Social networking media taking off in Korea

Celebrated figure skater Kim Yuna is almost omnipresent in offline media, reflecting her popularity among Koreans.

This is hardly surprising, considering her stellar performances on the world figure skating stage. What`s unexpected is her decision to glide onto the microblogging service Twitter (@Yunaaaa) in late May. As the word about her debut on Twitter quickly spread, the number of users following her Twitter messages shot up dramatically. The figure was at about 20,000 as of Wednesday, making her the most influential Twitter user among Koreans.

The role of social networking media, or SNS, is reshaping the local digital culture, and panel members at the Business Blog Summit in Yangjae-dong, southern Seoul, on Tuesday agreed that social media is finally taking off in Korea as well.

At the event organized by Korea Blog Business Association, Lee Sung-kyu, media division chief of Tatter and Media said Twitter gained key momentum in the U.S. presidential election last year, and a second wave of the "Twitter revolution" is hitting many countries, particularly in Iran, whose internal conflict was being reported real time through the service.

"You can write only up to 140 characters in a single tweet, but plenty of real-time information is delivered through the Twitter network worldwide," Lee said. "And the network is well-suited to expand at a rapid pace, as demonstrated by the release of a public statement about Korea`s political affairs."

The joint statement, signed by 400 Korean bloggers, was arranged mostly through Twitter and blogs, and then reported widely by the local press. The whole process took just a week, a feat unthinkable when people were stuck with previous media channels, Lee said.

But some critics expressed concern that Twitter-led SNS is just a fad, subject to a sudden demise as with other much-hyped yet short-lived digital services.

Myung Seung-eun at the planning division of Yahoo! Korea, said that such skeptical views were misplaced.

"When I began to talk about blogs at forums three years ago, people were not convinced," he said. "But the blog boom is now a reality that cannot be denied. More importantly, a new chapter is looming large in the field because portal operators are opening up their services."

Korea`s digital culture is dominated by leading portals such as Naver and Daum, both of which have long been unwilling to share their profitable platforms with outside companies. But their rigid practices recently began to give way to more open partnerships, a development that Korean bloggers expect will reconfigure the overall digital culture in the long term.

"More portals will share their platforms. Naver already started Opencast service, and more channels will be available to outsiders. Daum is pursuing the same strategy in favor of open social networks, which are supported by Google and Yahoo," Myung said.

The popularity of social media, in other words, is spurring the growth of open platforms in cyerspace, providing new opportunities for companies and individuals alike.

Lee Jung-dae, director at Edelman Korea, a PR agency, said there are some limitations in using social media as a marketing tool, but companies who lag behind in the trend might see their offline business in trouble soon.

"Companies may or may not launch corporate blogs, but what they must do is use social media to their advantage, for example, by asking customers to share their views," Lee said.

When asked about whether there are specific content tailored for social media, panelists said what matters most in SNS is not content but profile. "What`s important in social media is who`s talking, not what`s being talked, because SNS revolves around relationships," Myung Seung-eun said.

A striking example: on Sunday, Kim Yuna posted a simple tweet, "Going back to the big rink tmr!!^0^" and this otherwise straightforward message was echoed (or "retweeted," in Twitter lingo) enthusiastically among Korean users.

Source by Korean Herald