China internet market is quite different from the US, in terms of the users' demographics, customer behavior pattern, market stage etc. Research shows that people in China use internet for entertaining rather than networking, business, and e-commerce, which are the main usage of internet in the US. In addition, culture plays a role in the internet companies' development. Facebook is a great place for people to network, they share thoughts, share photos and give comments. But on Renren (the china version of facebook), people are more tended to share news, share interesting articles, pictures, rather than update their own status and photos. Maybe that is because in Chinese culture, people are not encouraged to talk about themselves. This is a small example of what i felt when I used both facebook and renren. I think more thoughts would come up as this digital marketing course helps me build up more knowledge and understanding of the US market, then I could compare it with the China market..
Saturday, June 04, 2011
The China's version of Youtube, Facebook, etc
In the past a few months, there are a lot of Chinese internet companies went IPO in the United States, either NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange. In their marketing material, these companies were called the China's version of XXX, e.g. Youku, the china version of Youtube; Renren, the china version of Facebook; Dangdang, the China version of Amazon, Qihoo 360, the china version of Macfee...just to name a few. The market shows great interests in these companies. As a Chinese, although I am happy to see that a lot of Chinese entrepreneurs come to the market, build up great companies and the US investors show interest in their companies as well as the China economy, I am still curious to know whether these companies are really comparable to their US counterparts?
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There is an interesting piece on techcrunch that relates Groupon's recent massive budget spending for expansion in China. The gist of it is that the China effort is not going so well. And I quote, "Groupon’s China team made drunken sailors look fiscally responsible." The author basically blames their problems in China on putting foreigners in charge and hiring international MBAs rather than locals. At the same time, a Chinese company called Lashao is doing very well and in fact rebuffed Groupon's offers to purchase them. I think Groupon's challenges in China strongly illustrate your point. Chinese customers have internet habits and responses to marketing that are extremely different from the US and other markets. Have local managers who can provide these key insights is even more critical for tech businesses than other industries because the business model is so heavily focused on the customers.
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