It’s interesting to note that Facebook and Twitter are not currently the most influential or used social networks in Brazil. Actually, not even the second.
When it comes to social networking, Google’s horrendous social network Orkut, is still way ahead of its competition, comScore announces. Orkut never made it in most countries, but it remains the most popular social network in Brazil. Google’s social network remains safely ahead of Facebook with 36 million unique visitors per month. Surprisingly, Facebook is only the third most popular social networking site in Brazil, but it is growing rapidly. Facebook currently attracts about 9 million visitors per month – up from just about 1.5 million a year ago. The second largest social networking site in Brazil is Windows Live, which currently reaches about 12.5 million visitors per month.
While Facebook’s growth is clearly outpacing Orkut, Google’s site remains far ahead of all of its competitors in Brazil. The site’s visitors also spend far more minutes on the site than the users of any of the other popular social networks in Brazil. The average Orkut user spent 275.8 minutes on the site in August, while the average Facebook user only spent 29.3 minutes on Facebook. While Windows Live’s profiles are quite popular in Brazil, its users only spent 5.5 minutes there and only visit 3.7 times per month (the average Orkut user visits the site at least once per day).
Twitter is the fourth most popular social network in Brazil with approximately 8.6 million visitors (users?) in August. The service reaches about 23% of the Brazilian online population. According to ComScore, this is the highest Twitter penetration in the world. Twitter is especially popular among younger users (15 to 24), while Facebook’s popularity in Brazil is higher among older users (25 and over).
When discussing social networking in Brazil one cannot forget the popular and relatively new Q&A site formspring.me . This social networking channel has taken off in Brazil where it receives approximately 3.6 million visitors per month – making it the fifth most popular social network in the country.
There is no question that the Social networking landscape in Brazil has unique characteristics. It will be interesting to observe if in the future Brazil will conform to the rest of the world’s social networking habits and channels of choice or continue on its own unique course.
