Five Friday Facts #56
News
News
China’s professional social networking users to reach 100M
Just a year after LinkedIn went public, China ushered its own professional social networks. As of today, there are at least 8 professional social networks in China with Tianji and Dajie being the biggest amongst them, both of which have about 12.3 million registered users each. According to the latest report from Sootoo.com, there are more than 70 million users in China’s professional social networking sites as of Novemeber 2012. There has been a 250% year on year growth from only 20 million users last year. It is estimated that there will be 100 million users by Q1 2013. Also, LinkedIn has not completely penetrated the Chinese market despite being the only social network from the West that is not blocked in China. There are only 2.8 million registered users on LinkedIn from mainland China. Recently, Sina Weibo announced its upcoming business social network. Though it is in beta mode, it is anticipated to take the market lead due its already well-known Sina branding.
A million Malaysians on LinkedIn
LinkedIn announced last week that it has more than 1 million users from Malaysia. It is a milestone for the platform that launched its Bahasa Malay site late last year along with Indonesian and Korean languages. The professional social network site grew faster in Malaysia than the global average with an average of 2 new members added to the network per second. In the Asia Pacific region, LinkedIn has a total of 34 million members with India taking the lead with around 18 million users.
Chinese social networkers embrace brands
A Q2 2012 survey from InSites Consulting found that 2 in 3 Chinese social media users followed brands on social media. China is also reported to have the highest percentage amongst all surveyed countries with 66% saying they follow a brand on social media. However, Chinese social media users follow lesser brands than the Americans. Respondents said that they followed an average of 6.7 brands each in China as compared to a 15.1 brands followed on average in the U.S.
Social networkers on Opera Mini
Opera released a report recently on its users and their browsing habits. The data is particularly interesting for social media users. Tech in Asia reported some key stats that are relevant for Asia – 91% of all Opera Mini users in Macau visit Facebook at least once a month. Macau has become the number one country in the world in terms of unique Facebook users as a percentage of its netizens. However, when it comes to Twitter, Japan, Indonesia and Brunei are in the top ten countries for number of unique users of Opera Mini as a percentage of its netizens. Japan was ranked second with 15%, Indonesia ranked sixth with 13% and Brunei eighth with 12%.
The corresponding map for Twitter mobile usage with the grey shades showing higher percentages:
Facebook and Pinterest are today’s wedding planners
Mashable, in conjunction with theknot.com, undertook a social and tech wedding survey to quantify the growing trend of sharing wedding plans and the immediate post-wedding experiences on social media. 77% of brides surveyed are fans of wedding brands whilst 79% keep up on wedding blogs. 51% of brides shared the planning process in pictures on social media platforms. 2 in 5 use Pinterest to pin the ideas that they fancy and share it with family and friends. Getting engaged is probably one of the biggest milestones in anyone’s life, and 8% of brides updated their Facebook relationship statuses within minutes of saying “Yes” whilst 31% did so within hours of getting engaged. The findings showed that today’s bride is very connected socially and are already users of QR codes. Staying connected is also key to them. 2 in 3 considered logging on during their honeymoon and 3 in 4 plan to share photos from their honeymoon.
