As a China Digtal Marketer, after 10 years of professional experiences in various sectors:
- Web Marketing
- Community Management
- Banking
- Events
- Communication
I am proud to study a MBA in Digital Marketing & Business #MBADMB- Shanghai - China and to know more about Digital in China
After travelling a lot by myself in China in Cities and countryside, I can confirm there are 2 worlds : the Digital world which is powerful in Cities and another world outside of cities where you have the deep traditions of Chinese Life without internet, with a simple way they lived in the old days.
In my opinion, it was important to highlight this world of traditions of China.
For example, when you go leave cities to go to traditional mountains (yellow ones) or in the Yunnan area you can see that people are living in a traditional way of life.
My last example was in GOUQI ISLAND and it was amazing to see that even there was no internet, only one local bank and just a few traditional stores to live for the local people, Chinese people are looking happier than in cities by fishing and living simply, even if life is not easy.
My question is : Even if digital is powerful in China, you have a lot of places where you have no access to internet or any modern way to live, how can you live between those 2 worlds and communicate?
In Yunnan, in Sashi (or any small towns), it was also the same, they were living by manufacturing with their hands for the business of traditional wood curving.
Keeping the traditions is very important for Chinese people even if they have to accept this New World of Digital Business in Huge cities in China.
After sharing with Chinese friends from Shanghai, Yunnan, Sanya, Harbin, Beijing, I can say that the power of China is coming from their traditions, their education linked with good human values coming from Buddha, even you have various religions in China. I can say you can feel the harmony, the kindness and the respect to people from Chinese population. But the most important is to understand how Chinese people live and try to talk with them in Mandarin, even if it is very difficult.
In my such a short experience in China, I can say the people who support me a lot were Chinese, even if I did not speak the national language at the beginning.
To know more about traditions in the countryside of China
As soon as you meet new Chinese Friends, you always find a way to know more about digital Strategy in China and what type of APP do Millennials use in China every day. So I thought it was interesting to know about the Success of BiliBili APP in the Chinese Market today.
Bilibili (stylized as bilibili, Chinese: 哔哩哔哩; pinyin: bīlībīlī; nicknamed B站, literally “the B site”, NASDAQ: BILI) is a video sharing website themed around animation, comic, and game (ACG) based in China, where users can submit, view, and add commentary subtitles on videos. Bilibili uses an Adobe Flash or HTML5 player, which can be manually switched, to play user submitted videos hosted by either itself or third-party sources, while featuring a real-time overlaying subtitle system for interactive playback experience.
With the fast growing number of visitors on Bilibili, it decided to expand their functions. Besides the dominant themes, now Bilibili offers videos of various fields, including music, dancing, science and technology, entertainment, movie, drama, fashion, daily life and even advertisement films. Also Bilibili provides a live streaming service where audiences can interact with streamers. Usually the topic is about anime, content creating, game strategy and so on.
Other than videos, Bilibili also offers games, mostly ACG (animation, comic and game) themed mobile games, such as the Chinese version of Fate/Grand Order.
Bilibili APP is a Chinese version of NicoNico APP originally set up in Japan. It is like Chinese Youtube > YUKOU. Before Bilibili was for Cartoons. Today Bilibili is a hug success in China
Why BiliBili became famous in China?
Bilibili is mostly a video game company and became a huge and famous business in China. Bilibili was know by this famous IPO amounting $3 billion this year.
Bilibili is listed NYSE : New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (abbreviated as NYSE and nicknamed “The Big Board”), is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York.
The target is millenals : Users are individuals & Private People
This APP is very flexible. It is like Youtube or Youku and you have a lot of options
By answering questions
By having a competition to get a good Score
By making a competition with your own videos with spontaneous online reactions. when the video streaming is on
By having access to private videos such as Chinese Songs, vidéos from Olympics Games …
By answering questions to make comments
How to register an account on Bilibili Chinese APP?
The main thing to do if you want to register and to have fun online using this Chinese Mobile APP by streaming, making your own videos and gaming, you have to sign in : https://www.bilibili.com/
The most important issue when you arrive in such a huge city like Shanghai is how to find your way by metro and outside the metro. walking down the streets. When I arrived in Shanghai in October 2017, for our MBA DMB located in ESSCA Shanghai university, it was not easy to find my university by myself.
The most important is how to find your way in China.
Shanghai Metro is the world’s longest, covering 548 km across 337 stations and 14 lines. Compare that to New York, whose subway system covers 368km. Weekdays see more than 8 million people riding the metro in Shanghai, roughly equivalent to the population of New York City. Why should you ride the metro over taking a taxi? You’ll avoid wasting precious time in the gridlock that cripples Shanghai’s streets.
Cost
Shanghai Metro has an excellent website with a fare calculator. Journeys under 6km cost ¥3. To go from downtown Shanghai to Hongqiao Railway Station or Hongqiao Airport costs ¥7; to go to Pudong Airport from the same area costs ¥9.
Tickets
Single-journey cards can be purchased at machines inside every metro station. These machines accept ¥1 coins and small denomination bills. After you tap out at the end of your ride, the electronic barrier keeps the card, which is then recycled.
1 – To find your way down the tube
My 1st experience in the Metro of Shanghai was simply how to take a ticket from the machine which is in Chinese
You should know that even Shanghai is very international, most of Chinese people do not speak English.
So after more than 1 hour by trying to find how it works even if I was trying to find Chinese people who did speak English, I was lucky because I found 2 Chinese Millenials who only know a bit of English. But we found a way to pay the tickets that I needed to go from People Square Station to Shanghai Zoo. What was funny is that when I arrived I could not go out with my ticket. So the security guide asked me in Chinese but I did not understand anything but he understood that it was not easy for me and he left the opened door for me.
Security down the Metro of Shanghai in an habit. Before entrance you always have to put your bag or luggage in the security check-in place.
2 – What should you know about the Metro of Shanghai?
Your ticket that you pay in the machine that you need to pay in cash
You can also use a digital Access if you have WeChat or Alipay with a Chinese account only
As I discovered 3 weeks after, metro cards could be available with a minimum amount of 20 RMB (Payment of your metro card). The only way to pay is in Cash if you do not have a Chinese Bank account
Shanghai Metro card :
1 metro card (with a minimum amount of 20 CNY in cash) > 1 Day Metro card : If you’re in Shanghai for more than one day and don’t want to purchase one of the above passes, this makes the most sense; you’ll be able to skip the queue for single-journey tickets and use the card to pay for cabs.
One- and three-day passes can be purchased in any station, but only at the ticket desk, and you’ll need cash. One-day passes cost ¥18 for 24 hours of unlimited rides. Three-day passes cost ¥45.
Shanghai Public Transportation Cards are refillable cards that can be used on the Maglev, metro, buses, taxis, ferries, and on public transportation in neighboring city Suzhou. Cards cost a refundable ¥20 and can be purchased at the ticket desk in any station. You can then add money there, at convenience stores across the city, or at add-value machines inside metro stations.
Shanghai very useful APPs are:
Shanghai Metro Map and Route Planner
Shanghai Metro Subway
Maps-me : to find your way out of the Shanghai tube
Therefore today I know Shanghai metro by heart and I use it every day. One good tip that you can meet wonderful Chinese people down the metro.
After a visionary Class in February 2018 with ESSCA #MBADMB team, I am pleased to give you more information about Csjbot Strategy in China & abroad.
Through Artificial intelligence (AI), robots can is a huge market in China. In our coming future, robots will be more and more present in our companies, not only to replaces employees but also to support them in their work.
That is why to visit the Team of Csjbot was amazing to have because our MBA team learned a lot about robots and what they do.
What Csjbot Robots are powerful in China and abroad?
In China
Robot can help companies to increase their turn over becoming more and more by industrialisation of products.
Robots can be used in Services sectors and there is a ROI (Return On Investment in China).
Robots are online selling & promotions on WeChat ALIBABA, TAOBAO(Chinese e-commerce plateforms) related to their website : www.csjbot.com. WeChat Mini Programs in China
New jobs to support the robots too develop more technically.
China is huge market for robots and robots efficiency will become one day very helpful for world wide firms. Even today robots are assets for servicing and industrialisation business sectors.
Out of China
Csjbot have partners in the US markets and in Europe (Spain, Italy and Romania) to sell their robots and it is starting to be a success overseas.
New skills for experts in Digital Marketing & Business can be created in the future to increase the development of industrial and servicing companies.
To develop a robot you have different partnerships with Europe and US. So when a robot is manufactured, you have world wide competences in one robot.
Even you have less than 5 % of companies who use robots assets, it will be become more and more inside of international firms in the coming 20 years
Robots will support the company team to be more and more efficient.
What Csjbot Robots can be funny to use?
Robots can dance : The 540 robots dance performances even applied for the Guinness Book of Records! In recent years, artificial intelligence has gradually come into people’s daily life from distant highs, by giving the audience an eye-opener on the rapid development of artificial intelligence today.
The example of Csjbot is really important because with their 2 robots :
“Amy Robot” who is dealing services like in a restaurant area to serve your customers who orders to the robot what he/she wants for meals.
“Samy Robot” who is programming to give you a human exchange
CsjBots interviews by Florence Rouchy, following the Discovery class of our MBA in Digital Marketing near Shanghai on February 2nd, 2018
Yunnan is heart of the traditions and the Culture in South of China.
Dali is the 1st supplier of Tea, Jade, Silver, Silk Broidery and Wood. According to my own experience, Dali people are the Kings of Business and Negotiations, even if they are not so Digital, they really know how to do business.
1. Cultural Business such as:
Tea business
Tea is the heart of the local Yunnan trading. They are selling tea (black, Green, Red teas an tea with flowers like roses) in the traditional ways like with hand made typical Chinese boxes. You can also have different types of tea purchases including tea boxes, tea cakes, tea balls, pyramidal shaped tea. The selling tea can be very expensive for the people who do not negotiate. In china you have to negotiate the tea price. It is part of the rules of the market. One rule: bargaining.
Jade business
Jade is a famous stone, extracted, hand worked and sold massively in in Yunnan shops. Jade business is a major régional market fueling a wide range of commercial activities.In Dali they have plenty of jade shops where you can can find jewelries, Chinese symbols like smiley Buddha’s, fish, Lotus ….
Silk broidery business
Silk Broidery is part of the Yunnan culture. You can find specific schools in Xi Zhou and in Baisha. Chinese girls can learn for free how to do broidery and can sell their own work by getting 10% of their selling own Broidery. In each school you can have their Broidery work and they are exposed like painters can do their own canvas. The Mu’s Broidery school is such an example. Please find video below one of the Broidery artist with her interpretation of the Ying and the Yang.
Silver business
The market of Silver is the most important business by selling hand made tea pots, jewelries and various kind of designed products in silver. You have plenty of local shops of silver goods in the old village of Dali. Therefore this is the place to be for silver business. All types of negotiations can be done.
Woodcarving business
The Wood business is a real market in the Yunnan mountains areas such as Shanxi and Lijiang. They are selling a lot of curving wood goods like wood tables, statues, jewelries and all kind of typical hand made products manufactured by wood in front of you at the entrance of each local store.
2. Chinese Business
A – Business Negotiations
Yunnan with Dali, Lijiang and Shanxi villages, places to be for business putting the price up even if it is such an irrational amount. Then négociations can start within even more than 1 hour. For example to buy Silk home made tapestries. I had this experience there and it was amazing to see from the beginning to the end how the négociations can be:
At the beginning: the seller puts his price conditions then we put our tarifs.
During the negotiation time: the seller can wait and have silence breaks by listening to you or by waiting for replies
At the end of the negotiation: it is like we are like so good friends if se found a compromise for the negotiations. The seller can call you “my friend” when you make the deal.
B – Offline to Online Business
As I notice, Chinese people are really excellent at making money by selling Jade, Silver, Tea, wood… They are really experts by doing offline business, I am sure they can amplify their way of doing online business under several Chinese websites. For example for the business of wood table in Shanxi, the owner of the shop always has a website, a QR Code WeChat contact and access to Chinese e-commerce plateform in order to deal with the purchaser.
First, Chinese sellers prefer to know more about you,the way you do the 1st offline exchange in Business. The human contact is really important for Chinese people. Therefore they want to know you first before doing business with you (the ceremony of Tea Exchange between the seller and the purchaser is really part of the negotiation).
At the bottom, that’s why in some way it is a little bit complicated do business with Chinese people for Western Customers because you have to deal with the sellers in Mandarin language.
Secondly they use both, offline and Internet access to build their business and to increase their turnover all over China, in Asia and in the Western countries. In China, for example they use 6 famous Chinese websites platforms or Apps to sell their traditional goods in the domestic market and overseas which are the following ones:
Alibaba
Tmall
Taobao
Tencent
WeChat
JD.com
For more information
I recommend you to watch this beautiful video on YouTube (VPN needed):
And here are the links to China major eCommerce companies and websites:
Recently there is a very popular app with special effects spreading among young people in China, which is “Faceu”.
It quickly ranked first in free apps chart in App Store during a few days.
Launched in 2016, the app, which mainly targets female users between 15 and 35, has twice made it onto the Apple store’s Chart for top apps.
This APP is compatible with IOS and ANDROID systems.
Having attracted over 250 million registered users by March 2017.
Why is Faceu App a Success in China?
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
By beautiful selfies which can be taken by Faceu App
By dynamic and cute Stickers : With Faceu, you can download animated stickers can be used for fun pictures as memories with your friends, family members and even co-workers too.
By creative videos & photos taken by Faceu App for events of life
By various and creative collage grids can be realised by Faceu
By sharing pictures on social networks: People who are using Faceu APP for photos and videos can see them and share them on via social networks via WeChat Posts, Weibo and even via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedin …
For example, when you go leave cities to go to traditional mountains (yellow ones) or in the Yunnan area you can see that people are living in a traditional way of life.
Bilibili (stylized as bilibili, 
