Comments on: The PR Problems of China’s Social Media

By: Media mag discusses astroturfing in China | China IWOM Blog- Making Sense of the Buzz

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 03:11:36 +0000

[...] – David Wolf, China’s war for the soul of online corporate communications (if blocked for China readers, try here) – Will Moss, Is it “war” against Chinese blogs? – Paul Denlinger, The PR Problem for Chinese Online Public Relations Firms – China Web2.0 Review, The PR Problems of China’s Social Media [...]

By: Branding Management in the Wired Era : China Web2.0 Review

Branding Management in the Wired Era : China Web2.0 Review — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:47:43 +0000

[...] and reputation management has been a hot topic on China’s Internet, esp. the stories of some online PR companies to manipulated BBS posts. How to management brands is a challenge to marketers in this Internet era. It is also one of the [...]

By: Tangos

Tangos — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:13:00 +0000

@Paul, actually, I think the situation is more complicated. The “pay to post” model for Chinese BBS is not as simple as payperpost.com for bloggers in US.

For BBS, they have a team which will be able to find an angle to copywrite a post or series posts, they will study the product and try to understand the product, and they pretend as ordinary consumers to post in BBS.

For blogs, you cannot do so unless it is on your own blogs, so you need to pay for bloggers who will not really care about writing a paid post.

So the situation is more complicated, I think we cannot just say it doesn’t work.

By: Paul Denlinger

Paul Denlinger — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:49:28 +0000

The big problem with the “paid to post” model which some PR firms use for BBS postings is not just the ethics. It just doesn’t work.

The best advocate for a product/service is a passionate user who believes in the product. Someone who really likes the product, and wants the rest of the world to know how good it is. And who is willing to show others how to use it. This is how the application of social media to business should work.

This passion and knowledge of a product is something which cannot be faked.

The sooner PR agencies and their clients realize this, the better. When that happens, most PR agency clients will say goodbye to the “pay to post” business model.

By: Tangos

Tangos — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:10:01 +0000

@Jason, I think it is changing, the new SNS site has changed people’s habits, they are more comfortable to use real name online now.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:11:42 +0000

It seems that most Chinese bloggers did not use true name but hide under cool nicknames, so that they prefer BBS over blog, or they fear of exposure to authority?

By: The Net-Savvy Executive

The Net-Savvy Executive — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:57:00 +0000

Listening, engaging and ethics in China…

An article in this week’s BusinessWeek is stirring up a good discussion about social media and ethics in China. People aren’t thrilled with the unfortunate choice of metaphor in the title, either: Inside the War Against China’s Blogs. Since I……