BigWorldAndSmallWorld Blog


Chinese social media is a jungle

Posted in Chinese social media by Administrator on the September 14th, 2011

After three-month using the Chinese social media almost daily, I can say I am somewhat an expert. 新浪Sina.com(means new wave in English)has a twitter equivalent called 新浪微博weibo (means small chat in English); 人人renren.com (means everybody in English)and 腾讯QQ also have a twitter equivalent 微博weibo. Facebook is not easily accessible by the Chinese people, however one can use any of the three medias I mentioned above to accomplish the same thing as Facebook or Twitter. All three Chinese medias have the capability to add friends, listen to friends’ broadcast and follow friends. LinkedIn is widely used by professional Chinese people as well as professionals all over the world.

Each media attracts different groups of people. For example, 新浪Sina.com is where professional Chinese people like to hang out; 人人renren.com is very popular among college students; 腾讯QQ is where everybody likes to hang out and of course it has the largest user base among all medias. Some people overlap these medias. Another media I eventually gave up is 开心kaixin.com (means happy in English), because this is the place where the Chinese people hang out and play games. I am not a game player. Knowing who frequent which media can help you decide which media is the best for your business. My business is travel and education focused; therefore anyone and everyone can be my customer, so I need to hang out in all three medias.

In order to use the Chinese social media, of course you need to read and write in Chinese. And your customers are Chinese. You may wonder: how much time do you spend on managing these medias daily? The three Chinese medias plus weekly update on my LinkedIn and two or three times on my Facebook personal page and business page Mandarin International, together I have six sites to maintain frequently. I would say on the average I spend two to three hours daily if I have something to say. This does not include the time I spent on blogging where I have both an English blog and two Chinese blogs. If I have nothing to share, then I would not even bother to log in to these accounts.

As I get more familiar with the user interfaces of all medias, I am getting quicker and better at it. Usually I write one Chinese twitter and copy it to all three Chinese social medias. It’s funny that I really liked Chinese 微博weibo (twitter) even though I refuse to use Twitter in US here.

Here is my sophisticated social media map:
Blogs:
English – http://www.daileytravelservice.com/blog/
Chinese – http://www.meilecheng.com/blog/ and http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/2163468803

微博Weibo (Chinese Twitter): search 陈琼 my Chinese on Sina.com, renren.com, and QQ。

LinkedIn: view my profile by searching Katie (Qiong) Dailey if you already have a LinkedIn account, otherwise view my public profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/katieqiongdailey2008

Facebook: you must log in first, then search Qiong Dailey for my personal page; or http://www.facebook.com/MandarinInternational for my business page.