China Social Media Digital Agency.
This illustration is chosen from Nielsen‘s APAC Social Media Report (June, 2010):
The 4 dominators are colored brown and they are:
BBS section, including mop.com, bbs.sina.com.cn, tianya.cn, bbs.qq.com, club.sohu.com;
Social Network section, including kaixin001.com, renren.com;
Blog section, including blog.sina.com.cn, blog.sohu.com, hi.baidu.com, blog.hexun.com;
Microblog section, including t.sina.com.cn, digu.com, t.sohu.com, t.qq.com.
A graph from Frands Report from OgilvyOne Worldwide:
It is obvious that China’s netizens spend a lot of time and energy on the aquisition of information. The second is to communicate with friends and search for news. The graph above gives an excellent view of China netizen social media activities.
Picked up from Edelman‘s China Digital Brand Index:
During the period of 2010 FIFA World Cup which has helped drive a record of amount of social media traffic, Samsung worked with 3 major portals including Sina, Sohu and Tudou.com to launch social ads and initiate online competitions. As a result, Samsung became the buzziest brand in China.
Selected from Roland Berger and CIC Strategy Consultants’ Chinese Consumer Report 2010:
China netizens prefer to share their reviews or experience through internet in recent years, and they have changed from discussing simple topics, to becoming active participants in all things digitally social. From discussing topics through BBS, to discussing their lives on IM, and expanding their friendships through social networks, as in the West Chinese have evolved their online interactions; albeit through completely different networks than their western counterparts.
From CIC, China’s netizen’s preferred activities online.
We see a distinct preference for Entertainment driven activities, followed by events and lottery. China’s social environment, both online and offline push emphasis for low-cost methods of interaction on the web, be it social or entertainment driven.
This leads us to rewards for interaction. China’s netizens tend to be practical, rather than gaining knowledge, they look to getting cash or gifts, or free product trials.
When Brands plan campaigns, its important to take into account what drives the average Chinese netizen; while there is connection and engagement with the Brand, this doesn’t come without addition costs in the form of rewards. while China’s market is not unique to rewards for interaction, it may be unique in its emphasis of the tangible over the intangible.
Complied by L2, the below graph shows brand buzz on one of China’s most popular SNS sites RenRen.com (a Facebook clone) and Qzone. From this we get a pretty good idea of buzz in English and Chinese, but further, we get a sense of populations across these social network sites.
You could almost see these two networks as reflective of tier1 cities (Renren) and below tier one cites. Population on Renren tends to be more educated, evidenced by English speaking ability taught in high school and college, vs. lower tiered cities that show less education, but greater overall population.
However, education isn’t necessarily an indicator of wealth; and its definitely not correlated to dreaming about wealth. China’s netizens think in parallel about major brands with BMW, Mercedes, and LV at top of mind as status symbols.
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:
Budweiser partners with wwwins Isobar to launch a 2010 FIFA World Cup ‘Bud Babe Call’ campaign for Anheuser-Busch InBev, using state-of-the-art interactive voice response (IVR) technology. Launching at midnight on June 10th for the duration of the 2010 World Cup, the campaign marks the first time IVR is introduced into China.
The Budweiser Soccer Babe campaign hopes to attract users, or mostly men, beer and football fans as the main target audience, to virtually interact with their preferred Bud Babe via IVR technology.Fans can book calls with selected Bud Babes and also vote for their favourite. The winner of the Bud Babe beauty and talent competition will become the new Budweiser brand ambassador in China.
“Adopting such a break-through innovation into this campaign will enhance the image of the Budweiser brand. It is expected to generate massive user engagement because of the highly customised interactivity,” said Daniel Tao, business director at wwwins Isobar.
Research R3 Beijing; See source post from imcbrand.com
How do Chinese netizens prefer to interact with Brands? According to CIC netizens prefer neutral 3rd party BBS (bulletin board systems) for brand information, rather than corporate owned digital assets.
This makes sense; rather than looking for canned content; finding Brand information on BBS’s give a sense of authenticity and truthful opinion; consumers go to BBS to find real information on Brands.
This being the case, Brand’s should make an effort to monitor and track conversations on BBS to give them a better sense of their impact on consumers.
Before Chinese netizens purchase products, do they go online to check what others say? According to CIC they certainly do.
Topping the list are mobile phones; followed closely by consumer electronics. Seeing as how mobile phones are owned by everyone (thereby more people searching/reviewing), as well as how China’s youth identify with their phones as close friends, it’s no wonder that this product tops the charts. Before the buy, China’s netizens want to make sure they are buying the right phone, with the right message to their social groups.
The bigger picture beyond mobile phones is China’s netizens rely heavily on peer to peer communications before making important “buy” decisions online. This being that case, it is important for brands to be every where consumers make decisions, if they’re to have impact in this ultra competitive landscape.
From Synovate China Media Atlas; social media usage of China’s netizens.
Chinese tend to spend more time meeting new people than maintaing current relationships. Higher income’d netizens tend to be the most social; and have access to digital tools in which to be social with.
From INSEAD; Allen Wang, founder of babytree.com, a social networking site in China talks about how he grew his membership to 12 million.
Wang states he did nothing special; but focused more on the practical usage of the site for the sites target market: Chinese mothers.
Starbucks launched a promotional social community for their “Black is Chill” campaign.
The drive to express online is a central motivation for the Chinese. Due to China’s strong censorship and control of traditional media, the internet becomes a major destination to receive balanced views, see how others think and react to events, and share and express one’s individuality.
The above stats from BCG show how social China’s web really is; with major emphasis on self-expression, sharing knowledge and feelings; China’s web is a very personal space that allow otherwise economically and politically restricted Chinese a sense of freedom. This gives the market a unique energy, open and ready to learn, connect and experience.
From Techcrunch; China social media site analysis; business process distinctly different from the West. Taking cues from China’s massive internet base, as well as Chinese online culture, local players have not only dominated the China social web, but thrive and prosper.
This gives us insight into how to interact with Chinese on the social web; looking at massive population, along with cultural engagement of simple applications and micropayments these major players have made a huge impact vs. their Western counterparts.
Related articles from around the web.
According to Forrester Research of Chinese Social Technographics, in China, social media adoption is huge, with 40% of Chinese online adults creating blogs, publishing web pages. 44% posting ratings of products and contributing to blogs, 71% reading blogs, watching video and reading customer ratings.
A quick snapshot; local social network 51.com has over 120 million registered users; and on Fenbei.com, 22 million users gather to share music.
McKinsey quarterly reports that in China, web services, blogs, social netowrking are teh most important web 2.0 technologies; with blogs and social networking coming in second and third respectively.
The least important? Podcasts, interesting enough. This may be due to low bandwidth in China compared to other parts of the world.
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