Online Marketing in China

I'm looking for some advise from the group. I'm working on a campaign that is centered around changing/improving a company's reputation. We've been focusing on the Web as the primary channel for reaching our target audience, which is primarily potential employees and business/campus/environmental opinion leaders (I know that's broad). Our next major target market it China. Does anyone have any advice or resources for advice on reaching audiences online in China? What works? "traditional" banner ads, SEO, social networks... a combo of the above? What's culturally the most effective?
Any opinions or direction you can give me would be helpful
thanks

Tags: China, adverting, marketing, online, reputation

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Permalink Reply by shineshark on May 22, 2008 at 9:01am

Ever heard of the great firewall of China? If you are sitting in the USA it will be difficult for you to grab a chinese audience. To grab china, go to china first and then market there. Secondly, try advertising through baidu.com. Baidu is equal to Google in china.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Wheeler on June 27, 2008 at 5:25am

Hi Kristen,

I realise you posted this a month ago, but I figured I would chime in case you were still looking for info.

I've been in China for two or so years now and have done some work in HR marketing here (it sounds like you are looking to do some of that).

As for online marketing, a lot of the Web 2.0 tools that you have in the US you'll find in China. China has its own equivalents of LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. In addition to these you'll also have local online gaming platforms and chat clients. A lot of the younger audience (recent grads, which would be the potential employees you mentioned) get online through internet cafes rather than their own personal computers, which may also play a role in deciding how you will market online in China.

In terms of targeting potential employees, I would agree with what shineshark said above: If you want to market in China, it's useful to come here first. As I don't know your client I can't be too specific, but there are cultural differences when it comes to job-hunting in China. A lot of emphasis is put on a company's name and size; a company without an already-developed reputation in China (or with no recognisable brand names) will find recruiting an uphill battle even if it can offer decent salary and benefits. Of course, your client's reputation in China is exactly what you will be trying to improve.

Hope some of that helps.

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Permalink Reply by Sunil Shibad on June 29, 2008 at 10:11am

I am in the neighborhood, India. I agree with shineshark and Scott. Try baidu.com. Also my brother-in-law is Chinese.

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Permalink Reply by Prabhat Kiran on June 30, 2008 at 4:25am

Just came across your post...

whatever answer you got it valid, its essential to be here to market for china..

I am from India and now i am in China for Online Marketing and Branding for a business and here are some actions i took for optimisation.

1) Hired 8 locals and made them create blogs in blogspot chinese version.
- added addthis.com code (for social bookmarking) and make them update every article they write on digg, technorati,reditt and 30 others.

2) Stumble / Ping for Chinese sites.

3) Made them create account in chinese video sites (around 10 of them) and started creating videos in Chinese and optimise them. Added videos to blog and also promoted is to relevant youtube (chinese) videos as 'answers'.

4) Chinese Forums

5) Ning - chinese version

6) optimisation for baidu /qq.com and around 10 other portals.

7) ppc in adwords and facebook...

hope this helps u.

prabhat

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Permalink Reply by Kristen Groh on July 27, 2008 at 8:18am

Can you tell me more about the Chinese version of YouTube? We currently promote videos from our campaign on YouTube and will be creating translated versions (voice over, not subtitles) for the China market. I'd love to put them up on a video site in China.

thanks

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Permalink Reply by Kristen Groh on July 27, 2008 at 8:17am

Thanks so much to everyone for your input. Just an update on this project - I visited the offices of my client in Beijing last month. It was a wonderful and insightful trip. Through meetings with the companies local employees, as well as local media agencies, we were able to gain the information we needed in order to not only localize the content of the site we're promoting, but also understand the messaging and creative direction we will need to go in to get our audiences attention. I'll be sure to share the link when the site goes live in October.