Internet and online marketing in Russia

Transcription

1 Internet and online marketing in Russia Nuffic Neso Russia May 2016

2 Table of contents Introduction...2 The Internet in Russia...2 What you will find in the report...2 Chapter 2: Nuffic Neso Russia s online experiences Social networks...3 Active Neso Russia accounts in social networks...4 Tips & Advice Web portals...5 Begin Group: and Ucheba.ru: Theory and Practice: General nesorussia.org website statistics...8 Chapter 3: Online behaviour Conclusion Reference list

3 Introduction The Internet and online social networks have become some of the best modern tools to promote products and services all over the world, and Russia is no exception. Many companies are moving their marketing and sales campaigns to social media where customers and potential clients are able to purchase a product without leaving the page. This report gives insight into the latest trends and developments as well as Nuffic Neso Russia s experience and best practices in online marketing. The Internet in Russia Russia has a population of more than 143 million people. Russia s Internet user base is the sixth largest in the world. In Europe Russia has the fastest-growing Internet audience. It is estimated that Internet penetration in Russia will reach 71.3% by July 2016¹ (there s still a long way to go compared with the Netherlands where 95.5% of inhabitants use the Internet regularly). Wi-Fi Internet has recently expanded (the Moscow and St. Petersburg undergrounds, in addition to other forms of public transportation now feature free Wi-Fi), which facilitates greater use of mobile devices. Approximately 67% of the total Russian population over age 18 uses the Internet on a regular basis, whereas 96% of young people aged uses the Internet (the target group for study abroad)². Russians are some of the biggest social networkers worldwide in terms of time spent per user, with an average of 143 minutes per visitor per day. The most popular social network Vkontakte, which is a platform for students and graduates to exchange ideas, music and other media, is the most likely choice of social network for higher education institutions for promotions in Russia. Facebook offers good opportunities as well according to Nuffic Neso s experiences. What you will find in the report Nuffic Neso Russia s experiences with online educational portals that are used by prospective students to find information on study possibilities abroad. The portals can be used for promotional activities by Dutch institutions as well. An overview of Russia s largest social networks and Nuffic Neso Russia s presence on these portals. Prospective students online behaviour. Data is based on the results of the Student Survey (with a response from 883 students who are interested in going abroad) conducted by Nuffic Neso Russia in Internet growth statistics for the past three years. We believe that this data could be of interest for Dutch institutions. We hope that our research will help representatives of Dutch institutions of higher education to learn more about Internet and online promotion in Russia. 2

4 Chapter 2: Nuffic Neso Russia s online experiences Nuffic Neso Russia uses different online marketing tools for its Study in Holland promotion. We maintain a presence on the country s main social networks, run Google Adwords campaigns, issue a monthly e-newsletter, place ads on different web portals, hold online competitions and organize special projects and events. In this chapter we ll share some of our experiences and conclusions Social networks Russia ranks first among all countries when it comes to social networking engagement. The Russian people are the busiest social networkers worldwide in terms of time spent per user. The most popular social network in Russia is Vkontakte ( It has over 54 million average daily users. This social network was created in 2006 for students and university graduates to communicate easily with each other. However, later it became a platform for communication for everyone living in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other CIS countries. Odnoklassniki ( is the Russian prototype of Classmates.com, which is used to find classmates and students of the same year, former co-workers, etc. This website was created in The audience is considerably older than in Vkontakte. The core audience of Odnoklassniki is between the ages of (26%), (20%) and 55 and older (20%). Our goal is to reach out prospective students directly, therefore Nuffic Neso Russia does not focus on this social network. Facebook ( was launched in Russian in It is more popular among people who have an international background or who have friends that frequently travel abroad. According to the TNS-Global research (2015) is has become the third most popular social network in Russia. Moi Mir@Mail.ru ( is a Russian social network that connects people using the portals of Mail.ru (the Russian mail server and search engine). For several years Moi Mir was the third most popular network in Russia, although in 2015 it was knocked out of the Top-3. Nuffic Neso Russia is not represented in MoiMir for the same reason that we don t maintain a presence on Odnoklassniki: we believe that our target audience is not there. Both Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir websites are owned by Mail.ru group, a large Russian media-holding company. Instagram ( is a very popular app for posting, editing and sharing pictures from a smartphone. It came to Russia in 2012 and since that time has become more and more popular, with significant growth in active users. We do not use Neso Russia s account anymore because we do not have the capacity to run several social media channels simultaneously and produce quality, fun, unique and relevant content to share on a regular basis. We created a special account for Russian students currently studying in the Netherlands (@russianstudentsinnl) instead, and we use their unique content in our promotional activities (i.e. repost to other social media groups). Twitter ( is less popular in Russia in comparison with other social networks and its popularity has been decreasing in recent years. Nuffic Neso Russia has had a Twitter account since However, we don t Tweet for our prospective students as initially planned, but instead use the tool mainly to reach out to large entities such as Russian and Dutch higher education institutions, stakeholders, local businesses, etc. The diagram below (TNS-Global research 2015) shows the dynamics of social media visitors per month in Russia from ³ 3

5 Social networks in Russia (visitors per month in millions) Active Neso Russia accounts in social networks Vk.com open group called Учись в Голландии (Study in Holland) Facebook page Nuffic Neso Russia/Учись в Голландии Twitter account Nuffic Neso Instagram account fully moderated by Russian students currently studying in Subscribers growth of Neso Russia social media groups Number of followers Social network end of 2014 end of 2015 Apr-16 Vk.com Facebook Twitter According to Google Analytics, Vkontakte takes first place among referring social sites in We received 10,193 visits to our website from Vkontakte during 2015, whereas Facebook gave us 5,517 visits (second most referred social network). Moreover, according to the Prospective Student Survey Facebook is the most popular network to get information about study abroad (56% of respondents answered they used Facebook for that purpose followed by Vkontakte with 48%). Chapter 3 provides more detailed description of the survey. 4

6 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% Which of the following networking sites do you use to find information on studying abroad? Source: Prospective Student Survey Tips & Advice We advise Dutch institutions to use Vkontakte along with with Facebook for promotion. Russian students and/or alumni can assist in maintaining a page in Russian and updating it on a regular basis. Also, we advise allocating some funds for advertising on Vkontakte to increase the number of your followers and to help in promoting your website or event. On Facebook you might find English-speaking Russians who already have international experience and/or contacts and who are interested in pursuing a bachelor s, master s or PhD abroad. On Facebook, as well as Vkontakte, it is possible to choose a specific Russian city, age group, interests and universities to target your ads. Also it might be useful to create a Facebook page in Russian for promotional reasons (for an example see VU Amsterdam) Web portals Web portals are an important source of information for prospective students and their parents. The information on these websites can provide an overview of different study possibilities locally and abroad. These sites generate a lot of traffic and offer many promotional options for foreign institutions. There are many portals that specialise in education, however, not many of them provide information on education abroad. Portals that provide information on studying abroad and with whom Nuffic Neso Russia has experience are: and Below you will find out more about our recent experiences with online portals. Begin Group: and The sites and were created by the Begin Group Company in 1999 and 2001 accordingly, targeting people interested in business and postgraduate education and parents and secondary school students interested in high-quality education in Russia and abroad. The Begin Group Company provides comprehensive information support to educational institutions worldwide and related services including fairs, dedicated websites, handbooks and tailor-made PR-campaigns. The Begin Group organises postgraduate and undergraduate fairs twice a year in Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia and CIS countries, during which time they promote their websites ( and and other services. 5

7 The websites have several unique sections: a database of study programmes (local and abroad), an overview of events, news and analytical articles. The websites have a straightforward layout and easy navigation. The content is entirely in Russian. There are various suitable locations for banners on the website and the price depends on the location and the rotation period. The majority of advertisers are foreign institutions and business schools. Additional possibilities: Landing page with registration forms News headlines Expert advice Student/alumni experience Direct campaigns Traffic: has up to 87,000 visitors monthly while has up to 868,000 visitors every month. We have cooperated with the Begin Group in online and offline activities (the Holland Corner at Begin group fairs) for several years. They are always willing to give us special benefits or discounts for advertising on their information channels and also offer free publications on occasion. According to our experience marketing with Begin Group works well: we always receive quite a few registrations for our events using this method. Ucheba.ru: The site is big online education portal in Russia that was recently redesigned. The portal now has a fresh and modern look to it. The content is entirely in Russian. The target audience of the website consists mainly of school graduates and their parents, students of vocational education and universities, graduates interested in a second higher education degree or MBA and people interested in short-term learning opportunities or language courses. Traffic: The monthly audience of the website is over 1 million visitors. Moreover their social media communities are quite large: Vkontakte has 84,173 group members and Facebook has 12,633 likes. There are various places for banners on the website. The price depends on the location and the rotation period. The majority of advertisers are Russian institutions and education agencies. We have tried placing banners on the main page and on the Education abroad section of the website in the past. We put our cooperation on hold until April 2016 when we launched a special online project together with Radboud University and KLM on the Ucheba.ru portal called Ticket to Holland. We ll be able to provide Dutch educational institutions with the final results of the promotion in June Theory and Practice: Theory and Practice is a web portal for young people that are eager to learn more about different scientific, cultural, historical and psychological topics. It does not focus on higher education in Russia or abroad directly, but instead promotes knowledge distribution in different areas of life from the human body to astrophysics. The website features an up-to-date design, which was reconfigured a couple of years ago. There is a Lectures section (upcoming lectures, workshops and seminars); Courses (different types of educational courses from Mini-MBAs to summer camps abroad); as well as Opportunities, which features listings on internships, volunteering, scholarships and grants for students. The content is entirely in Russian. Traffic: More than 500,000 unique visitors per month. The majority (38%) are aged and (21%) and are students and young specialists. Their communities are very popular on Vkontakte with 117,161 group members and Facebook with 137,000 likes. 6

8 Nuffic Neso Russia has experience with free publications, paid banners and special online projects with the portal. We ve been satisfied with our promotions there. The most recent special project with them (November 2015) was called I want to study in the Netherlands ; it was a huge success. We got more than 700 e-newsletter subscribers and just under 500 Vkontakte and Facebook likes and subscriptions. Do note that this is not a complete list of the online educational portals on the Russian Internet. We ve mentioned only websites with which we have ongoing cooperation and recent experience. If you are contacted by the owner of an educational portal from Russia that you are not familiar with, do not hesitate to contact Neso Russia for advice. 7

9 2.3 General nesorussia.org website statistics As a result of our online activities we saw an increase in sessions and unique visitors to our website last year. Below we present website statistics for the last three years. Sessions Increase compared to previous year,% Users Increase compared to previous year,% , 311 7,26 75,298 9, ,125 6,96 82,428 9, ,126 33,3 104,099 26,3 As you may notice we posted an increase of 33% in traffic exposure to our website in sessions and 26.3% in users by the end of This is likely the result of our doing more online campaigns, special projects, social media advertising and Orange Tulip Scholarship promotion. According to the Google Analytics data pages (see below) related to the Orange Tulip Scholarship 1 and 3 are the most visited on our website together with Homepage (3) and Studyfinder (4). In general we received 37% more page views in 2015 than in Most popular pages at nesorussia.org in 2015 An interesting note: we got more visits coming from the Russian regions in 2015 than in This might be the result of increased travel of Nuffic Neso Russia colleagues to Russian regions in 2015 (we visited Tomsk and Novosibirsk fairs for the first time), but obviously this is not the only reason. Top 10 Russian cities we received traffic from (population figures from 2012): 1. Moscow (11.9 million inhabitants) 2. St. Petersburg (4.9 million) 3. Ufa (1.75 million) 4. Yekaterinburg (1.38 million) 5. Krasnodar (773,970) 8

10 6. Novosibirsk (1.51 million) 7. Kazan (1.16 million) 8. Krasnoyarsk (1.01 million) 9. Nizhniy Novgorod (1.25 million) 10. Tomsk (544,000) In total we received 28.6% more sessions from these cities in Traditionally the most visited months for our website are: September, October and November, followed by February, March and April. During the most popular months we usually average between 15,000 and 20,000 sessions per month. This is kind of self-explanatory as students are actively searching for study possibilities during these periods. In autumn they start looking for different options for the year ahead (or perhaps even for a longer period). Spring is application time, Orange Tulip Scholarship deadlines, etc. The winter months and summertime are normally quiet for offline and online recruitment in Russia. Another interesting note: there was a substantial growth of mobile users (mobile and tablet) accessing the website in 2015 compared to Our website became better adapted to mobile and responsive to screen size in February 2014, which has certainly made it more user friendly for mobile visitors. The picture below shows the growth in numbers and percentages of desktop, mobile and tablet sessions in 2014 and Desktop, mobile, tablet sessions in 2014/2015 As you can see, the sessions on mobile devices show the most significant growth (81.9%). The most popular operating systems are Android (#1 with 48% of all sessions), ios (#2, 45%) and the most popular devices used are the Apple iphone and the ipad followed by Samsung smartphones and tablets. 9

11 Chapter 3: Online behaviour Prospective Russian students prefer to find information on study possibilities by browsing the Internet. Printed media and promotional materials are becoming less popular by comparison due to the rapid growth of Internet coverage in Russia and the development of social networks. It is important to learn more about students online behaviour and use this knowledge for the promotion of Dutch higher education in Russia. Therefore, Nuffic Neso Russia recently polled Russian students about their opinions. They were questioned at education fairs and Study in Holland seminars about their preferences in finding information on studying abroad. More than 880 students considering study abroad in the near future took part in the survey. Below we present some results. We asked our respondents to choose the three most attractive countries for study abroad. This was followed by the question: What are the most important sources of information on studying in these countries? A total of 49% of students mentioned own search on Internet. In addition to Internet browsing, prospective students look for reliable information on the websites of foreign universities (option Website of institution was selected by 48% of participants). This is logical as the latest information on application procedures, scholarships, housing and so on is presented on university websites. More students tend to apply to universities that feature easy to navigate and well-structured websites. Dutch institutions should take this into account when deciding on their website content and structure. We advise educational institutions to create a special landing page on your website in Russian. The Russian-language landing page might also help in providing information to parents, since they usually do not speak English. You can find an example of one such page here: University of Amsterdam. 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% Parents/family Friends/fellow students What are the most important sources of information on studying in these countries? School lecturer/advisor Agent Alumni Employer National education agency Embassy/Consulate TV/radio/papers/magazi Own search on Internet Network sites Website of institutions Blogs Rankings Education fairs Exchange Student associations Relatives/ friends there Source: Prospective Student Survey

12 Conclusion This report aims to provide Dutch institutions of higher education with detailed information on Russian Internet trends and developments, popular social networks in Russia and online behaviour of students. It also seeks to share Nuffic Neso Russia website statistics and their online experiences. Online campaigns (Vkontakte, Facebook and Google Adwords) have given Nuffic Neso Russia more direct clicks to their website and registrations to our seminars. Facebook is getting more and more popular in Russia, so it is valuable to consider promotions there. Vkontakte is the social network preferred by students. By advertising there you can reach students from a particular university, even a specific department, in a certain age group and location (region, and city) and with specific interests. The number of users of social networks is growing rapidly (15 20% per year), which means that social media is becoming more important as a place to share information. Therefore, using social media is a key strategy for Dutch higher education institutions that want to get noticed on the Russian educational market. Looking at the results of the student survey conducted by Nuffic Neso Russia, according to 880 students in various locations (fairs, seminars and online), the Internet is the most important source for finding information on studying abroad. The second most important source is the websites of foreign institutions. This means that Dutch institutions of higher education should pay close attention to their website in terms of content, language, layout and navigation and make it appealing to Russian students. Nowadays people are relatively spoiled and do not want to spend much time on a website to find the information they are looking for. The general rule dictates that the information someone is seeking should be found in a maximum of three clicks. Therefore we recommend that Dutch institutions make an online landing page in the Russian language. Also it is important to stress the increase of the usage of mobile Internet. Hence, Nuffic Neso Russia advises Dutch higher education institutions to make their websites compatible for mobile Internet devices. 11

13 Reference list 1. The estimated Internet penetration in Russia will be 71.3% by July Source: 2. Internet statistics. Source: Nuffic Neso Russia Factsheet Source: 12