Brazil overtakes India to become the 2nd biggest country on Facebook
To explain this growth, SocialBakers suggests that “Brazil owes its success [on Facebook] to brands building high social awareness and a proactive and creative approach in gaining more fans” – especially in the FMCG, alcohol, beauty and fashion sectors.
While Brazil and India have been in a battle for the second position for quite a long time, this is still a noteworthy milestone, in a country where Google’s first social network Orkut remained the undisputed leader until Facebook overtook it last January.
More generally, recent figures seem to show that the migration from Orkut to Facebook is becoming a general trend in Brazil. While Orkut still has over 30m members, its influence across all regions and social classes is declining. As we reported, this may be a serious issue for Latin American gaming companies such as Vostu, which bet heavily on Google’s network and recently had to lay off a large number of its staff members.
In contrast, Facebook has been expanding considerably in Latin America, with a series of hires for its local offices. This is hardly a surprise, as the region represents one of the main reservoirs of growth that the social network needs to tap into if it wants to reach one billion members by August.
