Digital marketing strategies for entering the Chinese market

Abstract

With China’s emergence as an economic powerhouse, many multinational companies have looked to it to grow their profit margins by selling to the increasingly large Chinese middle class. This group, estimated at about 300 million people, is young, educated, mobile-enabled and digitally savvy. Marketers have naturally turned to social media marketing to connect and engage with these consumers. Given the differences between Chinese and Western social media marketing, the influence of the Chinese government and rapidly shifting online behaviours, this market segment has increasingly attracted the attention of academic and industry researchers intrigued by the impact of these changes on social media practitioners, especially Western marketers working to understand the Chinese landscape. This paper describes key features of the Chinese internet and the key platforms and media therein, and presents perspective, insights and implications that practitioners may consider when planning the strategy for and execution of a Chinese social media programme.