This sign was the last thing I expected to see when I stepped into a quiet back alley restaurant off a street several hundred years old in China. Printed on the worn green wooden plate were Chinese characters that roughly translated into “Feel free to take pictures and show off on WeChat and QQ.” (WeChat and QQ are major social network platforms/apps in China.) Situated at the entrance to a traditional looking courtyard, the sign felt like it was left by someone who once traveled here from the future.
But as my month-long trip to China continued, I came to realize that the presence of such a social media token is perhaps not so surprising after all. It appears social media have become more or less a way of life here. Everywhere I looked, I saw the presence of social media. In this post, I would like to take you on a vicarious tour of the social media landscape in China.
Social Media is Everywhere
According to Statistica, there were 596 million social network users in China in 2017, the highest in the world. This translates into approximately 42% of the country’s population. But the penetration rate is much higher among those under 50 years old, at nearly two-thirds and as high as 77.3% for those 20-29 years old. What is unique about Chinese social media users is the dominant use of mobile devices for social media access. eMarketer estimates that 480.4 million Chinese users will be accessing social media through their mobile phones in 2019.
My own observations in China conveyed the same impression as the numbers. Buses and subways were full of people hunched over their smartphones scrolling through social media postings and friends’ messages. Even the traveling retirees (all 60-70 years old) that I encountered during my trip were frequent social media consumers, spending a large chunk of their free time reading, liking, and to a lesser extent posting on social media. Adoption by businesses is also high. On advertisements and product packages, company social network information was frequently printed alongside phone numbers and website addresses for consumers to reach them.
The King of Chinese Social Media
With Facebook, Twitter, and Google all inaccessible from China, Chinese users have cultivated their own online social networks. The indisputable king among these is WeChat, a mainly mobile-based social networking platform. As of Q1 2018, it has surpassed 1 billion in monthly active users, including many Chinese living abroad. The WeChat mobile app is a cross-over between instant messaging and social networking apps. It allows one-to-one and group messaging, in a typical chat interface that integrates text, voice messaging, and real-time voice and video chatting. It is very common for families, schools, alumni organizations, and workplace teams to create group chats to share messages and coordinate activities among a group of people.
WeChat’s Moments function resembles that of Facebook posts, allowing users to share pictures, webpages, and their own musings. Similar to Facebook, readers can like and comment on their friends’ postings. Adding friends is simple, with the typical email, phone number, or username search as well as the ability to scan a friend’s QR code to add to contacts.
WeChat maintains pretty tight privacy control. Users can choose to share their postings with the general public, only their friends, or a select group of their friends. In addition, likes and comments are only viewable by friends of the user who liked or commented. For example, if my post is liked by 100 people, anyone of my friends will only see the likes by our mutual friends and not those by my own friends. As a security measure, WeChat limits the number of devices that can be simultaneously logged into an account. In order to use the WeChat web interface, users need to scan a QR code on the webpage using their WeChat mobile app to authorize the log-in.
WeChat as a Way of Life
In my opinion, what’s the most unique about WeChat is the ecosystem it has developed. Through “small programs” contributed by third-party partners, users can accomplish many things such as shopping, summoning a Uber-like car service, and booking travel without ever leaving the app. WeChat further features a virtual wallet, which users can link to a bank card and use it to pay for things ranging from phone and utility bills to in-store purchases. To pay for in-store purchases, one simply needs to scan the QR code posted in the store like the one shown below. Almost all stores I visited during my travel, even small stands on the side of the streets, support this payment mechanism. At the airports I visited, one can also use the WeChat app to obtain free wi-fi access. By integrating all of these functionalities, WeChat has become a way of life in China.
The success of WeChat is reflected in its business performance. In just Q1 2018, its parent company Tencent reported $11.7 billion in revenue and $3.8 billion in net income, close to the respective $12.0 billion and $5.0 billion for Facebook during the same time period. According to Q2 2017 data, Tencent captured 56.8% of the social media marketing and advertising market in China.
What Do Chinese Users Share on Social Media
A survey conducted by Penguin Intelligence shows that the most shared content on social media by Chinese users are emotions and personal status, followed by articles, comments on events, favorite songs, and work related information. However, these stats do not quite capture what I see most frequently on Chinese social networks: pictures. Chinese users fondly call this activity “晒照片” (translates into “sun photo”). On WeChat, a user can share up to 9 pictures in a single post. Based on my own observation, posts sharing personal pictures tend to receive the most engagement from others. Two categories of pictures are most frequently shared: pictures of travel and pictures of kids.
Chinese consumers are quite generous in sharing brand information. A survey by Epsilon finds that 66% of Chinese consumers aged 18 to 64 would share their good brand experience with their family and friends. 60% would share such experiences on social media. Dianping.com is the Chinese equivalent of Yelp. Meituan.com, a groupon like website, also features lots of customer reviews. Usage of online reviews vary greatly by age though. While young to middle-aged consumers tend to utilize such online reviews more, older generations tend to distrust these reviews, especially the positive ones. They believe that many of these reviews are fake. They would much rather trust traditional word of mouth from people they know.
I hope you enjoyed this little short “tour” I put together on Chinese social media. But nothing beats seeing things with your own eyes. So next time when you are on vacation, consider going to China and see for yourself. 🙂