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WeChat(Weixin) Marketing – A fast growing social marketing tool

May 17, 2013  

Last 2013, Jan. 23^rd, we have introduced how to create an account on Wechat Admin Platform. Now we will see how to convert this account onto an “Official” one. It’s not easy as Weibo or Twitter… WeChat will ask you to reach at least 500 fans before letting you apply for it. Yes five hundreds followers. Don’t worry; Sekkei Studio’s experts will explain to you how to reach what seems to be complicate.
Having an account it’s nice, but having an official account with peoples following you with interest is quite better don’t you think?

How to attract my first 500 fans?

Your account QR code is your best friend!
Start by using all of your current platforms to spread your WeChat QR code by:

• Integrating it into your Weibo background
• Posting on BBS and other social media
• Adding it into your signature
• Display PPC campaigns
• Advertising on newspapers and/or magazines
• And all other unique ideas you may have in mind!

If you don’t have that much platforms, it’s time to start building them. Don’t worry; you will be able to reach these first 500 followers.
Now this is set, we won’t wait idly; definitely not. Let’s see how to save time in this “500” quest!
 Set your account to meet your customer’s expectation: 

1. An attractive account name
2. An attractive profile photo
3. Sync to your QQ 

Steps:
1. Add your QQ friends to WeChat
2. Find the places where your potential clients, customers are mostly going. Yes it’s time to stalk at them a little bit.
3. Use Shake Shake functionalities. Stay discreet, you might act weirdly for a uninitiated
4. After using Shake Shake, add the potential fans from the list.
5. They will help you share if you well interact with them.

• By creating nice contents include your QR code at the bottom, ask your audiences to spread your QR code.
• Contest: You can also ask them to send their ideas/founds/creations and etc. to you, as a reward, you can offer vouchers, products and other prize.

6. Ask your friends to add it, and so your friends’ friends.

WeChat Marketing, your best CRM tool.

Privacy, a major difference between Weibo and WeChat, can be considered as either advantage or disadvantage.

On Weibo, information can be spread quickly if it interests people, on the other hand, this strength can become uncontrollable. An unhappy customer for example…
WeChat let you manage your communication, the same unhappy customer will only talk with you, not with all you community. 
Each Social Network is different, understand them and manage them correctly is necessary.

WeChat (Weixin) is based on instant messaging system (like QQ or Twitter) between you and your fans, and these conversations remain confidential – unless you or your fan spread it out.
Managing your e-reputation on the Chinese Internet must remain your priority in any case. But it refers to another topic that we will discuss to another post. You can also contact them if you are impatient.  
Let’s highlight the previous situation we had explain above:

Weibo

Your Client: Only 2 days since I’ve bought your product, and it is broken?!!! WTF @YOURWEIBO
 All these followers can see the official page, and obviously its wall posts. Let’s imagine this post is commented and forwarded? Soon, this post will accumulate 500 forwards and 200 comments. Hard to imagine, but common story.

WeChat

Your Client: Only 2 days since I’ve bought your product, and it is broken?!!! WTF
You: Can you please tell us your address; we will come over your place and replace it with a new one. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Conversation between you two remains confidential. The crisis had being controlled.
See the difference?

How to keep an interactive fans database?

Personalized automatic reply when people add your account. Of course you can use words, like a sentence I mean, but it’s also possible to use voices, pictures or videos as welcome message! 

Whatever you decide to use, you should keep in mind to create something quite light – it will be displayed faster and save your fans mobile some data.
Other great tools are offer by WeChat backend, like setting an automatic reply based on keyword:

For example,
After people add you, the automatic reply of adding you shows:
Thanks for adding Sekkei Studio, your favorite digital agency in Shanghai! How can we help you to improve your business? Please send back the number you want:

1. Web Design
2. Web Development
3. Web Marketing
4. APP Development
5. etc.

You understood, when the fan’s answer is “1”, it will introduce our Web Design services.
The best thing is that you can choose what to reply automatically. For example, while your friends asking for “Best designs”, your account sent back a picture you previously set. The rule is to define your rules and show your friends the guideline in an appropriate way.

Online to Offline, what you can imagine?

LBS, which is the most practical function for WeChat Marketing. Imagine you are a chain stores brand owner, while a fan is close to your store; your WeChat account automatically pushes a message to them telling: latest promotions or whatever your strategy is!
Many other features can be set with the “Developers Mode”. You can custom your menus, receive more types of messages etc.
For example, if you are a chain stores brand, asking your friends to send their locations to you, and you will send the closest store to them automatically – that is one good user experience. In addition, promotion information of each store included into the list – or after your friends select one store, it would be much helpful.
An Official Account – validated by WeChat, give you access to many great features! Like member cards for your fans, and let your VIP fans enjoy promotion and a privilege.
 
 

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Why Your Business Must Embrace the Foreign Language Internet

All signs point toward an increasingly multilingual future for the web. It’s estimated that over a billion people will be using PCs in the so-called BRIC countries alone by 2015, and the opportunity is even greater when you factor more people accessing the web using mobile devices than computers in many emerging markets. It’s time businesses of all sizes embraced the foreign language Internet.

Foreign Languages on the Web

A truly global web must represent the languages of its users. And with growth in usage of the web in foreign languages outstripping English, businesses are playing catch-up with their potential customers. They’re rapidly trying to get as multi-lingual and diverse as their current and prospective client base.
In the last ten years, the use of Arabic online has increased by over 2500%, while Chinese and Spanish rose twelve and seven-fold respectively. And English? It didn’t even triple.
Today, 42% of all Internet users are in Asia, while almost a quarter are in Europe and just over 10% are in Latin America. These stats shouldn’t sway businesses towards targeting one region over another, though — Latin American countries account for over 200 million people on the web.
However, the vast majority of all online searches are in a language other than English. English is losing its online market share rapidly, which is no bad thing for businesses that recognize and embrace the opportunities on the foreign language Internet.

Optimizing the Non-English Web

The rise of the foreign language Internet doesn’t change the fact English leads the world in terms of volume and depth of content. Whether your industry is car insurance, web design or musical instruments, achieving top rankings for your English-language website for lucrative search terms is getting ever more difficult. The English-language web is saturated and competition for key search terms is tough, which makes increasing your online visibility tough too.
Conversely, the saturation of key search terms on non-English language websites hasn’t reached anywhere near the level of the English-language web. This means that businesses can attain high — and lucrative — positions on search engines far easier on the foreign language Internet.
This also means that it costs less for businesses to achieve prominence on the foreign language web. So the return on your internet marketing investment in Brazil, Russia, India, China — whatever your target market — should be greater than in English-speaking markets.
And the successful web marketer’s advantage when tackling the foreign language Internet is that you already know the essentials to achieve prominence online. You’ve proved this in the web’s toughest language market: English.
Chitika Research found that the difference between first and second place on Google is significant. In fact, a number one spot on Google attracts nearly double the traffic as the number two spot, and about the same amount of traffic as the second through fifth spots combined. For marketers, you’re several times more likely to hit top spot if you escape English-language levels of competition and target almost any other language market.

Going Local

Doesn’t everyone speak English? Although many non-natives of English do, studies have shown consumers are up to five times more likely to buy from a website with content in their native language.
It stands to reason that consumers would rather search for products and services in their own language. Even if a consumer does speak English as a second language, a report by Common Sense Advisory found that 85% of online shoppers required information in their own language before parting with their hard-earned cash.
So to really make the most of the foreign language Internet, you need search engine optimized localization — a hybrid somewhere between what an Internet marketing company and a translation service provider might offer.
Localization involves addressing the cultural and linguistic needs of each of your target countries. When it comes to search, this includes addressing different local search habits. It’s more complicated than simply translating the search terms that work for you in English. In Italy, for example, one of the top terms for low cost airlines is actually half English, half Italian ("voli low cost"). As British and Irish airlines pioneered low cost travel in Europe, it seems their language infiltrated the Italian psyche and made this hybrid term lucrative. Brands really need local knowledge if they’re to take advantage of commercial opportunities like this.
A 2007 paper by the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) reported that $25 dollars was returned for every $1 invested in localization. And with e-commerce set to grow by over 10% (CAGR) in Western Europe alone over the next five years, and much faster in so-called emerging markets, businesses should be gearing up for the surge in Internet spending.

Search and Social

Google’s search algorithm uses many aspects of online activity to determine how highly a website is ranked for a given term. Social media is becoming an increasingly important factor. What does this mean for the multi-lingual digital marketer?
The number of tweets a piece of your content receives and the reputation of those tweeters is important. The same goes for "Likes" on Facebook or "Diggs" on Digg. From a foreign language perspective, increased use of social media around the world creates another opportunity to communicate with customers and a way to improve search rankings at the same time.
According to comScore, Latin American tweets are up over 300% between June 2009 and June 2010, followed by 243% in the Asia Pacific region, 142% in the Middle East and Africa, and 106% in Europe. By comparison, North America only increased by 22%.
So the "rest of the world" is actually leading the Twitter revolution. Big, global companies have already taken action. Sony supports twenty international Twitter feeds, while Microsoft, Cisco and PricewaterhouseCoopers all offer Twitter feeds in ten or more languages.
Of course, to succeed locally with social media depends on the prominence of your local websites. A consumer is far more likely to follow your Twitter feed in French if they find it on your French language website. Developing global social media strategies and fully SEO’d localized websites should all form part of the same grand globalization plan.
This plan should also factor what social media platforms are popular locally. According to Comscore, Russia is the biggest country for engaging with social media overall, with Yandex the number one platform. Facebook isn’t even in the top ten most popular websites in Russia. And while Brazil is big on Twitter (alongside Indonesia), Orkut rules the roost there as the mainstream go-to social network.
Similar patterns emerge across the world. Just because one social network leads your home market, this may not be the case in your target market.

Putting the "World" in "World Wide Web"

May 2010 saw a major development for the foreign language Internet — something that will make the web itself more localized. ICANN, the Internet regulator, enabled full URLs in non-Latin scripts. This includes the country code, which means that Arabic and Chinese characters can be used in web addresses.
This is another clear sign that the web is becoming less English-centric. Businesses that have thus far tackled only English-speaking markets online — with perhaps German, French or Spanish thrown in to help support their single biggest international markets — must cater to a more diverse user base.
The foreign language Internet is the low-cost gateway to global success. With online populations growing at a frenetic pace in the non-English speaking world, businesses need to plan how they’ll keep up. Consumers and businesses in the fastest growing markets of the world -– online and offline -– want to talk to you in their languages. And their languages are usually anything but English.

PR draft

How to cross the Great Wall ?

 

Are you  interested in international marketing solutions for small business ?

Are you aware that the Great Wall is preventing SME from doing marketing in China ?

Our company will announce innovative  solutions to help SME break down barriers and run effective marketing campaigns in China.

Will you be interested in knowing more about this ?

We plan to do the press release next week. Please see the press release below.

Glogou Announces “Across The Great Wall” China Marketing Technologies and Services  

That Break Down the Barriers to Reaching the Growing China Market

Santa Clara, CA.  Aug 7.   Glogou Inc, a Silicon Valley technology marketing company that specializes in digital marketing, today announced the availability of Across the Great Wall, a suite of turnkey digital marketing solutions that breaks down the China Market barriers. By offering innovative technologies that overcome the challenges of language and accessibility combined with professional services for ease of implementation, Across the Great Wall enables companies to reach the growing number of Chinese consumers and business that are eager to buy high quality goods and services from around the world.

Baidu, not Google, (delete) is the search engine used by 87% of China’s 500 million Internet users, but Baidu’s advertising management system's content is written completely in Chinese. Glogou Endu , one of the technologies in the Across the Great Wall suite, is the worlds first English web interface for Baidu’s advertising platform that enables any business to conduct search engine marketing on China’s top search engine.

Conventional social media outlets, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, are blocked in China. To counteract this barrier, Glogou offers TWINS, a cloud-based software service that automatically synchronizes content from a client’s Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts to China’s equivalent top social media sites, Weibo, Wechat, and Youku.  Glogou TWINS enables a client’s social media marketing messages to reach the Chinese population without delay. Glogou TWINS also integrates machine automatic and high quality human translation services.

Additionally, on average 17% of foreign business’ websites are either completely or partially inaccessible in China at any given time. Glogou has developed WAVE (Web Accessibility and Visibility Evaluator), a cloud based software service that monitors website accessibility and also provides visibility into the interest level for a product in China’s web presence and social media. Glogou WAVE delivers valuable insight on where a business can direct their China marketing efforts.

"Glogou understands all the pains and barriers to China marketing. Glogou’s turnkey China marketing solutions will ease the pains, break through all the barriers, and better serve clients targeting to run China promotion campaigns and acquire more customers from China, ultimately increase sales and brand awareness", said Iris Huang, co-founder of Glogou Inc.

 

Professional services based on their unique technologies are also inseparable from Glogou Across the great Wall turnkey China marketing solutions .   Glogou’s China search engine marketing services include keyword optimization for Baidu, Chinese landing pages creation and SEO for China search engines. Glogou’s China social media marketing services cover account setup, content creation and promotion for clients on China’s top social media, Weibo, Wechat and Youku.  A business can advertise to the one billion mobile users in China, by using Glogou mobile marketing services that localize mobile apps to the China market and promote them on China’s app stores. For those websites that are inaccessible in China, Glogou provides technical solutions to make those websites accessible to China’s vast Internet population.

About Glogou Inc: Glogou Inc. is a Silicon Valley based technology marketing company, with offices in Beijing and Boston.  Glogou develops innovative digital marketing technologies and provides complete digital, social media and mobile marketing services for their customers. Their customers include Intel, Capital Region USA, South Carolina State, Columbia University and other small and medium size enterprises, education institutions, tourism agencies and destination marketing organizations. For more information, visit www.glogou.com.