New changes! Cross-border and openness of social media

Twitter and Facebook have launched a social change in the United States, while China has quietly begun a major social-business revolution triggered by social media, represented by happy, micro-blogging and group buying. Crowdsourcing, Enterprise 2.0 and socialized customer relationship management are beginning to become a reality.

With the rise of social media, represented by Twitter and Facebook, and a step-by-step development of Internet-based applications that are comparable to search engines, portals and E-commerce, American society is emerging as a socialized business change based on a social media platform for Third-party applications. New management concepts such as crowdsourcing (crowd Sourcing), Enterprise 2.0 (Enterprise2.0) and socialized customer relationship management (Social CRM) are beginning to become reality.

In China, there are many similarities, but the features are very clear. As portals, search engines and E-commerce giants have joined the social media camp, Cross-border, open to become the latest trend of the network since 2010. On the one hand, the rise of group buying blurs the boundaries between social networking sites and e-commerce; On the other hand, major websites are launching Third-party open applications to encourage business innovation based on social media.

Objectively speaking, socialized business reform is in the ascendant, which has created a great opportunity for enterprises to join in. To help businesses better understand and leverage social media to meet the upcoming social-business changes, CIC launched in 2011 a series of white papers on social media toward social business.

The white paper goes back to the development of social media in China, the different stages of enterprise's understanding and application of social media, and the expectation of business to social business, and introduces some enterprises through consciously using social tools, social media and social network, A plan to integrate web2.0 technology and internet space to reshape its brand-consumer communication relationships and the practices and cases of organizational management and business operations. For enterprises to use "from social media to social business" to provide the basis for ideas and thinking changes. We believe that with the rapid and in-depth development of social media in China, the business model of every enterprise and organization in China will eventually gradually enter the era of "socialized commerce". All business will eventually become socialized business.

Dormancy and growth

Social media refers to online platforms and technologies that allow users to create, communicate, and interact with each other, most commonly in the form of blogs, microblogs, online awareness, forums, social networks, etc.

In China, as the network infrastructure improves and internet penetration continues to rise in recent years, Chinese Internet users are growing in size, according to the latest statistics from China Internet Information Center (CNNIC), by the end of 2010 Internet users reached 457 million people, including social networking site users reached 235 million people, blog users reached 294 million people, forum users reached 148 million people, online video users reached 284 million people. The average Netizen has 3 social media bodies.

Although the overall pattern of social media in China is similar to that of foreign countries, it is also full of uniqueness. In the case of social networking sites (SNS), Facebook dominates in foreign markets, while in China there are qzone, happy, and large social networking sites that compete with each other and have different user groups. And, compared to western netizens, Chinese netizens are more willing to create and share content. By comparing the online behavior of Chinese and American netizens, Forrester, a well-known research institute, found that the proportion of China's Internet users (44%) was significantly higher than that in the United States (24%).

In fact, the birth of Chinese social media can be traced back to the 1994 China's first Forum, the Dawn BBS station, at the beginning of the Chinese Internet to create and explore the road of development, the 1 billion of the population of only thousands of of the Internet user size. corresponding to the development history of social media in China is the continuous deepening and diversification of the application of social media in enterprises. According to the CIC Research report, we can roughly divide the history of enterprise cognition and application into five stages: Dormant period (1994?2003 year), incubation period (2004?2006 years), long term (2007?2008 year) and eruption period (2009?2010 year), And a period of change (Social Business) that heralds the dawn of a socialized business era.

In the course of the development of social media throughout China, the application of enterprise to social media is constantly being understood and deepened, and it plays an important role.

According to the L-K-P model of CIC, before 2008, the application of enterprise to social media was mainly embodied in the following three areas:

Listening (Listen)--listening to the network reputation, through social media access to industry information, evaluation of brand network reputation;

Knowledge (Know)--Through the network Word-of-mouth access to consumer insights and product feedback, in-depth understanding of network community culture;

Rong (participate)--Join the network community, interact with netizens, convey the voice of the brand.

Breaking Up! Social media age

After 2009, China began to usher in the outbreak of social media. First, the social networking boom, at the same time with the video site and other social media combination of various types of viral transmission; Sina Weibo, led by the rise of micro-blog sites, 2010 to become the Chinese Internet micro-Bo Yuanyang; At the same time, group buying sites everywhere, and then to the street, play the quartet, such as the leading lbs ( Location-based services) class Web sites in the Internet field a burst of "check-in" (Check in) frenzy. The key significance of this round of outbreak is not only the further innovation of the media, but also the more in-depth participation of netizens, and the change of Internet usage habits accompanying netizens.

Social networking Sites (SNS). Social networking sites bring together the forum's community and the nature of the blog's self-expression, encouraging users to use real names to communicate more effectively with other users. 2009, Happy Net by virtue of social games into the white-collar market, and network also renamed Renren, the target audience to expand to young white-collar. With the rapid development of SNS community in China, marketers begin to pay more attention to this kind of community. Many brands, media and institutions also use different approaches to integrate into communities and target audiences.

Micro Bo (microblog), is a micro-blog (microblog) abbreviation, by netizens nickname as "scarf." Compared with the traditional blog, micro-blogging more convenient, more rapid dissemination, the release of the word limit in 140 words, user-friendly computers, mobile phones and other platforms to browse the release of information sharing real-time transmission, and can be a key forward. The advent of micro-blogging has narrowed the distance between celebrities and grassroots.

According to the latest data statistics of February 2011, Sina, Tencent, Sohu's three major portal microblogging sites, the total number of registered users has more than 200 million. Sina Weibo registered users up to 100 million, daily average of micro-Bo reached 25 million.

The emergence of micro-blogging allows enterprises to obtain a more direct and consumer interaction channels. Many netizens feel that their conversations with the brand are more like talking to a living person on Weibo. Their voices can be heard directly by the brand. And a few years ago, companies have opened official blog, the company now open all kinds of official micro-blog has become a new popular. And this micro-broad war, we saw all walks of life in various types of enterprise organizations and even government agencies figure.

Group。 Inspired by the huge success of Groupon, a big American group, China has also sprung up with a large number of similar sites (such as the American network, the handle net, and so on) to meet the needs of Chinese netizens. These sites offer a large discount on a daily basis, and as long as the consumer reaches the minimum number required, the purchase is activated successfully. The reason why group buying sites are hot in China is not just the lure of price, but also the close cooperation with other social media.

Group buying sites not only meet the consumer, for businesses, group buying creates a significant increase in sales opportunities in the short term, but also to help brands expand visibility and influence. At present, many restaurants, studios, hotels and other service enterprises are involved, the major well-known brand manufacturers also take group buying as a new opportunity for marketing innovation, began to try social shopping marketing and sales new ways.

Location-based Services (LBS). The rise of Foursquare makes location-based services (Location Based Service, or lbs) a new guest on the Internet and mobile terminals. Since 2010, China has more than 20 mainstream lbs. Including the street, playing around the quartet, the Bedouin, muttering and so on. October 11, 2010, NetEase launched the LBS product "NetEase", became the first to enter LBS Portal; Recently, Sina Weibo also began to launch a "micro-domain" lbs services.

Although the industry has only started, the brand organizations that are active in social media have begun to try to work with lbs, which is still very novel, but there are impressive success stories on the market.

Social commercial Test water

In fact, after the 2009?2010 of the Chinese social media, the audience becomes more and more dispersed and the function becomes more and more complex. In order to better manage and respond to the enormous opportunities and challenges of social media, the leading companies of social media practices such as Dell and Intel have established social media listening centers with dedicated teams responsible for strategic planning, training and evaluation of social media. In addition to marketing, PR and advertising, it also involves other departments.

The main tasks of these teams include the following.

First of all, research and development and customer Service-Forum and comment on the website contains a large number of consumers on the brand and product comments and views, can provide the basis for the enterprise new product development and creativity, and help improve customer service level and efficiency;

Second, marketing and communication--sns, micro-bo, LBS, instant communication Interactive Strong, broad coverage, very suitable for various types of interactive marketing and communication activities, thereby enhancing the brand image of enterprises;

Third, sales and advertising-e-commerce, gaming and video-sharing sites can be directly online sales, embedded advertising or video advertising, can quickly improve the sales level and brand awareness in a short time;

Four, personnel and cultural--sns, micro-blog began to become a new recruitment channels, enterprises can not only through the release of corporate activities related to photos and awareness to enhance corporate culture and corporate image, but also to communicate with potential talent;

Five, PR and intelligence-Wikipedia site is a perfect platform for knowledge sharing, blog can effectively communicate with the industry's corporate image.

It is noteworthy that since 2011, the Cross-border integration of various social media has become a new attempt. Huge business change is coming--the rapid development of social media and the increasing reusability of web Word-of-mouth not only change the way brands and consumers interact and communicate through advertising, PR, marketing, sales, human resources and customer service, they are also changing the business model and organizational structure of the business.

It should be seen that social media has many innate advantages that traditional media do not possess: a large active user base, extremely high access rates and sticky, detailed user information, and a very important point is the interaction and influence between users. Although the brand is now more as a new media, for public relations and brand promotion. But industry leaders have begun to use their social attributes for broader and deeper commercial attempts.

First, through the use of cross-border means, media platform integration of other forms of application. Taobao, such as the SNS application of "Amoy Rivers and Lakes", Renren E-commerce services, "Everyone love to buy", Happy network integration group, such as Sina purchase Mai Lin. Second, by establishing an open platform, an enterprise can open to a third party or work with other platforms. For example, Renren, Sina Weibo and Jingdong Mall and other shopping sites to link the shopping site on the user's shopping information, evaluation, recommendations, such as synchronization to the SNS platform.

From the social media into the process of social business, it is not difficult to find that the network of Word-of-mouth research and the use of social media has not been a separate jurisdiction of any person or organization, but more suitable as a corporate operations management plan an important strategic element. The significance of these changes is much greater than "communication". For example, the phenomenon of group buying has gradually affected the way the sale of the enterprise, customer service also by the network Word-of-mouth Challenge and the pressure of online public opinion, so that brands have to start to adjust customer service system to respond to and respond to numerous consumer issues and opinions online??

These changes mean that not only a department in the organization needs to adapt or achieve "socialization", but also that the entire organization needs to be rebuilt or at least "retried" how to make better use of social media and online Word-of-mouth information to transform into "socialized business".