Social Media and China

While popular social media sites such as Facebook and twitter are blocked in China by the Chinese government, the idea of social media can’t be blocked. China, with a fast-growing economy and a huge population, has developed it own social media phenomena which creates lots of opportunities for marketers who would like to do business in China.

Some interesting facts about social media in China:

(Link to the original article is attached below)

1) By 2010, there are 221 million blogs, 117 million BBS and 176 million social network users in China.

2) 272 million people on instant message, 222 million on online video, 108 million on online shopping (The market leader Taobao.com beat eBay and chased them from the market), 265 million on online gaming and 321 million using online music.

3) Tencent, a Chinese internet company offering services such as instant messaging, online gaming and blogging, is the third largest internet company in the world, after only Google and Amazon. It has over 1billion users, 485million active users, and made over $1.5B USD (which is roughly 3x what Facebook made) with a net margin of 40%.

4) Love Farmville? The first farm game was made in China by a company called 5 minutes.

5) Zhenai is the most popular dating site in China (and the world, with 22 m profiles. It's bigger than Match.com).

6) Dianping is a Yelp-like site that has many more reviews than Yelp.

7) $5Billion worth of virtual goods were sold online, which is 5 times bigger than the US

Check this article for more information: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-and-china-its-not-what-you-think-notes-from-sxsw/