Global social media usage and the language factor

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Global Social Media Usage and the Language Factor

Written by: Dr. Nitish Singh (St. Louis University), Dr. Kevin Lehnert

(Grand Valley State University) & Kathleen Bostick (VP Lionbridge)

© Lionbridge 2010 © Nitish Singh 2010

© Kevin Lehnert 2010

This paper is based on Lionbridge Survey Data of approximately 3,800 global social media users.

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Sponsored byLionbridge and Executive Education in Web Globalization, John Cook School of Business, Saint Louis University.

Introduction Today, we are seeing the democratization of information on the web as global online consumers become publishers of content rather than just passive readers (Evans, 2008). This trend is known as consumer-generated media (CGM) or user-generated content (UGC) — both refer to “content being created 24-hours a day online on blogs, message boards, social networks like Facebook and platforms like Twitter” (Swedowsky, 2009). Social media is diffusing rapidly among consumers worldwide and its commercialization is also on the rise. Marketers are now better understanding social media, not just for reaching global audiences, but also for engaging them in a targeted fashion, using emerging tools (e.g., Google Analytics, TweetDeck, Omniture, Scoopler, Tealium) to measure social media efforts (VanBoskirk, 2009). Leveraging social media commercially allows companies to create brand communities and crowdsourcing models, gain consumer insights, enhance product/brand awareness, improve search engine optimization efforts, reduce customer acquisition and service costs, and optimize overall marketing and communication efforts (Scott, 2009; Stelzner, 2010; Weinberg, 2009).

For example, Best Buy is using its Twitter account, “twelpforce,” to allow its employees to answer customer queries and launch promotions; Yahoo has launched “Yahoo Pinoy Connect,” a community site catering to the specific needs of the Filipino community and populated by local content, user-generated content, and localized social tools; and Dell has leveraged Twitter as a sales tool resulting in $3 million in sales through 2009. Forrester Research forecasts that social media in the US will be the fastest-growing interactive channel with a 34 percent Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) between 2009 and 2014 (VanBoskirk, 2009). This shows the growing interest of corporations in leveraging social media for commercial applications. In fact, according to a recent report by MarketingSherpa (2010), companies will see significant increases in their budgets for social media marketing, regardless of industry affiliation. The report also estimates that the bulk of social media marketing budgets (60 percent) are allocated toward activities like blogging, content development, and social media monitoring.

From a consumer point of view, social media use is surging. Consumers use social media not only for self-expression or connecting with family and friends,

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but also for researching products and companies and sharing their consumption experiences. Some of the top reasons for consumers to follow companies on social media sites include: seeking information on sales and specials, new products and services, and learning about company culture and environmental responsibility policies (MarketingSherpa, 2010). Of the total estimated 625 million active Internet users, two-thirds have already joined social networks as of 2009 (UM Social Media Tracker Wave 4, 2009). Nielsen Research estimates for 2009 show overall Twitter traffic is up 1500 percent over 2008, and Facebook traffic is up by 200 percent over 2008 (Swedowsky, 2009).

However, social media usage is not consistent around the world. Recent social media usage data and trends show that globally there are significant differences in how social media is used, content is created, and “crowd wisdom” is shared. Furthermore, with sixty percent of the online population being non-English speakers, Chinese is now the second most popular language used over the Internet, with 407 million online users, compared to 495 million English online users (internetworldstats.com). This multilingual and cultural diversity on the web has created a multilingual social media landscape, with unique global usage and consumption patterns (King 2010).

Goal of this PaperUnderstanding how social media is delivered, consumed, and leveraged around the world can help global marketers to better develop, position, and deliver global content to achieve social media marketing objectives, such as increasing website traffic and lead generation, improving multilingual search engine visibility, increasing global brand awareness, and most importantly, enhancing global revenues. Thus, the broad objective of this whitepaper is to explore global differences in social media diffusion and usage. The paper will analyze patterns of social media usage among global social media users from more than 20 countries and explore how online users are translating social media content for global consumption.

More specifically, the whitepaper presents the results of a large-scale, 2010 global survey of approximately 3,800 social media users exploring:

» How users from different countries use social media for business and personal use

» The most popular global social media platforms, in which countries

» The top languages used to generate global social media content

» User preferences for English versus local language with regard to social media content

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» Global user propensity to translate social media content

» Methods used by consumers to translate social media content

Emerging Global Social Media TrendsConsumersThe emerging data on global social media usage by country suggest there are significant differences in usage of social media type and form, and in the way consumers interact with social media. A survey of 23,200 active Internet users in 38 countries (Spring 2009 by UM Social Media Tracker - WAVE 4) found the following:

» Between the ages of 16 and 54, Danes have the highest penetration of social media, followed by Malaysia, Norway, and Sweden.

» However, the US leads in terms of just the number of social media users.

» In most countries analyzed in this study, watching videos seems to be the most dominant activity, but cross-national differences in involvement and usage are still apparent.

» In the US, online video watching is the most popular social media activity, followed by visiting social networking pages of friends, and reading blogs (UM Social Media Tracker - WAVE 4, 2009).

» Like some other large-scale surveys, the UM Social Media WAVE 4 survey found Germans to be cautious and late adopters of major social media platforms, with the number of video watchers actually falling from 77.1 percent in 2007 to 74.1 percent in 2009, while social networking steadily increased since 2007.

» Based on the same survey, Chinese and South Koreans tend to be the early adopters in this market and actually lead in terms of blogging, with a higher percentage of people reading and writing blogs than watching videos.

» An interesting note here about Brazil is that social networking has remained constant since 2007, but the blog readership has fallen by 28 percent.

» Further, according to the WAVE 4 of the UM Social Media Survey, India has recorded steady growth across multiple social media platforms, especially social networking activities.

» Finally, according to the WAVE 4, an overarching global social media trend is that social media platforms are becoming more multi-media savvy, with convergence of photos, videos, music, and widgets.

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A large-scale Global Web Index survey of almost 32,000 global social media users (between 2008 and 2009) tried to delve deeper into the motivations behind social media usage (Smith 2010). Some of the findings highlight how people use social media in different countries. For example, in the Asia-Pacific region:

» China: staying in touch with a friend is the most frequent use of social media

» Japan: people ranked researching products to buy as the number one social media activity

» South Korea: staying up-to-date on news and events was the most popular

» India: researching for work topped the social media usage motivation

» Australia: staying in touch with friends was the most common activity

It is clear that within the Asia-Pacific region, there seem to be emerging differences in motivations behind the functional use of social media. The same Global Index Survey 2009 results from Europe show that:

» U.K.: researching product purchases is the most common motivation behind social media use

» France: staying in touch with friends is the dominating motivation

» The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Russia: staying current on news and events leads the way (Smith, 2010)

Furthermore, in the Americas:

» Brazil’s motivation to use social media was unique and focused on “researching how to do things.”

» The US, like some other countries, ranked researching products to buy as the number one motivation of social media activity.

Based on the Global Web Index Survey, Smith (2010) anticipates that the passive impact of social media will be bigger than its active impact. “Passive impact of social media related to the exposure and aggregation of opinions, reviews, ratings and recommendations that impact all global social media users, regardless of their personal social media involvement (Smith 2010).” Furthermore, findings from the Global Web Index survey point to an emerging reality that digital networks are overtaking the size of our face-to-face networks. For example, according to Smith (2010), the average US face-to-face network is 21.4 and social online network is 49.3.

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Another recent study by Belleghem (2010) of InSites Consulting surveyed 2,884 social media users from 14 countries, across major geographic regions during 2009-2010, to understand social media usage patterns. This survey found that Facebook is one of the most well-known social networking sites (83 percent of the sample were aware of Facebook) followed by MySpace and Twitter. An interesting analysis by the InSites Survey is the categorization of social media users into four quadrants, based on “social media log in frequency” and “social media activity frequency”; the four social media user types are:

» Addicts: high log-in and high activity frequency

» Voyeurs: high log-in, but low activity frequency

» Special Occasions: low log-in, but high activity frequency

» Passive users: low log-in and low activity frequency (Belleghem, 2010)

This study found most users fall into two extremes: “Passive User” category (47%) and “Addicts” (26%), followed by “Voyeurs” (14%) and “Special Occasions” (13%).

Brazilians dominated the “Voyeurs” category, while Americans and Russians dominated the “Special Occasion” category. Another finding from this study shows that connected people on social media have, on average, 195 friends online. Brazil leads the way with an average of 360 friends, followed by Portugal (236 friends) and the US (200 friends). This study also showed some regional differences related to trust and openness, with Europeans being less trusting and less open online compared to Asians.

CompaniesAnother way to view global social media usage is by company, rather than individual consumer, so here we look at a study by Burson-Marsteller (2009). This study analyzed social media efforts of the top 100 Fortune Global 500 companies between 2009 and 2010. Country-specific insights include:

» Chinese state-owned companies have been a late and slow adopter of social media compared to Chinese private firms and foreign subsidiaries in China.

» Orkut is the most popular social networking site in Brazil with 26 million users, but Brazilian companies are slow to engage consumers on Orkut or Facebook for fear of losing control of the conversation.

» Japanese tend to be reluctant to share their thoughts publicly; therefore, social media adoption has been slow in Japan, but Japanese language social networking sites (e.g. Mixi) are catching on.

» Similarly, Japanese companies have been reluctant to use social media and prefer traditional online forms of communication via company websites.

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» French companies have also been reluctant users of social media tools, mostly using them to push out information without losing control of the conversation.

» In Italy, the situation is different in that companies are actively engaging their social media users, like Facebook fans, as brand ambassadors.

» Most Korean companies tend to restrict their social media efforts to top Internet and social media channels specific to South Korea, like Korean online cafes and Cyworld.

Based on this review of consumers and companies, it’s clear there have been some attempts to understand usage patterns and profile global social media users. However, there is still limited evidence and information on the diffusion of global social media, its usage worldwide for business and personal reasons, and the effect to which multilingual diversity impacts the consumption of social media. This white paper addresses some of these under-researched issues by first analyzing global social media consumption patterns for both business and personal use, and then analyzing language preferences and tools used to translate social content.

SampleOur study spanned from December 2009 to January 2010, when we implemented a survey on global social media usage in 20 languages. As per our knowledge, it is one of the first social media surveys to be implemented in 20 languages. Each language version of the survey was designed by native-speaking, well-trained and qualified translators in that language. More than 4,500 people from around the world responded to the survey. (The following data reflects the more than 3,800 survey respondents who use social media platforms.) Snowballing was used to generate the sample. The survey was implemented online, and different language versions of the survey were made available to accommodate respondents’ language preferences.

Respondent break-up by countries is shown in Graphic 1, below. The majority of survey respondents were from the US, followed by India, China, Finland, Italy, France, Ireland, Canada, the UK, and Spain, along with another 10 countries. Thus, the data primarily includes respondents from more than 20 countries.

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Graphic 1: Major countries sampled for the Study

Almost 85 percent of the sample age ranged between 21-50 years, and the gender was 47 percent female and 52 percent male.

Survey ResultsThe survey examined two broad areas relating to global social media usage: (1) How global social media is used for business and personal use, and (2) The role of language and translation in global social media usage.

Global Social Media Usage

Based on the aggregate data from all the countries, we analyzed people’s motivations for using social media for business and personal use.

The results show that 85 percent of our sample uses social media for business use. The top three reasons for using social media for business as illustrated in Graphic 2 are:

1. Building networks for business contact

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2. Reading social media content 3. Highlighting personal and professional expertise on social media

Other leading reasons included job search, identifying potential leads, and finding product and service information.

Graphic 2: Social media business usage for the total sample

The results show that 97 percent of our sample uses social media for personal use. The top three reasons for using social media for personal use as illustrated in Graphic 3 are:

1. Connecting with friends and family 2. Reading social media content 3. Connecting with like-minded people

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Other leading reasons included:

» Sharing links to the social media content

» Making new friends

» Using social media out of boredom

Graphic 3: Social Media Personal Usage for Total Sample

Looking at the top 7 countries by sample size, it is clear that while there is some consistency in social media usage for business and personal use, there are country-specific differences, as highlighted in Graphic 4, below. Furthermore, beyond the popularity of common social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace, there are country-specific social media platforms that are popular in different countries due to language and social barriers. For example, in China, QQ, Q Zone, and Xiaonei are popular social media platforms catering to local tastes and language preferences. Similarly, in India, Orkut is one of the market leaders in social media, and in Poland, Nasza-Klasa is popular.

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Graphic 4: Global Social Media Usage Patterns

Social Media

Use

Top Business Uses of

Social Media

Social mediaUsage-

Business

Top Personal Uses of Social Media

Social media Usage-

Personal

Other Popular Social Media

PlatformsUSA

(n=1027)

1. Build network contacts

2. Highlight personal expertise

3. Read content

Most Popular: LinkedIn

Least Popular: MySpace

1. Connect with friends and family

2. Read content3. Connect with like-

minded people

Most Popular: Face BookLeast Popular: MySpace

You Tube & Flicker

India (n=342)


2. Read content3. Job search

Most Popular: Face Book



2. Make new friends3. Connect with like-

minded people


Orkut & You Tube

China (n=197)



3. Identify leads

Most Popular: MySpace

Least Popular: Face Book


2. Read content3. Make new friends

Most Popular: MySpaceLeast Popular: Twitter

QQ, Q Zone & Xiaonei

Finland(n=171)


2. Read content3. Job Search




2. Read content3. Out of boredom

Most Popular: Face BookLeast Popular: Twitter

You Tube & Flicker

Italy (n=148)



3. Read content





minded people


You Tube & MSN/Windows live spaces

France

(n=139)


2. Read content 3. Highlight

personal expertise




2. Read content3. Share links to

content


You Tube & MSN/Windows live spaces

Ireland (n=128)


2. Read content3. Highlight

personal expertise





minded people


You Tube & Flicker

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Language Factor in Global Social Media

In this section, we provide an analysis of the access to social media by language, and showcase how consumers overcome language barriers to use social media. Graphic 5, below, shows social media use by language; however, sample sizes for different languages were not uniform, therefore, sample bias is possible in the data. A better picture may appear if we analyze the percentage of people from our country sample that prefer social media in their local language.

Graphic 5: Social Media Use by Languages

Language Yes Used Social Media Not Used Social Media

Portuguese BR 92.45% 7.55%

Spanish 91.43% 8.57%

Danish 90.16% 9.84%

Polish 88.64% 11.36%

Chinese TW 88.57% 11.43%

Portuguese PT 88.00% 12.00%

English 87.79% 12.21%

Finnish 84.35% 15.65%

Russian 82.73% 17.27%

Italian 80.95% 19.05%

French FR 80.92% 19.08%

Swedish 79.52% 20.48%

French CA 78.85% 21.15%

Dutch 76.56% 23.44%

Norwegian 72.22% 27.78%

Hindi 66.67% 33.33%

German 65.55% 34.45%

Malayalam 60.00% 40.00%

Korean 58.33% 41.67%

Chinese CN 56.94% 43.06%

Japanese 56.12% 43.88%

Grand Total 83.37% 16.63%

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Graphic 6, below, shows the percentage of respondents from the top 10 countries in our study (based on sample size) who prefer content in English versus their local language (if other than English). Also included in this table is the percentage of our respondents who translate social media content, the type of content they translate the most, and the translation method they use: human translation or machine translation.

Graphic 6: Language factor in Social Media Translation

COUNTRY LANGUAGE PREFERENCE %

PEOPLE TRANSLATING SOCIAL MEDIA %

TYPE OF CONTENT TRANSLATED

TRANSLATION MECHANISM (Human Translation=HT & Machine Translation=MT) other category not included

Worldwide (all countries n=4630)

English=62%Other=5%

French=4%

23% 1. Messages2. Comments3. Blogs

HT=62%MT=35%

USA English=96% 18% 1. Messages2. Comments3. Blogs

HT=52%MT=43%

India English=94% 24% 1. Messages2. Comments3. Blogs

HT=46%MT=52%

China Chinese (simplified)=86%

English=11%

25% 1. Blogs2. Profiles3. Messages

HT=53%MT=47%

Finland English=57%Finnish=38%

23% 1. Comments2. Messages3. Blogs

HT=65%MT=35%

Italy Italian= 78%English=21%

26% 1. Comments2. Messages3. Blogs

HT=86%MT=14%

France French= 63%English=29%

17.5% 1. Messages2. Tweets3. Comments

HT=68%MT=32%

Ireland English=91% 15% 1. Blogs2. Messages3. Comments

HT=64%MT=32%

Canada English=67% 32% 1. Messages2. Blogs, comments3. Tweets

HT=66%MT=32%

UK English=93% 15% 1. Comments2. Messages3. Blogs and Tweets

HT=48%MT=43%

Spain Spanish=60%English=24%

22% 1. Messages2. Comments3. Blogs

HT=67%MT=30%

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From the table above, it is evident that users from different countries prefer social media in their local languages. The strongest preference was seen in China, where 86 percent of Chinese preferred content in simplified Chinese.

It is also evident that while options for translation of social media content are limited, and machine translation technology has not yet been perfected, even then, consumers are using either human or machine translation to read social media content. India is one of the only countries in our top 10 country sample that uses more machine translation over human translation. Both human and machine translation have their challenges in the present state of the industry. Few individuals are multilingual or have access to translators to help them translate social media content. In terms of technology, machine translation has not yet evolved enough to take into account the grammatical and idiomatic nuances of translation. It is still best used for “gisting” purposes, which means getting a rough idea of what a piece of content is about, and is therefore only able to produce a very low level of quality.

ConclusionIn conclusion, the goal of this study was to address the apparent gap in the current literature regarding language usage in global social media. The study also tried to uncover global social media usage patterns for business and personal use across a list of several countries covering North America, Europe, and Asia. This cross-national analysis yielded global social media usage patterns across the world, and showed that, while there are emerging similarities in social media usage, countries still show unique local preferences in terms of how they use social media for business and personal use. Also, it is evident that Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter usage is not uniform across the world. There are significant differences in terms of cross-national preference for these social media platforms. Moreover, it is also evident that country-specific social media platforms are widely used, even over the global giants like Facebook, Twitter and others. Finally, the study showed that local language preference for social media usage is very strong around the world. Thus, companies need to consider the language factor in their content and user-generated content, and how best to facilitate translation, if they truly want to penetrate global markets.

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References:Belleghem, Van Steven (2010), “Social Media Around the world,” InSites Consulting http://www.slideshare.net/stevenvanbelleghem/social-networks-around-the-world-2010

Bernoff, Josh, Emily Riley, Cynthia N. Pflaum, Thomas Cummings, Angie Polanco, Jennifer Wise (2010), “Introducing The New Social Technographics® How Conversationalists Change The Marketing Landscape, “January, Forrester Research, www.forrester.com

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Evans, Dave (2008), Social Media Marketing, Wiley Publishing, Indianapolis, IN

King, Cindy (2010), “Social Media Localization,” April 28, http://cindyking.biz/localization-of-social-media/

Kriens, Rudolf (2010), “Meteoric Growth in Social Networking – “It’s a Small World after All,” or Is It? “ January, http://windmillnetworking.com

Li, Charlene, Josh Bernoff, Remy Fiorentino, Sarah Glass (2007), “Social Technographics: Mapping participation in Activities forms the Foundation of a Social Startegy, “ April, Forrester Research, www.forrester.com

Safko, Lon and David K. Brake (2009), The Social Media Bible, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.

Scott, M. David (2009), The New Rules of Marketing and PR, John Wiley & Sons.

Smith, Tom (2010), Global Web Index wave 2, http://globalwebindex.net/thinking

Smith, Tom (2010), “Global Social Media Trends-Asia Impact,” March, www.globalwebindex.net

Stelzner, A. Michael (2010), “2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report,” April, www.socialmediaexaminer.com

Swedowsky, Maya (2009), “A Social Media ‘How to’ for Retailers, http://en-us.nielsen.com/main/insights/consumer_insight/september_2009/asocialmediahowtoforretailers

VanBoshkirk, Shar (2009), “US Interactive Marketing Forecast 2009 to 2014, July, www.forrester.com

CNNIC (2009), Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in China, Janurary http://www.cnnic.net.cn/uploadfiles/pdf/2009/3/23/153540.pdf

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Forrester Technographics data (2009) http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

MarketingSherpa (2010), “2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report,” MarketingSherpa. www.marketingsherpa.com

UM Social Media Tracker -Wave 4 (2009), “Power to the People, Wave.4,” http://www.universalmccann.com/wave/

Nielsenwire (2009), “Talking Back-Top Five Advertising Trends,” December, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire

Walsh, Mike (2008), “The 10 Habits of Asian Media Consumers,” http://www.slideshare.net/mikewalsh/the-10-habits-of-asian-media-consumers-presentation

Weinberg, Tamar (2009), The New Community Rules, O’Reilly Media Inc, CA.

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CONTACT INFORMATION About LionbridgeLionbridge Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: LIOX) is a leading provider of translation, localization, and testing services. Lionbridge combines global language resources with proven program management methodologies to serve as an outsource partner throughout a client’s product and content lifecycle. Organizations in all industries rely on Lionbridge language and testing services to increase international market share, speed adoption of products and content, and ensure the integrity of their global brands. Based in Waltham, Mass., Lionbridge operates across 26 countries, and provides services under the Lionbridge and VeriTest® brands.

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Global social media usage and the language factor