On 4th February 2o1o, CIC and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide launched a monthly report on Chinese-language social media buzz related to Shanghai World Expo 2010.

The report, ExpoSay, tracked 128,854 Expo-related comments taken from 13,994 blogs, bulletin boards, news and social networking sites sites in the Chinese Internet space during December 2009……

Today, CIC released its latest white paper Making Sense of IWOM – “Topic Three: How Brands Can Participate in Online Communities.” This white paper is the final installment in a series of three white papers, including two earlier studies, “The Role of Internet Word of Mouth in Purchase Decision” and “How IWOM is generated and disseminated.”

Topic 3 looks to evaluate consumer online behavior and provide suggestions for how brands can participate in online communities based on these consumer preferences. Below are some top-line findings and highlights from the study……

On 22 October 2009, Edelman APAC launched the first ever quarterly Digital Brand Index (DBI) derived from Brandtology data. The DBI is the first research project to compare online conversation and digital engagement across eight markets (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia) in Asia Pacific. The study is based on 800,000 online mentions of 233 major technology brands, contained within 4,348 influential channels monitored between July and September 2009……

Microsoft officially launched Windows 7 operating system in China on October 23, 2009. This is a product that Microsoft really wants to make a big splash on the market and help the company stave off competition from Apple. So let’s do a quick check on consumers’ reaction and their feedback on the Internet.

This quick study contains search data from Baidu Index and online buzz from Chinese BBS/Blogs……

In the first topic (The Role of IWOM in Purchase Decisions) of CIC’s “Making sense of IWOM” white paper series, CIC suggested that the majority of consumers use IWOM to help them make purchase decisions about products and brands they plan on purchasing. What CIC did not do look at was if they found answers if they left, stuck around or if they posted comments about those products and answer other consumer questions about those brands and products.

To answer these questions, CIC today releases the second topic titled “How IWOM is generated and disseminated”……

CIC, the Shanghai-based Internet Word-of-Mouth (IWOM) research and consulting agency, releases a Chinese Internet trend watch report for the first half year of 2009.

First, CIC has been watching the expansion of Video Sharing. Secondly, let’s see how serious offline social issues and events have been discussed online. Lastly, CIC has also been seeing the emergence of better digital campaigns as brands start to realize the importance of having a strong Internet presence which they can use to effectively connect with their customers……

CR-Nielsen, the Nielsen’s joint venture in China and partner of ChinaRank, launched BuzzMetrics service in China on 11th August.

Nielsen has introduced its BuzzMetrics pioneering tool into China to help marketers passively observe unprompted consumer interactions and observations being made on a massive scale across the Internet.

Chinese language is the main barrier for oversea social media research & monitoring agencies to enter the China market in past few years. However, I received some evidences in early this year show that oversea vendors including Nielsen BuzzMetrics, TNS Cymfony, and Radian6 had begun to cover China region for multinational brands’ global solution……

CIC, leading Chinese Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) research and consulting agency, released a new IWOM whitepaper called “Making Sense of IWOM” – the Role of Internet Word of Mouth in Purchase Decisions on June 18th.

1. Do consumers pay attention to IWOM?
2. Why do consumers pay attention to IWOM?
3. How does IWOM influence consumers’ attitude towards brands?
4. How does IWOM affect purchase decisions?