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.

So, how to do marketing on Douyin (Tiktok) ?

First, we will explore how Douyin gives some great insights about Chinese people online behaviors and preferences. Also, we will see the evolution of Chinese consumers online habits. You can do marketing on Douyin (Tiktok) by listening and learning about your customers interests.

Second, we will review the video marketing opportunities for brands in China. You can do marketing on Douyin (Tiktok) by sharing and advertising on the platform.

Douyin: Chinese Consumers Insights and Behaviors

Early January 2020, Bitydance released on their WeChat account a detailed report on Chinese users behaviors and preference on the APP. This report in Chinese gives a great glimpse on how Chinese consumers behave online and what their preferences are.

The report is structured around 6 main parts:

• Chinese daily life: what do Chinese users share and like on Douyin
• Chinese preferences in terms of music and topics depending on their generation
• Travel favorite destinations for Chinese consumers
• Favorite food for Chinese consumers
• What Chinese are learning on Douyin 
• Cultural interest of the Chinese people

To start, we can see that family is at the heart of the APP with parents releasing over 3.08 millions videos every day with their children. Important moments of life are also celebrated - wedding is the most popular with 7 millions videos, followed by birth with over 1.7 millions videos.

Also, Chinese people love their pets, and the favorite dog of the platform was the Husky ! From a job perspective, teachers got the most attention followed by nurses.

In the meantime, the report shows that interests vary with age. For the ones born in the :

• 60's : Dancing & Weddings
• 70's : Food & Crafting
• 80's : Parenting & Scenic views
• 90's : Scenic views & City Exploration/Shopping
• 00's : Animation & Pets

Travel is also a very popular topic, with over 660 millions check-in. Bangkok, Seoul and Tokyo are the most popular cities abroad on Douyin ! Paris only comes in 9th position behind London (7th), Dubai (6th) and Singapore (5th). 

Finally,  Education is a key behavior on Douyin. We observe that influencers (KOL)  with more than 10,000 followers released over 14,89 Millions of videos with an average of 100,000 views. Cooking is the most popular topic for educational videos, followed by language learning.

How to do marketing on Douyin ?

With such popularity in China, Douyin is a platform that is attractive to do digital marketing. So how to start doing digital marketing on Douyin ?

First, you need to create short and impactful video contents. The most popular formats are short video around 15s. You will need to work with a video marketing agency, like Next Ren, to create some video content. You will need to create a significant volume of short videos to increase the chance of one of them going viral.

Then, to maximize the views on your content, you should work with influencers and key opinion leaders that are officially registered on the platform. You can work with an Influencer/ KOL agency, like Next Ren, to help you identify the right partners.

To conclude, Tiktok has a lot of value when you are a marketer interested in the Chinese market. First, it helps you understand trends in the market and how young generations behave (Chinese millenials, Gen-Z). Keep in mind that over 42% of users are less than 25 year old. Second, you can create viral content on the platform and can collaborate with influencer and KOL to get more exposure.

Next Ren is a digital agency in China who can help you build your campaign on Douyin. 

Follow us on LinkedIn to stay tune !

Source: Bytedance article on WeChat

The post Video Marketing | How Douyin (TikTok) is changing the game appeared first on Next 人.