So, in this article we will review which Chinese digital platforms are getting the most attention and spending from marketers. 

• Which platforms are hot and get the most attention ?
• How does it reflect Chinese consumers behaviors online ?
• Which digital marketing strategy you should adopt for advertising in China ?

Digital Marketing Spending in China: The Trends 

Before diving into the details, let’s have a look at the overall digital advertising spending in China.

In 2019, digital advertising spendings value will grow over 90 billions of USD with a growth rate of 18%. Today, digital represents almost 70% of the total media spendings in China.

Even if the market speed of growth will decrease in the coming years, we can see the large domination of digital marketing over traditional media in China.

E-commerce in China - A key focus of digital advertising spending.

Today, promotion and media buying in China are directed more and more to e-commerce platforms. The focus on e-commerce is a lasting trend in term of digital marketing. Over the last years, brands have been focusing their marketing spending on e-commerce platforms to impact online sales directly and efficiently. 

As a matter of fact, Alibaba has seen its market share of digital spending growing over the last five years from 21% in 2015 to 29% in 2019. Today, Alibaba is generating 50 RMB by quarter for each daily active user.

Discover the best e-commerce to sale your product in China

Digital marketing video platforms on the rise - Douyin, Kuaishou and Bilibili 

Short video platforms have captured more and more time from Chinese internet users.

As so, Douyin (also known as TikTok outside of China) is on the rise and is attracting more and more money from digital marketing agencies. 

In fact, Bytedance, the owner of Douyin and the news related platform Toutiao, is now the second largest ads platform in China with 18% of the Digital Spending. It quickly rose from only 2% back in 2016.

The popularity of video platforms among advertisers is directly related to the time spent by internet users. Everyday, Douyin users spend 88 minutes on the APP. With 83 minutes, Bilibili is not far behind and even beats the time spent on WeChat (82 minutes).

Chinese Social Media marketing: still an easy way to reach massive audiences

While Tencent (WeChat owner) has seen a slight decrease of 1% of its market share, Sina Weibo remains stable.

Most marketers consider those two platforms to be mature now and will maintain their level of spending as social media allow them to reach very easily massive audiences.

With 765 millions of daily users (DAU) for WeChat and 188 millions DAU for Sina Weibo, both platforms are still very performant to reach audiences from multiple demographics and profiles very easily. Also, the cost of digital advertising can be attractive, especially on Sina Weibo.

Learn how to buy media on WeChat

How to define your advertising strategy for digital marketing in China ?

Deciding where, when and how you should invest your advertising budget is not an easy task. This is especially true in China where the platforms are diverse, versatile with advertising systems not always easy to understand.

As a digital marketing agency in China, Next Ren Shanghai will be looking at those key aspects to help your decision:

• Brand Maturity in China. If you are new to the market, your investment will be strongly different from a more mature brand. As a matter of fact, you should focus your advertising budget on one or two platforms to maximize your impact and build an audience in China.

• Target audience in China. Who are you targeting ? The location and profile of your target audience will have a strong impact on the platforms you will select. Platform will have different targeting system and tools that will impact your advertising campaign. If you are targeting a very narrow audience, you will favor multiple platforms and collaboration with specialized KOL to make sure to reach out this specific target.

How to find KOL in China to promote your brand ?

• Industry specificities in China. Your industry and business will of course be another determining factor. If you are in the travel/ tourism industry, you will need to consider some specific platforms like Fliggy or Qunar.

As you can see, they are a wide range of aspects to consider and discuss. Our digital marketing agency will help you make well informed decisions to grow your digital presence in China. 

Next Ren is a digital marketing agency in Shanghai.

Follow us on LinkedIn and WeChat to stay updated on WeChat trends.

The post Which digital marketing platforms to choose for advertising in China ? appeared first on Next 人.

We will explain in this article why investing in photography is a smart choice and will help your digital marketing in China:

• E-commerce, where photography is key to display your product in a positive manner.
• Social Media, where platforms like WeChat or Sina Weibo still rely heavily on static visual assets on a daily basis.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO), where searching images is a common behavior to find inspiration.

Furthermore, we will show how photography impacts the branding and the perception of brands in China.

Photography : a few tips to improve your E-Commerce performances

On e-commerce, user do not have time to load and watch dozens of video to review different products. See here how good pictures will make the difference between a sale or a fail.

Keep the main picture of your product simple with a white background and focus on the main element of differentiation.

On Tmall or Tabao, visitors are searching and browsing through images of hundreds of products; before selecting the one to review in detail. As such, the main picture of your product will have a strong impact on the customer decision to click; and discover more about your product. 

Case Study : DJI

Add multiples angles and details of your product

On your product page of your TMall or JD.com, include pictures of details as well as different angles. Keep in mind to maintain a good picture quality so people can easily zoom in.

You can also add pictures of details so visitors can experience your product as in retail.

Case Study : Kailas

Stage your product in action and show its benefits

Understanding how the product works and its benefits is a key expectations for Chinese digital buyers. At this stage, a video can add a lot of value and help the Chinese visitors with their decision. However a photography can easily illustrate how the product can be used; and its key benefits for example with a before/after picture set. 

Case Study : Dyson

Review the format and specificities of each e-commerce platforms

In China, e-commerce platforms are numerous and evolving very fast. New ones can be launched and become popular in a few month. As such, having a qualitative and genuine photographic library is an asset to adapt quickly to the changing Chinese market.

Before launching your product on a new platform, review the format recommended for each picture. You must also understand the options that are available - like 360° pictures for example.

Case Study : OnRunning - Tmall

Keep consistency across all your products

Case Study : Microsoft

In China, with coupons, loyalty programs and strong client servicing, vendors are showing great effort to drive multiple visits and repurchasing from their customers.

Having a strong visual consistency on your shop will help to drive more purchase acts from new and existing customers.

Read here more on how to build your e-commerce presence in China

Photography for Social Media Marketing

Photography: Sharing is caring

In China, users follow brands on social media because they have a special bond and a sense of community with the company’s values. Also, having a KOL (Key Opinion Leader) or a KOC (Key Opinion Consumer) will definitely strengthen the connection between users and brand; allowing them to re-share their favorite images.

Brands can also use Photography to illustrate their values and show what they care about.

WeChat 

On WeChat, the main content is an article which can be 5-6 mobile pages long. With such format, having a rich library of assets to illustrate your article is a must have. Also, animations and dynamic contents like carrousel are very popular. As such, the volume of pictures you are using in a single article is around twelve ! 

Read here how to create engaging and innovative content on WeChat

SEO : How images can improve your website ranking

Pictures browsing in Baidu Images

Using search engines like Baidu or Sohu to browse through pictures to find relevant contents and products is a common practice in China. Even if it’s less impactful than Google, Chinese search engine platforms will display multiple images depending on your search by default.

As such, having eye-catching pictures well referenced in Chinese search engine will help both your websites and e-commerce platforms.

Optimize your images ranking

To optimize your images’ ranking on SEO, there are a few easy tricks : start for example by adding the name of your images in Chinese on the title and on all the connected images on your website.

Also, keep in mind that having a website locally hosted in China with a .cn address and an ICP licence will be key to optimize your website on Chinese search engine.

Read more here on how to start doing SEO in China.

Photography for branding 

To conclude, keep in mind that visual assets are key elements in order to build your brand image and your positioning in China.

Of course, overusing common stocks photos and photoshopping will end up negatively impacting the perception of your brand. Photography is at the heart of your visual identity and a key focus of marketing strategy.

So, to show your customers you are a real, genuine, positive and caring brand, use photography as a key tool of your digital marketing.

Reach out to our team at Next 人 to help you with photo and video shooting to build authentic marketing content that represent your company’s values. 

The post Authentic photography | A must-have for digital marketing appeared first on Next 人.

Here are the 5 steps to start with SEO in China :

• Host your website in China 
• Choose the right domain name
• Respect Chinese language and culture
• Understand how Baidu works
• Apply some basic web development rules

Hosting your website in China

Having your website hosted on a Chinese server is probably the most important step to take to start doing SEO in China. Without a Chinese hosting, your website has little chance to perform on Chinese search engine like Baidu or Sogu.

How to host your website on Chinese server to do SEO in China ?

You will need to get an ICP (Internet Content Publishing) Licence from the Chinese Government to have access to reliable Chinese hosting company like Aliyun (Branch of Alibaba company). With a Chinese hosting, you will be inside the Chinese Great Firewall. As such, it will optimize your website loading time and better SEO in China.

Avoid shared hosting solutions. If one of the website on the server is targeted by the Chinese government, the whole server is likely to be impacted as well. 

Choose the right domain name

Electing a .cn domain name is a must when doing SEO in China. Like for local hosting, Baidu and Chinese search engines will always favor .cn domain name. As such, avoid using .com for your website in China.

Even if simplified Chinese characters must be used for your website content, make sure to use pinyin and western alphabet for your domain name and your URL in general.

Keep in mind not to use several domain names or create sub-domain names for your website. Baidu will penalize this practice and favor websites which are under a top level domain (TLD) name.

Respect Chinese language and culture

As in the West, the quality of your content will have a strong impact on your SEO ranking. To do SEO in China, you must use Chinese simplified languages. Simplified Chinese will be preferred by Baidu over traditional Chinese by Baidu.

Avoid using Google translate and make sure your content is done by a native Chinese writer. Using a Chinese native SEO copywriter is a must when you will decide on which keywords to focus on. 

Also, Baidu values fresh content. As such, you need to make sure to prepare a strong marketing content strategy. This effort will definitely have value for your social media strategy as well !

Be careful not to copy or duplicate existing content. You will get penalized by Baidu in a similar fashion as for Google.

Finally, make sure to respect Chinese culture and legislation. A content that would create outrage or does not respect Chinese rules will likely be down-ranked and even banned.  

Understand how Baidu works

In 2020, Baidu is still the most popular search engine platform in China with 65% market shares. It is followed by Sogou, 20% market shares and Shenma with 7% market shares.

With such domination of the market, understanding how Baidu works is a must to do SEO in China as it is for Google in the West.

Describing how Baidu works would take a couple of full books… So, we will share here only a few key insights:

• Meta keywords are very important on Baidu. You should pay close attention to Title tag, meta description, Alt tag and H tags.
• Internal Linking and backlinks on Chinese website have a positive impact on your website Baidu Ranking.
• Add contents and links to your website on the Baidu ecosystem including platforms like Baike, Zhidao or Tieba.
• Use Baidu Webmaster tools to get more insights and improve your SEO efforts.

Apply some basic web development rules

Optimizing your website at the stage of development is key when doing SEO in China.

Remember to avoid using Flash technology. Even if this technology is less and less popular, refrain from using it as Baidu can not crawl Flash websites.

JavaScript is also a technology to forget when it comes to doing SEO in China : Baidu can not crawl JavaScript as well.

In the meantime, keep it mind to have a mobile first approach when developing your website as a vast majority of users access internet on mobile devices.

Finally, keeping your website light to guarantee an optimal loading time will positively impact your SEO.

Next Ren Shanghai is a digital marketing agency, based in Shanghai and Paris, with a strong expertise in SEO. Follow us on LinkedIn to stay tune !

The post SEO in China: how to start ? appeared first on Next 人.

• Digital Marketing spending will grow by 14%.
• Social Marketing will stay the main focus for advertisers.
• 53% of the advertisers will focus on self produced videos/ micro-films
  

Digital Marketing

First, the digital marketing budget growth will slow down in 2020.

In fact, digital advertising budgets will grow 14% on average in 2020, slower compared to the past 3 years.

Second, most attention will focus on social marketing. As a matter of fact, 71% of the advertisers will increase their social marketing budget in 2020.

As a whole, social marketing budget will grow by 15% in 2020;

In the meantime, social marketing and private traffic pools will be the forms of digital marketing most worthy of attention. Video ads and social e-commerce come in second.

Third, mobile marketing budget continues to grow.

Along 2020, digital marketing budgets will move toward mobile. Also, social media platforms and short-form video platforms will be the main beneficiaries of this growth.

Social Media Marketing & Content

First, KOL marketing will stay a hot topic and focus for 2020.

At the same time, short form videos and live streaming will become more and more popular.

In the meantime, we observe that sports events are a growing interest for advertisers.

Also, 53% of the advertisers will focus on onself-produced videos/micro films for content marketing.

In the meantime, we observe that Marketing AI is the digital marketing technology garnering most advertiser interest.

If you want to discover more, read the full report of the digital marketing trends in China for 2020 below:

To discuss how your brand can improve its digital marketing in China in 2020, feel free to reach out. Next 人 (Next Ren Shanghai) team is looking forward to support you.

Follow us on LinkedIn to stay tune !

The post What will be the digital marketing trends for China in 2020 ? appeared first on Next 人.