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Chinese Social Media Trends, Statistics, and Insights

Chinese social media landscape is very unique as compared with the rest of the world. Most of the world's popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snap, can't be accessed except LinkedIn.

social media marketing

Top Chinese Social Media Sites & Apps

The top trending Chinese social platforms in China are WeChat, Weibo, QQ (messenger), Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, and TikTok.

In fact, a good number of sites and mobile apps are integrated with social and networking features including e-commerce platforms like Taobao, online video platforms, and news apps such as Toutiao.

Tencent's Social Media Apps

WeChat, an all-in-one mobile app with social media and networking features in Chats, WeChat Moments (networking), and WeChat Groups, is the largest social media in China. It started as an instant messenger and now includes multiple features such as social networking, payment, gaming, and content network.

QQ also started as a messenger, previously called OICQ, and is now integrated with social networking features as well. It is very popular among Generation Z in China.

Qzone is a social networking website, born as an extension on QQ platform, which was also created by Tencent in 2005. It allows users to write blogs, keep diaries, send photos, listen to music, and watch videos.

Other Top Social Media Apps

Weibo started like China's Twitter and now it is very different. It remains a top social media platform in China. This is where the breaking news often surfaces. There were several players in Weibo market including Sina, Tencent, Netease, and Sohu; but, now just one.

TikTok, the leading short video platform owned by ByteDance, is also on top of marketers' list in China for social media marketing. Its key competitor is Kwai (Kuaishou).

WeChat, Weibo, and TikTok are on many Chinese marketers' top 3 list.

Zhihu

Zhihu, known as a community Q&A website or China's Quora, was launched on January 26, 2011. Zhihu users are relatively more educated with higher incomes, comparing with other Q&A websites such as Baidu Zhidao.

Xiaohongshu

Xiaohongshu, a.k.a. RED, was created in 2013 as a social media and e-commerce platform. A large portion of its users are Generation Z. Its app allows users and influencers to post and share product reviews, travel blogs and lifestyle stories via short videos and photos.

You will find articles below on China's social media landscape, usage, trends, statistics, and marketing insights.

Acquire, convert, and retain customers through WeChat Ads + WeChat Work

January 29, 2020 By CIW Team

WeChat Ad

WeChat Advertising provides advertisers with a customer acquisition solution integrating WeChat Advertising with WeChat Work.

Top 10 WeChat Moments ads in 2019, voted by 1+ million users

January 20, 2020 By CIW Team

Tencent conducted a poll for the favorite advertisements on WeChat Moments, involving over one million WeChat users; the top 10 ads received more than 2.218 million votes. You can review these engaging Moment ads from Mercedes Benz, VanCleef & Arpels, Estee Lauder, Shuijingfang, Yili, Buick, Dyson, McDonald’s, Coca Cola, L’Oréal. 1. Mercedes Benz 4-seat Sports […]

WeChat statistical highlights 2020; mini program DAU >300m

January 9, 2020 By CIW Team

WeChat monthly active users exceeded 1.15 billion in 2019, an increase of 6% YoY. The peak engagements are right before lunch and after work.

How is WeChat Work 3.0 valuable to businesses

December 26, 2019 By CIW Team

Tencent launched a critical update to WeChat Work (version 3.0), an enterprise version of WeChat. The updated WeChat Work helps businesses connect deeply with consumers and retain customer resources. New features include productivity tools and WeChat Moments integration. WeChat Work 1.0 only supported simple functions including Business Contacts, paid phone calls, attendance, announcement, etc while […]

2019: China Internet Year in Review & top CIW articles

December 20, 2019 By CIW Team

In 2019, mobile continues to lead China internet. The top mobile apps in China by total MAUs are still led by WeChat, Alipay, QQ, Taobao, iQiyi, and Tencent Video while TikTok continues fast growth and ranks the 7th. Tencent has the highest internet user penetration of 97.3% in China in September 2019, followed by Alibaba, […]

How Xiaohongshu successfully pivoted its growth and product strategies

December 19, 2019 By CIW Team

Xiaohongshu’s original product form in mid-2013 was “US Shopping Guide”, which was in PDF format. Xiaohongshu entered the market from the angle of overseas shopping and successfully captured a group of urban young women who are pursuing an exquisite lifestyle. Alternatively, you can read the eBook: Xiaohongshu Growth & Product Strategies All the good products […]

Top mobile apps in China in Q3 2019, led by WeChat, Alipay, QQ, Taobao, iQiyi.

December 11, 2019 By CIW Team

mobile-apps

The top mobile apps in China by total MAUs are led by WeChat, Alipay, QQ, Taobao, iQiyi, Tencent Video, and TikTok. Check out the top 30 by MAU and leading apps in news, travel, video, social media, and WeChat Mini Programs. On average, each mobile users in China use 18 categories of mobile apps in […]

How Chinese companies utilize private traffic for customer acquisition and retention

December 4, 2019 By CIW Team

Private traffic is a trending term among Chinese marketers in recent years. It refers to users that can be reached freely and communicated with repeatedly. They are “repeat customers.” As businesses expect, building one’s own pond and catching the fish would be lower in cost and easier, as compared with paid channels. A beautiful girl […]

Tencent launched Nearby Ads for SME retailers on WeChat Moments

November 18, 2019 By CIW Team

WeChat recently launched the “Nearby Ads” marketing solution to solve marketing problems of small and medium-sized merchants. Nearby Ads can accurately display the advertisements in WeChat Moments to reach customers within the 3km distance.

Weibo monthly active users grew slightly to 497 million in Q3 2019

November 17, 2019 By CIW Team

Weibo’s monthly active users were 497 million in September 2019, a net addition of approximately 51 million users year-over-year. Mobile MAUs represented approximately 94% of MAUs.

Tencent highlights in Q3 2019; WeChat MAU grew to 1.15 billion

November 13, 2019 By CIW Team

Tencent’s social media platform WeChat MAU grew to 1.15 billion and QQ mobile MAU 653.4 million in Q3 2019. WeChat Mini Programs DAU exceeded 300 million. Tencent revenues increased by 21% year-on-year, primarily driven by commercial payment services and other FinTech services, smart phone games, as well as social advertising.

Audi used competitor Infiniti’s creative in a video ad on WeChat Moments

November 13, 2019 By Rocky Fu

Audi launched its video ad campaign on WeChat Moments earlier today. What’s interesting is that the video played is an Infiniti ad.

Business essentials for WeChat in Oct 2019

November 12, 2019 By CIW Team

WeChat banned external links. Mini-programs in the travel and entertainment categories enjoyed high popularity. Tencent Cloud empowers WeChat mini programs. Increasingly refined WeChat Mini Program operation and service systems help mini-app operators improve their operational management. Mini-program operators now can check and learn many important and useful information like operation status evaluation, KPI dashboard, operation […]

Short video app Kuaishou expanding beyond entertainment

November 6, 2019 By CIW Team

On October 17th, Kuaishou (Kwai) Big Data Research Institute released the “2019 Kuaishou Education Ecosystem Report”, which systematically reviewed Kuaishou’s education ecosystem for the first time. The report shows that Kwai’s platform has generated as many as 200 million educational short videos so far. The average number of daily views has exceeded 2.2 billion, and […]

How Taobao uses search and content to cultivate social e-commerce

October 30, 2019 By CIW Team

Taobao launched its own Hot Search List function in September. It’s currently only available to 50% of the users, the Hot Search List appears when users click the search bar on the main page. Hot Search items on the list appear to be phrases edited manually rather than product keywords. Though it looks like Weibo’s […]

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