Digital Marketing in China

Reading time: 3 minutes

Of course, its very distant and remote for us, but when more revenue and exposure are your goals, China has a lot of online opportunities. You may have heard about Baidu or Weibo, but did you know that there are online applications and platforms that have even more potential and better possibilities? Here are 4 hugely popular apps/websites that you may not yet know, but should know for you succes in the Chinese market! 

DouYin

This fastest growing platform is currently ranked number 4 of the Top 10 apps in China. It’s an essential platform for young Chinese influencers who have popular short-video entertainment platform with DouYin. DouYin has been available since 2016 and already hase more than 12 milion active users. Reason for this succes? The maximum length of 15 seconds per clip. Comparable to the popularity of the Western 6 second variant Vine.

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Youku

The “Chinese Youtube”, 580 milion active users, more professional than individual user-generated content: welcome to Youku. The dazzling figures of this widely used video platform makes Youku an extremely interesting and effective medium for advertisers. Because of the large professional supply of content, Youku is easily associated with quality and that makes for the unprecedented popularity of this platform in China.

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Mafengwo

A Chinese Booking App used by about 100 milion registered Chinese millennials. Users who no longer wanted to book package deals but wanted to design the trips independently. So you can compare it to booking.com. The platform shares the latest travel information, Q&A, lets users book hotels, tickets and rides but also has a huge amount of engagement and content because it currently has more than 1 million user-generated travel guides on its website. Are you in the leisure or travel industry with your company? Then it’s very attractive to include Mafengwo in you marketing budget for the coming year.

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Xiao Hong Shu

Xiao Hung Shu is a cross-border e-commerce platform especially for women with an enormous number of functions, which usually can be found on social media platforms.

Xiao Hung Shu is in the first place a webshop, but visitors can also post reviews and content, upload product photos, leave shopping experiences, ‘tip’ items and share fun shopping trips and deals. Advertisers have a direct impact on sales because of the content they generate. Large foreign brands have been using the platform for quite some time, but from now on it will also be interesting for the ‘smaller entrepreneur’ to generate exposure on Xiao Hung Shu.

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Large numbers of users, (local) opportunities and a language and culture you are not familiar with: Marketing in China can frighten you. But it is clearly a market where you can distinguish yourself as an advertiser! Do you want more information about online platforms or help to find a whole new target group? Let us know!

Elle Schoenmakers

Elle, Head of International Marketing at Leads International. - She graduated in 2008 from Tilburg University (Digital Media) and is Registered Digital Marketeer (2013). Already more then twelve years active in the dynamic world of online marketing. Elle's specialty is online marketing across boundaries. She is a lot in contact with international marketing specialists all over the globe and with companies who would like to expand their businesses abroad. She combines this perfectly with her passion for travelling, exploring the world and getting inspired by all those different cultures.