I have been in touch with her on weibo (Chinese twitter) and its great she is explaining there are more developments in Chinese marketing and internet promotions.

As I have said over and over…as the global economy gets more “flat”, equal, and competitive — currencies evening out (US dollar declining) , inflation (China labor and raw materials are skyrocketing), and education / information flow (internet and telecommunications) — there is no longer “easy money” for Chinese factories…they will have to apply more “soft skills”, management skills, use a CRM (client relations management) system. All those things a factory manager would laugh and say “no need” years ago. The customers were banging down their doors in the past, giving them wire transfers quick and easy…

Times have changed.

And Chinese businesses, especially factories for the export business, need to adapt. Fion, at Timev asked me to let people know about their upcoming PM (project management) event in Beijing on June 17. I really wish I could go, but I’ll be having events and meetings down in South China. Anyway, here is her shared info on the event:

It would be more than great if you can say something about this Beijing PM meeting, which is scheduled on 17 June. The website is http://pm.timev.com. As you may know, Product Manager isn’t so “familiar” to Chinese Internet world yet. Some people just don’t know what PM means, or how important this role may play in a company. Maybe you would like to discuss this topic a bit in your blog?

And please do mention our PM meeting in Beijing. We have invited almost 20 senior Internet PMs to be our speakers this time, including Chairman and CEO of Qihoo 360, CEO of meitu.com, VP of 58.com, founder of 8684.cn, CEO of EICO Design, and more from Bing, Motorola Mobile Devices, Baidu.com, qunar.com. We believe this meeting will be China’s biggest PM meeting so far. And we expect all speakers and participants will enjoy a good time of learning, sharing and meeting.

Even I was not exactly clear what she meant by PM (product management), I normally think of PM as a PROJECT manager.
Here she calls PM as a product manager, a person who manages a specific product. Not necessarily a PHYSICAL product, but in the internet world, a web platform, a web service, as a platform. Fion goes on to clarify on a product manager:

Well, that’s a typical question, I’m actually not sure whether I understand product manager correctly A product manager is sometimes considered as a bit similar to Project Manager. There’s saying that the difference between the two. A Product Manager is required to “think”, about the design of his product, about what the users may need, about how better user experiences can be created and about whether this product may make profit for the company; while the project manager is focusing on the execution and the performance under certain conditions concerning time, cost, resources, etc.

A product manager is responsible for the overall and ongoing success of a product. In the internet world, a product could be a website, an APP, a software… But I believe product manager can be find in any industry. I read an article on http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/ff_bloodwork/2/ about how to redesign a blood test report and help people read it more easily. This, as I understood, could be a work by a product manager too. Read this item on wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_manager. And just write what you think about PM. Actually, you kind attention and interest to this meeting is itself an support to us.

And, here’s another interesting thing. I @ you at sina weibo earlier, telling you that I replied you email and asking if you’ve see what we do to promote the PM meeting. Then a friend of mine, who’s actually my previous colleague @ me and said it’s wired I’m talking to you like that, and suggested that I could have private messaged you. Ya, isn’t it an interesting thing? I actually did @ you openly on purpose to test/utilize the openness of weibo. But in some way I think this story shows that most people are still using and considering weibo as private, amusive and even a small circle of his friends…

Still, my main point here is that China continues to make progress in marketing and “white collar” skills. Moving away from making widgets in a factory, and more high tech products and services. Its natural in the development of any country, and for Americans, it means we (as Americans) have to keep on top of our marketing and sales skills to be competitive globally.

Incoming search terms:

• chinese seo 2011
• xiamen china seo

So when I was asked to speak on this subject…..I had to take a second look and question the girl, Fion who was emailing me, her reply below:

Hi Mike,

Ok, your newer photo and title received.

For the topic, we think it would be still interesting to talk about SNS promotion and even facebook, because many Chinese companies are also using it. Actually, my previous job was in a online gaming company whose games were all operated in North American and Europe. They did a lot on facebook and were very interested in it. So, it would be nice if you can talk about SNS promotion. Let us know what you think.

so…….it is true and something I have been saying forever….by blocking these social tools inside of China, it is holding back business, sales, marketing, and networking with the outside world. How can an export company, which needs to gain foreign customers in order to grow, and survive, continue to be competitive in the global ecinomy if the government forbids them to utilize social platforms where their target customers “reside”. As social media continues to be integrated into SEO it will be harder and harder for businesses inside countries that control and regulate information to be as effective, which is sad because I love the Chinese business spirit…and having them setback from international business because government policies is such a waste of mind and opportunity.

In my presentation obviously I do not go into this, but I spoke about

• benefits of social media promotion for your business,
• listening to customer
• social media monitoring
• engaging with an audience
• Acting, having a plan to react to customer feedback – An example of customer service in action is Dell. This end consumer, Savannah Spangler, is complaining about her PC not working well, even saying the CEO of Dell, Michael Dell, “sucks”. Notice that they dell cares department addresses it, by asking if they can help….and then she RETWEETS it on her stream to show that they are listening and replying.
• how to grow a following
• measuring social media, klout

– on this blog I have mentioned klout optimization and how it is measuring social media people, both on a score and in a certain industry. It is quite amazing, and we need to be on top of it as it develops.

• case study on Dell’s social media command center – Late last year, Dell opened a social media command center, taking proactive measures in the quickly exploding social media world, listening to its customers, and not sitting back and waiting for others, but being a leader in social media.
• employees having their own social media account – Again using Dell as an example, we see staff having their own “work” twitter account (maybe these staff have a personal twitter account for off hours? cannot confirm), but notice how they use twitter to talk to other team members, customers, and just showing the “behind the scenes” action of the Dell business.

I am pretty passionate about social media, see the exponential power of connecting people in similar industries and feelings….and how like wildfire we can grow our network and expand our horizons. How social media is PEOPLE, and SEO is/was websites connecting to each other….

It was my 3rd time to present at the timev event, and I am happy to meet so many motivated and exciting Chinese internet enthusiasts.

If you want, you can download the presentation – Winning in Social Media 2011 xiamen timev

Incoming search terms:

• china seo vs social media
• english media in china
• english social

Seems a lot of that money is going towards international expansion outside of the US market. And…….CHINA seems to be red hot on their list………so many of my friends have been chatting about it the past week or so…..job offers flying around, offices opening…..

Will they be another eBay? Coming into China and trying to copy/paste their technology and translate it into Chinese? Or like Google and stop listening to Chinese government and un-filtering their results? Or will they try to do it like Yahoo China, and instead do an equity swap with a Chinese internet company like Alibaba and hand over daily operations for a minority stake?

My friend Marshall Taplits at Shenzhen Standard just published a great layout of the current group buying marketing in China and how Groupon China will have to react to compete.

Marshall writes it a bit more “politically correct” and luckily on my personal blog here I can say what I want to say…..Definitely groupon has play CATCH UP in China…..there have been copy-cats out here almost since groupon opened its doors (and especially since it got popular over a year ago).

Love it or hate it, when a new product comes out in USA, other countries copy it. But they don’t only COPY it, they tailor fit it for their culture, their people’s tastes!

And how many foreigners are they going to hire? With a foreign headquarters, you will need English speaking management, and translating everything back and forth English to Chinese and Chinese to English. I bet many of those Chinese groupon sites only operate in the Chinese language, have already built their technology, and customized it for the Chinese market, and move very quickly to changes in the market, without having to wait for foreign headquarters to approve a new budget or changes in strategy.

Interesting to see the outcome from this.

Incoming search terms:

• groupon mercedes
• groupon mercedes china
• groupon shenzhen

This Shenzhen ecommerce meetup came from a open forum discussion over a month ago on the Shenzhen stuff internet marketing group I made years ago. People had been asking for me to call a meeting and get all like minded people together. So this wasn’t a two or three day prepped event, it had been discussed for a few weeks via online forum.

Still, I was trying to guage what people wanted, I didn’t want it to be another “bar drinking networking event”, but rather a way to connect chines and foreigners in a neutral setting focused on business.

In the past I had presented at a punch party speaking about USA & China business differences with Guang Yao in the Nanshan High Tech Park, at the King Dee building, and after talking to the group afterwards, they told me I could use this new King Dee company meeting rooms for other events in the future if I ever needed. So I remembered this for this event, as it’s a very nice, professional setting in a high tech park…only thing is its hard for people to find, especially foreigners, as it’s a new area in the high tech park, and taxi drivers don’t know the names of the streets yet.

There were 3 speakers for this first event, I would speak generally / high level on the differences I have noticed between Chinese and American / European (western) ecommerce, Guang Yao would speak about Chinese Social Media (download pdf slides), and Huck Liang would speak about Importing goods into Mainland China via Hong Kong.

As expected, people had trouble finding the new King Dee building. A map and photo was posted on the event page, and….as much as I didn’t want to, I listed my mobile number so people could call if lost or needed more specific directions (thinking to setup a separate phone number now to post online). So while it was supposed to start at 1pm, we allowed general meet and greet between attendees while I and others were doing are best to text and voice call people to direct them to this location.

Approximately 50 people attended the event, from Shenzhen standard email blast to the Shenzhen stuff event page, couchsurfing post, and direct invites from myself and others attending, I definitely feel it was a success, especially for the first meeting of its kind.

I spoke from about 1:30 to 2, we took a quick break, then Guang Yao spoke. I had asked him to present in English, but he insisted he was more comfortable to speak in Chinese as he is not confident of his English. A common issue, I and other foreigners here just have to learn that we are in China, and if we want to do business here and learn, we have to become fluent in Chinese!

Huck couldn’t attend, but he gave me his notes on how to present on importing into China, which I presented on the whiteboard.

After the 3 presentations, I wanted a bit of an open forum about what the next steps are for the group, how often to meet, what topics / focus, good day or time to meet. Seems people liked the Saturday afternoon, and the fact that its not in a bar or restaurant. I think when its in a bar or restaurant, mainly only foreigners go. Some wanted to have meetings focused on startups, new technologies, comparing English and chinese business practices. I am more interested in keeping a more focused group based around internet marketing and ecommerce, but maybe we’ll branch off into a couple different groups.

Date hasn’t been set yet, but approximately 1 month from now, after the Chinese New year, on a Saturday afternoon in the same King Dee meeting rooms. Looking for speakers, hope to keep it focused on internet technology and marketing.

Incoming search terms:

• importing goods from hong kong to shenzhen
• presentation whiteboard
• setup e-commerce in china

But really….it feels good to be back in China, seeing friends and businesses. Shenzhen is a cool city, I do see opportunity here….but really, I just can’t get past this problem of internet censorship.

For those of you who don’t know (seems on twitter people were asking me too) the websites that are blocked in China include:

• Facebook

• Twitter
• Youtube
• Foursquare

And tons others….whatever the Chinese government feels threaten to harm the minds of its Chinese population – essentially those websites they cannot call on the phone and have delete / moderate user content. This is what the GFW is, Great firewall, is. Within internet connections in mainland china, the government forces internet providers to block certain websites.

Its not like people can’t get around it, DUH!!!! ….there are VPNs, and other services…but jeez, its another sloppy (I hate installing all this crap on my PC) workaround. And then when I’m doing online banking…its all crazy because i’m jumping in and out of IP ranges in China, USA, Europe…..seem like some crazy hacker (well, maybe I am, haha). some Chinese people tell me the government doesn’t care about using VPNs, because that is normally for more advanced people anyway, and this blocking / filtering stops the majority of people.

So many of my friends here within the Chinese GFW workaround it. Its sad, and embarrassing to my Chinese friends here, they say at least I can escape it…they are “stuck here” they tell me, being a Chinese citizen. They wish they could turn it off…they don’t want to see people like me leaving the country due to this stupid government filtering.

And then I can’t just jump onto an internet connection at a cafe and use twitter or facebook…I have to get back on my connection on my laptop and do it.

Then there was the news – would google china leave China? I was doing somewhat OK in China before this….but its like a punch in the gut. Google China was one of the last major foreign internet companies in China. Yahoo China is technically Alibaba (share swap), and others don’t have offices with the boundaries of China.

Then it had me thinking, would I follow Google China and leave too? I was thinking maybe Thailand would be the place for me.

Yet I was getting some good movements speaking at Chinese internet events….and sometimes lecturing at the ecommerce university in Shenzhen. Everyone is always so tempted by the huge and growing Chinese market…to sell in China seems so sexy…..but it really does have to be treated completely indepently from English / American business….the way the 2 markets work are so opposite.

So all of 2010 I have been deciding what to do….really if it weren’t for this GFW (great firewall) in China, staying in China would be an easier decision for me. But there is also the political risk between Obama news and currency risk of US dollar dropping against the chinese yuan.

So seems Philippines makes the most sense…and the people there love the internet…I spend a lot of my twitter time chatting to friends in the Philippines….and English language is everwhere there.

Just hard still to giveup China…..I’ll be here at least till the end of November to renew my visa and take care of other business.

Incoming search terms:

• china firewall
• chinese firewall
• IP blocking GFW

See reports about Google “uncensoring” its results……by sending google.cn to google.com.hk – which is basically going to Hong Kong search engine.

To me – that means THEY LEFT CHINA. For those of you who aren’t aware, Hong Kong is a special political and adminstrative zone, and is not censoring its internet. Therefore, google.com.hk has all the information about sensitive Chinese political cases….and yes…porn – which the government forbids.

So now…like the news says, its in Chinese government’s hands….will they ban google.cn under the GFW (great fire wall) – and therefore not allow its people to go to google.cn that are currently being redirected to google.com.hk (unfiltered results)

If the Chinese government bans google.cn – then its people (and the people like me inside of China) will not be able to access google.cn – and probably neither google.com.hk . To add to the list of facebook, youtube, twitter, and others….great…

But would the chinese government ban the main google site, google.com ?

Another thing to keep in mind, the sites the government doesnt like that has the information is already banned, so if someone were to search on google.com.hk for sensitive political acts, and porno sites are blocked too.  The government is constantly blocking new sites each day….so therefore, if the result shows up in google’s search engine, then the user clicks the page, it will show “page not found”

google.com isn’t filtered in china, and works in china, and has always been like that, it just didn’t let you see the pages that the government blocked.

This whole story is about google.cn  – thats what people seem to forget….I don’t think Chinese government would block google.com – because Baidu.com is chinese only, and therefore all the Chinese people would be stuck with MSN’s Bing or Yahoo for search……

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Alibaba-says-Yahoo-reckless-apf-1224635903.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=

Alibaba says Yahoo ‘reckless’ on Google stance

China e-commerce giant Alibaba calls shareholder ‘reckless’ for support of Google

BEIJING (AP) — China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba turned on major shareholder Yahoo Inc. on Saturday, calling the American company’s support of Google in its standoff with China “reckless.”

Google has promised to stop censoring its search results in China, threatening to pull out of the country altogether if it can’t operate an unfiltered search engine. Yahoo has said it was “aligned” with Google’s position, though it’s not clear what that means.

“Alibaba Group has communicated to Yahoo! that Yahoo’s statement that it is ‘aligned’ with the position Google took last week was reckless given the lack of facts in evidence,” Alibaba spokesman John Spelich said Saturday. “Alibaba doesn’t share this view.”

Yahoo closed its own offices in China several years ago when it sold much of its business there to the Alibaba Group. Yahoo retains a 39 percent stake in Alibaba that represents one of Yahoo’s most valuable assets.

I hope I don’t get in the middle, sure i’m a small business owner in china. I love my staff, my team, what I have here so far. Took a lot of dedication and persistence.

China is a great market, a place of the future. I cannot leave that now. i will not turn my back on what we have here. There will be an answer.

Just wondering…what does this all mean…..its bringing some strange tension in the air. google china internet how will it all add up.

Incoming search terms:

• china vs estados unidos internet

First of all, selling in china is difficult by definition. Chinese people are “tighter” with their money (i.e. don’t spend as easily), but hey, maybe that’s why their currently one of the only world economies with cash, so it was worth it – right? But Chinese are savers, they bargain, they look for deals, they shop around.

They also generally don’t like to pay for services, as its not a tangible product, and secondly, they think why can’t they do it themselves internally? That is always the hard sell anywhere in the world – “why should I pay you to do it when I can do it myself?”. But in China, where there are so many people and therefore many job opportunities, why can’t they hire staff to do it internally.

After you convince them, maybe you are an expert in the field, and that you are qualified to do the service you are selling, the next is, who are you, who do you know. This is to see if you known in the community, are a respectable person to do business with. Also, there are many cheaters who will easily take your money and run. I don’t mean to offend my Chinese friends, but I feel they will agree with me here. Do lots of research before making a purchase, and ask around. Contracts are often done for even what may seem like smaller transactions.

After you convince them on (1) your product/ service is worth buying, and (2) you are not going to cheat them, they also move to (3) price! You almost always have to let your price go a bit lower, even a slight discount from your offer and the customer will feel he/she has gotten something. So be ready to lower your price, you want the customer to feel they’ve won a deal and have a special price.

So, selling in China is about FACE! they want to visit your office, meet your staff, see your operations. they look into what your company name is, how long you’ve been in business. I’ve even seen my company name listed in BBS asking if they know who I am and if anyone else has done business with me before. Very interesting things….and…

You have to adapt to the culture in order to succeed

So these are my ideas and feedback in my experience here in China:

1) Have a clear and solid product. Services are harder to sell in China. The technology market is a bit behind USA and therefore customers here aren’t as educated on the internet. You have to go “back to basics”

2) Have a reputation for yourself. Chinese customers are VERY skeptical (yes, well everyone is, but seems Americans are easiest with their cash). In America, people like helping a startup company because the “american cowboy” (As Bas says), and America is a young country that was founded on entrepreneurs. Seems Europe and Asia are more hesitant to give their money to a small startup. They have to have heard about you in the past and through their circle of friends.

3) Be Ready to Bargain. Everyone, all over the world, loves a deal. But in China it seems almost a requirement. I remember a friend, Huck, mentioning to me he always contacts the seller on Tao Bao (Chinese ebay) before making the purchase. 1 reason is to make sure there is actually a person behind the “curtain”, but the other reason is to bargain on price. And to even get a few rmb (50 us cents) will let him purchase one over the other.

I’m not saying I’m an expert in Selling in China (my experience is still in Infancy!) but I want to share some ideas and get some conversation. I need to learn to speak Chinese (really now can order some food and swear at a taxi driver is about all), then I can really engage. But I love the people here, learning from them, and comparing the differences with my homeland of America.

Incoming search terms:

• door to door sales china
• door to door selling china
• china door-to-door sales