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1.35 billion people live in China. That’s a lot of people - about 20 percent of the entire world’s population, in fact. And Built In LA’s February Startup of the Month, Kawo, wants to help you break into that populous, important market via social media.
Kawo, grown out of Shanghai social media and technology company Mailman Group, set up camp in LA to help companies here and all over the US leverage the immense power of China’s social media giants which include:
-Sina Weibo, a microblogging site (think of Twitter) with about 500 million registered users
-Tencent QQ Weibo, a chat and video messaging platform with about 540 million registered users
-WeChat, a mobile messaging app with over 350 million registered users
Because Facebook and Twitter are outlawed in China, Kawo will take the existing Tweets and Facebook posts of a company, then adapt and publish the content to Chinese social media.
Built In LA caught up with founder Andrew Collins to hear how he deals with companies that are weary of breaking into the Chinese market, but that need to do it in order to have a true interntional presence:
How did you realize there was a need for Kawo in the global market?
We’ve noticed again and again how brands who are successful all over the world fail in China because they don’t understand the cultural and digital landscape here. China's market historically has only been open to large multi-nationals with enough time and budget to develop on-the-ground teams or hire expensive agencies, and even social media is tricky because the channels used in most other countries are all blocked here and there are just too many local social networks to know where to start. Furthermore, the many cultural differences make it difficult for you to know what you can or can’t say. One only has to look at Jimmy Kimmel's China fiasco to understand how easy it is for an off the cuff comment to damage your reputation.
What was the hardest part of the legwork leading up to your June launch last year?
Our mission is to open up China to the world, with a simple, yet sophisticated technology that makes marketing to China easy so that every brand, individual or other with an interest in China is empowered to speak Chinese and develop cross border opportunities.
Though KAWO is very easy to use, it belies not only the complexity, but also amount of time and energy that went into the actual creation of the platform. Additionally, though brands are more and more realizing the importance of the China market, brands often see China as too difficult to approach. A big part of talking with potential clients involves a degree of educating the market on the environment and best practices so they feel more comfortable and start to realize why China is a must.
What are the biggest hurdles that you have run into over the first few months?
Brands that already had some experience in China were really excited to work with us, but in the beginning, a lot of brands who hadn't were sometimes hesitant. Given how big China's economy has gotten, we couldn't understand why. We finally realized that it was a basic matter of educating the market and creating a level of trust. Since Mailman Group is based in China, we see very clearly how quickly technology and business are developing here, not only nationally, but on an international level as well. So for us, China is a must, not a maybe for any brand looking to expand. But international brands who aren't on the ground generally only have an idea that China has opportunities, but they need to be walked through why and how before they understand what we do and feel comfortable sticking a toe in the China water.
What sort of traction has Kawo seen?
We've been fortunate enough to see some amazing results. With over a dozen clients across a few key verticals, including sports, tourism, entertainment and education, we've translated over 5,000 posts on the KAWO platform and over 7 million Chinese Internet users tracked by KAWO.
What is Kawo’s team culture like?
Our team is very international, with members from five different countries, so we have quite a lively office. Despite different backgrounds, everyone is extremely dedicated, often working 24/7 to make sure there are no tech bugs or client issues. Our tech guys even created a cell phone alert to make sure we are notified (even if it's 2 a.m.) if something goes wrong with our platform. Regular meetings and constant communication ensure that we are all on the same page despite our different areas of focus.
Where do you see Kawo heading in 2014?
We're excited to continue charging ahead with disrupting the traditional model for brands entering China. As time passes, we're looking to not only expand our fan and customer analytics further, but also develop KAWO as a management tool to empower agencies to do more with less people.
