Today we announced expansion of our social listening capabilities in China through a partnership with CIC. The full announcement is here.

The social media conversation is increasingly global.   And we at Converseon continue to expand our social listening so that brands can understand these conversations across regions and languages.   One of the most dynamic regions is China.

CIC is based in shanghai, independent, and is a leader in social listening in china, which is a very complex market with tremendous potential. For example:

• There are more people online in China than the entire population of the United States (420 million)….with room to grow. China’s population is 1.2 billion.
• While Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are all blocked in China, local equivalents exist in China for every online ““““social medium. These are more than just copies. In fact, they have localized and transformed social business. For example, Taobao (the ‘ebay’ killer) launched a ‘group purchase’ flash sale recently that sold 205 Mercedes Smart cars in 3.5 hours.
• There are almost as many people on social network sites in China (210 million on Facebook equivalents) as total people online in the US (220 million).
• Chinese netizens are creating 2x the volume of original online content per person, according to Forrester.

CIC is independent, like us, and they share a similar vision, methodology, etc.  In addition, we have enjoyed a successful working relationship to date.  This announcement builds on that relationship to bring their social listening into our global Conversation Mining solution, while CIC can now offer our consulting and multi-language solutions to their clients.

We look forward to growing and evolving our partnership as brands continue to evolve from basic monitoring to deeper global understanding of online conversations.