KUCHING: Sarawak’s entrepreneurs who are interested in entering China’s digital market should first identify Chinese internet behaviour, said Digilink Asia Limited General Manager, Man Tai. He said when it comes to engaging with Chinese Social Media Marketing, different tones is adopted to communicate with the Chinese audience on their own social media platforms.
“Facebook and Twitter are the key platforms worldwide to market product or services but not in China as these are blocked. Therefore they use their own social media platforms such as Weibo, the equivalent to Facebook and Twitter, in China and others such as Sina Weibo, Tencent Qzone, Tencent Q, Tencent Wechat, Renre and Youku & Tudou,” he added. He said this during a media briefing on Chinese Social Media Insights at Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) here yesterday.
He said WeChat is one of China’s most popular social media applications in everyday used involving the purchase of goods, payments, product marketing or services and so on. “WeChat for example has many additional applications in it and making it a popular choice by the people of the country,” he pointed out. He added that reports from Kantar Media CIC stated that more than 751 million Chinese citizens actively use the internet in their daily activities, and there are more than 100 social media channels in China while there are more than 15 categories.
“Based on data up to March 2016, WeChat applications have a high user, of which 54 percent users use the app more than one hour per day while, 61 percent of users open the WeChat app more than 10 times a day. “So, with such information, the traders from Sarawak who want to market or introduce their products or services in China can use the WeChat app,” he said.
According to Man Tai, in China there are 963 million active users of WeChat apps, 16 billion daily browsing views and 200 million users linked WeChat applications with their credit cards. “The digital market in China is very large and from the spending categories for Chinese consumer as stated by Tencent, 54 percent is spent on food, 37 percent in clothing, 25 percent in recreation and entertainment, 23 percent in tourism, 17 percent in health and 13 percent for personal care,”he explained.
Man Tai also said Malaysia is ranked sixth hot journey place among Chinese citizens; Thailand ranked first followed by Japan, Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong.
“More than six million Chinese people travel each year to 1,155 cities in 88 countries that are visited around the world. Before traveling, they will be surfing the internet in three areas namely on foods, famous attraction and transportation.
“Hence, all these information also can be used as a business for Sarawak entrepreneurs to attract tourists from China to visit here,” he said.
