Over the past two to three years, quite a number of business owners and marketers have become interested in marketing to China.

That is not surprising. If you look at the statistics of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand last year, the number reached 10 million—making Thailand the number-one travel destination for Chinese tourists.

The top three hit destinations for Chinese tourists are Thailand, Japan, and Korea. In fact, even if you combine the number of Chinese tourists going to Japan and Korea, it still cannot beat the number who choose Thailand alone.

Thailand is deeply loved by Chinese people.

If there had not been the crackdown on zero-dollar tours that became major news last year, I think the number would have been even higher.

Of course, Chinese tourists do not come to Thailand empty-handed. Most of them come with thick stacks of cash and spend very freely on eating, shopping, and everything else.

From the viewpoint of business people and marketers, it is no surprise that they are watching the Chinese tourist segment with keen interest.

I am not surprised to see that some 7-Eleven branches even create dedicated corners specifically for Chinese tourists, with signs in Chinese inviting them to shop and welcoming AliPay, China’s number-one online payment system.

It is said that at King Power, the country’s number-one duty free retailer, as much as 70–80% of total sales come from Chinese customers.

With this level of heat, quite a number of my clients have asked for advice on doing digital marketing aimed at China to make their products better known among Chinese consumers.

Perhaps because the name "Solbugtong" sounds so obviously Chinese, everyone imagines that I must be an expert on this subject.

I want to shout out loud to everyone: "That is absolutely right!" You are correct!

Luckily, I have Chinese friends, so I immediately ran to ask them for information without delay.

In truth, doing digital marketing in China is not exactly difficult, but it is not easy either.

In principle and in the way of thinking, it is not much different from digital marketing in Thailand. The main difference lies in the tools used, because the Chinese government blocks almost all major foreign digital tools.

Line, Google, Facebook, and YouTube have no chance of taking off in China.

Chinese people like to search for information just as Thai people do, except that they do not use Google. They use a search engine called Baidu instead. After I went in and looked at Baidu’s advertising system, I almost cried out, 'Aiya!' It is clearly a clone of Google. Whatever Google has, Baidu has too—the only difference is that Baidu is in Chinese.

Baidu also has a keyword planner like Google, which immediately lets us know what Chinese people are searching for in Thailand. Most searches concern hotels, travel information, and souvenirs. Interestingly, I found that many Chinese people want to come to Thailand for wedding photography, and another group is trying to buy real estate in our country.

Chinese people like social media just as Thai people do, except that they do not use Facebook. They use a social platform called Weibo instead. The level of addiction is no less than in Thailand—they update their statuses enthusiastically with heads bent over their phones.

One behavior that may differ from Thai users is that Chinese people also like to update their status on WeChat. If compared with Thailand, WeChat is similar to Line. For us, the main purpose of using Line is to chat with close friends or in groups. Thai users generally do not update statuses or read a newsfeed very much; they mainly use it to chat.

Chinese users, however, use WeChat both to chat and to show themselves. Those who are heavily addicted to social media may even link their WeChat and Weibo accounts together, so that one status update appears on both platforms at the same time.

Weibo’s advertising system is not very different from Facebook. But I found that WeChat’s advertising system is considerably more advanced than Line’s, with more features—so advanced that you can even build apps to connect directly with WeChat, whether for games, booking systems, or e-commerce.

In addition, Chinese users also have a video site called YouKu, which is basically the equivalent of YouTube in Thailand. Its advertising system is almost exactly the same.

Overall, doing digital marketing in China is not very different from doing it in Thailand.

What gives us a real headache is the language barrier. If you cannot read Chinese, you are guaranteed to feel confused.

If you have a headache about this and want to do digital marketing in China, feel free to contact Solbugtong.

I would be happy to be everyone’s translator!