Elite Media

Understanding what Orkut teaches us about social media strategy, culture, and innovation

Social media continues to change and develop and has rapidly changed over the last two decades. It has been seen that platforms will become irrelevant over night because consumers are looking for the next best thing. Orkut was launched in 2004 by a Google employee named Orkut Büyükkökten. The platform did really well in Brazil, according to stats 90% of the views were from consumers within Brazil. In 2014 the platform was shutdown due to it not being very successful. This is an example of a platform shutting down because of the importance of listening to culture, and their consumers.

Orkut had several different strengths including the ability to find a group based off a variety of keywords such as shared interests, school, work, and other key words. This allowed the platform to grow really quickly in just four short months it had 50,000 different communities and eventually the number increased to 1.5 million within its first year. In 2012 Orkut had 30 million users.

By creating small communities it helped users to connect to classmates, coworkers, friends, and family. The neat thing this platform allowed shared interests users to connect. This is so important in social media marketing in society today. This kind of platform would allow companies to target their direct audience based off of their interests.

When Orkut was created it was able to benefit from Google’s positive reputation. Orkut grew fast because Google had a already established reputation. The platform needed a invitation which users thought it was almost like a exclusive club. All of these factors helped Orkut to expand quickly.

The site ultimately failed due to the fact that the site experienced technological issues and did not support content that was growing such as video, blogging, and online social games. Orkut is a example that shows the importance of understanding the consumers needs and adapting to those needs. If those needs are not met the platform might become irrelevant.

Orkut was a example of a powerful social media community but because they did not adapt and change with their consumers wants and needs.

References

Mahoney, L. M., & Tang, T. (2017). Strategic social media: From marketing to social change. Wiley-Blackwell.

Google. (2014). Farewell Orkut. Google India Blog