Last week at the 2008 NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference, someone raised a question about using social networking sites in other countries to connect with students and scholars.
While Facebook and MySpace are ubiquitous in the USA and have been growing globally, they are not the only social networking sites out there and are not always the most popular - or even available - internationally.?So let's take a very brief look at what is happening with the social networking explosion in other countries.
In February 2008, USA Today featured an article about social networking internationally, titled "Social-networking sites going global". And Ben Lorica of O'Reilly Radar blog gathered information about the global growth of social networking sites in "Where Does Facebook Grow From Here".?
VentureBeat.com featured an article in June 2008, titled "The Latin American social networking wars: Market leader Hi5 has been growing, but so has Facebook ? and Sonico?".?Latin America's growing market has a number of major players, among them?Hi5,?Sonico, Facebook and Google's Orkut (especially in Brazil).
Southeast Asia has?Friendster.?Hi5?and?Orkut?are big in South Asia.?Bebo?and?LiveJournal?are in parts of Europe.
Have you been using any networks besides Facebook and MySpace to interact with students and scholars? Have you used languages other than English? What have your experiences been?
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In my past job I traveled extensively in Asia and Europe. One thing that I found that crossed cultural and language boundaries was MMPORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game). WOW, Everquest, Star Wars, and others were ways for people to interact using a common interest. I\'ve also heard that these venues cab be used for team meetings for corporate or other events. The web provides a number of out of the box ways for us to communicate across the world.
Thank you! I’m going to subscribe to your RSS Feed to be updated on your latest posts. I can also contribute some information since I know the topics that this blog covers.
It is old information but actually a never hear before i read your article...thanks keep your good post...and keep sharing about education
I have actually used a number of the international sites you mentioned about for Social Media Marketing. Honestly, I stumbled on them (no pun intended) accidentally. Problem is, I don\'t speak other languages so I would either have to use Google translate to converse or hope someone else spoke English.
The way I look at it, when you are trying to get the word out about your business, it is helpful to be open minded about Social Media especially as it blossoms Internationally.
ps Fortunately, my business can be built all over the world and is not only limited to us which is very helpful.
Thank you for the great reminder to be sure and use these additional social media resources.:)
I have used meetme.com to interact people from different parts of the world. I had chat with many students there who are studying mostly in colleges. I have learned a little Spanish from them.
. I enjoy to interact with the students of other countries.
No more Friendster nowadays. I guess Facebook is the number one among Asian.
Social networks are always changing. What\'s \"hot\" today may be gone tomorrow!
I do recognize the important role of social networking and when you interact with people from various walks of life and from different parts of the world, you actually enhance your knowledge and you get to expand your horizons. The person at the NAFSA conference i think has raised the right question.
Well, I live on Southeast Asia and Facebook is pretty dominant here while talking about social network to engage with student and scholar. However, since Facebook heavily scammed in past few years, this social network became unreliable for information related to scholarship information and opportunities.
Anyway, If someone looking for a good way to build a social marketing related to student, Facebook is still a good answer, beside twitter no doubt.
Twitter is not only helpful in advertising; it is also helpful for those who are involved in stock market trading. By interacting wi
th other people on Twitter who also invest in stocks, you can form a network of intelligent stock investors. They can give you advice on where to invest your money, and update you regarding the financial standing of companies. They can help you avoid the risk of losing your money.