These 5 Popular Chinese Social Channels are not arranged in any particular order
Is a mobile voice and text app with more than 100 million users.
The WeChat audience is composed of users that relish in engagement and are open to getting involved in app-based activity,
Example, in 2016 over the Chinese New Year period, over 8 billion “red envelopes” were sent using WeChat, to put it into perspective these online transactions over the Chinese New Year period was more than Paypal had throughout the entirety of 2015. – Think about it!
Brands like Coca-Cola, Tiffany & Co. and Mercedes-Benz are using WeChat in their marketing strategy within China.
SINA WEIBO
Often called “The Twitter of China” by the western media, has more than twice as many users as Twitter, Sina Weibo is an essential platform to more than 22% of the Chinese Internet population. Part of its popularity can be attributed to the ability of users to include images and video.
Sina Weibo goes far beyond Twitter’s functionalities. It is a microblogging platform that also offers the option of long-form Weibo – a long form post can be up to 10,000 characters and offers customisation features such as font style and size. It is possible to share multiple images and videos at one time, compose polls and file share (inclusive of PDF, MP3 & DMG)
Sina Weibo attracts the largest number of companies, organisations, public figures and celebrities, each desiring direct communication with consumers.
Brands like Tommy Hilfiger and The THF stores when using Sina Weibo have seen increases of sales nearly double.
Renren
Is China’s Facebook, with over 147 million registered users and 100 million active users per month, Renren is poised to take over as the social networking platform for the college-educated population in China. So it has a very specific user demographic regarded as the platform for university students
Popular brands on RenRen include beverage brands Coca-Cola and Budweiser
Douban
Douban is an open forum popular among Chinese intellectuals with around 60 million registered users and 80 million active users per month, as these figures reflect the fact that Douban allows unregistered users to access about 80% of the site’s content.
Douban is the primary a review based social network site in China.
Chinese consumers are strongly influenced by personal recommendations and so content on this platform can largely impact brand/product credibility.
Users predominantly share opinions and thoughts on topics such as music, films, culture, books and events and is gaining popularity among the growing middle class users as it is centered around lifestyle and expression issues.
Tencent QQ
Tencent QQ is a platform for the masses and was essentially built on the QQ Instant Messaging service. With a QQ account, a user can get access to all of Tencent’s different services. In other words, it’s the equivalent of a social media hub.
QQ has the largest user base in China, with almost 1 billion active monthly users. It holds the world record for simultaneous connection to its platform with 210 million users connected at the same time on 3rd of July 2014 at 12:52pm.
Tencent QQ synchronises Instant Messaging software (QQ) with other online services and features such as, blogs, microblogs, games, email and online payment to sharing information amongst interest groups.
These 5 Popular Chinese Social Channels above are not arranged in any particular order as the social scene in China is one of the most dynamic and changeable on this earth
Other up and coming China social media sites include but not limited to are:
Pengyou (means “friends” in English)
Is a Chinese social discovery website founded in 2010. It allows users to connect with other users and adopts a very Facebook-like approach to social networking.
Kaixin
A Chinese social networking service with an audience demographic of white-collar city workers. Its integrated features include blogging, photo sharing, and gaming.
Diandian
A basic light blogging social community that enables users to post text, videos, images and other forms of content.
Jiayuan
A user-focused online dating platform in China.
