How the war reshaped the Russian social media landscape

Russia’s military censorship that followed the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine as well as a withdrawal of foreign companies from the Russian market have, among numerous other sectors, heavily affected the Russian social media landscape, once dominated by global brands. 

Instagram, once the go-to platform for Russian influencers, was blocked alongside Facebook in Russia only days into the start of the 2022 invasion. In a matter of weeks, a Moscow court proclaimed Meta, their parent company, an extremist organisation and banned its activities in the territory of Russia. The two platforms became accessible to Russians only through VPNs (virtual private networks) and even though the authorities assured that the use of these platforms per se by citizens and companies would not be considered an act of extremism, their audience in Russia has more than halved since the start of the all-out invasion. 

By their own initiative, YouTube turned off advertising, while TikTok limited posting of new content and live broadcasts in Russia. Furthermore, the latter doesn’t allow Russian users to see content from other countries. That is, even if someone in Russia uploads a video via VPN, this video will not be visible to other Russia-based users. 

Domestic alternatives

Amidst a spiral of bans and restrictions, the Russian government gave a heads-up to import substitution and started promoting domestic products, including in the realm of social media. 

The authorities started Russian social media platforms with the help of pro-Kremlin figures, like the Russian TV propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, who, after being barred from YouTube, started uploading his shows on RuTube. This video hosting service, resembling its namesake even in the colour palette, launched in 2006 and now owned by a subsidiary of the state-owned gas giant Gazprom, has also become a refuge for Russian TV channels that got banned on YouTube and in many Western countries, such as RT (Russia Today).

Russian social media platforms, especially those launched in the months around the invasion, enjoyed extensive advertising on state TV channels, news agencies and newspapers. This happened with Yappy, the vertical video streaming app launched by the same Gazprom subsidiary and marketed as the Russian “TikTok”,  Rossgram, the new “Instagram”, TenChat, Russia’s “LinkedIn”, and YaRus, the now already late cross-content platform, to mention only the most publicised. 

Moreover, Yappy, which of all three seems to have the clearest marketing strategy, tried to boost its visibility through casting contests, allowing winners to attend programs broadcasted by state TV channels. 

Foreign platforms still popular

Nearly two years into the 2022 invasion, it is hard to draw a hard line on social media trends in Russia, and the fact that increasingly more Russians use VPN services does not serve statistics well. 

However, it is clear that even though the Russian user numbers on foreign social media platforms have dropped, they haven’t been abandoned completely – far from that. Instagram, despite being blocked, remains the second most popular social media platform in Russia per number of accounts, falling only behind VK, Russia’s Facebook competitor. And even though the number of RuTube users more than doubled over the last year, YouTube still attracts twice as many. 

In the case of TikTok, the use of the vertical video platform in Russia even increased. Nowadays, Russians spend about 30% of their social media time scrolling through TikTok – more than on Telegram, one of the rare messaging and blogging platforms which remains uncensored both in Russia and abroad, or VK – even though they can only scroll through old content. 

On the other hand, Yappy, which can be seen as the most successful fresh social media app on the Russian market, at least for its marketing presence, rarely finds its way into marketing analysis charts – unless the chart is about new domestic Russian apps, of course. Even if we were to believe Russian state media Rossgram that it is “attracting foreigners”, it has faced criticism in its homeland. YaRus, once aggressively promoted on state TV channels, ceased working altogether this summer, reportedly due to insufficient funding. 

But why?

Marketing experts point to the fact that convincing audiences to switch to new platforms with different functionalities and content formats doesn’t tend to be an easy task, as well as the lack of well-developed monetisation options on Russian platforms. Furthermore, they often don’t disclose enough audience data to attract advertisers. 

Instead, it seems that Russians leaned back on older domestic social media platforms. Most former Instagram and Facebook users have moved to Telegram, launched in 2013, and went back to VK, designed in 2006, both of which have massively developed their functionalities since the start of the invasion. They also follow and share content on the blogging platform Yandex Dzen, owned by Google’s main competitor in Russia, started in 2017. 

For now, it is the good old platforms who are the winners of the scrolling and swiping game. 

Source of the cover photo: DALL·E

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