Social Media

Like Heraclitus said, the only constant is change. And in the digital age, change comes fast and furious, indeed. When we last left WeChat, their registration numbers for 2012 had just come out and the service was making its first forays into the West. There were over 300 million users of the free messaging service in China, and the first few million users outside of China had started signing up. Six months on from our mention, WeChat (or “WeiXin” (微信) as it’s known domestically), has boomed steadily within China and…

  In any business transaction it’s important to do thorough due diligence before signing on the dotted line. And when you’re considering entering the Chinese market there is a LOT of diligence to do. Beyond market research and economic analysis, there’s much more that potential investors or entrepreneurs need to familiarize themselves with to get a real grip on the business potential that China offers… and its dangers. For those considering making the move to China, the amount of information flowing from here to the West can seem like a…

  Imagine Google as a beautiful girl. You want to win her heart, so you shower her with attention and ply her with gifts in hopes that she will ignore her other suitors and pick you. But things go wrong. You grow obsessed, appearing at her door in the middle of the night with a brain surgeon after she complained earlier of a slight headache, and she ditches you. Instead, she falls for the man who charms her grandmother and wins over her friends. That is how search engine optimization…

  For the diligent members of the marketing and PR workforce, the digital era has caused the lines between their formerly distinct roles to blur. On Wednesday, March 6, PR Newswire CEO Ninan Chacko spoke before Beijing members of the American Chamber of Commerce as part of the organization’s Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations Forum (MAP) to try and elucidate the changes within and challenges posed to two industries that increasingly overlap. Also presenting: Thomas Mattia, Chairman of the Daniel J. Edelman China Group, June Jin, chief marketing officer and…

One could be forgiven for thinking the zombie apocalypse had made an early arrival in Beijing. Every morning, millions of commuters squeeze into the Chinese capital’s subways, buses and taxis. Moving as one, they shamble along, and much of the time more heads are bent over smartphones than not. If you peer over the shoulders of your fellow commuters here, it’s easy enough to see what they’re doing. Some watch movies or play games, but a surprising number of travelers are reading: novels, the morning news, and quite often, microblog…