A Guide to Russian

Russia and social media platforms are a booming market that remain largely a new frontier for many companies. This guide will tell you about the largest new media players in this social landscape and how you can reach these users. This guide is for brands that aim to use social media sites for in .

A new market of customers requires specialised knowledge of the market and the specific needs of these users. Tailoring your social media strategy in Russia is something that I can help you with, but first let’s take a look at internet users in Russia.

There are around 90 million Internet users in Russia in 2018, which means that 73% of population using Internet at least ones per month according to mediascope.net. The increasing the Web-Index: The audience most is the number of smartphone users as a whole. - approximately 55% of population is using a smartphone to get online. On the global scale, Russia has the largest Internet population out of all European countries and is 6th among the largest internet populations in the world.

So, Russians are using the Internet more than ever before, and increasingly using their smartphones to browse. What social media products are they using?

1. .ru According Mediascope the most popular Russian Internet platform accessed from a computer is Yandex, with around 23 million average daily users per month among 22-64 years old. This platform is a search engine, Web-Index: The audience of Internet projects. The results of the measurement: email and web portal. Desktop, August, 2018, Russia 0+ 2. VK.com The largest Russian social media network - VK (Vkontakte), a domestic version of . As shown on the graph above, this network attracts over 16 million users per month. The main target group of users on this platform are teens. Along with the normal functions of a , such as creating a profile, searching for friends and sharing updates/ images, this platform even provides extra services such as file sharing and listening to music. Earlier versions of this network created controversy due to these services with regards to legal aspects such as copyrights. However, recent reports state that this network is now collaborating with major record labels and launched a subscription service that allows to share the files legally. According to the similarweb.com this network scores number ten out of all the websites in the world. Imagine being able to reach this population with your media campaigns!

3. Mail.ru Mail.ru is the next biggest platform after Yandex, and is a part of Mail.Ru Group. This holding owns a wide range of different services, such as Maps, Games-online, Cybersport, social network platforms: .com and odnoklassniki.ru (which will be discussed below). The average daily reach of all the Mail.Ru Group’s projects is estimated to be around 25 million daily users according to Mediascope.

4. OK.ru

The next popular social media network - OK (originally Odnoklassniki, meaning classmates) targets an older group of the population. The prevailing users of this network are women - around 70% of the users. In total, OK.ru is used by around 8 million daily users. The main idea of this platform is reconnecting with the former classmates and friends that were out of contact for many years, which is enabled by the sophisticated search option that is integrated in this platform. This platform is also popular among the users from outside Russia in as former Soviet Union nations such as , Kyrgyzstan and Georgia.

5. YouTube/Rutube Youtube.com is also very popular in Russia, attracting almost 13 million daily users according to Mediascope. There is even Russia’s own answer to YouTube - a social media platform called Rutube that enables sharing of all types of content. A wide range of TV shows, films and other sorts of Russian content are provided on this website. It is also a valuable resource for language practice.

6. Moi Mir Moi Mir (“My World”) is also a specific Russian social media platform and the well-known equivalent to Google+. This network is an extension of the search engine and e-mail provider mail.ru. This network enables users to share images, music and videos, as well as play games and meet new friends. It is even possible to search for partners by answering several questions based on a person’s dating life.

7. Facebook Even thought Facebook is not one of the most popular social networks in Russia, it attracts around 3 million daily users. Interestingly, this network is becoming more and more popular for business communications. So, it is to be considered if you are running a business in Russia or planing to expand there.

8. Livejournal Blogging is very popular in Russia and LiveJounal is the perfect platform for it. 50% of traffic to this American site comes from Russia. Although this platform has lost its popularity due to the censorship of the site, there are still around 1 million daily users on this platform.

Top mobile resources:

The main 5 mobile resources reached daily, calculated for the September 2018 are: WhatsApp, VK, Google, Yandex and . Instagram has become hugely popular in Russia in the last few years. Instagram currently has around 10 Web-Index: the audience of Internet projects. The results of the m i l l i o n d a i l y u s e r s , a s measurement: Mobile, Sept 2018, Russia, 100 000+ presented on the graph to the right, and has become the primary arena for online entrepreneurship and blogging. The majority of the audience of this network in Russia are younger females.

Telegram is another popular messenger providing not only secure messaging service but also various innovative functions, such as saving unlimited amount of documents, curating microblogs and creating chat-bots. It gained popularity recently due to a court decision where the app has been blocked during a certain period, which increased the messaging platform’s social listening rates. It is estimated that the audience of the messenger in spring 2018 was around 200 million users. If Telegram was a country, it would have been world’s sixth biggest.

As you can see, Russia has an interesting and expanding new media landscape that requires expert knowledge and Russian language knowledge to navigate. Let me help you create your brand’s growth on these Russian social platforms.

Source: All data for this guide is sourced from mediascope.net.