Overview The internet penetration in the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden are 90%, 97% and

93% respectively. This very high penetration in all of Scandinavia averages to 95% internet penetration among the population.

Such high penetration would mean that the growth rate will inevitably be slow. However, still further growth was experienced in these countries as is displayed in the figure below.

While the number of users is more in Sweden, followed by Denmark, when it comes to time spent on the internet, Norway leads the way with 24.9 hours per user per month. Sweden recorded 22 hours per user followed by Denmark with an average user time on internet at 20.6 hours.

Devices used to access internet were dominated by PCs in all countries. Almost 88% of the users accessed internet through PC. This was followed by mobile at 6.6% and tablets at 4.9%.

Lesser number of users in Denmark use mobile (5.3%) when compared to Sweden (7.2%) and Norway (7.3%). Similarly Norway used tablet (6.2%) as an internet access device comparatively more than Denmark (4.7%) and Sweden (3.7%).

The major online activities of internet users in Denmark are represented through the figure below. The statistics are provided by Statistics Denmark.

Finding information about goods or services Series1 Selling of goods or services, e.g. via auctions 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Using email is the major activity online with 86% of the users doing it. This is followed by search for information about goods and services (81%), Internet banking (75%) and reading news online (72%). E-commerce accounted for 23% of the online activities in 2012. Considering the second most preferred mode of access to internet is mobile, we should also look at activities on mobile internet in Denmark. The different online activities of internet users on mobile in Denmark are given below.

Access the Internet via GPS Social networking 0% Series1

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

The most common activity is sending and receiving text messages. Of all the major online activities Social networking stands at 6th rank. While at this position social networking accounts for only 36%, when looking at social networking in different age groups, we find that the decline is because of the people older than 40 years of age which on an average use social networks only 11.5% of the time. When this is compared to the

younger generation we find that almost 60% of the internet users less than 40 years of age use social networking sites on their mobile phones. Similarly major online activities of internet users in Norway are represented through the figure below.

Used the internet for banking Brukt Internett til lese/laste ned Used the internet for selling goods 0% Series1

20%

40%

60%

80%

As we can see here as well the major activity is use of email (80%). The next two major online activities in Norway are using internet for finding information on goods and services (77%) and for reading news (76%). Clearly internet in Norway serves two main purposes. First being e-commerce and second as a source of information. When looking at places where internet is accessed by internet users in Norway, we can see that almost 80% of the people access internet from home. The second major place of access to internet is Work. Very few people access internet at public places such as internet caf (6%), public library (5%) and wifi hot spots (3%).

Used Internet at place of work Series1 Used Internet at Internetcafe 0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Major online activities for internet users in Sweden are represented through the figure below.

Sending/receiving e-mails Internet bank Services connected to travel or accomodation Uploading self-created content to any website to be shared 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Series1

While the top 4 activities is similar to Norway such as using it for e-mail, for informational purposes and for internet banking, there are other activities as well. Swedish internet users are also actively involved in using multimedia content such as photos videos (60%) and in social networks (52%). The figure below displays the major online activities of mobile internet users in Sweden.

Sending / receiving email Playing or downloading games, images, videos or music Reading or downloading e-books 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Series1

As we can see here, e-mail (46%) is still the number 1 activity for the users. It is followed by watching news site (45%) and social networking (40%). Having observed the online behavior of the three Scandinavian countries, we observe that internet on Smartphone or on PC are majorly used for informational purposes and ecommerce. However, with the use of internet on smartphones, use of social networking sites definitely increases.

Social Media Denmark is using social media in a whole new way. An initiative called DABGO is using social media networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Ning to provide a free of cost strategy to support export. This was earlier done using the traditional route of foreign ministry or chamber of commerce. As per a comScores report, the internet population of Denmark is as active as most European countries in social media. The female internet users are especially active with an average penetration rate of 98% across all age groups. Social media penetration is also high in the younger male users of internet (98.6%) below the age of 35. As can be seen in the figure below, the social media penetration falls drastically in the older male group (79.8%).

The younger generation (15-24) also spends the most time (7.7 hours) on social networking sites as is evident through the figure below. Above that the time spent remains constant at around 4.5 hours, until it drops to 3.2 hours spent by the internet users aged above 55.

The top social networking sites in Denmark are displayed below. As we have observed in most cases, Facebook is the leading social networking site in Denmark beating the other sites by a fair margin. The time spent by an average user on this site (328.5 minutes) also is greater than the second most popular social networking site LinkedIn (15.8 minutes). Once these two are addressed, the other social networking sites in the top 5 are very closely competing for the third spot. These sites in order of the rank by unique visitors are Windows Live Profile, MySpace and Twitter.

Swedish use social media for business almost as actively as does Denmark. Some of the interesting facts given here are a snapshot of importance of social media in Swedish business landscape. Social media is used for work by more than 90% of the journalists, with 71% searching through the social media sites looking for new stories. Social media is used for work purposes by 60% of the county councils and municipalities. Almost every 2nd company uses social media to prepare for a crisis situation. Almost half the Nordic businesses use social networking sites looking for customers and new businesses. Every 3rd company uses Facebook to look for new candidates and 17% of the Swedish job seekers look for a job through social networks.

The figure below gives us the demographics of social media users in Sweden. Very similar to Denmark in terms of penetration pattern among male and female users, social media has high penetration in Sweden. Like Denmark, social media penetration among female internet users is almost consistently 97% across all age groups. The only exception being the users age 55 and above where the penetration of social media is 93%.

Not surprisingly, the youngest generation spends the most time (9.7 hours) on social networking sites. However, the time spent on internet does not represent the gradual decline as we move up the age groups. In fact, social network users from the age group 45-54 recorded the second highest time spent (5.9 hours) on social networks, where their younger counterparts from the age group 35-44 spend 4.5 hours on social media.

The top 5 social networking sites in Sweden are represented in the figure below.

Like Denmark, Facebook leads the pack by a fair margin with almost 5 million unique visitors. Following Facebook in the list are Windows live profile, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace. All these sites are close to each other in terms of unique visitors. However, if one looks at time spent on the sites, LinkedIn leads these four websites recording 14.2 minutes as time spent by a user. Social media penetration among internet users in different age groups in Norway is represented through the figure below. Unlike most countries, here the maximum penetration is observed in the age group 35-44. While penetration is high, it is not as high as Sweden or Denmark.

While the penetration of social media is different, the time spent on social media by users in different age groups display a more conventional picture. The youngest age group 1524 spends the most time with 10.7 hours. Then the time spent goes down as we move up the age groups.

The top 5 social networking sites for Norway are given in the figure below. The top 5 sites are ranked in terms of maximum number of unique visitors. While Facebook leads the social networking sites, here LinkedIn is the second most popular social networking site. LinkedIn is also ranked second in terms of time spent by a user. The other social networking site which make it to the top 5 are Twitter, Windows Live Profile and MySpace. While we see the top 5 social networking sites across Denmark, Sweden and Norway, we observe almost the same social networking sites with their ranks altered. However, one must keep in consideration here that MySpace which features in the top 5 for all the above mentioned countries here, is on a decline, and while it still makes it to the top 5 it may be replaced very soon by new sites such as Pintrest, Instagrm, Badoo or similar other websites.

Facebook Facebook is the leading social networking site in Scandinavia. The table below gives a snapshot of the month.
Facebook Country Denmark Sweden Norway Number of Users 2,989,840 4,752,080 2,753,100 % of Population 54.52% 52.54% 55.22%

As we can see here, every 2nd person in Denmark, Sweden and Norway has a Facebook account. Facebooks popularity is unmatched by other social networking sites in the region. Figures below give us the age demographics of Facebook users in the three countries under review.

Facebook demographics in Denmark

Facebook demographics in Sweden

Facebook demographics in Norway

More than 50% of the users of Facebook are less than 34 years old. This particular graph is applicable to all the three countries, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. This young population is the driving force for Facebooks growth in the above mentioned Scandinavian countries. The figures below display the growth of Facebook in Denmark, Sweden and Norway over a period of one year from April 2012 to April 2013.

Facebook growth in Denmark

Facebook growth in Sweden

Facebook growth in Norway

From what we can observe through the growth charts given here, Facebooks membership numbers boosted in July 2013. The interesting part of this sudden growth is the timing. Right when Facebook started loosing ground from June, all the three countries showed sudden growth. The pattern of Facebooks growth chart is almost identical in all the three countries. The growth continued into 2013 and has since been stable with a slight decline at January end. However Sweden has recently experience sharp decline in the number of users from March to mid April. LinkedIn LinkedIn has experienced good growth in all the three countries. A snapshot of LinkedIns performance is given in the figure below.
LinkedIn

Country Denmark Sweden Norway

Total Users
968,003 901,640 690,036

% of population
17.65% 9.97% 13.84%

% of online population
19.66% 10.68% 15.13%

Scandinavia has always been one of the better markets for LinkedIn. According to comScores report in 2011, Denmark was one of the top 5 markets for LinkedIn as can be seen from the figure below.

LinkedIn operated in 18 languages around the world up till 2011. In 2012 it announced its 19th language as Danish. Having already seen good performance of LinkedIn in Denmark in 2011, this move is expected to lay further inroads into the Danish market for LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an important platform for Denmark where exports account for almost 50% of their GDP. With Danish language introduced, it is expected to grow further trade within the companies in Denmark as well as help them connect with the global network of companies on LinkedIn. LinkedIn already had the language support for Sweden and Norway, and with the introduction of the Danish language has addressed the whole of Scandinavia. Twitter Twitter has grown rapidly in Norway and Sweden alike. A survey done on the Swedish tweets in 2012 have revealed the growth in the use of twitter from 2008 to 2012. The figure given below displays the registrations per month on twitter in Sweden over the course of 4 years from 2008 to 2012.

As we can see here that there was a sudden increase in the registrations in late 2008 which continued until march 2009. Even though a dip was observed after that it never really went back to the original number of twitter accounts. Since July 2011, a similar but more prominent growth was observed in the membership of twitter in Sweden. It is suspected that twitter had more number of accounts in 2010 than what was counted. One possible explanation for this could be that the accounts may be inactive or protected or they possibly used a different language that Swedish. While the number of registrations have picked up in 2012, the participation rate is not evenly distributed.

As we can see from the figure above, the group which creates the most updates accounts for 75% of the total updates. This is only 7% of the total twitter population in Sweden. This trend of uneven distribution of tweets has been almost unchanged since 2010. In Norway too, Twitter has shown similar quick growth. The growth chart given below displays the growth of twitter in Norway.
450000 400000 350000 300000 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000 0 Quarter 2009 Quarter 2010 Quarter 2011 Quarter 2011 Quarter 2012

Series1

Twitter started growing in 2009 and in 2010 the growth continued although the growth rate declined. From 2011 to 2012 the number of users jumped from 261,611 to 411,103. From 2010 to 2012, the number of twitter users in Norway has almost doubled. According to Knut-Arne Futster, Research Director of media for TNS Gallup, the company which did the survey, growth in twitter can be mainly attributed to the younger generation. Use of twitter in a positive tone by traditional media such as NRK, TV 2 and VG has contributed to twitters growth. Another factor could be the use of twitter for sports and debates. Twitters position in Denmark is illustrated through the following infographic.

Social Media Monitoring Tools Some of the social media monitoring tools for Norway and Sweden are given below in the table.
Company name Integrasco AS Patch6 AB Retriever Intelliwell Platform WoMPortal Silverbakk Briefing Room Retriever Informant All All Blogs, Twitter, Facebook All Media type Website Integrasco http://www.silverbakk.com http://www.retriever.se http://informant.se Country Norway Sweden Sweden Sweden

Some of the other social monitoring tools for the three countries under review here, are given below. Marketwire Heartbeat is a product of Market Wired which aims at social media monitoring. This tools is available for a lot of countries including the Scandinavian countries. Some of the services that this tools provides are 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Real time social media monitoring Issue tracking and crisis management Trend/conversation tracking Key influencers identification Social networking sites management

Engagor provides various social monitoring tools for marketing and customer service. While it serves Scandinavian languages it also provides its services in other languages. Some of the services provided by Engagor are

1. Monitoring: Through the monitoring tool, you can keep track of all mentions based on the keyword that happen across social media via a social media inbox. This helps in tackling and addressing issues and also identifying places which have not been addressed as yet. 2. Analytics: Analytics tools help you identify top trends, understand the demographics of the target customers, connect various SNS statistics relevant to the brand, filter data and it also suggests best times to connect with the consumers. Apart from these various other services such as social media data management, managing publications etc. are provided by Engagor.

Some of the other similar social media monitoring tools are also provided by Attentio, Penetrace, Notified, Falcon Social and Meltwater. Tips for social marketers In order to make the best use of social media in Scandinavia, social marketers need to take into account the demographics, the user behavior online and on social media. Some of the things a social marketer will need to consider in Scandinavia are given below. Internet penetration is very high, but internet is used mainly for informational and business purposes. Apart from Facebook, LinkedIn needs to be especially considered when planning social media campaigns. Social media platforms are being used for business purposes by users more than they are used for fun. This presents an opportunity for B2B marketers to connect with the Scandinavian companies on social networking sites. The penetration of social media is consistently higher among female users in all age groups. This is an indication that the female demographics will be the drivers of trends on social media and social media campaigns would do well to consider them as their primary target audience. A lot of companies and individuals are looking for candidates and jobs respectively, on the internet and social media platforms. When social media campaigns designed with a more business outlook, rather than a common man look, have a better chance of paying off. While preparing for mobile versions of the campaigns will help, more focus should be on designing campaigns suited for PCs. The cost involved in designing a multi screen campaign should be considered so that the social marketer knows, if the additional cost is worth the extended reach among the target audience. Facebook will be the best platform to reach target audiences. It not only has unmatched reach, time spent on Facebook is also significantly higher than other social networking sites. Twitter may not have done historically well in Scandinavia but that is changing. People have started looking at twitter as a different social media platform than Facebook. This is evident through the sudden rise in twitter registrations per month in the year 2011-2012. Maximum numbers of tweets are accounted for by a very small number of tweeters in Scandinavia, especially in Sweden. It is imperative for social marketers to identify the leaders in twitter in Scandinavia as they will be the driving force for the social media campaigns which a company launches on twitter. While Social media monitoring in Scandinavian countries is not young, it still has some way to cover before it matches its European counterparts. However, many social media tools available in the market provide support for the languages in Scandinavia and therefore can be utilized for monitoring in Scandinavian countries.

References Record Twitter use in the Nordics http://socialmedianordic.com/tag/statistics/ # TWITTERCENSUS 2012 @intellecta http://twittercensus.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Twittercensus2012.pdf Rekord for Twitter i Norge Twitter har aldri vrt strre i Norge. Veksten er strst blant de yngre, viser fersk underskelse. http://www.kampanje.com/medier/article6039802.ece Twitter i Danmark 2011 2011-12-21 af Stefan Bgh-Andersen http://blog.overskrift.dk/2011/12/21/twitter-idanmark-2011/ Facebook blir like vanlig som mail yvind Solstad tror ikke Facebook stagnerer i r heller. - Alle som kan bruke Facebook, vil bruke det. http://www.kampanje.com/medier/article5957654.ece visual.ly/facebook-statistics-denmark http://www.proxsafe.net/browse.php? u=Oi8vdmlzdWFsLmx5L2ZhY2Vib29rLXN0YXRpc3RpY3MtZGVubWFyaw%3D %3D&b=13 LinkedIn adds support for Danish, seeking to grow its near-1m users in Denmark http://thenextweb.com/eu/2012/09/25/linkedin-danish/ LinkedIn Statistics http://www.socialbakers.com Facebook Statistics http://www.socialbakers.com Social media monitoring tools in Scandinavia http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-social-media-monitoring-tools-that-work-withScandinavian-languages http://socialmedia.biz/2011/01/12/top-20-social-media-monitoring-vendors-for-business/ Denmark First Country To Use Social Media To Increase Its International Export http://www.prlog.org/10522787-denmark-first-country-to-use-social-media-to-increaseits-international-export.html Statistics: 55 fascinating facts about social media in Sweden, June 2011, Hans Kullin

http://www.slideshare.net/kullin/statistics-55-facts-about-social-media-in-sweden Statistics Denmark http://www.statbank.dk/statbank5a/default.asp?w=1024 Statistics Norway http://www.ssb.no/en/forside;jsessionid=9E4E064D627C6D6D4F3082FEA21BC655.kpl d-as-prod03 Statistics Sweden http://www.scb.se/default____2154.aspx