WeChat, Weibo, Xiaohongshu and Tik Tok are regarded as the top four Mainland social media platforms. While different platforms can attract different audiences with their individual features, on-target publicity is always a winning card.
The huge Mainland market offers unlimited opportunities. When it comes to publicity, social media platforms are major battlegrounds for brands. According to Daniel Chan, the Chamber’s Committee Member, Founder Chairman of Hong Kong General Chamber of Cross-border E-commerce, CEO of AsiaPac Net Media Ltd, reaching the target audience accurately can bring handsome reward that proves one plus one is greater than two.
WeChat: Two-way exchange is the key
As China’s favorite communication and social app, WeChat has over one billion active subscribers monthly and covers 94% of Mainland smart phone users. The app has multiple powerful functions. According to Chan, WeChat’s advertising resources are circle of friends, applets and public accounts. Emphasizing two-way exchange, it is a common application for e-commerce activities and O2O promotion campaigns.
Chan suggests that business operators use LBS to post different types of ads, provide one-on-one customer service and deploy tools like WeChat Mall, WeChat Pay, Red Envelop, merchant coupons and WeChat Mini Games. He also says merchants can make use of Tencent’s Guang Dian Tong advertisement launching system that offers over 100 ad designs to meet individual needs.
Weibo: KOL marketing is a clear advantage
Weibo clocks more than 500 million active subscribers monthly. This second most popular social media platform of China is particularly popular with office workers and professionals.
Chan indicates that Weibo focuses on one-way information transmission at high speed. Business operators can pinpoint fan groups more accurately. Added with popular and trending hashtags, their posts can reach and interact with a huge user base. Weibo has clear advantage in KOL marketing. Numerous entertainment celebrity KOLs are active on Weibo and the platform covers many different fields. “Weibo has no limit for the number of posts. You can release sales and brand promotion posts several times a day to maximize exposure and revenue.”
Xiaohongshu: A consumer decision-making portal for young people
Xiaohongshu clocks about 100 million active subscribers every month. 80% of subscribers are young women of high spending power and 72% belong to the 1990s generation. More than half of its subscribers come from tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Chan said, “Xiaohongshu is the consumer decision-making portal for young people. The majority of subscribers seek information about a certain brand or product on Xiaohongshu.”
KOL advertising campaigns are particularly effective tools to motivate online shopping. Chan suggests “embedding recommendations” in popular KOL bloggers’ notes, i.e. sharing product reviews through images, texts, videos and live streaming e-commerce. These recommendations can encourage purchase. It is known as “embedding”, an approach to increase a brand’s influence and sales.
Tik Tok: Creativity required for eye-catching ads
Tik Tok has the biggest download volume among all mainland short video social apps. Daily active subscribers exceed 600 million, most of them are young high spenders aged 25 or above. The platform is tilted towards the instantaneous entertainment culture and interactivity. Therefore, ads must be creative, dynamic and full of fun.
Tik Tok is currently pushing forward live streaming e-commerce. Chan pointed out, “Tik Tok redirected all transactions to Taobao, JD and other third-party e-commerce platforms in the past. With the new Tik Tok Shop and Tik Tok Pay feature, users can now complete their transactions directly in the online shop.” Tik Tok live streaming e-commerce can only be connected to products sold in Tik Tok Shop and not third-party platforms, whereas third party platform connection is still supported for short video products. Moreover, Ocean Engine under Bytedance offers several marketing products that enable businesses to advertise on multiple platforms concurrently to conduct full-scale soft marketing and establish reputation.
Creative content is marketing mainstream
China is a vast country with rich resources. Chan points out that cultural and linguistic disparities between different parts of the country are inevitable, especially online buzzwords or social media language. When expanding business through mainland social media, it is necessary to learn more about local cultural, trends and popular slangs to close the gap.
Social media have their own characteristics but they invariably present with images, videos, short videos and message streams. The threshold is low but it is hard to stand out. Chan stresses that producing creative, thoughtful and high-quality ads is the key. Couple that with marketing efforts, KOL marketing and live streaming e-commerce, you can have a multiplier effect.
