According to the China Internet Network Information Centre, there were 989 million internet users in China at the end of 2020 – widely rounded up to 1 billion in news reports. The absence of most major Western platforms due to the censorship mechanism known as the Great Firewall has led to a unique internet ecosystem where high localised domestic platforms dominate.
The different ecosystems and different consumer habits mean that brands’ current digital content output will likely not be widely accessible in China and, therefore, a localised digital strategy is necessary to promote brands in China. This blog will look at China’s three biggest digital marketing platforms – WeChat, Weibo and Douyin – to analyse their functionality, target audience and highlight some successful case studies of brands that have gained sales and profile through judicious use of these platforms.
Founded in 2011, WeChat is owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent. It is the most popular app in China with more than 1.2 billion active monthly users globally. As the platform with the highest penetration rate, WeChat has a balanced user structure in terms of age and gender. While peak WeChat usage occurs in the 26-35 age group, silver-haired users and young users are using the app in increasing numbers.
In terms of functionality, messaging is the original function of WeChat and it has replaced email to a large extent for businesses communications because of its convenience. There is also a social feature called Moments, where users can upload images or videos and their friends can comment or like posts.
Another relatively recent but already firmly established feature of WeChat is payments. Users can pay for almost anything via WeChat. From major supermarkets, local mom-and-pop stores to online shopping, the option to use WeChat Pay is now ubiquitous in China.
The final key feature of WeChat is called mini-programmes, which are apps within WeChat. Instead of having multiple standalone apps, such as one app for banking and another for flight booking, WeChat provides a one-stop-shop for its users by building these apps directly into WeChat. Users can order food-delivery service, book hotels and make payments without leaving the app. In this way, WeChat becomes an app store and keeps users connected to its ecosystem.
WeChat is a pioneer in blending social and e-commerce as brands can use the aforementioned mini-programmes to both market and sell to WeChat users. According to McKinsey, these mini-programmes drive one-quarter of the awareness in the digital consumer’s purchasing journey.
Launched in 2009, Weibo is regarded as the Chinese equivalent of Twitter and has become the leading micro-blogging site in China. It is basically an open social media platform where people not only post, share and interact, but also find updates on trends and news. This is the place for content to go viral and for KOLs to build their online communities. Although its monthly active user base has remained steady at around the 500-550 million mark, it’s the stickiness of the app rather than its growth that is appealing to brands.
Content on Weibo caters for all tastes from celebrity news, fashion trends, food recommendations to more niche topics. The gender and age demographics of users are relatively balanced and more users are living in tier-1 and 2 cities.
The primary way in which brands can market themselves on Weibo is to create an official account and post interesting content to attract and engage followers. The ‘Fan Headline’ function, which is similar to Facebook’s page promotion, helps to promote selected posts to existing and potential followers. This post will appear at the top of users’ home page for 24 hours.
In addition to a brand’s own account, working with popular KOLs to jointly promote a brand is one of the key marketing strategies on Weibo. There are several ways to do this, including sponsored posts, giveaways through KOLs, product reviews and live-streaming. Weibo has established its own live-stream platform and brands can hire KOLs and celebrities to promote product and service in this way.
Banner ads and search engine promotion are also effective marketing tools in Weibo. The former allows advertisers to place banner ads on Weibo and direct users to the advertiser’s page and the latter displays relevant Weibo accounts and promoted posts when users search for information related to a certain topic in the search bar.
One great example of how to use Weibo comes from Jiang Xiao Bai, a traditional Chongqing sorghum liquor brand targeting young customers. It is famous for its Weibo content marketing, especially through interactive posts and festival related promotions. For example, during Spring Festival Jiang Xiao Bai posted a question asking for its followers’ festival related concerns and randomly selecting 10 responses to win a gift box. The brand also provided photos showing how Jiang Xiao Bai could be consumed in different circumstances in Chinese Spring Festival. This post has received approximately 400 replies and 150 reposts.
Douyin
Douyin is a short video platform owned by Bytedance and launched in 2016. It is known as TikTok outside of China. However, Douyin’s functionality is greater than TikTok’s and consists of not only 15-60 seconds short looped videos but also live-streaming. It also integrates online shopping portals into the app, so users could buy from the brand’s Taobao page without leaving Douyin. In 2021, Douyin’s user base in China amounts to approximately 686.5 million and is projected to increase to 722.9 million by 2025.
Its audience is extremely young and active, with nearly 67% under 30 and 56% of them are students. According to iiMedia, around two-third of Douyin’s users live in the lower-tier cities.
Before we go to the business side of Douyin, we should understand its powerful algorithm. The algorithm uses data to seek out posted videos and identify users it thinks will enjoy those videos, allowing the app to automatically serve suitable videos to each user. This means viewers who have watched one food & drink video are likely to consume more of this content and be interested in specific brands and KOLs.
In fact the popularity of KOLs have contributed massively to the exponential growth of Douyin’s and is the primary way for brands to market through Douyin. Like on Weibo, KOLs can promote sponsored products in various ways. Brands should not just focus on the top KOLs, but work with many small influencers, who have the perfect match with the products and can increase the possibility of the posts going viral.
Herbal beverage brand Wang Lao Ji launched a Douyin-focused campaign partnering with a number of KOLs (not all famous ones) to promote user-generated content. The followers of these KOLs are inspired to submit their own ‘ads’. The wave of user-generated content resulted in almost 3,000 entries and more than 350 million views.
Conclusion
Understanding the different characteristics, functionality and potential of China’s various digital marketing platforms can help brands better understand Chinese consumer culture and target specific customers more effectively. There are many more platforms available than discussed here today and each platform has its own functionality, best practice and potential for results.
However, most brands lack the internal capabilities for localising and creating China-specific content. Even Chinese speaking staff is not enough as creativity and familiarity with the platforms are vital to produce results. Therefore, it will be best for most brands to work with an outside party to effectively promote products in China’s fast moving and intensely competitive market.