Nielsen Asia Pacific Social Media Report.

Nielsen’s recent social media report release gives great insight into the region; but let’s focus on China specifically.

Some of the key elements to note; of which we’ve discovered through our own campaigns; is that BBS’s dominate China social media, and this is where buzz campaigns and engagement are typically generated.

Looking deeper; social gaming is an excellent, through very expensive alternative to engagement on BBS, and the use of online celebs and bloggers are a common staple in a social media campaign diet.

Chinese being more likely to write a negative review is also quite true; though we’ve found they tend not to be as negative as those found in the west; so while overall quantity of negative comments are high; the overall depth of the negativity isn’t.

From Nielsen’s press release:

• All about BBS, not the SNS: Bulletin board systems underpin popular social media behaviour in China – over 80 percent of social media content is bulletin board systems.
• Revenue from Social Games: Social media games are used as a stimuli to drive new users and gain reach with existing users, while content sharing behaviours are more popular among the more experienced users. Virtual product placement within social networking site games is becoming one of the most profitable methods of revenue for social networking sites, generating between US$200,000 to US$500,000 per month on product placement.
• Online Celebs are hotter than offline: ‘Grass roots’ celebrity tracking dominates online conversations in China, with grass roots celebrities such as Phoenix Sister and Mr Yuan outperforming real life celebrities in popularity.
• Chinese are negative: Chinese Internet users are the most likely in Asia Pacific to post a negative online product review, and are the only consumers in the region more likely to share negative reviews than positive reviews – 62% of Chinese Internet users say they are more likely to share a negative review compared to 41 percent globally.

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