Adventures with Ginkgo

Imagine having millions of loyal users, leading one of the world’s biggest social media markets, and building communities where people genuinely want to spend time. Yet, just a few years later, the platform disappears.

That is, in fact, the story of Orkut.

Before Instagram, TikTok, and many of today’s platforms, Orkut let people create profiles, connect with friends, and most importantly, form communities around shared interests. Looking back, Orkut shows how powerful online communities can be. But it also teaches marketers that building a community is just the beginning. To keep people engaged, you need to understand your audience and keep evolving with them.

Orkut Was Really About Community

Google launched Orkut in 2004 as its first big step into social networking. The platform wasn’t equally popular everywhere, but it built especially strong communities in countries like Brazil and India.

Orkut’s success in Brazil was especially impressive. While it struggled to reach the same popularity in places like the United States, it became a big part of Brazilian internet culture. This reminds marketers that social media behavior isn’t the same everywhere.

A strategy, platform, or campaign that works for one group might not appeal to another.

One of Orkut’s biggest strengths was its communities. People could find groups for almost any interest, which led to discussions about shared identities, hobbies, entertainment, and daily life.

When Google saved Orkut’s public community content, it said the archive included 51 million communities, 120 million topics, and over one billion interactions. These numbers show that users weren’t just creating profiles—they were actively participating and creating content.

Engagement Is More Valuable Than Just Having Followers

I think this is where Orkut really stands out, especially considering what we now know about social media marketing.

Brands often focus on follower counts, impressions, and reach. While those numbers matter, having a big audience doesn’t always mean you’ve built a real community.

Orkut proved what can happen when you give users a reason to get involved.

Today, brands try to create similar experiences with Facebook Groups, Reddit communities, TikTok conversations, Instagram comments, and other social spaces. Instead of just sending out marketing messages, successful brands encourage users to talk to each other.

This approach turns social media from a one-way marketing channel into a real community.

Research on online brand communities has so far explored the link between social media participation and engagement. The key takeaway for marketers is that people don’t join online communities to see ads. They join to get information, entertainment, a sense of belonging, or to talk with others who share their interests. A platform doesn’t have to be popular in order to remain so.

As companies like Facebook grew, the social media landscape changed quickly. Facebook eventually surpassed Orkut, and Google’s other platforms were also expanding. In 2014, Google announced it would shut down Orkut and focus on YouTube, Blogger, and Google+ instead.

Orkut was officially shut down on September 30, 2014, after about ten years.

For marketers, I think this is the most important part of Orkut’s story.

Success on social media doesn’t last if you stop adapting.

People are always changing how they communicate, what content they enjoy, and which platforms they prefer. Even a brand with a loyal community can lose its audience if someone else offers a better experience.

What Orkut Can Still Teach Marketers

Orkut is gone, but the marketing lessons it left behind are still relevant.

Orkut’s success showed how important it is to understand local audiences and encourage users to build communities around shared interests. But its decline also showed that loyalty alone can’t replace the need for innovation in social media marketing. Media platforms are entirely different from Orkut, but the basic reason people use social media hasn’t changed much.

People still want to connect, participate, share, and feel like they belong.

Marketers need to do more than attract followers; they have to give people a real reason to stick around.

Writer’s note: I have to point out that Orkut was created by Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer working at Google at the time. Seeing a Turkish engineer behind one of the early major social networking platforms? I have to admit that makes this case study a little more fun for me. 🇹🇷