GlobalWebIndex

Last week we headed over to Hong Kong for the second in a series of FutureWeb Events, this time hosted in partnership with Microsoft Advertising.

The night was a great success, with three presentations exploring the picture in Asia and what the rise in social involvement means for the changing marketing communications landscape.

A number of clear trends emerged:

1. Asia is leading the way in consumer publishing and sharing in external open environments. This is clearly the case with blogging, with China, South Korea, India and Japan all making up the leading markets. Asian consumers are also starting to dominate in other platforms, such as Social Networking usage where India now leads Brazil in active involvement.

2. Thanks to their massive internet populations, Asia dominates the social ecosystem in certain platforms. China is the most obvious example; we estimate that there are around 88m bloggers in China out of a global population of 240m

3. Forget the hype, Twitter and microblogging in general are still niche activities in Asia, although micro-blogging is growing in China thanks to a number of local players. As with elsewhere in the world, the users most likely to use Twitter work in IT or Advertising and Marketing! Also traditional platforms like forums or message boards are still the most active social platforms, even succeeding social networks in active usage.

4. Asian web users are extremely open to brand involvement online, both through advertising channels and also social media activities. They are also actively talking about brands.

That is just a few hi-lights, please find the full presentations below:

Presentation 1: Global Social Media Trends – Asia Impact. Tom Smith, Trendstream

Presentation 2: What does it mean for your brand. Jenny Armshaw-Heak, Lightspeed Research