Written by Rand

Everyone wants to copy Facebook’s success, and in China there is no shortage of imitators. The first successful imitator was Xiaonei.com, who had the dubious honor of proving that Facebook copies could work in China. This opened the floodgates for more imitators such as mayi.com, zhanzuo.com, 360quan.com, etc. These services were established far ahead of Kaixin, but when you look at the graph below, the first thing that hits you is Kaixin’s enormous growth, which simply leaves competitors eating its digital dust.

The Yellow Emperor of Spam.
The first key to Kaixin’s success is a seriously hardcore spam campaign (you’ll never see Kaixin banner or print advertising). There is no consideration given to privacy whatsoever; it just crosses the border of ridiculous. Like let’s say someone kicks you… ok that’s bad; then let’s say they kick and punch you… ok that’s worse; now let’s say they kick and punch you, then they buy a car and run you over, then they buy a helicopter and shoot you with a minigun attached to said helicopter, then they shoot a missile at you… you can’t even be mad anymore, you’re just surprised by over-the-top level of ridiculousness. That’s what I mean when I say hardcore spam campaign… however, since spam is not regulated as it is internationally, Kaixin’s strategy is legit, and apparently extremely effective.

In China, it’s very possible to purchase databases of emails from unscrupulous IT companies; and from Kaixin’s explosive growth it would seem the strategy was to first buy these black market databases, and then send untold amounts of spam with the message that a “friend” wants you to join their site.

Considered abstractly, this strategy is nothing new; I’ve received messages like this before. However in reality, we’re really talking about serious quantity of spam – while I may receive one or two fake invites from fake friends a week, Kaixin will mercilessly pummel you with these spam-filter-evading invites until you’re weak in the digital knees. It gets to the point where the only way to stop this great tide is to just join the damn site and turn off notifications.

Gotcha!
Once you join Kaixin and enter your email address, you’re then prompted to invite your friends to experience your misery; the standard “enter your email address and password to access your contact list” is supplied and for some odd reason many Chinese people will do this. What happens then is Kaixin not only sends the friends you’ve selected an email, but will basically raid your entire email list and … well you get the picture.

Now as I read what I just wrote I realize that the above strategy is nothing new. But like football strategy isn’t anything new (get the ball into the goal) there are many levels of execution. Kaixin, frankly, is the grand master champion of spam execution.

Kaixin gives points to users who spam their friends. Points can be used to give “digital” gifts.

Creating loyalty from spam.
So how do you keep people loyal after you’ve covered them in a never ending pile of spam? This is the beauty of the campaign; because while I just spent the last 6 paragraphs talking about spam, it really isn’t the secret sauce of their spam-tacular success; spam, is merely a very effective catalyst. The secret is the same as the secret to all social media – successful acceleration of user interaction.

Chinese people don’t talk much… but they do like to kick digital ass.
Instead of following Facebook or any number of social media sites, Kaixin specializes in internet games; this is where it bridges away from Facebook, and follows its own semi-original path. Yes, Facebook, and all Kaixin competitors in China also have games, but again we’re talking not about features, but of quantity and execution.

There are TONS of interesting games on Kaixin and they are good enough that people come back to play and compete in those games with their friends. When you align content along with spam strategy, the end product is an effective beast of a SNS.

Users are constantly prompted to get their friends involved; this gives them an edge in the competition in games… however, with every player doing this, the real winner is Kaixin.

Feeling lonely? Why not spam all your friends?

You might not like it, but on some degree, you gotta respect its efficiency.

Though it wasn’t the first, Kaixin now leads the pack. By launching a relentless spam campaign followed up by interactive game content that increased interactions among Chinese members, it seems that Kaixin has hit upon the formula for SNS success. We’ll see how this goes in the future, but for now Kaixin is King.