If you were using social media in Brazil during the 2000s, there’s a good chance Orkut was a part of your life. Google created the platform in 2004, and it became very popular in Brazil. What makes this study so interesting is its rise and fall. Both show the same lesson: social media success depends on understanding what your audience wants and continuing to change with them.
Where Orkut Was Right
Orkut did a good job finding its audience and giving users a reason to participate. Its community feature lets people find different groups based on their schools or workplace and other shared interests. Within four months, more than 50,000 communities had been created; within a year, 1.5 million were created (Mahoney & Tang, 2012)
That community structure was a huge strength because the platform was not just broadcasting information to users. It let you have control over your experience. People could connect and interact, recommend products and services, rate one another, and converse with other users. This feeling and these traits are very similar to what we see now in other social media platforms.
This concept is still important in social media marketing today. Community marketing works best when brands create opportunities for people to participate instead of just pushing advertisements at them over and over. Brands can create stronger loyalty when they actually listen to their audience and let the community influence the experience.
The Problem With Standing Still
The problem was that the company did not keep adapting. Brazilian users became more interested in blogging, gaming, online video, and easier photo sharing platforms. The platforms struggled with those features which included problems with loading and sharing photos. That connects directly to what we have learned about social media strategy. A company can’t just create a strategy once and think that it will work forever. Audience behavior, technology, and other platforms are constantly changing. Google eventually announced that Orkut would be shut down in 2014 as most of its social communities had outgrown it.
Culture Matters
Another part of the case that was really interesting to me was how important Brazilian culture was to Orkut’s success. Brazilian consumers were very engaged with social media, e-commerce, and online shopping. The platform fit perfectly into that kind of environment because of its experience, which was based around communities and relationships.
For marketers today, I think the biggest takeaway should be to meet people where they are, but don’t assume that they will just stay there. Fran should always listen to their communities and adapt with new formats that adjust to the audience’s new expectations. Orkut proved that building a strong community can make a platform very successful, but also proved that even a massive community can move on if the experience stops meeting its needs and does not adapt.
References
Mahoney, L. M., & Tang, T. (2012). Strategic Social Media: From marketing to Social change. John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.com/books/about/Strategic_Social_Media.html?id=MyZPDQAAQBAJ
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