小小的在华体验中心如何帮Facebook赚大钱？

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小小的在华体验中心如何帮Facebook赚大钱？

LIN QIQING,LIN QIQING2019-02-12 10:08:55深圳福田区的一个露天销售楼层类似于Facebook的企业大使馆。
SHENZHEN — Facebook’s apps and websites have been blocked in China for years. The company has no office in the country that supports its social networking services. And its attempts to open a subsidiary have been quickly snuffed out.深圳——多年来，Facebook的应用和网站在中国一直被屏蔽。该公司在中国没有为其社交网络服务提供支持的办事处。它在中国开设子公司的尝试也很快胎死腹中。But here in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Facebook has managed to quietly build a presence with the help of a local partner.但在深圳这个中国南方城市，Facebook却已在本地一家合作伙伴的帮助下，静悄悄地建立了一个立足点。In Shenzhen’s Futian district, on the ninth floor of a concrete tower, there is an open-air sales floor that works as a sort of corporate embassy for the social network. The 5,000-square-foot space is run by the local partner, called Meet Social, but has been designed with Facebook’s guidance. It functions as an experience center for the Silicon Valley giant — the only one of its type in the world.在深圳福田区一栋水泥大厦的九层，一个敞开的销售楼层在为Facebook充当着某种代表的角色。这片占地5000平方英尺的空间由名为“飞书互动”(Meet Social)的本地合作伙伴经营，但其设计则在Facebook的指导下进行。其功能类似于这家硅谷巨头的一个体验中心——全世界仅有的一个。Its smallish size belies a crucial, and often overlooked, part of Facebook’s business. The center — which looks as if it fell out of Silicon Valley, with stenciled paintings of chat boxes on the walls, a lit-up heart icon and a pristine billiards table — hosts prospective clients and curious customers who wish to advertise on Facebook to reach the network’s 2.3 billion users, most of whom live outside China.其较小的规模使人不大注意到Facebook业务的一个十分关键但常被忽视的部分。该中心看起来好像是片硅谷飞地，墙上有用模版印制的聊天窗口和一个点亮的心形标志，里面还有一个崭新的台球桌，这里接待潜在的客户和好奇的顾客，他们希望在Facebook上做广告，以企及该平台的23亿用户，其中大多数生活在中国之外。The desire by Chinese companies and other entities to get in front of people internationally has unexpectedly turned China into one of Facebook’s largest sources of advertising revenue, even though the social network itself is not available in the country. Charles Shen, chief executive of Meet Social, said his company anticipated doing $1 billion to $2 billion in ad sales on Facebook and Instagram this year. Each day, he added, Meet Social’s software puts up about 20,000 Chinese ads on Facebook.中国的企业和其他实体想在国际上出头露面的愿望，意外地把中国变成了Facebook最大的广告收入来源之一，尽管这个社交网络本身在中国被屏蔽。飞书互动首席执行官沈晨岗说，他的公司预计今年在Facebook和Instagram上的广告销售额将达到10亿至20亿美元。他还说，飞书互动的软件每天在Facebook上投放约2万个中文广告。In total, Facebook’s revenue from Chinese-based advertisers reached an estimated $5 billion in 2018, or about 10 percent of its total sales, according to Pivotal Research Group. That would be enough to rank Facebook somewhere around the seventh-largest listed internet company in China.根据Pivotal Research Group的数据，Facebook从中国广告商获得的总收入在2018年估计达到50亿美元，约占其总销售额的10%。这足以让Facebook跻身中国第七大上市互联网公司之列。The experience center is also a strange testament to the borders that China has drawn across the internet. With its “Great Firewall” of internet filters that Beijing used to block Facebook in 2009, the Chinese government has cut the digital abstractions of a global information network along geographic lines. That has necessitated Facebook’s creation of the center, where Chinese who have hardly any experience with the social network can learn about it and figure out how to advertise on it.这个体验中心也是中国在互联网上划定的边界的奇怪证明。中国政府用过滤器在互联网上筑起了“防火墙”，把全球信息网络这个抽象的数字概念按照地理边界分隔开来，2009年，正是这道防火墙把Facebook屏蔽在外。因此Facebook有必要创建这个中心，在这里，对Facebook社交网络几乎没有任何经验的中国人可以了解它，搞清楚如何在它上面做广告。
在Facebook体验中心附近，悬挂着一幅中国国家主席习近平的画像。该中心是政府举办的技术展览的一部分。
“The experience center is for inviting potential clients to see how Facebook ads work,” Mr. Shen said in an interview, adding that Facebook provided much of the materials in the office, while his company staffed it.“体验中心是为了邀请潜在客户来看看Facebook广告如何运作的，”沈晨岗在采访中说。他还说，Facebook提供了办公室里的大部分资料，他的公司提供工作人员。Meet Social, an advertising agency, worked with Facebook to open the center last spring. While many Chinese have not used Facebook, that does not prevent them from knowing about it, Mr. Shen said. He said his company got plenty of inbound interest from clients, even though it does little advertising about itself.广告公司飞书互动去年春天与Facebook合作开设了这个体验中心。沈晨岗说，虽然很多中国人没有使用过Facebook，但这并不妨碍他们了解它。他说，他的公司收到了大量国内客户表示的兴趣，尽管公司几乎没给自己打过广告。“Most of the time, it’s them who come to us,” Mr. Shen said. He said his firm had set up a system so that Chinese clients didn’t have to leap the Great Firewall to register an advertising account on Facebook. To do so, it uses a service provided by a state-run telecom company to legally jump the internet filters.“大多数时候，是他们来找我们，”沈晨岗说。他说，他的公司已经建立了一个系统，让中国客户不必翻越防火墙，就能在Facebook上注册广告账户。为了做到这点，公司使用了一家国有电信公司提供的合法绕过互联网过滤器的服务。Meet Social’s clients include start-ups, gaming companies and big brands like China Southern Airlines, Mr. Shen added. His firm also runs the Facebook pages of some large Chinese brands, helping to increase engagement and to make ads that international audiences understand.飞书互动的客户包括初创企业、游戏公司，以及像中国南方航空公司这样的大品牌，沈晨岗补充说。他的公司还管理着一些大型中国品牌的Facebook页面，帮这些品牌提高用户参与度，制作国际受众能够理解的广告。The choice of venue for the experience center appears deliberate. It is part of a government-run technology exhibition, where several major tech firms show off accomplishments. Just next door, the man standing in the way of Facebook’s entry into China — China’s president, Xi Jinping — is given full homage. A portrait of Mr. Xi sits next to a video celebrating China’s technological achievements, including its development of nuclear weapons, as part of a display by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.体验中心的场地选择看来是经过仔细考虑的。它位于一个政府举办的技术展览之内，好几家主要的技术公司都在这里展示它们的成就。就在隔壁，阻碍Facebook进入中国的那个人——中国国家主席习近平——受到充分的恭敬。那里是中国科学院的一个展览，里面有一段庆祝中国科技成就的视频，包括中国的核武器研制，习近平的大幅画像就挂在播放视频屏幕的旁边。The Chinese authorities appear to have made no effort to shut down the experience center. The local government did not respond to a request for comment.中国政府似乎没有采取任何关闭这个体验中心的措施。当地政府没有回应记者的置评请求。Facebook employees come to the center to give talks, Mr. Shen said. Since many Chinese cannot access facebook.com — even if they type it into their phones while in the experience center, the site remains blocked — Meet Social provides videos on giant phone-shaped screens so people can get a better sense of Facebook’s ad offerings. Examples of paid posts from Chinese brands are framed on the walls. Training in marketing and advertising strategies on Facebook’s platforms is also offered.沈晨岗说，Facebook的员工来这个中心作报告。由于许多中国人无法访问facebook.com——即使他们在体验中心内将这个地址输入手机，也无法访问该网站——飞书互动在一个手机形状的巨大屏幕上提供视频，让人们能更好地了解Facebook上的广告作品。中国品牌发放付费帖子的例子被装帧起来挂在墙上。公司还提供Facebook平台营销和广告策略的培训。Jeffery Hong, a sales director at a wig company, which he declined to name, said he first thought of advertising on Facebook when he went to a salon run by Meet Social in Shenzhen in 2015.杰弗瑞·洪（Jeffery Hong，音）是一家假发公司的销售总监，他拒绝透露这家公司的名称。他说，他在2015年参加飞书互动在深圳办的一个沙龙时，第一次有了在Facebook上做广告的想法。
来到体验中心的访客可以了解Facebook的广告产品，并接受营销和广告策略方面的培训。
Mr. Hong previously had mostly done overseas sales through Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce site. In the years that followed, he attended training sessions and talks by Facebook employees, including at the experience center, on an array of subjects including how to offer a good user experience and how to make ads.洪先生以前主要通过中国最大的电子商务网站阿里巴巴做海外销售。在那之后的几年里，他参加过飞书互动的培训课程，听过Facebook员工在体验中心等地方作的报告，课程和报告的主题包括如何提供良好的用户体验以及如何制作广告。Now Facebook ads attract buyers to his company’s site that account for about 10 percent of sales. While the company manages its own Facebook site, it also allows Meet Social to take over the page and to troubleshoot difficulties and keep up with ad trends.如今，在Facebook上发的广告已经把买家吸引到了他公司的网站，约10%的公司销售来自这些买家。他的公司自己管理自己的Facebook网页，也允许飞书互动代为管理，以解决出现的问题，跟上广告的趋势。“We want to establish our brand, let more and more people know about us,” Mr. Hong said. “It’s pretty effective to put ads on Facebook; the site has a lot of traffic. Many people in the West use Facebook.”“我们想建立自己的品牌，让越来越多的人了解我们，”洪先生说。“在Facebook上投放广告非常有效；这个网站的流量很大。西方的许多人使用Facebook。”Meet Social is one of seven official Facebook advertising resellers in China. Others serve much the same role. Often their presence is welcome because even for tech sophisticates, doing business across the Great Firewall can be tricky.飞书互动是Facebook在中国的七家官方广告代理商之一。其他代理商的作用基本相同。他们通常很受欢迎，因为即使是精通技术的人，翻越防火墙做生意可能也很费事。Ben Liu, 35, an entrepreneur and a former Alibaba employee, said the Facebook page he had set up for his electric skateboard company, Maxfind, was blocked in 2017 by the social network. He suspects that his employees signed in and out of the company’s Facebook account from personal accounts, and all of that activity caused the company’s page to be flagged as suspicious.今年35岁的本·刘（Ben Liu，音）是一名企业家，曾在阿里巴巴工作。他说，他为自己的电动滑板公司Maxfind创建的Facebook页面在2017年被这家社交网站屏蔽了。他估计是因为员工经常用个人账户登录和退出公司的Facebook账户，这些活动导致公司的页面被打上了可疑的标记。Now Mr. Liu uses a Facebook agent similar to Meet Social. Maxfind spends around $100 to $200 a day on Facebook and has considered shelling out more for an American ad agency to spiff up its brand building, he said.现在，刘先生使用一个类似于飞书互动的Facebook代理商。他说，Maxfind每天在Facebook上花大约100至200美元，并已经考虑花更多的钱，雇一家美国广告公司，把公司的品牌提升做得更漂亮。But so dominant are local internet companies that even when discussing ads placed on Facebook, Maxfind’s employees find it easier to do so using WeChat, the ubiquitous social media app run by the Chinese internet giant Tencent. People are more comfortable using WeChat to ask questions of the Facebook ad reseller, Mr. Liu said.但本土互联网公司的主导地位如此之大，以至于Maxfind的员工即使在讨论Facebook上的广告时，也发现使用微信更方便，微信是中国互联网巨头腾讯经营的无处不在的社交媒体应用。刘先生说，人们更愿意用微信来向Facebook的广告代理商提问题。“Most communications are done by WeChat,” he said.“大多数沟通都是用微信做的，”他说。Advertising on Facebook has also shown him how much of a cultural gap can exist between China and the rest of the world. One of Maxfind’s Facebook ads fell afoul of copyright claims for music it used in the ad, he said. And Mr. Liu said he was surprised when another of his ads on the social network was blocked by the company for being discriminatory. The ad had used the term “fat.” 在Facebook上做广告也让他看到了中国与世界其他地区之间存在着多么大的文化差异。他说，Maxfind在Facebook做的一则广告使用的音乐违反了它的版权规定。刘先生说，他在该社交网站上的另一则广告被Facebook以歧视为由屏蔽了，让他感到很惊讶。广告中使用了“胖”这个词。孟宝勒(Paul Mozur)是《纽约时报》驻上海记者。欢迎在Twitter上关注本文作者Paul Mozur @paulmozur和Lin Qiqing @lqq91926。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。

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