Infographic of Social Media Equivalents in China

Our China Social Media team put together this infographic to explain some of China’s Social Media equivalents. Any major categories or companies missing? Put your suggestions below in comments.

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Technorati Tags: China, infographic, social media

In China: $184 for a Virtual Dragon

In China, if you spend US$184 on your credit card you can now get a virtual dragon. For US$147, you get a virtual horse.

In what may be the first of its kind, a social network has linked up with a bank’s loyalty program: Chinese
social network Kaixin001.com and China Merchants Bank this week announced the Kaixin Credit Card (Happy Credit Card).

For those not aware of the growth of virtual currencies in China, they have become a shadow economy important enough to attract the attention of China’s financial regulators. As I have written previously, virtual items – avatar outfits, animals, decorations etc – are a major source of revenue for social networks in China and Japan.

Instead of airmiles or points for a hotel visit, cardholders get one Kaixin credit for every RMB20 (Roughly US$2) spent on the card.  Until July 31 2011, card owners can exchange their Kaixin credits for Kaixin coins at an exchange rate of 50 Kaixin credits for eight Kaixin coins. (Eight is a lucky number in China)

Kaixin coins can be used to buy a dragon (12 coins or US$184/1250RMB spent on the credit card); a horse (8 coins or US$147/1,000 RMB spent on credit card) or hire a garden keeper in Happy Farm for a month (5 Kaixin coins per month) or a range of other small gifts that cost 2 to 3 Kaixin coins.

As part of the launch, China Merchants Bank has bombarded current cardholders with emails to encourage them to become fans of China Merchants Bank on Kaixin001.com, offering Kaixin game cards to people who register as a fan from August 17 until the end of the year.

Currently, China Merchants Bank has 397,219 fans.

h/t to Xie Qing.

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Google Publishes Censorship Status in China

Google now shows which Google services are blocked in China. Updated daily, status is assessed by geographically diverse servers that are used to monitor connection capability. As mentioned in another recent post, another service I recommend for see censorship status in China is Herdict.

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Technorati Tags: Herdict, Jonathan Zittrain

WoZai: China Twitter Clone, Built 1 Celebrity At A Time

Twitter clones are all the rage these days in China, but operating a Social Media platform can be tough in the country that blocks Twitter along with YouTube, Facebook, Slideshare and others.

David Liu runs one of the China-based, Twitter-like platforms, WoZai, so I asked him how he will break out from the pack of clones to set himself apart in the world’s largest Internet market.

David emphasized that he is taking a different route to getting early adopters. Instead of focusing on general users, WoZai’s strategy is to help celebrities and businesses set up communities and followings. Celebrities and businesses in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong will build virtual mailing lists to increase awareness and engagement.

Similar to Twitter, WoZai’s homepage will be available in traditional and simplified Chinese to attract the largest audience. For all his ambition, however, David does not expect WoZai to become a central platform for users, so has built in functionality for cross-posting from Twitter and other third party applications.

As with Twitter, WoZai has a 140 character limit, but because Chinese characters represent single words, much more can be expressed in 140 characters. WoZai is pushing for a mobile audience as well and is being designed to integrate with current Twitter mobile apps on Blackberry, iPhone and other platforms.

In targeting the mainland, WoZai is making the service as “China Friendly” as possible and clean enough for Beijing authorities.

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Technorati Tags: China, David Liu, twitter

Foursquare China Clone: Jie Pang

Like many other foreign Social Media platforms, Foursquare is blocked in China. (Check out Herdict to see what is blocked.)

The result is that people visiting with a non-China phone, such as me, can easily become mayor of many locations. That said, there are locally created options for people in China who are eager to Check In.

Among the current Foursquare clones in China are: Wan Zhan, Si Wang, Zai Nar, Bedo, Jie Pang, Da Zhong Dian Ping. In addition, similar services are coming online from: China Mobile, Tencent, Sina.com, Baidu.com. Renren.com, Kaixin001.com and Kong.net

A few days ago Jie Pang sent over some slides about their service and Jeremy Webb, a colleague at Ogilvy, did an interview with Jie Pang’s founder, David Liu (All below)

h/t to Tim Ho for creating the Foursquare China badge.
(more…)

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Technorati Tags: China, Foursquare, Jeremy Webb

China: Rules for Social Media Marketing

WARNING: This posting will likely interest only people working within Social Media in China.

The China International Public Relations Association produced a set of rules and recommendations that has been trickling through China’s media and Internet in various reports. We decided to do a full translation of the guidelines (Below).

Some highlights relating to what they call “Digital PR”:

• Digital PR is the fastest growing business model within the PR industry
• Accounted for 6.3% of PR in China, with a total turnover of 880 million RMB in 2008.
• Companies “should not provide any form of attack or defamation towards a competitor” 

The point about attacking competitors is an interesting one and an ongoing problem in China, as this article in the China Daily points out:

An underground business, that charges companies high fees to delete negative news or posts against them, has been flourishing in the run-up to World Consumer Rights Day today, normally regarded as the most important day to highlight a company’s good reputation.

An operator surnamed Wu with Han De Kai Si Crisis Dealing Experts Company, told METRO on Sunday they normally charge 600 to 800 yuan per post deleted. He revealed there were usually two ways to deal with such business crises, including paying insiders within websites to delete online information and hiring people to release positive posts with the same titles as negative posts.

The association itself is run by a former China ambassador to the US and has the stated objective “to let the world know China and to let China orient itself to the world”

Anyone have thoughts/comments on these recommendations?

Guidelines for the Online PR business in China
Preface
Following the rise and expansion of the Internet and of social media like forums and blogs, traditional media and communication patterns have undergone a profound transformation. At the same time, marketing and public relation disciplines have also undergone a radical transformation. Digital PR has already become an extension of traditional PR that cannot be ignored, and it is the fastest growing business model within the PR industry. As shown in a survey of the CIPRA, in 2008 the PR market in China has exceeded 14 billion RMB, with a growing rate of 29.6%. Digital PR accounts for 6.3% of this market, with a total turnover of 880 million RMB.

The use of online news, forum conversations, online activities, word-of-mouth marketing, group marketing, sentiment marketing and online crisis management has become the main services provided in the PR market, and fast consumption, automobile, IT, Internet and communication companies have become the main clients of PR. Following the normalization and the expansion of e-commerce and online sales, companies have raised higher and higher voices calling for the standardization and regulation of online public relations. At the same time, given the continuous innovation of means of communication and of communication technologies, the concept of online public relation is also in continuous evolution.
The expansion of the market calls for regulation, and in the case of online public relation, this is even more important. We believe we should take example from the Regulations for public relation services, in order to control and regulate this market, continuously raise the standards of technology and the level of qualification of the people working in the field, in order to ensure the sustainability and the growth of the market. For this reason, as a result of thorough research and thought from the CIPRA, we have developed this document that attests the standards of services in online public relations.
The specific content is as follows:

Chapter 1 Definition of digital public relations
1.1 Digital public relations aims at making use of the practice of traditional public relations to communicate, build relations and manage brands on online platforms like social media and online media. Compared with traditional public relations, online PR has the advantages of being faster, more interactive, more precise, more long-term and having a bigger scope.
1.2 Differently from other online marketing techniques, online PR does not only have the objective of increasing sales, or influencing the purchasing behavior of single individuals or groups. Digital PR aims at delivering strategic and long-term messages to the online public, and therefore serves the creation and the management of the brand. For the client, the practical value of digital PR is: increase the image of a brand; affect the opinion of consumers towards the brand and their purchasing behavior; protect the companys reputation and image.
1.3 Digital PR agencies and any company providing online PR service should satisfy their clients online PR needs. The ten main services provided in online PR are: customer service; online news; online activities; brand promotion; interactive marketing; public opinion monitoring; crisis management; online media management; specialized training.
1.4 Online PR services can be divided in two main groups: concept products and channel products. Concept products are consultancy and announcement products like online news, online customer services; experience/activity products like online activities, word-of-mouth marketing, community marketing; monitoring/alert products like public opinion monitoring, crisis management, criticism protection; and protection/optimization products like website optimization, SEO, traffic optimization. Channel products are news distribution, forum and blog seeding, SNS seeding, IM seeding, video distribution.

Chapter 2 Technology utilization and media attitude of digital PR agencies
2.1 Online PR agencies mainly utilize Internet technologies for their work. Internet media tools have qualities that traditional media do not have such as immediateness, personal approach, interactivity, openness. They can be one-to-many, many-to-many or many-to-one. Online media have overturned the elitism of traditional media, slightly moving the right to express opinions from the elites to the grassroots.
2.2 According to the main means of communication of online public relations, it is possible to divide the online PR media in five kinds: general portal websites, vertical portal websites, forums, blogs, streaming websites. The most used channels of communication are news, forum threads, blog posts, streaming videos.
2.3 The technology support systems of online PR can be divided into five main platforms according to the different functions: news publishing platforms, sentiment monitoring platforms, media resource platforms, media communication platforms and control platforms.

Chapter 3 The workflow of digital PR agencies
3.1 Digital public relations are a consultancy service, and the effectiveness of this service is attested through regulated and organized procedures, and developed through stages such as project discussion, project research, project planning, project confirmation, project execution and project evaluation.
3.2 The core aim of digital PR is to solve the online reputation issues of a client, and digital PR agencies should carry out research on the online brand of the client, evaluation of the online PR strategies already carried out by the client, analysis of the competition, definition of the challenges faced by the client, and the opportunities ahead, and finally define an online strategy for the client.
3.3 Because it makes use of advanced technologies, the effectiveness of online PR is more easily assessable. Nowadays, there are three main assessment systems: qualitative assessment of the project (online traffic changes, attention from traditional media, level of satisfaction of users, level of reputation of the brand); quantitative assessment of the project (number of posts, number of views, number of participations and recommendations); ROI.
3.4 The assessment reports of digital PR projects must include a project summary, project research, project strategy, project implementation, project assessment.

Chapter 4 The payment procedures for digital PR
4.1 Digital PR is a personalized service, that should be rewarded in the form of service fee, and the amount of this fee is established in light of the level and the expertise of those providing the service. The service fee is normally established in light of the number of people participating in the project and the time spent on the project.
4.2 Payment should follow these international procedures:
Payment item: project operative cost; consultancy service fee; project management fee, management taxes.
Payment procedure: project service fee; consultancy fee; project management fee.
4.3 Nowadays there are four main payment procedures: payment at the moment of the completion of the project; payment according to the quantity of work in the project; payment according to the time spent on the project; payment according to the results of the project.

Chapter 5 The service management of digital PR agencies
5.1 Digital PR agencies must all comply with the rules and the regulations of the national corporate law. These include: companies should register before operating; they should organize and define the higher organs of management (such as the shareholder, the board of administration, etc.) and their responsibilities; keep the accountancy books; settle taxes; mismanagements or failure to comply with these regulation can result in criminal act.
5.2 Digital PR agencies should respect the following conditions: have a solid initial capital (not less than 100k RMB); have a fixed company address; have good office and communication conditions; feature two PR consultants with at least five years of experience in PR; a definite number of clients or potential clients.
5.3 Digital PR agencies must set up their organizational structure according to the management objectives, and should be divided into: market department; client service department; creative department; media management department; activity management department and administration department. Alternatively, they can be divided according to industries into: IT client department; financial client department; consumption goods department; public affairs department. Finally, it could be divided into regions of activity into: international affairs department and local affairs department.

Chapter 6 The development of the profession of online PR
6.1 Online public relations practitioners should have a variety of professional skills, expertise and professional experience. Strategic thinking, innovation, organizational sense, interpersonal skills, analytic spirit and problem solving skills should be the common features of successful online PR professionals.
6.2 Business operations of online public relations generally involve seven main teams: management team; project management and customer service teams; strategic planning team; media relations and media executive team; creative design and art production team; R & D and technology team and administrative support team.
6.3 Generally speaking, the online public relations professional ladder is mainly composed of the following levels: junior positions (Customer Assistant, Account Executive); intermediate positions (Account Manager, Senior Account Manager); senior positions (Assistant Account Director, Account Director, Senior Account Director, Vice President, Senior Vice President). In order to be promoted from the junior level to senior positions most of the professionals need 8-10 years of experience in the field.
6.4 Training programs should be organized for every level of professionals working in online PR. Content of training should include: online communication means, online interaction strategy, public relations, introduction to research methods, project proposal writing, proposal and bidding, event planning and management, online media analysis and research, online media relations program, marketing, brand management, crisis management, case studies and analysis, project management, customer management, impact assessment and strategic consulting. Junior professionals should be given 100 hours of training each year; mid-level professionals should be given 60 hours of training each year; senior professionals should be given 30 hours of training each year.

Chapter 7 Professional ethics of the online public relations practitioners
7.1 Public relations businesses should abide by the Internet Self-discipline Convention. In specific: they should ensure that the content and means of dissemination of information are consistent with the relevant provisions of the national law; they should ensure content integrity, authenticity and accuracy, and that content disseminated on the Internet is not inconsistent with objective reality; they should ensure that the content of information does not involve politically sensitive topics or state-sensitive issues; they should not conceal the truth or deceive the public; they should not engage in any immoral or dishonest activity, or damage the dignity or the reputation of others; they should not provide any form of attack or defamation towards a competitor; they should not use any copyrighted material without lawfully clearing the rights.

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Technorati Tags: China, cipra, Rules, social media

How do Foreign Correspondents use Social Media?

Are you a Foreign Correspondent covering China? Vincent Ni needs your help, details below. I will post the research outcome as soon as Vincent finishes the work.

Go on, help him out!!

This is a not-for-profit academic research project studying the role of social media (i.e. Twitter, Blog etc.) in foreign news bureaux covering China.

Any foreign journalist/producer/Chinese news assistant working in Mainland China or Hong Kong may take this quick survey. 

This survey is highly confidential, and is only used for research purpose. Participants can resume or quit the questionnaire at any point while doing it. A copy of the research is available upon request. The researcher is Vincent Ni at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.

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Technorati Tags: Oxford Internet Institute, Vincent Ni

Social Media Affects Awareness and Purchasing in China

The consultancy Roland Berger and CIC have put together an interesting report on how Social Media affects Chinese consumers.

They looked at the impact on Chinese consumers of information gathered about brands and products through Social Media channels such as online message boards, blogs and video sites, etc.

As mentioned many times on this blog, their findings show that proportionally, Chinese consumers rely on the Internet in making purchase decisions much more than their counterparts in the West.

While 58 percent of Chinese Internet users have their purchase decisions influenced by consumer reviews, ratings sites, forums and discussion boards, the study found that just 19 percent US Internet users are influenced by these online channels. (I agree with the thrust of their argument, but that number seems quite low for the US)

Interestingly, as this chart below shows, the research also found that Chinese consumers are often made aware of a brand for the first time through Social Media platforms.

In other words, Chinese netizens are affected by Social Media for the initial part of brand awareness and the final stage before purchase.

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Technorati Tags: China, CIC, Roland Berger

Startup Digest Launches in Shanghai

If you are in Shanghai next week, Kai Lukoff of Bloggerinsight and Qi Jia Yue of Trilogy Ventures and are launching [Startup Digest] Shanghai this coming Monday.

Startup Digest is a weekly email of the best startup events. It aims to bring together Shanghai’s tech community and will be dual English-Chinese language. Check it out: http://www.thestartupdigest.com

Startup Digest started in the Silicon Valley and has since grown to over 20,000 subscribers in 40 cities. Feedback from the other cities is that subscribers love staying easily informed, and event organizers enjoy the attendance boost when they’re mentioned on the list. Here is an edition from Tokyo, so that you can see an example: http://is.gd/c4wfO

They’d appreciate help in:
1) If you want to receive the digest, sign up: http://www.thestartupdigest.com
2) Please let me know about upcoming tech events in Shanghai
3) Spread the word via email/Facebook/Twitter (@StartupDigestSH)

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China: Internet kills TV, papers and radio

Synovate released an interesting study that shows how much time Chinese youth spend on the Internet vs TV vs newspapers. Not surprisingly TV, Internet and Mobile dominate.

The Internet beats wins in all cities from tier 1 to tier 5, losing out to TV and mobile in rural China.

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Technorati Tags: China, Internet, Synovate

China: More time on Internet than the USA

An interesting report by BCG on China’s Internet, China’s Digital Generations, shows once again the extremely high level of Internet usage by Chinese citizens.

What are people in China doing for 2.7 hours per day? Many of them are using social networks, IM-ing, gaming and chatting in bulletin boards.

Not only are more Chinese people using the Internet but they also use the Internet more than do consum- ers in the major emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, and Indonesia—which, together with China, form what we call the BRICI countries.
◊ Digital devices and the Internet are moving to center stage in the lives of China’s digital consumers, with total time spent online averaging 2.7 hours a day in 2009.
◊ This usage rate is the highest among all the BRICI countries and averages 0.4 hours a day more than the average rate in the United States.
◊ As a country, China spent more than 1 billion hours online per day in 2009—double the daily total in the United States. This number will grow to well over 2 billion hours per day by 2015.

Social, historical, and economic factors have shaped a unique set of needs and behaviors among Chinese digital consumers compared with the other BRICI economies.
◊ The most prominent themes are that far more Chinese people use the Internet to communicate and seek en- tertainment than in the other BRICI markets.
◊ For instance, more than 80 percent of Chinese digital consumers use instant messaging (IM), read news on- line, and stream or download music via the Internet. Three-quarters stream video content, and more than 50 percent use search engines and play games online.

Any company committed to engaging Chinese consumers will need to grasp the trends and implications of the country’s Internet-usage patterns.
◊ Understanding the underlying needs and tastes of the different segments of Chinese digital consumers is vital to creating an effective approach to communicating with them.
◊ However well established they may currently be, consumption trends such as e-commerce, online advertis- ing, and social-networking sites are far from realizing their potential.
◊ Many consumer-oriented multinationals in China are operating under outdated assumptions regarding Chi- nese consumers’ media and shopping behaviors. These companies are at grave risk of losing touch with one of the world’s most important growth markets.
◊ It is imperative to act fast, because the shift toward digital media and commerce has already become mainstream—and is gaining momentum at a tremendous rate.

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Demographics of China’s Wealthy

Interesting research report from McKinsey & Company about the wealthy consumers of China.

In addition to concluding that 80 percent of China’s wealthy are below the age of 45 – think about that for a second! – they also demarcated seven kinds of wealthy Chinese consumers.

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Technorati Tags: China, Mckinsey, Vinay Dixit, Wealthy