Hootsuite furthers China push with Renren, China’s Facebook, and Simplified Chinese support

Social media management service Hootsuite has burrowed itself further into China’s unique Internet space after it added support for Renren, commonly known as the country’s Facebook, and Simplified Chinese language.

The moves come some six weeks after it took its first step to serve those with interests in China when it introduced Traditional Chinese and integrated Sina Weibo, ‘China’s Twitter’, into the HootSuite App Directory. That’s where Renren can now also be found.

Hootsuite says that Renren is one of its most requested new additions from its users, and now they will be able to do the following:

• Share Renren content to other social networks
• Post status updates to Renren, including photo uploads
• View a stream of status updates from their Renren network of friends
• Like, comment and re-post posts from friends on Renren

Simplified Chinese can be switched on via the language menu, which users can find that under the ‘Settings’ and ‘Preferences’.

To the untrained Western eye, Simplified Chinese may not seem too different to Traditional Chinese but the addition of the former represents a more concerted effort to appeal to users in mainland Chinese itself, where it is used. Traditional Chinese, on the other hand, is for Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Sina Weibo is China’s big hitting social media site, having passed 400 million registered users this month, but Renren remains a sizeable force. The site has a total of 162 million registered users, of which 45 million are active each month, according to Tech In Asia.

Chinese social networks are popular in both China and overseas markets, such as Australia, where companies are targeting consumers in China and expatriated Chinese through popular services.

Social media marketers with an interest in China have a growing selection of services to choose to manage their activities these days, and Hubblr also offers support for Weibo, Renren and all the usual Western sites.

Headline image via Nicku / Shutterstock