If you’re looking at the landscape for social networks, social media, and are feeling a bit overwhelmed, don’t be worried, its easy to get lost in the mess.
First thing first, decide what countries/regions you want to grow in. You might be thinking, but Brian, why would I care to look anywhere other than english speaking regions? Well first off, you’d be missing out on billions of potential users, and you’d be missing an opportunity to beat out your competitors to these regions.
So here are my targets for each market worldwide:
- North America
- South America/Latin America
- Europe
- Bebo
- Myspace
- Netlog
- Hi5
- Asia
- Orkut (India – wow)
- Myspace
- Hi5
- Friendster (whaaat?)
- Netlog (Middle east, turkey, that region)
- Africa
- Honestly don’t know. South Africa and Egypt are the only two viable markets to target, so I’d bet on Facebook.
You might be thinking, but Brian, where do you get this data? Well most of it is from trends I observe, and from my vast network of connections around the globe. I follow where these people are socializing. I know a lot of people in South America, and I hear them talking about Facebook alot now, so thats why I give FB a big 2008 in Latin America. Over a million users are on FB in Latin America right now according to Facebook’s Social Ads.
In a later post I’ll outline how to approach each of these markets, as each is as different culturally online as they are offline.
