If you are looking to expand your activity in China, you might feel lost when trying to choose the right platforms to spread out your business and Chinese social networks are one of the main channels to bring brand awareness in the market.
As the quote say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”, in order to draw the attention of the Chinese majority, you need go where your potential clients are most active at.
Weixin (WeChat)
Creating your official account is the first step if you want to sell in China, since the app accumulates 1.2 billion monthly active users, by merging data from Weixin, the Chinese version for Mainland China and WeChat, the international one for the rest of the world.
The integrated WeChat account page functions as a website where you can list your products, set up your customer service and even link purchases to your account, from which you can withdraw the earnings to your bank account.
The best part about advertising your business on WeChat is that the app is relatively handy. You can make a nice layout of your post and send it on Moments, which is more like a Facebook page, where people share their news and stories.
Also, one of the main functions in Wechat are the Mini Programs as it allows brands to develop built-in apps in WeChat, to be able to launch marketing campaigns.
WeChat in China is also totally connected with WeChat Pay, a feature that allow Chinese to use mobile payments on daily basis. Having a WeChat marketing strategy is mandatory if you want to sell to Chinese customers as this is the most spread app in the country and it combines various features that mix personal, business and commercial usages.
Weibo is the Chinese version of Twitter and such as the Western version, it doesn’t have limitations on sharing posts publicly, which means when you post a content on Weibo, everyone will be able to see it even if they are not your followers.
This gives you an advantage of attracting public attention by creating viral posts, such as what you could do on Twitter. Using the tags that the mass majority use or promoting posts are among the best-practices to achieve more exposure.
Youku
Similar to YouTube, you can set up your own channel and make videos regarding your business and products but there are two ways to get more visibility using the ads:
- Place your ads in popular videos: Whenever a user clicks on a video to watch, he will have to watch 60 seconds long of ads before the real video plays.
- Sponsor videos from Chinese influencers: Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) are popular in China and each network has celebrities. Sponsoring those in Youku will ensure a large reach for your product, in the largest video platform in Mainland China.
Baidu Tieba
Baidu Tieba is a public communicating platform under Baidu, and it’s designed for internet users to discuss personal and public issues with others, and share information as they wish.
Tieba is a great way for enterprises to promote their business because there are no restrictions, and you can enter as many groups as you want to publicly share your business.
However, there are certain rules against advertisements, so you may want to be careful putting the words when you share on the site.
Zhihu
Zhihu is similar as Tieba, users connect to talk about their personal stories or share their experiences, and many of them would share their knowledge about a brand or a product that they have been using.
Therefore, a good way to promote on Zhihu is to have your campaign team to post real product and service experiences on the site and make them relatable to public users in order to achieve exposure.
DouYin (TikTok)
Even though DouYin and TikTok are two separate apps, the latter being an international version of the former, if you want to promote your company in China, having a Douyin marketing campaign is crucial, especially since 600 million daily users were active in August 2020.
Douyin/TikTok is a platform where users can create and share videos publicly, but as for companies, they are also platforms where they can promote their businesses and products.
They stand out because they offer a different way for users and brands to share in a more creative and lively way, thus, it reduces the resistance of consumers to promotions and advertisements, that are being displayed on the platform.
The above are the most common platforms that you can go and make your “propaganda” in your own way with a low cost. As the biggest market in the world, China is definitely a place that you don’t want to miss out!
