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4 countries where the social media landscape is not what you would expect

By Elin Box on May 26, 2020

If you are only used to social media in your average Western country, you probably think of Facebook first, followed by maybe Twitter or Instagram.

But that is not what social media looks like everywhere.

There are some countries that have their very own social networks, and others where you might be surprised to see who is knocking Facebook off the top spot.

This blog post will look at four countries where the social media landscape is not what you would expect, based on the latest data from Webcertain Search And Social Report 2020.

1. China

China’s social media landscape looks totally different to anywhere else. Western sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are all blocked there. Instead, local alternatives thrive in their place, like WeChat, Weibo and Baidu Tieba. The most popular, WeChat, has over 1 billion users and lets users post content, send messages, buy products and even pay their utility bills. It is no surprise that it has been nicknamed China’s super-app!

2. Russia

The top three social networks are almost equally popular and they are Pinterest, Instagram and VK. If you have not heard of VK before, it is a Russian social network that looks and works very much like Facebook. However, Facebook itself only manages to rank in fifth place, and is used as a professional social network, not a personal one.

3. Japan

The most popular social network in Japan by a huge margin is Twitter. It is more than twice as popular as the second-place social network, which is Pinterest. Facebook comes in third place, but again it is used as a professional social network, acting very much like LinkedIn, which incidentally is not popular in Japan.

4. Ukraine

Ukraine made it onto our list because even though its top three social networks are pretty standard, their order is not. Surprisingly, the most popular social network is Pinterest. Facebook comes in second place, followed by Instagram. It is not often that we see Pinterest take the social media crown, but Ukrainians seem to love it!

I hope this blog post has given you an interesting insight into how social media differs around the world. For more in-depth information about international social media in 38 countries, you can read the Webcertain Search And Social Report here.

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Elin Box

Content Marketing Manager at Webcertain
Elin is a Content Marketing Manager at Webcertain. She is responsible for Webcertain’s Self-learning platform, producing in-depth guides on a range of international digital marketing topics. She also helps run the Webcertain blog and is the writer of the Webcertain search and social report, an annual report summarising digital marketing best practices in over 50 countries. She is passionate about educating and empowering people to make the best decisions for their business and is proud to help share Webcertain’s wealth of digital marketing knowledge with the world. Elin is from the UK.

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