Instagram is steadily growing in Armenia

Social networking sites continue to position themselves in the “Armenian internet.” 

The top three most visited websites in Armenia today are social networking sites: Odnoklassniki, Facebook, and YouTube. 

Moreover, social networking sites (SNS) are the main platforms for information. 

In recent years, SNS in Armenia has branched: the most visited has always been Odnoklassniki, while the most influential from an informational, social, and political point of view has been Facebook. But now the picture is changing. 

In the fall of 2015, Facebook had a monthly audience of 860,000 users. This number continues to grow, though the growth has slowed considerably. For instance, in September, this number was 850,000; that is to say, in two months, there has been an increase of only 10,000 active users. For comparison’s sake, note that in December 2014, there were 740,000 active users from Armenia.

Odnoklassniki, in turn, is losing its audience. If at the start of 2015, the number of visitors from Armenia exceeded one million in a month, now it fluctuates from around 880–890 thousand, and if this trend continues, Facebook will soon overtake Odnoklassniki.

Visits to Odnoklassniki from Armenia by month,
according to data from Liveinternet

According to data from Similarweb.com, the top three visited websites from Armenia concludes with YouTube.

Activity on this SNS is undoubtedly growing. But there’s an interesting trend. According to data from Google Transparency Report, the number of YouTube views from Armenia, compared with worldwide traffic, has been falling in the last year.    

There were two spikes in 2015: one coincided with the murder in Gyumri; the other, with #ElectricYerevan. In other instances, the number of visits from Armenia didn’t reach global trends. Here we can only make assumptions, but I think the negative impact is due to the fact that individuals in Armenia are just beginning to upload original content on YouTube — there are only a few successful projects by YouTube users. The main producers of content are still local news outlets.

According to data from Google Transparency Report, the number of YouTube views
from Armenia, compared with worldwide traffic

If we consider the remaining active SNS, well here the issue is that there is no clear statistical data. According to VKontakte data, about one million users from Armenia are registered there. But it’s hard to evaluate the activeness of users. The site is one of the most visited from Armenia, but I think the high traffic is mainly because of the pirated content — users prefer to watch films or listen to music rather than communicate with each other.   

Instagram is steadily growing in Armenia. According to data from Similarweb.com, it’s already in 15th place with the number of visitors from Armenia, and, it’s true, though slowly, it is rising. The involvement of pop stars and the entertainment business is so great here that it can definitely be said that Instagram’s influence in Armenia will only grow in the near future. 

Twitter now allows placing ads from Armenia — this is the only qualitative change in recent months. There are still no significant quantitative changes: the platform has a community that is small and rather slow growing but that has influence in the English segment.

Samvel Martirosyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.