Comparison of Key Chinese Social Media Apps - Wechat, DouYin Little Red Book and Weibo
With the largest population base in the world, the Chinese internet market is a broad market for brands. From 2008 to 2020, Chinese internet users have grown consistently.
Number of internet users in China from 2008 to 2020(in Million); Source : Statista
Based on the large market, social media plays a huge role among Chinese netizens’ daily life, especially for the younger generation. Like social media in the West, Chinese social media are not only used as channels of communication between people, but also a go to source for news, entertainment, shopping, dating, e-payment, etc. These social apps help people stay connected with friends and family, while also expanding their knowledge and awareness of what's going on in the world.
The top social media by their user base, Souce: Statista
WeChat, the biggest social media app in China
WeChat is the top social app in China. By 2021, the number of WeChat users has reached a staggering 1.24 billion, Which means that most Chinese people use WeChat in their daily life.
Wechat Users from 2012 to 2021; Source : Tencent
WeChat is similar to Whatsapp and Facebook, mainly serving for instant messaging and information dissemination. Functional attributes make these three apps have many similarities, such as information in these messaging services always spreads faster because of the large user base of young people using them, but some other factors still make WeChat unique.
The adoption of the WeChat platform by a broader demographic in the age range of 40-60 years to communicate with others is quite differentiating than Facebook or Whatsapp. The voice messaging feature makes communication simple and easy-to-use. Based on this kind of environment, information sharing with acquaintances as the main object also makes the community environment in WeChat more various .
Data of users in Wechat Source: Statista
The second difference is the Official Account, which is the core of information dissemination in WeChat. Official Account mainly serves brands, internet celebrities and public information subjects. People can learn about various information on WeChat，which is similar to Facebook.
People can directly interact with Official Accounts through message or template messages, etc., Based on this function, WeChat has also developed functions such as channels, WeChat ads and mini programs, which furtherly enriches the possibility of brand promotion
Rich content forms and broad user base make many brands choose Official Accounts as the first step for social marketing in China. However, the special content type on Official Account, which is mainly composed of long articles with images, is not suitable for some brands to share their creative ideas by photos or videos directly with their audience. On this occasion, other social media sites like Weibo, Douyin and Little Red Book, will be more suitable choices for these brands.
Weibo, comprehensive and versatile media for young audience
Lots of people may think Weibo is just like Instagram, the world's largest photo social media. In terms of content shared in these two apps, we can find that they have something in common, all of which show photos/videos plus short content together.
1.22 billion monthly active users, 60% of them are between 18 to 34 years old, which means the social environment in Instagram is very young and new.
The age of user in Instagram Source:Hootsuite
Weibo’s MAU from 2018 to 2021 Source: Statista
Weibo’s MAU is 573 million, but people in Weibo like more about fashion and news. they prefer to share new or interesting things to others, users always gather together with people who are interested in the same topic, etc.
Home page of Weibo, people can get what the news is , just like Twitter or Facebook
On this basis. Weibo is more like a comprehensive platform for Chinese people. All users, whether the social account is, can share anything to everyone, which consist of the variety of contents for people , this is also the reason for brands to expand their creative ideas in this platform—they can get direct response from all the users in Weibo.
Little Red Book, a platform for "social sharing"
As WeChat and Weibo are the top of social media in China, there are still some medium for brands in social marketing. For example, the Little Red Book is the most special one for Chinese to share what great things they like.
Home page of Little Red Book
Special characteristic makes the user group in Little Red Book different from others. In Little Red Book, there were 100 million MAU in 2020 , 83% of users are around 18-35, and 85% of users are female,which means most of users in Little Red Book are middle or upper-class women with higher degrees of disposable income. This is an incredibly lucrative market for global fashion and cosmetics brands.
The age of users in Little Red Book( Source : Statista) and the gender of Little Red Book(Source: Jing Daily)
Douyin, Emerging, fast-growing short video platform
When people talk about Douyin, it's easy to think of Tiktok. As the most popular short video app in the Chinese market, Douyin also becomes an important social media in people’s daily life.
Source: QuestMobile
Douyin’s DAU exceeded 600 million, an increase of 60% from 250 million in the same period last year. Douyin's overall crowd portrait, male and female are more balanced, 19-30 years old TGI is high.
In recent years, live-streaming has become one of the hottest businesses in the Chinese market. Based on this, Short video, live streaming, and e-Commerce service enable Douyin to become a more diversified marketplace. Users can not only watch interesting and diverse short videos on Douyin, but also communicate and interact with their favourite hosts through live-streaming. Meanwhile, hosts can guide users to place orders directly through an e-Commerce service, achieving a more efficient and direct conversion.
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