A creative use of social media in China
I have seen many creative uses of social media and I know that how to use social media is very important. Now, I am going to talk about a creative use of social media in China.
In 2006, the Chinese government hired many Internet commentators. The Internet commentators need to pretend as ordinary users and then they post some public opinions or give some comments in some social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. These public opinions and comments should steer discussions away from anti-party or sensitive content. It is because the Chinese government wants to use social media to keep a stable social environment. Now, this policy is really effective in China (Actually, people can not visit Facebook, YouTube and Twitter in China; instead, there are some Chinese websites that have almost same functions). In this case, I think the Chinese government use a creative way to use the social media. Now, I just want to talk about it based on social media’s feature; why the Chinese government chooses social media, which “customer” they focuses on and why it is useful.
First, using social media is very popular in China. In 2013, there are nearly six hundred million Internet users in China. 85% users use Internet to visit some social media websites with computer, mobile phone and tablet. The amount of six hundred million is not a small number; it is such a big user group leads the Chinese government to put a high value on social media.
So who is the customer of this interesting policy? Almost all of the Internet users in China are the “customers” of it. With the popularization of social media, Most of the Internet users have opportunities to get to social media. Internet users get much information from the Internet even if they chip off just a bit. For instance, even if I only spend fifteen minutes a day visiting on Facebook, I basically know what happened in the world today and what people's views on issues, which was impossible for any kind of social media in the past. Therefore, a typical Chinese Internet user has read the professional Internet commentator’ post or comments but not realizes those commentators are not providing their sincere opinions. Consequently, all of them become the Chinese government’s customers as planed.
Why is it useful? It correlates with the basic characteristics of social media. The biggest characteristic of social media is interactive. At present, people prefer to believe the news or information coming from social media rather than those official views from television. It is because, social media as an interactive platform, people can both read and comment on it. When these Internet commentators are working, they post or comment by using an unofficial tone. It is very hard to distinguish the post are coming from ordinaries or Internet commentators, but we agree with some of their opinions at times. And because of this Internet commentators’ post or comments do have an effect on us. Then we get to understand that this policy is rather useful.
From a business standpoint, many merchants usually promote their products by making use of social media; and some of them may post or comment on the products, pretending as ordinaries. For me, it is indeed creative for the Chinese government to utilize social media like this.












