Brand promotion through social media marketing (SMM) in Russia
Hello!
When discussing market entry into Russia, it is important to consider the significant role of social media as a marketing tool. Nowadays, certain online platforms that facilitate social connections have proven to be more effective than traditional mass media channels.
Let’s explore the popular social media platforms among Russian users and discover how you can effectively promote your brand, products, and services through these channels.
To start, here is some information about the top social media platforms in Russia:
“Vkontakte” is the dominant social media platform in Russia, boasting over 220 million registered users. Surprisingly, over 60% of its user base consists of individuals aged 25 and above.
The platform attracts a staggering daily visitor count of over 47 million people, with a record-breaking peak of 50 million visitors in a single day.
“Odnoklassniki” is a social media platform specifically designed for reconnecting with former classmates.
Currently, it boasts a user base of 124,000 individuals within the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet (Runet). Notably, 58% of its audience falls within the age range of 20 to 40 years.
With nearly 40 million daily visitors, the platform enjoys a significant influx of users on a regular basis.
“Moy Mir@Mail.ru” (moimir) is a social media platform developed by Mail.ru, Russia’s largest Internet company.
According to data provided by TNS for June 2011, the platform attracts an impressive audience of 18.6 million monthly visitors.
“Facebook” is a globally popular social media platform. In Russia, historically, its user base primarily consisted of English-speaking graduates. Many of these users are entrepreneurs or high-ranking executives representing companies at various levels. Presently, the Russian audience on Facebook has reached an approximate count of 8.4 million users.
Similar to “Facebook,” “Twitter,” a microblogging service, is not widely popular as a social media platform in Russia.
As of July 2013, the Russian audience on Twitter amounts to approximately 5.3 million users.
On the other hand, there is a social media platform that is gaining significant popularity both in the Russian segment of the Internet (Runet) and globally – Instagram. It currently boasts around 100,000 users.
Here are the top 5 social media sites in Runet, based on audience data, along with the corresponding user engagement statistics.
SMM strategy: to be friends or to sell
When initiating a brand promotion campaign on social media, it is crucial to establish a clear promotional strategy. To do so, you should address four fundamental questions:
- Who is the target audience for your campaign?
- What is the purpose or objective behind your campaign?
- What specific actions or activities will you undertake to achieve your goals?
- Which platforms or channels will you utilize to execute your campaign?
Unfortunately, many companies fall into the same traps when planning their social media campaigns. Firstly, they merely follow a checklist approach, mimicking their competitors without considering the unique needs of their audience. This leads to the creation of lifeless communities devoid of interested followers and renders the SMM efforts ineffective. Secondly, companies often approach social media with a sole focus on selling, resulting in an obsessive and ineffective promotional approach. This yields outcomes similar to the first scenario.
Recent discoveries and trends indicate that users are more inclined towards engaging and valuable content rather than traditional advertisements they encounter daily. This is depicted in the diagram below.
When examining Samsung Russia’s presence on social media, particularly their highly popular community on “Vkontakte,” one can observe a dual role they assume as both a friendly entity and a seller. They adeptly merge their business objectives with the provision of valuable information to customers, such as offering comprehensive smartphone overviews.
Social media: challenges
Social media serves as a platform for companies to accomplish diverse promotional tasks simultaneously. Let’s examine some key aspects:
Sales
Social media not only provides entertainment but also serves as a sales channel. Promoting sales, special offers, and new collections through social media can significantly contribute to selling products.
Traffic
By sharing compelling content on social media platforms, such as announcing corporate articles on your blog, you can attract interested users and drive traffic to your website.
Direct Selling
In certain cases, goods can be directly sold through social media platforms, eliminating the need for users to visit external websites. You can obtain information from sales managers about existing internet shops and their contact details.
Reselling
Maintaining a friendship with your clients provides a compelling reason to stay connected and engaged with them through social media. You can share interesting content, updates on sales and promotions, engage in competitive activities to boost sales, and provide information on innovative offerings.
References
Social media offers a powerful tool for sharing your experiences with other users. Influential individuals in specific fields can effectively promote your brand by reposting your content with personal comments and references about their positive purchase experiences with your goods or services.
Branding
Social media serves as an ideal platform for brand building. It enables you to enhance brand recognition, inform users about your company, its products, and upcoming events, and foster brand loyalty among your audience.
Brand Advocates
Building brand loyalty is a primary objective of cultivating friendships on social media. Satisfied customers who have become fans of your brand will naturally become advocates, defending your brand when negative opinions arise.
Neutralizing Negativity
Social media not only enables you to foster relationships with positive-minded users but also provides an opportunity to engage with an audience that may hold less favorable opinions. It is crucial to carefully analyze the feedback of dissatisfied clients who express their dissatisfaction with your goods or services.
Furthermore, social media can be a platform where you may face mud-slinging campaigns initiated by your competitors. It is essential to address such situations effectively and protect your reputation.
Additionally, dealing with so-called “trolls” is a necessary consideration. These individuals derive pleasure from spreading negative information and provoking feedback.
SMM Cost: What to Pay For?
Social media platforms typically offer various promotional tools for different purposes, such as promoting groups or public pages, as well as specific goods or services.
Platforms like “Vkontakte,” “Odnoklassniki,” Moimir@mail.ru, and “Facebook” provide options for contextual advertising and target advertising.
Target advertising is particularly useful as it allows you to tailor your campaigns to specific audience characteristics, including location, gender, age, family status, and interests.
Below is a questionnaire example for target advertising on “Vkontakte.”
Similarly, contextual advertising can be set up in various other social media platforms.
Pricing in social media marketing (SMM) follows a similar approach to pricing in search engines, as discussed earlier. You have the option to choose between payment per click or payment per impression. Opting for payment per click ensures a more relevant and targeted audience.
The price per click is determined by the selected characteristics, where a higher quantity of characteristics results in a higher click price. Additionally, the frequency of users transitioning from your advertisement can also impact the click price, with more frequent transitions leading to a lower cost per click.
There are other types of advertisements available in social media as well. For example, you can purchase promo-posts or promo-tweets on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. In this case, a user of the social media platform publishes the post to their friends, and the price is influenced by the number of subscribers to the page.
Apart from paid advertising, it’s important to consider expenses related to staffing. This includes tasks such as creating a publishing plan, crafting posts, gathering information for analysis, and moderating comments. You can either assign one of your employees to handle these responsibilities (incurring the specialist’s salary as part of SMM expenses) or outsource these tasks (including the associated fees in SMM costs).
Break Even: Cost-Free Methods of Promotion
There are opportunities to promote your brand without incurring any costs for advertising on social media platforms.
Firstly, focus on the content you share on your page. If it captivates users and piques their interest, they will be more likely to share it with their friends through re-posts. Compelling articles, captivating photos, engaging visuals, and entertaining videos serve as key avenues for connecting with users across social media platforms.
Secondly, you can promote your page, brand, services, or products by organizing content competitions. These competitions can take various forms, ranging from selecting winners among commenters on your posts through random selection to creating a quest-like experience, such as a search for specific objects at your sales outlets.
An illustrative example of a competition organized by the hotel chain “Four Seasons” on Instagram is provided below:
To create a database, one effective method of promotion through social media is advertising your community on external pages. These methods are sometimes referred to as “shareware” and depend on negotiations with the community or public page managers.
To initiate an advertising campaign on any social media platform, follow these 7 steps. Here’s a quick checklist outlining what you need to do to promote your brand on Russian social media:
Checklist: 7 Steps to Begin an SMM Campaign
- Identify the important goals you want to achieve through SMM.
- Analyze the key characteristics of your target audience, including social, demographic, behavioral, psychological, and professional aspects.
- Determine where to find your target audience.
- Create accounts on highly popular pages.
- Identify subjects that are most captivating for your audience.
- Assess your budget.
- Consider your human resources: Who do you need? Content manager, moderator, IT administrator, designer, copywriter, etc. Determine whether it’s more convenient to involve your existing staff or outsource to external companies.
We would like to highlight the availability of the White Paper titled ‘Digital Marketing in Russia 2015: Finding Your Customers on the Internet in Russia – A Guide’.