As companies seek to expand their global advertising reach online, it’s impossible to ignore China. Despite the number of restrictions associated with advertising in China, the size of the potential audience is enticing. Unfortunately, China places restrictions on the flow of information into and within its borders, a fact which may discourage many companies from investing the time and money to understand the habits and interests of this tremendous market.

When expanding your company’s advertising reach abroad, the first thing to understand is the online habits of a particular culture or region. While it may seem obvious to some, it is easy to overlook what may work in another country simply because it does not work in the U.S. (e.g. while banner ads are not as successful in the U.S., they do perform better abroad). These differences are further highlighted in China, where the culture, freedom, and even written language differ so greatly from our own. The following tips will help you plan your online venture in China:

Clicks Trump Type
Take the Chinese text, for example. The complication of typing Chinese characters has resulted in greater popularity of web pages that require less typing and integrate more clickable content. If your company’s site requires a larger amount of typing to navigate, you might consider clickable images.

Baidu Reigns Supreme
Familiar with Google and all that is necessary to promote your company through the all-powerful U.S. engine?  Become acquainted with Baidu, China’s top search engine. It commands over 75% of the market share to Google’s almost 20%. While Baidu does have many similarities to Google, it is a completely different search engine that warrants your attention if China is on your radar.

Learn to Sina Weibo…Not Tweet
With the great deal of control the government has over the citizens of China, one might expect that social media is non-existent. Common U.S. platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, are almost completely unused, yet social media is still very prevalent. One social site, Sina Weibo, is very similar to Twitter. Sina Weibo’s top 100 participants have a combined 198.2 million+ followers, a stale number, which may have exceeded Twitter’s top 100 participants at this time.

A company must ask itself if the lure of the large Chinese market is worth hurdling the obstacles of restrictions and an unknown culture. With some research, some flexibility, and a willingness to adapt to a very different set of cultural rules, one might find China a worthwhile investment. Remember, there are 513 million internet users in China. This equals the number of people living in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Italy combined, so it may just be worth it for you.

Yesterday Google announced “Search, Plus Your World,” a significant change to its search results that will put more emphasis on content within its social network, Google+. The new feature will allow Google robots to crawl data within Google+, and include this information along with public internet data when displaying search results.

The new Google “Personal Results” link delivers information relevant to searchers based on their search behavior, as well as their social connections. This means that two searchers will see different results for the same query. Regular, nonsocial search results will now be presented to users as “Other results.”

In a recent article by Search Engine Land, Googler Amit Singhal states, “The social search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.” Only users logged in to Google will receive personal results, though each user has the capability to remove social content from their search results by disabling the option.

In October Google announced an increased privacy setting for Google account users that created nervous anticipation among many SEOers. In order to further protect the privacy of Google users signed into their accounts, Google added a default setting that makes browsing done while logged in occur from an encrypted SSL (https://google.com). This privacy update blocks Analytics from providing some search data. If the user is logged in, queries/keywords resulting in a click will be classified as “not provided” in reports. Data from logged in users who select pay-per-click (PPC) ads will still appear in Analytics.

Over the last several years companies have realized the importance of making their brands social, but many are still wondering how to encourage audiences to interact with their brands through social media outlets.  Public relations agency Weber Shandwick, in partnership with Forbes Insights, recently released a survey that discusses how to make your brand sociable. The results of the survey demonstrate multiple useful methods companies can implement to build their brand sociability.

One result of the survey states, “Global brand executives attribute 52% of their brand’s reputation to how social it is today and it is expected to grow to 65% in 3 years.” In managing your company’s social media, it is important to realize that having a major presence in the social arena is vital to your brand’s reputation. Consumers enjoy the opportunity to interact with your brand and appreciate knowing that their voices are being heard. As you listen to what your users have to say, you can improve your social media campaigns by determining what pleases your customers most and then catering to their interests.

The survey also says that most global executives say their “brand’s sociability is not yet world class.” In developing your company’s social presence, always remember why you are operating in that particular space. You are there to develop a relationship and open communication channels between you and your current and potential customers. Make your social presence personal by responding to customer comments and keeping the voice of your posts real, human and conversational.  Show that you genuinely care about your customers’ opinions and thoughts by engaging and interacting with them in a timely manner.

With the trends we have seen, it seems that sociability of your brand will continue to play a significant role in marketing.  Having a strong social presence for your company will help develop powerful relationships with your customers and make it easier to understand and deliver on what they desire. For more on the survey created by Weber Shandwick and Forbes Insights go to: http://mashable.com/2011/10/12/brand-sociability-infographic/

The Google pay-per-click (PPC) advertising model as we know it is changing. Google has started working on a number of new ad models that are designed to offer inventive ways for advertisers to connect with Google users. The three new ad models aim to make it easier and more effective for businesses to communicate with potential customers.  All three models are currently in a limited release stage, but will debut for a wider audience soon. Watch more about the ads here and read on for a brief overview of the new models.

Comparison Ad
The AdWords Comparison Ads model lets users easily compare multiple relevant offers at once.  For businesses, it provides a new, sophisticated cost-per-lead format that is designed to deliver higher quality leads by allowing users to sort and compare a variety of offers. Mortgage loan and credit card industries in certain countries are the only sectors currently involved, but more viewers and advertisers will gain access as the program is developed.

Product Listing Ad
The new Product Listing Ads are search ads that include product and merchant information without needing extra keywords or ad text, allowing businesses to easily promote their entire product line.  Items relevant to the user’s search will be shown along with price, image and name, all pulled from the associated Google Merchant Center account. The fee will be on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis, which requires payment only when a user clicks on an ad and completes a purchase and involves a much lower risk than PPC payment options. Watch more here.

Media Ad
Finally, Media Ads are a truly unique way for a business to target and pay for video ads on Google. Targeting is entirely automated, eliminating the need to select keywords. Google’s algorithms determine when to display the ad when someone starts a search, at which point they will automatically display the most relevant Media Ad at the top of the page. When clicked on, the ad will expand and the rest of the screen will dim, ensuring the user’s full attention is on the video. Bidding is not required as payment is based on a flat rate, simplifying the budgeting process for businesses.

As owner of 65% of the U.S. search market, Google has the ability to change the search engine marketing space with each update it makes; on average, the engine implements 500 potentially game-changing modifications to its search algorithm per year. However, the search giant’s tendency to not disclose the details of its updates and, thus, the potential for bias and violation of antitrust law, has resulted in an investigation into its search technology by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

In an effort to increase its transparency, Google published details of 10 of its most recent updates on its corporate blog. Still, Google Engineer Matt Cutts reminds readers that the brief snippets are merely a glimpse into the hundreds of updates that modify the Google search environment. The changes revealed in the post were specifically chosen because it is unlikely that marketers or website owners will use the details to “game” the system and use black hat techniques to gain higher search rankings.

Some of these most recent updates, however, deserve more attention than a brief snapshot behind the scenes of Google development processes. For example, Google’s October decision to encrypt all searches made by logged in Google users has been estimated to have an average impact on 10% of search traffic. This update comes on top of a recent addition to the 2010 Caffeine indexing system that is estimated to impact 35% of search by prioritizing more recent content. These two instances are a strong example of the power Google wields to create change in the organic search space. Take into consideration that Google will be placing increasing importance on the content of website and landing pages as opposed to the header or menu text, and search engine marketers could be looking at a future rife with significant strategy overhauls.