Seven Steps To A Killer Social Media Plan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven steps to a killer social media plan[1]

I believe that any business with a decent product or service can build a global social media presence, and monetize it, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. But you need to know what to do and how to do it. And most people in business really only have the vaguest notion of what is involved.

The simplistic view of social media is that you join sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You create a profile. You find people you know and invite them to connect with you or follow you. Over time your participation grows. You follow and connect with more people that interest you. And you develop your own following. Eventually you build relationships and trust, some of which results in new business.

That’s absolutely fine, as far as it goes. It can also be enjoyable, even addictive. But it isn’t exactly a strategy to take you to market leadership in your niche using social media.

So with this article I want to share with you an overview of what I’ve learned about preparing for social media success in your business. This has come about as a result of several months invested in developing an in-depth social media roadmap, supported by detailed written materials, a series of exercises and a number of interactive planning tools for the aspiring market leaders in my Eureka program.

Can you define the term “Social Media”?

The explosive growth over the past few years of online marketing in general and social media in particular has attracted the attention of millions of businesses. It’s dawning on more and more businesses leaders that social media is likely to be one of the most important changes that has ever come about in business.

Millions of businesses know they need to embrace it. But many still can’t explain the meaning of the term, and few know how to develop a meaningful social media strategy, or have any real idea of what’s involved.

It turns out that nearly 70% of the 600-plus respondents in a 2009 survey were unsure of the meaning of social media. But nearly every respondent felt that social media would somehow revolutionise the world. They felt that they should know the meaning of the term, but didn’t, and in some ways they also feared social media because they didn’t understand it’s implications or whether it would even threaten their existence.

This parallels the reactions that occurred when railways, telephones, cars and aircraft first started to proliferate. People instinctively understood that these new technologies would change the world, but they also feared them because they knew they would change the status quo. They also had no idea how it would impact on them; what part, if any, they would play in the process; or what sacrifices they’d have to make to accommodate these new advances. And that’s exactly where social media stands today.

My own journey

As an early participant in several of the better social networks, I learned what they were about. Along the way I read a lot, put ideas I learned into practice and accumulated considerable knowledge, data and experience.

Among other things, early in 2009 I managed to achieve the largest following on Twitter in the UK for a non-media celebrity. And in March 2010 I was ranked the UK’s No.1 marketer out of 42,559 UK advertising and marketing professionals on LinkedIn, based on recommendations. So I think I can say I have a reasonably solid grounding in social media.

Bit by bit I observed and analysed how the top social networking sites worked; watched them grow exponentially as people increasingly got involved; and have witnessed a fair amount of feature convergence as the sites themselves began to understand what people can, and want, to do using social media, and as they borrowed good ideas from each other.

Above all I was looking for a way to build a solid step-by-step social media strategy that would serve any business well. Participants in my program need to exactly know what to do, when to do it and why. So bit by bit I’ve been assembling an in-depth social media roadmap based on a logical series of steps that can be used to create create a worthwhile social media presence and community.

Step 1: Understanding

The first step in the process is to understand what Social Media is. I like David Meerman Scott’s 61-word explanation of social media marketing:

You can buy attention (advertising)
You can beg for attention from the media (PR)
You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales)

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.

This explanation makes it clear that social media is much more than mere participation in social networking sites. It requires you to become a publisher of written, audio and/or video content. You then need to build a community around that content.

Step 2: Familiarisation

The second step is to become familiar with the essentials of each social media element. That requires you to get to know, understand and experience all of the following: Social networking; publishing; photo sharing; audio; video; microblogging; livecasting; virtual worlds; gaming; rss; aggregators; search; mobile marketing; interpersonal communication technologies and an ever-growing array of productivity applications.

As you become familiar with each element in the social media ecosystem, it’s worth taking time to consider the possible applications for each element in your business.

Step 3: Hands-on exploration and assessment

Once you understand the purpose of each social media element, I’d advise you to embark on some hands-on exploration of some of the better known tools in each category. This first hand familiarity will allow you to broadly assess the available social media tools, and determine which of them potentially fit in with what you do.

Participants in my program are asked to undertake a series of specific exploration exercises, followed by the completion of a scorecard for each of the tools they experience.

Step 4: Discover your social media niche

Enlightened by these first-hand experiences, your fourth step is to assess your strengths and weaknesses relative to each social media category, and also identify the opportunities and threats.

Once this SWOT analysis has been completed and the results summarised, it should be possible to identify the right social media niche for your business to focus on. This will be where you can play to your strengths and start building a community around the people who share the same interests as you.

Your community may be local, regional or national. Or it may be global.

Step 5: Plan for your social media success

With your niche decided, the fifth step is to build a solid set of foundations for your future social media success. To operate successfully in the social media ecosystem you have to view yourself as a publisher of content relating to your areas of interest or expertise.

Audience: You therefore have to identify which audience or market niche you will be serving and with whom you will be developing an interactive relationship. Achieving a clear definition of your audience is crucial to your success.

Doing so requires you to understand their behaviours; attitudes; values; beliefs; needs and preferences. You need to assemble demographic data and discover any common interests or goals.

You also need to identify the small number of individuals within each group who have a knack for influencing what the other members of the group say, believe and do. Knowing who these influencers and promoters are will add tremendous viral value to your eventual offering.

By carrying out this research you can establish the common characteristics that will allow you to interact with four or five clearly defined audience personas.

Competition: Once you have a clear idea of your proposed content and the likely characteristics of your audience, you need to assess your competition. This requires you to ask some important questions. For example:

Who else is already catering to the same audience? In what ways are they doing so? What tools do they use? What is the quality of their content? How many people are part of their community? How much interaction occurs on their site(s)? What is the quality of that interaction? What are the compelling advantages of your concept over theirs? What additional compelling advantages could you offer?

Concept: By now you should have gathered enough information to start building a value proposition that describes how your intended audience will benefit from your content. Your content in turn will relate to the products or services you offer; the additional expertise you bring; and the things that will encourage your audience to contribute.

As you go through this exercise, you may well find that you have several workable concepts, each with its own distinct audience personas. In each case you have to define your concept, thinking in terms of the needs of your potential community rather than the needs of your business.

Based on your research you will now need to convert your concept into a 100-150 word concept statement that you can share with almost anyone in less than two minutes.

Sample content: You can then start expanding the details of your offering, perhaps even producing some sample content to demonstrate to your potential audience the flavour and feel of your finished offering, and highlighting the advantages you’ll be offering over your competition.

Audience input: I recommend that you then invite a reasonable sized sampling of your potential audience to assist you in the process of refining, developing and positioning your offering. In tapping into their collective wisdom, I have to point out that you will only gain and maintain their attention if you can demonstrate your sincerity in communicating with them, and of course by incorporating their feedback in what you do.

Sales viability: As a business engaging in social media you should always be mindful of the sales viability of your concept. This is where you need to carefully consider which revenue model or models to adopt.

You can sell products, services or information; advertising and sponsorship; earn commissions on your site’s role in selling transactions carried out by others; offer subscriptions; operate a “Freemium” model where you offer certain content free but you also offer premium versions at additional cost; or you can offer software as a cloud-based service, of which there are many well known examples.

It’s often possible to offer several of these revenue models simultaneously.

At the end of this planning process you’ll know what audience to target; have an appealing concept that’s been tested and refined with their help; an understanding of who you’ll be competing with; a number of compelling advantages to offer … and one or more revenue generation models.

Step 6: Evaluate and organise your existing resources

The sixth step is to evaluate and organise your resources. This requires you to evaluate the social media awareness of your entire team; tap into their collective wisdom and experience; and engage them in your social media plans.

From there you should be able to pinpoint your social media starting point, i.e. The strategies you should deploy at the outset of your social media journey.

The right strategies at the outset are likely to vary enormously from one situation to another depending on how far you’ve already travelled down the social media road; your level of competence in doing so; the social media skills of different people within your team; and the final destination you hope to reach.

Step 7: Creating your social media implementation plan

Having completed the first six steps in the process you can now take the seventh step, which is to create your social media implementation plan.

Your implementation plan should be realistic because it’s not practical to simultaneously introduce hundreds of tools from the social media ecosystem into the daily operations of your business. The introduction of even a dozen tools could be disruptive, so it’s important to pace yourself.

While human nature often compels us to try lots of different alternatives as fast as we can, it is better to think in terms of adding one new tool every month.

That will give you the time and space you need to promote each new tool to your employees, prospects and customers, and evaluate how effective you have been in implementing each tool. As the year progresses you can also evaluate how well the tools complement each other … and you can measure the effect on your revenues and profits.

If it becomes evident that adjustments are required, you’ll be able to do make them as you go along. The key is to remain flexible and experimental.

The implementation process

With your planning completed, you need to start the all-important implementation process and roll-out.

That implementation process will involve such things as:

Building your online destinations using websites, blogs, forums and wikis.

Building trust, visibility and engagement using elements like RSS; SEO; email; social networks; search engine marketing; mobile marketing and measurement

Deepening your engagement using elements like photo sharing; audio sharing; video sharing; and interpersonal communication.

These topics go well beyond the scope of this post and will be covered in future articles.

So, as you can see, there’s a whole lot more to preparing for global social media success than merely joining Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. And preparing for success itself is only the first part of the process.

The process described here is covered in explicit detail as part of the Eureka program for aspiring market leaders. You can view the curriculum here.

Finally, please rate the article and comment on what you’ve learned from it. What actions will you now take as a result? Please also share any ideas and tips that you think will assist anyone in their planning for social media success.

Suzuki As Independent As Ever, VW Discovering

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suzuki As Independent As Ever, VW Discovering[1]

When the mighty Volkswagen Group acquired 19.9 percent of Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp. in late 2009, it looked like the start of a well-conceived, entirely complimentary auto-industry tie-up: Suzuki, barely known in many regions yet an expert in developing inexpensive subcompact cars, would help VW penetrate third-world markets, particularly India, where Suzuki has a dominant position. Volkswagen could learn about how to make cars more inexpensively and leverage some of Suzuki’s existing low-cost production bases. And VW’s strong presence in China could help Suzuki gain a foothold in that fast-developing market, while VW shared its technology with the smaller company, too.

Volkswagen paid $2.5 billion for its initial stake in Suzuki, but it was widely believed that was only the beginning of what would amount to an eventual takeover, or at least VW quickly moving to acquire a controlling 33-percent interest in its new Japanese partner. Apart from the other advantages of sidling up to Suzuki, if Volkswagen absorbed the automaker, Suzuki’s nearly 3 million units of global production could help accelerate VW to its goal of becoming the world’s largest automaker by 2018.

Maybe it was too good to be true. Or maybe it was the infamous “culture clash” that has made a shipwreck of so many other trans-national automotive alliances. Whatever the case, the two companies had barely begun to work together when they discovered they didn’t like working together. A year after VW’s investment (Suzuki at the same time spent $1.1 billion to buy 2.5 percent of Volkswagen),

Ferdinand Piech, chairman of VW’s management board, expressed displeasure that little of tangible value had yet come of the relationship. Tense words about the alliance came from both parties.

By this summer, the companies’ differences were expressed by Suzuki president Osamu Suzuki, who publicly bristled when VW management implied it could impose its will on the automaker. The 80-year-old Suzuki also wrote a blog that said in no uncertain terms his company had no intention in becoming subservient to VW. He added that he hadn’t seen anything of Volkswagen’s vaunted technology that was compelling enough to try to adopt immediately. The relationship has deteriorated from there, with VW charging Suzuki had infringed on the companies’ contract when it agreed to buy diesel engines – a VW pride – from Italy’s Fiat. Little more than a week ago, Osamu Suzuki called the partnership with VW a “ball and chain,” and openly spoke of Suzuki’s desire to dissolve the relationship. The company added that it intended to divest its Volkswagen stake if the agreement is dissolved, while VW maintained it does not intend to sell its nearly 20-percent holding in Suzuki.

Maybe this high-stakes dust-up could have been predicted. Suzuki is a car company accustomed to doing things its own way, reflecting the personality of its hands-on and independent president, Osamu Suzuki. Volkswagen apparently expected to tell Suzuki – the company and the president – how things would go. Suzuki apparently had no intention of it going that way.

Unconventional Thinking, Unconventional Company

The year is 1979. Japan’sSuzuki Motor Corporation is about to unveil a revolutionary new small car. Revolutionary in the sense it is to be an ultra-cheap, 550-cc minicar, selling for a bargain-basement ¥500,000 (at the time about $2,275) a price point no manufacturer had breached before. How to bring the price down? “How about we do away with the spare tire?” asks Osamu Suzuki, the project leader at a strategy meeting. The development team is dumbfounded. But the boss is ready with an even more radical solution. “What if we took out the engine?”

Obsessed with trimming the fat, as he sees it, Suzuki decrees: “Let’s try to build a vehicle for the same cost as one without an engine.” The result is the Alto, a tiny, get-you-around “kei” car which Suzuki, again bucking the system, sells in one grade, and for one price, all over Japan. While its relentlessly utilitarian design might not look like much today, the Alto, which was also purposely targeted at women drivers, was a big contemporary hit in Japan and through many generations. The Alto badge is still alive.

The success of the Alto propelled Osamu Suzuki to the presidency of the company and the intense, cost-down way it was developed still comprises part of Suzuki’s corporate psyche. Nobody else does small, basic cars – globally – like Suzuki. That’s one reason why the Volkswagen Group bought a 19.9% stake in the company in 2010, with one eye on controlling the market for new, small cars in India and other emerging markets. Others also flocked to Suzuki to tap into its small-car expertise. General Motors Co. is the best-known, but Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Mazda Motor Corp. and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.’s Subaru all have sharing deals for today’s 660-cc kei cars in Japan with Suzuki. Fiat Auto in Europe and Maruti in India are two other significant names to leverage Suzuki’s formidable tiny-car know-how.

Low-Key, But With Surprises

Suzuki, suffice to say, is not your typical Japanese company. Somewhat reticent and at times mysterious, Suzuki, surprisingly, is Japan’s fourth-largest automaker after Toyota, Nissan and Honda and number nine in the world by production volume (building some 2.9 million units a year). It’s consistently profitable and for the latest fiscal year that ended in March, Suzuki posted a sizeable 56.2% jump in profits compared with 2010: ¥45.2 billion (some $553 million), although still some way off on its ¥80.2 billion haul for 2007-08.

There again, you’d never know. Suzuki maintains a low profile and operates with almost Masonic secrecy. Based out of Japan’s central Kansai area (not far from Toyota), Suzuki also has that typical local trait of knowing the value of a dollar and for years effectively was a one-man company, with the ever-characterful, razor-sharp Osamu Suzuki, now 81, occupying the company’s top chair as president. Yes, Suzuki might run a tight ship – but it’s also a company that pulls a few surprises. It was the first to target the vast Indian market back in the ‘80s and after years of basic, cheerless cars, Suzuki suddenly reversed course and launched two extraordinarily high-quality generations of the Swift compact car in 2005 and 2010. Those Swifts sadly have never figured in the U.S. market, but did wonders for raising Suzuki’s profile, especially in Europe.

Suzuki also moved slightly out of character to introduce the Kizashi sporty midsize sedan to market; it’s acquired a reputation for a fine ride and sweet handling – a kind of BMW-baiter despite the unassuming 2.4-liter 4-cylinder as its only engine choice. Suzuki then launched the Kizashi in Japan to special order only, while not spending a cent on advertising or promotion. As some might say: go figure. Many automakers in Japan spend big on fancy showrooms, but Suzuki prefers the simple, no-frills approach, sensible given that the bulk of its domestic sales are geared towards the inexpensive, high-volume minicars. The tactic seems to work just fine, handily saving the company millions.



Doing It Their Way

It is believed that Suzuki’s long time connection with GM, which began in 1981, was relatively stress-free because GM largely left Suzuki to its own devices and various model-sharing programs were limited to modest, econocar models such as the Geo Metro in the U.S. and Opel Agilia in Europe. No big waves from either partner.

The situation seems different with VW. It seems Wolfsburg had in mind the kind of relationship that Ford enjoyed with Mazda for many years, one in which the larger company gradually took over the smaller (weaker) operation, eventually assuming full control. That does not appear to be the kind of scenario Suzuki in any way had in mind with VW. Suzuki is still a scrappy company, a wily operator that continues to think outside the box. Uniquely, Suzuki also has its motorcycle, ATV and marine businesses as buffers to auto-industry gyrations – and is as determined as ever to have its own way of doing things. While it’s often seen to struggle in the U.S. market, Suzuki still is an outfit where from which one should expect the unexpected. There aren’t many companies like Suzuki around anymore, as VW is learning.

What Are Your Social Media Goals?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Are Your Social Media Goals?[1]

Having a clear and defined social media strategy will help you define your goals and reach your target audience quicker and easier.  If you’re looking to get a positive ROI (return on investment) I’ve recommended the top 10 questions you need to ask yourself.

1. How much time do you currently spend on marketing and communication tasks?

By calculating how much time you’re currently spending you’ll be able to allocate time for your social media activities.  I find this exercise really useful as we often aren’t aware how much or how little time we’re spending on our marketing and business development.

2. How much time do you think you can allocate specifically to social media?

Social Media can not only be addictive but it’s also very easy to get side-tracked and before you know it you’ve spent hours on Facebook without actually achieving anything.  The more specific and disciplined you can be with your time the better your results.

3. What social media networks and activities do have experience with?

Are you a pro on Facebook but have never used Twitter?  Have you got a blog and are an active blogger?  Have you got a LinkedIn profile… but it’s still not completed?  Have you got lots of videos but still need to list them on YouTube. Are you a fan of forums?

4. Do you have the relevant skill set?

Social media is primarily content based.  Are you good at writing content in your niche subject?  Can you create awesome videos?  Are you knowledgeable in your niche?  Think about the skill set you need to have a successful social media campaign.  Highlight where you think you may need to outsource, i.e. if you wanted to outsource article writing.  Just because you don’t have the skill set for something doesn’t mean you still can’t do it – simply outsource it so you can focus on what you do best!

5. What are your social media goals?

There are many goals you can achieve via social media, for example you could use social media for any or all of the following:

• Build excitement prior to an event
• Build your email list
• Create a buzz about a launch product
• Create joint ventures
• Drive traffic to your website(s)
• Generate PR (press coverage)
• Generate Speaking Opportunities
• Get suppliers
• Get your fans to talk about you
• Getting feedback from your services/products/events
• Increase Brand or issue awareness
• Introducing colleagues
• Lead generation
• Network with like-minded individuals
• Search for opportunities
• Promote an event
• Recruit staff or outsourcers
• Reach companies/people you may not have been able to get in front of in the offline world

• Research and learning
• Sell products online
• Sell your services
• Share the latest industry news with your fans/followers
• Show your expertise
• Support charities
• Understanding what others are saying about you
• Reputation management

6. Pick 3 of your top goals and make sure they are S.M.A.R.T.  -Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-based.

7. Who is your target audience? Who do you want to reach? Which is the best method to reach and get your message across to them?

8. What motivates you to interact with other brands via social media? What can you offer?  Be creative.

Think about what has stood out for you from other brands.  The more creative and different you can be the better. I love Toy Story’s Facebook Fan Page, not only do they have the welcome page but they have also have a fun page where you can turn yourself into a toy.  Obviously this won’t be applicable for every business but by thinking outside the box and coming up with creative ways to build interaction with your readers and potential clients the better your results.

9. What will you share? What will you shout about? What will your content be about?

This sounds really obvious but it can be hard coming up with fresh content all the time.  Whilst it’s important to write about your knowledge within your niche area you can also write about other things as long as there is some kind of connection.  Don’t be afraid to ask your readers what they would like to see as well.

10. How will you measure your results?  How will you know what you’re doing is working?

Identify the following and put into a spreadsheet so you can measure your results on a week by week basis.  Work out the financial return on investment (factoring in how much time you have spent on your social media)

• Number of fans, followers, readers (or number of high-quality/targeted fans)

• Number of video or other content views
• Volume of user comments posted to your blog, profile or posted content
• Retweet or peer-sharing statistics for related content and posts
• Comment or retweet resonation (number of user comments multiplied by how many followers or friends each user has)

• Engagement (duration of video views, time spent on your blog site, time spent playing your branded game application, etc.)

• Media coverage
• Media impressions (mentions on blogs or other media multiplied by the  size of the audience)

• Advertising click-through rates
• Company website traffic statistics
• Quantity of new qualified leads or sales

 

Social Media Marketing Analytics (Part 1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media Marketing Analytics-1[1]

Social Media Marketing and the measurement thereof is always a hot topic. In this exclusive 7-part series – which begins today and will continue every Tuesday for the next 6 weeks, I will delve into the wonderful world of Social Media Marketing Analytics (SMA) and help you better understand what it is and why it is so important.

Social Media Marketing Analytics… “Huh?”

Why do I get the feeling that’s the response many marketers have when asked about Social Media Marketing Analytics?

Well fear not marketers of the world, I am here to help.

Social Media Marketing Analytics, as defined by the Altimeter Group is “The discipline that helps companies measure, assess and explain the performance of social media initiatives in the context of specific business objectives.” 

It also appears to be an enormous obstacle that many organizations are working hard toward understanding and utilizing in an effective strategic standpoint.

No Shortage Of Solutions

There are many Social Media Marketing Analytics solutions on the market, and quite frankly they are a dime a dozen. Before you begin doing your diligence, it is of course necessary to know the answers to a few questions such as:

• What will we use this for?
• Why should we use this?
• How will this benefit us?

After meticulous research, cross team collaboration and product testing, my recommendation for our agency, The Star Group, was Alterian SM2 due to it being the best-fitting solution for our client and internal agency needs.

Alterian SM2 is a Social Media Marketing Analytics and Intelligence solution that allows you to monitor content & conversations all across the web and lets you tap into a new kind of data resource; your customers’ direct thoughts and opinions. SM2 easily captures and analyzes data from social media channels to monitor your brand, identify key communities/ influencers, address customer service issues, conduct unbiased research for strategic planning, among others.

As I said, there are many solutions on the market but at their core, they all offer relatively the same value.

In brief, here are some of the core value offerings that a Social Media Marketing Analytics solution such as Alterian SM2 can provide:

• Brand Monitoring

◦  Monitor what consumers are saying about your brand.

▪  Alterian SM2 has the power to crawl the entire web and allow you to understand who, what, where, why, when and how 3rd party sources or customers are referring to your brand.

• Competitive Research

◦  Analyze content & conversations around competitive brands.

▪  Alterian SM2 can track competitors in the same way you can track your own brand.  These analytical insights give you the benefit of understanding how well your competition is performing online and are also very useful for uncovering potential opportunities that competitors may be not paying attention to.

• Strategic Development

◦  Leverage insights for strategic planning and market research.

▪  Alterian SM2 gives you the significant advantage of being able to probe the online environment before launching a program or initiative. These insights enhance your ability to make better business decisions and develop sound strategic direction.

• Strategic Connections

◦  Identify social influencers or “power users” for marketing outreach.

▪  Alterian SM2 has the ability to rank 3rd party sources and users pertaining to their influence/popularity. This advantage gives you an understanding of the most viable relationships to develop to increase marketing effectiveness.

• Crisis Management

◦  Identify emerging issues that require immediate response.

▪  With SM2’s “real time” monitoring capability, you can quickly and efficiently uncover problems as they happen to ensure a timely response that can potentially counteract negative commentary or solve a customer service issue for example.

• Social ROI

◦  Gauge effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

▪  SM2’s range of analytics allows you to understand if you are effectively achieving your goals through Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). A few examples of the KPI’s I’m referring to are:

◦  Daily Volume – the measurement of the total amount of conversations & content generated in regard to your brand within a given time period. Daily Volume allows for an accurate understanding of brand awareness.

◦  Share of Voice – the measurement of the amount of conversations & content generated in regard to your brand by medium within a given time period.

Brand Sentiment – the measurement of the manner in which users/sources refer to your brand (positive, neutral, negative) within a given time period

Why China won’t conquer the world

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why China won’t conquer the world[1]

Is China going to oust the United States as the world’s superpower? Is China really ready to rule the world? For nearly a decade now, on book tours that have taken me all over the globe, this is the one subject I am always guaranteed to be grilled on.

I can understand why people ask me. My name is Xinran and I was born in Beijing in 1958. I am a British-Chinese broadcaster and author, and have lived in London since 1997, where I initially worked as a cleaner. I have a foot in both cultures, and yet, when my readers ask me whether Western fears that power is shifting inexorably to the East are justified, I struggle to answer them.

China is a sleeping lion, Napoleon once warned. “Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.” Nearly two centuries later, this lion is not only awake, but roaring. Foreign companies in Asia, factories in Africa, and even villages in Italy and streets in France have been snapped up by perspicacious Chinese businessmen. Growth may have slowed in the midst of the world debt crisis, but China remains the world’s low-cost manufacturer and the US’s biggest creditor, with one Washington think tank recently making the prediction that the Yuan could overtake the dollar as the principal reserve currency within a decade.

On my home turf in London, a string of schools now offer Mandarin lessons to children as young as three, including Easy Mandarin UK in Belgravia and the Link Chinese Academy, which runs “fun” classes in “the language of the future” in Soho, Liverpool Street and Hammersmith. Back in 2008, The Daily Telegraph reported a rush on Mandarin-speaking nannies by “high-achieving parents” looking to “invest in their children’s future”. Wherever you look, China’s dominance seems inevitable. But is it?

At least twice a year I go back to China to update my understanding of my magical, constantly changing home country. As a writer, I try to dig out what’s really going on behind the cities’ monolithic shopping centres, the billboards flashing that day’s FTSE index, as well as visiting the countryside, where life couldn’t be more different.

My most recent trip to China was in September. It began with 10 mad, busy days in Beijing where my husband, as consultant to China Publishing Group, was attending the International Book Fair. I had gone to Nanjing to research my new book on the effects of China’s one-child policy, through the eyes of the first generation.

We then went to Shanghai where we were both giving lectures at Fudan University. Much of our time had been spent on the road, and we were by now desperate for a break from the swarming cars and the crowded streets, all overlooked by the unending skyscrapers lived in by over 16 million people.

A friend suggested a trip to Suzhou, “to have a walk and drink tea at some of the ancient tea farms, such as Guhan Village. No cars, no tourists”.

Before I left for Britain in 1997, this pleasant journey used to take me an hour by car. This time it took five hours and after a rushed lunch our driver warned us we would have to leave – “otherwise you won’t get back to Shanghai for dinner, even by Western standards”. (The Chinese eat dinner a lot earlier.)

As we reached the outskirts of the city and joined a crawling convoy of cars all fighting to get onto the motorway (the radio that morning had reported that the number of cars in China had recently reached 100 million, second only to the US’s 285 million) I took the opportunity to talk to our driver. What might he reveal about the state of modern China and where it is headed?

He was a father in his early thirties and had learnt to drive in the army. Many young peasants try very hard to get into the military, seeing it as an opportunity to have a better life than their parents and grandparents, who grew up in rural poverty or moved to the cities to live at the bottom of society as labourers. And yet, while he was far from being a member of the elite, he was by no means living a simple, pared-down existence: “Drivers have no chance of making big money like politicians and governors, but we need it as much as everyone does. We all only have one child and we want to give the best to them.

“My daughter’s kindergarten is not in the top list at all but it costs over 10,000 RMB (£1,000) a year. She’s going to a primary school this year, and it has cost more than 30,000 RMB just for the ‘entrance donation’ which is for a very average school.” When I asked how often he saw his daughter, he said, “There is no time for family, everybody is busy making money for their children. I use every occasion to sleep for the next stretch of work.”

No wonder: he told me he generally worked 15-hour days and that many Shanghai taxi drivers work for 18 hours without a break. “Drivers I know have died because they have fallen asleep at the wheel. What a waste.” I met hotel workers in Shanghai and Beijing, most of them in their early twenties, who told me they’d happily work more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week, without holidays, if they could make some extra money.

China has become a machine for generating wealth and opportunity, but is this nation of exhausted workers really one that can one day lead the world?

And what of the generation the one-child policy has spawned? Children from the biggest 40 cities are living in the three-screen world (television, computer and mobile), wearing global designer brands, travelling first class, and buying houses and cars for their one or two years’ study overseas. For these young “super-rich”, price has become no object, some even flying to and from Hong Kong for a day’s shopping.

It’s hard to conceive of them becoming China’s next generation of entrepreneurs, when, unlike their parents and grandparents, many have never touched a cooker and barely know how to make their own beds. They may have had superior schooling but many critics believe China’s education system – with its obsession with test-taking and rote memorisation – stifles rather than encourages creativity. Indeed, today’s entry exam for China’s universities, the “gaokao”, has its origins in a recruitment test devised by the imperial government in the sixth century, and, according to Jiang Xueqin, a Yale-educated school administrator in Beijing, rewards “very strong memory; very strong logical and analytical ability; little imagination; little desire to question authority”. China could be seen as a brilliant imitator but a poor innovator – its talents for replicating anything the Western world has to offer evidenced by the recent uncovering of 22 fake Apple stores across Kunming, the capital of

Yunnan Province in south-west China. So convincing were the stores that even staff members believed they were working for Apple. Genius, in a way. But misdirected genius.

If China is to dominate the creative industries as it has manufacturing, it needs to borrow a line from Apple’s marketing department: “Think different”. Liu Jun, a businessman recently crowned one of the “50 most creative individuals in China”, says it’s an uphill struggle.

“The reason the Chinese don’t have global companies is that we don’t have a global vision,” he said recently. “Chinese designers only think about what pleasures them, not the customer. It’s a huge problem.” Chinese corporate structures remain very rigid, and, according to Daniel Altman, a consultant at

Dalberg Global Development Advisors, original ideas “have to percolate through so many layers of hierarchy that most won’t survive to the top. China has a long way to go before it will be anything like the US in its ability to foster entrepreneurship.”

Of course, such dreams of corporate domination are a far cry from the lives of China’s peasants and farmers, who make up 70 per cent of the population. And for many lower down the chain, there is a growing resentment at our servicing of the US debt. As our driver put it: “Why, when Chinese people are watering our land with sweat, working hard day and night, are Americans comfortable, wearing sunglasses, able to enjoy the sun and sea? Why do we have to help them with their financial troubles?”

I didn’t tell him that in July this year, the total number of US bonds held by China had reached $1.1735trillion, equivalent to each person in China being owed 5,700 RMB (£570). I think, as Chinese people, we all know how this burden of debt accumulated, through years of bent backs and rough work, but not many people dare speak out. This is partly because most Chinese people don’t understand the scale of the financial crisis in the US and partly because we are not used to questioning our country’s leaders.

Taiwan-born Larry Hsien Ping Lang, a professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong, is known for his critiques of the Chinese economy. Earlier this month he warned that concerns about the state of the US economy have been overblown, and that it is really China’s precarious financial position the government needs to address.

“Our economy is not healthy,” he wrote, “and China’s manufacturing industry will be the end of its development. The number of business closures will reach 30 per cent or 40 per cent because the manufacturing zone faces two difficulties. First, the investment environment has deteriorated across the board and, second, there is serious excess capacity.

“These difficulties have led to a manufacturing crisis and entrepreneurs have had to retreat.” China’s rocketing house prices, fuelled by money advanced from the manufacturing sector, are only adding to China’s “bubble economy”, Lang believes.

Is the bubble about to burst? Lang fears it is. In his eyes, the speed of growth of China’s economy must slow down to give time for its education system and society to catch up; to improve the balance between rich and poor, and to allow time to consider what China needs to create a strong future.

After years spent researching the issues caused by a society made up of single children, I can’t help agreeing with Lang. Indeed, sometimes my home country feels like a nation in chaos.

Take the number of deaths on the road. In the past five years (2006-2010), there have been 76,000 road traffic deaths in China every year, accounting for more than 80 per cent of the total killed in all industrial accidents. Since 2001, divorce rates have also shot up. China’s highest divorce rate is in Beijing (39 per cent), closely followed by Shanghai (38 per cent).

Today, more than half the number of divorces are between people in their twenties and thirties, most of them from the first generation of the single-child policy. Many of this generation don’t even want children. Some don’t like the idea of being ousted from their position within the family; others say they simply don’t have the time to care for a child. At least they know their limitations. In the last five years, there have been numerous cases of two and three year-olds who have suffocated to death in family cars. Why? Because their distracted parents entrusted them to the care of drivers who left them locked in airless cars while running errands. It’s hard to take in, but it’s happening.

China is changing and, for some, the results are difficult to see. When I was in Nanjing with old friends (a group of traditional lantern makers), they chatted about children they hadn’t seen for a long time. They couldn’t understand how life is getting better and yet the family is disappearing.

There is no question that China has progressed in the past 30 years. I don’t think any nation in history has improved 1.3 billion peoples’ lives in such a short space of time. Most of our grandparents were saving a few soya beans everyday to help their family survive the famine, my parents would queue for hours just to get a bottle of cooking oil.

But are we really the next superpower? Can we really interact with the most developed countries when our free market economy is only 30 years old?

Even if we do become a superpower, will it be one that is firmly under central government control? Will we lose our identity – our family values and our culture – until we can no longer tell the difference between the Chinese dragon (how the Chinese think of themselves) and the Chinese lion (how the West thinks of us)? China, this sleeping lion is now awake, and you must find a way to feed it, and to keep it alive.

Back in Shanghai, our epic 10-hour journey between Shanghai and Suzhou finally over, my husband, Toby, cried out: I won’t get in the car in China again.

But we knew we would. It is a country that is far too exciting and colourful to give up on and most exciting of all, its story is still being written.

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