Google, Facebook and Twitter are popular marketing tools for many Western companies, but local business Web Presence in China is well aware that if you want to reach China, you’ve got to think outside the square.
It surprises some in the West, who assume the right to freedom of speech, that commonly used social media and marketing tools are banned in China; but while Facebook may be blocked, China certainly isn’t languishing behind the rest of the world.
Having blocked Facebook and Twitter, among others, China has gone about creating its own equivalents of social networking and search engines.
For many Chinese, Saina Wabo is the go-to social network, while Baidu is the biggest search engine, thanks in-part to government regulations on web searching that squeezed Google down to 2.6 per cent market share by search volume.
The Chinese government’s policy of strict internet control has presented an opportunity for Sam Clohessy, Jacob Cooke, Ernie Diaz and Joseph Cooke – founders of Web Presence in China.
The basic principle of the business is to adapt English language websites and create a licensed and localised Chinese site. Next, they promote the website so it registers at the top of the main search engine’s results list, creating what Mr Clohessy says is a crucial social network presence on Saina Wabo.
Mr Clohessy said many Western business owners mistakenly believed they were represented online in China by adopting a Mandarin language function on their business website.
But this is not enough for it to register on Baidu, which has more than 80 per cent search engine market share in China, he said.
Web Presence in China set up its base in Beijing 18 months ago, has branches in Vancouver and Perth, and is working to attract clients that want to tap into the Chinese market.
Mr Clohessy, who returned home to Perth 12 months ago to set up the Australian branch of the business, has a particular interest in growing Western Australian tourism by increasing web presence for tourism operators in this state.
“We currently have 26 clients and my dream is to take WA and greater Australia online into what is fast becoming the world’s biggest market,” Mr Clohessy said.
One of those clients is Fremantle’s famed fish and chip destination Cicerello’s; the business is more than 90 years old and while it has had a website for a long time, recently made a move to increase its awareness in China.
The site is localised to the Chinese market, is in Mandarin and registers high on Baidu when searching for Australian seafood in China, according to Mr Clohessy.
To say he is a believer in China as the market of the future and the web as the window for Australian businesses to that market is an understatement.
“Right now less than 0.01 per cent of Australian businesses are online in China, which I think is deplorable,” Mr Clohessy said. “They are our biggest trading partner, they will be for our entire lifetime. From tourism to education and everything else, we are going to have to deal with them whether we like it or not.
“It is not a case of ‘they are coming’, they are already here.”