Facebook usage in Azerbaijan

On February 3rd, 2014, Facebook celebrated its 10th anniversary. According to the World Map of Social Networks December, 2013 statistics, Facebook is the world’s most popular social network with more than one billion users. It is followed by QZone with 552 million users, Vkontakte (190 million users), Odnoklassniki (45 million users), and Cloob (1 million users). However, it is important to note that social network usage is not distributed evenly geographically. In some countries different social networks have more usage than Facebook: for example, QZone in China, Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki in Russia, and Cloob in Iran. This blog post examines the usage of Facebook and its popularity among different age and gender groups in Azerbaijan.

In Azerbaijan, according to the annual Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey, 57% of the respondents reported using the Internet in 2013. Use of social networking sites was reported as the most popular activity on the Internet. Other activities, such as searching for information (49%), downloading/listening/watching music/videos (36%), and using Skype (33%) were also mentioned.

Facebook is the most popular social network in Azerbaijan, and it is used quite frequently.According to the CB, 16% of all respondents in Azerbaijan actively use Facebook. Moreover, 49% of Internet using respondents in Azerbaijan use Facebook at least once a week. Most Facebook users are males (65% according to Socialbakers statistics from 2014, 68% according to the CB), and the majority are young people aged 18-35 years old (72.8% according to the Socialbakers from 2014, and 85% according to the CB).

Among the respondents of the CB, almost 1/3rd of active Facebook users are posting news, personal observations or photos (30%). Other frequent Facebook activities mentioned by CB respondents in Azerbaijan included: commenting on other people’s posts and photos (26%), chatting (20%), and reading or viewing news-feeds (18%).

Besides connecting people as a tool for communicating with friends and family, Facebook has also made it easier to share opinions about information. Most CB respondents in Azerbaijan (88%) did not find it hard to express their opinion on Facebook. However, 5% of respondents expressed difficulty. Notably, posting opinions on FB is harder for women than men (10% of female respondents consider it hard to express their opinions on Facebook, while only 3% of male respondents express similar difficulty).

According to Statistics Brain Facebook data from 2014, the average number of friends per person on Facebook is 130. In Azerbaijan, 39% of CB respondents said they had 51-100 friends, whereas 37% of respondents had less than 50 friends on Facebook. Only 18% of respondents had more than 100 friends. The evidence suggests that for most Facebook users in Azerbaijan, the social network is a platform for connecting with their relatives and close friends; preferring a more selective form of communication, rather than communicating their thoughts, ideas and personal information to a larger audience.

To get more information about the Caucasus Barometer data and others activities by CRRC, we recommend following us on our Facebook page here. To learn more about Facebook usage in Azerbaijan and other South Caucasus republics, we recommend accessing Caucasus Barometer data here with our Online Data Analysis (ODA) tool.

By Aynur Ramazanova