Twitter Open an Office in Hong Kong
Chinese Democracy
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| www.performancein.com/ |
If that headline is a little confusing, bear with me, and if
it isn’t, well bear with me anyway. Twitter has been completely banned in China
since 2009, along with Facebook and Google, with Chinese government-approved
alternatives taking their place (Weibo, in Twitter’s case). So, with that
exactly is the point of opening a shiny new office in Hong Kong, as Twitter
have done?
Well, there’s more to social media business strategy than
just drafting more new users. While Twitter won’t be able to attract any of
China’s hulking populous to the platform, they will be able to sell advertising space to Chinese companies that are interested in international
marketing. This could well be the full extent of Twitter’s plans in China, but
theoretically if they start to catch the attention of international business
based out of the nation, more locally grounded firms will start to take notice
and corporate pressure to unban Twitter could start to mount.
This is all speculative of course, but it seems unlikely
that Twitter would go to the effort of opening a space and hiring new staff in
Hong Kong purely because they want to give their ad revenue a shot in the arm.
More to the point, Twitter aren't the only social media giants that have been
extending their reach towards China, Mark Zuckerberg has been very publically
learning to speak Mandarin for quite some time now and was recently caught with
a copy of The Governance of China on his desk, a book penned by Chinese
President Xi Jinping. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s an accident.
Any kind of initiative to actually win China around to
re-adopting Western social media is likely to remain fairly cloak-and-dagger
for the foreseeable future, but don’t be surprised if more little rumblings
about Twitter and Facebook’s Eastern machinations continue to surface from time
to time.
Callum Davies
Callum is a film school graduate who is now making a name for himself as a journalist and content writer. His vices include flat whites and 90s hip-hop. Follow him @CallumAtSMF
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Twitter Open an Office in Hong Kong
Reviewed by Unknown
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Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
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Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Rating:
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