5 Major Social Media Platforms in China. A Guide to the World’s Biggest Market.
Social media marketing, content marketing, and digital marketing, these are some of the most powerful approaches used by marketers nowadays. They are becoming extremely effective and popular, with the shift of spending power toward younger generations.
China, one of the biggest populations on earth, the growth of its economy stimulates enormous spending power.
Many brands have been trying to enter the Chinese market. But China built an unbreakable firewall for all the social media platforms from the US.
However, many platforms in China operate in similar yet very different manners, they can help you reach your potential customers.
Red(小红书)
Red is similar to Instagram.
It started as an app that sells cosmetic products. To attract new users, it encouraged everyone to share product reviews/life tips/beauty tricks on it. Now, Red has become the hottest social media platform in China, especially among younger people. The massive amount of product reviews allow Red to acts like a search engine, which means that good content can lead to a very high conversion rate.
When you want to purchase something, try searching it up on Red and see what people say about it. When you travel, you can search up places to go, dishes to order on Red.
Red allows users to post pictures, 5-minute videos, and articles. You can apply to become a video creator, it will then allow you to post a video for up to 15 minutes.
Bilibili(哔哩哔哩)
BiliBili nicknamed as B-site(B站), is a video platform. Compare to Red and TikTok, BiliBili focuses on longer videos.
The platform hosts various themes, games and anime are two popular topics. Other topics like beauty, product reviews, and life style are also popular.
A unique feature of Bilibili is “bullet curtain”(弹幕), it means scrolling comments on the screen while watching videos.
Imagine you are watching your favorite vlog at home alone, your favorite vlogger is at your favorite restaurant. You type in the comment section: “I love this place!” and you see someone else typed the same thing. It is a moment of connection! You feel like you are watching this vlog with many others, which makes the experience much more interesting.
Unlike Red and Tiktok, audiences “swipe away” different contents. BiliBili’s audiences are loyal. Just like YouTube, the audience will go to the “subscribed” page for content created by their favorite creators.
A popular trend on BiliBili and Red is Food Vlog, here is an example.
WeChat Official Account
Wechat is the most used communication app in China. Every single person uses it every single day. Even when people make calls, they open WeChat and send a voice message or use the “call” feature.
Audiences can subscribe to accounts and receive push notifications. WeChat official account received a great deal of traffic and attention as a result of the popularity of WeChat itself.
There are four types of WeChat Official Account:
Subscription Account is for influencers and brands. You can build an account to share whatever you like, as long as the contents are within the guidelines. For example, fashions, food, books, and gossip, etc.
Service Account is mostly used to guide users. For example, Government Service Account can help you book appointments, tell you the steps for renewing a passport, etc.
Mini Program was launched in 2017, it acts like Apps within WeChat.
Enterprise Account serves as an internal platform for companies.
Sina Weibo(微博)
Weibo is a microblogging website/app, similar to Twitter. It allows users to share pictures and videos. Celebrities, companies, and government branches operate official accounts on Weibo for Public relations.
When I was in high school, which was 10 years ago. Every teenager used Weibo to share their life moments and emotions daily, to communicate with friends.
Discard the fact that short video platform Red and TikTok are having a significant impact on Weibo, it still has a massive amount of active users.
One popular feature of Weibo is “Hot Search”, which shows all the trending topics that people are talking about. It contain gossips, new releases and News. Every time I log into Weibo, the first thing that I do is take a look at “Hot Search”.
Douyin(抖音)
I am sure that most of you heard of TikTok, many of you probably used it before.
TikTok is the international version of Douyin, it is the leading short video App that has provoked many global hot trends.
Before I finish this article, I want to point out something extremely important. Although these platform seems similar to many western platforms, they are completely different in the algorithm and advertisement.
Being a content creator on these platforms, I had encountered countless brands and agencies that approached me and expected me to do the same things that influencers do on Instagram. Some representatives are Chinese (working in western agencies), yet they have no idea of what to do or not to do.
If you want to penetrate the Chinese market with the help of these platforms, make sure you find an agency that has the knowledges of the rules and a deep understanding of the Chinese culture. Or your investment won’t make an impact.
(I wrote my first Medium!!!Yay!!!)
