Social networking and the Chinese market

Zia Daniell Wigder | December 04, 2007, 11:03 AM

My colleagues have written extensively on the topic of social networking in Europe, from Nick’s recent report to Nate’s coverage in his blog.

Outside of Europe, there’s been considerable speculation about the major players’ international expansion: MySpace made its foray into Asia with a Japanese launch at the end of 2006 and with MySpace China in April of this year. Today’s announcement that Li Ka-shing has acquired a small stake in Facebook has fueled rumors that Facebook could again be inching closer to an entry into the Chinese market (rumors last month suggested Facebook was considering acquiring Chinese social networking site Zhanzuo, but have been denied by the company).

That China is of critical interest to major social networking sites is no surprise: in recent conversations with US companies expanding overseas, China consistently topped the list of non-European markets of greatest interest to them. And recent studies have touted the digital self-expression of Chinese youth and the collaborative nature of the Internet in China, characteristics that render this market particularly attractive to social networking companies.

While China is of great interest to companies expanding internationally (and is set to rival the US in total Internet users within five years), this interest has not necessarily translated into action. Few companies have begun to target the Chinese market with social media: Intel, for example, was lauded earlier this year for launching one of the first US business blogs in Chinese. And in our recent survey of website decision makers, Chinese fell well below several of the European languages and behind Japanese when it comes to the languages major US companies are addressing with their websites. The list of languages US companies are offering on their sites does not reflect the global base of online users; it especially does not reflect how this base of users is changing.

It’s not surprising that translations have mirrored the companies’ international expansion – namely into Europe first – and that market entry into China comes with an entirely different level of complexity and concerns. Yet with all the interest in China, companies that aren’t preparing to translate and localize for this market will find themselves falling behind more nimble competitors who are equally interested in tapping into this rapidly evolving marketplace.