While this news is not necessarily a consumer trend, a person’s job and work environment have a large impact on everything else in their life, from what they purchase, to what they do in their free time, and how much free time they have!

Working for Internet Giants Has Become Many People’s Goal

Working for these Internet big names such as Meituan, ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent is something that most people in China, especially young graduates, would love to have on their resumes. Even internship experience at these companies will make you stand out among the competition.

Not only job seekers, when it comes to blind dates, or when parents are rushing to introduce their children to other parents to seek potential marriage chances, working at these companies often impresses people.

Big Internet companies often offer better salaries, and they have all sorts of fancy facilities to please employees, such as canteens, gyms or leisure areas. They also have yummy afternoon tea to feed employees’ stomachs. These benefits often show up on social media, especially on Little Red Book, making viewers envious.

Yet Working for These Big Companies Like Bytedance Isn’t All Sunshine and Rainbows

Like the old saying says, every coin has two sides. Though working for these Internet giants does gain you glory and a higher salary, it has many downsides that smaller companies are doing better at. Working overtime every week is only one of the issues.

• Your Scope of Work is Very Limited

Because there are so many employees, you’re essentially h a cog in a wheel. It’s like a factory, only white collar. You are hired to do one thing, and just need to do that one thing well. For some people, this is a good thing as they will do less work and face less challenges.

But trust me, just because you finish your work doesn’t mean you can go home, especially if everyone else is still working. Plus sitting at the office not doing anything feels quite strange, and you may want to learn new skills and build up more personal connection through projects. But you won’t have the chance to be in charge of a whole project, and instead, you are only responsible for some paperwork.

Things could be worse for interns. Their daily tasks might just be ordering milk teas and booking meeting rooms. What they can gain from the internship is a nice title in their resumes.

• Lower chances to meet the management team

Because in those big companies, your supervisors have more supervisors above. It would be hard for you to meet them personally, not to mention the big boss of those Internet companies.

This is not a big issue for many people. But if employees get the chance to see the top management team, they may have more sense of belonging to the company, and they can directly express their needs without passing through several people.

• More bureaucratic

More employees tends to mean more processes. Something simple that should just be a short conversation on WeChat or Teams, must be filed with paperwork to get approved. Also, there are endless meetings. Daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings. Sometimes, lunchtime is being converted into meetings.

Why Some of ByteDance’s Employees Are Not Happy About the Cancellation

Despite all of this, yes, there are people who want to work for extra hours, even on weekends.

Having this big and small weeks policy allows ByteDance’s employees to have subsidy, and it was a generous amount. If you earn 40k RMB a month, working an extra day on weekends will help you get 3,600 RMB. In small Internet companies, the amount is likely only a day’s salary at most.

Money is one thing, but the key and most important thing is that the workload is still there. If there is no decrease in the workload, that means employees still need to work extra hours to complete their tasks. And this time, it is without being paid for that extra time.

Read more: 从取消大小周，联想到互联网英雄主义时代的落幕

你在大厂赚得像CEO, 我在小厂忙得像CEO

The post ByteDance Cancels its “Big & Small Weeks” Work Schedule appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

However, the second season launched in January of this year with much less fanfare. Even though it includes famous names like actress Cecilia Cheung, and singers Na Ying and Rainie Yang, ratings have been much lower and comments more negative.

On average, the first season of Sisters Who Make Waves gets rated a 7/10 on Douban. The second season on the other hand hovers around 5.3/10. Some of the comments viewers point out are more practical issues. For example the long watch time of the episodes which is between 2-4 hours. But many mention something else as well. Like that the first season’s contestants were better. Or that it seems now contestants are only on the show to try to become popular again.

Sisters Who Makes Waves offers a certain kind of feminism

That the first season of Sisters Who Makes Waves was such a novelty says a lot about the entertainment world . It was the first time that a reality show in China focused exclusively on older female contestants so it’s no wonder this show also rode a certain feminist wave. By presenting itself as providing a platform to older women, viewers felt that it sent the message that your career can last beyond a certain age or after you’ve started a family.

But of course, while this may have been the producer’s intent, the idol show format cannot easily convey this message. Quite quickly, viewers started criticizing the show. People began questioning if it really promoted feminism or if it was actually still quite sexist.

For example, commentator Bai Yu mentions, “Although many of the sisters are amazing and talented, they are being held to such a conservative standard. And [the show] just provides the traditional sympathetic and caring image of mature women, while at the same time preferring to promote contestants crushing each other like they are participating in some kind of palace in-fighting. Is that really what everyone wants to see?”

Another point of criticism was the fact that all the contestants still adhere to traditional beauty standards with light skin, thin bodies and no wrinkles. Bai writes that the show sets the same standard for older women as for young women. She argues this is not reinventing a standard at all, but making older women try to be like young women again.

These are all valid criticisms. Even more so because the first season’s final group already disbanded in January, because one of the women who’s approaching 50 said she couldn’t keep up anymore.

Providing any platform is better than none

The second season does make some changes based on these criticisms. It has less forced rivalry by changing the show’s competition element. Instead of every contestant performing individually, the format is now team-based. This means there are more opportunities for the contestants to rely on each other and create stronger connections and friendships.

At the same time, there’s still plenty of room for rivalries and drama between contestants. Although these issues are resolved and don’t have very big repercussions, it’s still something that easily finds its way to the media. For example the ‘conflict’ between 2 big names singer Na Ying and actress Cecilia Cheung.

Apparently, Cheung wanted to be on Na Ying’s team but Na Ying rejected her. Cheung’s ex-husband is dating Na Ying’s good friend Faye Wong. This made Na Ying reluctant to team up with Cheung. However, they resolve the issue in a later episode. Afterwards there’s even a moment where Na Ying comforts Cheung by saying she’s focusing so much on taking care of her children that she can’t concentrate on the show.

Unfortunately this season doesn’t provide any overtly direct rebuttals of the female image. But at the least it gives older women a platform. Contestant Hu Jing worded this perfectly when asked about her motivation to participate. “Many people just define it like this. Once women reach a certain age and want to go out to work again, people surmise that you’re surely unhappy about something in your life, have some emotional issues, or maybe you need money. Why is that? I just can’t understand why everyone wants to label women like this. Because I just like my work too much, that’s why I want to do it.”

These moments are the reason to watch Sisters Who Make Waves 2. Maybe if it had included even more moments like these, the show’s ratings could have been better, because female viewers would have found it more relatable and inspiring.

The post Sisters Who Make Waves 2 is Another Feeble Attempt at Feminism appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

The Popularity of Little Fresh Meat

In China’s ever-changing beauty landscape, brands and influencers are continuing to challenge conventional beauty standards. Chinese consumers’ enthusiasm for male femininity and male beauty aesthetics has popularized China’s KOL genre of “Little Fresh Meat” 小鲜肉. This phrase refers to young Chinese male celebrities, who brands work with to attract their large female audiences. 

From names such as ‘Lipstick King’ Li Jiaqi, to Lu Han and Kris Wu signing deals with Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, Cartier and more, the fascination with this new era of male beauty is evident. 

Who is Florasis? 

Florasis stands out amongst its competitors in the C-beauty world for promoting traditional Chinese beauty aesthetics, along with an affordable price point to attract younger clients. Their Chinese name Hua Xizi (花西子) translates to “makeup with flowers”, and refers to the use of floral and natural ingredients in their cosmetics. ‘Xizi’ is also the honorary name for an ancient Chinese beauty, and therefore aspires to help women feel as beautiful as Xizi when doing their makeup.

In 2019, Florasis made its name for their promotion of Eastern aesthetics. It leveraging the ‘Guochao’ 国朝 trend via its interpretations of traditional and elegant Chinese craftsmanship. They focus on creating unique product packaging and designs to echo their homage to traditional Chinese style. This has even gained them popularity in the States even though they are not yet selling there. 

Florasis’ previous collaboration with beauty KOL Li Jiaqi in October 2020 included limited-edition makeup sets of setting power, brushes, and eyeshadow palettes. This featured silver-engraved packaging inspired by silver-making craftsmanship of China’s Miao Ethnic Group.

Surprisingly, Teens in Times and Florasis are a good fit

Teens in Times (时代少年团), also known as TNT, is a Chinese boyband launched by Times Fengjun Group (TF Family). The band is composed of seven members: Ma Jiaqi, Ding Chengxin, Song Yaxuan, Liu Yaowen, Zhang Zhenyuan, Yan Haoxiang, and He Junlin.

When we first heard the news we were a bit surprised. Not because a beauty band chose a boyband as ambassadors, as we already mentioned, that is quite common in China, but because in the past Florasis has always been very selective when choosing celebrity partnerships. This is a strong departure from their previous collaborations. 

Its previous ambassadors actress Ju Jingyi (鞠婧祎) and supermodel Du Juan (杜鹃) are both known for their eastern beauty and style which is a great fit for the brand’s aesthetic. As mentioned above, Florasis also has had a long term partnership with male beauty influencer Li Jiaqi. He works with the brand on product development and serves as a beauty expert giving the products credibility. 

Teens in Times, on the other hand, is a boyband. So why would Florasis choose them? 

As an article from Jing Daily explained, “Teens in Times represents the spirits of Chinese young generations from inside and outside.” Florasis’ affordable price point means its target consumer base is younger consumers. They are still learning about makeup and getting started in discovering their personal style. According to Datastory, 26% of the brand’s consumers in 2019 were under 18, while nearly all the rest was between 20-30. 

Young Chinese consumers have developed a strong interest in domestic brands and products that pay homage to their heritage. The natural choice would therefore be a Chinese music group such as Teens in Times. Although they are not yet as famous as the likes of Li Jiaqi or Kris Wu, their rapidly growing popularity, androgynous aesthetic and boyish charm will help Florasis to tap into new dimensions and resonate with the younger Chinese generation.

Whats more, the collaboration marks the brand’s fourth anniversary and signals a new era for the brand.

Initial Launch and Consumer Reaction

To announce the partnership, Florasis launched a campaign across Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, Kuaishou, QQ Music, and Tmall. It also ran ads on billboards across multiple cities in China. 

On Weibo, Florasis’ short two-minute video campaign with Teens in Times received over 25.9 million views. The campaign hashtag #TeensInTimesFlorasis, garnered more than 400 million views in a single day. The video featured the seven teen boys in an ancient Chinese setting designing a lipstick.

Teens in Times boasts over 47 million total Weibo followers that no doubt played a role in the campaign’s success. 

The campaign spotlighted the boyband’s youthful spirit as well as the brand’s dedication to traditional Chinese culture and aesthetics. 

Using male celebrities or “Little Fresh Meat” is not new to Chinese brands. However, coupling Florasis’ traditional look with somewhat unconventional beauty influencers has successfully tied together modernity and tradition. This shows its forward thinking approach in tune with the younger Chinese generations and cements Florasis as a successful disruptor in the competitive and rapidly growing C-beauty world.

The post C-Beauty Brand Florasis Taps Boyband Teens in Times as Next Ambassadors – A Good Choice? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Behind these numbers are the high quality of movies, government’s effort in controlling the COVID and the holiday period. Another key reason though, is Douyin. Studios are increasingly using Douyin in a variety of ways to promote movies.

How Does Douyin Promote Movies?

1. Douyin gives traffic to celebrities

Many celebrities are joining Douyin for promotion purposes. For example, Liu Dehua (刘德华), a top male actor in China. He joined Douyin on January 17. Five days later, Liu’s Douyin account had 571 million followers and had gained 140 million likes. Insane!

Liu was promoting the movie that he starred in: Endgame (人潮汹涌). One of his videos was giving out free movie tickets and the video gained 5 million likes and 190k comments.

Jia Ling (贾玲) is the movie director of “Hi, Mom”, which is thought to be the Blackhorse this year. Jia joined Douyin in early 2018, but until 2021, she only posted one video. To promote her movie, which she also starred in, she became active on Douyin and posted more than 10 videos.

Another main actress in her movie, Zhang Xiaofei (张小斐), posted 20 videos to promote “Hi, Mom”. In total, her videos received 23 million likes and she now has 6.5 million followers.

When Jia’s team was promoting the movie in different cities, they livestreamed the events. In total, 1.56 million people watched the livestream.

In addition to this kind of livestream, Douyin’s official movie account “抖音电影” (Douyin Movie) had livestreams for “Endgame” and “Hi, Mom”. On the livestream, the actors and actresses were giving out free movie tickets or discounts to the audience.

2. Douyin top KOLs film content with main actors & actresses

For example, when “Hi, Mom” launched, top Douyin account @疯产姐妹 (Broken Sisters) published a video with Jia Lin and Zhang Xiaofei. The video had 3.8 million likes and 132k comments.

3. Douyin encourages users to create related content

Once the movie “Chinatown Detective 3” was in theaters, many viewers were discussing with each other on Douyin who is Q? Q is a secret character that didn’t show up in the end of the movie.

For “Hi, Mom”, they designed a Douyin filter which puts a users’ face as the mom character in the movie. The filter has been used by more than 400M Douyin users.

Back to 2017, when another popular movie The Ex-File 3: The Return of The Exes (前任3) was on air, many users changed its classic scenes, for example, the female character eating mango or the male character dressing to be Joker (至尊宝). Users changed those scenes and had themselves as the main characters.

Users Can Also Watch Movies on Douyin

Other than promoting movies, since last year’s COVID quarantine, Bytedance has started airing movies on Douyin and its other video app Watermelon Video (西瓜视频). 

Last year, when people were not able to go to movie theatres, Douyin aired a new CNY movie called Lost in Russia (囧妈). SInce then, Douyin has provided nearly 100 movies for users to watch for free.

Douyin also uses movies to drive traffic to Watermelon Video by showing the first 6 minutes or so on Douyin and then if people want to continue, they have to become a Watermelon Video VIP user. 

Read more:

《李焕英》42.5亿票房神话背后：短视频成重要推手

4亿补贴背后，抖音与电影的“绑定”越来越深了？

The post Douyin Has Become a Key Promotion Platform for Movies appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Pechoin (百雀羚)

Among the campaigns mentioned in the article, Pechoin’s is my favourite. Pechoin is a domestic beauty brand. Though it was founded in 1931, it keeps refreshing itself and speaks in a young tone, which helps the brand maintain a dominant place in the domestic beauty industry. 

The campaign was about the definition of women. Women are not allowed to be too masculine nor too girly. Being too masculine, they are not treated friendly by men, and being too girly, they tend to be considered too b***chy and other girls don’t like to hang out with such a person. The video presents three women who go from doubting themselves to finally accepting who they are. 

Throughout the campaign, Pechoin was delivering the message to females that women should not be labelled. What makes it different from other feminism campaigns is that it is not telling women to fight against the world, it is telling women to accept themselves and to break the rules that they set for themselves. 

NEIWAI

If you follow China marketing, you’ve probably heard of this one. NEIWAI is a domestic underwear brand. It ranks in the TOP 10 on Tmall’s underwear category. In February last year, NEIWAI created a campaign called “NO BODY IS NOBODY”, featuring 6 females with different body shapes. 

The campaign presented how they truly accept their bodies. It was telling females that, even if you have a small belly, even if you have scars on your body, or you start having wrinkles, you are still a unique person in the world. The campaign spoke to females’ anxiety about their bodies and encouraged them to accept themselves and find their own beauty. 

Apple

This was a global campaign but it did well in the China market. In the campaign, Apple features females that have made contributions to the world. It is one of the clips from its Behind the Mac series. The video attached warmth to the cold digital product.

T3 Chuxing (T3出行)

T3 is regarded as the top competitor of ride share company Didi. The campaign was about one topic: women’s safety when using ride sharing (an issue that Didi has faced in the past). 

T3 invited a talk show female celebrity Yang Li (杨笠) and 100 women from different careers, including a doctor, airline stewardess, Coser (person who loves cosplay), DJ, fitness trainer, and plus-size model. The campaign was telling the audience that women’s safety won’t be a problem when using T3’s service.

Tmall

Compared with other campaigns, Tmall’s is flatter and a bit trite. It was telling women that they should make time to love themselves even though there are many other things for them to take care of. 

Recommendation for Brands

Feminism is a great topic for brand campaigns but brands should be careful when using it and to avoid creating anxiety and chicken-soup type of content. Body anxiety, career and family support are common themes in these campaigns. What brands can do is to dig out new perspectives either to present or solve these issues. Otherwise, consumers will get bored and reluctant after they have seen enough similar campaigns.

Read more: 掘金“她经济”，女性营销如何读懂“她“的心？｜年终盘点

The post The She Economy: 5 Campaigns Showing How Brands Can Tap Into Feminism in China appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

While the platform has grown to reach a more mainstream audience and now features a wide range of content, it was initially focused on anime, comics and games (ACG) and is well known for its strong base of loyal users.

Bilibili users are known for having a certain taste for offbeat wacky content. And they like people, and brands, to keep it real. Content that works well on other platforms won’t necessarily fly on Bilibili.

When it comes to sponsored content, Bilibili users aren’t against it, they know that KOLs need sponsored content to survive. They even have a slang word for it called qia fan “恰饭”. Originally meaning “eating” in the dialects of the Southwestern region in China, on Bilibili, qia fan means people need to do something to make a living, or influencers need to create sponsored content to survive. The term became so popular it was included by Bilibili in the “Annual Popular Phrases of 2019” released in 2020.

Let’s take a closer look at two successful examples of Bilibili KOLs creating sponsored content that viewers actually enjoyed and understand what kind of Bilibili creators brands should collaborate to achieve success.

@雁鸿Aimee Collaboration with Fanta

Creativity is a core competitiveness of Bilibili creators, which is different from other social media platform KOL marketing. “雁鸿Aimee” is a Bilibili creator in the fashion and beauty area, with 294,000 followers. Her content is not as normal as other fashion content creator’s unboxing, try-on hauls, and summer outfit idea videos. She is extremely good at designing and creating handmade ancient Chinese women’s headdresses.

Aimee’s collaboration with Fanta is one of her amazing designs that caught people’s eyes. She spent 300 hours creating a traditional Chinese opera phoenix crown using Fanta cans! In her video, she recorded the detailed process of making the crown, with ending poses presenting the amazing look.

Before seeing this video, I can’t even imagine how a beverage brand like Fanta could present such interesting content. By working with creative Bilibili influencers such as Aimee, Fanta was able to present a young and interesting brand image for Generation Z consumers.

“老师好我叫何同学” Collaboration with Chinese Phone Brand OnePlus

“老师好我叫何同学”, or “Classmate He” is a top-tier Bilibili creator focusing on reviewing digital products, with over 5.17 million followers on Bilibili. He is 21 years old and is still a college student. His video “I used 10,000 lines of mobile notes to make an animation” created for the OnePlus (a Chinese smartphone manufacturer) 8 Pro, is one of my favorite pieces of Bilibili ad content.

The animation shows that the OnePlus 8 Pro 120 Hz mobile screen is very smooth to use and swipe, and it brings comfort for long-term use.

Even though the topic is just a regular mobile phone review, the integration of creativity and professional testing of “using notes to make animations” is what makes this video special and attractive. The video has now gained 6.7 million views, 858K likes, and 39K bullet comments. There is a comment saying that to “恰饭,” some influencers read the briefs and parameters, but Classmate He’s ad content quality is really admirable and it’s worth all the content creators to learn from him.  

Key Takeaways

In recent years, KOL marketing has become one of the major marketing channels in China. On Bilibili, in order to assess whether the brand advertising is effective or not, compared to data level indicators such as video views and number of likes and collections, it is more important to check out the real reactions of users in the bullet comments that fly across the screen and how they interact with the content and the KOL.

Bilibili is a very community driven platform, therefore when evaluating the value of Bilibili influencers, brands must consider the community the influencer has built on the platform and the level to which they are able to drive their audience to positively engage with the content.

Creative, long form content that provides value tends to perform well on the platform.

The post Case Study: How to Create Sponsored Content That Bilibili Users Actually Like appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

With COVID19 decimating the world economy, this year’s Qixi (七夕, Chinese Valentine’s Day) was one of the busiest ever as brands sought to leverage China’s quick recovery to make up lost earnings. Brands that never had never before joined the revelry tested the water this year, for example Belgian fine leather brand Delvaux.

When Gucci first launched its Qixi collection which is featured in apples, I thought who would buy such a thing? It doesn’t look good. But as Gucci’s Qixi campaign began to unfold, it grew on me, and I would go as far to say that Gucci had the best Qixi campaign of 2020. I know Qixi has long since past, but I think the learnings we can take from Gucci’s campaign are valuable at any time of the year.

Now first and foremost, I felt that Gucci demonstrated a lot of sincerity by creating a whole collection instead of just a few accessories or simply titling other collections as a Qixi collection. What’s more, the Qixi collection included a wide range of items from bags and clothes to accessories.

Why apple?

At first I found it very odd that Gucci chose an apple as the symbol for the collection as apples have no symbolic meaning of love in China and I felt like maybe Gucci was misinterpreting the holiday. However, Gucci did their homework and was aware that apples didn’t symbolize love in China, instead, Gucci designer Alessandro Michele, said he drew the inspiration from ancient Greek stories about Hera and Gaia. In this story, the apple does represent love.

What’s more, compared with a traditional heart shape and Balenciaga’s I Love You “我爱你” bags, Gucci’s apple design is low-key, and it is something that customers are able to use even it is not Valentine’s Day.

A 25-day Campaign to Drive Home the Apple Theme

To make sure that consumers understood the apple design, Gucci ran a 3-week campaign across all major Chinese social media platforms. Gucci also designed a slogan called “I Apple U”, meaning I love you to go along with the campaign.

On July 31, Gucci announced this collection on its official WeChat account. The article shows an animation of the apple turning from green to red and finally with the double G on it. The red color represents the passion in relationships, and the green color stands for youth, while the Double G makes the total look cuter. By the end of that day, the article had over 300k views. On its Weibo account, the video was posted and by the end of the same week, it had 700k views.

After the announcement, on August 10, Gucci published a series of 7 mini romantic movies starring six young idols (林彦俊 & 赵露思，胡一天 & 姜贞羽，丁禹兮 & 周洁琼). The films were set at a school campus, a library and a CD store. These places are nostalgic for most post-80s and post-90s consumers, and they are also places that as a student, you must have been to. Ny the end of the campaign, total video views surpassed 16.7 million.

Customizing Campaign Content for Each Social Channel

Gucci also customized its marketing tactics to fit each social media platform:

Weibo: Weibo is a platform that gathers lots of young idols and where fans find information about their idols. In the end of every romantic small video, Gucci gave viewers right to vote which ending would they like it to be. And on the next day, Gucci announced the result. This is getting viewers more involved and engaged in the campaign.

Douyin: Different from Weibo, Gucci didn’t post complete videos on the platform. Instead it shared behind-the-scene footage. They are very natural and fun. These entertaining scenes appeal to Douyin users a lot.

Xiaohongshu: Gucci opened a Qixi pop-up store on Xiaohongshu. Compared with other platforms, the brand’s Xiaohongshu content was more focused on product introduction and description. It also worked with Xiaohongshu top KOLs such as @大睿睿, aiming to show consumers how they could style this collection in their everyday lives.

Offline: Gucci also decked out its offline stores with the apple pattern which was very eye-catching and social media worthy.

Conclusion:

In summary, Gucci won Qixi by demonstrating a clear commitment to and understanding of Chinese consumers, creating a custom collection with a story behind it, employing celebrities popular among their target consumer base to bring the collection to life, and launching marketing campaigns thoughtfully customized to suit each social media platform.

Read more:

“苹果”的力量让爱情成真，Gucci靠什么成为七夕奢侈品赢家？

Gucci七夕情人节系列全新上市

The post Case Study: How Gucci Won Qixi appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Although it is not a new platform by any means, video platform Bilibili has become one of the most buzzed about Chinese content platforms of 2020. Noticing this trend, many influencers, particularly those on popular video platform Douyin (China’s Tiktok) have begun opening accounts on Bilibili. This seems to make sense. They are already creating videos, why not repurpose these videos and grow an audience on Bilibili as well? However, this strategy isn’t working, and many of the creators are struggling to growth their accounts and some are even receiving backlash from the platform’s more loyal users.   

One example is a Douyin account called “毒舌电影”, which shares content about the film industry. The account is extremely successful on Douyin, gaining 30M followers within its first six months. In March, 毒舌电影launched an account on Bilibili, hoping to see the same results there, but to date, the account has only 77k followers and videos that have over 1M likes on Douyin typically only get several thousand views on Bilibili.

Why is this happening?

User Base

Before discussing content strategies, let’s have a look at a few basic statistics about user base sizes. Douyin has 400M Mau while Bilibili has 51M. On Douyin, you often see content creators with over 100M followers, while on Bilibili, this is very rare. The only one we’re aware of is called @老番茄.

Therefore, KOLs and brands need to think about follower growth, engagement, and reach in the context of Bilibili’s size. A KOL that has 1M followers on Douyin and the other one has 1M followers on Bilibili are definitely not the same thing.

Content Quality Expectation

Bilibili is optimized for landscape format videos while Douyin’s videos are mostly filmed vertically giving viewers a feeling that Douyin’s videos are more casual and are filmed with a mobile phone, while Bilibili’s videos are filmed with a camera. Bilibili users value higher quality filming and editing and will avoid clicking into or watching videos that look like they were made for Douyin.   

Unspoken Chain of Contempt

Many loyal Bilibili users actually boycott Douyin videos as they think these videos are very ‘low’ or crass. One of the main reasons for this is that there is a phenomenon on public transport in China, especially on the high-speed railway, where passengers often watch Douyin or Kuaishou videos without putting headphones on, and they often play it so loud that other passengers can’t take a nap or focus on their own activities. This has given Douyin and Kuaishou a bad rap and makes Bilibili users look down on these platforms.

How can Brands and Content Creators be Successful on Both?

Video Content

Get to know the subtleties of Bilibili’s Gen Z user preferences. For examples, while both Douyin and Bilibili platform’s users love entertaining content, prank videos do much better on Bilibili than young girls’ dancing videos which do well on Douyin.

An account called “疯狂小杨哥” which has 34.2M followers on Douyin has performed well on Bilibili. It entered Bilibili in March this year, and so far it has over 420k followers. An important reason for its successful development is that its content is about the influencer playing pranks on his twin brother and dad who are addicted to playing online games. This suits Bilibili users’ appetite.

And although Bilibili’s content types are expanding, AGC culture is still the heart of the platform, so content that taps into this will do well.  

Cover Image Is Important

Similar to YouTube, video cover images should have consistent branding and contain information about the video contents. For example, an account called “毛光光” has 12.5M followers on Douyin. It joined Bilibili in July 2019. For a very long time, its views and likes on the platform were very low.

Its turning point came in April this year when the actor started dressing as a female sales associate and created stories around this character. While the content changed, at the same time, he also started paying more attention to the cover images, which now give viewers a better idea of the video content. Since then, views of his videos have increased dramatically.

Another example is “毒舌电影”, the account mentioned at the beginning of this article, which is performing poorly on Bilibili. It’s account name and profile image are not consistent with the ones on its Douyin account, and its cover images are very poor.

The thumbnails on its Douyin account are sophistically designed, giving a really cool look to the account’s home feed where several video cover images will make a complete image. It’s Bilibili thumbnails, on the other hand, look like they are randomly suggested screenshots. They don’t deliver any message to viewers except those actors or actresses happen to be shown on the cover.

Treat Your Bilibili Users Seriously

In the end, it all comes down to having a specific content strategy for Bilibili and making users feel like you’re trying to understand them instead of just slapping up content from other platforms.

A good example is an account called “摆货小天才”. He has 6M followers on Douyin and is famous for his street vendor spoof videos where he sells super cheap products on the side of the road while acting like he is a luxury sales associate selling to a VIP client. @摆货小天才 just joined Bilibili in June and instead of rushing to publish his Douyin videos on the platform, he first published a video saying hi to Bilibili users. This makes users feel that they are valued and respected, instead of just it being just another Douyin influencer who wants to gain more traffic.

Learn More:

抖音外放是吧！还开到最大是吧！

抖音千万大号，入侵B站粉丝仅1500，短视频真的有“壁”？

The post You Shouldn’t Post The Same Video On Douyin And Bilibili: Here’s Why appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Popular social reviews platform Xiaohongshu (RED) offers several content formats, from the original photo + text posts, to video, and most recently adding live streaming. But which type of content performs best? As a micro-KOL on RED, in this article I will share my personal experience experimenting with the various content types as well as stats shared by RED in hopes that it will help brands and other content creators with their content strategies. 

Photos + Text

Photos + text posts are the original content format on red and and very well suited for creating what is known as 干货 content or highly valuable content full of takeaways and resources. Posts can include up to nine images and 1,000 characters of text, and are best for travel guides, tutorials, comparison posts, lists, and other types of content that users will want to save and easily refer back to. 

Note: in addition to the usual Like, Comment, and Share, a key metric for content creators on RED is “Collects” or how many users have saved the post to a board on their account (similar to pinning content on Pinterest). When a user saves a post it indicates that they not only like the post but they find the post valuable enough to want to revisit it.  

RED is different from other social media platforms in China because users specifically come to the platform to research and learn about products, destinations, etc. Accounts that primarily feature content that is simply entertaining or only includes a couple of images with no in-depth explanation will not do as well long-term because RED users are seeking value. 

The screenshot below is one of my graphic context posts, and it’s about a collection of 4 ways to study marketing. In the notes, I recommended 3 websites, 3 e-learning platforms, 4 books, and 3 podcasts, and gave a brief introduction of each recommendation. Within 3 months, the notes had accumulated 1,809 likes, 3,604 Collects, and 38 comments, and it is the most popular note on my RED page. 

But there are also downsides to relying only on photo posts, mainly that with so many content creators on RED who are following the same posting best practices, it is easy for content to become homogenized and it is difficult to distinguish your personal characteristics. 

This is important because most of the time, people follow influencers not only because they love the influencer’s content, but because they are attracted to the influencers’ personality. Photo posts are not as vivid as videos and it is very difficult for the KOL to let their true personality shine through. 

Short Video 

In 2020, RED has clearly been giving short video content more traffic. Why? Well the platform has shared that average engagement with video posts is 1.2 times higher than a photo post, average follower growth from a  video post is 2.3 times higher than a photo post, and the exposure of video posts is 2.4 times higher – all clear reasons why RED should encourage more video content. 

Watching videos is easier than reading text posts, because it does not require full concentration. And since video includes both sounds and images, and users can publish videos up to five minutes long, the content format, presentation, and amount of information is more flexible. 

Compared with text, it is easier for an influencer or brand to display their personality, build their IP, and develop a stronger connection with their audience, and as a result improve user stickiness. 

My Personal Experience on RED

On RED, I mainly focus on creating personal skill improvement and professional work experience content. To date I have published 48 posts and 10 of them are video posts. Some weeks I have gotten over 1k new followers a week, but recently that number has decreased. Even though my content is getting new likes every day, it does not convert to actual followers of my account, making me realize that I have to focus on improving my contents. 

After researching some other career and personal development type of influencers on RED, I found out that most of their contents are in video formats. @Dynamite_h is a career experience and English study influencer on RED, 70% of her content is in short video format. I noted that my page has more likes and collections than her page but she has twice as many followers as mine. 

@冰糖学姐小桔桔 is one of my favorites career advice and interview tips influencers on RED, with 91k followers. Her videos are usually less than 3 minutes making them easy to digest. 

Realizing that I need to begin incorporating more video content to drive follower growth, I have begun the process of shifting my content from photo post dominated to video photo dominated, but it’s not easy at the beginning because my followers don’t recognize me. 

Many of them followed me because they love my tutorial and collection posts, but they have no sense of who I am, so when my videos show up in their feed they may ignore them because they don’t immediately notice that the posts are from me. This is a clear sign that I need to continue building up my personal IP. 

Key Takeaways

Short videos are very popular among Chinese internet users right now, therefore many platforms are giving video posts increased exposure. What’s more, video posts are the best way to demonstrate your personality and develop a relationship with your audience, so for these reasons, I strongly recommend influencers and brands leverage video content to drive follower growth on RED. 

However, creators should also regularly incorporate photo + text posts, especially for content that users may want to easily reference while shopping, planning a trip, etc.

The post Video VS. Photo Posts on Xiaohongshu: Which Performs Better? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

So of course, top KOLs are always seeking novel ways to get in front of or attract new audiences. Recently, we spotted a new content trend emerging where top tier KOLs have begun working with each other by interviewing or visiting other KOLs’ workplaces or homes.

How it All Began

The trend originates with a top fashion and beauty KOL who goes by the name Teacher Xu 徐老师 (founder of the WeChat official account Shenyefachi 深夜发媸), who began a content series where she visits influencers’ or celebrities’ houses, including top live streamer Li Jiaqi (李佳琦), stylist Fil小白, mega beauty KOL 阿沁, and fashion KOL Becky Li.

Usually, she announces who she will be visiting ahead of time and elicits questions from her Weibo followers or asks what they would like to see in this person’s house. One or two weeks later she will post the video of her visit. 

It is worth noting that the views, likes, and comments of Teacher Xu’s videos about visiting KOLs are higher than her other posts. Her video of her visit to celebrity stylist Fil小白’s home even made Weibo’s hot topic ranking. To date, the video has 8M views, 15k comments and 105k likes.

Even though the influencers that she visits spend much of their lives in the public eye, their fans get to see a new, intimate side of them through Xu’s videos. We get to know what lipstick bro Li Jiaqi’s home looks like, we can see the vast aray of clothes and accessories that Fil has collected and we learn that the mega beauty KOL A Qin loves listening to Taylor Swift’s songs so much that she has collected every single album of hers.

In addition to this new information that Teacher Xu brings to her followers, she also creates content for the other influencer that his or her followers will also want to watch, getting her in front of their massive audiences.

Xu is also just a lot of fun to watch, bringing lots of joy to viewers with self-abasing and goofy scenes, such as making fun of her big head when trying on other KOLs’ hats.

Ximen Dasao Jumps on the Bandwagon

Seeing Xu’s success, Dasao (大嫂), the popular fashion KOL behind the WeChat Official Account “原来是西门大嫂” decided to give it a try, filming a video of her visit to famous OG wanghong Zhang Mofan (张沫凡), the founder of beauty brand MO·AMOUR.

I say OG wanghong because Zhang launched her brand and became a top KOL in China all the way back in 2010! In 2018, the annual sales of MO AMOUR reached 100 million RMB.

Usually, Dasao’s Weibo posts get around 200-2,000 likes. But this video received nearly 20k likes. Except from simply visiting her dressing room and gardens, Dasao also adds gossips to the video. For example, by watching the video, we find out that Zhang’s ex once gave her a Hermes bag valued at over 1M RMB. Also, there is a section of the video where Dasao and Zhang find speculating comments about themselves from the Internet and question each other to get the true response.

Becky Li joins in as well

I mentioned above that one of Xu’s videos featured a visit to the home of top fashion KOL Becky Li, creator of the WeChat official account Becky’s Fantasy (黎贝卡的异想世界). Well it appears Li must have enjoyed the visit and liked the idea because she too has joined this trend, recently filming a video of her visiting the home of Chinese actress Zhang Jiingchu’s (张静初).

Why This Content Works

While in the West it is very common to see big YouTubers collaborating with each other in order to grow their audiences, that tactic hasn’t been as prevalent in China, but it looks like that’s changing. But what’s key is that the KOLs aren’t simply collaborating, they are going into each other’s homes and workspaces and giving audiences to see a more intimate, unscripted version of themselves.

Top KOLs are often treated as celebrities in China so revealing their homes and lives is definitely something followers would love to see. People are curious about them, and that’s why these videos can get so popular.

How Brands Can Leverage This Trend

For brands, this type of content is perfect for very, VERY natural product placement. During these videos numerous brands are often mentioned, for example when Xu visited A Qin’s home, Xu was looking at A Qin’s LV bags and A Qin noted that besides looking good, LV bags are also great investment pieces. And during Xu’s visit to Austin Li’s home he was recommending products left and right, even gifting her some products to take home.

Now is a great time to try out this trend. Since this format is still new and brands are not sponsoring it yet, so viewers are not expecting that there will be advertisements.

For brands that want to try it, the key thing: is it MUST appear natural. The KOL’s interest in the product must be genuine otherwise viewers will feel it is forced.

The post New Content Trend: KOLs Interviewing Other KOLs appeared first on China Marketing Insights.