China’s social media landscape is thriving, but it looks so very different from anywhere else in the world that marketers who are unfamiliar with it often struggle to succeed. This guide will look at the following five major social platforms in China: WeChat, Weibo, Zhihu, Little Red Book (also known as Xiaohongshu) and Douyin. From reading this guide, you will learn how to successfully utilise these platforms in order to boost your business in China.
Table of contents
- Introduction
- Zhihu
- Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu)
- Douyin
- Which platforms are the most suitable for your business?
- How to leverage social media in the Chinese digital environment
- Conclusion
Introduction
Like many countries, social media plays an important part in the lives of people in China. The figures below summarise the Chinese social media landscape:
- Country population: 1.4 billion
- Proportion of internet users who use social media: 92.5%
- Average daily time spent using social media: 1 hour and 56 minutes
However, China’s social media landscape looks totally different from anywhere else in the world, being unrecognisable to anyone unfamiliar with this unique market. Many Western social platforms are banned in China, including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), Pinterest, Quora, WhatsApp, YouTube and others.
Instead, local Chinese companies have developed their own social platforms which contribute to China’s thriving digital ecosystem. Five of the biggest Chinese social platforms are WeChat, Weibo, Zhihu, Little Red Book (also known as Xiaohongshu) and Douyin. Chinese internet users use these apps regularly in their daily lives.
This means that, as a brand targeting China, you need to include them in your digital marketing strategy. These local social platforms play a very important role in influencing the Chinese customer’s decision-making journey and help brands to nurture the customer relationship and build up brand loyalty with customers. The graphic below summarises the power of social media:
It is clearly a must for any brand targeting China to properly understand the Chinese social media landscape, in order to successfully do business in China – but how do you do that? How do these local social platforms work, and how can your brand leverage them to achieve your marketing goals? This guide will answer these questions and more, taking you on a journey of discovery and learning. Let’s get started!
The first platform I am going to cover is WeChat. WeChat is the biggest social platform in China, with over 1.3 billion monthly active users.
In summary, WeChat is a lifestyle app, developed by the Chinese tech giant Tencent. However, it is not a typical, single-minded app. It was launched as a messenger app initially, but soon grew into an app that covered many functions beyond simply messaging and social media. The New York Times made this very interesting video about WeChat, which sums up what WeChat is in a few minutes and explains why it is known as “the super app”:
In China, WeChat can displace Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, Uber, PayPal, Groupon and much more. Within the app, it is possible to message friends, share photos, order takeaways, book tickets, book hotel rooms, shop online, order professional services, leave business reviews, donate to charities, pay utility bills – and that barely scratches the surface.
So, which functions should you use as a marketer, if you want to reach your target audience? Let’s take a look at the key ones.
A WeChat official account
This is the most important function inside the entire WeChat ecosystem. For businesses, you can think of your WeChat official account as akin to your official website in China. Many brands actually do not have a Chinese website, choosing instead to just have a WeChat official account to promote themselves in China.
A WeChat official account looks very similar to a regular website. You can set up a navigation tab, have sections in blocks, provide services directly, and even message your followers. Compared to a regular website, WeChat official accounts can send and receive messages with followers, and every time you publish content your followers can receive this immediately. It is a very good platform for customer relationship management and for driving conversions for your business.
No matter whether you are a B2C or a B2B company, a WeChat official account should be the first step you consider, if you plan on doing social media marketing in China.
WeChat channels
The next feature I am going to look at is WeChat channels. This is a short video sharing feature, similar to TikTok.
Videos are very popular in China, and WeChat has kept up with this trend by developing this video channels feature. This is a new way for brands to reach users on WeChat. Some marketing experts predict that the usage of WeChat channels could chip away at the usage of Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) – we will see in the future if this will happen!
One special feature of WeChat channels is its referral algorithm. This algorithm will let you know what is the most popular content being watched by your connections, if they like or comment on a video. For brands, if you plan on developing your own WeChat channels, you will find it to be a good tool for building up your brand awareness, as well as for driving traffic to your own WeChat official account and gaining new followers. In WeChat channels, every video post can be uploaded with a link to other content published within your WeChat official account, so this is a very good way to promote your business.
WeChat mini-programs
The final feature I am going to look at is WeChat mini-programs. I would not say that this is a must-use function that all brands should utilise, but it could definitely be a good supportive marketing tool, depending on your circumstances.
WeChat mini-programs have been described as an “app within an app”, as they essentially work like apps within WeChat. They are tightly embedded into WeChat’s ecosystem.
One of the clear benefits of WeChat mini-programs is that users can access them within the WeChat platform, meaning that they do not need to download them and use up the memory on their mobile device. For brands, it is easy to develop a WeChat mini-program, which will serve the same function as a normal app.
WeChat mini-programs are shareable, meaning that you can share them directly via chat boxes or by inserting them directly into your content/articles. Since WeChat mini-programs are shareable, this means there are more opportunities for your brand to let your customers recommend your app and your business to other potential customers, which could bring in more sales.
To learn more about how to do marketing on WeChat, check out the full-length guide on this topic here.
The next platform I would like to cover is Weibo, which has 583 million monthly active users. Weibo is a real-time microblogging social platform. It is a bit like a hybrid of X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook and Instagram – but with many of its own unique features.
One way in which Weibo is better than its competitor WeChat is in interactivity. It is an open and public platform, meaning that all users can interact with one another – in contrast, company accounts on WeChat cannot really engage with other accounts and followers of a brand account cannot engage with one another under your posts.
You can view Weibo as a huge traffic generation centre. Brands can utilise Weibo to drive traffic to their website or to their other social accounts.
Weibo influencers
Influencer marketing on Weibo is a very effective marketing method in China.
On Weibo, you can find all different types of influencers to go with any brand. After you launch a campaign, you can invite influencers to join your campaign or you can just ask them directly to promote your business.
Weibo advertising
Weibo has a very mature and advanced advertising platform with many advertising products. No matter which exact advertising products you use, advertising on Weibo can help you to reach a huge number of users, both existing followers and potential followers.
There are various demographic targeting options. You can target people based on competitors, hobbies, devices, location and more.
Advertising on Weibo is very cost effective. The cost begins at 5 Chinese yuan (around USD 0.70) per thousand impressions.
Weibo Lottery
If you have a limited budget for advertising, you may instead be interested in a free tool offered by Weibo: Weibo Lottery. This is a free but nevertheless very effective marketing tool for giveaway campaigns. Many Western brands are not aware of this tool, so using it could give you a big advantage over your competitors. This tool is very helpful in driving new followers and boosting brand awareness.
Normally, Chinese customers do not really trust lottery games organised by brands, but on Weibo Lottery everything is transparent, so you can see who is participating in the lottery campaigns. For brands using Weibo Lottery, you can easily set up some conditions for users to engage with you, and then use the tool to promote your products or services. If your prize is very attractive, then usually after you have posted your campaign, within 24 to 48 hours your post will have more than 100 engagements! It is well worth using Weibo Lottery as a tool to support your marketing campaigns.
Live streaming
Live streaming is a very trendy way for brands to communicate with their audiences in China. In a lot of live streams, you will see the brand (or a host who is collaborating with the brand) providing some kind of limited offer that is only offered to people in that live stream. This helps to create a sense of exclusivity and urgency to encourage the potential customer to make the purchase.
Be aware that Taobao (part of the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba) is integrated into Weibo live streams. This allows viewers to actually shop immediately, whilst they watch the live stream. This sets Weibo apart from other live streaming platforms in China. This approach is a good one for both large and small brands.
To learn more about how to do marketing on Weibo, check out the full-length guide on this topic here.
Zhihu
The next platform I would like to cover is Zhihu. Zhihu is a question-and-answer (Q&A) platform, with around 81 million monthly active users.
What sets it apart from other Q&A platforms, which mostly focus on quick questions, is that Zhihu is a place for users to find in-depth answers and analysis. Many white-collar professionals use Zhihu to find in-depth knowledge related to their industry. In addition to being a Q&A platform, you can also think of Zhihu as a social platform that allows users from different industries to exchange ideas.
One major benefit of having content on Zhihu is that it can rank very highly on Baidu’s search engine results pages (Baidu being the most popular search engine in China). The reason for this is that Baidu owns Zhihu. You can therefore think of Zhihu as a free and highly effective Chinese SEO resource.
If you are a brand that can provide some industry-specific knowledge – like B2B, IT, business or education – it is well worth setting up a brand account on Zhihu.
User profile
One thing that makes Zhihu such an appealing platform for marketers is the demographic profile of its users. Zhihu users typically possess three main characteristics: a high level of education, a high salary, and a high consumption ability.
- High level of education: Zhihu users typically have a strong educational background. 80% of Zhihu users possess a bachelor’s degree or above.
- High salary: 30% of Zhihu users earn over RMB 10,000 a month, which is above average for people in China (RMB 8,500 per month is the current average wage).
- High consumption ability: 36% of Zhihu users spend an average of RMB 100,000 annually on what Zhihu calls “investment-related activities”, such as stock investment or buying luxury goods. The most common job titles for Zhihu users are programmers, managers, founders and CEOs. This shows that Zhihu is a community populated largely by white-collar professionals.
In summary, Zhihu users are composed mostly of mature and financially-stable social elites. They are typically financially independent and knowledgeable, and they are the dominant group for consumption activities. Zhihu is an ideal platform for attracting decision-makers and high-spending customers. Therefore, creating a professional brand image on Zhihu can be a highly efficient approach if you want to attract these high-quality prospects.
Q&A campaigns
Since Zhihu users are using the platform to find in-depth analysis on a specific topic, brands may want to use Q&A campaigns to become a thought leader in their industry. I would suggest utilising Baidu’s keyword research tool or Zhihu’s hot discussion list to find the most frequently asked questions and search queries related to your industry and provide high-quality answers to these questions.
In-depth articles
Another thing you can do is create in-depth articles and educational content. Do not forget that Zhihu is effectively a free SEO tool and, as long as your content is of a high quality and contains high-quality keywords and search terms, your content will be able to rank very highly in Baidu.
The screenshot below is from Baidu and shows the results for the search query “How to do B2B marketing?” Two of the first three results are from Zhihu! This shows how much Zhihu content can contribute to your Chinese SEO performance.
To learn more about how to do marketing on Zhihu, check out the full-length guide on this topic here.
Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu)
The next platform I would like to cover is Xiaohongshu, better known to non-Chinese speakers as Little Red Book.
Little Red Book is a lifestyle app that is like a combination of Pinterest, Instagram and a short-form video platform. It has 218 million monthly active users and is one of the most-trusted social shopping platforms in China. A “social shopping” platform is a combination of a social network and an e-commerce platform, where users can share social posts as well as shop for products.
It is a great platform for businesses to seamlessly blend in their advertising and make it look effortless. This platform is also a good opportunity for smaller businesses with limited marketing budgets.
User profile
The typical Little Red Book user is a young woman with high consumption capacity who is very lifestyle-oriented. 77% of users are aged 18 to 34 years old. This makes it an ideal platform for any brand targeting young women in China.
Popular content categories
Many people use Little Red Book to search when they need to decide what to buy, where to go, or how to do something. They want to see other users’ experiences to help them decide if something will work for them. Indeed, many people think of Little Red Book as a products/tips search engine.
The platform is full of user-generated content of various formats, from photos to short videos to short articles. This means that the platform looks very fun visually, and means users can search for a huge variety of content within different niches/industries.
As you can see from this screenshot of a Little Red Book homepage, it is full of different posts. The system feeds you content based on your search history.
The most popular content categories on Little Red Book are:
- Makeup and fashion
- Food
- Tourism
- Electronics
- Education
If your business operates within any of the above industries in China, you should strongly consider having a presence on Little Red Book.
Note sharing
On Little Red Book, all the posts are called “notes”. Note sharing is a fun way to promote your brand or products. Be aware that since Little Red Book acts as a search engine, the keywords you use are very important, especially in your title and content. Your content will be shown to users who search for related keywords, even if they do not follow you.
By posting engaging and relevant notes, brands can utilise Little Red Book to increase their brand awareness, promote their products, and even achieve conversions if they decide to open a shop directly on Little Red Book.
Follower engagement
Little Red Book has various tools which are great for fostering engagement with your followers. One of the best is called “lucky draw”, and it works similarly to Weibo Lottery.
With lucky draw, you publish a post, and then users can follow, bookmark or like that post to be in with a chance of winning a gift. This can be a great way to grow your audience, foster engagement, and boost your brand awareness. If enough people engage with your lucky draw post, it can easily go viral.
Douyin
The final platform I would like to cover is Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Douyin is the most popular short-form video platform in China right now, with monthly active users very likely to surpass 835 million in 2025. Many of its users are millennials or Gen Z.
Compared to TikTok, Douyin has more advanced features, such as the fact you can integrate your website and e-commerce platform inside Douyin, which makes it easier for you to sell your products or services via Douyin.
If you are targeting millennials or Gen Z in China and want to explore video marketing, you should definitely consider setting up a Douyin account for your brand.
Popular content categories
There are some particularly popular content categories on Douyin, with the top five being:
- Dance challenges
- Comedy skits
- Life hacks and tips
- Challenges and games
- Travel and exploration
Douyin influencers
One of the most effective ways to do marketing on Douyin is to collaborate with influencers. Douyin influencers have a powerful sway over their followers’ purchasing decisions.
Live streaming on Douyin
Another way to do marketing on Douyin is via live streaming. Live streaming is hugely popular in China and will only keep growing. If you start live streaming on Douyin, your followers will be able to watch, comment and even place orders during the live stream. Live streaming on Douyin can help you to educate your target audience, promote a product, speed up the sales cycle, attract new followers and build up relationships with existing followers.
Which platforms are the most suitable for your business?
Now you know five of the top Chinese social media platforms, you might be wondering which ones are the most suitable for your business.
When choosing which platforms to have a presence on, I would say that quality is more important than quantity, i.e. it is better to choose two or three platforms to post high-quality content on, rather than spreading yourself too thin across too many different platforms and posting lower-quality content.
Let’s look at several important factors to help you choose the right platforms for your business.
Your goal
Ask yourself what your goal is from using these platforms.
- If your goal is to increase brand awareness, all the platforms can help you to achieve this.
- If your goal is to generate more leads and prospects, especially in the B2B industry, WeChat and Zhihu are probably the most suitable platforms for you.
- If your goal is to sell your products directly and quickly, Douyin, Little Red Book and Weibo can help you to achieve this.
Your audience
Another thing to consider is your audience. Who are they and where are they online?
- If you are targeting younger people, Little Red Book and Douyin will be a very good choice.
- If you are targeting professionals, Zhihu will be an ideal platform for you.
Your competitors
You should also consider doing some competitor research. Check which social platforms your competitors’ use, which types of content they post, and which types of content receive the most engagement. From knowing this information, you can create your own strategy.
Your budget and resources
If you have limited budget and resources, just focus on one or two platforms.
How to leverage social media in the Chinese digital environment
Make advertising look organic
For successful advertising, make sure your content looks authentic, rather than just some brand sponsored advert. Chinese customers do not like content which has an overly “advertising” style, so try to make it look as organic as possible.
Understand user habits for each platform
The different platforms have different user habits. Your marketing strategy should be based on these user habits.
User habits:
- Looking for one-stop service
- Seeking immersive reading
Top marketing tips:
- Provide a high level of customer service
- Create lengthy and in-depth content
User habits:
- Actively searching for up-to-date information
- Looking to actively engage with other users and brands
Top marketing tips:
- Create short and lifestyle content
- Collaborate with influencers
- Conduct engagement campaigns to engage with your followers
Zhihu
User habits:
- Looking for answers from experts
- Exchanging ideas and thoughts with other professionals
Top marketing tips:
- Create long and educational content to build up your authority
- Answer questions related to your industry
Little Red Book
User habits:
- Actively searching for reviews and tips
Top marketing tips:
- Create short and lifestyle content reviewing your products or services
- Share positive reviews that customers have posted on Little Red Book
Douyin
User habits:
- Actively seeking creative and short videos
Top marketing tips:
- Create creative and lifestyle videos to promote your products or services
- Follow trends when creating videos
- Collaborate with influencers
Conclusion
I hope this guide has given you a good starting point from which to build your Chinese success story. The Chinese social media landscape is totally different from anywhere else in the world, which can be challenging for international businesses – but all challenges can be overcome! If you localise your strategy effectively, your digital marketing and business expansion efforts in the country have the potential to go far. Good luck!
To learn more about digital marketing in China, click here.