From Russia with Love

Despite the ubiquity of Facebook, it appears that there are still some remote frontiers where local incumbents are strategically beating Facebook at its game - with its (Facebook's) game.

The article below discusses the reasons why Vkontakte (which means "in touch" in Russian) may be able to maintain its Russian stronghold for the foreseeable future. The main argument is that Vkontakte has successfully taken advantage of its incumbent position by taking Facebook's updates/interface (essentially all of Facebook's strengths) and make it more relevant to its local market.

One of the differences between Facebook and Vkontakte highlighted is that more types of content are much more freely shared on Vkontakte. For example, Vkontakte allows users to watch movies or listen to music for free (though this may appear to change given recent rulings charging Vkontakte to take out its filesharing abilities.) Vkontakte also allows users to record notes, albums, play lists and share notes like a blog. While Facebook also has some of these functions, it appears that the way Vkontakte has structured these capabilities resonates with Russian culture as well as other former-Soviet countries.

A few things to consider for the future: Facebook will aggressively seek to gain market share in a high-potential region such as Russia/Ukraine/Kazakhstan/etc; given the increasingly global nature of social media (though much of it is still vary regional – e.g., foursquare) it will be interesting to see if the global nature of Facebook will win over Russian users. A history of isolation of the Soviet bloc may be a reason for Vkontakte’s success despite (or perhaps because of) its Russian characteristics.

What are the implications for digital marketers? An obvious one is that any global company wishing to market/compete digitally in Russia will need to incorporate Vkontakte into their social media marketing plans with a different approach than they would on Facebook. One could argue that the variety and volume of content shared on Vkontakte could make for more interesting marketing activities than would be relevant on Facebook.

http://adage.com/article/global-news/vkontakte-facebook-s-formidable-rival-russia/235331/