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Reaching demographics in China

LeoistheSun

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Hey all,

I was curious how someone might go about reaching a specific demographic only in China?

My specific need is to reach Firefighters in China. But I would be interested in the general advice as well.

I cant imagine Facebook Ads or Google Adwords would work that well. But I do know TenCent and their other social media platforms are huge. But unsure exactly. I'd imagine I would need to speak Mandarin?

Thanks!
 
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jpn

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I'm not a online marketeer in China, but I spend a fair bit of time there and around Chinese folks. The dominant social network is WeChat (owned by Tencent), Weibo is the Twitter equivalent, Baidu is the dominant search engine and Zhihu the Quora equivalent.

Short version, everyone and their grandmother (literally) is on WeChat (Weixin in Chinese).

Facebook and Google cannot be reached by people inside China (except using VPN, which most people don't bother with).

You'd imagine correctly. You need to speak Mandarin. English is hardly spoken.

Even using those platforms to advertise may be challenging as documentation is often in Chinese too.

Just curious why you'd want to reach out to fire fighters, do you want to sell them a product or service?
 

LeoistheSun

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do you want to sell them a product or service

Yeah. They are more ahead in certain areas, and I wanted to reach out to them, as they could easily be a market- if I knew chinese! :clench:
 

WJK

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Yeah. They are more ahead in certain areas, and I wanted to reach out to them, as they could easily be a market- if I knew chinese! :clench:
Why would you go into that market? They don't have the "rule of law" so you can't be sure you'll be able to enforce a contract. It would seem like a real deal breaker -- you might want to be paid.
 
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jpn

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Why would you go into that market? They don't have the "rule of law" so you can't be sure you'll be able to enforce a contract. It would seem like a real deal breaker -- you might want to be paid.

@WJK I respect your experience, but I need to ask, is this statement based on recent personal experience in China? From what I see and hear the rule of law is descent in China (still things left to improve, but it’s come a long way). The point is that it’s the rule of Chinese law. Which means you need to write contracts with Chinese parties in Chinese according to Chinese law. If you do that, a contract is enforceable. But you’ll have to enforce it in a Chinese court with Chinese lawyers. It’s not cheap, so a lot of folks take the cheap route, penny wise, pound foolish.
 

LeoistheSun

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Why would you go into that market? They don't have the "rule of law" so you can't be sure you'll be able to enforce a contract. It would seem like a real deal breaker -- you might want to be paid.

What contract would I need to enforce?

I build something, they pay me, they get the product. I am confused about the contract.
 

WJK

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@WJK I respect your experience, but I need to ask, is this statement based on recent personal experience in China? From what I see and hear the rule of law is descent in China (still things left to improve, but it’s come a long way). The point is that it’s the rule of Chinese law. Which means you need to write contracts with Chinese parties in Chinese according to Chinese law. If you do that, a contract is enforceable. But you’ll have to enforce it in a Chinese court with Chinese lawyers. It’s not cheap, so a lot of folks take the cheap route, penny wise, pound foolish.
Oh, you don't understand that they are a Communist country. What is their law today, can disappear tomorrow without any notice.
Their president is now ruler for life -- so he's a dictator rather than a president. And he's also declared himself ruler of the entire world. And he's getting aggressive with his military.
China has several huge residential real estate projects that are stalled. The people have paid their money and they are ready to move in. But, the there is no progress on those projects. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
In the 2008 recession, they did capital projects to shore up their economy, rather than correcting their banking system. Since then, they have a whole bunch of bad loan still on the books. And their domestic debt is becoming top heavy.
They're in a tariff fight with Trump. They have a lot more to lose than we do due to the import ratios. When we get a cold, they get pneumonia. They have been trying to develop their domestic market, but we're supporting their expansion right now.
And we haven't talked about the cultural barriers of you not being Chinese...
So, go in with your eyes open. Get your Chinese lawyers to write it up. Pay your money. Good luck.
 
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jpn

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Oh, you don't understand that they are a Communist country.

It would’ve been easier to admit you don’t have any experience doing business in the country.

There is a significant lack of nuance to pretty much everything you said in this thread. It appears you are repeating mainstream media headlines without understanding the underlying facts and culture of the place.

The only thing I can agree with you on is that it is indeed very hard due to cultural barriers.
 

WJK

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It would’ve been easier to admit you don’t have any experience doing business in the country.

There is a significant lack of nuance to pretty much everything you said in this thread. It appears you are repeating mainstream media headlines without understanding the underlying facts and culture of the place.

The only thing I can agree with you on is that it is indeed very hard due to cultural barriers.
You have no idea of my background, and we'll leave it there with old painful subjects.

It's obvious that I'm more conservative than you are. Your venture is way too be risky for me. And I agree -- it will be "very hard" to pull off.

Like I said, good luck.
 

GoGetter24

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Oh, you don't understand that they are a Communist country. What is their law today, can disappear tomorrow without any notice.
They're officially communist like north korea is officially a democracy. It's just words / jokes. Like "America is the land of the free". You should travel and check it out, might update your perception that starving peasants' bodies are still littered everywhere and reactionaries are still being tossed into gulags.
 
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Longinus

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Oh, you don't understand that they are a Communist country. What is their law today, can disappear tomorrow without any notice.
Their president is now ruler for life -- so he's a dictator rather than a president. And he's also declared himself ruler of the entire world. And he's getting aggressive with his military.
China has several huge residential real estate projects that are stalled. The people have paid their money and they are ready to move in. But, the there is no progress on those projects. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
In the 2008 recession, they did capital projects to shore up their economy, rather than correcting their banking system. Since then, they have a whole bunch of bad loan still on the books. And their domestic debt is becoming top heavy.
They're in a tariff fight with Trump. They have a lot more to lose than we do due to the import ratios. When we get a cold, they get pneumonia. They have been trying to develop their domestic market, but we're supporting their expansion right now.
And we haven't talked about the cultural barriers of you not being Chinese...
So, go in with your eyes open. Get your Chinese lawyers to write it up. Pay your money. Good luck.

You know that many ignorant people worldwide say the exact same things about your own country, right?
 

LeoistheSun

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I suppose none of this would change if the idea involved developing a smartphone app @WJK ?
 
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WJK

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They're officially communist like north korea is officially a democracy. It's just words / jokes. Like "America is the land of the free". You should travel and check it out, might update your perception that starving peasants' bodies are still littered everywhere and reactionaries are still being tossed into gulags.
Your words, not mine. I guess I just have a longer view of things. Like I said, Good Luck!
 

jpn

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I suppose none of this would change if the idea involved developing a smartphone app @WJK ?

In this case you need to take into account that the Google Play store is not available in China. Most android handset vendors have their own app stores.
 

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