Turning and facing the change

Fleurot says he has been impressed by the relentless drive to grow he has seen at many Chinese companies and by the use of social media in the country.

According to Catherine Cao, general manager of MSLGROUP China, social media has a high penetration rate in China compared with many other parts of the world and users talk more about problems on it.

"The background of the macro social media environment in China is very different from Western countries," she says. "Chinese Web users talk more about social problems on social media. Social media is a good platform for the Chinese general public to discuss, to illustrate opinion about social problems."

Marketing managers should be prepared for this use of social media if they are doing business in China, according to Fleurot. "They have to know what exactly happens in the company and be well informed and aware if they are launching a new product," he says. "Otherwise when they start seeing tweets and conversations about the product they won't be in a very good position to answer."

To be truly prepared requires training, he adds. He recalls one instance when a company got the social media site YouTube to remove a video uploaded by an non-governmental organization only to see it reposted elsewhere and become widely downloaded as a result of the initial attempt to stop it circulating.

"It was a very wrong decision," he says. "Immediately the NGO put it on their website and then it became known on the Web. So because the company wanted to ban the video, more people wanted to see it. You need to be trained about this new behavior online.

"Online you don't try to ban something. It doesn't work because things will easily appear somewhere else, so you need to honestly engage with people in the conversation. You could say that you don't have the information right now, instead of giving a false response, which could be worse. You need to train these people, to make sure they have enough information, know the engagement rules online and be as transparent as possible."

Fleurot adds that in this fast-changing world, it's hard to predict what new communication platforms will arise. "But we know there will be new platforms for sure," he says.