Seeing the world via social media

Scarlet Li, a 28-year-old white-collar worker in Beijing, is surfing her Weibo on her lunch break to look for her next travel destination. The travel enthusiast shares her stories with friends through a handful of Chinese social media networks - Weibo, Wechat, Instagram and TripColor. By maintaining a Sina travel blog and joining several online travel forums, she constantly interacts with fellow travelers who are eager to divulge insider trip tips from their holidays.

"All my travel inspirations are drawn from my friends' travel stories and photos," she said. "One of my best friends just went to Turkey last week. She shared amazing photos through WeChat, immediately making me want to go. I'm planning a trip for the national holiday later this year; I've already downloaded Turkey's travel guide for my iPad." 

 Li is among a growing number of young Chinese people who plan and make trips under the influence of social media networks. They normally make a decision on where to go by reading travel stories through their social networks. They trust recommendations from friends more than the stories published in magazines or aired on TV. 

"Some of the TV commercials are exaggerated, especially tourism adverts," she said, "But if my friends think a place is worth a visit, then I take their word for it." 

And the convenience that social networking offers travelers, is a big plus, said Li, who normally downloads respective domestic and international travel guides Mafengwo and Go2eu to her smartphone and tablet before venturing out.

"This way I don't have to carry a heavy guide book," she said. "I can't imagine traveling without my phone; I rely on it for so much during trips. I'm always searching for local travel deals, making hotel reservations, taking photos, and most importantly, sharing my experiences with friends through social networks."

'Netizens' tuned in

At the end of 2012, China boasted 564 million "netizens," a term coined in China referring to a collective of the country's Web users, according to a Chinese Internet Development Report by China Internet Network Information Center in January.

It said that the mobile Internet usage witnessed an 18.1 percent increase last year and that among Chinese netizens, 74.5 percent use mobile devices to surf the Internet. Weibo continued to dominate the social media scene in China with 309 million registrations, while half of the Chinese netizen population has a Weibo account, of whom two thirds use mobile devices to browse content.

The report found that apart from Weibo, other social media networks in China are gaining ground with some 275 million users who are increasingly signing on with smartphones. 

It is precisely this development of social media networks and mobile internet in China that is coming together with global social media trends, according to the latest Nelson report on social media, which indicates that people in North America are also turning to their mobile devices to access social media more often than not.

"Time spent on mobile apps and the mobile web account for 63 percent of the year-over-year growth in overall time spent using social media. Forty-six percent of social media users say they use their smartphone to access social media; 16 percent say they connect to social media using a tablet. With more connectivity, consumers have more freedom to use social media wherever and whenever they want," the report stated. "Social media is growing rapidly and has become an integral part of people's daily lives. Today, social networking is truly a global phenomenon."

Staying connected  

Since the emergence of social media networks some two decades ago, their evolution has offered consumers around the world new and meaningful ways to connect with people, events and brands that matter to them most - and travel is another extension of the trend.