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Search Engine Marketing in China

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Currently, the largest internet enterprise are Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba. Followed by Soso, Sogou, Bing, and Yahoo. Google had been in the list from 2000, until a heated dispute regarding cyberattacks, which forced Google to pull its search engine in March 2010.

Contents

Not only that, they have removed and created their own Twitter and YouTube in a form of Sina Weibo and Youku.

With the Great China Firewall keeping closed doors around their firms and agencies, international businesses won't be able to interfere with China's market. By doing so, it gives local businesses to compete against each other, as well, create their own platforms that can rival with their western counterpart. One of the largest examples being Baidu, China's own SEO that's comparable to Google.

Assembling data

At the basis, obtaining the crucial data in correlation to the marketing performance. With these data, companies and organizations can gather details in understanding and adjusting the efficiency and effectiveness in marketing. This course will drive businesses to a better ROI and decisions.

According to The Marketing Score Blog, several factors rely in evaluating the website's traffic. A traditional metric showing the organization's marketing effort. Below are a few examples of what to look for in measuring the retrieved data.

  • Social Media: What means of attracting more visitors yo your brand? Facebook? Twitter? Customer service? Are two-way conversations being made through the said mediums? What drives the customers to your product, and does the media reach out to the appropriate audience?
  • Website Traffic and subscribers: Much of the effort come from having a keen awareness in managing via TOFU (top of the funnel), alongside, polish/reinforce your brand. All possible by expanding through the different mediums to gather more visitors. And as the visitors grow, does the company maintain a constant activity through updates?
  • Customer Retention Rates (CRR): Some managers may not pay much attention to long term customers as a measurement. In fact, marketing should keep a keen sight and ideas to remain a hold on such customers. Different company departments should discuss and form new plans, for customers could act as a representative for their product.

    • An additional example, provided by the CMI (Content Marketing Institute), they utilize the KPI (Key Performance Indicator).

  • Analyzing the medias: Keep track of the growth in social medias and web traffics, which in turn, helps pinpoint the growing trend and assemble customer's comments. These two factors help in creating updates that will help spread the brand, however, it's more important to keep records of dialogues with the customers. This will greatly help in strategize a plan that meets their interest.
  • Follow up actions: Stay with information that you can pursue into an action. As one example, the CMI has created a document which tracks social medias on a regular basis. After careful observations of these KPIs, the team has changed its directions to variables that they can take action on; The interactions with subscribers, varying exchange rate in emails, and invitations/sign ups for events.
  • Collection and Analysis: Through several automated systems, including CMI's very own, the team can take a look at all the data recorded into the dashboards. Afterwards, the data must be read to get a grasp on the next marketing opportunity and adjustments.

    • China's media environment

    While having their own popular social media platforms, their contents differ compared to the western counterparts. Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, centers around retweeting the same topic over and over. Though it lacks in variety, the post itself will gain a large visibility among users. Whereas, Twitter focuses on current events that circulate for a short time.

    As stated in the start, China greatly emphasizes in local entrepreneurship. Due to the competitive nature, it's not surprising to see a company attack its rival with criticisms. It's often advised to monitor the sources carefully when comparing reviews of the competitor's, as well, your own. A misstep can be made when coming with a conclusion based on faulty information gathered without careful examination.

    Because of the different environment, it is best to adapt to the new domain, and reconfigure your strategy. Competition between locals is the norm: Various platforms Youku and Tudou, Sina Weibo and Weixin, Renren and Kaixin001 etc. are some of the largest companies comparing against each other in their field.

    References

    Search Engine Marketing in China Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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