China has a very lucrative and booming market. Global businesses only strive in the fierce competition if they can control their expenses. If you want to start your business in China, then it will be a rational decision to hire local employees. The benefit of hiring the local employees is that the local employee will be more productive for your business, as they know all the dynamics of the Chinese market.

                                                Let’s have a look at how to hire a local employee in China

Knowing the Rules and Regulation to Hire Employee 

The Employment Contract Law is very important in China. It is related to employer and employee relationships. This is applied to expats and local Chinese employees. Moreover, this law is being used in Chinese companies and even in Foreign-owned enterprises. This law is made to maintain a healthy relationship between the company and employees and to protect the rights of the employers. This rule needs to be considered while hiring a local employee in China.

Direct Employment

For hiring a local employee, direct employment is done through foreign investment enterprises or they recruit through professional regulation commission without hiring any service company. Foreign investment enterprises need to sign an individual labor contract with each employee.

Hiring through Labor Service Companies

The hiring that is done through the professional regulation commission is arranged by government-designated labor service companies. The representative of the foreign company signs the contract with the service company, and the service company will ask the professional regulation commission to get employees to work for the office. The representative company has a contractual relationship with the service company and not with the professional regulation commission. They may sign the supplementary contract with the foreign company and the PRC employee to adjust vacations, salary amount, confidentiality, competition clauses, and many more.

Contract of Employment 

All the employees in China need to sign employment contracts with their companies. Limited companies can sign employment contracts directly with the employees and the Representative Office (RO) can hire local employees through licensed HR agencies by talent dispatching services and employee leasing. The licensed HR is also responsible for employee Payroll, individual income tax, and other mandatory benefits as per the local policies. There is no standard format for the form. These points should be included in the agreement.

• Job description, job title, and location of the work.
• Date of joining, Term of contract, and probation period.
• Employer and employee address, official identification, and signatures.
• Working conditions and labor security
• Compensation and benefits, insurance information
• Rules regarding termination
• Break of contract requirements and disciplinary rules.
• Other requirements like a non-disclosure agreement, training bond, and non-compete agreement.

Type of Employment

Potential people can be hired on a permanent and temporary basis. Temporary employment is on a contractual basis or on a task-basis. Permanent employment is on fixed terms.

• If the employment contract is 3 months to 1 year, the probation period is up to1 a month.
• If the employment contract is of 1 year to 3 years, then the probation period is up to 2 months.
• If the employment contract has no fixed term, then the probation is up to 6 months.
• If the employment contract is of a fixed-term or it is less than 3 months, then there is no probation period.

Options for Hiring the Local Employee in China

Every employer looks for the most practical option to find top talent. Employers look for a more online and offline option. Some online and offline options include

• WeChat – The social networking site caters to multi-cultural areas, and local job openings are listed there.
• LinkedIn – It is used by many global companies to find a qualified candidate. It is very famous in China because Facebook and google are restricted there. Its usage has tremendously increased in China for over a couple of years.
• Region-based websites –Many areas in China have their websites for jobs like Guangzhou Stuff and Shenzhen Party. These sites offer job listings, networking, and hiring options.
• Job Fairs and Career Events – In job fairs and career events, companies can easily find students that have recently graduated
• Professional Recruitment Agencies – They are the experts that use different strategies to hire the best candidate for the job position.
• Job boards – Job positions are listed on these boards.

How to Attract Local Employees in China

There are different seasons in China when people want or don’t want to switch jobs. The best time for job switchers is from April to May. That is the period when people have got their annual bonuses that usually occurs in March-April time.

The worst time to look for local employees is from December to February. That is the time before the bonus. People will not want to lose the bonus. If you can’t wait till May, then you need to provide a  compensation package. To attract the right talent, you can give the following facilities

• Good bonus system
• Attractive salary package
• Incentives
• Additional benefits like annual leaves, allowances, insurance plan, training, and development plans
• Succession planning
• Attractive growth opportunities

For an attractive compensation package, you need to analyze the average market salary according to the role for which you are hiring, consider the city for which you are recruiting and the current salary package of the employee. The candidate will opt for your company if you offer more salary than his previous salary.

Training and Development

Many training and development programs are playing a significant role in attracting employees. People are more interested if companies send them for training abroad. It is value-added for the designation from junior to mid-level positions. China also offers external training programs both in Chinese and English language. Potential candidates can be attracted to your company if you work for their training and development.

Incentives

Companies ranking and reputation also plays an important role. Many companies give incentives to their star employees like a bonus, foreign trips, and gifts besides their earned salary. People like to get a job in such companies.

Wrapping Up

If you want to hire a local candidate, then you need to approach them in their native language. Your company’s mission and vision and all your HR strategies and policies should be in the Chinese language. That’s where Chinese Translation Services can help. It can provide you with impeccable translation services in a fast turnaround time. Contact us and get a free quote now!

In old times, letters and the cyber net was how people interacted with each other. Public chat rooms filled with advertisement pop-ups and chat messengers like Yahoo and Msn were the best things back in the late ’90s. Now, in 2020, the time has changed, you write an email instead of letters or a quick text on iMessage or WhatsApp, connect with people all over the world in a matter of seconds only!

Social media is a new and effective way to conduct marketing activities.  To survive the competition, every business must indulge in social media platforms.

Did you know: Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are banned in China?

Social media platform across borders does not resonate the way it does in the home country. China has a progressive market, creative enough to come with new ideas for social networking.

As a brand, if you are looking to become a success, then using the local social media platforms is your best chance to do it.

Guideline for Social Media use in China

There are around 673.5 million social media users in China only. This makes China the world’s largest social media market and every day the number increases. People are more actively keen on sharing product reviews, suggestions, and influencing one another.  Since the translation game has notched up, brands are focusing on Chinese translation services to partner up so that they can enter China’s local and online markets with ease.

The social media landscape in China is unique and constantly evolving.  Here is the list of top 7 social media platforms that are extensively used for marketing in China.

The Super App – WeChat

What started as an instant messaging app in college, it improvised into an ecosystem of making transactions, ordering food, booking movie tickets, promoting ads, and whatnot.  On average, 68 million videos are uploaded every day which means it’s a tough competition with Snapchat and YouTube. It’s not just a Chinese Facebook it is the strongest means of advertising and brand promotion.

Make an official account and publish the content, news, or even information about your product or service. This will lead to more sales. Making an official account on WeChat will lead to an increase in customer user engagement and convert the prospects into buyers.

Advertising on WeChat includes coolest features like:

• Moment ads are the news feeds but expensive
• Banner ads target the articles
• HTML5 campaigns such as games, quizzes and more
• Location-based marketing enables brands to target nearby customers and so on.

Weibo

With active users around 446 million (and counting) Weibo is the Chinese Twitter (it has character limitations). It’s a microblogging platform established in 2009 and one of the popular sites in China.

After WeChat, it is the second most popular social media platform in China and effective for social media marketing. You can upload videos, images, and gifs, like and share the posts without the need to follow any other account.

According to the business survey, it is most popular in use among young white-collar workers and the urban online population. Users are intrigued by information, sharing, and the opportunity to engage with other users is drastically high.  The reason why Weibo is a successful counterpart for a brand is that;

• It’s a blogging site and a large source of international content
• Chinese celebrities, powerhouses, and organizations use their Weibo accounts to interact with their followers
• You can boost customer engagement with KOL promoting your brand and so on
• It’s a good tool of communication to interact with customers

Tencent QQ

It’s a popular instant messaging app similar to WeChat and is used for multiple services like games, music, shopping, microblogging, etc.

The white-collar audience uses its desktop version and the reason s that you don’t require a phone number to register! Before launching of WeChat, Tencent was the primary tool of communication where each user is allotted a unique numerical ID for their accounts.

A brand can open a business account known as QZone. You can opt for paid marketing programs, pay the Tencent, and get content and publish it in different categories of QQ. For instance, advertisements can be published on QZone games, pop-up windows, and banners.

Despite its popularity, it’s not the best choice for advertising luxury products.

Tencent Video

Online video marketing is a highly competitive tool to drive sales. In China, Tencent Video is one of three major players for online video marketing; IQiYi and Youku are other competitors.

With an estimated, 500 million mobile active users and 63 million subscribers it has Tencent Video has taken over its competitors.

Its penetration rate skyrocketed to 48%, while Yoku remained low with 30.8%. The striking difference is due to the active users and how much companies are promoting their brands on it.

It focuses to develop original content and support original programs for various brands and other services. It was one of the eight Chinese apps to catch the largest revenue with the App Store and Google Play Store.

Baidu

Besides Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube there is no Google in China. It sounds utterly shocking but it is true. Like every other major creativity, Baidu had replaced Google. It is the largest communication platform in china and the largest search engine company too.

This forum covers all topics you can ever imagine including social media.  Established in 2003, it has now 1 billion registered users. That’s a pretty large number in a short amount of time.  Users can create a forum by entering a query in the search bar. Even if that forum or query didn’t exist before, it sure will now after you hit the “search” icon.

One unique perspective of Baidu is that it an AD-FREE ZONE. This means a brand has to make posting as informative as possible to not get kicked out. To target the audience, social media marketers in China utilize it for an organic sharing experience with online users.

Zhihu

Many businesses target their niche audience by answering the question on a specific platform. Zhihu is the Chinese version of Quora and highly engages the user with compelling information.

Users often include charts, statistics other media tools as part of the answers to make the information highly progressive, to improve the quality of answers, and to resolve the queries. Posts on Quora sometimes are in excessive detail, similar in fashion, Zhihu also allows to post over 5k words!

Answering tips are the most popular means to attract the user by sharing detailed information and how to make better use for the product and service. One of the popular features is that a user can open their Column and contribute essays. Readers can also voluntarily tip the authors and a user can go LIVE to deliver lectures or share constructive information. It’s a competitive forum to create brand awareness.

Douban

It’s a social networking platform with 300 million active users who are al to express their lifestyle and tips. Users often discuss their favorite books, movies, music, and events and the discussion revolves around it.

The landscape format of Douban keeps shifting (upgrading) as the trend changes and quickly adapts the changes. That’s why it quickly became popular among the local audience. Moreover, users can also book tickets for movies, concerts, download e-books, and listen to podcasts through Douban.fm interface.

For advertising, the brand can rely on banner ads. Businesses can create a Brand Station, a separate page where they can post all about their products, brand story, history, logos, and whatnot.

Douban is perfect for the word of mouth marketing and is known to drive effective sales.

Final Thoughts

There are tons of social media forums available all over the world. China is not any competitor in developing local tools for social networking, Russia isn’t far behind either. You can choose the social media platform of your choice and healthily promote the brand. China is a difficult market to win but with the right strategy, it’s an overnight success.

Tik Tok, launched in September 2016, now has millions of users and followers. The app faced a lot of controversies but despite being heavily criticized by the authorities, it became a huge trendsetter for teenagers and adolescents. Similarly, PUBG Mobile, technically a subsidiary of a Korean game developer, Bluehole, was converted into a mobile version of the game.

What is common in Tik Tok and PUBG? Both were developed by Chinese developers.

We tend to believe that a particular app, just because it is being used in the USA or UK, must be developed in its respective region. However, that is not the case. Most apps are developed by one country with a target audience of an entirely different region. It is quite a common practice, and also one of the most popular ones these days.

China is the world’s leading tech market. It is the most internet usage driven country around the globe which attracts several tech giants to develop and launch apps for the Chinese market.

The Chinese market is tempting and open for all but not all companies were successful in the past. To make your app successful in China you need to consider cultural values along with Chinese Translation Services. Without it, you can’t have a successful app in China.  Even though China and the U.S are often on conflicting waters, many western developers can’t help but target audiences in China to reap rewards in the form of the best trending app.

A Step by Step Guide: Ways to Market Your App

Before you do anything, you need to learn about the Chinese market. To navigate your way to the monopolizing market you need to see a clear picture;

Start from the basics: know your audience

The basic methodology is to learn about the consumers, their mobile habits, apps currently in use, and other essential information.

On average, a Chinese mobile user installs 50 apps on their smartphones. 30 out of 50 apps are in active use. This usage trend can lead to your next app survey to observe which apps are currently tending or slowing dying away. For example, Chinese mobile users are fond of video streaming apps like Tencent Video and Youku.  Learn from the local apps to understand how the consumer behaves with the app updates and more.

Translation is effective

China is language-sensitive. This means the app you intend to develop must specifically be available in Chinese. It is impossible to sell an English app with no translation. A translated app can mean several things like:

• The company takes care of the audience
• Company is culturally sensitive
• They are ready for more exposure in the Chinese market and so on

The use of the Chinese language is the most effective strategy to make an app acceptable and successful. To initiate the right exposure with the audience as they are most comfortable in their native language. Not only the marketing material needs translation but features like the app’s name, description, and interface too must be translated.

Use of local promotions

China has the most downloads around the world, which means the Android store keeps track of the highest downloaded apps and highlights them under the category of “Most Trending”. But how can you make your app easy to search?

With thousands of downloads every hour, chine’s mobile market keeps growing. To make a way for your app you need to target following niches;

• Games
• Video streaming
• Online shopping
• Tech

This is vertical media. You can target any of this specific niche and contribute videos or articles to promote the product or service via your functional app and other platforms.

Some of the best Chinese app stores like Xiamoi, 360 have promotional activities known as New App Self-recommendation or Most Beautifully Apps. These are the in-store app campaigns you can target to get high visibility. Another strategic tactic is to promote your app via another app! Tik Tok is still highly engaging the audience all over the world. It makes it an ideal platform for the promotion to increase traffic volume and also costs way less as compared to traditional promotional activities.

Establish your credibility

There are two ways to make sure to establish your app credibility;

• Business license or  a Chinese ID or passport
• APK signature – some apps require to sign in for APK file

Moreover, the more followers you have, the more reviews you get.  Positive reviews will always work in your favor. Besides, you can gain a high volume of traffic by engaging the right SEO practice. By using appropriate native keywords you can rank higher on the Chinese Android stores.

Your star rating is also helpful to indicate your status in the viewers’ eyes. Once you get positive feedbacks and especially if it’s from one of the KOLs, your credibility score strengthens.

Use of alteration business models

Chinese audience is quite reluctant to pay for apps, they want to use apps that are free or least costly. So that’s one of the major reasons why free pirated app versions are quick to prop up on the independent app stores.

If you drive revenue through In-App-Purchases or Advertising, it is most effective in the gaming industry. Keeping eye on the trends is another way to go. The Chinese market has high tolerance over the web which means the apps function as active offline as they do online. Xiaohongshu, Douyin, or QQ are some popular examples that work this way.

Besides this practice, having leverage on social media is a creative way to generate traffic. Social networks pertain to their own set of apps. Although some popular channels like Facebook or Twitter are broken in China, WeChat and Weibo are the trendiest social networks to use.

China’s economy has taken rapid and exceptional transformation in three decades. It has emerged as the world’s largest global economy and trading partner. To be a part of the global business world, every entrepreneur wants to do business with China. You can take advantage of the growing opportunities in China if you tailor your business as per the market trends.

Let us have a look at how you can increase your sales in the Chinese market.

Understand the Chinese Market Trends

Knowing the culture and people of any country is not a piece of cake. Extensive research and competitor analysis are needed to develop your business strategy for tapping into new markets. When it comes to the execution of business strategies in any foreign market, you realize the significance of the cultural values of the country. The more you know about the target market’s values and trends, the better you can pitch your products and services to resonate with them.

Chinese customers are different from Western customers. Their values, way of thinking, way of living, and shopping preferences are different. Their demands and how they perceive products are also different. Thus, when you decide to sell your products in Chinese markets you need to be specific about marketing strategies such as price, promotion, place, and placement according to the regional culture.

Let’s take a quick look at some interesting Chinese shopping trends:

• Chinese people prefer to buy economical products.
• They have a great impact on their social circle so they give great importance to the word of mouth. Therefore, you need to care about the quality of your products.
• They also give great importance to their health and safety and spend lavishly on baby milk and food-related to the maternity industry.
• While resonating your product with the Chinese market you need to keep your Western identity as Chinese people value brand recognition.
• Expats in China know that a fixed mindset will not work in China. So they spend ample time in understanding the Chinese people’s mindset, their cultural preferences, and learn the Mandarin language to perform their business operations smoothly.

Adapt to Fast-Paced Market

China has a very fast-paced market. Planning of strategies and their implementation is done swiftly. China is evolving according to the latest trends and is investing heavily at a very fast pace. You can well understand the rapidness of the market by observing how Alibaba has established mobile payment service in every major shop across the country within just 6 months.

If you want to generate high sales in China, you need to keep the following points in mind:

• While doing business in China, you need to make decisions very fast. If you take time in making important decisions then you will lack behind and your competitors will win over you.
• Sales and marketing strategies should be devised and executed in a swift manner otherwise you will miss great sales opportunities.
• Flexibility and speed are required to do business in China.
• Some entrepreneurs go for perfectionism and in the pursuit of perfectionism, they take business decisions with delay. It is important to understand that there is nothing perfect in China’s market.
• Imperfections give you more opportunities. If you have required resources then do not waste your time and launch your product in China’s market.

Leverage the Power of Social Media

It is an era of digitalization. China has the largest number of internet users. To operate in China’s market successfully, you need to create a strong online appearance and engage your audience on popular social platforms.

In China, people are  using social media differently from the Western world. They are using mobile phones, WeChat, and Baidu, the search engine. Thus, global companies and brands need to be digital while operating in China because China is an advanced country with majority of people using different social platforms.

Furthermore, Chinese consumers are adopting new digital technologies keenly. These digital tools will help entrepreneurs in enhancing sales.

Resonate with your Target Audience

A few years back, the Western world used to think that starting a business in China is easy. They assumed that they just had to open a shop and be successful, but now the scenario is entirely different. It is very difficult for a western brand to start a business in China and compete with the local brands. Chinese brands are quite popular in local markets and are making international growth rapidly.

For example, Xiamoi is the famous smartphone market and it is considered equivalent to globally known brands for Chinese people. Other technology-based companies like Haier and Lenovo have a large market share in China and they are also showing their global presence. With the technology and economic development, Chinese consumers have become very knowledgeable and confident. They are very demanding and know their buying preferences very well. They want better quality at economical rates.

For generating sales in China, you need to understand consumer behavior and market trends and device your strategy accordingly. Connect with the local audience, associate your products with their needs and wants, and give them a reason to shop with you!

Follow a Practical Approach

China has such a large market that will surprise you at every step, no matter how prepared you are. Do not go for facts and figures, but see the ground realities. Know your consumers, suppliers, business partners, Chinese friends, and colleagues. Be practical and fast like Chinese people and implement your result-driven business strategy without making any delay. In this way, you will cope up with the fast Chinese market.

Wrapping Up

China’s business landscape has changed with the passage of time. Before entering the Chinese market, it is essential to gain knowledge about its culture and the latest business trends.

Adapt your business as per the target market’s preferences and communicate to the audience in their native language. For eliminating the communication barrier, we are providing fast, fluent, and reliable Chinese translation services. Get in touch to know more!