Nielsen has recently released the findings of their study about the use of social networks in the Asia Pacific region. As expected, the use of social media is growing in popularity in that region.
In the entire Asia pacific region, social media has started affecting the buying decisions of users in a significant manner.
Online product reviews have become very popular and are next in line only to recommendations by family and friends. Products such as consumer electronics, cosmetics and cars are frequently reviewed here.
Interestingly however, different countries vary greatly in the way they share reviews. While the Koreans are most likely to post positive reviews the Chinese are most likely to post negative reviews of any product.
The report also shows that blogging is most popular in Japan, with over 1 million blogs being posted there every month. Twitter which had only about 200,000 users in Japan last year now has over 10 million users, which is 16% of the Japanese Internet population.
In China more than 80% of social media content is through bulletin boards, and new comers indulge in social gaming while the more experienced tend to share content. Virtual product placement in social gaming is very popular and social media celebrities like Sister Phoenix and Mr. Yuan are more popular than real celebrities.
Though Orkut is the most popular social network in India, Facebook is fast gaining in popularity. Twitter is also growing very fast and over 57% OF Twitter users in India, have joined in during the last year. Online product reviews are also very popular here.
In Korea, 95% of the Internet population accesses their social site Naver every month. The elections in June also saw the growth of mobile social media.
Australia has the highest global average for time spent on social media with users spending over 7 hours per month. Activities relating to sports and parenting are frequently discussed here. LinkedIn has also grown in popularity by 99% in the last year.
