The strategy of Chinese influence: a sprawling network that now wants to impose itself on the rest of the world
This report indicates, for example, that 2 million Chinese citizens would be paid full-time to relay Beijing’s propaganda and 20 million would act part-time, on demand, in particular to participate in astroturfing actions.

The exercise consists of occupying the networks and flooding them with pro-Beijing messages while giving the illusion of spontaneous support or authentic popular denunciation to denounce speeches hostile to the regime.

A WeChat storefront is therefore more comparable to an e-commerce site; he’s online, but he needs a lot of marketing before consumers come across him. People may discover Wechat blinds by scanning a QR code at a physical point of sale. Loyalty Despite the difficulties encountered in generating traffic, WeChat showcases are very attractive for a wide range of loyalty.

Many of these service-oriented features are enhanced by so-called “mini-programs,” which are essentially simplified versions of native applications that run in an application such as WeChat. As a report (Gartner L2) indicates, the increase in the adoption of WeChat stores is linked to the increased use of mini-programs by luxury brands. In total, 69% of the luxury brands in the sample have at least one mini program. The adoption rate among fashion-oriented luxury brands increased from 40% in 2018 to 70% in 2019, while the watch and jewelry category increased from 36% to 62% over the same period.

Swiss SMEs mainly export watches, precision instruments, chemicals and pharmaceuticals and machine tools in China. In these sectors, it is very useful and even essential to cooperate with a trusted partner in China. But how to find the right interlocutors in B2B? One of the ways is digital marketing. But beware, digital marketing works differently in China: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google are not accessible in China. The Chinese have developed their own digital tools: WeChat and Baidu, platforms that Swiss exporters must know.

Let’s focus on Baidu first. The company, founded in 2000, has developed a search engine that holds the largest share of the Chinese market. This tool was designed in China for the Chinese market, it is classified as such in the ranking of websites.

2. Baidu requires skill
In the search results, Baidu favors, on the one hand, the Internet pages of the .cn top-level domain, and, on the other hand, the websites hosted in China. For Swiss SMEs, this means that they have to configure their website to optimize it for the search engine. In addition to these technical considerations, companies must ensure that all site content is entered in simplified Chinese characters. And for the site to be successful on Baidu, the content must be carefully selected. The government has indeed established a blacklist of words and if these banned words appear on a website, the site simply no longer appears on Baidu.

Optimization for the search engine is therefore crucial, but so is marketing. Baidu offers its own pay-per-click service. Its features let you increase the visibility of your ads and build brand awareness among your audience. And it’s worth it because China, with its population of 1.3 billion and its 700 million Internet users, has enormous potential.

3. WeChat: a welcome support
WeChat is also an application that counts a lot in China. Appeared in 2011, the software has become a super-app. It is a platform that brings together over 700 million users worldwide and is about to change the business world in China. WeChat offers businesses three important functions: e-commerce, brand communication and customer service. In the B2B sector, brand communication and customer service via WeChat are particularly attractive for Swiss companies: they can strengthen their brand, take advantage of sales support measures, generate leads and track customer relationships through after sales services. Businesses need to determine how to create interfaces between WeChat and their customer relationship management system to integrate customer experience and customer information.

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