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W hite Paper

Global Social Media Usage

and the Language Factor
Written by: Dr. Nitish Singh (St. Louis
University), Dr. Kevin Lehnert
(Grand Valley State University) &
Kathleen Bostick (VP Lionbridge)
© Lionbridge 2010
© Nitish Singh 2010
© Kevin Lehnert 2010

This paper is based on Lionbridge Survey Data of

approximately 3,800 global social media users.
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Sponsored by
Lionbridge and Executive Education in Web Globalization, John Cook School of
Business, Saint Louis University.

Introduction
Today, we are seeing the democratization of information on the web as global
online consumers become publishers of content rather than just passive readers
(Evans, 2008). This trend is known as consumer-generated media (CGM) or user-
generated content (UGC) — both refer to “content being created 24-hours a day
online on blogs, message boards, social networks like Facebook and platforms like
Twitter” (Swedowsky, 2009). Social media is diffusing rapidly among consumers
worldwide and its commercialization is also on the rise. Marketers are now better
understanding social media, not just for reaching global audiences, but also for
engaging them in a targeted fashion, using emerging tools (e.g., Google Analytics,
TweetDeck, Omniture, Scoopler, Tealium) to measure social media efforts
(VanBoskirk, 2009). Leveraging social media commercially allows companies to
create brand communities and crowdsourcing models, gain consumer insights,
enhance product/brand awareness, improve search engine optimization efforts,
reduce customer acquisition and service costs, and optimize overall marketing and
communication efforts (Scott, 2009; Stelzner, 2010; Weinberg, 2009).
For example, Best Buy is using its Twitter account, “twelpforce,” to allow its
employees to answer customer queries and launch promotions; Yahoo has
launched “Yahoo Pinoy Connect,” a community site catering to the specific
needs of the Filipino community and populated by local content, user-generated
content, and localized social tools; and Dell has leveraged Twitter as a sales tool
resulting in $3 million in sales through 2009. Forrester Research forecasts that
social media in the US will be the fastest-growing interactive channel with a
34 percent Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) between 2009 and 2014
(VanBoskirk, 2009). This shows the growing interest of corporations in leveraging
social media for commercial applications. In fact, according to a recent report
by MarketingSherpa (2010), companies will see significant increases in their
budgets for social media marketing, regardless of industry affiliation. The report
also estimates that the bulk of social media marketing budgets (60 percent) are
allocated toward activities like blogging, content development, and social media
monitoring.
From a consumer point of view, social media use is surging. Consumers use
social media not only for self-expression or connecting with family and friends,

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but also for researching products and companies and sharing their consumption
experiences. Some of the top reasons for consumers to follow companies on social
media sites include: seeking information on sales and specials, new products and
services, and learning about company culture and environmental responsibility
policies (MarketingSherpa, 2010). Of the total estimated 625 million active Internet
users, two-thirds have already joined social networks as of 2009 (UM Social Media
Tracker Wave 4, 2009). Nielsen Research estimates for 2009 show overall Twitter
traffic is up 1500 percent over 2008, and Facebook traffic is up by 200 percent over
2008 (Swedowsky, 2009).
However, social media usage is not consistent around the world. Recent social
media usage data and trends show that globally there are significant differences
in how social media is used, content is created, and “crowd wisdom” is shared.
Furthermore, with sixty percent of the online population being non-English
speakers, Chinese is now the second most popular language used over the
Internet, with 407 million online users, compared to 495 million English online
users (internetworldstats.com). This multilingual and cultural diversity on the web
has created a multilingual social media landscape, with unique global usage and
consumption patterns (King 2010).

Goal of this Paper

Understanding how social media is delivered, consumed, and leveraged around
the world can help global marketers to better develop, position, and deliver
global content to achieve social media marketing objectives, such as increasing
website traffic and lead generation, improving multilingual search engine
visibility, increasing global brand awareness, and most importantly, enhancing
global revenues. Thus, the broad objective of this whitepaper is to explore global
differences in social media diffusion and usage. The paper will analyze patterns of
social media usage among global social media users from more than 20 countries
and explore how online users are translating social media content for global
consumption.
More specifically, the whitepaper presents the results of a large-scale, 2010 global
survey of approximately 3,800 social media users exploring:
»» How users from different countries use social media for business and
personal use
»» The most popular global social media platforms, in which countries
»» The top languages used to generate global social media content
»» User preferences for English versus local language with regard to
social media content

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»» Global user propensity to translate social media content

»» Methods used by consumers to translate social media content

Emerging Global Social Media Trends

Consumers
The emerging data on global social media usage by country suggest there are
significant differences in usage of social media type and form, and in the way
consumers interact with social media. A survey of 23,200 active Internet users
in 38 countries (Spring 2009 by UM Social Media Tracker - WAVE 4) found the
following:
»» Between the ages of 16 and 54, Danes have the highest penetration of social
media, followed by Malaysia, Norway, and Sweden.
»» However, the US leads in terms of just the number of social media users.
»» In most countries analyzed in this study, watching videos seems to be the most
dominant activity, but cross-national differences in involvement and usage are
still apparent.
»» In the US, online video watching is the most popular social media activity,
followed by visiting social networking pages of friends, and reading blogs
(UM Social Media Tracker - WAVE 4, 2009).
»» Like some other large-scale surveys, the UM Social Media WAVE 4 survey found
Germans to be cautious and late adopters of major social media platforms,
with the number of video watchers actually falling from 77.1 percent in 2007
to 74.1 percent in 2009, while social networking steadily increased since 2007.
»» Based on the same survey, Chinese and South Koreans tend to be the early
adopters in this market and actually lead in terms of blogging, with a higher
percentage of people reading and writing blogs than watching videos.
»» An interesting note here about Brazil is that social networking has remained
constant since 2007, but the blog readership has fallen by 28 percent.
»» Further, according to the WAVE 4 of the UM Social Media Survey, India has
recorded steady growth across multiple social media platforms, especially
social networking activities.
»» Finally, according to the WAVE 4, an overarching global social media trend is
that social media platforms are becoming more multi-media savvy, with
convergence of photos, videos, music, and widgets.

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A large-scale Global Web Index survey of almost 32,000 global social media
users (between 2008 and 2009) tried to delve deeper into the motivations
behind social media usage (Smith 2010). Some of the findings highlight how
people use social media in different countries. For example, in the Asia-Pacific
region:
»» China: staying in touch with a friend is the most frequent use of social media
»» Japan: people ranked researching products to buy as the number one social
media activity
»» South Korea: staying up-to-date on news and events was the most popular
»» India: researching for work topped the social media usage motivation
»» Australia: staying in touch with friends was the most common activity

It is clear that within the Asia-Pacific region, there seem to be emerging

differences in motivations behind the functional use of social media. The same
Global Index Survey 2009 results from Europe show that:
»» U.K.: researching product purchases is the most common motivation behind
social media use
»» France: staying in touch with friends is the dominating motivation
»» The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Russia: staying current on news and
events leads the way (Smith, 2010)

Furthermore, in the Americas:

»» Brazil’s motivation to use social media was unique and focused on
“researching how to do things.”
»» The US, like some other countries, ranked researching products to buy as
the number one motivation of social media activity.

Based on the Global Web Index Survey, Smith (2010) anticipates that the
passive impact of social media will be bigger than its active impact. “Passive
impact of social media related to the exposure and aggregation of opinions,
reviews, ratings and recommendations that impact all global social media
users, regardless of their personal social media involvement (Smith 2010).”
Furthermore, findings from the Global Web Index survey point to an emerging
reality that digital networks are overtaking the size of our face-to-face
networks. For example, according to Smith (2010), the average US face-to-face
network is 21.4 and social online network is 49.3.

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Another recent study by Belleghem (2010) of InSites Consulting surveyed 2,884

social media users from 14 countries, across major geographic regions during
2009-2010, to understand social media usage patterns. This survey found that
Facebook is one of the most well-known social networking sites (83 percent
of the sample were aware of Facebook) followed by MySpace and Twitter. An
interesting analysis by the InSites Survey is the categorization of social media
users into four quadrants, based on “social media log in frequency” and “social
media activity frequency”; the four social media user types are:
»» Addicts: high log-in and high activity frequency
»» Voyeurs: high log-in, but low activity frequency
»» Special Occasions: low log-in, but high activity frequency
»» Passive users: low log-in and low activity frequency (Belleghem, 2010)

This study found most users fall into two extremes: “Passive User” category (47%)
and “Addicts” (26%), followed by “Voyeurs” (14%) and “Special Occasions” (13%).
Brazilians dominated the “Voyeurs” category, while Americans and Russians
dominated the “Special Occasion” category. Another finding from this study
shows that connected people on social media have, on average, 195 friends
online. Brazil leads the way with an average of 360 friends, followed by Portugal
(236 friends) and the US (200 friends). This study also showed some regional
differences related to trust and openness, with Europeans being less trusting and
less open online compared to Asians.

Companies
Another way to view global social media usage is by company, rather than
individual consumer, so here we look at a study by Burson-Marsteller (2009). This
study analyzed social media efforts of the top 100 Fortune Global 500 companies
between 2009 and 2010. Country-specific insights include:
»» Chinese state-owned companies have been a late and slow adopter of social
media compared to Chinese private firms and foreign subsidiaries in China.
»» Orkut is the most popular social networking site in Brazil with 26 million users,
but Brazilian companies are slow to engage consumers on Orkut or Facebook
for fear of losing control of the conversation.
»» Japanese tend to be reluctant to share their thoughts publicly; therefore, social
media adoption has been slow in Japan, but Japanese language social
networking sites (e.g. Mixi) are catching on.
»» Similarly, Japanese companies have been reluctant to use social media and
prefer traditional online forms of communication via company websites.

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»» French companies have also been reluctant users of social media tools, mostly
using them to push out information without losing control of the conversation.
»» In Italy, the situation is different in that companies are actively engaging their
social media users, like Facebook fans, as brand ambassadors.
»» Most Korean companies tend to restrict their social media efforts to top
Internet and social media channels specific to South Korea, like Korean online
cafes and Cyworld.

Based on this review of consumers and companies, it’s clear there have been
some attempts to understand usage patterns and profile global social media
users. However, there is still limited evidence and information on the diffusion
of global social media, its usage worldwide for business and personal reasons,
and the effect to which multilingual diversity impacts the consumption of social
media. This white paper addresses some of these under-researched issues
by first analyzing global social media consumption patterns for both business
and personal use, and then analyzing language preferences and tools used to
translate social content.

Sample
Our study spanned from December 2009 to January 2010, when we implemented
a survey on global social media usage in 20 languages. As per our knowledge, it
is one of the first social media surveys to be implemented in 20 languages. Each
language version of the survey was designed by native-speaking, well-trained and
qualified translators in that language. More than 4,500 people from around the
world responded to the survey. (The following data reflects the more than 3,800
survey respondents who use social media platforms.) Snowballing was used to
generate the sample. The survey was implemented online, and different language
versions of the survey were made available to accommodate respondents’
language preferences.
Respondent break-up by countries is shown in Graphic 1, below. The majority of
survey respondents were from the US, followed by India, China, Finland, Italy,
France, Ireland, Canada, the UK, and Spain, along with another 10 countries.
Thus, the data primarily includes respondents from more than 20 countries.

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Graphic 1: Major countries sampled for the Study

Almost 85 percent of the sample age ranged between 21-50 years, and the
gender was 47 percent female and 52 percent male.

Survey Results
The survey examined two broad areas relating to global social media usage: (1)
How global social media is used for business and personal use, and (2) The role of
language and translation in global social media usage.
Global Social Media Usage
Based on the aggregate data from all the countries, we analyzed people’s
motivations for using social media for business and personal use.
The results show that 85 percent of our sample uses social media for business
use. The top three reasons for using social media for business as illustrated in
Graphic 2 are:

1. Building networks for business contact

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2. Reading social media content

3. Highlighting personal and professional expertise on social media
Other leading reasons included job search, identifying potential leads, and finding
product and service information.

Graphic 2: Social media business usage for the total sample

The results show that 97 percent of our sample uses social media for personal
use. The top three reasons for using social media for personal use as illustrated in
Graphic 3 are:
1. Connecting with friends and family
2. Reading social media content
3. Connecting with like-minded people

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Other leading reasons included:

»» Sharing links to the social media content
»» Making new friends
»» Using social media out of boredom

Graphic 3: Social Media Personal Usage for Total Sample

Looking at the top 7 countries by sample size, it is clear that while there is some
consistency in social media usage for business and personal use, there are
country-specific differences, as highlighted in Graphic 4, below. Furthermore,
beyond the popularity of common social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn,
Twitter, and MySpace, there are country-specific social media platforms that are
popular in different countries due to language and social barriers. For example,
in China, QQ, Q Zone, and Xiaonei are popular social media platforms catering
to local tastes and language preferences. Similarly, in India, Orkut is one of the
market leaders in social media, and in Poland, Nasza-Klasa is popular.

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Graphic 4: Global Social Media Usage Patterns

Social Top Business Social media Top Personal Uses Social media Other Popular
Media Uses of Usage- of Social Media Usage- Social Media
Use Social Media Business Personal Platforms
USA 1. Build network Most Popular: 1. Connect with Most Popular: You Tube & Flicker
contacts LinkedIn friends and family Face Book
2. Highlight
Least Popular: 2. Read content Least Popular:
(n=102 personal
MySpace 3. Connect with like- MySpace
expertise
7) 3. Read content minded people
India 1. Build network Most Popular: 1. Connect with Most Popular: Orkut & You Tube
contacts Face Book friends and family Face Book
(n=342)
2. Read content Least Popular: 2. Make new friends Least Popular:
3. Job search MySpace 3. Connect with like- MySpace
minded people
China 1. Highlight Most Popular: 1. Connect with Most Popular: QQ, Q Zone &
personal MySpace friends and family MySpace Xiaonei
(n=197)
expertise Least Popular: 2. Read content Least Popular:
2. Build network Face Book 3. Make new friends Twitter
contacts
3. Identify leads
Finland 1. Build network Most Popular: 1. Connect with Most Popular: You Tube & Flicker
(n=171) contacts Face Book friends and family Face Book
2. Read content Least Popular: 2. Read content Least Popular:
3. Job Search MySpace 3. Out of boredom Twitter
Italy 1. Build network Most Popular: 1. Connect with Most Popular: You Tube &
contacts Face Book friends and family Face Book MSN/Windows live
(n=148)
2. Highlight Least Popular: 2. Read content Least Popular: spaces
personal MySpace 3. Connect with like- Twitter
expertise minded people
3. Read content
France 1. Build network Most Popular: 1. Connect with Most Popular: You Tube &
contacts Face Book friends and family Face Book MSN/Windows live
2. Read content Least Popular: 2. Read content Least Popular: spaces
(n=139) 3. Highlight MySpace 3. Share links to Twitter
personal content
expertise
Ireland 1. Build network Most Popular: 1. Connect with Most Popular: You Tube & Flicker
contacts Face Book friends and family Face Book
(n=128)
2. Read content Least Popular: 2. Read content Least Popular:
3. Highlight MySpace 3. Connect with like- MySpace
personal minded people
expertise

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Language Factor in Global Social Media

In this section, we provide an analysis of the access to social media by language,
and showcase how consumers overcome language barriers to use social media.
Graphic 5, below, shows social media use by language; however, sample sizes for
different languages were not uniform, therefore, sample bias is possible in the
data. A better picture may appear if we analyze the percentage of people from
our country sample that prefer social media in their local language.

Graphic 5: Social Media Use by Languages

Language Yes Used Social Media Not Used Social Media

Portuguese BR 92.45% 7.55%

Spanish 91.43% 8.57%

Danish 90.16% 9.84%

Polish 88.64% 11.36%

Chinese TW 88.57% 11.43%

Portuguese PT 88.00% 12.00%

English 87.79% 12.21%

Finnish 84.35% 15.65%

Russian 82.73% 17.27%

Italian 80.95% 19.05%

French FR 80.92% 19.08%

Swedish 79.52% 20.48%

French CA 78.85% 21.15%

Dutch 76.56% 23.44%

Norwegian 72.22% 27.78%

Hindi 66.67% 33.33%

German 65.55% 34.45%

Malayalam 60.00% 40.00%

Korean 58.33% 41.67%

Chinese CN 56.94% 43.06%

Japanese 56.12% 43.88%

Grand Total 83.37% 16.63%

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Graphic 6, below, shows the percentage of respondents from the top 10 countries
in our study (based on sample size) who prefer content in English versus their local
language (if other than English). Also included in this table is the percentage of our
respondents who translate social media content, the type of content they translate
the most, and the translation method they use: human translation or machine
translation.

Graphic 6: Language factor in Social Media Translation

COUNTRY LANGUAGE PEOPLE TRANSLATING TYPE OF CONTENT TRANSLATION MECHANISM
PREFERENCE % SOCIAL MEDIA % TRANSLATED (Human Translation=HT & Machine
Translation=MT) other category
not included

Worldwide (all English=62% 23% 1. Messages HT=62%

countries Other=5% 2. Comments MT=35%
n=4630) French=4% 3. Blogs

USA English=96% 18% 1. Messages HT=52%

2. Comments MT=43%
3. Blogs
India English=94% 24% 1. Messages HT=46%
2. Comments MT=52%
3. Blogs
China Chinese 25% 1. Blogs HT=53%
(simplified)=86% 2. Profiles MT=47%
English=11% 3. Messages
Finland English=57% 23% 1. Comments HT=65%
Finnish=38% 2. Messages MT=35%
3. Blogs
Italy Italian= 78% 26% 1. Comments HT=86%
English=21% 2. Messages MT=14%
3. Blogs
France French= 63% 17.5% 1. Messages HT=68%
English=29% 2. Tweets MT=32%
3. Comments
Ireland English=91% 15% 1. Blogs HT=64%
2. Messages MT=32%
3. Comments
Canada English=67% 32% 1. Messages HT=66%
2. Blogs, comments MT=32%
3. Tweets

UK English=93% 15% 1. Comments HT=48%

2. Messages MT=43%
3. Blogs and Tweets
Spain Spanish=60% 22% 1. Messages HT=67%
English=24% 2. Comments MT=30%
3. Blogs

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From the table above, it is evident that users from different countries prefer social
media in their local languages. The strongest preference was seen in China, where
86 percent of Chinese preferred content in simplified Chinese.
It is also evident that while options for translation of social media content are
limited, and machine translation technology has not yet been perfected, even
then, consumers are using either human or machine translation to read social
media content. India is one of the only countries in our top 10 country sample that
uses more machine translation over human translation. Both human and machine
translation have their challenges in the present state of the industry. Few individuals
are multilingual or have access to translators to help them translate social media
content. In terms of technology, machine translation has not yet evolved enough to
take into account the grammatical and idiomatic nuances of translation. It is still best
used for “gisting” purposes, which means getting a rough idea of what a piece of
content is about, and is therefore only able to produce a very low level of quality.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the goal of this study was to address the apparent gap in the current
literature regarding language usage in global social media. The study also tried to
uncover global social media usage patterns for business and personal use across
a list of several countries covering North America, Europe, and Asia. This cross-
national analysis yielded global social media usage patterns across the world, and
showed that, while there are emerging similarities in social media usage, countries
still show unique local preferences in terms of how they use social media for
business and personal use. Also, it is evident that Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace,
and Twitter usage is not uniform across the world. There are significant differences
in terms of cross-national preference for these social media platforms. Moreover,
it is also evident that country-specific social media platforms are widely used, even
over the global giants like Facebook, Twitter and others. Finally, the study showed
that local language preference for social media usage is very strong around the
world. Thus, companies need to consider the language factor in their content and
user-generated content, and how best to facilitate translation, if they truly want to
penetrate global markets.

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Forrester Technographics data (2009) http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/

profile_tool.html
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CONTACT INFORMATION
About Lionbridge
Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: LIOX) is a leading provider of translation,
localization, and testing services. Lionbridge combines global language resources
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