New ways of advertising on social networks Fedor Virin, research director, Mail.ru.

Mail.ru Project Monthly Reach, September 2008 '000 In population Portal ,2% Mail .-service ,1% Main Page ,1% Social Net ,8% Photo hosting ,3% news aggregator ,1% Search engine ,8% Leader of the Russian internet. One of the leaders in all Russian- speaking countries

World changes At present time there are some sites with growth rate over tens or hundred percent a year, i.e. their dynamics leave behind the dynamics of total internet audience. Most of new fast growing sites found their places at a niche, which didnt exist several years ago. Rating of most visited sites lost its half during the last three years.

World changes Modern stars grow faster then Google, however their coverage is much less as compared with the leaders. The picture changes if we look at hits. Here we can see a real competition for audience attention.

For what: Social network is…? Social network is a system of permanent connections between people. The main purpose of social networks is a communication by existing connections, other words social network is an Instant Messenger.Thus social network is a number of profiles and connections between them. Intermediate variants: -Dating (there are profiles, but connection is not permanent); -Blogs + Foto/Video Hostings (there are profiles and connections, but they are one-sided and the communications between them are one-sided, too); These services have a bit different functional and, at once, a completely another scheme of research. Thus, today social networks are: -Social network, as: Facebook, Odnoklassniki.ru, etc. -Instant Messengers: Live Messenger, Mail.ru Agent, ICQ, jabber. -MMO-games, they are the same social networks: there are profiles and connections, they are permanent. However a small amount of people (units of percent) are the players in ММО-games.

For what: What does it look like in statistics? Source: Gemius Audience/FOM| march TEST DATA., Stat.Mail.ru, RBC.ru Sites Visitors (mln) Hits per visitor (monthly) Time per visitor (monthly) Number of sessions per visitor (monthly) vkontakte.ru9, :09:5424,1 odnoklassniki.ru10,36045:34:4519,1 Mamba3,93023:37:579,5 loveplanet.ru2,51482:46:089,1 Мой 24open.ru1,4730:46:055,9 liveinternet.ru5400:31:343,0 photofile.ru1,7380:20:322,6 Livejournal4,9290:53:463,8 radikal.ru1,8170:20:073,3 moikrug.ru2150:12:291,6 vspomni.ru0,720:00:421,3 Mail.ru Agent1200 QIP1000

Users create content Distribution of digital cameras, scanners, telephones with cameras, dictaphones, digital video-cameras etc. lead to avalanche-like growth of user content. Simplification of technologies and interfaces let us public this content in web easily. Today you dont have to know more then how to connect your camera with computer and load the information. Expansion of wideband connection makes it even easier. Internet audience use opportunity of publication in an actively way. Data TNS Gallup Media Broadband Dont know

Mail.ru, MASMI, november 2007 г. Number of used social networks At least one At least two At least three At least four Over four Dont use TNS Gallup Media. Web Index. February Moscow years old 61% Moscovers use at least one social network (actually the ratio is bigger, because TNS does not measure vkontakte.ru and western networks). The situation in Russia is the same: 62% of respondents during an autumn survey said, that they use at least one social network. For all that, more then a third uses several networks at the same time. Usage of social networks

Average number of friends per person is not big. For most groups it counts 5-7 friends for If a network includes more participants, the number can rise to per person. Of course, there are always users with thousands friends, but for majority it is not. Data for project February 2008 Average number of friends Female Male

Usage of social networks It is important that, the older a man is, the more his/her connections are diversified. The same situation we can see in social networks and common conversations. Just as it is, the range of association changes. Data for project February 2008

Using UGC Increasing value and count of self content Adding user content increase the information about goods and services, облегчая коммуникацию с целевым аудиториям. Users see marks of other and make conclusions, having or not agreed with them. It is applicated to any mass goods and services, which can have individual characters and relation. It is important for a user to have an intent to comment his/her buying. It is important to follow «the rule of beggar»: presence and a nature of first response and the balance in users responses. It is important to let user leave his response by an easy form, and to induce him to do it.

Using UGC Providing user with information the can publish Usually users dont have anything interesting to public, instead they republic any interesting information. Then its important to make that information seem interesting for them. Examples: a huge amount of video files which are publicized in advertka (leading Russian community for advertisers) and then multiply in other blogs. It is an example if a virus marketing. On the other hand – see Vedomosti.ru proposing bloggers to republic any information with a link, performing all the necessary features.

Using UGC Embedding to user content «Performing» yourself like a user, masking your content under a users one you can sparkle on their interest for new forms of communication, getting a virus effect: posting trailers, corporate blogs and other. The problem is about good creative content, otherwise it wont interest a user. Making high-quality content can appear to be big problem. Though, there are some outstanding cases which users take actively.

Embedding to user communication: Profiles We can play a role of common users, to take the same level and to enter their communication.

МТS for adult Embedding to user communication: Virus Honda AccordQashQai car games Video advertising made with humor or staggering by its content can spread through Internet extremely fast: it is resent by , cited in blogs, posted on sites, or as I do – posting to my reports.

Embedding to user communication: Virus 1 advertising panel 8000 as total costs, including costs for creating a site 35 thousand of users a day at the top your campaign 3200 publications in blogs About 1 mln people have seen this site or pictures from it

Demographic targeting

Cross targeting demographic and interests