King5 Television reports that Bellevue is looking to bring business from the China to the Eastside. Social media is being utilized to break down barriers in China and the broadcaster says efforts are already paying off.
One of the key private players is adSage, with offices in downtown Bellevue, the largest search engine marketing firm in China. The company manages campaigns for over 200 premier advertisers.
Dr. Zhaohui Tang is the CEO of Beijing-based adSage. He selected downtown Bellevue to explore a new frontier and notes that adSage is the first big Chinese company to locate in Bellevue.
“We think we can help U.S. advertisers reach Chinese consumers with the same technology,” said Tang.
Bellevue’s Economic Development Director Thomas Boydell told King5 that the city has been making a strategic play to the Far East.
“We’ve been trying to reach across the ocean,” said Thomas Boydell. “There is a trick to getting past the great wall into China and then speaking to people in Chinese.”
Chinese American and Bellevue Mayor Conrad Lee has touted Bellevue through Chinese social media with ads on the country’s version of YouTube, called Youku, and Weibo, the twitter variation.
The City of Bellevue launched BellevueCN.com, the first bi-lingual website aimed at building a community of dialogue between the Bellevue-Seattle region and China around the topic of technology leadership.
“This can be used as a bridge between China and the U.S.,” said Tang.
BellevueCN.com indicates that Dr. Tang believes that the bounty of qualified employees in this tech market and the non-stop flights to his native China will continue to make the Eastside a fertile market for the Chinese.
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