Social Media in Russia: Its Features and Business Models

Abstract

Today users from all over the world integrated on the social media. In the middle of 2010 the global audience of social media showed 72.5 % of the whole number of Internet users. Russia has the most engaged social networking audience worldwide. In 2010, according to official data, 34.5 million of Russian users (74.5 % from the whole number of Internet users in Russia) are members at least one of social media. Russians spent on average twice the amount of time within social networks as their global counterparts, racking up nearly 10 h per month. According to unofficial data, the social media audience coincides with 98 % of general Runet audience.

This research is focused on Russian social media, especially: Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and Mail.ru—MoiMir, which are the first ones on Russian social media market and the most popular in Russia. These three social media belong to the one media holding Mail.ru Group.

We explored features and shew business models and monetization of those web-sites. The business model in niche social media advertising works rather effectively than the model of general interest web-sites, in spite of less audience.