According to Hitwise data, Weibo is playing a more important role to e-commerce websites in China, compared to Facebook and Twitter.

A total of 6.5% Sina Weibo users visit e-commerce websites after visiting Weibo including daily deal sites, C2C websites (like Taobao) and B2C Websites (like 360buy.com).

Certified Travel Agency in Baidu SERPs

Baidu started to show a green icon in its SERPs, indicating the website is certified travel agency by China Air Transport Association.

So far there are about 200 websites showing this green “certified” icon. CATA certification is an essential qualification in the regular ticket agent.

China's New Mobile Phone Users 2009-2012

The number of new mobile users in China since February 2012, about 33 million, is almost equal to the entire population of Canada. China now has a total of 1,030,052 thousand mobile users, according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The most important holiday in 2012 is coming in four months—National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival together leave a total of eight days (starting from September 30 to October 7); how you allocate your budget in different media can make a big difference.

Nielsen’s cross-media measurement panel in Shanghai has found that half of Shanghai households regularly engage in multi-screen media consumption while watching TV:

Digital campaigns are most effective when combined with other advertising channels like TV; TV gets increasingly costly and if it’s not something you can afford, using social media wisely can potentially boost your ad performance with much lower cost.

Social Media Sites Used The Most (% of Respondents)

China has by far the world’s most active social-media population, with 91% of respondents saying they visited a social-media site in the previous six months, compared with 30% in Japan, 67% in the United States, and 70% in South Korea, according to a McKinsey survey results released this April.

This McKinsey survey of 5,700 Internet users in China this April has found that 95% of those living in Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 cities are registered on a social-media site; in addition, the country .

It also pointed out that social media has a greater influence on purchasing decisions for consumers in China. Chinese consumers say they are more likely to consider buying a product if they see it mentioned on a social-media site and more likely to purchase a product or service if a friend or acquaintance recommends it on a social-media site.

Also read:: Netpop: Chinese Social Media Use Surpasses US

China EDM Performance by Industry

Web Power, an email marketing service provider with a presence in China, shared some data of average EDM performance in China in 2011.

If you are running your own EDM campaign in China, here’s a few tips for you:

• Support of Simplified Chinese. It’s not rare to see companies sending unreadable EDM to target audience; always test and make sure it supports Simplified Chinese in both content and subject line
• Leads generation. It probably costs less to buy email database in China but “permission-based” EDM works better; also utilize China’s social media like Weibo and make the content relevant and interesting
• Integration. Integrate your EDM with other channels to make it more convenient for your users to get the relevant content

Bonus tip: if you target business users, implement a mechanism in your leads generation to allow company email account only (to deliver the incentives).

Feel free to share what you have learned in EDM campaign so far.

Also read:: Total China Personal Email Users 2008-2014e

China Banking Association recently released a study “Chinese Credit Card Industry Development Blue Book 2009-2011″ showing that total credit card transactions in 2011 totaled 7.56 trillion yuan (about USD 1.2 trillion).

There were about 290 million credit cards issued last year, up 24.3% from 2010.

Over three million merchants with over 4.8 million POS terminals accept payment by credit card last year.

The number of transactions totaled 2.85 billion in 2011.

Also read:: Growing adoption of credit card in China

The launch of social ads on Sina Weibo is definitely not a surprise to many people in China digital marketing industry considering the long existence of social ads on Facebook and eager “learning habit” of China Internet companies.

Sina Weibo social ads have two types: top and bottom banner ads, and promotion ads of topics, events, videos and products.

Sina social ads will utilize the demographic profile of Weibo users for more accurate targeting. Reports on ads performance will also be available on reach, CTR, engagement, earned reach and engagement as well as quality and growth of Weibo followers.

According to Sina, near one hundred companies have purchased social ads.

China’s first quarter online shopping transactions was 228.2 billion yuan, down 0.8% over the previous quarter but up 40.9% over the same period last year.

Transactions on C2C sites totaled 166 billion yuan (72.8%) and B2C totaled 62.2 billion yuan (27.2%). Taobao continues to dominate the C2C market with over 95% revenue share and tmall (previously Taobao Mall) leads B2C platform trading with 51.5% market share.

The first quarter China mobile market in 2012 totaled 15.87 billion yuan (USD 2.5 billion).

Mobile marketing spend is also growing fast as some top advertisers gradually allocate more budget on mobile.

Also read:: China Mobile Internet Market Update Q1 2011

With the growth of China’s economy also comes the increase of connectivity.  According to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), there are over 513 million internet users and 356 million mobile internet users in China. Almost half of the internet users (48.7%) spend about half of their time online on SNS and microblogs.

The growing usage of social networks is generating business opportunities across many industries. As the country’s labor market is experiencing a fierce war on talent, we as an advertising agency specialized in employer branding and recruitment marketing, wonder how social media is playing a role in the industry.

To gain understanding on social recruitment in China, MXMM has conducted a first-ever study on the use and perception of social media among the country’s HR professionals. The results derived from this study show that 51% of the respondents already use social media for employer branding and recruitment purposes.

The most used channels in 2011 were Renren and Sina Weibo mainly because of their user demographics. The infographic below shows our key findings of ‘The 2011 China Social Network Employer Branding and Recruitment Survey’.

As with online recruitment in Western countries, there is a similar trend occurring in China with social media ranking fifth as the most used channel for employer branding and recruitment. The time of print media as newspapers and magazines seems to have passed, as the majority of our respondents perceive these channels as the least important ones for near future investment. However, some HR professionals still remain cautious as they indicate the main reason not to use social recruitment is due to their lack of knowledge within the organization and proven best practice cases on social recruitment in China.

As the penetration rate of internet usage continues to grow, we see many opportunities for this industry to further develop social strategies for recruitment and employer branding. To keep updated on the latest status on social recruitment, MXMM is conducting an on-going research study that looks into the broad (social) media landscape in China. Every year, MXMM will be publishing a report on the use and perception on (social) media according to HR-professionals in China. Keep an eye on http://socialrecruitmentchina.com and follow us on Weibo (SocialRecruitmentChina) or Twitter (SRChina) for more information on upcoming studies.

About the author

Jidi Guo started her career at employer branding and recruitment advertising agency MXMM in Shanghai after graduating with a Master’s in New Media at the University of Amsterdam. “The China Social Network Employer Branding and Recruitment Survey” is one of her current ongoing projects. Email jidi.guo at mxmm.cn

China OTA Market Share by Revenue

Total online travel market revenue reached 440 billion yuan (USD 70bln) in the first quarter of 2012 in China, 78% of which went to air tickets booking and 13.8% to hotel booking.

The total estimated revenue of China OTAs in Q1 was about 23%, down 0.5% from the previous quarter but up 20.4% on YoY growth. Ctrip not only dominates OTA market with over 41% market share by revenue but also tour package booking market with 38% market share (by revenue), followed by Taobao Trip (9.7%).

China Search Engine Market Share in Q1 2012

Analysis International, a China Internet research company, released search engine market data for the first quarter in 2012. Total revenue in Q1 has grown by 70.4% (YoY) to 5.53 billion yuan (USD$877 million) though it’s dropped by 4.7% compared to the previous quarter.

Baidu’s Q1 earnings surged 76% as the Chinese Internet search giant’s revenue continued to surge. Baidu posted a profit of 1.88 billion Chinese yuan ($299 million), or CNY5.38 (85 U.S. cents) per ADS, up from CNY1.07 billion, or CNY3.06 an ADS, a year earlier.

Also read:: Charts: China 2011 Q2 Search Engine Market Update

China Mobile Browser Market Share in Q1 2012

Tencent’s QQ mobile browser and UC browser are leading in China’s mobile browser race while Baidu is far behind, according to Analysis International data.

7.7% of clicks on Sina Weibo shortened links went to Taobao last month, followed by Tudou, YouKu and Baidu.

Correction: the 7th from the left should be “Soufun.com”, a property portal.

Sina Weibo Platform for News Tips Submission

Sina Weibo launched a platform for Weibo users to submit news to any Sina news media partners.

Sina Weibo users can click on the corresponding region of events, select a media and submit news tips. By default, the information will also be published through this citizen journalist’s Sina Weibo account unless she chooses not to.

Internet Users 2009, 2011, 2015 (Estimation)

The same report predicts that China online retail sales will triple to more than $360 billion.

China Mobile Internet User Age Distribution

According to a recent iResearch survey, almost sixty percent of China mobile Internet users are between 18 to 34 years old and those below 18 also represent almost 20% of total China mobile Internet users.

There are 356 million mobile Internet users in China according to CNNIC data released this January.

Also read:: China Mobile Internet User Behavior Study 2009

China Social Shopping Websites Market Share

According to Hitwise data released last month, Mogujie and Meilishuo are leading players in China’s social shopping websites. Downstream visits go to Taobao (over 17%) and Taobao Mobile (3.1%), followed by Baidu (2.12%) and Tmall (2.05%).

Percent of iOS Devices by Province at the end of 2011

Shanghai-based Stenvall Skoeld & Company calculated the iOS penetration rate (Apple’s iPhone and iPad, not including iPod touch) in all Chinese provinces and municipalities; and, their estimate puts the total number of iPhones and iPads in China at end of 2011 at 21 million active devices, distributed as shown above.

More than half of all iOS devices are found in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and the Yangtze Delta Region. In Beijing and Shanghai there is one iOS device for every nine and eleven people, in the rest of China penetration is still very low.