In January, WeChat began showing ads in its news feeds with only 3 advertisers, BMW, Coca-Cola and phone company Vivo, being given the chance to get in front of users. Brands wanting to interact with users could only do so with an official brand account, with limitations on how often they could reach their “fans”- until now. Since launching in 2011, WeChat has positioned itself as China’s most popular instant messaging app and in a bid to grow its audience and provide a quality user experience, has until now stayed away from advertising. I’m afraid we’re sticking in China – and with a platform you’ve probably already heard of. Businesses targeting China need to look beyond Baidu, to Haosou and other growing engines such as Sogou, to ensure they aren’t missing on a sizeable slice of the Chinese online pie. The re-branded Haosou has been developed with mobile very much in mind and is expected to improve performance in the increasingly important mobile area.īaidu still holds the search crown in China but is nowhere near as dominant as it used to be. Latest stats put it at a very healthy 30% for desktop search however its mobile share was less significant at around 2%. Qihoo 360 took the world by surprise in 2013, when it managed to win around 10% of Chinese search market share almost overnight and it has been steadily making ground on Baidu ever since. Chinese internet company Qihoo 360 announced the release of Haosou – which means good search – as a replacement for its existing option, so.com. This is not technically a new search engine, but it is a relaunch of an existing one. To that end, here is a round-up of a few changes and new kids on the block you may not have heard of, but might be ones to watch in 2015.

Yet if you are targeting international markets, keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s happening can ensure you’re investing your valuable budget in the right places, open up new opportunities, give you an edge over the competition – and help you to stay relevant to the audience you’re working so hard to reach. In the ever changing and ever busier world of digital marketing, it’s almost impossible to keep up-to-date with the latest developments and changes – even just in one market, never mind in ten or twenty.

Coccoc search