Saturday 7 February 2015
Social Media in India
With India's rapidly growing population, there are 243.2 million active internet users, making up 19% of the population. 8% of the population (106 million) are active social media users.
Facebook is India's top social network, with more than 100 million users in 2014, which makes it the second highest country after the U.S. 50% of its active users are people aged between 18-24. The users find features such as check ins, like button, statuses very interesting, thus, it has become more of a fad to have a Facebook account. It is predicted that by the end of 2015, India will have the highest number of Facebook users.
Google Plus is generally not a popular social media platform in the world. It tried to win users from Facebook but failed. Google Plus did not become as popular that it hoped to. Developing Countries like India and Brazil are the main supporters for Google Plus growth. India is again the second highest country after the U.S. that actively uses Google Plus.
Orkut was the oldest social networking platform that Indians used. Orkut was released in 2003 and was seen as the first network that could access to practically everyone on the network. It was the first social platform. It gave the first experience to create groups and share information. Orkut got derailed by Facebook due to the 'like' button and also because many Indian brands started marketing their products on Facebook. Orkut did not have a marketing friendly network.
Orkut officially closed on 30th September 2014 and most of its users became Facebook users.
Indian based social networking sites
BharatStudent.com is a social networking site for young Indians, particularly students living around the world. Users not only do social networking but, they are also able to get advice on school related matters. It is the most popular Indian based social networking site. It is popular among the young in India as users are able to link their accounts to their Facebook accounts. Users are able to access both accounts and get updates easily.
Dating websites are very popular and widely used among people in India. Shaadi.com is known as the best and most popular Indian networking site for dating. It has millions of users from India and other countries such as UK and U.S. It is one of the more trusted dating websites as there are many fake dating websites in India.