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Michelle TT Yang, Managing Director of Text 100 China, has found that convincing her old clients accept social media is becoming easier and easier. U.S.-based Text 100 is a global top 20 public relations(PR) consultancy.
“Things began to change two years ago. Between 2008 and 2009, we started a campaign to teach clients about the importance and benefits social media can provide,” Yang said.
China has its own versions of popular social media sites of U.S. origin: Its equivalents of YouTube are Tudou and Youku; Facebook is Renren and Kaixin; and Twitter is Sina Weibo. Weibo means micro-blogging.
“Companies increasingly need to think about social media as part of their communication programs,” Jeremy Woolf, Senior Vice President of Text 100.
“Weibo does have a magical power in marketing,”said Pan Shiyi, Chairman of SOHO China Ltd., a real estate developer.
“I never thought that a post with only 100 Chinese characters could produce this kind of market effect,” said Pan.
He posted a message on his Weibo in July 2010, saying he would give the first follower to reply to his message a free cellphone. Within two days of the post, his followers almost doubled to 1.16 million.
Today Pan’s micro-blog followers have jumped to more than 4 million.
In May 2011, Pan successfully auctioned off more than 10 houses on his micro-blog for a total turnover of 136 million yuan($21.28 million).
The PR-social media combo has been and will continue to be the most dynamic sector in the whole PR industry, particularly in China, said Woolf.
Flourishing in China
The experiences of Pan and Yang have verified how social media have taken root and blossomed in China as well as its PR industry.
China’s Internet population reached 485 million by June 2011, according to the China Internet Network Information Center(CNNIC).
The number of users of micro-blogs represented by Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo had reached more than 195 million by June.
What is even more profound is the level of participation of Chinese Internet users in social media.
The latest CNNIC report indicates that 65.5 percent of netizens in China visit or manage their own blogs, and 47.4 percent have accounts on one or more social networking sites.
Social media are progressively becoming a crucial element in Chinese people’s lives, allowing them to gain entry to social circles, said Andrea Fenn, a Shanghaibased member of Ogilvy’s social media team. U.S.-based Ogilvy & Mather Group is the world’s top advertising and PR company.
“Today social media have been included in the PR service package for almost 80 percent of our clients,” Yang said. “The business revenue generated by social media service accounted for more than 40 percent of out total income,” she said.
Woolf predicts that in three years the social media PR revenue in China would be the size of current Chinese PR market.
According to the China International Public Relations Association (CIPRA), China’s PR industry scored an annual business revenue of 21 billion yuan ($3.29 billion) last year, 25 percent higher than the previous year.
Inevitable trend
“[Social media PR] is happening now, and it’s happening to some extent from customer demand, but it’s also happening because people understand that it is necessary,” said Woolf. “I think the great thing about all this is that it’s forcing change, it’s forcing conservative companies to realize that they’ve got to change, which is great for PR industries.”
“Although we have a whole bunch of tactics to use—posting visa BBS, creating word of mouth to share online, optimizing press releases for search engines—we still need to answer three fundamental questions: Who do we want to influence, when and how?” Woolf said.
According to Woolf, there are several key trends for social media marketing.
First is communications in real time.
One of the biggest challenges from Twitter or Weibo is the immediacy of communication. “One of the challenges I suggest for communicators is to adjust not only your behaviors in terms of monitoring and observing but adjust your ability to react in real time when something breaks,”said Woolf.
Second is creating compelling content.
“News releases are often just printed on plain white paper. Every company must publish and create interesting, compelling content for the people they want to influence to share,” said Woolf.
He cited Alizila.com, the news blog of China’s Alibaba Group, one of the world’s leading e-commerce companies, as a good example. The website provides interviews with people within Alibaba, video contact, high-quality reporting and breaking news.
Third is thought leadership. “Usually we mould CEO or managing director of a company into a thought leader. In PR we create messages for them, to train them how to speak and distribute messages,”said Woolf.
Fourth is community building. For a brand it is important to have the ability to build a community around that brand.
“People who are passionate, people who care and people who are actually interested in your interaction are ideal for your brand,” he said. “What we should do is to build a community by putting up a page for those people in Weibo or Renren or Facebook and have interactive communication.”
Challenges remain
Lack of talent has become the biggest handicap on the rising PR industry in China.
“This is a brand-new industry and the skills we are talking about are new to PR. Young people are good at using the new type of technology and have their own Weibo or blog. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you can use them professionally, you still need to understand the communications, the principles,” said Woolf.
Finding people who are able to walk in both worlds is hard, he added.
China is in serious shortage of highlevel PR talent, said Sun Chuanjun Deputy Secretary General of CIPRA. Few Chinese universities offer PR courses, Sun said.
While embracing the era of social media, some negative sides began to cloud the waters. Recently a new job was created as social media develops. Known as “water armies”, they are people hired to promote a product under the guise of being genuine customers.
But this is not something unique to China, Woolf said.
“I’d like to think that the online community knows when somebody is not telling the truth or when a campaign is just for show. One of the great things about the Internet is that it can be self policing,” said Woolf.
He said Text 100 had a social media policy that governs the way they engage online on behalf of the company and some on behalf of their clients. Every company needs that type of policy, he said.
“Things began to change two years ago. Between 2008 and 2009, we started a campaign to teach clients about the importance and benefits social media can provide,” Yang said.
China has its own versions of popular social media sites of U.S. origin: Its equivalents of YouTube are Tudou and Youku; Facebook is Renren and Kaixin; and Twitter is Sina Weibo. Weibo means micro-blogging.
“Companies increasingly need to think about social media as part of their communication programs,” Jeremy Woolf, Senior Vice President of Text 100.
“Weibo does have a magical power in marketing,”said Pan Shiyi, Chairman of SOHO China Ltd., a real estate developer.
“I never thought that a post with only 100 Chinese characters could produce this kind of market effect,” said Pan.
He posted a message on his Weibo in July 2010, saying he would give the first follower to reply to his message a free cellphone. Within two days of the post, his followers almost doubled to 1.16 million.
Today Pan’s micro-blog followers have jumped to more than 4 million.
In May 2011, Pan successfully auctioned off more than 10 houses on his micro-blog for a total turnover of 136 million yuan($21.28 million).
The PR-social media combo has been and will continue to be the most dynamic sector in the whole PR industry, particularly in China, said Woolf.
Flourishing in China
The experiences of Pan and Yang have verified how social media have taken root and blossomed in China as well as its PR industry.
China’s Internet population reached 485 million by June 2011, according to the China Internet Network Information Center(CNNIC).
The number of users of micro-blogs represented by Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo had reached more than 195 million by June.
What is even more profound is the level of participation of Chinese Internet users in social media.
The latest CNNIC report indicates that 65.5 percent of netizens in China visit or manage their own blogs, and 47.4 percent have accounts on one or more social networking sites.
Social media are progressively becoming a crucial element in Chinese people’s lives, allowing them to gain entry to social circles, said Andrea Fenn, a Shanghaibased member of Ogilvy’s social media team. U.S.-based Ogilvy & Mather Group is the world’s top advertising and PR company.
“Today social media have been included in the PR service package for almost 80 percent of our clients,” Yang said. “The business revenue generated by social media service accounted for more than 40 percent of out total income,” she said.
Woolf predicts that in three years the social media PR revenue in China would be the size of current Chinese PR market.
According to the China International Public Relations Association (CIPRA), China’s PR industry scored an annual business revenue of 21 billion yuan ($3.29 billion) last year, 25 percent higher than the previous year.
Inevitable trend
“[Social media PR] is happening now, and it’s happening to some extent from customer demand, but it’s also happening because people understand that it is necessary,” said Woolf. “I think the great thing about all this is that it’s forcing change, it’s forcing conservative companies to realize that they’ve got to change, which is great for PR industries.”
“Although we have a whole bunch of tactics to use—posting visa BBS, creating word of mouth to share online, optimizing press releases for search engines—we still need to answer three fundamental questions: Who do we want to influence, when and how?” Woolf said.
According to Woolf, there are several key trends for social media marketing.
First is communications in real time.
One of the biggest challenges from Twitter or Weibo is the immediacy of communication. “One of the challenges I suggest for communicators is to adjust not only your behaviors in terms of monitoring and observing but adjust your ability to react in real time when something breaks,”said Woolf.
Second is creating compelling content.
“News releases are often just printed on plain white paper. Every company must publish and create interesting, compelling content for the people they want to influence to share,” said Woolf.
He cited Alizila.com, the news blog of China’s Alibaba Group, one of the world’s leading e-commerce companies, as a good example. The website provides interviews with people within Alibaba, video contact, high-quality reporting and breaking news.
Third is thought leadership. “Usually we mould CEO or managing director of a company into a thought leader. In PR we create messages for them, to train them how to speak and distribute messages,”said Woolf.
Fourth is community building. For a brand it is important to have the ability to build a community around that brand.
“People who are passionate, people who care and people who are actually interested in your interaction are ideal for your brand,” he said. “What we should do is to build a community by putting up a page for those people in Weibo or Renren or Facebook and have interactive communication.”
Challenges remain
Lack of talent has become the biggest handicap on the rising PR industry in China.
“This is a brand-new industry and the skills we are talking about are new to PR. Young people are good at using the new type of technology and have their own Weibo or blog. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you can use them professionally, you still need to understand the communications, the principles,” said Woolf.
Finding people who are able to walk in both worlds is hard, he added.
China is in serious shortage of highlevel PR talent, said Sun Chuanjun Deputy Secretary General of CIPRA. Few Chinese universities offer PR courses, Sun said.
While embracing the era of social media, some negative sides began to cloud the waters. Recently a new job was created as social media develops. Known as “water armies”, they are people hired to promote a product under the guise of being genuine customers.
But this is not something unique to China, Woolf said.
“I’d like to think that the online community knows when somebody is not telling the truth or when a campaign is just for show. One of the great things about the Internet is that it can be self policing,” said Woolf.
He said Text 100 had a social media policy that governs the way they engage online on behalf of the company and some on behalf of their clients. Every company needs that type of policy, he said.