Social media judge and jury

Online business in China is much more developed than in the West. Many platforms have emerged to respond to the Chinese consumer’s eagerness to easily find a new product, compare prices and buy at the cheapest possible price.

Within the online business in China, we mainly have the following players:

Online stores.

In China they account for a small percentage of the total online sales volume. Some sources speak of less than 10% of the global online business, others speak of a percentage of less than 15%.

E-commerce platforms.

Most of online sales volume is made through them. Some of the most popular platformas are Tmall (together with Taobao they represent the largest e-commerce platform. They are part of the Alibaba group) and JingDong (they are becoming the second biggest for some time now).

Social media.

They are the main communication element to reach online consumers. It is the way in which brands can direct their content to their followers and keep them informed of brand news and allow new followers to discover them. It is especially useful when the brand does not enjoy recognition and has to carve out a space to attract the attention of the consume. Some of the most popular networks in China are: WeChat, Douyin, Bilibili, etc.

Search engines.

It is almost a monopoly in the hands of the Baidu search engine.

Celebrities, KOL’s, KOC’s.

In the West, they are better known as influencers.  Brands can turn to them in order to reach their followers with a product or, as it is in the case of KOC’s, to generate content that we can later give greater exposure due to its appearance of honesty and disinterested message.

If we want to count with the full support of social media and ecommerce platforms in giving exposure to the content we publish, it is necessary that we provide them with as much documentation as possible proving the effects of our product that we want to advertise. This is especially important in supplements, cosmetics (creams, serums, balms…), food and health care products.

If we make a post talking about the benefits of our product and we intend to turn it into an advertisement, the platforms will give us the possibility to do so, but the exposure to which we will access may be limited by them if they consider that the content of the post is not adequate. Reasons for limiting our exposure can range from talking about product effects that are reserved for health products or effects that the media considers are not sufficiently proven from the documentation we have provided. In the same way, if an e-commerce platform considers that a the relationship between a keyword we have chosen and our product is not adjusted to reality, they will give us little exposure when users are typing this keyword.

Despite of our best intentions or large marketing investment, if the content we are publishing is not following the recommendations from social media and ecommerce platforms, we will be provided a very limited exposure to users.

The same thing happens when we agree a KOL collaboration and its content does not conform to what the platform considers suitable to promote. In that case, we will access the users following the KOL through the notification they will get once the KOL publishes the content but the media will not support us in giving greater exposure beyond those users.

Similarly, we can make official publications (through the platform) or unofficial (we negotiate directly with the KOL). Although the first one is more expensive since you have to pay a commission to the media, it gets support from the media. On the contrary, working directly with the KOL, will mean a cheaper collaboration (taking advantage of several brands making a common post: collection). This type of post, in addition to being cheaper, tends to make the content more natural (less ad appearance) and be more interesting to users (greater interaction). In short, it depends very much on what we expect to get with the publication and our budget availability that we decide making it one way or another.

Finally, KOC’s are influencers who, due to their low number of followers, require a lower budget in their collaborations. Therefore, making the collaboration official is much more affordable than with KOL’s and it is only about creating a content that has the media approval. If we succeed, it is very likely that the platform will help in giving exposure to that post (prior advertising budget, “CPC” (Cost per Click)) and also the user who finds it will have the feeling of receiving an honest message from an individual who wants to share his impression with other users, the so called UGC (User Generated Content).

So in order to get a good exposure and facilitate the discovery of the brand:

• We must count on a good content and documentation that allows the publication of this content (we would create it together)

• We must have a strategy of collaborations adequated to our budget the brand is willing to allocate to advertising on social networks.