China's vast market awaits social media firms but only if they localise properly.
Like everything else in China social networking is growing like wildfire – it’s now more popular there than in the US or UK according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC).
But it's not the Western brands that dominate. Instead, Chinese users have adopted native alternatives in astounding numbers.
GyPSii, a mobile location based search platform based in Amsterdam, is one of the few foreign companies to have made inroads.
It added one million new users in the last half of 2009 alone – and learned a lot in the process about the culture, market forces, consumer preferences, and organisational structure necessary for growth in China.
The sheer size of the region explains much of the social media boom. It is home to 738 million mobile phone subscribers and 233 million mobile Internet users, meaning mobile accounts for 60.8 per cent of all Internet users in China.
But it takes more than hardware to explain this revolution. Economic and social factors have contributed too.
People are more likely to leave their place of birth in pursuit of higher paying jobs in the big cities. Economic growth has inspired a curiosity and desire to make social connections among the public.
Successful internet communities in China embrace this. For example in the US and UK a compelling piece of user created content on GyPSii may get twenty to forty comments over a day or so.
In China it would not be rare to see hundreds of comments associated with a single post in the first day alone.
Chinese users are also posting on content generated in the US and Europe, using the app to learn about the world.
Western brands hoping to cultivate a user base in China have to recognise this fundamental difference in culture and remain cognisant of massive differences in the technological ecosystem and user experience preferences.
With 60 per cent of web users in China accessing the internet via mobile devices it’s important to have a service that’s either anchored on mobile like GyPSii, or translates well to the small screen.
This technology difference goes deeper into the types of devices being used. The market is still a large white space, with consumers entering with low end feature phones.
So successful social networks have to run on high-end systems and also support the bulk of the market with slimmed down versions for WAP, Java, and Symbian.
UI counts too. Western design standards have to stop at the border and adapt to local nuancesl. There are profound differences in what Chinese users expect, and want to see and interact with on-screen.
What may appear cluttered to a Western user would seem sparse to a Chinese user. The design and page layout standards often boggle the minds of Western users.
Ultimately this boils down to a simple fact: if it works in the US or UK it does not mean it will work in China.
To have success in China you need a locally empowered team to make a product and business that will work in the market.
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