[1] Parody of a Poet

“Du Fu is busy” is the meme of the moment amongst Chinese netizens. Du Fu is a famous Tang Dynasty poet and his portrait is well known from textbooks, so there’s a nice element of nostalgia. It’s just a bit of good natured lampooning; not too deep and no offence intended for Du Fu. So, brands are getting in on it too…

[2] Tmall’s Video Recognition for Virtual Modelling

As announced on Tmall’s official weibo, they have launched a kind of virtual modeling, augmented reality system, using video recognition technology. The tech has been in use for a while elsewhere (like the Ray-Ban Virtual Mirror, for example) for quite a while, but netizens are loving it.

[3] Pinterest Ready for “Private Pinboards”

Pinterest recently updated their Terms of Service and in so doing, removed mention of direct monetization; they say it will use contents “for the purposes of operating and providing the Service(s) to you and to other Users.” They also mentioned the introduction of a Pinterest API and Private Pinboards.

[4] “Draw Something”

“Draw Something” is the game of the moment, in which you… draw something, then have your friends guess the thing that you’ve drawn. The developer, OMGPOP, was recently bought by Zynga for 200 million dollars.

[5] Qunar and Youtianxia Share Short Term Leases

Qunar have announced a deal with Youtianxia, a short-term rental website, which will allow Qunar users to search Youtianxia’s database of properties available for short-term lease.

[6] IBM’s Micro-Movie Premier

IBM has released a micro-movie called, “College Folks”（not official translation）, which is a story of competition and cooperation, featuring IBM’s latest products. The movie has been praised for its dialogue, including lines like, “Enemies are just reflection of self-lust” and “Perhaps animals that like chaos and killing have gone to cities, that’s why the nights here are so peaceful.”

[1] Brands’ Weibo Response to Consumer Day 315

In the wake of CCTV’s Consumer Day exposé of several brands, including McDonald’s, Carrefour, China Telecom and China Merchants Bank, they have responded via their owned social media presence on Sina Weibo, pledging their determination to take such consumer complaints seriously. Will this mean a genuine step towards approachable, Social CRM? Time will tell.

[2] Ctrip Embraces Top-End Tourism

Ctrip’s new, top-end tourism brand, ‘The Swan Plaza Tour’, aims to target 10 million specialized services for high-end tourists, capitalizing on the booming tourism market amongst wealthy mainland Chinese. They’ve kicked off the project with an “Around the World in 80 Days” campaign.

[3] Guokr.com Revitalize Q&A

Guokr.com have intensified the social aspect of their Q&A network, incorporating group functions, themes, blogs and other social elements. Essentially, Guokr is pretty similar to Quora. Indeed, Thirteen Ji, Guokr’s founder, spoke of his study of Quora in a public letter prior to Guokr’s original launch in 2010. Such is the uniqueness and dynamism of China’s digital landscape though, Guokr’s updated social elements allow it to keep in step with the behaviors of China’s voracious netizens.

[4] The Ben-Nana Show

Netizens are going ape for frozen treat “Ben-Nana” (pictured). Showing off yours via Sina Weibo has become hot behavior, even though it’s still pretty chilly in much of China. “No one can stop the trend of eating Ben-nana! Some say it’s hard to peel?! Come and show me your Ben-nana!”

[5] Tencent’s “White Paper on the Internet Open Platform”

Tencent’s “Open Platform for Chinese New Year” was recently held in Beijing. In conjunction, the Tencent produced a white paper on “the Internet open platform”. Data shows most downloaded apps are “social”, at 41%, with more than 23% of apps downloaded via Tencent’s platform ads. Interestingly, the data also suggests that 74% of paid-app users are male.

[6] Huawei Launches “Vmall”

Huawei, China’s leading tech supplier, has recently launched an online mall, “Vmall”. Bo Zhu, president of Internet Business at Huawei, revealed the news on weibo. Registered users can log in with their existing information. In an interesting side note, just as netizens have nicknamed Taobao’s Tmall “Tian Mao” (mao meaning cat), some are now calling Vmall “Wei Mao”.

China’s two biggest video websites, Youku and Tudou, announced on the 12^th of March that they are set to join forces. The news sparked nationwide discussion on Sina Weibo, as netizens’ favorite game became guessing the new name of the video giant; “Kudou” (meaning trouser pocket) and “Youtu” (not far away from Youtube) were the top choices. Some even joked that China’s other two video websites, 56.com and 6.cn (or 六间房, which is Chinese for “6 rooms”) should combine to become “56 rooms”. The most popular tweet was, “The combination makes me believe in love again!”

 [2] The Launch of Like

like.etao.com is a Pinterest clone based in Etao’s BBS platform. There’s no denying that it looks a lot like Pinterest, but users connect to each other in relation to their BBS interest groups and content is selected by site editors and sourced from online store mogujie.com.

[3] Applying New Media to Consumer Day

“Micro-letters” is a short message mobile application, through which netizens could connect with CCTV’s Consumer Day special and report on consumer issues as and when they encounter them.

[4] Baidu Q4 Report on Mobile Internet Development

Baidu’s report is made up of five parts: User distribution and network access; mobile Internet devices; mobile Internet platforms, mobile browsers and the app store.

[5] China’s Most Trusted Brand

The award for “Chinese Consumers’ Most Trusted Brand” was recently held in Beijing by social networking site Renren, in celebration of “International Consumer Day”.  Voting started on the 6^th of January and covers industries like auto, food, digital, economy, household appliances and airlines. The ceremony awarded more than ten brands and corporations, including Audi, China Merchant Bank’s credit card and Estee Lauder. Coca-Cola took the night’s greatest honor, “People’s Favorite Brand”.

[6] Microblogging from the Two Sessions

The 11th National People’s Congress and CPPCC National Committee, also known as the “two sessions”, recently took place in Beijing. During the two sessions, a significant number of committee members and representatives used their Sina Weibo accounts to directly interact with the Chinese people.

Original Tweet:

“Dongsheng Li: As your representative, I collected a lot of information from you last year. As such, I’m preparing some proposals about education and other things. So, I’ll give away 5 books a day to those that offer me the best suggestions.”

Follow Up Tweet:

“I got a lot of great advice from netizens, thank you all! I’ll be sending my books to…”

[7] Lashou.com Brings Group-Buy Home

Lashou.com has officially brought group purchase to home buyers. House hunters complete a profile with their requirements and the website searches for suitable resources. In an increasingly expensive market, the aim is to help people find their footing on the housing ladder.

[1]Mogujie.com launches C2B group-purchase

Mogujie.com launched a new online product, “Free Group Purchase”, at 5 p.m. on the 1st of March, encouraging users to initiate a group purchase on any product they want. This “C2B” group purchase would be achievedas long as they round up enough participants. So far, more than 15,000 group purchases have been started, 100 of which have been successful.

[2] Launch of meishixing.com

Social platform meishixing.com has at last launched a web version. For what is essentially a Pinterest clone, this web version features organizing and sharing features for foodies to share photos of all their favorite eats. You’re also able to search for the hottest content (or shoulf that be filling?) in your city and share that with your online friends too. Think of it a bit like social bookmarking of menu pages.

[3] Data Consumption Released by Taobao.com

Taobao.com released its 2011 yearly report on users’ consumption data on 27^th of February. The report looks at the consumption behaviors of online shoppers and strives to anticipate the fashion trends of 2012. It also picks out the various preferences of different regions across China, which is quite good fun.

[4] Starbucks China App.

Starbucks China have released their first App (click to download) for iPhone and Android. Mobile phone users are able to download it by scanning the smartcode or sending a text message. When successfully installed, you can search for your nearest Starbucks store, manage your personal reward card account, share unique Starbucks “experiences”, and synchronize it with other social networks.

[5] Burson-Marsteller China Social Strategy Guidebook

BM China, the leading PR and communications consultancy firm, have released a new social media strategy guidebook: “Weibo: Seven Steps to Better Corporate Reputation, Crisis Preparedness and Digital Communications in China.”

Burson-Marsteller’s guidebook outlines an actionable framework for reputation management and brand communication via weibo – China’s microblog medium – from development of social strategy to measuring efficacy. The weibo guidebook shares Burson-Marsteller China’s perspectives on better digital communications, more effective tracking and brand reputation.

 [6] Twitter to Expand Mobile Advertising

Twitter is planning to expand its advertisement services on iPhone and Google Android devices. Twitter announced the scheme via their official blog that ad services are to be known as “Promoted Tweets” and “Promoted Accounts”. At the same time, weibo.com in China has announced that its mobile microblog advertising system would begin in the second quarter of 2012.

[7] Baidu’s Real Time Search for Sina Weibo

Baidu’s real time search service for weibo.com was launched on March 2^nd. Relevant keywords will be shown in real time search. Baidu has already established cooperation with Sohu.com, Tencent.com and 163.com, and has included their search result on Baidu since November last year.

[8] “CIC 2012 China Social Media Landscape”

We have recently released CIC’s 2012 China Social Media Landscape, the fourth edition. This edition classifies social media into four categories: Core Networks, Value-add Networks, Basic Networks and Emerging/Niche Networks.

See detailed information and picture, click the link below:

http://www.seeisee.com/index.php/2012/02/27/p4871

The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) is the global trade body and professional institute for agencies and practitioners who provide media evaluation and communication research. It has grown into a trade body whose purpose is to define and develop the industry on an international scale with better professional standards for both companies and individuals. AMEC now has members in 38 countries.

AMEC’s purpose is to define and develop communications programme research and measurement on an international scale with improved professional standards for both companies and individuals. Its work in establishing the Barcelona Principles framework is seen internationally as an important industry-leading initiative.

In November 2011, AMEC established a Regional Chapter in Asia Pacific to create a networking forum for communications leaders in research and public relations.

As the Chinese social media landscape matured in 2011, weibo (or the microblog) emerged as the source of most of the country’s most damaging and far-reaching crises; from the incendiary Guo Meimei/Red Cross saga, to billionaire investor Wang Gongquan’s eloping with his mistress, to corporate crises for both multinational and domestic brands.

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) puts the number of microbloggers in China at over 250 million, a 297 percent increase from 2010. A new collaborative white paper, Crisis Management in the Microblog Era, from us here at CIC and our p0artners at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide/China, shows how the pervasive use of weibo has created a scenario where major public crises and scandals erupt with increasing frequency and speed. What’s more, the emotionally-charged tone of discussions on Chinese microblogs and the across-the-board demographic of users means that a larger proportion of the Chinese public is now not only aware of more crises, but are active participants.

Methodology

Ogilvy PR and CIC’s research identified and analyzed the major online crises of 2011, based on trending topics on Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo microblogs, Baidu’s top searches report and various media review reports. The 30 most significant cases were then classified into three categories: public credibility crises, personal crises and brand crises, which were then ranked according to buzz volume – the number of microblog posts and reports they generated in traditional media sources. The research team then analyzed the biggest crises to determine noteworthy trends and implications for crisis management.

Key Findings

• Most major crises in China in 2011 originated on weibo:

In all 6 cases, corporate executives were the ones that came under fire.

• 7 of the top 10 public credibility crises

• 8 of the top 10 brand crises

Microblogs increase the speed, frequency, reach and impact of crises.

• Netizens now play as important a role as the traditional media, able to generate, disseminate and consume messages all at the same time.
• With microblogs, information can be posted online at anytime, from anywhere and by anyone – from CEOs and senior politicians to interns and housewives; there is no longer a hierarchy when it comes to sources of news or crises.
• While the tone of traditional media is largely unbiased and objective, the tone of microblogs is often extremely emotional and personal.
  • This creates a situation where ordinary netizens who sympathize with the victims help to spread the message further and faster, multiplying the impact.
  • Individual incidents become coordinated efforts on microblogs.
• Before the microblog era, coverage of a crisis would often be through newspapers or TV coverage. Today crisis messages take multiple and dramatic forms such as spoofs, videos, cartoons and re-enactments which create entertainment value and increase the chances that the message will be forwarded to more people.
• If very influential Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) or media organizations use their microblogs to comment on crises, the news spreads far and wide, and fast.
• Personal and professional lives overlap online as senior executives and corporate heads, and sometimes even junior staff, can trigger crises for their companies if they post inappropriate content or comments on their personal microblogs.
• Microblogs offer crisis instigators and defendants the opportunity to respond much more quickly than was possible before. However, if defendants fail to react fast enough, and in a manner that satisfies netizens, this can easily trigger a subsequent crisis, or aftershock.

The report advises companies to do their homework and prepare for the possibility of a crisis long before one hits.

The entire white paper (and all of CIC’s other white papers) are available to view on Slideshare. Click here to view.

The 2011 IWOM Watch Compilation, available to view on slideshare and for download from the CIC website, brings together 25 cases that will put the past year in focus. For marketers, this is a year in the life of China’s social internet.

The first section, titled “Developments in Net Culture”, serves as a great introduction to CIC’s three part philosophy; Listen, Know and Participate. These steps form the basis of each edition of IWOM Watch and emphasize the importance of listening to the online conversation, knowing the net culture in which it’s set, and using this understanding to participate effectively in the community.

As an example, let’s look at how the dynamic vocabulary of China’s online community reflects ongoing change in the digital landscape. 2011 saw the explosion of weibo and the increasing synchronization of China’s social platforms. This encouraged even faster adoption of net culture trends as a means of keeping up with the constant stream of new information. So, China’s netizens make the most of readily recognizable motifs and pictorial communication.

 On the 24th of October, an activity was launched via China’s highly creative, part BBS / part social network, Douban. It encouraged netizens to upload pictures that would help to illustrate the three main character types amongst young Chinese netizens; “Normal youth”, “Cultured Youth” & “Eccentric Youth”.

Normal Youth:  The average, regular, young person.

Cultured Youth:  Those who pursue a more sophisticated lifestyle.

Eccentric Youth:  The odd or offbeat.

For more on IWOM Watch, including special edition articles focusing on Weibo and LBS, visit CIC’s slideshare or to download a copy of the 2011 Compilation, visit our website.

[1] The best thing about CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala? Slamming it via weibo.

CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala is a longstanding TV tradition, bringing together family and friends. China’s netizens were united too, in a dual-screening integration of social, mobile and television. Netizens posted a significant number of weibos while watching the gala, voicing their opinions and critiquing all aspects of the performance: Wang Fei’s dry voice, Guo Donglin’s perceived plagiarism, ad placements and so on.

Multi-screen engagement, where TV viewers simultaneously engage with a computer or mobile device, is now certainly a feature of these televised events. Shopkeepers of Taobao kept in step by showcasing the stars’ outfits in real-time, throughout the Gala.

[2] Has Han Han been faking it?

The world’s most popular blogger, China’s race-car driving renaissance man, Han Han, has been the focus of hot debate since the 15^th of January, when allegations about his use of ghostwriters first surfaced. In all, approximately 15million related posts have made on Sina Weibo, either questioning his writing ability, or sticking up for the irritated internet idol. KFC were quick to capitalize on the buzz.

[3] Seen Groupon.cn’s CEO recently?

The workers at Groupon.cn have a dedicated Sina Weibo account, @团宝农民工, and it was here that we first heard the news that the CEO of Groupon.cn was… AWOL. This generated significant buzz before, the next day, Groupon.cn’s CEO popped up (@团宝网CEO任春雷) and posted a message that “Any problems would be dealt at work”. In an environment where nearly 2000 group-buying sites have gone bust, it would certainly seem all is not well with Groupon.cn

[4] What’s that got to do with the price of fish in Sanya?

During the spring festival, a netizen posted a weibo that seafood merchants in Sanya were ripping off tourists, causing much concern amongst netizens. Afterwards, Sanya’s local government press office (@三亚市政府新闻办) responded with three posts to Sina Weibo. However, their statement that claimed there were “No complaints” did little to cover up the fact that many tourists shared the same experience. In fact, a group of netizens have opened up a weibo account, charmingly titled, “Tourists Against the Butchers’ Union” (@游客反杀猪联盟) to supervise such incidents.

[5] 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer: Global Results

Recently, global PR agency Edelman released their “2012 Trust Barometer: Global Results”.

Click here to visit the whole report: http://trust.edelman.com/trust-download/global-results/

[6] “The 29th CNNIC Statistics Report on the State of Chinese Internet Development”

The world’s most unique, dynamic and down-right massive digital landscape shows no sign of abating. By the end of December 2011, the number of Chinese Internet users had reached 513 million, with mobile Internet users up to 356 million.

Click here to view the whole report.

More info below

Kantar Media to acquire leading Chinese social business intelligence agency CIC

Deal extends WPP unit’s capabilities in social media listening and analysis into world’s second largest ad market.

Kantar Media, the media research and insights division of Kantar, has expanded its social media offer in China with the acquisition of CIC, a leader in the Chinese Social media listening and  analysis industry. The deal will build on the company’s significant global presence and activities in media market research and insights with 5,000 staff across 60 markets, with CIC working along with the other leading Kantar Media partnerships in China including CSM and CTR. Kantar Media is a unit of Kantar, the consumer insight arm of WPP, the world’s largest communications services group.

The acquisition comes in response to the growing client need for the real-time monitoring of consumer brand conversations in a market with over 70% of the 500 million Internet users on social media and with over 50,000 enterprises owning a microblog account. It gives Kantar Media a strong base in China and Asia Pacific for social media intelligence and insights as China this year became the world’s second largest advertising market.

Founded in 2004 and with offices in Shanghai and Beijing, CIC coined the now standard Chinese industry term Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) and pioneered the concept of social business in China. With a team of over 60 social media consultants, innovative dashboards solutions and patent pending in technologies such as Chinese language text mining, CIC has led the industry in developing and applying social media intelligence and insights across its roster of blue-chip clients includes 5 brands out of the top 10 listed in Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, and is at the forefront of monetizing the social business industry in China.

Sam Flemming, founder and chairman of CIC, commented: “In joining Kantar Media, we will provide our clients with accessible, intelligent and meaningful analysis of brand discussions wherever they take place. We will also develop new client offers by identifying the synergies between our data set – including an archive of over 3 billion consumer brand mentions – and Kantar Media’s vast data resources. Further, the relationship will allow CIC to bring social business intelligence and insight to Kantar and across the whole WPP network as well as replicate its success in the broader Asia Pacific market.”

The CIC team will remain based in Shanghai and Beijing, China, and its management team will report to Jean-Michel Portier, global CEO of Kantar Media.

Portier said: “It is clear that the monitoring of consumer, brand and market discussions and the resulting insights are vital tools for executives worldwide. With Kantar Media Cymfony, we are already committed to maximizing our clients’ success in monitoring and analyzing consumer discussions in the US and in Europe. With CIC, we are achieving another milestone to establishing the same recognition for excellence in China that Cymfony already has. CIC is an exciting and successful company.  CIC will enrich our global digital expertise in capturing millions of online conversations and “making sense of the buzz” in order to provide interpretation that informs strategic decisions and leads to action.”

About Kantar Media

Kantar Media provides strategic advice and competitive intelligence to the world’s leading brands, publishers, agencies and industry bodies, helping them navigate and succeed in a rapidly evolving media industry. This includes analysis of paid media opportunities; counsel on brand reputation, corporate management and consumer engagement through owned media; and, evaluating consumers’ reactions in earned media. Kantar Media provides clients with a broad range of insights from audience research, competitive intelligence, vital consumer behavior and digital insights, to marketing effectiveness and online influence. Our experts currently work with 22,000 companies tracking 3 million brands in 50 countries. Kantar Media is a unit of Kantar, the consumer insight arm of WPP. WPP is the world’s largest communications services group with billings of $66 billion and revenues of approximately $14.4 billion.

www.Kantarmedia.com

For more information, please contact

Europe :

Teresa Horscroft

Tel: +44 (0)1420 564346

Mobile: +44 (0)7990 520390

Email:teresa@eurekacomms.co.uk

Asia :

CIC – Chander Guo

Tel: +86 (21) 52373860 * 891

Mobile: +86 13816361709

Email:chander.guo@cicdata.com

Coming Soon :Renren 6.0

Renren was a perfect clone of Facebook in it’s earlier days. After 6 years of growth and development, Renren is now readying to launch it’s 6th version; increased emphasis is now being placed on User Generated Content (UGC), with a counter visible in the leaked design of this new interface.

What does this mean to brands and advertisers? 

A key component of any social advertising campaign is a quality that inspires potential consumers to generate content that can trigger a string of engagements, transforming the brand’s contents into much more credible, crowdsourced media.

This we often refer it to as the process of transforming paid media to earned media.

According to Facebook’s earlier definition of social advertisement, it’s the new way for brands are to engage with consumers online.

“Facebook Ads represent a completely new way of advertising online,” Zuckerberg told an audience of more than 250 marketing and advertising executives in New York. “For the last hundred years, media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they’re going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do.”

To support this vision, Renren  opened it’s Public Pages for free in 2011, allowing any business to setup a branded presence. To help brands maximize their exposure, Renren is also experimenting with microblog like re-posting features that will show the source of content more clearly.

i.e. If I were to re-post a piece of news from a friend, who had in turn re-posted it from a brand, I’ll be able to see the brand quite clearly.

On top of all these features, which will help a brand to spread it’s content, Renren also offers more advanced forms of Brand Page that will include widgets for communication and social gaming. So, it really comes down to clearly defining the right target consumer group, planning and then implementing a precise social advertising campaign, tailored to suit them.

Image source: TechRice - The New “Renren 6.0″ User Interface Places the Focus Back on Product

Renren Going Mobile

According to Renren CEO Joseph Chen at 2011′s 3rd quarter earnings call at the end of November, 35% of Renren’s active users login daily via mobile devices. THis emphasises the enormous potential of mobile marketing, especially when the Renren mobile applications are equipped with location functionality that can alert users of business deals in the vicinity.

Also, with their group buy service Nuomi, brands can potentially provide attractive deals targeting specific geographical regions, perhaps employing Renren’s user demographic information.

Renren’s Brand Video Channel

With the purchase of video site 56.com, Renren now has the resource to provide branded video channels. Also, users themselves are allowed to instantly upload videos from their mobile (currently only available on the HTC Renren Phone).

Video is one of the most viral forms of social media content, both brand published and user generated, brand related videos can go viral, garnering thousands of views in a very short time. So, in addition to the vast opportunity, managing this kind of content will be an even greater challenge for brands in 2012.

Disclosure: As co-founder of TechRice.com, I am a tech blogger with a product design and user experience emphasis. In contributing to CIC’s official social media blog, I have represented a more marketing based perspective.