The social network giant Facebook is banned from China. But since the online marketing growth inside the country is good, the company wages campaign to stay in the game.
As a start, Facebook is hiring in Hong Kong in order to tap into local partners to draw more businesses from Chinese companies. Despite Facebook is blocked inside the country, Facebook aims to benefit Chinese companies by allowing them to reach its 1.39 billion users beyond the country's borders.
Facebook is trying to deliver internet to emerging countries so it can increase its number of users. Internet.org drones initiative and better mobile interaction are the start to make people use the internet. To make the money flow, Facebook approaches businesses to make them eager to advertise.
Facebook isn't the first company to be blocked out of the Chinese mainland. Google for example, has pulled its services out of China because of the country's censorship concerns. But that also didn't stop Google to keep delivering campaigns to China. The search giant has unveiled Chinese-language developer channel on YouTube, and opened its Google Play service to Chinese app developers. Twitter also has opened its first Hong Kong office just to make sure that it can get more advertisers from China.
As its effort to ramp up its money making campaign in China, Facebook is seeking more clients, such as Youzu Interactive Co., a Shanghai online game designer. Youzu says it has increased the number of people registering for its game "League of Angels" by over a double, daily, after spending about 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) ad budget on Facebook.
"Half of our players come from Facebook," said Liu Wanqin, a Youzu Manager involved in overseas advertising. "Facebook is our most important ad tool right now."
Raising the Awareness in China
China is holding a lot of potential. Despite its increasing growth of internet users, the country that has the largest population in the world is having its own taste in internet services. For example, it has its own vibrant social media services and search engines. But still it holds a lot of potential.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO and co-founder, has raised his profile in China in recent months in order to take advantage of the multitude potential. . In October 2014, he spoke in passable Mandarin to a Chinese audience at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He also met with local tech titans, including Alibaba's Jack Ma. In December, he showed the country's top internet regulator, who was visiting Facebook's headquarters, that he keeps a book of Chinese President Xi Jinping's thoughts on his desk.
But China is a giant that is not easy to persuade. The country's officials have tightened the country's grip on cyberspace for years, and is not showing a slightest attempt in thinking otherwise. But Chinese companies that use Facebook, aren't fazed by their government's stance.
Companies always look for ways to make more money. Since Facebook is holding much of the internet's activity, companies that are looking for ways of advertising, see Facebook as a great partner to be with.
Facebook's fourth-quarter Asia ad revenue totaled $531 million, up 67 percent. Google which sells mobile and display ads in China earned an estimated ad revenue of $257 million during the third quarter of 2014, up 19 percent from 2013.
Both companies (Facebook and Google) appeal differently for Chinese users. Google is more text-based, while Facebook ads have a lot to do with presentation space and pictures.
Shanghai TianQing Info Tech Co., the second largest China mainland Facebook reseller in 2014 said that the process in having ads on Facebook is "a lot like dating." It referred to how the collaboration was limited at first, but then it grew into a partnership that benefits both.