Facebook faces more than censors in China - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has gone to great lenght to appease China´s leadership in an effort to enter the largest internet market again. But, says Sam Flemming, an internet veteran based in Shanghai to Reuters. Local competition might even be a tougher challenge, unlike in the US where Facebook broke new ground.

Reuters:

"The Chinese have been social for years, and Facebook would be just one more option among many," said Sam Flemming, founder of Shanghai-based social media consultancy, CIC. 

"It certainly would have a certain amount of cache, especially among the more internationalized Chinese and foreigners living in China, but it would need a big push in awareness beyond this small group," Flemming said. 

Foreigners and Chinese citizens who want to access Facebook and other blocked sites must use special VPN software to get around China's firewall to do so, meaning a very limited number of Chinese currently use it.

More at Reuters.

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speaker´request form.

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The dynamic state of the social media in 2016 - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

China´s social media have been developing fast and Sam Flemming, CEO of Kantar Media CIC, gives an update on the five most important developments for AdAge. China´s social media landscape is different from the West:  It's unique, fragmented and dynamic.

Sam Flemming:

The Chinese social media landscape moves fast – and if you haven't been paying attention closely, there's a lot you've missed. New platforms have popped up, while main players including Alibaba and Tencent have consolidated their power. In general, China's social landscape is involved in innovations in video, engagement and payment that have evolved differently and faster than anything in the West... 

The BATS, the core of China's digital and social landscape, have grown ever more powerful 

Chinese internet powerhouses Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Sina (referred to by the acronym "BATS") together have upwards of eight different social media and/or e-commerce platforms, each with hundreds of millions of active users. They are the absolute core of China's social and digital landscape because of their cumulative 2 billion users. These key players are at the heart of making the Chinese internet viral, informative and practical. Let's call that "VIP." The "I" and the "P" are particularly important in differentiating China from the rest of the world. Trusted Information in China can be scarce, while the plentiful information on social media such as news, word of mouth and rumors is often the type of content that cannot be found anywhere else, even with government regulators keeping a close watch. This makes social media more important in China than most global markets.

Four more points in AdAge.

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The march of WeChat, mobile and e-commerce - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming, CEO of Kantar Media CIC, is taking the pulse of the latest changes in his ten years in the industry. WeChat, mobile and e-commerce continued to explode in 2015, he writes for Ad Age. From six observations, his take on WeChat.

Sam Flemming:

WeChat continues to dominate, while its role and influence evolves 

For anyone doing anything with China or with Chinese consumers, the impact and dominance of mobile app WeChat is obvious. It is everywhere and seemingly does everything. With Whatsapp-type messaging, an addictive Facebook-like news feed called Moments, a PayPal-like wallet, mutual fund products, taxi ordering, restaurant reservations and many other built-in applications, WeChat is more than just another social platform, it is an indispensable social media Swiss army knife that melts the lines between online and offline. It's an operating system for getting things done in life. 

WeChat users' Moments content, similar to Facebook newsfeeds where consumers share content with each other, cannot currently be tracked by brands. However, WeChat public accounts managed by brands, celebrities, key opinion leaders and media, can be tracked, and they are playing an increasingly important role as a new form of owned, earned and paid media and as a place to wield influence. Just as brands, celebrities, key opinion leaders and media can have a Twitter or Facebook account, they can have a WeChat account to push out content that serves as the magazine articles for the new generation. Brands can track the owned media performance of their own and competitors' accounts. And they can track the earned and paid media performance of KOL, celebrity and media accounts to make more informed media buying and content strategy decisions.

More in Ad Age.

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Are you looking for more experts on e-commerce at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this recent list.   

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Internet companies fight zombie followers - Sam Flemming

+Sam Flemming 

A massive following on China´s social media does not mean so much, as many are zombie followers. As the internet grows up, internet companies try to fight the zombies tells CIC-founder Sam Flemming in AdAge.

AdAge: 

Sam Flemming, founder and CEO of China-based social business intelligence firm CIC, says more brands are "trying to weed out zombie fans or stop the practices leading to zombie fans."
That said, some brands and managers still chase big numbers. And there's also a mystery component to some zombies -- sometimes they just appear, even if brands, agencies or celebs don't want them around.
Sina's Weibo isn't yet 5 years old, and Mr. Flemming said it's following a natural progression. "Phase One is looking at social media as a media, saying, 'Bigger numbers are better,'" said Mr. Flemming, whose company helps brands vet the quality of followers. "Phase Two is looking at social media and recognizing it's also an opportunity for engagement. And if you're going to engage you'd rather be doing it with real people as opposed to zombies."

More in AdAge. 

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Why Twitter and Facebook are too late in China - Sam Flemming

+Sam Flemming 

Western social media like Twitter and Facebook might get their first official inroads into China at the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, but the market has already been taken by giant and influential domestic players, tells internet watcher Sam Flemming at Reuters.

Reuters:

Access to Facebook and Twitter has been blocked in China since 2009, but will be lifted by the government in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) which is due to launch this weekend, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday - a move that has been popularly dubbed the "Internet Concession". 

But it may be too late for them to repeat their success elsewhere in one of the world's most promising, yet most restricted, Internet markets - where online advertising revenues soared almost 47 percent last year to $12.3 billion. 

"The Chinese social media landscape is among the most developed, sophisticated landscapes out there," said Sam Flemming, chief executive of China-based social media intelligence firm CIC. "These aren't just niche social networks, these are a major part of the Internet in China."...   

Facebook, valued at $118 billion, said in its IPO prospectus last year that its China market share was almost zero, and recent studies say Twitter has no more than 50,000 active users in China. Access to both is limited to people with Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that can bypass China's Great Firewall - the colloquial term for Beijing's Internet blocking mechanism. 

"Weibo has similar features to Twitter, but its role in China for the dissemination of news, information and entertainment, that's what's critical," said CIC's Flemming. 

"Weibo is the zeitgeist of China, the water cooler of China."

More at Reuters.

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

China Weekly Hangout

While Twitter and Facebook might be getting official access to a small part of China, Chinese internet companies are expanding globally, the +China Weekly Hangout learned on September 5. Should Facebook, Twitter and Google+ worry now Tencent, Baidu, Sina, Alibaba and Xiaomi have plans to expand globally. Not yet, said investor +William Yung, media-expert +Paul Fox and +Tech in Asia editor +Steven Millward. Well, maybe Whatsapp should. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra of the China Speakers Bureau.

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WeChat: changing the voice of the consumer - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

With 300 million users in four months time, WeChat is a new kid at the block that is changing the voice, text and email of the consumers, argues CIC's chairman Sam Flemming in ThoughtFull China. Here his transcript.  

Sam Flemming:

Something to keep in mind is that while it is easy to pigeonhole WeChat as the next big social media app, it is in fact, much more than just ‘social’ 

WeChat is changing the way millions of consumers use voice, text, email and how they find information. 

It can very easily link to Tencent’s massive Internet properties like weibo, Qzone, Pengyou, and QQ. 

As a mobile app, its ability to provide Online to Offline functionalities is not being lost on retailers which can now enable them to join a loyalty club with simple scan of a QR code and eventually make payment right from Tencent’s payment system. 

Are the credit card companies paying attention? 

WeChat is certainly the new social media powerhouse on the block. But what is really exciting is that WeChat’s the potential to change not only how consumers communicate and socialize, but ultimately how they do business with the companies. Welcome to Social Business, China style.

More at Sam Flemming's transcript.

 Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Food scandals drive much of the online chatter in China. For example food security and the thousands of dead pigs found in the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Sustainability expert +Richard Brubaker gives his take on the issue at the China Weekly Hangout, together with +Andrew Hupert and +Chris Brown. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra .

 

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China's unique social media landscape - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

A common mistake outside observers make is taking their own social media experience, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, as the reference point for what is happening in China. Wrong, tells CIC-president Sam Flemming in China Innovation. China has a unique social media landscape.

Sam Flemming:

I think the first thing you have to understand about Chinese social media is that it is not new. Before Facebook, before MySpace in the West, they had these things called BBS which is the equivalent of forums or message boards and the BBS sites have always been very mainstream – it’s been a place where netizens in China would go to get the latest information about cars, cosmetics etc. particularly high quality products. These forums have always been very important in China. In the past few years we have had the launch of Weibo – a mircoblog that is similar to a Twitter that has exploded. (There are 400 million people on Weibo) Most recently you have something called WeChat which was launched by Tencent which in the past 2 years or so has only got 300 million users and is continuing to grow like crazy. I think the challenge for Americans/Westerners coming into China is that China is a very unique social media environment – we know the players that are popular in the west (Facebook or Twitter) – but in China there are unique fragmented players, there isn’t one dominant platform, there are multiple popular platforms which are dynamic. Netizens are also more active on social media in China but the media landscape is ever evolving and I think WeChat is case in point with that. Just 2 years ago, it wasn’t even on the map and now it has 300 million users. Unique, fragmented and dynamic are the key words!

More in China Innovation.

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

China tries to limit access to the free internet. Internet users in China try to circumvent those filters, using VPN's, but China's censors are fighting a cat-and-mouse game, trying to close those loopholes. The China Weekly Hangout discussed in December 2012 the state of the VPN's in China with  Sam Xu, John R. Otto, Gabriel Rueck and Fons Tuinstra.

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KFC at last deals with the internet buzz - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

When the KFC in China got hit by a food scandal, it took a while before they took on the inevitable buzz at the internet, says internet watcher Sam Flemming in Adage. But now they have started to face the issue directly.

Adage:

In recent weeks, KFC has begun unfolding a campaign to reinforce its food safety bona fides. Dubbed "Operation Thunder," it includes a mini-site detailing steps the company will take to ensure the safety of its chicken, including working with only the best suppliers and stepping up coordination with regulators. It also pledged to better inform consumers about product safety issues. 

Meanwhile, KFC kicked off a poetry contest on social media. The company asked fans to pen poems that include the phrase, "The chicken are innocent," laying the blame on illicit drug use at the farms. Best poem wins an iPad mini. 

"After a slow start in reacting to the crisis late last year, KFC has taken on a more active approach to social media to face the issue directly. They have increased activity on their own Weibo and RenRen accounts, including responding to many of the comments about the crisis and by engaging media key opinion leaders. They will share news articles about the crisis on their Weibo account which in turn creates more buzz," said Sam Flemming, founder and chairman of Shanghai-based social-media research and consulting firm CIC.

More in Adage.

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Next week, on Thursday 21 March, the China Weekly Hangout will focus on food security in China. CEIBS sustainability professor Richard Brubaker and others will join us to discuss over 6,000 dead pigs in Shanghai and other issues in the domestic food chain. Read here our announcement, and register for participation at our event page. 

After developing the internet in China, the country's internet companies are increasingly looking for a global market. The China Weekly Hangout discussed the global aspirations of China's internet companies in November 2012 with Steven Millward of TechinAsia.

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What do Chinese internet users really want - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

They do not care about the censorship and are not longing for Twitter or Facebook. Group buying has been invented in China, and crowd sources is old news for them. Internet guru Sam Flemming takes on a few misconceptions about China's internet users in the Pandodaily. 

The Pandodaily:

Social networking may have been invented in the US, but the Chinese own it. They’re much more active on social media than their counterparts in the Western world. According to Forrester Research, 44 percent of metro Chinese Internet users can be considered “creators” on social media, compared to just 24 percent in the US. Only the Koreans (49 percent) rank higher. 

“Back when our social media analysis industry started in 2003-2004, we would work with partners in the States and we would get, for any one category, two to three times the amount of conversation in China than they would get in the US,” says Flemming. 

Word-of-mouth has always been important to Chinese culture, and social media has allowed that to become viral. Online bulletin boards (BBS) provided the first public forum for sharing information in China, Flemming says, and they quickly became extremely popular. Flemming’s explanation? “Entertainment is crap in China. There’s no good TV. The news has its limitations. So the word-of-mouth, especially for news and information, has always been very important.” 

Back in November 2002, he heard of SARS via online forums months before the government officially acknowledged the outbreak the following April. “On online forums, people were talking about this strange sickness that people were getting in Guangdong. People were lining up to get into hospitals. Even when the government was not publicly discussing it, or admitting it was an issue, it was all over the BBS.” 

The advent of Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo – microblogging services that were modeled on Twitter but have been localized to serve the specific needs of China’s Internet users – has only added to the social media activity in the country. 

So why would China’s netizens care about Facebook? “Their social needs,” says Flemming, “are being completely met.”

More in the Pandodaily.


Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Doubts on Facebook's China opportunities - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

Is Facebook entering China or not is a question asked by many now Facebook is heading for an IPO. Internet watcher Sam Flemming sees a hard time ahead for the company, not because of government restrictions, but because of fierce competition, he tells Reuters.

Reuters:

"The Chinese have been social for years, and Facebook would be just one more option among many," said Sam Flemming, founder of Shanghai-based social media consultancy, CIC. 

"It certainly would have a certain amount of cache, especially among the more internationalized Chinese and foreigners living in China, but it would need a big push in awareness beyond this small group," Flemming said.

More other voices at Reuters

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Looking for the hearts and souls of China's internet users - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

The purchase of CIC by WPP has put China's leading analytic firm of its vibrant social-media scene in the limelight. Founder and chairman Sam Flemming explains in AdAge the importance of his work. PepsiCo, Nike, Dell and L'Oreal belong to their customers.

AdAge:

"It's more than just eyeballs, it's also hearts and souls and feelings and people expressing themselves, engaging with each other and brands. So it provides a huge opportunity to engage consumers and get in front of them in very unique ways," Mr. Flemming said. 

The challenge in China is that the social-media landscape is highly fragmented. Facebook and Twitter are routinely blocked by the government, but Chinese internet users have a vast array of home-grown choices such as the Sina and Tencent microblog services, social-networking sites such as RenRen and highly popular online message boards. 

"It poses a real challenge for marketers, what to do and where to do it. And that's what we can help marketers better understand," Mr. Flemming said. 

Information provided by CIC can help brands gather market research in the form of millions of online comments, track the performance of a new campaign, help inspire better creative work, or understand which social-media sites are better for pinpointing target consumers, Mr. Flemming said.

More in AdChina.

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Sam Flemming's CIC bought by WPP

Sam Flemming

CIC, the leading company in following the word-of-mouth at the internet in China, has been bought by Kantar Media, a WPP group, CIC owner Sam Flemming announces at his website.

From their announcement:

Kantar Media, the media research and insights division of Kantar, has expanded its social media offer in China with the acquisition of CIC, a leader in the Chinese Social media listening and  analysis industry. The deal will build on the company’s significant global presence and activities in media market research and insights with 5,000 staff across 60 markets, with CIC working along with the other leading Kantar Media partnerships in China including CSM and CTR. Kantar Media is a unit of Kantar, the consumer insight arm of WPP, the world’s largest communications services group. 

The acquisition comes in response to the growing client need for the real-time monitoring of consumer brand conversations in a market with over 70% of the 500 million Internet users on social media and with over 50,000 enterprises owning a microblog account. It gives Kantar Media a strong base in China and Asia Pacific for social media intelligence and insights as China this year became the world’s second largest advertising market.

 Founded in 2004 and with offices in Shanghai and Beijing, CIC coined the now standard Chinese industry term Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) and pioneered the concept of social business in China. With a team of over 60 social media consultants, innovative dashboards solutions and patent pending in technologies such as Chinese language text mining, CIC has led the industry in developing and applying social media intelligence and insights across its roster of blue-chip clients includes 5 brands out of the top 10 listed in Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, and is at the forefront of monetizing the social business industry in China.

Congratulations from the China Speakers Bureau for this success of Sam Flemming.

More at CIC's website Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Recalls tarnished HP's image in China - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

Hewlett Packard's market share in Asia is slipping, not in the last place because of the fallout of recalls in China, says Sam Flemming, director at CIC, in Business week. How another US firm messed up in China.

Business Week:

In China, HP endured a series of embarrassing recalls in 2009 and 2010 because of defective laptop batteries. The recalls prompted protests and lawsuits, and HP’s clumsy handling of the crisis didn’t win it many fans, says Sam Flemming, chairman of CIC, a Shanghai company that helps multinationals monitor the Chinese blogosphere. For Chinese consumers, the recalls are “like a tattoo in your mind,” says Flemming. “Every time you look at HP, you think of that.” Management turmoil compounded the problems. In September 2010, the company hired RueyBin Kao from Motorola to head its China business, but he lasted less than eight months before leaving for personal reasons, according to HP. Kao could not be reached for comment.

More in Business Week.

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Most popular stories for September 2011

Counting numbers online is becoming easier by the day and today we want to introduce a new section: the most popular stories from our speakers. We already have the popular monthly section "most sought-after speakers", and readers to appreciate this kind of bench marking. So today our first selection of most popular stories:

1. How does Sina weibo fits into China’s media landscape? – Sam Flemming
2. “Midnight in Beijing” – Paul French
3. China’s right to undervalue its exchange rate – Arthur Kroeber
4. The economic damage of internet filters – Marc van der Chijs
5. Inflation undermines consumer confidence – Shaun Rein

Keep in mind this is an overview made today: recently published stories might still be building up momentum and good-scoring stories in August might already have fizzled out. Do expect, depending on the feedback, the next installment at the beginning of November.