While researching Russia, many key insights about their culture and connectivity were apparent. Just the quick run down, they have about 45.8 million Internet users, with about 32.7 of them having continuous access to the Internet. In 2013, according to New Media Trend Watch, the Internet users will jump to about 61.9.  For those slow pokes who need some type of benchmark or context to compare that data to, can look to research analysts who state that the US online users will be around 200 million by 2013. With all that said, we will definitely be more socially inept as years pass by. Needless to say, the exploration of Russia was enlightening and very rewarding.

After 15 years of being online, Russia has had impressive growth. Bill Flick, wrote an extensive piece on Russia’s Internet presence. All you really need to know is that they have yielded about a 27% increase of users from 07-08.  What does this mean for brands wishing to tap into this market? It means you have visibility and an opportunity to make a very large impact in a growing community.  Side-note, and by far the best part of my research was finding out that their homeless are web-savvy. Hands down, favorite. On Global Voices, many people commented to this interesting information.

I can't read it, but pictures are worth a thousand words.

Okay back to business, information that a brand would probably want to know is that 85% of  that 45.8 million I mentioned above shop online. This blog even let you know what they like, which are books, computers, home appliances, software, movies, beauty products, and music. That seems to pretty much cover a wide range of interests. Next, they have a very good grasp of social networking. Svetlana Gladkova, serves as an authority on this topic. Two of his blogs cover the main players in social networking in Russia, and how 69% of companies have blocked these networks from their employees. Yikes, I couldn’t imagine what Facebook devotees would do here in America if that happen.  All in all brands have a very conducive atmosphere to market their brands.

When you have companies like Apple capitalizing on social media, it puts pressure on brands that haven’t tapped into those networks. Yet, what these brands fail to realize is that they may not need to use them and most definitely don’t need to use them to the detriment of their brand. The one case that came to mind was the re-branding of Tropicana orange juice. Tropicana decided to change the way their brand looked and launched a campaign for a new healthier look. Yet, it wasn’t received well and the new design despite their social re-launching caused their sales to drop 20%. Even though people love new and creative, they don’t like changing what they already love and identify with. One complaint about the redesign was that people didn’t ‘RECOGNIZE’ the brand they loved and bought on a consistent basis. I believe this signifies my point, if you’re going to be socially savvy, you should first know what your audience wants you to be.