Social Networking – Pakistani Perspective

face_bookSocial networking is around for couple of years now. People are getting closer on web and they are finding the lost souls from the past online. Pakistan has also followed the trend and more and more people went on social websites and interacted with each other. But this Facebooking and Myspacing is limited to people telling friends about each other and discuss about their surroundings.

But the trend of social networking took a turn in another direction abroad. Companies came to know about the strengths of social networking and they started hiring people & companies to interact with customers online. They are telling people about their latest products and events. And people started attracting. This is a place where you can tell the company directly that what you don’t like about them. People kinda got accommodated in this social trap.

Indian brands have begun realigning themselves to a new cost-effective marketing and advertising space — social networks. Companies such as HUL, Tata Tea, Titan, HDFC among others are using peerto-peer network on sites like Facebook or Twitter to spread product reviews and create buzz around the brand. Internationally, companies use social networking sites to catch consumer eye for new launches or to keep the momentum going in some of their top brands.

The Apollo-group promoted telecom brand, Aircel , has launched a voice message application on Facebook, which allows friends to leave each other voice messages instead of plain text posts. Within ten days, Aircel managed to get 190 users to sign up for the voicemail application. Starcom, the media agency which helped this launch was clear that they wanted to approach social networks differently . Tarun Nigam, ED, India & Pakistan, Starcom, said, “While many telecom companies are using social networking sites, this is the first time a brand is offering voice messaging service. We wanted to take the youth in confidence and think Facebook is a great space to create the buzz and word-of-mouth publicity required for Aircel.”

But do you feel the presence of Pakistan in this spectrum? I guess Not. We don’t even find much of the companies going for online ads. This is where we lag. Companies should now realize the strengths of this medium and come online to get reviews about their products. Back, i saw some people who are telling us about the upcoming events of their companies but this is merely once in a blue moon.


  • LDN has their own social networking site…Hello and i have seen a couple others. Gotta consider the difference between local and international perspective of social networking…many people in pakistan think these places are glorified virtual dating spots but it isn’t the case. used correctly, they can be great social utilities.

  • Social Networking sites are famous because of their brands instead of their features – big social networking sites like orkut is owned by google.

    People trust google that is why they join it. If you start your own social networking site – dont expect people to join it like orkut.

  • PTCL paid 16 thousand dollars for their online advertising to a company called evernew (sorry if i mispelled) and the president of PTCL said ” i have been refreshing youtube and facebook again and again and the add is not being displayed” – coudldnt be more funny than this. They have got really good websites http://www.propakistani.com, http://www.nightclub.pk to advertise their businesses. In 16 thousands dollars they can get 10000 % better ROI than what they will ever get from facebook and youtube

  • @chetan

    Although u r correct to some extent but this is not the true story! To be very honest not a single paki site has potential to attract visitors, while local companies want to publicize their products locally…

    All we need is our own social networking site customized with features which Pakistanis like not like the available sites which use pre built foreign skills…

    We have many examples bro!!! Bigadda.com is huge success in India, bcoz it targets indian’s intrust… that doesn’t mean that indians have left facebook… rather they use both…

    I may be wrong..but one bold step can change the fate of IT in Pakistan…

    Just creating our own social networking site like bigadda or ibibo and then see how local companies rush to promote their products!!!


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