The most interesting and popular platforms for SMM promotion in 2019. We have compiled this list in MAD7 not only on the data of various statistics, but also on personal observations and our own experience working with each of the platforms. I hope this information will be useful to you and will help you build the most effective and convenient strategy for promoting your brands, products and services.
VKontakte
It is still the most popular social network in Russia, which has many tools for promotion. There is a misconception that now the audience of VKontakte is practically only children. In fact, the users here are very different – and the largest segment consists of young people from 25 to 34 years old, and the increase in the audience occurs evenly: it does not age and does not get younger, it remains about the same.
In recent years, this social network has grown tremendously both in terms of audience and in terms of sales opportunities. Instagram has ceased to be what it was at the very beginning, that is, a quiet cozy personal photo album. Now it is both a blogging platform and a sales platform – very powerful, with many different mechanics and techniques. It is also a platform for news, articles and educational content. Indeed, Instagram has become very interesting from the point of view of functionality, and this makes it possible to communicate with the audience in different ways. As a result, this social network becomes one of the main platforms for SMM promotion.
To be honest, in Russia he began to lose his position, it is very noticeable. There are many reasons for this. The outflow of users has begun: Instagram has overtaken Facebook in terms of the number of audiences in Russia, and engagement has begun to decline. It is obvious that for business pages, engagement has decreased significantly, which is due to Facebook's policy. There is also a reduction for personal accounts. As a result, Zuckerberg's social network works in two cases. First, if you need a managerial entrepreneurial audience: that is, for B2B, B2C promotion, it works well with targeted advertising. Secondly, it is effective for promoting a personal brand: if you sell through yourself, through your awareness, then Facebook is perfect for this.
Classmates
This social network is increasingly being buried, written off, however… You may be surprised, but in fact this is one of the most popular sites in Russia: Only this year, Instagram managed to overtake Odnoklassniki in terms of the number of users. Yes, the audience here is older: there is also a segment of 25-34 years old, but over time the increase in the audience is due to those who are older. There are now a lot of 40+ users in Odnoklassniki, mostly women, so an inexpensive product for a female audience is considered an ideal product for promotion in this social network: women's clothing, cosmetics, tableware, children's goods, etc.
Youtube
In Russia, this video hosting is now in second place in popularity after VKontakte and it is growing from different points of view. For example, Youtube has one of the most powerful advertising systems, it is the only advertising platform where you can target visitors to competitor sites. It is also great for non-financial promotion. By the way, it is on Youtube that there are most opportunities for promotion without a budget. Therefore, we recommend generating content for Youtube and working with its advertising system.
Yandex.Zen
This is a relatively new platform – the social news service is growing very fast today, and it already has more than 30 million active monthly audience. There are also a huge number of opportunities for free promotion here. Indeed, you can attract a lot of very different audiences, create large reach and successfully sell for free!
Even though this site is blocked in Russia, there is still some audience here, even though it has become smaller. B2C is very poorly promoted here, so LinkedIn is needed if your audience is B2B. And this is the best place to promote if your target audience is top managers of large companies or owners of small and medium–sized businesses and large businesses.
Mobile messengers
Viber began to give up very much from the whole three: there is a very large outflow of the audience. Despite the fact that there are public chats and just chats, they are very specific and few people use them. Therefore, "Viber" should be used only if you are sure that your audience uses it. WhatsApp is still the most popular in terms of promotion. One-way chats have appeared here: to advertise a product, you can create your own chats, in which, except for you, no one can write. There are also chatbots here now: they are still unofficial, but some craftsmen already know how to use them well. In Telegram, despite the blocking, there is a very rapid increase in the audience. And from the point of view of functionality, this is the most effective communication and sales platform in the messenger group. There are formats of channels, chats and chatbots, and the latter is one of the most developed online in general. By the way, now along with the term SMM, another one has appeared – MMM (nothing to do with Mavrodi's pyramid scheme) – mobile messenger marketing.
It must be mentioned: oddly enough, Twitter has begun a second life: a community has slowly begun to form, new very active users are appearing, Twitter has come to life and even become more popular than before.
Here is such a small, concise and, I hope, practical overview of the main SMM sites in Russia today. Write to me in the Instagram direct or Telegram about what else you would like to know about social networks – and I will definitely write about it in the very near future!