Many foreign companies raise investments for their future Chinese internet business using such “fancy” terms as “p.r”., “s.e.o”, and on occasion even “google”. However, then the ball starts rolling, and they prove not only to be unable to do successful P.R. online marketing in highly competitive western markets, but they lack any understanding of how web site promotion happens in China.

First of all, let’s get clear on how companies run successful campaigns in the west. I’m not going to talk about trivial seo tricks – at this day and age every grandpa knows how to build a web site seo friendly. The fact is - major site promotion still happens through news agencies. The reason is simple: vast amount of content, long internet presence, and of course readers. Now, it’s nice to have a few friends at New York Times, but what does a company to do if no such friendships are to be found. Or even worse, the company is in a less sexy business and thus no one wants to write about it. Well, you don’t need to look for an example any further than web hosting.

Let’s face it, no news agency will ever write about hosting options; however, somehow if you start searching for web hosting, suddenly thousands of online reviews come up. Who do you think is behind those reviews? That’s right – hosting companies themselves. They collaboratively, or otherwise, create hundreds of web sites that serve as gateways to their sales people. The customer believes he is in control, with hundreds of options – but the truth is, all roads lead to Rome - and internet is not an exception. These companies not only compete with one another, but they also share revenues for new customers.

So how companies do traditional online P.R.? They use hundreds of content mirrors to lead the customer to a single sales point. These mirrors can be web reviews, technical encyclopedias, or news broadcasts. In the new age, all are taking a blog form to further attract attention (it might take you longer to realize there is no person behind it). One the latest tricks (actually a few years old), is to mirror Wikipedia with its enourmous amount of content. However, I wouldn’t advise on doing this as it is so widely abused that Google spots it like Chinese Government does google’s search results.

Now, what about China? China is no different when it comes to content mirrors. Just look at numerous IT sites – goes to show you “what is the biggest industry in China”. However, P.R. is about online existence (i.e. time), content. And internet in China happens to be quite new. So unlike in U.S. where huge majority of sites exist from the first generation, in China it’s all new. Then what is the solution?

First of all, it is important to understand the corporate structure of biggest Chinese portals. Unlike in U.S. where Yahoos of the world have a definite policy when it comes to partnerships, in China there is one engineer who is still responsible for doing manual link exchange. So while it might costs thousands of dollars to get on Sina’s home page, in many cases it costs nothing to get a google friendly link on the site’s second page (with a big logo to it).

Another important is related to forums. Forums (or BBS as they are called in China) are a great source of information (very badly organized, but still). And with so many Chinese looking for ways to express themselves, why not build a forum? Start unique topics, attract new audience. Just make sure you have some content to begin with – nobody likes to be the first!

And of course, don’t forget that Blogs are big in China too! Sure, there is a naked woman behind each and every single one, but that makes it all the more exciting, right?

p.s. I personally don’t like to talk about “these” new ways of P.R., but luckily there is someone else to take the job. Also here is the link to Lee Oden’s Blog - no word about China, but that’s what I’m here for!

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