Action PR Group

Small and medium Russian companies are paying more and more attention to opportunities delivered by Web 2.0 technologies, as shown by research on Russian executives’ interaction with customers through social media.

According to this online research conducted by Rostexpo among 99 Russian executives in October ‘09, online networking is attracting the attention of more and more executives and owners of small and medium companies in Russia.

86% of participants implement Web 2.0 tools for the promotion of their products and services.  Only 4% say that they do not use them and are not going to in the future. The majority of the participants were female 20-29 years old, most of whom (61%) spend less than 3 hours a week on digital PR.

63% of respondents believe that digital PR is an effective way of promoting their products, but only 30% stated that they have signed agreements with partners found from social media.

What are the most popular social media among Russian executives? The leading position (78%) was taken by Vkontakte, followed by Twitter (61%), Blogi (59%), YouTube (58%), Livejournal (55%), Facebook (52%), various forums (47%), Odnoklassniki (45%), LinkedIn (35%) and Flikr (26%). The full report (in Russian) can be found at the blog Social Media Marketing 2009.

The report also contains the following discussions on the findings. If Russian social network Vkontakte is the recognized leader, with more than 50 million registered users, then Twitter is not as popular as in Western countries. According to Yandex, a Russian search-engine, the amount of Russian Twitter accounts does not exceed 40,000.

It important to mention here that the research was conducted online among social media participants, including Twitter users, so its findings are not conclusive, as they are based on the answers of executives already present in social media. Do you agree with the findings of this research? Add your comment to let us know.