Social Media Marketing is Hot in Shanghai

So tonight, I was speaking at the Dr3 event in Shanghai (this session was focused on Social Media Marketing) and I have got to say the level of interest took me by surprise. With over 80 people in the room, representing industries from tourism to trade we had a group that was eager to learn more about this social media and then join the networking session to mix and exchange war stories about what’s working and what’s not. Here is a summary of the three presentations.

After fearing we had lost Dr Gang Lu to Shanghai traffic and considering the renaming of the event to Dr2, the sessions got underway (abet 15 Min’s late). I was first up and gave an overview of the general landscape in China. What was interesting to me was when asking who was ‘doing’ social media marketing out of room of 80 or so only 3-4 put their hand up- most appeared to be newby’s to this activity. Given that, I kept the presentation high level and spoke more of practical tasks that can be taken. In my presentation I shared some ideas for demographic targeting, planning and messaging plans. But mostly, I spoke about the area of measurement; my pet interest is ROP (Return on Participation) and in my opinion this term comes from assessing measure elements such as; Sentiment, Reach and Authority.

The second speaker was Dr Grace Pan and she clearly articulated her views on the state of the Travel and Tourism industry in China. She presented research that showed how the travel sector is expecting to grow dramatical from domestic travel and how travelers were very keen on using the Internet for advice, guidance and making buying decisions. She also presented some findings on 4 star hotels that have their reputation monitored using SinoBuzz. We saw some very interesting comments (positive and negative) and posts that came from BBS’s and Blogs that I am sure a few from the hotel  sector surely would be cringing.

Our third presenter, Dr Gang Lu spend his time reviewing the mobile/wireless landscape. Gang Lu showed some very interesting companies doing innovative things. From using 2 dimensional bar codes that people can take photo’s of with their phone and them this bar code is converted into a URL or process product information. Further Dr Lu showed RIFD technology being embedded into phones and how in Japan this technology was being used to pay for train tickets. I was very impressed by this and will try and think about applications in China….

Once the three of us finished presenting the wider group broke into our networking part. This seemed to be a great success as many were talking and exchanging business cards.

Thanks to all that came and looking forward to the next Dr3 event in Beijing. For those that want to download the presentations then you can find them on the to Digital Marketing Inner Circle.