???? ? Navigating ?China's Internet?

Adapted from an article written for Canada China Business Council?s ?Business Forum? magazine. ?Read the published version in the 2012 Fall/Winter edition.

?One World, Two Internets? is how long-time China media analyst Bill Bishop describes China?s position in the online world.??Encouraging consumers to ?like us on Facebook? may be common practice for companies around the world, but not in China, where Facebook is blocked and still has minimal penetration.??When it comes to marketing via social media in China, Western companies find that it?s a whole different world.

Attending a conference in Silicon Valley, I heard one speaker say: ?In China they have no Facebook, no Twitter, no YouTube, no Google; they know almost nothing about the Internet!???Wrong. They have Weibo and WeChat and Youku and Baidu, and more.??Each of these has hundreds of millions of users and is a household name across China.??China?s online community is incredibly vibrant, technologically advanced and increasingly global in scope; it?s just that they play their own game.? In fact, China has the world?s most active social media environment, with over 300 million users.? China?s netizens on average spend 40% of their time at social media sites, a much higher percentage than in the West.

For companies looking to market themselves in China through social media, setting up a Facebook page, a Twitter feed or a YouTube channel will get you nowhere.??Waiting for sites to become unblocked may well take longer than the entire history of these companies to date.??Hoping that Chinese consumers will use readily-available tools to reach blocked sites is futile ? the vast majority simply don?t bother to even try.??You have to learn how to navigate ?China?s Internet.?

King of the hill in China?s social media scene at present is Weibo, often erroneously described as ?China?s Twitter?.? While Weibo clearly began as a Twitter clone, like many Chinese Internet start-ups it quickly evolved into something more, adapting to its own environment and user preferences. These days, Weibo is much more versatile and offers more functionality than Twitter, and continues to release new features on a steady basis.

Moving beyond the ?square peg in a round hole? approach of describing Chinese web services as ?the Chinese version of?? is an important step towards understanding China?s Internet.? There really is no ?Chinese Facebook?, because the industry is much more fragmented in China, and no one site has the power or influence of a Facebook.? Beyond Weibo, popular sites like Renren and Kaixin offer much of the social networking services of Facebook, but each with their own niche.? The inability of any one player to become truly dominant has forced sites to differentiate themselves and focus more on specific market segments.? Perhaps as a result, over 80% of social media users in China subscribe to multiple sites ? again a much higher average than in Western countries

Even Weibo (which literally means ?micro-blog?) is fragmented.? Among white-collar users in first tier cities and among a large contingent of overseas Chinese, ?Weibo? refers to Sina Weibo.? But ask grassroots users in second and third tier cities which micro-blogs they follow and the answer is usually Tencent Weibo. ?And then there?s WeChat, already threatening to eclipse Weibo and become China?s first truly global Internet product.

If all this seems confusing, it?s because it is. China?s social media scene is a messy, diverse and rapidly evolving environment. ?Yet this is the main online forum where people are exchanging information and forming opinions. ?It?s no longer sufficient to simply have a Chinese language website and wait for people to visit.?To be effective, you have to pick your online venues based on your target audience and manage your exposure across social media platforms.

For my part, I currently maintain micro-blogs on both Sina and Tencent. And while information is often cross-posted, I find there is little overlap between the roughly 2 million followers on either site.

Accumulating vast hordes of zombie followers does little more than boost one?s ego, however. What?s more important is being involved and helping shape opinions within this very active forum.??More impact tends to come from being re-posted and thus reaching new users, or simply raising a topic and watching the ensuing discussion take on a life of its own.??You don?t have to say everything for yourself, because others will fill in the blanks. ?You?re only?one voice in a multi-nodal conversation, and what?s more important is not what you or anyone else says specifically, but the general tone?of the online discussion and the fact that a discussion is taking place at all.

Keep it down-to-earth and as personalized as possible, but grow a thick skin.??This is not a place to simply be issuing press releases and impersonal, standardized notices. And be prepared for the strong anti-commercial, anti-authoritarian, anti-just-about-everything streak of social media. ?Much of the commentary on Weibo and other social media can be discouraging, but the overall impact is well worthwhile.

Increasingly I am finding that media inquiries, performing and business opportunities are coming out of the buzz created on Weibo.? Even for serious business enquiries, people are much more likely reach out with a first message via Weibo than to use the traditional ?Contact Us? page on my website. ?And traditional media outlets are increasingly referring to social media sites for story ideas, so momentum gained on Weibo often continues to grow through print, radio and television.

Of course, social media is a natural forum for public figures, but corporations and other organizations are also increasingly using the medium to communicate directly with their customers, users, or simply a broader public audience. ?We all face the same challenge of how to reach out to ordinary Chinese citizens with as few barriers and filters as possible.? Actively participating in the domestic social media scene in China provides the most direct way to do that.

If you?re truly interested in engaging your Chinese customers/users/audience in a real conversation via social media, invite yourself onto their turf and join in the discussions that are happening on ?China?s Internet.?

Source: http://dashan.com/blog/eastwest/navigating-chinas-internet/

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