Numbers of 2013, Pew Research
In business, people are always looking for (new) target groups. Borders are most of the time not a real problem anymore. Emerging markets seems like becoming more popular for companies. Would you take developing countries into account?
As you can see in the table above, the number of users of social media in developing countries is most of the time at least as high as the countries known as developed (US for example). There must be mentioned that the rate is a percentage of the internet users in a country, not of the whole population. For this reason I’ve searched for the percentages of internet users in the concerning countries and placed them between brackets.
Remarkable is that once the inhabitants do have access to internet, they start to adopt social media in their use very quickly! Probably one of the reasons is the eagerly of the developing countries users because social media serves multiple purposes as political coordination to history and culture preservation, to accountability. Social media plays a role in self-empowerment, for example in Egypt though the ability to speak and assemble. It creates the ability to make things negotiable, for example in Uganda. RAHU, a Ugandan non-profit youth-led organization aims to address key issues surrounding Ugandan youth, such as HIV, STIs, and unintended pregnancy.
In addition, the way of internet using differs. Less developed countries using it by mobile phone or tablet because it is cheaper. They skipped over landlines and moved directly to mobile phones. Text messages are more common because not all phones do have cameras.
So you are interested in these emerging markets? I think it is a good idea to think beyond billboards and start social media campaigns. The welfare is increasing and so are opportunities in these countries. You have to find a way to reach the target group.
References
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/social-media-developing-countries-martin-brossman
- http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2
I think it is good you shed some light on emerging markets. The table also shows that a lot of people are using social media in these countries. Although I think some of the numbers are misleading, if 77% of 19% use social media this is a very low number. It is good you put the percentage of internet users and placed them between brackets, this gives a more realistic view of the numbers.
At the beginning of the article you mentioned businesses who might want to expend to emerging markets, at the end you don’t look back on this. I think it would be better if you gave some examples of businesses that do good in emerging markets and why (not just non-profit organisations), or why businesses should go to emerging markets.
There are a lot of opportunities in emerging markets, with new businesses for sure, but I don’t really know how social media is important in this. It could be helpful but I think it will only really have effect if a lot of people use social media, which is already the case in countries like Chili and Lebanon.
Thanks for your response. Searching for successful examples of companies over there is a good idea! The rates are not that big at the moment but because of obvious reasons they are being called emerging. My blog post was used to show that the economy is increasing and the fact is that when people get access to internet, they start using social media extremely fast. Social media shouldn’t replace the other marketing forms but I think it can be very important in a supporting way.