Leveraging China’s online business networks for marketing

By Val Kaplan

Agenda

Connecting online – cultural aspect

China’s main professional networking sites

Users demographics

LinkedIn.com

Dajie.com

Tianji.com

Renhe.cn

Wealink.com

Ushi.com

• Business network is meant to be nurtured

and guarded, not shared with others

• Most valuable connections are the secret

ones

• Why would you trust someone you never

met?

• Proliferation of fake credentials

Chinese traditional perception of

networking

Could online guanxi really exist?

• Guanxi involves a higher degree of trust

that can’t be built purely online

• Online business networks will not replace

guanxi but may be able to augment it

• Guanxi is becoming less dominant for

younger generation of professionals – the

main marketplace for online business

networks

2014 iResearch

User Age Distribution

18-2420%

25-3433%

35-4425%

45-5414%

55-647%

65+1%

LinkedIn

18-2422%

25-3038%

31-3522%

36-409%

41-507%

50+2%

China Business Networks

2013 LinkedIn

2014 iResearch

Gender Ratio

Male67%

Female33%

LinkedIn

2013 LinkedIn

Male67%

Female33%

China business networks

2014 iResearch

China Business Social Networking

User Education Level

2%

9%

21%

57%

9%

2%

Education level

Below high school

High school diploma

Advanced diploma

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

PhD

2014 iResearch

Top Regions of China Business

Social Networking Users

15%

11%

10%

8%

7%5%5%

5%

4%

4%

26%

Users’ geography

Guangdong

Beijing

Shandong

Jiangsu

Shanghai

Henan

Zhejiang

Hebei

Liaoning

Fujian

China’s Top Business Social Networking Websites

926

369

98 8426

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Dajie.com Wealink.com Renhe.cn Tianji.com Ushi.com

Nu

mb

er o

f d

aily

use

rs (

tho

usa

nd

)

Most active networks (daily users)

2014 iResearch

China’s Top Business Social Networking Websites

30,000,000

20,000,000

7,000,000 5,000,000

1,200,000

-

5,000,000

10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

30,000,000

35,000,000

Dajie.com Tianji.com Renhe.cn Wealink.com Ushi.com

Nu

mb

er o

f re

gist

ered

use

rs

Total number of registered users

Companies own numbers

Sites general profile

• Largest worldwide

• 6 million users in China

LinkedIn

• Largest in China

• Lower level professionals

Dajie

• 2nd largest in China

• White collar

Tianji

• 3rd largest in China

• White collar & VIP

Renhe

• Very active

• Only for recruiting

Wealink

• Relatively small

• White collar

Ushi

Stats

Source: http://press.linkedin.com/about

• Officially launched on May 5, 2003

• Members in 200+ countries

• Available in 20 languages

• Most members are from N. America

• In Q3 2014, 75% of new members

were from outside the US

• 4+ million company pages

• 6+ million members in China

Stats

Source: http://press.linkedin.com/about

Financial Metrics

Trends

• 41% of people with 500+ connections (up from

30% in 2013)

• 16% are paid members (18% last year)

• 58% of members spend on site 2+ hours a week

(up from 48% last year)

• Favorite activity – group participation (42%)

• Favorite feature - individual status updates (39%)

• Company page usage jumped from 24% to 57%

• 70% of users give the site a 4 or 5 rating (out of

5), up 9% from users’ responses last year

Source: http://www.forbes.com/

Presence in China

• Currently, 6+ million

users in China

• Plans to eventually

reach140 million

• Members work in

80,000+ leading

companies, such as

Lenovo, Tencent etc.

• Struggles with

censorship issues

30 million registered users 63% with less than 3 years

work experience

Stats

Main focus – recruitment of university students

Focus

• Organizes campus job fairs

• Holds special events for graduates

• Blog focused company profiles

Activities

• Twitter-like feeds (140 characters)

• Professional profile (similar to LinkedIn)

• Q&A section

• Knowledge database

• Company reviews (from employee perspective)

• Interview experience

• Welfare/benefits discussions

• Salary reviews

Features

• Media and news on companies

• Employee search in specific companies

• Circles: companies and alumni

• Online skills tests and assessments

• Polls

• Recommended books section

• Ads: CPM and PPC based

• Mobile app

Features

Home page

News feed

Microblog

Company page

Company news

feed

Ratings

Education page

Ads for courses

Banner ads

Online tests

Feature results

on profile

Skill tests

Polls

Mostly about

employment in

various companies

Polls for users

Q&A Section

Answers are rated

by users

Questions for

community

Books

One of the revenue

Sources for Dajie

Mostly books

on business and

investments

Summary

Size

• Largest – 30 million users

Audience profile

• Mostly young with limited professional experience, job seekers

Marketing value

• Educational institutions, courses providers, companies that employ fresh graduates

Drawback

• Very few decision makers, limited value for B2B marketing

• 2nd largest (after Dajie) by total users (20 million)

• More business oriented

• Professional profile setup similar to LinkedIn

• Suggests connections based on similar

background, workplace, education

• Profile ratings based on connections

• Events section

Features

• News feed from followed companies

• Company search

• Company page

• Your connection to a specific company

• Career help section

• WeChat app

• Newsletter

• Ads: CPM based

• Mobile app

Features

Company page

Corporate news

feed

Vacancies section

How you are

connected

Company search

Company search

by various criteria

Education section

Most popular – ads for

MBA programs

Ads options

CPM

Banners,

Text links,

Rich media

100-140 RMB

per CPM

Ads options

Newsletter

RMB 4 per mailing with

minimum 50,000 mailings

Summary

Size

• 2nd largest – 20 million users

Audience profile

• More established professionals

Marketing value

• B2B companies, educational institutions, courses providers, companies that employ skilled professionals

Drawback

• No PPC based advertising, expensive CPM

Features

• 7 million registered members

• Twitter-like feeds (140 characters)

• Tweets can be synced with Weibo

• Can post videos and pictures

• Professional profile (similar to LinkedIn)

• Industry news in profile view

• Events section

Features

• Magazine style section (by interest)

• Prominent investment & finance section

• Job seeker section

• Companies directories

• Research on companies and management

• Premium account (upgrade) – access to

VIP circles

Industry news

Articles are

organized in

sections

Company profile

Corporate profile

Management

Company search

People search by

company

VIP membership

• Access to VIP circles

• Search priority

• More then 300

connections

• Mass invitations

• More features on

profile

• Access to quality

financial reports

• Invisible mode

• Etc…

Advertising

• Top banner – 30k RMB per month

• Emails – 1.5 RMB per mailing

• CPM – 2-5 RMB

• Self-service promotion –

10 RMB per month; free to VIP users

• On search page

• On discussion page

①

②

④, ⑤

Summary

Size

• 3rd largest – 7 million users

Audience profile

• Large proportion of white color professionals and executives, finance and investment sector

Marketing value

• B2B companies, investment and financial services, good for researching companies and executives

Drawback

• Substandard support, confusing structure, no PPC ads

Features

• 5 million registered users

• Active: ~370,000 daily users

• Almost full access without registering

• Entirely for job seekers and recruiters

• 90% of ads are from recruiters and

recruiting companies

• Mobile app

Home page

All about recruiting

Recruiters can verify

their profiles

90% of ads are jobs

related

Company search

Company search is

geared towards

job seekers

Company page

Vacancies

Company ratings

Salaries and benefits

info

Location

Summary

Size

• 5 million registered users and millions of unregistered users

Audience profile

• Job seekers and recruiters

Marketing value

• Only for companies that are recruiting

Drawback

• 100% geared towards recruiting, no quality profiles

Features

• ~1.2 million registered users

• Most well known outside of China

• English version

• Closest to LinkedIn in functionality

• Claims to have higher level professionals

• Groups: open/closed, moderated

• Q&A section

• Events section

• Mobile app

Home page

Newsfeed from

connections and

followed companies

Company page

Corporate profile

News, blog

Jobs

Q&A page

Only in Chinese

Discussion groups

99% in Chinese

Open/closed

Moderated

Group sections:

• Discussion

• Ads

• Jobs

• Events

• Members

Advertisement

Limited CPM options

Focused on brand

engagement through

Q&A, quizzes or

events campaigns

Sponsored newsletter

Summary

Size

• Relatively small – 1.2 million users

Audience profile

• White collar professionals

Marketing value

• B2B/B2C companies, companies that employ skilled professionals

Drawback

• No PPC based advertising, limited CPM ads, requires expensive contract for marketing campaign

THANK YOU!

Reach across the Great Wall! www.sampi.co