Written by Anastasia Kurmakaeva
As we have already seen in the previous article on SEO positioning in Russia, 60% of Russian-speaking Internet users gave preference to Yandex over Google as the most used search engine in their daily lives. Well, in today’s article we are going to see that this is not the end of the differences between Runet users and the rest of the Western world in terms of the most used websites, focusing mainly on the most popular social media platforms in Russia and the CIS countries today. With Brand Analytics data in hand, these are the conclusions we have been able to draw.
VKontakte
While Facebook’s ubiquity seems inescapable, with over a billion monthly active users 
, it really doesn’t enjoy as much popularity in Russia as one would expect. On the other hand, VKontakte (translation: In Contact), or simply VK, takes the number one spot on the podium as the most used social media app in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, registering an average of 70 million daily users. Besides that, it is the second most visited website in Russia after Yandex. The most active VKontakte users are located in St. Petersburg, comprising approximately 36% of the total.
Launched in 2006 by Pavel Durov, VKontakte was originally advertised as a social media platform for students and university graduates, and later became a fast, modern and convenient way to communicate via the Internet. Since then its popularity has been growing steadily, and today it is a free service where anyone can register, it is available in more than 70 languages, and is considered the largest social network in Europe.
Its interface is similar to Facebook’s (although VKontakte’s layout is simpler and less cluttered), and its function is more of the same. We highlight the possibility of sharing an infinite number of photos, links, videos, status updates, etc., which are open to comments and “likes” from your contact list; as well as exchanging private messages with your friends. VKontakte also makes a distinction between groups (communities) and pages. The latter are more oriented towards public figures and businesses, while the function of the groups is more suited to that of communities of users who have common interests.
Odnoklassniki
The second most popular social media platform in Russia is Odnoklassniki (translation: Classmates), launched in 2006. It was created to enable interested users to find their former classmates and childhood friends in the network. Like VKontakte, this Russian social media app receives a large volume of users from countries belonging to the former Soviet Union.
Odnoklassniki is available in 13 languages and since 2010 the registration of an account is completely free of charge. It has similar features to VKontakte: you can share photos, videos, statuses…, as well as create polls, groups or pages. The big difference between these two social media platforms lies in the fact that Odnoklassniki receives an audience of a higher average age than VKontakte, with 24% of active users being over 25 years old.
And finally comes the turn of Facebook, which ranks third as the social media platform with the largest audience in Russia so far in 2015, surpassing Moi Mir in volume of monthly visitors over the course of this past year. However, the growth of the world’s most used social media app continues to be hampered in Russia by its unstoppable competitor VKontakte, although it is gradually gaining popularity thanks to mobile users.
Moi Mir@Mail.ru
Moi Mir@Mail.ru (translation: My World) is also a Russian social media app, part of the Mail.ru portal, as you can get a Moi Mir account automatically once you open an e-mail account on Mail.ru.
Born in 2007, the main function of this platform is focused on microblogging . Popularly, this portal is described as a hybrid of Facebook and Twitter. Initially, it has been created in order to connect with childhood friends or former classmates.
Its audience in the last year has been approximately 22 million monthly active users, and the majority of this audience is female.
LiveJournal
Another popular portal that acts as another social media platform and is quite popular in Russia is this well-known weblog platform. Russian users make up a large part of the total active users of LiveJournal, and in it we will find diaries of celebrities, political parties and organizations, among others.
Instagram and Twitter
Finally, Instagram is one of the social media apps that is currently booming among Russian speakers, surpassing Twitter’s audience in the last year. Instagram is especially popular among women: 77% of some 2 million monthly active users belong to the female gender, aged between 18 and 29.
Twitter is experiencing somewhat uneven growth so far in 2015. However, the average number of tweets posted by active Russian users exceeds 120 per author.
And these are the most popular social media platforms in Russia that have received the most viewership so far in 2015. At Human Level we will keep up with its evolution to always bring you the latest news about Social Media and international SEO.
