Social Networking Asia, What could be more complex?  It is so diverse country to country.  And since social networks are a reflection of culture, and cultural nuances are dynamic in nature, how is a marketing strategist able to get ahead of the trends swiftly enough to make inroads?

Although Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Australia have the highest penetration of social networking site usage in Asia/Pacific, let’s look at a big three of economic proportions -  Japan, India, China – or  Nippon, Indus, zhong guo or 中国 as they are known by their respective citizens. 

Social networks are booming, that’s certain, but, according to Benjamin Joffe, Plus8Star, Techno-Darwinism dictates that there is social media innovation happening in Asia that requires a logical broadjump for westerners to understand – AND, more importantly, there is innovation unique to those countries - there is no true equivalent in western social networks to compare since some of these concepts may not be replicated in the West.   

Let’s start with the phenomenon that is Japan.  Japan is comprised of a populace which is glued to mobiles and texting – having returned from Japan last month - I will say the mobile devices have unique features and functions which ours do not (such as working flawlessly deep in the recesses of the Tokyo subway system).  Another geographic reality is that Japan is an island – can you say inward-focused?   Not to mention, they are so privacy- conscious that they rarely if ever would use their real names on social networks for fear of the business implications.  Starting to draw the social media parallels??

Next, China has a digitally fluent population which is larger than any on the planet.  On-line gaming is a huge portion of it since the wildly disproportionate number of the digital populace (73%) is under 35.  And according to a 2009 Netpop study and some statistics re-published by Paul Boutin, New York Times, 92% are regular contributors to user-generated content on social sites.

India’s universities and educational elite helped spawn its social [networking] scene.   According to Gaurav Mishra, an India Social networking thought leader, social networks trends include citizen journalism, corporate customer engagement, and social media outsourcing [the next big outsourcing opportunity in India].  Some of the most influential Indian social media thought leaders are extremely well-known worldwide, such as Om Malik.  Mishra goes on to explain: “To build an identity and a broad Indian user base for themselves, Indian social networking sites need to reflect the unique nature of relationships in the Indian society.”

That said, all of these markets have business-focused marketing agencies who have seized the opportunity and intend to package it as a service to companies who are bold enough to tread there.

Fact and Figures to have at your Fingertips:  Some striking numbers and networks. 

Japan

LinkedIn: 146,294 people located in Japan. Groups: 737

FaceBook: 32000 Groups; twitter is very popular relative to other asian countries, partially because its so mobile accessible;

Most popular social network - mixi.jp - http://mixi.jp/; 

There are 3 Japanese social networks with market value over $1b.

China:

TenCent (the so-called Facebook of China) actually has $1 billion in revenue to its claim in 2008 -

LinkedIn:  323,123 people located in China, there are 2008 Groups;

After TenCent, RenRen.com is next largest, http://www.renren.com/, then 51.com, and Kaixin001 are all ahead of MySpace CN and Facebook CN. 

India:

60% of internet users in India use a social network, according to comScore.   Of course, the matrimonial dating sites in India are popular – no surprise there!  

LinkedIn: 2,903,757 people listed as located in India, there are 7231 LinkedIn Groups. 

Orkut is the #1 social network, three times that of Facebook - #2, bharatstudent #3, hi5 #4, then LinkedIn 5th.

In conclusion:

The time is ripe for marketing strategies which can work in Asia, provided you look at each country individually.  The emergence of niche social networking sites (India examples include: Cricket, Bollywood, etc.), will continue in the region of Asia, as it will in other regions of the globe, and marketing can be very focused toward those communities.  Knowing a bit of the culture by connecting to influencers who blog there will yield the most favorable results.  Learn from them.