China Gives the US a Run for It’s eCommerce Position

December 13th, 2011, In Advertising, Social Media, by Beverly Crandon

Currency through eCommerce, we all know, is expected to rise over the next phase of our forecasted digital futures, and mostly, the US has taken the lead when discussing eCommerce trends.  comScore, for example, has released countless reports on the viability of this area of our market.  Their most recent account shows that eCommerce sales are up a whopping 15 per cent, when compared to just a year ago and if trends continue as

they are, we could very easily see the 2012 holiday season, eCommerce dollars, approach the 28 billion dollar mark.  However, given that Internet penetration is, as of October 2011, 79.8% in the US, the potential for new growth is minimal.  The ideal markets, in my mind, are the ones with strong economies, decent Internet penetration, but one that shows room for sizeable growth trends.  To put it simply, getting in on an emerging eCommerce economy, where your financial benefits will yield sizeable returns, for a longer period of time.

Based on highly published Web stats, the ideal emerging market or emerging market template is China.  China has a population of 1.3 billion people, of which 485 million are online, giving us a penetration rate of 36 per cent.  A far lower Internet penetration number, when compared to the US.  So, not only do the afore mentioned statistics shape it to be prime for an eCommerce waive, but it is how the culture has played in to world of eCommerce in China that also leads to higher forecast expectations now, and moving forward.

In past, China’s residents have been somewhat skiddish about online shopping.  It was too impersonal.  The act of giving a faceless entity your credit card information in hopes that they will make good on their promises of a product, in return for your money, was too hard to fathom.  To combat this, top online listing, auction and classified sites in the country have worked tirelessly in trying to build their own eWallet solutions, which has worked out well.  These online giants were home grown, and known to the residents of China, so a natural sentiment of trust was casted, now making for a smooth transition to electronic purchases.  One such online listing giant, is Baidu, and if you are familiar with recent Baidu news, you will know that they formed a partnership with Facebook, earlier this year.  Which was a likely partnership, considering that Facebook has 505k Chinese subcribers. It’s not a number that would, upon first glance, scare a partner such as Baidu, but the growth trends in this area have been astronomical.  So, as we speak about eCommerce and its future potential in China, the Facebook partnership is making a heck of a lot of sense for Zuckerberg.

When it comes to eCommerce, it has been said that more and more online stores are integrating Facebook’s social features, to the point that today 88% of Internet Top 200 retail sites are integrated with Facebook. This creates a viability to use Facebook as an eCommerce platform, in partnership with Baidu.  Promoting in profile purchases, through recommendations or through a posting of a company you have chosen to like, would be a nice addition to the Baidu offering.  Facebook would have to forget the virtual currency concept – we don’t see this working well in China.

With the Chinese population themselves referencing the lack of stock in brick and mortar retail outlets, as their

main reason for turning to eCommerce solutions, it is clear that the growth potential is limitless.  We had forecasted that the Baidu/Facebook relationship would result in an early 750 million dollar uplift for the social network site, but, should they get the eCommerce strategy right and remain respectful of culture and the nature of business in China, our forecast could be too remedial.  At any rate, our eyes are on China.  Could we even see a makeup between China and Google, given the potential?  Who knows, but opportunity does make everything possible.

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Mainstream Media Pinned Against Social Media – our view…

December 12th, 2011, In Newspapers, Online Journalism, Print Media, Social Media, by Beverly Crandon

I came across what was taken by me to be a very unfortunate article entitled ‘Three Reasons We Need Mainstream Media‘  by Chris Syme.  Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not the title that concerned me, it was the spin of the article that caused me to raise an eyebrow, which once you were finished reading it, you would think that the content you and I post to our social persona’s was worth far less than commentary posted by editors and traditional media content curators.

To build her article, Syme referenced a college basketball game that turned into a brawl.  Apparently, just post the eruption, she had taken to Twitter to gather more information, but was met with para-phrased accounts and some half truths, according to her and it was this experience, from what we read in her article today, that caused her to write this post.  Before we go further, let me get on the record by saying that in my mind, mainstream media is not as Syme would define it (traditional media).  To me, mainstream media is social media. The very thing that makes something ‘mainstream’ is if it is dominant and widely accepted and therefore, some could argue that social media (largely made up of lay person commentary) is ‘the’ mainstream.

Nonetheless, it is quite shocking that the ‘us against them mentality’  still exists today amongst traditional media advocates.  Imagine the deepness of our content if those she classes as ‘mainstream media’ were to consistently and actively take part on the same social platforms as the lay-folk living the experiences.  Utilizing the same hashtags as you and I and posting as soon as it happens, as opposed to waiting for the piece to be published in print or on air, before it can be syndicated on a social platform.   If I can grab commentary from multiple sources, I can create my own opinion on the case.  The author of today’s article also assumed that we were not smart enough to discern emotional banter from fact.  There have been  countless times where Fox News or even CNN led us down the wrong path, through lack of detail and content omissions, and they are what this author would call mainstream media. To further cement her point, the author then used the headings of Reliability, Accuracy and Professionalism as her basis for her viewpoint, where under each heading she discussed why mainstream media was better in each.  This was followed by a weird closing line, which we’re confident the editor at Social Media Today asked her to add to make it relevant to their readers “Social media and traditional media make good partners. One without the other is lacking. Like yin and yang, we need both to get a complete picture”.  Weird, nothing like the rest of article, which was very much, it seemed in support of controlled conversation and the word conversation is probably not the best used in this situation, more like autocratic.

Traditional media and those who share their views depicted above, will never let the social platform prowess work for them at this rate.  Instead, I suggest editors, writers, and content curators of traditional media concern themselves with the following:

Understanding the Tools: the platforms and how they work.  What is the culture on Twitter versus Facebook and what are they most passionate about?  What engages them more, platform versus platform?

Understanding the Reasons Behind the Tools: Twitter, Facebook, etc…, will mean very little to you or hold little impact to your day to day, if you do not understand the premise behind them.  Understanding the mini sub-cultures that their users have built through being open and social.  How this new social me has suddenly connected with colleagues to better my know how (and I hope their’s) and how I have build online relationships that compliment my real world and as a result, I am probably smarter now and better for it.

Using the Tools to Your Benefit: If they were to look at the tools from a users perspective and not as a rival, understanding how they can integrate it into what they do will become far easier.  Consider that the emotions that ring out in a users Tweet on a topic you may be covering for your organization, gives you greater sentiment into how the public feels on an item.  Liken it to trying to grab a quote from someone in the community, just after a local tragedy ensued.

All of the above to say that speaking in terms of which one is better than the other is really a waste of time and counter intuitive to what social media is all about.  Under our new and social rules, more good can be done through collaboration versus separation.

 

Header mage courtesy of: ZoofyTheJinx

 

 

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