high, with 67.2% of internet users utilizing social media daily. Facebook and LinkedIn are the most popular. - Users follow an average of 5 brands and do so primarily to get information. Services and travel are most followed categories. - Social media provides opportunities for lesser known brands seeking exposure in BRIC markets. Users are open to discovering new brands. - Interaction and word-of-mouth influence brand discovery and following decisions for BRIC social media users.

1. Study conducted by Challenges and Benefits
Habib MBACKE
As part of the
International Management Master
From IAE Grenoble

2. Social Networks in the BRIC
Social media has become an important part of our daily lives, both in
professional and personal contexts. Indeed with 1.2 billion users
worldwide representing 82% of the online population, it is more
popular than internet activities such as email and online shopping1.
Created to communicate, share and connect with people from our
past, close relations or even strangers, company most often than not
should seriously take into consideration this tool if they wish to remain
relevant in this fast and ever changing technology oriented world we
increasingly live in now.
Social media and particularly social networks are tools that integrate
themselves perfectly in a world that has become more and more
international. It has the potential to be a useful medium when it comes
to companies wishing to implement strategies to reach clients or to
increase the visibility of their brands, all of this often at a lesser cost
compared to more traditional approaches.
BRIC countries in particular with their strong economic growth and
future prospective represent as of today a unique and unavoidable
opportunity for any organization wishing to expend at an international
level. Social media can possibly assist in penetrating those markets
while taking into consideration that by its very nature it is a medium
that requires a particular social and human approach.
The study was axed around three important marketing elements for
any successful social media campaign:
 Social media, brands and following
 Brand and notoriety
 Social media, brands and interactivity
Through a questionnaire, questions related to those elements were
asked to a certain number of consumers from those countries. Let us
have a look at the results.
1
http://www.webpronews.com/social-networks-reach-1-2-billion-users-worldwide-2012-01
Comscore white paper:
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/it_is_a_social_world_top_10_need-
to-knows_about_social_networking
1

3. Introduction ………………………………………………………1
Brazil and Internet……………………………………………..2
Russia and internet…………………………………………….3
India and internet……………………………………………….4
China and internet………………………………………………5
General use of social media…………………………………6
Brand and notoriety…………………………………………….9
Respondent profile………………………………………………12
Conclusion…………………………………………………………..17

4. Key Figures in Brazil
79 246 740 internet users
39% of the population uses internet - Expected to-
reach more than 86 million in 2012
63,9 millions social networks users
Representing 74% of the online population and 31% of the total population -
Expected to reach 79.3 million users in 2014
Most popular social network in Brazil
34,5 millions users
12,5 millions users
41,5 millions users

5. Key figures in Russia
67 982 547 internet users in Russia
Representing an internet pe-
netration of 49%
Russia has the most important internet population in Europe in front of Ger-
many and the UK
Social Network Users: 51.8 Millions users
Expected to reach 62,2 Million users in 2014
Most popular social networks in Russia includes
40 million users / 31.5 million users / 11.9 million user

6. Key figures in India
121 000 000 Indian citizens use internet
Almost as many as the poplution of Russia with 143 000 000
Representing a little more than a 10% internet penetration
The number of internet users in India is expected to increase to 221.6 million in 2015
76 100 000 use social networks users
Representing 71% of Indian internet users
The number of social network users is expected to reach 129.3 million users in 2014
Most popular social network
An estimated 45 millions Indian citizens use Facebook

7. Key Figures in China
More than
530,000,000
Chinese citizens Expected to reach
are oonline 711,6 Millions in 2016
There is almost as much chinese citizen online as
the entire population of europe with more than
730 000 000 inhabitnats
Europe
55% of internet users have initiated or participated
in an online conversation about brands
Most popular social media
300 147 536 130
Million users Million users Million users Million users

8. Social Networks in the BRIC
General use of social media
67.2% of internet users from the BRIC countries utilize social media
several times a day
Internet user from the BRIC countries tend to engage more with social
media than in other countries
Even though the BRIC have a relatively low level of penetration compared to other countries,
the people that do use social media tend to really engage with it due to political, social reasons
or simply because it has become engrained in their way of living especially considering that
they tend to also be consumed through mobile technology such as smartphones and tablet
LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social
networks
The most used social networks are the global ones
Concerning the most used social media, the two most popular are Linkedin and Facebook at
more than 88% and 80% respectively with Youtube and Twitter being in third and fourth
6

9. Social Networks in the BRIC
places. This result can be explained by the fact that a majority of respondents were selected
through LinkedIn explaining its edge in this study.
Facebook is the preferred social networks for following brands
in the BRIC countries
LinkedIn, Twitter and Youtube are distant second, third and fourth
Facebook took the lead position at a strong 73.9% with Linkedin and Twitter in second and
third position respectively.
Facebook as become and continue to be an inevitable network in most countries let alone the
BRIC with the notable exception of China where Sina Weibo is gaining grounds.
Users from the BRIC countries engage with more than four
brands on average on social media networks
7

10. Social Networks in the BRIC
In this graph we asked respondents how many brands they follow on social media with the
majority answering five or more at more than 52% and a vast majority of respondents
generally following more than one.
Users mostly follow brands related to services
Travelling is a strong runner up
Services are brands that are mostly followed by the surveyed at more than 60% followed
closely by travelling at 59%. A certain number of other options were left in the “other”
section of this question and will be presented in the annexes.
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11. Social Networks in the BRIC
Getting information is the principal reason internet users from
the BRIC countries follows brands on social media networks
Other reasons commonly offered as to why one follows brands on social
media are distant runner ups
Asked why they follow their favorite brands on social media, a large percentage (65.22%)
answered that they do so in order to get information. At a distant second, 10.7% of the people
surveyed answered that they do so in order to get exclusive reduction and rebates and to
experience interactivity with brands.
Brand and notoriety
Social media represent an opportunity for lesser known companies in
the BRIC countries
Social media users from the BRIC are open to unknown brands but tend to
rely on buzz (friends, followers…) to discover new ones
In this series of question we can see that a slight majority of respondents disagree with the
statement do you only follow well-known brands on social media whereas they at more than
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12. Social Networks in the BRIC
33% and 41%, surveyed people agree with the statement “the popularity of social media
influenced whether or not I follow it” and “I am influenced by my contacts”.
The notions of closeness, trust and buzz are all important element in the
social media network experience for BRIC users
The notion of trust on social media networks is more mixed for our
respondents
All respondents agreed with the statements provided in this series of question. Indeed they
were 53.7% agreeing with statement ‘generally speaking I feel closer to brands I follow on
social media. 42.8% responded positively to the statement “I trust more information shared by
brands on social media with a strong part at 36.36% choosing the neutral choice. A strong
64.6% answered positively to the statement word of mouth is a way for me to discover new
brands and finally more than 60% and 58% responded respectively to the following
statements “I have discovered brands that I did not know previously thanks to social media”
and “I have followed a brand I did not know thanks to social media”.
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13. Social Networks in the BRIC
Interaction is likely to influence social media users in the BRIC countries
Commenting is not the preferred form of interaction with brands for
social media users in the BRIC
Once again a majority of respondents agreed with the different statements provided. 43%
agreed with the statement “I am satisfied with the level of interaction afforded by brands on
social networks. Almost 60% agreed that negative comments could possibly change their
mind about a brand with few a little more than 10% disagreeing with this particular statement.
The last statement was least conclusive with a little more than 44% declaring that they
comment on social media networks.
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14. Social Networks in the BRIC
44.7% of respondents declared commenting on brands to share their
experiences
A strong 31.7% declared to never comment on brands
Asked why they comment on social media, respondents indicated that they do so in order to
share their experience. 31.7% of people surveyed answered that they never comment and
13.5% do so in order to help other customers.
Respondent profile
A majority of respondents are within the 26 – 34 years old age bracket with 35 – 44
representing the second largest age group in this survey with a majority of male, 66.3%,
answered the survey.
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15. Social Networks in the BRIC
A large number of respondents have reached a post graduate level of education at 66%.
Conclusions
When it comes to what social media to use we have two situations in the BRIC countries.
Brazil and India are countries that don’t possess significant local social networks. This is an
advantage for companies wishing to develop their strategy there as they would deal with
wildly popular social networks at an international level with which they are more than likely
already familiar. The only drawback here could be language. Interaction with possible
customers in most cases would be more accessible and generally more successful if carried
out in the local language. Whereas English is a fairly popular language in India, meaning that
campaigns could possibly be carried out in this language or at the very least a combination
with Hindi, the most widespread of the spoken language in this country and English, it is also
a country where there are several other official languages more or less popular depending on
the region.
Brazil doesn’t have the same connection to the English language but possesses the advantage
of having a single widespread official language, Portuguese.
The situation for the remaining countries is different especially for China. In Russia both local
social network, namely VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, and international ones such as
Facebook and Twitter are popular giving perhaps in this particular country more popular
platforms to implement a strategy when compared to other BRIC.
China is of course the country which would demand much more attention as it is the only one
where local social networks are more popular than international ones. This means that a
company wishing to implement a strategy there must do so by taking into account not only the
language but also the peculiarities of those platforms, such as the fact that they appear to offer
more advanced technological features to their users or again that the demographic of the
various social media appears to be split by numerous variables.
The Chinese language can represent an advantage due to the fact that more can be said with
less meaning that tools such as Sina Weibo can actually be more effective in carrying out a
message than its international counterpart Twitter for example. However this study gives us a
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16. Social Networks in the BRIC
more nuanced view on this. The questionnaire revealed that even though local social networks
are more popular than international ones, those are still utilized by Chinese social networks
user perhaps due to a general defiance towards government controlled and approved social
media networks, Chinese user reach out of their way to bypass restrictions imposed on
Facebook and Twitter for the most part. In the context of this study, it is clear than local social
media should be prioritize as part of a campaign, international ones could also be possibly
integrated as well even if it would be at a much lesser scale in this country.
An interesting fact about China is the prominence of Sina Weibo. Concurrent RenRen and
Kaixin001 were popular but since the emergence of Sina Weiba, both of them have fallen by
the wayside so to speak. The questionnaire also reflected this trend. Moreso Sina Weibo
seems to be a particularly interesting social network in the sense that it combines features
from traditional platforms such as those of its closer aforementioned competitors but is also a
miccroblog amongst other rich features thus presenting more varied and generally more
innovative opportunities for brand strategy as illustrated by the enthusiastic comments this
particular social media networks generated during the survey.
Controversial and polarizing opinion on social media networks can have
a negative impact on brands.
This hypothesis has been validated in this study. When conducting a social media strategy
through social networks it is therefore essential to mitigate the consequences a flow of
negative comments can generate. A company must not try to enforce policies that will for
example disturb the free flowing nature of a brand community present on social media
networks but must on the contrary address criticism head on and provide solutions and
support in a timely and reactive way showing by the same occasion that they listen to their
clients and are able to provide help if a problem should arise.
Social media users in BRIC countries are likely to engage deeply with a
brand online.
This represents an important opportunity for companies wishing to expand their brands in the
BRIC as social media users from those countries are proven to not only engage but are also
more likely to trust more and feel closer to a brand present on social media.
In practice this means that a successful marketing plan carried out in those countries have a
real chance to succeed in increasing a brand visibility and number of potential followers. Of
course this must be done respecting what the users want. Through this questionnaire we have
seen that the surveyed are mostly looking forward to get information about a brand before all
other reasons such a getting rebates and so on. A brand community should therefore be
heavily axed around this element which has been shown to increase the level of trust and
closeness one feel for a brand.
Social media users in BRIC countries feel close and trust brands online.
One of the most interesting data found here concerns the results taken by countries
individually where China appears to have the highest level of trust amongst the four countries
and Brazil presenting the lowest. This means that Chinese social networks in particular
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17. Social Networks in the BRIC
represent a real opportunity for brands wishing to implement their strategy even more so than
traditional mediums. This is particularly interesting as certain studies suggest that a company
ignoring social networks in this country could potentially be missing on certain demographics
altogether highlighting how vital it is to integrate this medium in this country.
The concepts of notoriety and popularity of a brand is essential in the
social media world.
The questionnaire highlighted the fact that the popularity and notoriety of a brand is not so
important for our surveyed. This represents an opportunity for brands that are starting out as
this means that social media networks users are open to discover new brands through this
medium.
Social media can be used as a way to federate followers through word of
mouth.
In BRIC countries, social media is also used as a way for people to exchange their thoughts
and experiences with people that are more or not at all close to them. Through this study we
have seen that users are really open to the concept of word of mouth related to the concept of
buzz marketing in this platform. It also shows that users are open to follow brands that have
been recommended by a contact.
In most social networks, brands update are shown through the user main page meaning that
users will be casually exposed to them whenever they visit their personal page, what this
means for companies wishing to implement such strategy is that there is also there a real
opportunity to expose brands casually to followers quite regularly as we have seen that users
from BRIC countries tend to really engage with their social networks visiting them several
times a day.
However we have seen that they also tend to follow 5 brands or more. While this is a sign that
following brands is a sizeable part of the user’s experience of social media, following multiple
brands can also lessen the impact of brands amongst the sea of information that is generated
through frequent updates. This is an element that has to be taken into consideration especially
when choosing the most appropriate social media to use such as microblogging sites such as
QQ and twitter or more general ones such as Odnoklassniki and Facebook.
Interaction is important for social media users.
Interaction for users, which is the basis of social media networks, is unsurprisingly important for users.
The study revealed than a majority of users are satisfied with the present situation when it comes to the
level of interaction afforded by brands even though a few comments were made in the questionnaire
asking for more by a few surveyed. Commenting also appear to be a sizeable part of the social network
experience which is an element that has to be taken into consideration when it comes to the impact of
negativity previously discussed.
In practice, the situation of social media use in the BRIC countries is divided in two situations:
The countries that have their own popular social media such as China and Russia
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18. Social Networks in the BRIC
- The countries who almost exclusively use international social media like India
and Brazil
The first case is more complicated for companies wishing to implement a strategy based around
popular social networks VKontakte and Sina Weibo, the two main social networks used in Russia and
China respectively. Whereas popular networks such as Facebook and Twitter are widely known for all
they can offer in a marketing strategy, aiming at implementing a strategy using those two probably
would be more problematic as both the language and the way they function has to be seriously taken
into consideration. This is even more true for China with Sina Weibo which appears to offer exclusive
features as said previously. This would require an extra investment in order to really grasp the
peculiarities of social media use in those two countries by hiring a third party such as an expert for
example.
The cultural element also has to be taken seriously into consideration. One of the most surprising
element found during this research is the fact that Chinese users are likely to post comments on a
brand moreso than Brazilians users for example whereas basing a judgment on initial on general
stereotypes could suggest otherwise. Social media is of grander importance in China because it
represents a way to bridge some of the communication gap that exist in this country thus explaining
why Chinese users are not particularly shy in expressing themselves when it comes to brand in this
particular media.
The second case is easier for most companies as both Indian and Brazilians users prefer well known
and international social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. In practice this means that they
would require less specific investments for any managers that knows how to utilize as a marketing
tool however just like China and Russia any social media campaigns launched through social media
has to take into consideration cultural peculiarities that can represent a challenge and are detailed in
the questionnaire answers.
To conclude, social media definitely represent an opportunity for companies wishing to implement a
strategy in those countries however it is important to note that we are dealing here with countries
that are still developing meaning that a large part of the population apart from China don’t have
access to internet for example thus a social media strategy wouldn’t necessarily reach a maximum of
customers even though the number of social media users is still relatively high and thus non
negligible. Consequently at the moment a social media strategy should be more of a complement to
other strategies based around traditional media for example. In the long term it will be interesting to
keep an eye on how social media will evolve in the BRIC countries as more efforts are put in place to
facilitate access and use of internet for their population.
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19. The questionnaire was primarily distributed
through social media networks LinkedIn, Facebook
and Twitter. Previous students from IAE Grenoble
University also took part in the study.
A total of 412 people answered to the question-
naire with 339 completing it (including those that
were filtered) and 229 exploitable answers. India
and Brazil represented 27.4% of respondent each
while 21% of answers came each.
This study was conducted by Habib Mbacke.
for any enquiries please use:
habib.mbacke@gmail.com
or Linkedin @
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/habib-
mbacke/1a/988/3aa