We Are Social and Hootsuite, the two leading social media dashboards, ranked Vietnam’s top social media sites as of January 2021 based on the percentage of internet users aged 16 to 64 that used each platform in the previous month. The ranking looked like this: Youtube (92%), Facebook (91.7%), Zalo (76.5%), Facebook messenger (75.8%), and Instagram (53.5%). The runners up, noteworthy of their own bullet point, were: TikTok, Twitter, Skype, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Viber, WhatsApp, WeChat, Line, Twitch and Snapchat.
Their percentage of Facebook and Instagram users based on gender greatly matter, according to Lam.
“While the ratio is quite similar on Facebook (49.7% for male and 50.3% for female), the figures are significantly different (37.9% for male and 62.1% for female), so suppliers of products widely used by women, such as cosmetics, skincare, kitchenware, should reach out to Instagram more,” said Lam.
 (Photo: We are Social and Hootsuite) |
According to the report by We Are Social and Hootsuite, 44% of users of social media are active 4 hours a day, 74% of them 2 hours a day. They spend a huge amount of their time on social platforms watching videos. 32% of users watch 1 hour a day and 21% watch 3 hours a day. The report also proved that the way people search for information and services has changed. 45% of accounts rely on the search function on social sites rather than other popular search engine. The figure is even higher in young people.
You may see your parents scroll their own Facebook pages, but, apparently, few of them are active on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, the social platforms used exclusively by young people, most of them Gen Z (who were born between 1996 and 2012). What other social media habits do they have?
 Nguyen Hung Lam is the CEO of Bread and Tea. (Photo: Bread and Tea) |
Lam told us, “Social media is where Gen Z shows themselves, hop on world trends, updated with the latest news, and connect with foreign friends. They are easily influenced by KOLs and KOCs, whether inspirationally or negatively. They want to do and experience things differently. They love reactions, for instance, if they post a photo onto their accounts, they want that photo to have as many likes, comments, and shares as possible. A Gen Z individual is a master in using multiple platforms. They know the distinctive features of each platform, thus what kind of content would be suitable for that particular platform." He went on to say that Gen Z has a completely advantageous digital footprint over Millennials, those reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century, who are active mainly only on Facebook to catch up with their friends and are hesitated to register for multiple platforms.
Bearing this in mind, all social media platforms have tried many ways to seduce Gen Z to their platforms. The longer users stick to their sites, the more they earn from selling ads.
Lam elaborates, “You can see the ‘story” on Facebook and Instagram has a bunch of features to make yours fancy. The short-form video format catapulted to popularity thanks to the rise of Facebook watch, Instagram reel, and Tiktok. A while ago, Instagram piloted its shopping function in which users are just one click away from all the information of a product, like size, price, and shipping policies, when a seller posts a photo of a certain product on Instagram, just like what Facebook is doing now.”
 A pool of functions on Instagram Story |
The report provides a clear view of how Vietnam’s social media market looks from an eagle eye. With the pandemic in place, there is no doubt that the rate of social media penetration will accelerate much faster in all aspects of life, Lam said.