viropanacollective

Tag: consumerbehavior

  • Orkut Had Brazil in a Chokehold, So What Happened?

    Image credit: Google images

    Before Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook became part of our everyday lives, there was Orkut. Launched by Google in 2004, Orkut was one of the earlier social networking platforms. While it never reached the same level of popularity worldwide, it absolutely took off in Brazil. According to Mahoney and Tang (2016), 90% of Orkut’s page views came from Brazilian users.

    So, how did one social media platform manage to take over an entire country, and then disappear completely?

    Orkut Understood the Power of Community

    One of Orkut’s biggest strengths was its focus on community. Users could search for groups based on their interests, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and other personal connections. Only four months after launching, Orkut already had more than 50,000 communities. Within a little over a year, that number grew to approximately 1.5 million (Spertus et al., 2005).

    Orkut also had a little exclusivity behind it. Early membership was invite-only, and because the platform was connected to Google, being invited felt almost like being part of an exclusive digital club. It was especially popular among technology workers and students (Mahoney & Tang, 2016).

    The platform itself was simple and easy to navigate. Users could connect with friends, join communities, recommend products and services, and interact with people who shared similar interests. Long before we were counting likes and followers, Orkut was already showing us how community, social status, and engagement could influence the online experience.

    Why Brazil Was the Perfect Match

    Orkut’s success in Brazil was not random. It matched the country’s digital culture extremely well.

    Mahoney and Tang (2016) explain that Brazilian consumers had a strong connection to digital and social media. Social networking sites were not only places to socialize but also spaces where consumers researched products, shared recommendations, and influenced each other’s purchasing decisions.

    Orkut’s founder, Orkut Büyükkökten, also connected the platform’s success in Brazil to the country’s social culture. Brazilians embraced the platform as a place to build connections and communities, helping Orkut become a major part of the country’s early social media experience (MacNeill, 2024).

    This created a huge opportunity for marketers. Orkut’s communities gave consumers a place to talk about brands, recommend products, exchange opinions, and influence purchasing decisions. In many ways, this looks a lot like the online communities we see across social media today.

    Orkut demonstrates an important lesson in social media marketing: culture matters. A strategy that works in one market may not work in another. Brands have to understand how people communicate, what type of content they enjoy, and what influences their purchasing decisions.

    So, Where Did Orkut Go Wrong?

    Orkut’s downfall shows that gaining an audience is only half the battle. Keeping up with that audience is just as important.

    As social media evolved, users wanted easier photo sharing, online video, better functionality, and a smoother overall experience. Orkut struggled to keep up with those changing expectations. Mahoney and Tang (2016) explain that functionality problems eventually contributed to the platform losing consumers to other social networks that better matched what users wanted.

    Years later, Büyükkökten acknowledged some of those challenges. Orkut grew extremely fast, but the platform experienced scalability and infrastructure problems as its audience expanded. Competition also became stronger as platforms such as Facebook offered users another way to connect online (MacNeill, 2024).

    The platform that once fit Brazilian digital culture eventually stopped evolving with it. That is where Orkut lost its advantage. Having millions of loyal users was not enough when competitors were providing an experience that better matched changing consumer expectations. Orkut officially shut down in 2014.

    The Marketing Lesson Orkut Left Behind

    Orkut’s story is a great example of how closely technology, culture, and consumer behavior are connected. A platform can have millions of users and strong brand recognition, but that does not guarantee long-term success.

    Social media audiences change quickly. Their expectations change. Technology changes. The way people consume content changes.

    For marketers, the lesson is simple: you cannot become comfortable just because your strategy is working today.

    Brands have to listen to their audiences, watch changes in consumer behavior, and continue improving the digital experience. Orkut successfully created a strong sense of community and understood Brazilian social culture for years. However, once the platform stopped meeting the changing needs of its audience, consumers moved on.

    Orkut may be gone, but its rise and fall still teaches us something that applies to social media marketing today: building a community gets people’s attention, but evolving with that community is what keeps it.

    Resources:

    Mahoney, L. M., & Tang, T. (2016). Strategic Social Media: From Marketing to Social Change. Wiley Global Research (STMS). https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781118556900

    MacNeill, K. (2024, June 17). Orkut’s founder is still dreaming of a social media utopia. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/orkut-founder-social-media-utopia/

    Spertus, E., Sahami, M., & Büyükkökten, O. (2005). Evaluating similarity measures: A large-scale study in the Orkut social network. In Proceedings of the eleventh ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery in data mining (pp. 678–684). Association for Computing Machinery.

    Join the conversation!

    Do you think Orkut could have survived if it had evolved with its audience, or was its downfall inevitable?

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  • One App, Everything You Need: How Weixin Turned Convenience into Influence

    Image credit: Time Magazine

    How many times do you pick up your phone in one day without even thinking about it? Maybe you are checking a message, scrolling through social media, reading the news, ordering food, shopping, or paying a bill. Most of us probably switch between several apps to do all of those things. But what if one app could do almost everything?

    That is what stood out to me about Weixin, also known internationally as WeChat. Weixin did not become successful simply because it was another social media platform. It became successful because it understood its audience and found ways to become part of their everyday lives.

    More Than Just Another Social Media App

    When Weixin was introduced in China in 2011, it targeted young, urban smartphone users. Instead of offering only messaging or social networking, the platform created an all-in-one experience. Users could send messages, share pictures, read the news, shop, make payments, and even find transportation without constantly moving between different apps (Mahoney & Tang, 2016).

    I think this is where Weixin got something very right: people value convenience.

    We already have endless choices online. Sometimes having more choices does not make life easier, it makes it more overwhelming. Mahoney and Tang (2016) discuss the idea of reducing “search costs,” meaning that when people can find everything they need in one place, they have less reason to search somewhere else. Weixin recognized this and created an experience that encouraged users to stay within the platform.

    And really, isn’t that what every social media platform wants? Not just our attention for a few seconds, but a place in our everyday routine.

    Make It Easy, and People Will Come Back

    Another part of Weixin’s strategy that stood out to me was its simplicity. The platform was designed around how people actually used their phones.

    For example, instead of requiring users to type Chinese characters to send a message, Weixin allowed them to hold down a button and record their voice. Users could also read news, shop, and access other services without leaving the app (Mahoney & Tang, 2016).

    These may seem like small details, but they matter.

    If something is frustrating or takes too many steps, most of us lose interest pretty quickly. Weixin removed many of those barriers. The easier the platform became to use, the more confident people became using it. Eventually, opening Weixin was not necessarily something users had to think about. It became a habit.

    That is a powerful form of influence.

    When Technology Meets Tradition

    My favorite part of this case study is Weixin’s Red Envelope campaign because it shows that understanding an audience is about more than demographics.

    During Chinese New Year, giving red envelopes containing money to family and friends is an important cultural tradition. Instead of trying to create an entirely new behavior, Weixin brought an existing tradition into the digital world. Users could send virtual red envelopes through the app, and money could even be randomly divided among a group of friends, adding excitement and anticipation to the experience (Mahoney & Tang, 2016).

    The response was huge. Nearly five million people participated, sending approximately 20 million virtual red envelopes (Mahoney & Tang, 2016).

    What I find so influential about this strategy is that Weixin did not try to change what mattered to people. It changed how they could experience it.

    There is a big difference.

    Becoming Part of Real Life

    Weixin took the same approach when it introduced Didi Taxi, allowing users to reserve and pay for taxis directly through the platform. Millions of people eventually used the service (Mahoney & Tang, 2016).

    At that point, Weixin was no longer something people opened only when they wanted to socialize. It had become useful when they needed transportation, wanted to make a purchase, needed information, or wanted to connect with someone.

    That is where I think the real brilliance of Weixin’s strategy lies.

    The platform did not continuously ask its audience for attention. It gave people reasons to return.

    So, What Can We Learn From Weixin?

    The biggest lesson I took from this case study is that successful social media is not always about being louder, posting more often, or chasing the newest trend. Sometimes the most influential strategy is simply understanding people well enough to make their lives a little easier.

    Mahoney and Tang (2016) explain that when a social media product becomes part of someone’s daily routine, influencing behavior becomes easier. Weixin accomplished this by combining convenience, culture, simplicity, and usefulness into one experience.

    For anyone creating a social media campaign today, I think there is an important question worth asking:

    Are we creating something we want our audience to see, or are we creating something our audience will actually want to use?

    Weixin shows us that knowing your audience is more than knowing who they are. It means understanding their habits, their needs, their culture, and what matters to them.

    Because the strongest social media strategy may not be the one that gets someone’s attention once.

    It is the one that gives them a reason to come back tomorrow.

    Reference

    Mahoney, L. M., & Tang, T. (2016). Strategic social media: From marketing to social change. Wiley.

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