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Asians are muscling their way into traditionally Western-dominated social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Internet blogs, prompting major players to sit up and take notice.With more than 220 million bloggers in China alone and nearly three out of five people in Singapore having a Facebook account, Asia is presenting a huge commercial opportunity for online advertising.Social media guru Thomas Crampton, Asia-Pacific director of Ogilvy Public Relations’ global social media team, said regional users were jumping on the social media bandwagon at a faster rate than the rest of the world.”Asia is… the most exciting part of the world for what’s going on in social media,” he told AFP on the sidelines of a social media forum in Singapore.Facebook launched an Asian sales office in Singapore this month in order to to be better placed to sell ads to companies aiming for the region’s consumers.”The Asian market’s a very, very big market for us,” said Blake Chandlee, Facebook’s commercial director for regions outside North America and western Europe. “It’s an enormous opportunity for us.”Chandlee said Asia was the fastest-growing among Facebook’s geographical markets, or “theatres”, despite restrictions on access in China.Crampton said the growing number of Asians connected to the Internet was a key driver behind the region’s social media craze.A report in July by research firm Nielsen said that “while the US pioneered much of the early Web 2.0 and social media innovation, Asia is playing no small role in shaping – and in some cases leading – the new social media landscape.”

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