The Russian communications regulator, Roskomnadzoropted for block access in Russia to the social network Facebookbut how will it affect the brand?
Today, social networks are essential digital communication channels for the daily life of human beings, who can stay informed about the most relevant events of the moment and receive information from the other side of the world in a couple of seconds, being an indisputable tool with a endless advantages in times of crisis, as recently shown by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
According to the study of Digital 2022 (carried out by We Are Social and Hootsuite), currently 58 percent of the world’s population is already present on social networks, who spend approximately 2 hours and 27 minutes browsing daily; however, each section of the world has its respective favorite digital platform.
Russia It has a wide catalog of social networks within its domains, where some local and international companies are used by millions of people daily.
Among them, the most important is the Russian social network, VKontaktewhich managed to register 58.69 million users during 2021 (Statistical); however, we can also find other networks such as Odnoklassnikialso known as OK.ruwhich registers approximately 31.5 million viewers per month, Moi Mir which has 16.6 million users per month and later are international ones such as Facebookwho has approximately 21.6 million Russian visitors monthly, livejournal with 15.1 million visits per month and Twitter with approximately 7.7 million.
Despite this, the ranking can change if we take into account the number of users who consume video on these platforms, since according to information from Deloitte, 43 percent of Russian users consume video content on V.K.while 83 percent watch it through Youtube.
These social networks have proven to be of vital importance for the benefit of endless sectors worldwide, regardless of the sector to which they are directed, since their spaces are not only used to publish the day-to-day of their users, but they can be widely used for a myriad of objectives, including increasing brand revenue.
Whether through small advertising guidelines for businesses or companies, as well as those agencies that are responsible for developing advertising through these media, the high traffic of these platforms allows marketing professionals to carry out the segmentation strategies necessary to be able to a product or service in the hands of Internet users, positioning their image to any user who has an account on these social networks.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine it has led to endless economic effects on the Russian population, where various international brands have chosen to stop their production in the country in order to achieve a blow that would reverse the intentions of conflict; however, at the moment this does not seem to affect the corresponding authorities.
One of the platforms that at the time chose to do its part to “affect” the Russians, was Facebook. According to Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Facebook, he mentioned via Twitter that they would be prohibiting Russian state media from creating ads or monetizing their content on the platform, anywhere in the world, among other features to consider.
1/ We are now prohibiting Russian state media from running ads or monetizing on our platform anywhere in the world. We also continue to apply labels to additional Russian state media. These changes have already begun rolling out and will continue into the weekend.
— Nathaniel Gleicher (@ngleicher) February 26, 2022
Bearing this in mind, on this occasion it seems that thes Russian authorities do not take Facebook as such a relevant social networksince for the moment they have announced their dismissal without any inconvenience.
The Federal Service for Supervision of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Communication Media, also known as Roskomnadzordecided today to block Russia’s access to Facebook, in response to the censorship of Russian media accounts amid the Kremlin’s military offensive in Ukraine.
“On March 4 it was decided to block access to the social network Facebook, controlled by Meta, on the territory of the Russian Federation,” Roskomnadzor said in a statement according to the Interfax agency.
Also, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office mentioned that:
“Illegally (Facebook) restricted the dissemination through Internet users of socially important information on the territory of the Russian Federation, including registered media messages and materials, in connection with the imposition of political and economic sanctions by foreign countries with about Russia.”
For the moment Russia will stay with other platforms whose use is authorized as VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Moi Mir and livejournal, where former Facebook users will probably choose to move, but what will happen to those accounts that focused their efforts on Facebook? Taking into account the traffic of the 21.6 million Russian users who used this social network, as well as the companies that were looking to grow through these platforms, which of all these platforms will the Russians move to? what happens to the revenue that advertisers had spent on Facebook ADS and the guidelines already paid in that region?
Social networks have been of vital importance for the strategic planning of businesses, who invest large amounts of money to grow in the short, medium and long term, but how much will the capital of those Russians who focused on developing in this area be affected? digital platform?
The Merca 2.0 team has already requested Facebook’s position to provide this information; the note will be updated in case of receiving a response.