Restart life

Chapter 328, March 0325: [A Series of Positive Impacts from Going Public]

On the same day that Baidu's stock price reached its peak, Alibaba was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Two days later, Li Yanhong went to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to give a speech.

With Baidu's stock price soaring, even Google China can't compete with it, and Robin Li has recently started making frequent moves.

He traveled south from Beijing, passing through Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Hong Kong, conducting global recruitment roadshows at universities in these cities.

Baidu is about to expand aggressively!

Baidu's most important expansion direction aligns with the ideas of ByteDance executives: e-commerce.

In 2007 in China, everyone, regardless of their background, wanted to get involved in e-commerce.

This thing certainly has a very bright future, otherwise people wouldn't be flocking to it. But with so many companies entering the market at the same time, and companies like Taobao and JD.com having been deeply involved for many years, the competition is truly cutthroat.

Is the Pinduoduo model viable?

In terms of price and product content alone, Taobao is currently similar to Pinduoduo. However, in terms of algorithms and marketing models, it's fair to say that the conditions are not yet ripe.

Even if Huang Zheng himself traveled back in time to start Pinduoduo, he would still die.

At the recruitment roadshow, Li Yanhong boasted a bit before quickly moving on to the Q&A session.

A student from HKUST asked, "With US stocks plummeting, why did Baidu's stock price rise by more than $30 in a week?"

Robin Li answered with great pride: "Since its listing, Baidu has achieved rapid revenue growth for 11 consecutive quarters. In the recently concluded third quarter, Baidu's total revenue reached 4.965 million yuan. Any American stock investor who isn't blind knows how to invest."

Another student asked: "I know there are many criticisms of Baidu in the media, even Hong Kong newspapers occasionally report on it. Issues like click fraud and customer complaints have never stopped. Some media outlets say Baidu is short-sighted and is mortgaging the company's future. What's your opinion, Mr. Li?"

Robin Li said solemnly, "Baidu has been dealing with issues such as click fraud, and I believe we can gradually resolve them. Baidu is a company with passion and responsibility; we will not sacrifice growth for the sake of stock price. Baidu's impressive financial reports are not achieved through click fraud, but through excellent advertising placement models."

Another student asked, "Alibaba listed in Hong Kong this year and has already reached a price-to-earnings ratio of 300. What is Mr. Li's opinion on this?"

Li Yanhong smiled, not wanting to talk about other companies: "I don't understand them."

Suddenly, a student stood up: "Chen Guiliang, the guy you argued with, recently went public in the US, and his stock price has been rising for a week. What do you think of ByteDance?"

Li Yanhong said, "I don't know."

This is a very annoying question. He has been asked about it several times by students when he gives speeches at schools in mainland China.

Those students did it on purpose; they were all there to see how it would turn out.

No matter how Li Yanhong answers, he will be ridiculed afterwards, so now he simply doesn't answer.

He doesn't even want to mention Chen Guiliang's name!
Baidu's global recruitment roadshow is not even over yet, but domestic newspapers and magazines have already begun to publicize it extensively. Under Robin Li's personal instruction, they have clearly stated Baidu's three major strategies for the future.

First, Baidu wants to create a portal website and has already obtained a news license.

Secondly, Baidu is going to enter the daily life market, and one of the newly joined independent directors is named "Nobuyuki Idei", who is probably an advisor for Baidu's development in the daily life sector.

Third, Baidu wants to get into e-commerce.

It's impossible for Robin Li to bribe all the newspapers, and soon many media outlets came out to ridicule him and compare him to Pony Ma of Tencent.

As early as 2006, some people were already calling Pony Ma (Ma Huateng) the "public enemy" of the internet industry. He was involved in every kind of business, driving many small companies to their deaths.

Now, the media jokingly calls Robin Li "Public Enemy 2.0." He's involved in portal websites, e-commerce, and it's estimated he'll be getting into gaming next.

……

Chen Guiliang is keeping a low profile and will not be giving media interviews for the time being.

However, this does not mean that ByteDance will not do any promotion.

Professor Wu, Vice Dean of Guanghua School of Management at Peking University and an independent director of ByteDance, was the first to write an article in China Entrepreneur magazine entitled "Chen Guiliang and ByteDance in My Eyes".

To avoid violating regulations, Professor Wu avoided discussing the details of the IPO, only mentioning that Chen Guiliang practiced his English listening and speaking skills frantically every day while preparing for the IPO.

Chen Guiliang could have skipped these practice sessions and simply used a translator for the IPO roadshow, but he strives for perfection in everything he does. This is an essential quality for a successful entrepreneur.

In his article, Professor Wu elaborated on the unique characteristics of ByteDance. Both Renren and HaiNei.com are unparalleled among domestic social networking sites. Their precise advertising model has also reignited interest in Web 2.0 in the United States.

This article was quickly reprinted by the finance channels of several major portal websites.

Following this, ByteDance published advertorials in the media, talking extensively about its precision advertising model. They even claimed that Facebook was imitating ByteDance, launching a similar feature at the end of October this year.

Why bother with this kind of publicity?

To attract advertisers and increase advertising fees, Baidu's advertising business surged because of its IPO and massive advertising campaign across China. At the time, although there were many search engines, advertisers only recognized Baidu and were willing to spend more money to advertise on Baidu.

The benefits of going public go far beyond just raising cash.

In the same month that Chen Guiliang returned to China, ByteDance held a press conference to announce adjustments to its advertising business.

This was followed by a surge in advertising revenue.

The more ByteDance raises the price per ad, the more advertisers believe it's worth the money. Because there are so many similar products advertising, ByteDance has even started bidding for ad slots.

Another significant increase was seen in registered users on Renren.com and HaiNei.com.

The growth rate of users on Renren.com is limited, after all, there are only so many students in the whole country.

But HaiNei.com is different. After the news of ByteDance's IPO spread, it gained at least 30 new users every day for nearly a month!
HaiNei.com's slogan is: China's only listed open SNS social networking site.

Well, Renren's slogan is: China's only listed SNS campus social networking website.

Whether the general public can understand it or not, it just looks impressive.

Joining this website will make you trendy and sophisticated.

QQ Space and 51.com are for kids. We college students, we adults, we successful people should be using Renren and HaiNei.

The most absurd thing is that the public intellectuals who were angered by the strict censorship of HaiNei.com and switched to Sina Blog and Bullog.cn have actually returned to HaiNei.com because of ByteDance's listing in the US.

A website personally certified by the United States is definitely a good website!

The most painful situation is for business social networking sites like Ruolin.com, which were previously direct competitors of HaiNei.com. They were forced by HaiNei.com to transform into specializing in business social networking.

However, HaiNei.com now covers an increasingly wider range of fields, has more and more business topic groups, and has also established long-term business partnerships with some recruitment websites.

Office workers discovered that everything they could do on Ruolin.com could also be done on HaiNei.com. Moreover, HaiNei.com had a larger user base, more features, and was now a listed company. Why wouldn't they use HaiNei.com?
Business social networking sites such as Ruolin.com began to experience a large-scale loss of users after ByteDance went public.

They initially chose a strategic retreat and transformation, but HaiNei.com relentlessly pressed forward, leaving them with nowhere to retreat. It's estimated that they'll have to shut down and go bankrupt within a few years.

Another issue is entertainment companies, which previously allowed their artists to exclusively register on Sina Blog, Sohu Blog, or NetEase Blog. Now they are starting to have their artists switch to HaiNei.com.

The first to lose star users was NetEase Blog, which never really took off and had a market share of less than 5% in the blog field.

Celebrities come here for promotion. If your market share is less than 5%, how can I promote myself?
Entertainment companies have begun negotiations with NetEase Blog, seeking to terminate their initial exclusive hosting agreements. If NetEase doesn't agree, we will cease updating celebrity blogs.

After much haggling, the final result is often that the celebrities promise to remain on NetEase Blog, but can also register on HaiNei.com. The exclusive agreement is voided.

The same thing happened on Sina Blog, Sohu Blog, and Blogcn (BlogChina).

Entertainment companies and celebrities have discovered that even if ByteDance doesn't go public, advertising on HaiNei.com is far more effective than on blog websites.

HaiNei.com has more comprehensive functions, a better social ecosystem, and more direct interaction between celebrities and fans.

Taking advantage of ByteDance's IPO, celebrities have flocked to HaiNei.com.

By December, about 80% of Chinese celebrities who like to promote themselves online had registered accounts on HaiNei.com.

"Mr. Chen, I have a suggestion. Let's offer free mobile Weibo accounts to all celebrities, and we'll cover their six-month Weibo SP (Service Provider) subscription fees. Then, we can ask those celebrities to help promote the Weibo feature!" Huang Xinyuan, the SP business manager, suggested.

Chen Guiliang nodded and said, "I'll leave it to you to take charge."

Previously, celebrities promoted Weibo, but they would only mention it briefly in their posts: "I've opened a mobile Weibo account on HaiNei.com. Here's how to follow me. After you follow me, you'll receive text messages and MMS from me."

The number of paid Weibo users has been steadily increasing. Before ByteDance's IPO, there were approximately 320,000 paid Weibo users. More than 70% of Weibo users only have the SMS receiving function activated and have not subscribed to the more expensive MMS service.

This data is impressive, but it only ranks second.

The leading company is Kongzhong Corporation. They don't rely on celebrity endorsements, but they have been deeply involved in the mobile phone market. They have a product that is very similar to Weibo, and it will have over 50 paying users by the end of this year.

In mid-December, celebrities kept posting updates to help promote Weibo on mobile.

Celebrities aren't willing to cooperate with promotions simply by paying them several months' worth of packages. HaiNei.com agreed to provide them with traffic to help increase their account exposure!

ByteDance also ran advertisements with the slogan "Connect the world with your mobile phone" and claimed that Weibo is the most fashionable way to socialize online.

This time of year is perfect for promoting Weibo.

A year ago, the effect wasn't as good because mobile phone penetration wasn't as high, especially since there weren't as many mobile phones that could receive MMS messages.

But now, mobile phones that can send and receive MMS messages have gradually become more common.

Weibo needs to step up its game!
(End of this chapter)