Social Media Marketing in China

So, you are a social media marketer and you're running a campaign to engage your audience—hopefully getting them to interact with your brand and cultivate a sense of loyalty. No problem, you will just run your campaigns on some of the world's most popular social platforms: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But, how do you engage an audience that does not have access to these platforms? How can you engage the Chinese audience?

China holds the biggest internet user base in the world—649 million users, which outnumbers the entire United States population two to one. In addition, China also hosts the world's most active users on social media platforms, with over 300 million participants holding multiple social accounts. Over the past decade, multinational companies and major conglomerates have been shifting attention to China's booming market and transition from a manufacture economy to service. With these transitions, overall consumer expenditure power has increased substantially and this increase in spending has also massively impacted online sales. In fact, it has been predicted that e-commerce will reach $1 Trillion by 2019 in China, aided by trends in digitalization and rise of mobile consumers.

Censorship in China

But to target these consumers can prove a bit tricky for international marketers due to China's unique market. The explosive growth in social and e-commerce has been linked to the slight freedoms from censorship it offers users as compared to traditional mediums. The fact that the Chinese government does censor it's users, especially political dissenters on Weibo, does mean that the marketing terrain is a little different from the freedoms marketers are accustomed to in the West. When developing campaigns in China, it is important to bear the cross-cultural factors in mind and maintain sensitivity toward the attitudes of consumers in the target market.

Ghost Reviewers

Another unique feature of marketing tactics employed by some native companies in China is the use of "ghost reviewers". Ghost reviewers are hired by companies to create multiple social accounts and they are paid to generate falsified product reviews—often providing 5 star rankings to their company while attacking competitors with false complaints. There have already been several instances in the Chinese market when ghost reviewers created false accusations about a competitor's product—such as allegations of contamination—and had their content go viral over Weibo, a microblogging service. These artificial commenters are actually frequently employed by companies in China, so it is important for marketers to distinguish between genuine consumer feedback and company aggression, otherwise, they may risk drawing incorrect conclusions about the target market.