Digital Engagement

Part 2 UK@SHANGHAI EXPO 2010:Social Networking in China- the UK@Expo experience

 The UK is a committed promoter of freedom of speech in China, welcoming progress where it occurs and condemning repression. At our last bilateral human rights dialogue with China, we lobbied specifically on internet access. We also hold an annual UK/China internet forum to address challenges as well as opportunities for business and Government.

The UK Expo team is working exclusively with Chinese sites for its Expo campaigns. Many of the foreign hosted sites like Facebook and MySpace have problematic access issues in China; but there are also distinctly different preferences among the Chinese user for the look, the feel and most of all the functionality of such sites. As a result, most networking in China now takes place on homegrown Chinese sites, and those sites are our primary partners for the Shanghai Expo. At first glance, established Chinese social networking sites seem quite similar to Western ones, perhaps because their initial designs were often direct copies of the more familiar Western sites. They were also initially very derivative in terms of content (hosting blogs, photo archives and messaging/networking). More recently developed Chinese sites are very different: they love clutter — the more stuff on the page, the better; and they are more likely to favour bulletin boards (BBS) and games than any other functions. Many Chinese users spend long periods online: 44% of Chinese users spend 3-8 hours, and 15% of users are on BBS sites for more than 8 hours each day. Research shows users tend to trust BBS sites because they are thought to be first-hand and presented in a comfortable, community environment. The next phase of our online campaign will involve increased blogging by team members and partners on these boards, to engage directly across all aspects of our Expo programme.

Chinese social networks are also pursuing very different business models to their American counterparts, relying more on revenue from micro payments for virtual goods than on ad revenue. At this stage, this means that we have to fund our online campaigns; but as interest in what the UK is doing at Expo grows (and as some sites choose to copy our ideas, e.g. on a nickname campaign as mentioned in the post above) we hope to leverage more partnership opportunities with specific sites to keep costs down.

In the West, networks of friends on social networking sites tend to be an online representation of our real-world networks, whereas in China it is much more common to create new networks online, and to be aspirational in creating an online identity. Shaping a (new) identity online is an important feature, and Chinese “netizens” are willing to pay real money for clothes or jewelry for their networking avatar. Users will also pay to take part in games, and to add value to their gaming experience by paying to enter enhanced levels, or purchase additional game features. As a result, Chinese social networking sites cite huge profits: while social networking sites in the West are struggling to turn a profit, some of China’s homegrown sites are very profitable. Tencent, China’s largest internet portal mostly known for its hugely popular instant messenger product QQ, is the largest social networking site, instant messaging and gaming platform in China with over 300 million active users; and profits of over $500 million last year (which is 4 x Facebook’s total revenue).

Carma Elliot is HM Consul-General in Shanghai

Part 1 UK@SHANGHAI EXPO 2010: How we are using Social Networking

Shanghai Expo 2010 will run for 6 months, from May to October; and is expected to attract upwards of 70 million visitors over those six months. The UK has a truly exciting pavilion, designed by Thomas Heatherwick, on the Expo site – able to accommodate up to 40,000 visitors a day (5-7 million over 6 months). In addition, there will be an extensive programme of business and public events, showcasing the UK’s sectoral strengths and business expertise, the arts, culture, science, innovation and our low carbon agenda. For the first time in the history of Expos, there will also be an online Expo; and the UK is developing its own ambitious Expo website to maximize contact with the growing web population in China.
 
It is the last of these 3 platforms which offers the UK the greatest potential to extend the reach of its public diplomacy messages in China. China has around 340 million internet users: this number is growing at about 6 million every month. Following the introduction of 3G, almost 50% of users now use mobile internet and Chinese “netizens” are on-line for increasingly extended periods with this mobile access. With such a massive user base and a huge number of very active networking sites, the UK Expo team has worked hard to identify those sites most likely to be used by our Expo target audience (young/middle class users) to have a conversation about the UK, as a creative, innovative nation – diverse and open to business, students and tourists. We are able to present the UK as a preferred partner for China, and Chinese people; and one which seeks to engage with our Expo target groups in their own preferred networking media.

Since early December 2009, the UK Shanghai Expo project team has been running a marketing campaign on Chinese social media sites designed to drive traffic to the main UK Shanghai Expo website and to create an added “buzz” around the UK’s programme at Expo. The response so far illustrates the huge potential of using these channels in China for public diplomacy purposes.  Not only does social networking allow us to engage directly, and to grow our audience in China; but experience shows that we can get our softer messages across to segmented audiences most effectively, and directly, by working with specific sites.  We are also able to mediate, and shape, the responses to our messages.

The Chinese target audience for Expo has in many respects bypassed the traditional media age, using digital media instead in unprecedented numbers. The UK Expo marketing communications effort builds on our awareness of this growing consumer trend, rather than (just) working through more traditional public diplomacy media channels. Our research shows that we are the only national level participant at Shanghai Expo to have invested such significant resource in digital media presence. By leading the way in using digital media to reach our audience, this in itself is demonstrating to a wide audience the UK’s position as an innovator, at the forefront of technical developments. 

Our Expo website incorporates the functionality that Chinese users respond to; but it is our work on digital marketing campaigns that truly sets us apart. Since starting our UK@Expo “buzz” campaigns to coincide with the launch of the Expo website, expectations have been far exceeded: we have received nearly half a million effective viewers. The number of people who have engaged on the topic of the design of the UK pavilion, and the search for a nickname for it, has been 1500% above our objectives; and the total number of clicks/views almost 350% of target (with 42,000 views and 2500 comments). 90% of all comments have been positive about the UK pavilion; with the remaining 10% neutral. Discussions for a nickname for our Expo pavilion already run to 67 pages on one site; the same site has also recently launched its own nickname campaign for the top 10 Expo pavilions, very much following our lead with a successful idea.

It’s been important in our approach to reflect the distinctly different preferences among Chinese users for the look, feel and most of all the functionality of social networking sites. We’ve done a separate post on this.

Next steps

The functionality provided by the UK Expo website offers huge potential to develop much more ambitious FCO/HMG marketing campaigns in China; and the team will be encouraging Expo stakeholders (both private and public sector) to leverage this potential to the full for their own benefit.  To tap into the most popular functions, the team is developing competitions and games which could both generate revenue and offer further sponsorship opportunities. Phase 3 of the UK Expo website which goes live with Expo in May will incorporate a knowledge bank (funded by NINJ/UKTI) highlighting the UK’s sectoral strengths. Research has helped the team identify the most appropriate social media partners to work with to promote this core knowledge bank to segmented audiences.

There is potential to take established work in new directions too: most bulletin boards require real name registrations, generating the option of working together with hosts to build databases, and set up newsletters and online communities with a declared interest in the UK.

Carma Elliot is HM Consul-General in Shanghai