1. China breaks the World’s record for online purchases in 1 day
China managed to successfully monetize yet another holiday, Singles Day, last Sunday November 11th or 11/11 – allegedly the loneliest day in the year.
Alibaba (which oversees both e-commerce giants Taobao and Tmall) spotted the opportunity in the equation loneliness + free time and launched an incredibile 24-hour 50% off offer.
The result? 213 million loners spending a record-breaking $3.1 billion on online purchases!
Fun Fact: Singles Day is a holiday completely made up by Chinese students in the 1990s.
2. eBay is back in the game…with Style
On the topic of e-Commerce, US online auction site returns to China. After leaving the market 5 years ago, eBay has partnered with local online fashion and luxury retailer Xiu.com and relaunched under a new vest: ebay.xiu.com.
With an advertising campaign rumored around $8 million and targeting social media and high-end fashion magazines, there is no doubt we’ll hear about this more in the coming months.
Oh, they also have an app. If you consider China has over 400 million web mobile users, that’s probably not a bad call. Read more about it here.
3. The NBA All-Star Game opens ballot to Chinese Social Media
Oh, what great things can be done when you put together sports and social media! Chinese NBA fans will now be able to cast their vote on Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ to choose which players they’d like to appear in the 2013 All-Star Game, taking place in Huston in February.
The NBA has recently demonstrated it’s interest in China with other marketing efforts, as we’ve seen before.
4. China’s newly elected leaders take a step towards Social Media
The Chinese elections are finally over: Xi Jingping will succeed Hu Jintao as new party chief and is likely to become the country’s president a few months from now. Unlike five years ago, the party cadres seem to have taken a step forward towards the Internet, with a number of them opening up Sina Weibo accounts.
Weibo users are surely fervent commentators when it comes to politics. The new leader even got his very own hashtag just for showing up an hour late at the public announcement of his election on Thursday.
And.. that’s all for this week!
Stay tuned for next Friday’s social media wrap up.
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