This article includes the following topics and has a regional focus on China, South Korea, Japan and partly India:

1. Demographics on social media use in Asia (China, South Korea, Japan, India)
2. Developing a social media strategy that pays into SEO and includes PR activities
3. Explanation of social media channels

1. Demographics on social media use in Asia (China, South Korea, Japan, India)

The following graphs and tables show information about the use and penetration of social media in China, Japan, South Korea and India.

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Channel usage per country:

Every market is different:

Still, different markets show different user behavior. A reason for this could be the maturity and the development of a country in general. In the following table the item “research / find products to buy” gives an indication: The more developed the country the higher this shopping and comparison related behavior is listed. That’s no proof of course, but an indicator.

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2. Developing a social media strategy that pays into SEO and includes PR activities

You need to have a strategy to fully leverage the potential of social media for SEO. All activities should be coordinated by one person/department. It’s possible that different departments participate in the social media execution, e.g. PR, sales, customer support, but one coordinator needs to remain the helm.

Steps of a social media strategy:

1. Understand your target group. Listen and learn and collect consumer insights. Find out where your target group likes to stay online.
2. Your target group consists of different kind of online contributors. Define the right channel for the respective user group.
3. Execute the channels.
4. Make sure that channel manager communicate with each other to leverage content and create links
5. Track, collect more consumer insights, learn more and use this information to refine your approach.

3. Explanation of social media channels

SEO/search engine results:
All content created in the channels will finally be picked up by search engines and add to your visibility especially for brand and product related keywords. It’s important that good and high-quality content is available in the search engine result pages to create upmost influence. If you do a search for your product or brand you will notice that search engine results are consumer dictated.

Just test yourself for your brand name or product name. How many results do you find among the first 20 results that are user-generated content, i.e. blog posts, forum discussions, video uploads, product reviews, Q&A sites? And how many results are based on your own distributed content, i.e. own website, press releases,etc.?

Blogs:
The majority of blogs in the blogosphere are personal blogs and niche blogs which generally don’t have many views. But they are observed by peers and category specialists or found in the search engines. A good story from a small blog can create some good buzz. On the other hand, a negative product or brand comment/experience can spark the flame. The mega-blogs with million of readers certainly have a strong impact when you get some coverage there. Blog marketing is an essential part of your online marketing communication strategy and goes hand-in-hand with online PR.

Forums:
In China, traditional forums and BBS are still the leading channel of user-generated content. More users contribute to a
forum than to a social network or than write a blog. But also for other countries, forums are an equally important channel.  Forums are mostly expert communities that focus around a certain topic or category. There are always a couple of power contributors who are responsible for most of the content. But for the normal consumer, forums are a powerful and very influencing source of information. Moreover, forums have the characteristic that very few people participate, but many, may people read. Also, for marketers forums are a valuable source of consumer insights.

Reviews:
Reviews should be divided into editorial reviews and consumer reviews. Editorial reviews are often based on product samples that a marketer sends out to a blog or review site to write a profound but independent review. Oftentimes this is part of the PR strategy of a marketer. These editorial reviews oftentimes are also extremely detailed and critical. Reviewers have a high standard and lots of professional experience and see things and specs from a different point of view.

Consumer reviews on the other hand are not as detailed and deep. Often they consist just of a few sentences. But they are an extremely important influencing factor. Web pages of products listed on shopping portals or price-comparison sites which have no consumer reviews normally look very boring: Product image, specs, price. That’s it. Totally exchangable, nothing convincing. A web shop which has consumer reviews and star ratings for the products listed has a much higher conversion rates than shops that have only product data. Products with many reviews and ratings are considered popular and worth buying than products without any user experience comments.

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Social networks:
Facebook and social networks are a big hype, but when it comes to your online marketing mix you should priorize what can have a big impact and what not. Social networks should certainly be part of your online activity but expectations should be realistc. Remember that only a low percentage of Facebook pages have more than a thousand fans. And to get in the area of 100,000 fans you already must have a strong brand awareness in public life. Before you engage in Facebook be sure where your fans are and what content you can provide to them. Be sure that you have the resources to communicate with them on a daily basis.

Source: The pictures are taken from a globalwebindex presentation and  you can find them on slideshare.

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Here are a few typical Baidu SEO questions and my answers to them:

Which are the relevant SEO factors for Baidu search engine optimization?
Page titles, keyword density, amount of inbound links (not relevancy and quality), and as you can hear, some luck and/or connections into the Baidu organisation.

If I optimize for G, do I automatically optimize for Baidu?
Yes and no. In terms of onsite SEO (titles and content) it would fit, but in terms of offsite SEO (i.e. amount and quality of incoming links) it doesn’t.

How sophisticated are Baidus SEO ranking and paid search bidding algorythms?
Baidu’s paid search factors are basically all about the CPC. Higher price, higher ranking. SEO algorythms can be compared with those of G a few years ago, I’d say.

Can you explain the structure of the Baidu search engine result page?
There is a large left column and a smaller sized right column. In the left column you’ll find the paid search results and underneath, the natural search results. Baidu’s paid search results show a 推广 next to the displayed URL. Natural results can be identified by a 百度快照. The paid search results always come first, the natural results always follow.

The right column looks like paid search as well (like G) but it’s not. These slots can be booked for one whole year and if the desired keyword is already taken you have to reserve it. Position 1 to 3 cost an equal annual fee and rotate among each other. The same is for position 4 to 6 and position 7 to 10.

Baidu SEO, necessary at all?

Well, on the first glimpse: No, because of the strange paid search listings. In the long term: Yes! Why? Because already now many Chinese are unsatisfied with the search results of Baidu. Especially the educated people and white-collar worker use G to find relevant information in the Internet. This is not just a perception, that’s a fact (read this post about Baidu’s and Google’s user demographics and search behaviour).

So, sooner or later, Baidu will have to refine their search and bidding rules and also revise the display of natural search results and text ads on their search result pages. Then, that’s what I believe, the effort that is invested now into Baidu SEO will pay off even greater.

In a statement, group chairman Jack Ma said consolidating the platforms’ operations will better attract sellers and provide consumers with more options, further advancing the Alibaba name brand.

The move comes after Alibaba posted stellar second-quarter earnings, which includes a 159 percent rise in net profit.

Five-year-old Taobao claims that RMB 300 million (US$43.8) is traded on its site daily and from 80 million registered accounts, up from 72 million in June. Meanwhile, Alimama, which launched, claims 3 billion total page views and works with 400,000 small- and medium-sized websites. However, media buyers have argued that Alimama has yet to have a significant impact on the Chinese ad networks operated by Google and Baidu.

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Online travel is another remarkable example with successful e-commerce players. Ctrip s the leading the online travel market with a 51.65 percent market share. Elong, Expadia’s exclusive affiliate in Asia and Mangocity (owned by China Travel Online) lag far behind with a 12.48 and 11.10 percent market share.

The China National Tourism Administration numbers the total revenue of the Chinese travel industry 1,090 billion RMB (155.7 billion USD) for the year 2007. Online Travel booking currently has a share of RMB 2.25 billion (0.32 USD).

Market shares of Chinese online travel companies

Read the complete article and an interview with a Ctrip business development manager here.

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And more about Taobao because it’s so impressive. Take a look at their market share in the C2C industry:

Just five years ago, Taobao didn’t hold quite such an overwhelming lead. Eachnet, founded in 1999, was China’s number one auction site with a peak marketshare of more than 90 percent. The site’s popularity attracted eBay’s interest, and eBay bought the company in 2003. But the process of integrating Eachnet into the global eBay platform was characterized by enormous difficulties and took over a year, giving Alibaba the perfect window of opportunity to enter the consumer-to-consumer market with Taobao. In 2004, Taobao already occupied more than 50 percent of China’s consumer-to-consumer market, while eBay stood at about 35 percent. EBay Eachnet invested heavily to strengthen its presence in China but continued to lose market share to Taobao. And in 2006 eBay sold 51 percent of Eachnet to Tom Online, a wireless internet company with services in China.

The complete the picture, take a look at the B2C industry. The market is (luckily) more fragmented but there are great success examples nevertheless:

Read the rest of an great article about e-commerce in China here.

Tier1 cities:

• In the Tier1 cities like Shanghai, Peking, Guangzhou and Tianjin live only 6% of the Chinese population. They represent 13% of the gross domestic product.
• These cities are a strong competitions in terms of (foreign) investments and some markets are already close to saturation.

Tier 2 cities:

• In the 300(!!) Tier2 cities live 53% of the urban population. They represent 64% of the gross domestic product.
• Definition of a Tier2 city: Cities with up to 6 million inhabitants and a per-capita GDP of 34,000 RMB in average.
• These Tier2 cities offer a constantly increasing consumer market with a yearly income of 3,000 to 6,000 USD per household.
• Seen as a group, the Tier2 cities grow by 15% per year. 60% of them are located close to the coastal provinces in the eastern part of China.

Offline and online sales:

• Supply chains are far than efficient for foreign companies in China. Only 10% of the turnover is sold directly via retailers, whereas 42% of the turnover reach the consumer through three or more interconnected dealers in the supply chain. The result if a lack of insight into the behaviour of Chinese consumers.
• Only very few companies have direct access to consumers and sell their products online. Examples are Anheuser-Busch or Amway.

Some own thoughts / conclusions:

• 59% of Chinese people live in cities (Tier 1 + 2) representing 77% of the gross domestic product. Reversely, 41% live in rural areas (= roughly 560 million people), they stand for 23% of the GDP .
• The Tier2 cities are of growing importance. More and more companies try to open up this huge potential. From my experience, foreign companies have their headquarters in the Tier1 cities to set up business and gain first experience. But the potential to make money lies in the Tier2 and Tier3 cities. And this is not only true for cost reduction in manufacturing but increasingly for sales and market share growth.
• Parallely, the Internet penetration increases and this will sooner or later also bring online marketing and e-commerce along.
• Interesting will be how search engine market shares will develop. Right now, Baidu has a market share of almost 100% in rural areas. In the Tier1 cities it’s market share is reduced to about 40%, Google holds some 40% as well (I wrote an article before how market shares and demographic development interact in China). Anyway, this is a question about years, I suppose. But also makes clear that search engine market shares in China are not fixed yet. A lot of space to move is still available.
• What a potential for direct sales channels and e-commerce! Anyway, still some problems to solve like nationwide use and acceptance of credit cards for online payment, reliable and quick logistics and delivery services, etc. But with young Chinese generations heavily using the Internet already now, participating in social networking and web 2.0 tools, this is a good basis for the development of e-commerce activities. Not to mention the distances in China…

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Need for China consulting

Many companies have already tried to do business with China, use China for product sourcing, a production location or as a sales market. Several of them striked their camp because the encountered problems were higher than the benefits. So, be sure to prepare your China business thoroughly, don’t forget to get some China consulting (although it costs some money, it is a good investment if you choose the right consulting partner) and be patient. Even with the best possible China consulting agency you will have to make your own experiences.

Need for specialist in China marketing

The habits of Chinese consumers were not considered or simply unknown as well as the way of marketing communication in China. Even basic rules were kicked aside. Good marketing in China should be done with a partner who has long-lasting experience in the Chinese markets and knows and understands the Chinese people and their habits.

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1. Comparing market share and popularity of Google and Baidu in China

Throughout China, the market share of Google and Baidu has been more or less constant in the last few years apart from some minor shiftings in percentage from year to year. The market shares of 2007 don’t really offer rocking news as well, as you can see in the following graph.

But as more and more information about the Chinese search engine market become available, these numbers can be analyzed more in detail. Especially if broken down to certain areas or provinces of China the market shares of the two search engines vary heavily.

CNNIC reports that they compared market shares in different regions: North, Northeast, East, South, Central, Northwest and Southwest China, involving 3 first-class cities, 7 second-class cities, and 14 third-class cities.

The statistics indicated that Baidu.com has a rising trend as the city level falls, while google.com goes the opposite. The priority ratio for Baidu.com in cities of first, second and third class respectively: 67.33%, 73.35%, 83.82% while that for google.com: 22.11%, 14.78%, 4.99%.

The report also mentions that baidu.com and google.com drew in the priority market competition for high end users characterized by “non-student users aged 25 and above, receiving Bachelor’s Degree and above, having a monthly income of over 3,000 yuan”, 47.72% of whom selected baidu.com as first choice while 42.32% chose google.com.

2. Comparing quality of search results from Baidu and Google

Intelliconsulting, a Chinese research company, conducted a survey among search engine users and compared the search results of Google and Baidu. The overall result is that the search result satisfaction among Google users (48.2%) is higher than among Baidu users (39.8%).

If you take a closer look at the graph you can clearly find out the following facts:

• The better educated users are, the more they rely on Google.
• The older they are (and the more disposable income they have), the more they use Google.
• There is no difference among female and male test users.

More findings were:

• The more a user users search engines, the more he likes Google.
• Negative points for Google are the instability of Google’s website, having no page-caching and no free MP3 and other media search functionality.
• Negative points for Baidu are that search results are mixed with paid search results and that no content from Chinese pages abroad is included. That search results are filtered according to governmental requirements is a negative factor as well, according to the study.

Well, what do you think? Two independent researches (CNNIC and Intelliconsulting) come to almost the same conclusion. That’s impressing, as a little unusual for China.

3. Baidu Keyword Advertising (PPC)

How Adwords, Google’s paid search program, works is pretty much known I suppose, so I don’t want to go into detail too much here.

The screenshot below is from google.cn and the keyword is 汽车(car). You can see that there are several ads, one in the highlighted area above the organic search results.

Here is a screenshot from baidu’s search results for the keyword 信用卡(creditcard).

So let me explain the differences to Google:

1. The paid search and the organic results are not clearly divided. You will only notice the difference by the small gray underlined term next to the displayed URL. 推广 means it is paid search, 百度快照 means organic search result.
2. All paid search results will be placed before the organic search results. That means, if 20 customers buy the same keyword, the first organic search result will be found on page three. The price is based on a bidding process. Not only the CPC but quality factors like landing page evaluation will influence the position as well.
3. The ads in the right column are no CPC-based ads. They are fix-priced for one whole year. Position no. 1 to no.3 have the same price and rotate among each other. Position no. 4 to no.10 are cheaper than no.1 to no.3 and rotate as well. If the position is already booked, you have to reserve and wait respectively until it will become free. There is no possibility to get out of the contract before this one year ends.
4. Once a while you might notice one or two ads with a blue banner on position one and/or two. It looks similar to Google’s blue banner, but in fact it has a totally different meaning: if you search for a keyword and there are no paid results for that keyword because no advertiser has booked it, Baidu will display ads that are similar to the keyword you entered. Example: you enter ‘keyword advertising’ but there are no paid results, so baidu will show two ads for the keyword ‘advertising’ with a blue background.

Last but not least, some examples prices for the right column (as of 2007/11/15):

手机 (cell phone) 1.056.700 RMB/year
广告 (marketing) 13.000 RMB/year
汽车 (car) 117.600 RMB/year
美容 (cosmetics) 193.600 RMB/year
电脑 (computer) 16.400RMB/year

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汽車貸款, 汽車保險, 信用卡, 房屋貸款, 健康保險, 人壽保險, 人壽險, 年金保險