The rise and fall of social networking in Europe

Using social networking

In recent years, social media has become a must in Europe, becoming one of the fastest growing trends. In fact, it's fair to say that Europeans are getting more social minded every day. The use of social mediaisn't just for an individual, it can also have huge benefits to a business too.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, Europe will spend a lot more of 2010 interacting with social media. European companies are said to be using social media mainly for research purposes and to drive product sales. European users meanwhile are spending more and more time on the web and in particular on social media sites.

So why this growth in social networking? On a personal front it allows you to connect with friends, share photos and videos, join groups, know about events and stay in contact with those you may have left behind. But how does this benefit your business? The key part to social networking which could have huge benefits for your business, is the groups. By starting a group on social networking sites, it allows you to connect to as many individuals as humanly possible. It allows you to keep this group updated about your business, inform people of the latest development and generally get people interested in your product. In short, it's one of the easiest ways to reach people - and the best bit, it doesn't even have to cost you money. If you find yourself a social networking expert, or even just a member of your staff who is a fan of social networking, you're off - before you know it, people out there know about your business and your product. So who dominates the field these days when it comes to social networking? That would be Facebook.

In the US, Facebook is the leading social network, and throughout Europe it's experiencing rapid growth. In fact, according to comScore, Facebook is the most popular social network in 11 out of 17 European countries.

In other European countries local social networks are losing ground to Facebook, but are still playing a big part, especially when it comes to branded communities, blogger outreach, UGC, video distribution, reactive customer service and display advertising, searchengineland.com states.

What's available in Europe?

Before the days of Facebook, the social networking sites listed below were the major players in their field. As Pierre Bellanger, chief executive and founder of Skyrock stated to the Financial Times, "Prior to Facebook, the landscape was simple."

The past two years has seen the ground start to look more than a little shaky for a number of social networking sites as Facebook continues to gain ground globally.

France - A year ago, Skyrock and Facebook were neck-and-neck in terms of popularity in France, but the US site now far outstrips all rivals. It has 22.6 million users in France, about twice the number of Skyrock, according to Comscore, the market research company. Skyrock offers members a free web space where they can create a blog, add a profile, and exchange messages with other registered members. Skyrock is ranked by comScore as the world's 6th biggest social network with 21 million visitors worldwide.

Spain - In Spain in the past year, Facebook has become the biggest social network. The previous holder of the crown was Tuenti, but it to has been overcome by Facebook. As of 2010, Tuenti has only 6.8 million users. Tuenti is an invitation only social networking site, and unlike other social networking sites, has opted out of banner advertising. With Tuenti, you will only connect to the users you know in real life, and ones you can connect with on a daily basis, unlike Facebook, where you can connect to someone you have never met and may not interact with regularly.

Germany - This is one country where Facebook hasn't won the war. In Germany the StudiVZ Group is still the market leader. It must be noted however that its 13.8 million users come from three different sites. But Facebook is closing in fast with 11.5 million. In a year, Facebook's user numbers have more than tripled, while growth in StudiVZ user numbers is flat. German law has very strict privacy rules, so German sites have to set up a long verification method and are forced to have users opt-in. They also can't share any information they collect with advertisers. Because of this, German social media sites face a lot of competition from Facebook, which as an American site doesn't have to follow these rules in Germany.

Holland - Despite being one of the smallest countries in Europe, in the Netherlands, Hyves still has twice as many users as Facebook. Almost every Dutch citizen is found on Hyves, despite age or occupation. If you wanted to search for Dutch people for information about businesses, or just looking for friends, you would start at Hyves. Only Hyves retains its dominance, with 7.6 million users, compared with 3.3 million for Facebook. However, Facebook tripled in size in the Netherlands last year while Hyves grew 31 percent.

Social networking is going to continue to grow, so using it to your advantage will always be a plus. Wikipedia has compiled a list of the major active social networking websites which could be of interest to your business. Each social networking site is going to be keen to gain their region back from the dominance of Facebook, but can they do it? Only time will tell on this subject, they have a global giant to beat.

Jodie Humphries

Jodie Humphries graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA Hons in Creative Writing in 2008. She has worked for GDS Publishing for the digital group since July 2009. She has previous experience with writing for the web, running her own website since April 2007.

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