The popularization map of WeChat : India, Thailand and Malaysia are the 2nd countries next to China.

Tencent WeChat already started to advance into the oversea market from last autumn, and they already have gotten the constant popularity in some southeast Asian countries.

And today, I would like to introduce the popularization map of WeChat that was reported by Value2020.

Actually, this map is not based on the number of their users, it is based on the condition that include apps ranking and the diffusion rate of smartphone in each countries. But I think that this map is suitable to understand the current situation of WeChat spreading.

WeChat already be welcomed some Asian countries in addition to China. And according to this map, WeChat is especially welcomed in India, Thailand and Malaysia. About the place except Asia, WeChat is welcomed in Mexico, Argentina, England, Spain, South Africa and so forth.


WeChat now already supported the 15 languages in total. (Simplified Chinese, English, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and so forth.)

WeChat precede to Sina Weibo in the internationalization area at this moment, but the rival of them LINE and KakaoTalk also already started to be welcomed in some of southeast asia.
For the future developments, it's not only needed the language localization, but also is needed the localization of culture, habit, design and so forth.

I would like to keep watching their activity as ever.


Source => Value 2020, Tech in Asia

Sina Weibo started testing English page. At first, they target to Southeast Asian countries.

From the year before last, there were rumors that Sina Weibo will start providing English pages in the near future. I'm going to forget that rumor, but they suddenly published their English page for the test.

Because they started preparing the English page a moment ago, actually there are not so many the part that was already translated to English.
Sina Weibo now supports simplified Chinese character and two traditional Chinese character(Taiwan and Hongkong) on their service. And the user can change these three languages at the lower right of top page, but English is not still added at this moment.

A staff of Sina Weibo said that they will not provide this English page to over the world in the early stage, they will provide this to only Southeast Asian countries.

I think this strategy makes sense. Because in Southeast Asian countries, especially in Indonesia, Facebook or LINE, WeChat now started to be welcomed, and their users are rapidly increasing, so it can be said that there is a lot of chance to expand their users.
So it's better that they will widely provide English pages to some Southeast Asian countries at first. And if there will be the specific country that welcome their service, it's better that they will start the second stage of localization.

As I mentioned before, the growth rate of Weibo users are little bit decreasing. So Sina and other Weibo vendor may accelerate the advance into overseas markets this year.


Source => cnBeta, Sina Weibo English test page

Each Chinese internet service visit duration ranking in 2012. Sina Weibo was ranked 3rd place.

For each internet services, the number of users is naturally important, but the visit duration is also very important. Meanwhile HTWISE just published the visit duration ranking of each internet services in China.

                        all visit duration in 2012       Share               Type of Service

                            (Unit : billion hours) 

#1 Baidu                           5.61                          7.0%                 Search Engine

#2 Taobao                        4.12                          5.1%                 EC

#3 Sina Weibo                 1.81                          2.3%                 Weibo

#4 Youku                          1.59                          2.0%                 Video Sharing

#5 Baidu Tieba                1.37                          1.7%                 Community

#6 Qzone                          1.32                          1.6%                 SNS

#7 Tudou                          1.06                          1.3%                 Video Sharing

#8 QQ Mail                       0.96                          1.2%                 Mail

#9 Baidu Knows              0.85                          1.1%                 Collective intelligence

#10 Renren                      0.74                           0.9%                 SNS

In 2012, Chinese search engine giants Baidu was the 1st place of this ranking, and their 2 other services were also ranked in top 10. So it can be said that they are just the internet giants in China.  

Chinese EC giants Taobao was the 2nd place. They have the top share of BtoC EC market in China, and its market is still rapidly growing, so it may be a natural consequence.

Sina Weibo was ranked 3rd place, but there are little bit difference with top 2. Video sharing service "Youku" and "Tudou" merged last year, both were ranked in top 10.

Next is the graph of focusing to Weibo services.

The left graph is the number of visiting to each Weibo in annual of 2012.

Sina Weibo was totally visited about 1 billion times in 2012. Tencent Weibo was visited about 0.5 billion times, and Sohu Weibo was visited about 0.4 billion times, and NetEase was visited 0.1 billion times in 2012.

The right graph is the ratio of visit duration on each Weibo. Sina Weibo had 71% share in this, and it was a landslide victory.

In 2012, Sina Weibo showed the overwhelming presence in Weibo market. But as I said, there are little bit difference with top two. Furthermore Weixin also exist their backward. 2013 is still challenging year for them.

Source => Yangtse

Let's start marketing on WeChat(Weixin)! Guidance of managing official account on WeChat.

As I explained before, WeChat is now rapidly increasing their users in China. And many companies already started marketing activity on WeChat, such as Starbucks.

And it's no doubt that other companies who are in the English-speaking countries also would like to start marketing on them, so I would like to introduce how to manage official account on them. 

First, when you would like to manage the official account on WeChat, you have to use the "Public Platform of WeChat(PPoW)".

After accessing the top page of PPoW, you have to click the button of "注册(= Register)". After clicking the button of "注册", a dialog will be appeared as follows.

If you already have a QQ account, please enter the its ID number and password on it. If you still don't have any QQ account, then please click the button of right side "注册信QQ(= Register the new account of QQ)".

*Notice: You cannot use the QQ account that already coupled with the private WeChat ID.

After you enter the ID and password of QQ, the registration page of new WeChat will be appeared as follows.

You have to enter the WeChat ID, introduction of this account, nation, languages and the type of this official account. If you enter the all of item, please click the button of "确定(= OK!)".

*Notice: Actually you can select "English" at the section of languages. but as a result, it seems that PPoW still only support for the Mandarin.

If there are no problem, you can see the top page of PPoW as follows.

This PPoW is consist of five menus as follows.

1. 实时消息 = Real-time Information

You can receive the message from followers of this account, and send the reply to them on this page. 

2. 用户管理 = User management

You can manage users(followers) of this account on this page, and you can also categorize them by each type(favorite, black list, self-customized and etc.).

3. 群发消息 = Posting to the group

You can set the message that you would like to send to the followers at this page. There are the five type of message as follows.

a. 文字 = Text  b. 语音 = Voice  c. 图片 = Picture(s)  d. 视频 = Video(s) 

e. 图文消息 = Text + Picture(s)

And you can specify the message type from these.

*Notice: If you are not a verified user, you can only one message in a day.

4. 素材管理 = Contents management

You can upload the contents that you would like to send with the messages on this page. And you can send the preview of messages to the specific users. 

*Notice: It is necessary that the specific user is a your follower.

5. 设置 = Settings

You can change the information and nation of this official account on this page. Furthermore you can download the QR code of this official account here, and you can put its QR code on your Web site or other social media for increasing followers.

And you can apply to become a verified account, but it's necessary that this official account has more than 500 followers for this applying.

If you input the correct ID and password on mobile apps, it will return the error code of "(4, -69 Login failed)". It seems to be a specification of WeChat at this time.

Actually, you can register to this PPoW as a private person. But if you enjoy WeChat as a mobile collaboration tool, you should not register the account via PPoW.

Ok, today that's all. 

I would like to write about the advanced method or case study of WeChat marketing in near future.

The end of this article, please forgive me to introduce our official account of WeChat.

Actually, our official account usually introduces our products or services in English, but we also introduce the trend of social media or mobile market in China. 

According to the explanation of this PPoW, verified account have more variety method of sending messages. In order to know these merits, and I will write the blog about this, we have to become a verification account. I appreciate your cooperation :)

P.S. Now Tencent provide an international version of PPoW. Because this version provides the English menu, let's try this if you want!

Source => Public Platform of WeChat

Chinese search engine market is estimated to grow over 15 billion USD market size in 2015. Will Baidu be able to continue dominating this market?

Recently, Eguan published the report that is written about the result and forecast of Chinese search engine market from 2010 to 2015.

They estimated that its market scale will reach 15.1 billion USD(= 950.0 RMB) in 2015, its CAGR in the next 5 years will be about 50%.


Now Chinese search engine market is dominated by Baidu. 

According to the recent data of CNZZ, Baidu have 65.33% market share of it. As I reported before, they have 250,000 advertising customer, and they expected that it become more than 300,000 customer in the end of 2012. Their ads revenue was also estimated to reach 20 billion RMB(= 3.18 billion USD), it will be expected that their revenue will be also continued increasing in 2013.

As I wrote the above, Baidu have the big strength in the Chinese search engine market, but they also have some weak point and anxiety.

1. Mobile search engine market
As I reported before, Baidu have the big strength in its market. But it is the case of PC search engine, and they don't have the strength in the mobile engine market compared to it.
Of course, they already recognized this situation, and they already provided some solutions(such as mobile OS, mobile cloud, LBS division and so forth) for solving this challenge .

According to the report by CNNIC, mobile devices already became the top of all method connecting to the internet. And its trend will also continue this year,  so it can be said that the acceleration of mobile solution is the most important challenge for them in 2013.

Furthermore according to the rumor, Baidu may invest to Sina Weibo for enforcing their mobile solutions. Before, some resources said that Alibaba have a plan to invest to Sina Weibo, but it seems that it went back to square one.

2. Rivals
The biggest security company "Qihoo 360" joined the war of this market last year. They start to provide their search engine for PC "so.com" from 2012 October , and also started to provide their search engine for mobile devices "m.so.com" from 2012 November. And they are rapidly increasing their market share in only few months. According to the above report, they already got the second position in its market.

According to the news, they have a plan to cooperate with Google China in near future, so Baidu also must be watching carefully for their trend.


Source => People's Daily Online, Sootoo, Tencent Tech, CECRC

The ranking of 2012 hot topic and person on Sina Weibo. PSY also got the large popularity in China.

What topic or person was popular in China in 2012?
Sina Weibo published the answer for this question.

First diagram is the ranking of people who were mentioned on Sina Weibo in 2012.

#1 was PSY that everyone know as "Gangnam Style".
His "Gangnam Style" reaches 1B views on YouTube, but he also got the huge popularity in China. And he have a official account on Sina Weibo, its account already have more than 5M followers now.

#2 was a Chinese singer "Han Geng", and #3 was "Ren Zhiqiang" who is a famous person in real estate industry.

Unexpectedly, Weibo queen "Yao Chen" was ranked #30. Her official account have over 30M followers on Sina Weibo, and this number is still the largest on there.She remarried this year, so it should be no lack of the topic. Furthermore as I said, she have a lot of followers now, so its result was the unexpected.


Next diagram is the ranking of topic(keyword)  that was mentioned on Sina Weibo in 2012.

#1 was the topic about "London Olympics". During this Olympics, Sina Weibo prepared the special page for this, and users also posted a lot of messages. #2 is a one of internet slang "屌丝(diao si)". And #3 is ranked "Gangnam Style" again.

Furthermore, the feature of this ranking was included some of political topic too, such as #8, #10, #14 and so forth.


Well, what topic or person will be ranked in 2013? In order that we can know this answer,  we have to wait until the end of this year :-)


Source => Sina Weibo-1, Sina Weibo-2

The battle of Weibo and Weixin(WeChat) in 2012 and 2013. Each challenge and emerging.

2012 has already past, and 2013 already came. 

So today, I would like to think back on the trend of Chinese Social Media market that is focusing Weibo and Weixin(WeChat) last year, and survey the trend of them this year.

It can be said that 2012 was the year that the growth power of Weibo was decreasing, and the growth power of Weixin was dramatically increasing. About the fact that the growth power of Weibo was decreasing, we can make it clear from the history of reports from CNNIC.

Its indication was appeared from the second half of 2011, but its decrease was more remarkable in this year. The report of the second half of 2012 was not published yet, but I expect that the growth rate of this period will also remain at single digit figures.

Furthermore, I personally feel that the rate of active users is also gradually decreasing. There are two reasons for this.

1. The online user of friends was decreasing.

For example, we can find that how many users is now online on Sina Weibo as follows.

Today's number is only 27 people... Actually today is still holiday in China, but my friend on Sina Weibo exist about 600 people. The rate of online user is only 4.5%. 

It is a extreme example, but the daily average online user of last year was about 70 people, and the average of the year before last was about 130 people.

2. The traffic from Weibo was decreasing.

Our company was continuously posting the information on each social media of WW for marketing purpose. Weibo, especially Sina Weibo, brought the largest traffic to us, but this number was suddenly decreasing from the second half of 2012.

On the other hand, the growth power of Weixin is dramatically increasing as I explained before. And many companies already started the promotion activity on Weixin, and they started to post their QR code of Weixin on the other social media platform too.

For example, Starbucks also started their promotion activity on Weixin to Chinese people, but it's a one of representative example of O2O marketing.

Weixin will certainly accelerate their O2O marketing solutions this year, so more companies will start their marketing activity on Weixin this year.

I think that 2013 will become the challenge year for Weibo, and it will become emerging year for Weixin.

Weibo, for example Sina Weibo already started the monetization like "WeiboWallet", Ads on their platform, "Weibo Club" and so forth. But these can not get the success without increasing the number of user and online active user rate. This is also true for other Weibo provider, such as Tencent.

But on the other hand, Weixin also cannot relax their guard.

Because the similar service, such as LINE and Kakao Talk also watch vigilantly for a chance to enter Chinese Social Media market. And furthermore, there is a possibility that completely different social media platform may suddenly appear like a comet this year.

I would like to continue watching the trend of Social Media in China, mainly Weibo and Weixin(including other IM tools) this year too. But in the last, I would like to introduce the service that I personally expect in 2013.

1. LBS advertising

Actually, it is similar to O2O marketing by QR code. But I would like to define that O2O and LBS is separately. The market of LBS advertising in China was rapidly growing in the 2011 as I explained before. The report for 2012 is not published yet, but according to the report by CNNIC, mobile device became the top of all method connecting to the internet on 2012 Jun.

And the growth speed of mobile internet user in 2013 will be faster than last year. So mobile Ads, especially this LBS Ads will be more popular in China.

2. Enterprise Social Networking (Enterprise Collaboration tools)

As I explained before, the Enterprise Social Networking(ESN) market in China is rapidly growing, and it is estimated that this market growth rate will be 246% in 2012 by CCW Research. And ESN tool is suitable to the circumstance and culture for business in China.

More and more many company started to provide the ESN tools in China. And foreign company such as Salesforce, Yammer, IBM also may be watching vigilantly for a chance to enter this market in China.

So watching from the point of view by the user side and the provider side, it can be said that the popularity of ESN will be more and more rising this year.