Iris Huang (second from right), director of global marketing at Glogou, with her team at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. Provided to China Daily

Baidu is the dominant search engine in China. But for any non-Chinese business pining to capture a smidgeon of the Middle Kingdom market, there is a massive obstacle: The search giant’s ad management system is only available in Chinese.

Leave it to a group of mostly Chinese engineers based in the Silicon Valley to find a seemingly obvious solution to an obvious challenge.

Glogou, established in 2007 and based in Santa Clara, California, is a startup providing digital and mobile marketing ad solutions for mostly American companies trying to tap into one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. It recently launched an interface allowing businesses to manage Baidu ad campaigns in English.

“Baidu dominates the online search market in China. If you are not searchable on Baidu, basically you are not visible on China’s Internet,” said Iris Huang, director of global marketing at Glogou. “What we do is to make sure a US company’s website is included in Baidu’s search results.”

The company reportedly is the first overseas agent of Baidu, which attracts more than 400 million Internet users in China every day. Glogou also has offices in Boston, Beijing and Chengdu serving more than 65 clients, including IBM, Intel Corp and Marriott Hotels and Resorts as well as universities in the United States such as Columbia University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Though Glogou’s client include a list of high-profile companies, Ben Lee, director of customer service at Glogou, said the focus is on small and medium-sized business in the US.

But having an English interface isn’t the only obstacle US businesses face in China. They still have to know what sells and how to sell it in the country. Glogou offers a market research to see how viable client’s products are and to find the most effective marketing channel to reach target audiences.

The company recently helped the University of California, Los Angeles, with its Empowered UCLA Extension program, which offers an online host of instructors, peers and counselors for students around the world. Huang said she and her team discovered that using social media would be a great platform for the program to build its brand in China.

“We helped them set up a Weibo and Youku page so Chinese students would get to know them through social media,” she said.

Glogou also has a product called WAVE, or Web Accessibility and Visibility Evaluator. WAVE monitors whether a US business’ website in China is effectively building a presence in China, if the site pops up on Chinese search engines and if there is social media chatter about the company.

“A lot of foreign company website cannot be seen or completely seen in China. We provide this real-time technology WAVE that can help monitor all this accessibility in China. We identify the problem and develop these technologies to help the companies to solve problems,” she said.

Lee, the director of customer service at Glogou, said with the company’s help, clients’ “conversion rates” have improved.

“For instance, a company want to advertise on Baidu and spend $100,” he explained. “If $100 brings one customer to the company, the conversion rate can be considered as 1 percent. With our help, a company often spends $100 and brings in an average of 2.5 customers.”

Lee said the rise in conversion rates for Glogou’s clients is mostly based on the company’s knowledge of the country, the Chinese market and what Chinese customers are looking for. One simple example is the company’s understanding of what Chinese home buyers want in the Los Angeles real estate market.

In order to sell property to a Chinese buyer, he said, the realtor must not only list a description of the property but give potential buyers information about the location and education environment in the area.

“We know many Chinese people buying property are doing it for their kids to attend US schools. This Chinese ‘know-how’ allows us know how to write ads for customers to immediately attract more targeted customers in China,” he said.

Hobsons, an Ohio-based education solutions company, recently set up its own Weibo page with Glogou’s help to promote its upcoming virtual student fair. Within three months, its Weibo account attracted more than 700 fans.

“Glogou and Hobsons partnered to step up social media efforts in China. Glogou seemed the right fit for us: small, agile and quick in understanding our needs,” said Daniela Locreille, director of student marketing at Hobsons. “Glogou helped us brand our virtual event fast and accurately and they continue to provide results post-event though social media efforts and in Chinese.”

Glogou currently has a total of 30 employees, most of whom are Chinese educated in the US. Huang said the company utilizes their Western and Eastern education and cultural knowledge to bridge the gap between US businesses and Chinese customers.

“Small and medium-sized enterprises in the US doing business in China face many challenges, from choosing the right partner to effectively planning media planning for social media platforms. Local knowledge of the Chinese culture is essential and technological solutions are a must. Glogou seems to offer exactly what is needed for American firms to operate and prosper in China,” said Li Hairong, professor of department of advertising and public relations at Michigan State University.

“Most American advertisers need assistance to buy ads from Baidu and other Chinese ad platforms that operate only in Chinese. Glogou sounds like it fills an important need for these advertisers,” said Benjamin Edelman, associate professor of business administartion at Harvard Business School.

Edelman said Glogou’s products are important because they can also help Chinese advertisers.

“In a world where only Google offers multilingual ad management features, American advertisers will likely resort to buying only Google ads to reach Chinese users. That would reach only a small portion of the Chinese market. Services like Glogou can help incumbents gain more ads and more revenue, thereby increasing their ability to keep the Chinese search market competitive,” Edelman said.

yuwei12@chinadailyusa.com

Source: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2013-05/17/content_16506762.htm

Editor’s Note: Thanks a lot to the reporter who wrote the amazing article.

——————

Why you need social media marketing … in China

April 30, 2013 7:42 AM

You can’t access Facebook in China. Twitter is unheard of. And Google … well, Google has left China, and China isn’t exactly writing a Taylor Swift ex-boyfriend song about the world’s largest search engine.

So social media and search engine optimization in China is a whole different ballgame. But an important one to play for any American company that wants a presence in the Middle Kingdom, according to Bin Lee and Iris Huang of Glogou.

“Asians are all social media users,” says Lee. “Social media users in China are way more active than Facebookers and Twitter users — social media is their key outlet.”

Glogou has been helping U.S companies sell into China — a “reverse Alibaba,” the company calls itself — for about five years. In a natural progression, last year the company started to explore helping Western corporations build their online profiles in China in addition to selling their products.

The reasons Western companies could need such a service have to do with the difficulties Western companies can face in China, such as what happened to Apple over the past few months — negative press in government-owned media outlets and coordinated astroturf social media attacks. And of course, reasons such as those behind Google’s exit from the Chinese market. Basically, if the Chinese government doesn’t approve of what you’re doing, you’re not going to be successful in China.

Early detection and response — Apple CEO Tim Cook eventually apologized, probably settling the issues — is critical.

But not all the challenges of doing business in China can be chalked up to political problems. In the Chinese government’s efforts to accomplish its goals — whatever they are — there’s a lot of collateral damage.

“Many US sites are not accessible from China,” says Huang. “It’s amazing how many … often that’s not because of political reasons, often simply due to technical reasons.”

So Glogou provides site monitoring services based in China, confirming that your site is accessible from mainland China and building you a small Chinese site if it is not. And the company provides social media monitoring: checking Weibo for mentions of your company and brand, and monitoring sentiment. That’s a big deal, because Weibo has more users than Twitter and almost as many users as Facebook.

That is due to the fact that social media is Chinese citizens’ key political outlet, Lee says. While the government does censor certain keywords, posts, and sometimes entire topics — such as the pigs floating in the river in Shanghai, which had two million search results before disappearing entirely — it has to grant a certain level of freedom, he told me. Which makes social media a key outlet for political as well as personal sentiment.

“The official newspapers never criticize the government, so people need to release some negative feelings” Lee says. “They criticize the government via social media.”

But it’s not just about social media — search engine optimization is also key, and SEO is an entirely different matter in China than in the U.S.

“We also help U.S. businesses to make sure they are included on Baidu,” Huang told me. “Because if you’re not on Baidu, you’re basically invisible in China.”

In addition to SEO services, the company has built an English interface for Baidu’s Chinese-language ad platform. Baidu has advertising products roughly analogous to Google’s AdWords and AdSense products, which until now have been almost entirely off-limits to English-speaking users.

China’s an important and growing market for U.S. businesses, a fact that social media management big boy HootSuite recently acknowledged by adding Weibo support to its tools.

Which means knowing what the Chinese think of you and your product is probably a good thing if you’re trying to sell into their country.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/30/why-you-need-social-media-marketing-in-china/#xtepTds6zB7ohW0J.99

One factor that made it easier for Samford University to catch the attention of some of the thousands of Chinese students at a recent education expo was that many mistook it for a university with a similar name: Stanford.

 “It’s a good conversation starter,” said Hunter Denson, an international admissions counselor for Samford, a Baptist college near Birmingham, Alabama. “They mix up the name all of the time. When we first got here, that was all they cared about. ‘Are you an Ivy League? Are you in the top 10? Why is your mascot not the Stanford tree?”’The China Education Expo, which began its tour in Beijing in October and continued on to six other cities through November, was Mr. Denson’s third trip to China. He first visited about a year ago after Samford decided that it needed more international students. So far, the college has accepted about 100 Chinese students and is also recruiting in South America.

“We are kind of new on the scene,” Mr. Denson said. “There are a lot of schools going to recruit internationally for the first time. Many of them are looking at emerging economies. But the thing about China is there are a lot of students, and China has had a lot of economic success lately.”

China is a hot market for U.S. institutions looking for international students.

This fall, American colleges recruited at a fair in Nanjing held by the EIC Group, a Chinese education agency, and one in Shanghai held by the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit group based in New York.

“This is becoming kind of big business,” said Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president at the Institute of International Education. “With the economic downturn in the U.S., schools are more eager to have international students at the undergrad level who are full fee-paying students.”

Among newer entrants are small-town Christian and community colleges that focus on students who may not make it to top universities.

Admissions officers from some smaller colleges say they are interested in China partly because they want more globalized campuses, but also because they can find students to pay full tuition.

Annual tuition for international students at Samford is $24,570, not including housing. At the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, a Baptist college in Belton, Texas, it is $17,520 per year. Green River Community College, outside Seattle, charges $9,600 per semester; local students pay $3,522 for the same number of credits.

The challenge these schools face while recruiting in China is that Samford is, well, not Stanford.

To compensate, most offer programs to help students with language skills before they enter undergraduate classes. They also emphasize, particularly to nervous Chinese parents, their pastoral care.

Elizabeth Tanaka, the director of international recruitment for the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, said Chinese parents perceived American faith-based schools as a “security blanket” for their children overseas.

“We tell them we don’t have alcohol on our campus — obviously there are no drugs,” she said. “People try to be a little bit nicer, treat people the way they would want to be treated.”

Undergraduates are required to take Bible classes and attend church.

“But they look at it as, ‘Hey, this is part of American culture. Even if I am not interested in Christianity, this is what America is about,”’ Ms. Tanaka said.

Since Mary Hardin-Baylor began recruiting in China in 2008, about 250 Chinese students have enrolled. Ms. Tanaka said another selling point was the college’s hands-on treatment. Staff members pick students up from the airport, prepare bedding for them when they arrive, take them to the doctor and stay in touch with parents back home.

“It’s like having a bunch of 10-year-olds,” said Ms. Tanaka, who also attended the Beijing education expo. “Sometimes I have to sit down with the students and say, ‘You have to grow up. You have to go to class. You will fail if you don’t do anything.”’

Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, which has ties to the Churches of Christ, has been recruiting in China for a decade. It has enrolled more than 400 Chinese students and built partnerships with at least 10 Chinese universities. Harding has a Chinese-language Web site and is considering opening a campus in China.

In the late 1990s, a local government in China financed graduate study there for 16 students.

“One reason they choose Harding is the simple idea of safety and security,” said Jim Carr, the college’s executive vice president. “We have had people from China tell us that there is a crisis of character in China and that they want students at a school like Harding.”

Bible classes and chapel attendance are mandatory, and there is a strict dress code. Some activities, like swimming, are separated by sex.

“You can go to our Web site pretty easily and see what kind of school Harding is,” Mr. Carr said. “If they can read English at all, they will know Harding is a faith-based institution.”

Liu Chang, a Shanghai native who is now a sophomore at Samford University, said he had chosen the college because it was Christian. At the same time, he said, he felt that Samford was “sort of letting anyone in, even if they are not good enough,” and added that Chinese students were not fully aware of the mandatory religious curriculum.

“Some students came here and said, ‘What? I did not know we had to do this,”’ said Mr. Liu, 22. “For Chinese students, they have no idea what that is before they come here. Some end up transferring.”

The possibility of moving to another institution, perhaps a better-known one, is a selling point. This is particularly true of community colleges, which are two-year government-financed institutions that can be used as a steppingstone to four-year universities.

Norma Kent, senior vice president for communications for the American Association of Community Colleges, said domestic financial constraints were leading to increased recruitment overseas.

In the 2010-11 academic year, nearly 90,000 international students studied at U.S. community colleges, according to the Institute of International of Education.

Green River Community College, which has an English-language program for foreign students, began recruiting in China in 1994. It enrolled more than 1,500 international students for its fall semester, more than 500 of whom are Chinese. It grossed $15 million in tuition from its international student population in the 2011-2012 academic year.

Green River emphasizes the number of students it helps transfer to institutions like the University of Washington or the University of California, Berkeley.

“To be honest, recruitment works better in second- and third-tier cities,” Ross Jennings, a recruiter for Green River, said on a recruiting trip to China. “We can’t compete with the big-name universities, and the top schools in Beijing or Shanghai are looking for brand names,” he said of elite high schools.

China remains a difficult market for lesser-known schools. Turnout at the fairs in Shanghai and Nanjing, both of which featured a number of community colleges, was lackluster.

The Institute of International Education, which held the Shanghai fair, declined to provide attendance figures, as did EIC Group, which organized the fair in Nanjing.

“Shanghai was not a good turnout, which was kind of surprising because the Chinese market is so huge,” said Christina M. Delgado, the international education program director at College of the Desert, a community college in Palm Desert, California.

At the Nanjing event, which billed itself as an education fair “for ordinary people,” some students expressed skepticism.

“I heard community colleges can’t give real degrees. Is it true?” said Zhang Tianhao, a student from Nanjing hoping to study in the United States. “I want to go to a famous school.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/world/asia/17iht-educlede17.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&pagewanted=print

Taishan scenic spot recently opened its official WeChat account. Taishan is among the first scenic spots to promote its tourism online through WeChat, a popular mobile communication service.

Staff members working at the information center have devised an automatic reply system that can answer some common questions quickly.

“Travel information could reach tourists easily and provide them with useful advice,” said Song Lei, director of the information center in the Taishan scenic spot. Following the successful launch of Taishan’s official weibo, or microblog, Taishan scenic spot has entered a micro-era with WeChat.

WeChat can send voice messages, video clips, pictures as well as text messages. At present, WeChat has nearly 300 million registered members and is widely used in fields such as mass media and tourism.

Edited by Michael Thai, Li Xiaoliang and Zhao Jingchen

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/taishan/e/2013-04/18/content_16419835.htm

Taishan Weibo: www.weibo.com/chinataishan

Chinese travelers are now the top source of tourism cash in the world, according to a new report by the United Nations World Tourism Organization(UNWTO).

Boosted by a rising Chinese currency, Chinese travelers spent a record US$102 billion on international tourism in 2012, a 40 percent rise from US$73 billion in 2011.

Chinese tourism: The good, the bad, the backlash

The results fall right in line with China’s outbound tourism growth over the last 10 years.

The UNWTO says the volume of international trips by Chinese travelers grew from 10 million in 2000 to 83 million in 2012, making it the world’s fastest-growing market.

So what’s behind the increase?

The UNWTO credits rapid urbanization, rising disposable incomes and the relaxation of government restrictions on foreign travel.

“In 2005 China ranked seventh in international tourism expenditure, and has since successively overtaken Italy, Japan, France and the United Kingdom,” says the report.

“With the 2012 surge, China leaped to first place, surpassing both top spender Germany and second largest spender United States (both close to US$84 billion in 2012).”

Though the report did not break down spending per trip amongst international travelers, calculating total spend by number of trips suggests Chinese travelers averaged a spend of $1,230 per trip.

By 2015, 100 million Chinese will travel abroad, a benchmark originally forecast for 2020, according to the UNWTO.

And now that China’s State Council has crafted a landmark plan to kick start Chinese outbound tourism even further, expect more phenomenal growth figures.

It is dubbed the “Outline for National Tourism and Leisure (2013-2020)” and is a roadmap for restructuring the current paid leave system across China with an aim to encourage governmental agencies, social organizations, enterprises and public institutions to promote the use of leave days. Importantly, it also gives Chinese workers more freedom and flexibility of where and when to travel.

It’s all about shopping

And what do Chinese travelers prefer to do on their trips?

According to Dr. Yong Chen of Hong Kong Polytechnic University who specializes in Chinese outbound tourism, unlike other global travelers, Chinese tourists focus mainly on shopping.

“It is the most prominent difference and more evidential in recent years,” says Chen.

“If you look at Chinese tourists 10 years ago, they will mainly buy souvenirs. Nowadays, they want to buy luxury products in Italy or Paris like handbags and watches.”

Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt, director of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI), agrees, saying shopping is one of the main drivers for Chinese tourists.

“Luxury goods are 20-30% cheaper in other global cities. If you plan to spend US$10,000 on shopping and only spend US$1,000 on airfare, it’s much cheaper for Chinese tourists to fly abroad to shop.”

Traveling is also a form of soft power, he adds, so it’s only natural for the Chinese government to support its citizens to head abroad.

“For Chinese people the United States is the only competitor left,” he says.

“They have an interest in the model for capitalistic development and want to see what they can learn so they can overtake and become number one.”

Chinese are very proud of the fact that they are traveling, he adds, given the Cultural Revolution is still fresh the minds of people over 40.

“This happened all in one generation,” he says. “Many have parents who didn’t have shoes. All this growth happened so fast it’s still in living memory.

“Now they’re showing the world and themselves: ‘I’m strong, I can go spend US$5,000 for nothing, just my pleasure.’”

Other hot markets

Other emerging markets to increase tourism spending abroad over the past decade include Russia, which saw an increase of 32 percent in 2012 to US$43 billion, bringing it from seventh to fifth place in the international tourism spending rankings.

“Emerging economies continue to lead growth in tourism demand,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai in a statement.

“The impressive growth of tourism expenditure from China and Russia reflects the entry into the tourism market of a growing middle class from these countries, which will surely continue to change the map of world tourism.”

Meanwhile, traditionally hot outbound tourism markets, usually growing at a slower pace, also posted positive results, says the report.

Spending on travel abroad from Germany and the United States grew by 6% each.

Spending from the UK grew by 4% and the country retained its fourth place spot in the list of major source markets. Expenditure by Canada grew by 7%, while both Australia and Japan grew by 3%.

The only markets in the top 10 to record a decline in international tourism spending were France (down 6%) and Italy (minus 1%.)

Top international tourism spenders in 2012

1. China — US$102 billion
2. Germany — US$83.8 billion
3. United States — US$83.7 billion
4. United Kingdom — US$52.3 billion
5. Russian Federation — US$42.8 billion
6. France — US$38.1 billion
7. Canada — US$35.2 billion
8. Japan — US$28.1 billion
9. Australia — US$27.6 billion
10. Italy — US$26.2 billion
11. Singapore — US$22.4 billion
12. Brazil — US$22.2 billion
13. Belgium — US$21.7
14. Hong Kong (China) — US$20.5 billion
15. Netherlands — US$20.2 billion

– source: UNWTO.

-Source: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/05/travel/china-tourists-spend

Last fall, a former Chinese employee of mine who goes by the Western name Marc, suddenly called me after more than a decade hiatus in our correspondence. He told me that he was now running his own travel company in Shanghai, and was in New York City leading a group of mid-level Chinese business managers on an incentive tour of the U.S. They had spent two weeks traveling across the country to major tourist destinations, and were now on the final day of their tour. Marc wanted to get together during a few hours of free time he had while his tour members did some last minute-shopping on Fifth Avenue before their scheduled to return to Shanghai the following morning.

After meeting for a beer in midtown, I walked with Marc to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street — the agreed rendezvous point for his group members. At the appointed time, nine Chinese tourists arrived, each laden with multiple shopping bags: Saks Fifth Avenue, Coach, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, and other luxury brands. When I commented knowingly on the volume of their purchases, Marc reminded me that there was actually much more I could not see tucked away inside each tour member’s travel bag: luxury watches, jewelry, cosmetics, and other small-sized, high-end purchases. Before leaving, Marc asked me to point him towards Second Avenue where the group had been given a restaurant address for an “authentic American steak dinner.” “Why walk over there when you can get a great steak just two blocks away on 45th Street just off Fifth,” I asked. Marc agreed, so I escorted them up the street to Morton’s Steakhouse, and then stayed briefly to get them seated and interpret for the waiter as they placed their order. “It’ll be up to $100 per person,” I cautioned Mark. “Mei wenti!” (“No problem!”) he enthusiastically answered in Mandarin, without even the slightest hint of sticker-shock.

As yet another manifestation of China’s well-documented “rise,” Chinese travelers are now taking the world by storm. Nowhere is that more evident than in the top tourist cities and surrounding suburban areas in North America — all the more so this week during the Chinese New Year holiday when Chinese tourism to the U.S. traditionally spikes. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Chinese tourist and business travelers exceeded 1 million in 2011 — almost double the figure from 2007. That same year, annual Chinese visitor expenditures in the U.S. reached $7.7 billion, ranking China sixth among all nations for visitor expenditures and, for the first time, ahead of Germany. In Canada, Chinese tourists numbered almost 250,000 in 2011 — a 50% increase over 2009. That year, Chinese aggregate tourist expenditures in the country were reported at $408 million.

Yet, as impressive as these numbers already are, they are still only the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.” Three important forces will combine to produce a Chinese visitor profile in the coming years which will make current statistics appear modest by comparison:

First, the continued pace of personal wealth accumulation in China will ensure that there will be a rapidly-expanding class of people with enough disposable income to start traveling abroad. Even as Chinese travelers are increasingly extending their personal interests, and share-of-visits, to many regions of the world, North America remains a key, aspirational, must-see destination.

Secondly, a 2012 U.S. government-mandated increase in both the number of, and speed-of-processing for, non-immigrant visas granted to specifically to Chinese will facilitate even stronger growth in Chinese arrivals than has been seen in the last several years.

Finally, the nascent push by some marketers in North America to both communicate with travelers prior to their departure from China, while more directly catering to them upon their arrival here in the form of culturally and linguistically relevant services and amenities, will result in stimulating even stronger “front end” demand for North American travel, as well as “back-end” traveler satisfaction, repeat visit, and referral. To date, early-movers in this arena include state, provincial (in Canada), and urban tourist authorities, some top hotel chains, and global luxury retailers.

For a much wider range of both big and small businesses in the U.S. and Canada, though, a huge opportunity waits. Capitalizing on this opportunity requires both developing a basic understanding of what Chinese travelers seek during their visits, and then taking concrete steps to become visible to them, and competently serve their needs.

Whether here on business or for pleasure, Chinese want to experience North America to the full extent possible — for themselves, and also often as an important “badge” within their professional and social spheres back home. An ideal itinerary includes stops at world-famous destinations and sites, all with requisite photos to validate the visit. But a trip may also may include certain quintessentially North American experiences — ranging from theater (e.g. Broadway musical), to certain spectator sports (e.g. basketball — the NBA already has an ardent following in China), to various types of participatory recreation (casinos, theme parks, and others). And although Chinese are known to strongly adhere to their own cuisine even when they travel, they are still willing to venture out in the food realm to obtain “typical” experiences — thus the “authentic American steak dinner.”

Chinese are even more widely known for their shopping, and there is probably no more experienced “mission shopper.” This is particularly true with respect to shopping for globally-branded luxury goods which, although available in China, are much more expensive there due to the imposition of double-to-triple digit taxes on such items. So, when visitors arrive from China to New York, Toronto, San Francisco, or Vancouver, they will actually save money at Coach, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Rolex — so much so that they often have a shopping list not just for themselves, but also for several family members and/or close friends. Although China is known for producing high-quality fake luxury goods, Chinese themselves typically want none of that. Only the real thing will do as a personal symbol, or gift, that conveys true status.

Of course, luxury items are not the only things Chinese would buy. In principle, they will be receptive a very wide range of other products, goods, and services that may not be globally known, but are considered “special,” “high quality,” “typically American,” or “typically Canadian.” All it takes is some carefully targeted promotion.

There are a variety of ways for businesses to engage Chinese travelers, ranging from fairly simple actions to more involved programming. To tap the Chinese tourist market which is, today, still dominated by organized tour groups, direct outreach to the largely Chinese-American and Chinese-Canadian inbound tour operators which manage such tourists can put a business “on the map.” Such operators decide where the groups stay, where they eat, where they stop to shop, and what selection of leisure/entertainment activities they will engaged in. Alliances with such operators, including promotional information and/or incentives offered to their local U.S. and Canadian tour guides, can ease a business into this growing market.

Tour groups are inevitably given free time in central shopping districts of the cities they visit (or in nearby outlet malls), and businesses in such areas want to appeal to these tourists, as well as to the many Chinese business travelers that also frequent these locales. So, beyond the pre-planned sales stops that partnership with tour operators may bring, individual businesses need to be poised on their own to garner attention from Chinese travelers. To accomplish this, a series of fairly simple steps can go far: a welcome sign in Chinese characters on a store front or restaurant window, indoor signage and merchandising communications in Chinese. Where Chinese foot traffic has the potential to be the strongest (e.g., main shopping street, most famous tourist site), staffing at least one Mandarin-speaking service or sales associate can enhance the Chinese traveler experience and facilitate sales. When such staffing is not feasible, investing in a well-planned, Chinese-language brochure, menu, or other sales-oriented collateral materials can bridge linguistic and cultural barriers, while still conveying recognition and respect.

Chinese travelers are also very web-savvy, and are heavy users of social media — not Facebook and Twitter but, rather, the largest social media sites in China: Sina Weibo, Tencent WeChat (http://www.wechat.com/en/), Tencent Weibo, Renren, and others. As is the growing practice of global brands seeking to engage Chinese consumers in China, businesses in North America which want to build their brands with Chinese travelers prior to their arrival can establish their identities and activity on such sites to create a “pull” for sales. Adding a Chinese-language landing page or microsite to an existing English language website would further allow Chinese travelers who encounter a business online to easily access more information, including product/service details, promotions, reservation mechanisms, etc.

North American businesses that recognize Chinese travelers now, and take some proactive steps to connect with them, will be ahead of the curve in tapping a still, relatively uncluttered opportunity. However, given the accelerated growth in this travel segment, it won’t be long before everyone will want a piece of the action.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/saul-gitlin/chinese-tourism_b_2670816.html

According to the Wall Street Journal, a recent study from Hong Kong University found that over 57% of the 500 million-plus registered users on Sina Weibo, China’s favorite microblogging service, may be “zombie” accounts that post no original tweets. The study further found that just over 10% of users appear active in a given week, which squares with information recently shared by Sina Corp itself.

The study may be a blow to Sina investors. But it should not dishearten those who believe that social media has changed China or want to use social media to gauge social sentiment. Here are six reasons why.

1. “Not that many” is still quite a lot.

Even if only 43% of Weibo’s 500 million registered users post original content, that is still 215 million active users, or roughly the adult population of the United States. There are more than 100 million tweets generated every day on Sina Weibo. Granted, not every one of those tweets is original, thought-provoking, or meaningful, but millions are. Despite the size of the zombie population haunting Weibo, there are still millions of tweets generated by millions of active users for interested analysts to sink their teeth into.

2. The active Weibo users are the current and future leaders of China.

The Wall Street Journal theorized that Weibo is more like a cyber version of the Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, where a vocal minority dominates discussion. Even if that’s true, the speakers and their audience are not limited to grassroots activists and passers-by.

Some of the most influential power users of Weibo are genuine movers and shakers in China, including millionaire businessmen and businesswomen, trailblazing journalists, leading scholars and economists, and bestselling authors. In the West, these people might find outlets for their views in traditional media, but in China, where traditional media is tightly controlled, they often have to log on to Weibo to make themselves heard.

And their audiences are numerous and interested. The active users on Weibo are likely the most educated, tech-savvy, socially aware and politically active bunch in China. In other words, they are the type of people who help drive the debate and bring about change in any country. In the U.S., this type of person votes, signs petitions, writes to their congressmen, or runs for office. In China, they log on to Weibo.

For companies and marketers, active Weibo users are also the ones to watch because they are likely young, college-educated, living in urban centers and are consumers of the newest and latest products and services.

3. Lurkers count too.

Even inactive users get their information and find like-minded people from Weibo and other social media sources. China’s pluralism is brought to the surface when people “eavesdrop” on conversations on Weibo and learn that they are not alone in whatever opinions they hold. This is important for a country where the Party’s voice speaks the loudest, political organization is forbidden, and dissent is virtually shut out.

4. Weibo’s impact is multiplied through other media platforms.

Nowadays, any Chinese journalist worth her salt is plugged into Weibo, busy mining stories and spotting trends that she can use in her reporting at a local paper or television station. Some of the stories will not be approved by government censors, but many will.

Weibo has completely changed the media landscape in China, and the way news is generated and shared in China online and off — that means its social impact far outstrips mere numbers. China’s mainstream media is heavily controlled and censored, and so Weibo becomes the place that news gets broken and discussed.

Mainstream media reporting now often responds to social media chatter. Even a 70-year old grandmother who only reads the local paper probably will become aware of social issues such as PM2.5 air pollution readings and potential changes in the labor camp system, as a result of loud calls for change trickling from social media to traditional media.

Weibo is also not the only social media in China. China’s Internet also has a multiplicity of other discussion forums. What’s discussed on one platform, such as Weibo, easily migrates to others, say Tianya Community, KDS or Baidu Tieba, and vice-versa.

This means that once an issue becomes a hot trending topic on Weibo, it can take on a life of its own and generate greater impact on traditional media and other social media platforms. This amplifying effect is not reflected in the number of active users and tweets on Weibo alone.

5. Inactive users can become power users overnight.

On Weibo, everyone is given a proverbial loudspeaker. Most do not use it, but they can, especially in times of distress and need. For example, after a street vendor killed two “chengguan” city enforcers out of self-defense in 2009, the vendor’s wife opened a Weibo account to try to gather support for her husband so he could avoid the death penalty. The woman (@沈阳张晶), who had never heard of Weibo before the incident, is now followed by more than 55,000 people and has generated hundreds of tweets. Before the advent of social media, the woman would not have been able to find an outlet that allowed her to keep the issue alive and connect with lawyers, social activists or sympathizers.

6. There is nothing better out there to gauge social sentiment in China.

Or if there is, no one has discovered it yet. For reporting on the world’s most populous and economically dynamic country, we must use the best tools we have available. Weibo is too important to miss.

Source: http://www.tealeafnation.com/2013/03/six-reasons-why-weibo-is-powerful-even-if-its-haunted-by-zombies/

China’s most beloved microblog, Sina Corp.’s Weibo is often described as a virtual town square where Chinese people can publicly discuss issues from politics to pop stars with a level of freedom not available elsewhere in the country.

If that’s the case, a new study suggests the square isn’t nearly as full as it might seem.

The study, conducted by researchers at Hong Kong University, aimed to discover who was using Weibo by studying a random sample of roughly 30,000 users. Of those, 57% had no posts in the timeline, indicating either an inactive user or one of the so-called zombie accounts created by marketing firms to manipulate follower numbers for real accounts.

But that’s not all. Looking more deeply at the roughly 12,000 accounts with posts on their timelines, the study reveals Weibo to be less like a town square and more like the Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park, where a vocal minority dominate discussion. Over a seven-day period, the researchers found, 86.9% of users wrote no original posts and 88.9% did not repost any original message from another account. By comparison, 0.5% of users posted more than 20 messages over the seven days, and another 0.5% reposted more than 40 unique messages during the time.

The study was conducted in 2012. Developments since then, including an attempt to implement a real-name registration system and increased censorship, might have changed user behavior somewhat, according to King-wa Fu, one of the study’s authors.

The findings nevertheless shed important new light on a social media service that has been credited with remaking public discourse in China but which remains little understood. Unsure of the meaningfulness of Weibo metrics provided by Sina, analysts have been particularly eager to known how many people use the service regularly.

Applying the 57% figure from the study to the 503 million registered users that Sina said it had at the end of 2012, it would appear that less than 220 million users have ever posted anything on the site. The study’s findings also suggest that only around 30 million users will write a unique post in a given week.
Sina said in its most recent earnings call at the end of last year that Weibo had 46.2 million daily active users, which means that a significant chunk of the people who actively use the sight aren’t posting or reposting messages, but instead just “lurking.”

Similarly for the world’s most famous microblogging service Twitter, active users have also trailed well behind total user numbers. Last summer, research group Semiocast estimated that Twitter had 170 million active users on a total user base of about 500 million. In that case the firm defined an active user as anyone who had tweeted, followed another user, or changed their avatar over the course of a three-month period. Also similar to Weibo, Twitter has a large number of users who primarily use the site more voyeuristically, signing in simply to watch others, but not tweet themselves.

“40 percent of our active users simply sign in to listen to what’s happening in their world,” the company wrote in a 2011 blog entry.

The study found that less than 5% of non-zombie Weibo users wrote a post that elicited a comment or was reposted, suggesting that much of the discussion on Weibo is being driven by a small group of influential microbloggers.

If influence is skewed on Weibo, so too is the location of users, according to the study.

The authors found that Beijing, Shanghai, and the province of Guangdong, which account for 9% of China’s Internet population, were home to more than a quarter of the 12,000 Weibo users they studied. As one might expect, the study found the greatest penetration of Weibo users on China’s more wealthy east coast.

Somewhat more surprising was Tibet, which had far higher Weibo penetration than surrounding provinces like Xinjiang, Sichuan and Yunnan.

While none of this necessarily takes away from the value of the service, whether as a tool for advertisers or a platform for public discourse, it’s a useful reminder that the opinions, desires and interests posted on Weibo belong to only a limited slice of China’s Internet using population.

– Paul Mozur. Follow him on Twitter @paulmozur

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/12/how-many-people-really-use-sina-weibo/

Thanks to rapid urbanization and rising disposable incomes in their country, Chinese tourists spent $102 billion during their travels in 2012, more than any other nationality, making the Asian nation the world’s number one tourism source market, the United Nations said today.

According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the volume of international trips by Chinese travellers has grown from 10 million in 2000 to 83 million in 2012. Their expenditure abroad has also climbed rapidly, increasing by 40 per cent from 2011 to 2012.

In addition to urbanization and rising incomes, other factors such as the relaxation of restrictions on foreign travel and an appreciating Chinese currency have contributed to this boom in tourism.

“With this sustained growth, China has become the largest spender in international tourism globally in 2012,” UNWTO said in a news release.

In 2005 China ranked seventh in international tourism expenditure, and has since successively overtaken Italy, Japan, France and the United Kingdom. With last year’s surge, China leaped to first place, surpassing the top spender, Germany, and the United States. Both of these counties spent close to $84 billion in 2012.

Other emerging markets have also increased their share of world tourism spending over the past decade. Russia saw an increase of 32 per cent in 2012, spending $43 billion, which brought it from seventh to fifth place in the international tourism spending rankings.

“Emerging economies continue to lead growth in tourism demand,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai. “The impressive growth of tourism expenditure from China and Russia reflects the entry into the tourism market of a growing middle class from these countries, which will surely continue to change the map of world tourism.”

Brazil also experienced a significant increase, which allowed it to move from the 29th position in 2005 to the 12th position in 2012.

Countries which have traditionally ranked high in tourism expenditure also experienced growth albeit at a slower pace than emerging economies. Spending on travel abroad from Germany and the US grew by 6 per cent each, while UK spending grew by 4 per cent allowing the country to retain its fourth place in the list of major source markets.

Expenditure by Canada grew by 7 per cent, while both Australia and Japan grew by 3 per cent. France and Italy were the only countries in the top ten to record a decline in international tourism spending of -6 per cent and -1 per cent, respectively.

Resource: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44561&Cr=touris&Cr1=#.UV4g7jdop-W

Move over, Weibo. Here comes WeChat. Weibo, China’s microblogging platform that’s a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, was the hot place to be as recently as last year. Now, marketers are clamoring to engage with WeChat and the 300 million users it’s amassed in just two years.

“Everyone is using WeChat, so marketers are wondering how can they use it in their communications,” said Sophia Ong, the executive at WeChat’s parent company, Tencent, who helps marketers navigate the internet giant’s myriad platforms. “They know it’s very influential, everyone is using and sharing it. And slowly some brands are coming out with official WeChat accounts.”

China’s newest digital darling is a mashup of several existing applications, with a few fun features like “Shake Shake” and “Drift Bottle.” WeChat users trade text, audio and video messages with friends over mobile-data networks. There’s a popular group-messaging function and newly unveiled live-chat capabilities. Photos can be posted on an Instagram-like “Moments” page, while “Look Around” identifies other WeChat users nearby. There’s also a QR-code reader.

“We love to use all the social connections because different people want to connect with us in different ways,” said Ben Wilson, marketing director for Reckitt Benckiser in China, talking about Durex’s online-communication strategy. “On WeChat, you can be a little more personal.”

One big reason for WeChat’s stellar growth is that contact lists are linked to Tencent’s QQ instant-messaging platform, which has more than 700 million active accounts. But users can also make friends through Drift Bottle — picking (and sending) notes at random from mobile cyberspace. Shake Shake connects users who happen to be shaking their smartphones at the same time. It’s a quick way to swap contact details. Pete Blackshaw, global head of digital at Nestle, recently tweeted about having a major WeChat “shake-fest with friends and colleagues.”

Should Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Skype and others be worried? Considering that WeChat’s stellar growth has come in large part from QQ, maybe not. But Mark Natkin, a technology analyst in Beijing, says the West can learn a thing or two from WeChat.

“They can be a little more aggressive in adding more social features more quickly,” he said. “In the earlier stages, any user you mentioned WeChat to would say, “Oh, Shake Shake! I can go out and meet people I don’t know.’ It was something interesting and unusual. And that got a lot of buzz going, getting people to try it.”

Out of all the Chinese digital products, WeChat is perhaps the best positioned for global expansion. Launched in January 2011 as Weixin (“way-sheen”), it was rebranded in April 2012 with the globally palatable moniker WeChat. It’s offered in languages from English to Turkish to Arabic. Tencent says WeChat is Apple’s No. 1 social-networking app in Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia, but also in Saudi Arabia. It’s being promoted in Indonesia, India, Argentina and Australia.

Blog TechNode quoted WeChat Product Director Zeng Ming as saying that Europe and the States is its next challenge.

Tencent has been picky about who’s allowed to do WeChat marketing. “Every time we talk to clients, we say you have to commit to doing social CRM,” Ms. Ong said.

Source: http://adage.com/article/digital/chinese-mobile-app-wechat-shake-shakes-social-crm/239938/