China vs. U.S.: Social Media Landscape and Marketing Strategy

Social Media Landscape Inside the Wall

China currently has over 650 million internet users — an Internet penetration rate exceeding 45 percent. By building up a “great firewall,” China blocked most Western social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the Google products, which in turn gave birth to its own internet landscape and social networks.Ranked by the number of monthly active users, Tencent QQ, Tencent WeChat and Sina Weibo are the top three social media in China.

With almost 1 billion monthly active users, Tencent QQ, released in 1999, provides users with instant messaging service as well as features like music, blogs, microblogs, games, e-mail, and a newly added online payment. However, because most users are young students and live in China’s tier 2 and tier 3 cities, Tencent QQ is rarely used for marketing.

Released in January 2011, WeChat has been growing with rapid and formidable speed. It now has 1.1 billion registered accounts and 650 million monthly active users — 98% of them accessing it via smartphone. According to a DMR WeChat Statistics Report released in February 2016, WeChat has a high level of stickiness — 55.2% of users open the app more than 10 times a day.

Most people view WeChat as the Chinese version of WhatsApp, and it’s true that WeChat was originally designed for instant messaging. But it’s more than that. By offering a seemingly endless suite of features, including one-on-one and group chat, voice messaging, video call, news feed called Moments, money transferring, online payment, shopping, ticket-booking, gaming, people nearby and others, WeChat has been focusing on monetizing its platform with its in-app e-commerce and services. It is reported that 69% of WeChat revenue in 2014 came from mobile ads and sales.

In WeChat, there are multiple ways to implement marketing strategies. Brands and companies can set up a public/official account to promote their content to the followers and maintain a long-time relationship with customers. Besides, brands can also put advertisements in target audiences’ Moments (WeChat news feed). Placing QR (quick response) code in high-trafficked places for users to scan and follow them in WeChat and using the location-based service function to reach the target audience are also effective marketing strategies. WeChat is like an aggregator of any feature an app could have and that probably is why its users have such a high level of stickiness.

Sina Weibo, launched in 2009, is considered to be a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook. This microblogging platform also has a 140-character limit. Just like Twitter, Sina Weibo’s sway has a lot to do with its influential user accounts and opinion leaders including celebrities and public figures. The difference is that users are able to comment and repost a weibo/tweet with a comment. Plus, Sina Weibo users can post with hashtags, hyperlinks, pictures, and a video. Recently, Sina Weibo canceled the 140-character limit for premium members. Now with 222 million monthly active users, Sina Weibo is favored by its users for a new feature — searching. Sina Weibo users find it a perfect place to turn to whenever there is a breaking news or a hot topic and they can search for useful information and content on Sina Weibo. For example, I personally like searching for recipes on Weibo instead of googling them.

Sina Weibo’s revenue mostly comes from advertising and marketing, and it is said to be “a friendlier platform for marketers than Twitter.” Sina Weibo just launched video advertising in the first half of 2016 as a new revenue source to maintain a robust growth. According to China Internet Watch (2015), the video advertising will appear in the user’s weibo news feed based on geographic and demographic setting. Video ads will display under 10 seconds and will automatically play under Wi-Fi environment. Large brand advertisers can buy video advertising by CPM (cost per thousand impressions) while small and medium-sized companies can enjoy a lower bid price. However, the most popular advertising on Sina Weibo is still self-serving social ads that advertisers and marketers could have a flexible targeting and budget options.

The United States of Social Networks

The United States is the motherland for most popular and widely-used social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to name a few. You can find almost all those social networks’ counterparts in China although their Chinese versions would localize and re-position themselves eventually. The fact is that most of those ideas were originally from the States. Despite the fact that Facebook remains the most popular social media across the nation, there have been different kinds of communication and networking tools that serve different social needs coming into being.

Facebook had 1.59 billion monthly active users as January 2016, and it has a mature business model. Advertisers and marketers who use Facebook as a marketing tool are able to target their audiences based on different traits such as location, demographics, interests, buying habits, and some other categories. Facebook not only helps brands and marketers run an ad, but also provides tips for designing a great campaign on Facebook and a detailed report on the ad performance. Facebook has enabled another feature that blurred the line between news and advertisements: native ads. Native ads are referred to as articles or videos that look and feel like standard editorial products which is actually paid by advertisers and marketers. Native ads are proved to be a more effective tool because readers typically respond better to them than traditional ads and banners.

Facebook is currently promoting another product it developed — Facebook Messenger. Facebook messenger hit over 900 million monthly active users as of April 2016. Facebook has a major ambition of turning it into a one-stop shop for e-commerce, transportation, scannable codes and some other services that help users better connect with businesses.

Now having businesses such as Uber and Hyatt Hotels using the app connecting with their customers, Facebook Messenger is viewed as the American version of WeChat.

On the other hand, though Twitter is criticized for its lagging user growth in recent days, it still has relatively decent 320 million monthly active users and remains one of the largest social networks around the world.

Besides Facebook and Twitter, there are several newly launched social networks that are favored by the users and brands. Instagram, known as a photo-sharing app, had 400 million monthly active users as of September 2015. Last year, Instagram enabled a new feature that allows brands to place ads in target audiences’ photo stream. Collaborating with influential users including celebrities and bloggers on Instagram is another effective marketing strategy for advertisers and marketers.

With 100 million monthly active users, Pinterest is good at monetizing those “pins.” Pinterest just added “buy it” button for online retailers. This small button turned out big. Pinterest went popular simply because people have a desire for stuff they love, most of which they don’t have but wish to have. And apparently, Pinterest were able to find the customers’ discovery process which in turn helped it build a promising business model. For now, Pinterest isn’t taking a cut of the sales from retailers and brands. Well, it’s just for now.

According to Pew Research Center (2015), 36% of smartphones owners use messaging apps and 17% of smartphone owners use apps that automatically delete sent messages. Yes, messaging apps and ephemeral apps are trending, especially among young adults. Messaging app WhatsApp had over 900 million monthly active users in September 2015 with the aim of staying a simple messaging app that works across all mobile platforms. As the most successful ephemeral or disappearing messaging app, Snapchat is still looking for a stable and healthy business model that works perfectly with live storytelling, curated user video, and of course, the ephemeral content.

Every Road Leads to Rome: Reach, Engagement, and Conversion

WeChat has been viewed as China’s answer to WhatsApp since its release in 2011. However, it has become something more than an instant messaging app today. WeChat is like a Swiss army knife that blurs the lines between different features as well as online and offline services. Whether it is transferring money, shopping, paying bills, or hailing a cab, all the services are within this app. Users can talk to one friend or 499 friends in the group chat (WeChat allows up to 500 people to participate in a group chat). They can not only check on their friends’ and families’ status in Moment (news feed), but also follow public accounts they are interested in to read articles, watch videos, comment, like and share its content. That is why I think it may be a little imprudent to view WeChat as the Chinese version of WhatsApp. And Facebook Messenger seems have taken the page from WeChat as it also developed a suite of features and services. The rationale is simple: users are able to do more within the app and don’t have to switch to other apps.

The fact is that Chinese social networks and the U.S. social networks are fundamentally different. It is true that you can pretty much find every counterpart of U.S./Western social media in China, but they eventually will grow into something different because China is a totally different story, both economically and culturally. Despite all the differences, social media has become a key target in marketing both in China and the States. Knowing that 93% of shoppers’ buying decisions are influenced by social media (Socialnomics, 2014) and 44% of Americans learn about brands from social networks, brands and marketers put every effort in reaching their target audiences via different social media platforms. After reaching the target audience, marketers and brands have to center on creating valuable content and raise audiences’ engagement. No matter it’s a short-term thematic campaign or a long-term relationship maintaining, the ultimate goal of social media marketing is conversion, that is, target audiences perform a desired action, which usually is referred to as the actual buying activities.

One Size Fits All: Understand Your Audiences Culturally

Today, harnessing social media for marketing purpose is a widely-used and well-established tactics for brands and marketers both in China and Western countries. The United States has already built up a viable system in terms of implementing marketing campaigns, maintaining customer relationships, and managing brand image. China, as a rising economic entity, is still on its way cultivating a more mature market. At this moment, the Chinese market is still chaotic and fragmented that marketers can be either unprofessional or creative when they implement a campaign on social media.

As far as I am concerned, Social media marketing in China is more thematic, while US is more periodic.With such a huge online population, it is not hard for marketers to trigger chaos on social media such as Weibo and WeChat in China. Social media users in China spend more time on social networks (McKinsey Quarterly, 2012), which means more exposure to content and more interactions between brands and customers. The reasons brands and marketers love China are 1) consumers in China are more likely to trust ads and brand messages and they are more eager to spend money, 2) people are more active on social media in China than American internet users. Chinese internet users are willing to participate in online conversations, not only by commenting and sharing, but also by creating content and recommending to others.

There are countless conferences, forums, seminars, webinars, online and offline tutorials in the States every year, discussing how to use social media professionally and make the most of them based on the characteristics of different social networks. For brands and marketers, it’s good to create buzz, being widely discussed and hashtagged, but more importantly, they want to build and maintain the brand image and remain relevant in as long time as possible. Compared to the United States, the Chinese market is relatively young but dynamic. But it has a huge number of social media users, so it’s relatively easier to reach them and “manipulate” the buzz.

Therefore, marketers should understand the inner mechanism of different social media and be aware of how they work with businesses. Different social media may need customized marketing strategy. But what’s more important is that they should understand their target culturally. China’s market is simply different from the US market. Knowing China’s e-commerce market starts with knowing its online consumer and how they behave online. For example, if you know Chinese internet users well enough, you will collaborate with Internet celebrities to create funny videos because that’s what’s trending in China these days.

Everybody is talking about “SoLoMo” in marketing industry nowadays and everybody knows it means “social, localize, and mobile.” By saying “localize”, it is not just localized products and services. In fact, the best and most successful marketing may start from a localized thinking…