Social pan-entertainment going overseas is already the main force of the Internet going overseas. Follow [Rongyun Global Internet Communication Cloud] to learn more
Many domestic Internet giants regard social pan-entertainment as a key layout track in overseas markets. From the more traditional audio and video, short video social networking, to the gradual live broadcasting and Metaverse social networking, the social pan-entertainment layout has become more and more abundant and complete.
According to Frost & Sullivan forecast data, by 2024, the overall size of the global social media market will reach 300 billion US dollars, of which the audio and video social market size will be 181.3 billion US dollars. On the one hand, no matter which market in the world you are in, the social need to communicate and connect with each other is the underlying need of human nature. Sufficient mobile Internet social needs mean sufficient user volume. On the other hand, the domestic social product market is gradually saturated or even crowded, and "going overseas" has become an inevitable choice for social entrepreneurs.
At present, there are many excellent Chinese social pan-entertainment overseas products distributed in overseas markets, such as TikTok, which has become one of the world's top short video social media and has more than 1 billion monthly active users worldwide; it has considerable activity in the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia. User growth, Bigo Live, which shines in the overseas live broadcast social field; and WePlay, which has unique competitiveness in the overseas game social field, and its ability to attract money is second only to TikTok and Bigo.
While the pan-entertainment overseas market is promising, a large number of domestic social networking companies seeking growth in emerging markets seem to be facing the same key issue: how to quickly and thoroughly realize the localization of overseas social networking products.
In fact, the so-called "localization dilemma of social networking" can be analyzed in a multi-level way—including not only the localization of social culture, but also the localization of technical means and compliance. What are the localization challenges faced by social pan-entertainment going overseas in different overseas markets? How should the social networking team effectively complete the "last mile" and solve these difficult localization problems?
01. Ten years of social pan-entertainment overseas
The past ten years have been an era of development and rapid growth of China's mobile Internet going overseas from scratch.
After the millennium, the most lively tools and early games went to sea, and they became heroic first-generation explorers in the torrent of the times. The time has entered 2013-2014, and the Internet has ushered in the spark of social pan-entertainment going overseas. Since then, social networking in a broad sense has expanded from “new tools” and mobile games with community and platform attributes, to 1v1 social networking, audio, live broadcast, short video, chat room and other audio and video social networking, and even Metaverse, Community and other social networking new ways to go overseas.
With the domestic Internet growth peaking, the Internet penetration rate in overseas markets such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa and other local markets has gradually increased. According to data, the Internet in Southeast Asia has reached 75.6%, the Internet in North Africa has reached 65.9%, the Internet in West Asia has reached 75.3%, and the Internet in China and the United States has reached 74.9%.
Pan-entertainment overseas companies are trying to capture emerging markets, especially the Middle East and Southeast Asia, which have become the focus of many social networking companies.
Take the Middle East market, which has attracted much attention from social networking, as an example. At present, the Middle East is facing a rare period of opportunity. From 2020 to 2021, the growth rate of entertainment applications in the Middle East will reach 387%, even surpassing the fast-growing Southeast Asia by 215%, ranking first in the world. Due to the opportunities of the times for strategic cooperation among countries, Middle Eastern countries have a more friendly attitude towards Chinese brands, products and enterprises.
An overview of Middle East market policies. Source: "Map of Battle at Sea"
Six Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain are considered to be the "six Gulf countries" with the greatest potential to go overseas, and their fast-growing markets have attracted intensive attention from Chinese social networking products. There are already many audio social networking applications in the chat room mode, and a local overseas team has been established in the Middle East.
According to the market research conducted by Rongyun, a global Internet communication cloud service provider, the overseas Middle East team will make full use of the advantages of localization by using the "linkage potential of Gulf countries". For example, Egypt has a high-quality labor force and controllable costs, so an operation center was established in the country; and because Morocco has more anchor resources, many social networking teams will choose to build content output centers in Morocco.
The popularity of the social networking market in the Middle East is just a microcosm of the domestic social pan-entertainment wave. In fact, due to geographical advantages and cultural sympathy, there are more social overseas teams who choose to "test the water" in Southeast Asia, or carry out blue ocean development in the vast North African and South African markets.
In Rongyun's "Going to Sea Combat Map", you can see the systematic information of these key areas and tracks for going to sea, and the actual combat methodology from 0 to 1. This map was recently released at the "WICC Pan-Entertainment Carnival" in Guangzhou, which aroused heated discussions. Currently, the first batch of maps is out of stock.
Dong Han, CEO of Rongyun released the "Map of Battle at Sea" at the carnival
02. How difficult is it to win the "last mile"?
Emerging markets have become the focus of competition for social networking, and the overall trend of social pan-entertainment going overseas is in full swing. However, in the face of different overseas markets, Chinese overseas companies will always face the same problem: the so-called "last mile", that is, it is difficult to achieve localization in the true sense of the sea.
"Early overseas entrepreneurs paid a lot of tuition fees because the overall overseas service ecosystem was not perfect." A person in charge of an overseas service provider told Xiaguang News Agency.
"Our overseas entrepreneurs think that they can make money simply by 'copying domestic', but this is not the case." The pan-entertainment overseas companies that have really grown and excelled often have a relatively higher degree of localization, and teams that are not familiar with overseas conditions often lead to products going overseas. "Unacclimatized".
The policy environment, Internet foundation, and special religious culture and compliance requirements of different countries are very different. Early social networking teams often face the problem of insufficient overseas and local information. When it comes to product design, non-local entrepreneurs are very difficult. It is difficult to overcome years of cognition of language and culture; and when it comes to the closed loop of product payment, it seems difficult for social entrepreneurs to adapt to the differences in local payment habits.
According to Rongyun's "Map of Going to Sea", the main challenges that companies going to sea may face generally include three categories: growth challenges, compliance challenges and localization challenges, and localization challenges are the core of them. In the localization challenge of pan-entertainment and social networking, overseas technical and operational issues, language and cultural and religious habits, differences in payment habits, etc., have become several major difficulties in the challenges.
The localization challenges faced by going overseas. Source: "Map of Battle at Sea"
In terms of overseas technical and operational issues, domestic technical personnel and management must go deep into the local area to understand the detailed problems in practical operations. An industry insider who is engaged in social software export in the Middle East told Xiaguang News Agency: They found in practical applications that the network environment and communication services in the Middle East are very different from those in China.
On the one hand, there are differences in the network environment, and the delay of the network will have a great impact on the user experience; on the other hand, the protocol connection network between different countries may not be the same.
"If you have deployed products in the Middle East, you will find that even if you see two countries that are very close to each other on the map, their protocol connection networks may not be able to communicate with each other." He said, "For example, Jordan is very close to Israel. , but they both block each other's network protocols."
In terms of language, culture and religious habits, it is an inevitable problem for overseas localization. For example, if the overseas team wants to achieve in-depth operations with local users, it must find a reliable and suitable local guild. At this time, it is particularly important to understand the local situation and master local resources. In the actual operation, we often encounter the problem of translation of minority languages and local minority languages.
In terms of payment compliance and differences in payment habits, since the payment systems in many emerging markets are very complex and there are various e-wallets with different user groups, it may be difficult for overseas companies to find reliable payment channels at the beginning. However, in mature European and American markets, the payment dilemma is different—"Many credit card channels in Europe and the United States are not open to our 1V1 business, and there have been cases of payment failures in the past."
In this way, the superposition of various localization problems has become a huge constraint factor for overseas companies, especially many start-up overseas teams. Once the critical outbreak period of going overseas is missed, it will bring more limitations in business expansion, and even cause serious damage or fatal blow to the product.
03. Overcome the localization dilemma and break through key difficulties
On the journey to win the "last mile" of going to sea, many overseas companies have accumulated successful experience in the past ten years. Among them, some are even practical methodologies that can be summarized and utilized.
For example, recruiting local employees must adapt to the local workplace culture and the general perception of employees, forming a circle to reach local payment channels and anchor resources, etc. Jack, the overseas person in charge of the overseas live broadcast business, told Xiaguang News Agency that the two most important points are "choosing the appropriate direction" and "learning to use tools".
In terms of choosing the direction of overseas social networking, many social practitioners believe that for start-ups and teams, 1V1 business has always been the best entry point: on the one hand, the operating cost is lower, and on the other hand, it is easier to achieve initial gains. guest. Everyone agreed that the social networking team should devote more energy to the polishing and upgrading of the product itself in order to strive for more users.
In fact, there are already many reliable and useful third-party services on the market. These mature and reliable overseas service providers have greatly lowered the threshold for start-up teams to go overseas.
For example, IM, RTC and other pan-entertainment products have basic communication needs for overseas expansion. Even large companies find it difficult to develop and test them all by themselves. For start-up teams, "relying on their own" is completely unrealistic. Introducing a mature service provider is obviously a better choice to get twice the result with half the effort.
At the beginning of this year, Beem, known as the combination of "WeChat" and "Enterprise WeChat" in the Arab world, was released at the Riyadh technology event LEAP, and it won the top 1 download list of Saudi App Store and the top 3 download list of Google Play. score. Behind it is that Rongyun is providing IM+RTC dual-core communication service support.
Saudi Arabia App Store & Google Play download list
Source: data.ai
As early as 2016, Rongyun accompanied customers to deploy overseas, served LiveMe, Opera, StarMaker, Castbox, Tiya and other overseas enterprises, and has rich and mature experience in pan-entertainment overseas. It is an effective "last mile" for enterprises to expand overseas. An important driving force for landing.
As the first communication cloud service provider to launch overseas data centers, Rongyun has gradually built a global communication network covering 233 countries and regions around the world, and iteratively upgrades with the deepening of services and customer needs. So far, its global communication network has been upgraded to V4 version, which is in line with the dynamic evolution of the global communication network at various levels such as access point allocation, link acceleration, and protocols, and provides a "last mile experience" for overseas business after entering the local market. Assure.
"According to the special circumstances of different markets, we will adopt different service providers, protocols and network distribution strategies, and rely on the improvement of the overall service system to upgrade the entire communication network." The person in charge of Rongyun Global Communication Network said.
Taking Southeast Asian countries as an example, after customers in Singapore adopted Rongyun services, local users reported that the overall connection speed has increased by about 30%, and the connection time of P99 (that is, 99% of users) has reached millisecond-level response. In emerging markets where low-end mobile phones are popular, Rongyun services can still guarantee stable performance. It is compatible with more than 3,000 mobile phones around the world, and the SDK crash rate is <0.01%, which is an exponential difference from the industry standard of 0.29% average crash rate of mobile applications.
If the real-time response and stable performance of the global communication network is the foundation of whether the building is strong or not, then a higher level of localized interactive experience is the design of the facade. It must be beautiful and practical and in line with the habits of local users. This is related to the product. The key to standing out.
In fact, when Xiaguangshe experienced Beem, it also discovered the subtle difference in experience between it and other similar products:
For example, when you encounter a weak network situation after receiving a push, Beem can also be opened smoothly, and the overall experience is coherent without getting stuck; for example, when reading a message, the interface will display "read" wherever you slide, and the status is more sensitive and delicate . These are details hidden in the depths, but they are also the embodiment and proof of product power.
For most social products for overseas markets, the detailed experience directly affects user retention, and the construction of a truly excellent product experience is by no means a "one-day effort." Many excellent domestic pan-entertainment and social networking products have to invest a lot of cost when they go overseas, and work hard to adapt to the local network environment and user needs to increase their competitiveness. At this time, in the battle to overcome the "last mile" localization difficulties, choosing reliable and excellent "comrades in arms" and finding the best solution for localization implementation can better solve the long-term crux of the "acclimatization" of products going to sea.
Focusing on the focus of localization, "Map of Battle Overseas" also summarizes some practical experiences and strategies in terms of track/category selection, target region adaptation, user growth, monetization model, localized operations, and multinational team management. Interested friends can get it through the poster below.
