So… What Is Orkut?

You’re on Orkut, right?!

If you don’t live in Brazil, India, or maybe Japan, I don’t blame you if you’ve never even heard of Orkut, even though they’ve still got tens of millions of worldwide users. The more social media-savvy of you probably know it for its association with Google and its lack of popularity, but to anyone else, a social media outlet is probably the last thing this sounds like!

Soooo… what is Orkut, then? Should you even bother with it?

Orkut Social Media

Honestly there’s not a lot that differentiates Orkut from your run-of-the-mill social media website. You post updates, follow people, post pictures and videos, message on-site, blah blah blah.

It’s really more like Myspace, if you can remember back that far (that’s actually how I started my social media marketing company!) or even an instant messenger service like AIM – you can update your mood (AKA “vibe”), change your headline, track conversations… again, regular stuff.

An interesting feature of Orkut is the wide array of applications you can download and use. It’s mostly games, but there are some cool business, lifestyle, and social apps you can apply if you’re into that kinda thing.

Google+ Integration

As I said, Orkut is owned by Google, and pretty much everything on your profile is integrated there. in fact, when you create a profile, it uses your IP address to instantly connect your Google+ account, which is kind of scary if you think about it.

Google throws suggestions on your feed that link up to G+, and even applies some G+ features like calendar sync. So really, there’s not much reason to have Orkut if you have Google+ already.

Using Orkut for SMM

My advice? Don’t – unless you’ve got plenty of time or a LOT of market share in Brazil and India. Of course it can’t hurt just to have your company listed on Orkut and then update every now and then, but if you’re looking for the next big social media thing, sorry my friend, Orkut isn’t it.

Instead, make sure you’re on AT LEAST all of these social media marketing websites.

Have some good tips for using Orkut? I’d love to read them in the comments!