2019 China Social Media Landscape Whitepaper

Since 2008, Kantar’s CIC Intelligence – social listening research services in China – have produced an annual report exploring the dynamics and trends...

China Social Media Landscape 2019

Research conducted by Kantar’s CIC Intelligence

Preface

Since 2008, Kantar’s CIC Intelligence – social listening research services in China – have produced an annual report exploring the dynamics and trends of social media in China to deliver valuable insights for marketers.

In this 11th year of the China Social Media Landscape Report, we have interviewed thought-leaders across the industry and incorporated insights derived from CIC Intelligence research through social listening, online surveys and focus groups.

This year’s report focuses on the following key areas that characterise the current social media landscape in China. They are:

The domination of Omni-media in China: the increasing functionality of social media platforms in China and what it means for brands.
Mind the generational gap: what are the social media platform preferences for Gen X, Y & Z?
Influencers: how they use multiple owned channels to reach different audiences.
Social GRP: new standards in measurement of social content.

We hope that this report will shed light on the complexities – and opportunities – of the social media landscape in China, helping marketers to develop more impactful social media marketing strategies.

The Domination of Omni-media in China

The increasing functionality of social media platforms in China and what it means for brands

Omni-media, Made in China

In China, it appears that a growing number of internet platforms are shifting from single-function to become more complex multi-functional platforms. We have defined this phenomenon as ‘Omni-media’.

Omni-media refers to:

A complex and matured media platform that consists of various functions, including search, networking, communication, entertaining, gaming, purchasing and the ability to share content within or outside the platform (with user volume > 500 million).
In China, WeChat, QQ, Alipay, and Taobao are the most representative Omni-media platforms.

Note: By the end of 2018, WeChat was the largest Omni-media, which has 1,098 million, QQ has 807 million users, Alipay obtains 1,000 million users and Taobao has 636 million users.
Data source come from: ‘Tencent’s 2018 full-year financial results’ by Tencent Group, ‘Alibaba’s financial report in December 2018’ by Alibaba Group, ‘The report of Alipay announced the number of users on January 9th ‘by Alibaba Group

Note: More information on core and derivative social media platforms can be found in “China Social Media Landscape 2018”.

In addition to Omni-media, core social media and derivative social media still play important roles in China's social media landscape.

Omni-media：

A multi-functional one-stop platform that allows users to switch between functions within the platform to perform a variety of application scenarios.

Core Social Media：

Relationship-centric platforms that enable users to establish and maintain social relationship through their interpersonal relationships.

Derivative Social Media:

Content-oriented platforms, where users are more inclined to use a one-way communication to obtain information of their interest from original content generators.

^{When compared to overseas markets, brands in China tend to use more social media platforms.}

Below are examples of the owned social media assets within six example categories:

Note: The above charts are made based on Kantar’s CIC Intelligence analysis of leading brands’ owned media channels across various social media platforms domestically and overseas.

^{For many brands in China, owned media marketing is also complex.}

An Omni-channel approach requires the development of significantly more content to support e-Commerce, recruitment, CRM etc.
Here is an example of the food category’s WeChat marketing content:

Data source come from: Examples of marketing endeavors via WeChat/WeChat accounts from companies in the food industry.

^{In China, the relative homogeneity of marketing content by brands has often led to competition for the same resources and ideas.}

Here is one example where a majority of brands are mimicking the ‘hot topic’ on the social platform, Weibo.

Mind the Generational Gap

How Generations X, Y & Z use social media.

^{Social media behaviour across generations has shifted from preferring offline to online experiences while consumers that used to have more trust in authorities now have greater self-empowerment to find and share information.}

Note: Generation X refers to those born before 1980. Generation Y refers to those born in the 1980s and 1990s. Generation Z refers to those born between 1995 and 2009. Reference:-“The rebellion and lost ‘Generation X’ has entered into the mid-life stage. What have they gone through?” by Jiemian News; “Lifestyle, attitude and digital behaviours of Generation X 2018”;“What’s the Gap between Generation X and Generation Y?”;“Different ‘Spring Festivals’ for Generation Y and Generation Z by numbers 2019”;“behavioural Analysis of Internet Users born after 1995 in H1 2018”;“White Paper on Internet New Middle Class Technology Consumption 2018”; “Report on Mobile App Usage Analysis among University Students in April 2018”.

Generation X usually has a clear pursuit of goals when they are engaged in social media activities. Brand power and offline experiences are key factors influencing purchase decisions for the group.

Generation Y is accustomed to using to a variety of social media. This group prefers online to offline and favours omni-media shopping experiences.

Generation Z has a short purchase decision making cycle and prefers to search and purchase online. They care about personal privacy, but love customized services and are more willing to pay for what they like.

Owned media channels of Chinese influencers

Varied approach for different audiences

The research also shows how successful influencers in China have owned accounts on at least three platforms, but in many cases many more. Their content published on different platforms might be similar, but their influence levels can vary significantly.

When cooperating with influencers, brands are more likely to get higher level of user engagements when platforms resonate well with the influencers' target audiences.

Note: Report on 2018 Weibo User Development, Teleconference Record of Bilibili Financial Report in August 2018.

There are many considerations for whether content creation will be influential. Below is an example of our content creation checklist.

Note: The above chart is based on the analysis of focus group discussions across different generations.

Social GRP

Helping brands evaluate the performance of social media marketing campaigns.

Introducing the Quanceng

The complexity of the social media landscape in China can be made clearer through understanding of Quanceng – a Chinese term referring to how groups of social media users share common interest(s) or profession(s).

Definition: Quanceng refers to a group of people with common interest(s) or profession(s). Consumers with many different interests can overlap and be including in different Quancengs.

Quantification: the number of people in a Quanceng can vary significantly; groups based around generic interests (e.g. food) might be up to hundreds of millions.

Implication: based on research, the suitable group size for Quanceng measurement ranges from 50,000 to 300,000 users.

Note: The volume of Quanceng based on Kantar cross industry data analysis reports in 2017-2018

^{Neither brands nor influencers fall into only one fixed Quanceng.}

Note: For Chaiquanlaowanzi, its followers fall into different ‘Quancengs’ according to interest tags defined by Weibo: movies and entertainment, ACGN, healthy snacks and gourmet, popular city tourist guide, pet lovers.

Quancengs evolve over time – from the initial enthusiastic followers, to those with lighter interest who may eventually exit the Quanceng. Remaining participants will keep a good participation rate in seeking content from the Quanceng.

If we look at the lifespans of typical Quanceng, we can see that those who are actively seeking knowledge are most likely to stay in the Quanceng longer - but their interest levels must be kept high through new content.

It is important to have a good understanding of the audience of a Quanceng in order to develop appropriate engaging content.

Note: User number of different Quancengs are estimated based on 2017-2018 Cross-Industry Social Media Data by Kantar’s CIC Intelligence.

Participants pay attention to different influencers at different stages of a Quanceng lifespan... making it important for marketers to understand their audiences

Note: User number of different Quancengs are estimated based on 2017-2018 Cross-Industry Social Media Data by Kantar’s CIC Intelligence.

Note: If the Quanceng from one of the user is not a targeted Quanceng for the evaluated brand/campaign, this Quanceng is viewed as invalid and would not be taken into calculation.

Note: User number of different Quancengs are estimated based on 2017-2018 Cross-Industry Social Media Data by Kantar’s CIC Intelligence

Through better understanding the Quanceng as a measuring unit, Social GRPs can be calculated to evaluate the reach and frequency of social marketing campaigns.

Our study suggests that the more Quanceng’s reached by a brand, the greater marketing effect of the campaign... but a diminishing marginal utility/gain is also expected.

The Quanceng and Social GRP can evaluate marketing performance and can predict effectiveness by showing the overlap between an influencer and different Quancengs.

Note: “Zongzi” is a traditional Chinese food for the Dragon Boat Festival.

Lastly...

This year, Kantar has continued to analyse the changing social media landscape in China and to consolidate marketing pain points. We can see that the rapid change of social media has made it imperative for the industry to set up a unified standard measurement.

In addition, Kantar wants to raise the following considerations for social media marketing:

Omni-Media

In spite of its dominance, Omni-media platforms have not replaced core or derivative media platforms, but we are witnessing a trend of media platform intergration in the development of social media landscape. The rise of omni-media could make brands’ platform selection easier when deciding on marketing investments, but makes communication more difficult to reach target audience precisely.

The Use of Owned Media

The variety of owned social media in China has attracted a huge volume of users for brands and influencers to reach. In order to grab the attention of as many target users as possible, brands and influencers need to select appropriate platforms, adapt content to fit platform’s characteristics, create content with relevance and adapt campaigns across different platforms, in order to make your content stand-out.

The Measurement of Quanceng

Kantar introduces the concept of “Social GRP”, which incorporates social characteristics into the “GRP” used in traditional media measurements, and hopes it could be a valuable tool for brands to measure Quanceng and thus to evaluate the social media marketing performance.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, please feel free to contact the research and consulting experts of Kantar.

^{Special thanks to members who assissted the white paper research}

(in no particular order)

About us

Kantar’s CIC Intelligence enables enterprise to leverage the power of social media and Internet Word of Mouth for operational and marketing innovation. The company is the inventor of concept – IWOM and later Social Business to Chinese market. It provides social business intelligence from an objective, third-party perspective to global leading brands and agencies.

For information about Kantar’s CIC Intelligence, please visit http://www.kantarmedia.com.cn, or follow us on Sina Microblog KantarMediaDivision and WeChat KantarMediaDivision.

This report is copyrighted by Kantar. All images used are from Getty Images and free online materials. If you have any needs of the content, please make reference to the source.