Creating a winning social media marketing strategy in China could mean massive business for your company. With the world’s biggest online audience all searching for different products and services, you need to ensure your company is engaging with its target audience and doing everything it can to push them towards a conversion. We’ve taken a closer look at some of the platforms you’ll need to be featuring on if you want to make a success of your Chinese marketing strategy.

WeChat advertising

WeChat advertising is a Tencent program which allows companies to display their advertising directly on a user’s timeline, or to display a banner ad on the bottom of a post at a WeChat official account, and seeing as WeChat is the biggest social media platform in China, you’re going to want to take advantage of it. WeChat ads allow brands to grow the number of WeChat followers they have, as well as drive traffic towards their website or encourage downloads of their app. Most famous brands opt for WeChat Moments, which is a type of advertising on WeChat.

The versatile advertising method allows brands to have their brand name and picture appear in user’s timelines as well as a description. They can also link to a webpage, and feature up to six images or short videos. Most brands tend to opt for videos as they are more eye-catching and engaging. Putting your video on the timelines of your target market could prove to be extremely lucrative, so if you’re thinking about launching a marketing strategy in China, be sure to include WeChat.

From one of our previous blog posts, you can find out more information on how to reach China outbound tourism with WeChat advertising.

Weibo advertising

Weibo advertising is another hugely popular advertising method in China. As the second biggest social media platform in China, it makes sense to advertise on it, especially if your products or services appeal to a specific demographic. From advertising your products via famous accounts, to having your company there when users enter a search term in Weibo, there are plenty of options available; you just have to find the one that best fits your strategy. If you have a video you’d like to appear in the timeline of your target users, you may want to use one of the ‘fan’ advertising options, if you’d rather say what you need to say in a banner, you can go down a more traditional advertising route. The bottom line is that Weibo advertising put everything in your hands, you just have to decide what you want to show, and who you want to see it.

YouKu advertising

Although you may be more familiar with YouTube, the site is inaccessible from mainland China. Instead the Chinese use YouKu, which is estimated to make up 60% of the total online video market share within the country. Rather than focusing on targeted marketing like some of the alternatives, YouKu places its focus on blanket advertising, allowing you to reach the largest audience possible, much like how traditional advertising works in newspapers or on TV. With plenty of ads to choose from, including viral videos and product placement on in-house produced content, there are various creative ways you can reach consumers through YouKu, and with the sheer amount of people using the site, you can ill afford to ignore it.

We can see your social marketing strategy in China through from concept to completion. So, if you’ve been thinking of reaching out to the Chinese market, talk to us about your plans.