Recap of 2017 Chinese Social Media and What We Can Expect This Year?

Australian companies need to rethink the way they advertise to Chinese consumers

Summary:

Because of the overload of television and print media advertising in China over the past decade, the Chinese consumer has become desensitised to it. Furthermore, with the growing majority of China’s wealthy consumer force being a more tech-savvy era, preference for mobile devices and online searches is stronger than ever. With this in mind, 2018 will be the perfect year for businesses to jump into digital mobile-based marketing without reservation.

 

Statistics:

• The size of the digital advertising revenue market in China is expected to be close to $44 billion by the close of 2017, according to media investment group GroupM — with the largest segment in digital being the online search, valuing at more than $30 billion.
• Mobile ad revenue is the key winner in China, with this form of advertising outranking desktop for the first time (2017) at about $23 billion versus $21 billion.
• The mobile/desktop split was predicted to be $35/$20 billion in 2017 and by 2020, is expected to hit $71/17 billion.

 

 

 

Viability of Short Videos as a Marketing Strategy for Brands in China

Summary:

China’s short video industry has witnessed rapid development due to the popularity of smartphones and a more affordable mobile internet. The advantage of short videos lies in being able to deliver specific brand messages to a target audience while offering vastly superior flexibility for marketing budgets as opposed to longer videos. Through audience interactions with short videos, brands can better understand their preferences, rapidly improve their user experience, and come up with effective marketing plans quickly.

 

Statistics:

• During Shanghai Disneyland’s official opening, their biggest challenge was to attract visitors. To handle this, they lunched a short video campaign on Meipai, where users were encouraged to upload short videos of happy moments at the park using the hashtag #The Most Beautiful Moment in Disney Shanghai.
• This would result in resounding success, with the campaign attracting attention from families and young consumers, helping increase park visitor numbers, and promoting sales drastically.
• Champs Sports (a Footlocker brand) tested 30-second video ads and 6-second video ads to see which was more effective. In this case, the 6-second ads delivered an 11% increase in ad recall, 12% increase in return on ad spend and 271% increase in video completion rate.

 

 

 

 

Improving WeChat Content For Better Social Media Engagement

Summary:

With nearly a billion monthly active users during the third quarter of 2017, WeChat is regarded by many as the most popular Chinese social network and subsequently one of the most powerful social media marketing tools for targeting Chinese consumers. From large successes in other media integration (such as videos) to having a 30% higher engagement rate than a platform like Facebook, WeChat will continue to be the biggest craze in Chinese marketing, and as such, brands will need to improve their content as much as possible to make the most out of the social media platform.
 

Statistics:

• Gamification has been a noticable tech-oriented trend in the past year. A gamification campaign by French luxury cosmetics brand Guerlain had their customers go through multiple levels of difficulty, for the chance to win a lipstick as long as they score above a point threshold. Guerlain uses this to their advantage to exemplif
  y the art of audience engagement. Within 10 days of its launch, their gamification campaign attracted 18,582 page views and 10,000 players
• Millions of WeChat users have already begun transitioning away from physical wallets to exclusively use WeChat for payments as well as virtual loyalty cards. This is reflected by their 23% Year-over-year growth in monthly social payment transactions and their whopping 280% on monthly offline commercial transactions.
• WeChat has seen a 22% Year-over-year growth in video uploads at 68 million EVERY DAY. Brands need to take advantage of the popularity of videos on this platform with their own. (Such as through the use of short videos, see above)