China Social Media marketing; infinite segmentation, interactivity of Social Media brings you closer to customers wants and needs, provides insight to opinions of your product, target specifically in real time to fine tune your ads minute by minute.
Combined with traditional marketing China Social Media draws customers to in store marketing, coupons, trade shows or other promotions. A viral medium, potential to reach millions overnight.
Digital Marketing in China builds a strong, loyal fan base supporting you and your product providing a dedicated army ready to defend you in response to malicious or adverse publicity.
Beijing BMW Dealership: Social Media Marketing
Social Media Event Marketing improves results
Social Media Research targets specific customers
Digital Marketing is INTERACTIVE, vibrant, effective, no longer cold, sterile and impersonalAdvantages of China Social Media Marketing
The advantages of WOM Marketing in China are not much different to Social Media marketing anywhere and are too numerous to list in a website and of course vary from business to business.
However, there are some basics that are generally agreed, the number one advantage being peer recommendation, which we will briefly out line below, along with a few others.
The buying public have long been skeptical of adverts and advertisers, there have always been sharks and charlatans making unsubstantiated claims, such as we see today in SEO. This is especially true in China, past "Food Scandals," just the tip of the iceberg.
To a degree they were powerless and so manufacturers claims or celebrity endorsements become less trusted.
We have mentioned that in China, Social Media is less frivolous than the west, more intense, lax enforcement of regulations and certain less favourable aspects of Chinese culture have made it an extremely powerful marketing tool. Exaggeration, inflation and imagination are commonly used in China advertising, note the number of marketing companies who list every Global Top 500 company in their portfolio!
But Social Media turns the tables, by Word Of Mouth, customers can exchange information on products and services, instantly. So when colleagues, work mates or people whose opinion they respect make a comment this is a powerful recommendation, either positive or negative.
Many of today's leading global brands may or may not be better than their less expensive competitors, but they enjoy worldwide popularity as a household name because it is what grandmother used, what mother used and is likely what daughter will use to. This is the power of using media in brand building, previously prohibitive to a SME, but now, Chinese Social Media multiplies that power infinitely and makes it a cost effective option for everyone.
A key factor, communication becomes a two way street, you are no longer talking to or "at" clients, you are talking "with' them. You can no longer "push" clients to your site or product, you need to "pull" them, you need to be more seductive and skilled at building a "relationship." They are engaged, they can equally become "disengaged," power has shifted to the consumer, they chose when and if to communicate with you, they also chose when to end it.
It is no longer a "one size fits all " medium controlled by you.
We discuss this in "Challenges."
Think Laterally
Active Digital have a wider vision of On Line Marketing than just PR.
Apart from the benefits of .i-WOM Research [Word of Mouth Research,] which we also discuss, we apply these same techniques and the "pulling" aspect in our Strategic Event Planning.
For example, we have already mentioned [opposite] how Social Media Marketing or WOM can be combined with traditional forms to becoming an extremely effective and powerful tool and is becoming very strong in China.
Active Digital take this to the next logical step by including "traditional" marketing with WOM around trade shows, product launches, and exhibitions to significantly improve the bottom line on your booth investment.
We also know from our own research that too many overseas SME's are not totally satisfied with the results of their China Event. If you would like to see how we can make your next Trade Exhibition even more successful please follow this link or you can pick it up from the main top index when you finish these chapters.
Conventional media allows limited segmentation, TV, Press or Magazine ads can be "slotted" in to a wide target market but that approach is like taking an A bomb to kill one termite when compared to China Social Media Marketing.
Social Medea Marketing is more time and cost effective as you interact, understand and serve your customers needs on an individual basis. This gives you surgical like accuracy with your campaign, meaning your advertising budget is better targeted, less waste.
Supposing you made 7 fingered left handed gloves, you could identity and target your ads directly to the one 7 left hand fingered man who lives in some remote part of the Himalayas, presupposing he has his I-Phone connected of course! But you see my point.
You can target and segment your customers and provide different content according to their precise needs.
This is especially important for research.
With conventional research we have had to wait for results, tabulate them and draw a conclusion. Often, although it gave us great information, this was less useful as it could not be implemented until the next campaign, the delay from start of research to useable info was long.
However Digital Research means that you can follow the play "ball by ball" analyse it as it happens and make the chances instantly. There is no time lag, you could fine tune your campaign minute by minute, if you wanted to and had time to kill.... or you could just organise Active Digital to do it for you.
As it is "REAL TIME" what the customer feels, or wants, or thinks of your or your competitors product or service at any given hour of any given day can be tracked, measured, graphed and presented to you in a form easy to understand before you commit to an expensive ad campaign. The same scenario can also be used used to fine tune your ongoing campaign, also in "Real Time." Active Digital provides infinite measurability, highly detailed and precise stats and metrics on your customers providing research insights as never before.
China Special Media marketing is just one tool in your marketing basket and while it is extremely useful it doesn't mean that everything else is now redundant.
Digital marketing works well and can be combined with traditional marketing channels, we have already mentioned, Trade Fairs as one example.
In fact, at the end of 2011 in China on line - offline marketing is beginning to gain traction and we expect it to become another hot alternative in China Marketing in 2012 as the number of Tablet and Smart Phone uses in mainstream Chinese society escalates.
An example is "Location Based Services" [LBS] where information is presented via mobile networks [Smart Phones and combined with traditional marketing.
Although fairly slow in gaining commercial acceptance in Europe or the US, outside weather forecasts or road conditions, it has become more popular in China with Starbucks in China making good use of mixed channel promotion. .
Today via China Social Media, any interaction between you and a customer can no longer be guaranteed to stay that way. What may have began with a call or email between you at 10 AM can involve several million people by dinner time. It goes viral, spreads rapidly, beyond your control.
This is great if what they are saying is positive, but........
We talk about this in "Challenges."
From time to time things can go wrong in China and you need a good Fire Fighting Department. China Social Media can often give you advanced warning, giving you instant and tactical ability to respond to malicious or adverse publicity with support from loyal fan base.
If you use China Social Media well you can build a very strong "Fan Base" who will act not just as emissaries by "on selling" your product, but also a strong "army" of supporters, who in difficult times or acts of aggression will rally and support you, sometimes fanatically.
Take a look at any IT BBS and see how quickly Apple Fan Clubs rally to the defence if any Microsoft supporter begins an attack.
Infinite segmentation
target specifically, infinitely.
Real Time Analysis
fine tune your campaign minute by minute
Flexibility:
Combine with traditional marketing. [LBS]
Customer Insight:
What your customers think of your product.
Virality
You and one today, you and one million tomorrow.
Damage Control:
Respond to malicious or adverse publicity .
Loyalty:
Build a strong, loyal fan base who will support you.
Interactivity
Power shift to the consumer, now a two way street.
Although Digital Marketing presents many advantages and new opportunities over the traditional form it is not a replacement for traditional marketing techniques, instead should be looked on as a new tool and, as always in life, there is a balance and Digital Marketing also brings challenges which we will look at in "The Challenges of Social Media Marketing in China" in the next Chapter