What are the Other Chinese Social Media Worth Exploring for Marketing Efforts?

Thinking how you can grow your online presence in China aside from using WeChat and Weibo?

There are other Chinese social media accounts you can explore because these platforms and websites target different demographics.

If you want to target the younger generation, there are Snapchat-like or Instagram-like platforms, too. Live streaming apps are also becoming popular among those born in post-90s and 2000s.

There are also apps for highly educated ones, looking for consumer insights and tips in financial and investment opportunities. While others are flocking to community-based forums to know more about beauty tips and hacks and other luxury trends.

And although WeChat and Weibo are the two most popular social media apps often used, you might want to take a peek of what these platforms can offer you.

1 Douban: Lifestyle and Forum-Based

Douban is a community-based platform that caters users interested in lifestyle and culture. From music to books to entertainment, users enjoy browsing and consuming content, and most of them are well-educated degree holders, and living in megacities.

Think of Goodreads, Facebook, Pandora, Spotify, Ello, IMDb sites. It’s a combination of these with localized features. The users are the ones generating organic content from reviews of books to movies and other hobbies. As of this writing, there are 60 million registered users.

2 Xueqiu: Equity and Finance

Xueqiu is the go-to social network of Chinese investors and brokers. Topics range from investing to personal finance to make them finance-savvy. Users can learn from the community discussions and also features a knowledge-based library of investments overseas.

It has transformed into a comprehensive platform that also offers brokerage services, and users can conduct transactions in real-time. Both amateurs and professional investors alike can contribute and generate content that can help others achieve their financial goals.

Just like any social media platform, it has trending topics to make sure that users and investors get the latest news and trends in markets. As of this writing, it has 12 million registered MAU, and they spend an average of 46 minutes in the app.

3 Zhihu – Quora of China

Zhihu works like Quora. Users ask a question, and the community answers them, and also they can find answers from the database. Aside from Q&A features, users get to review and share their opinions about products and services.

For global brands, it’s an excellent way to build credibility in this platform. Leveraging the crowd’s collective reviews and wisdom can also help you gain exposure. Of course, the downside is, both negative and positive reviews can be written about you.

4 Douyin: Short Video app

Douyin is a short video and music video app launched in 2016. Users get to view short video clips akin to Vine features, but one of the key features is that it allows users to edit like add music themes, animations, and other add-ons.

Most of the users or viewers are young Chinese. It’s also addictive if you’re a viewer where you play videos and simply scroll/swipe between those short 15-sec clips. You can skip one if you’re not interested.

Overall, the social media landscape in China is quite fascinating and also full of buzz. Platforms serve different demographics, which provide opportunities for global companies to explore and localize their strategies to increase engagement and exposure, and not just focus on WeChat or Weibo.