Why Livestream in China in 2024 is an important element for your brand?

Increasingly, though, companies and entrepreneurs are capitalizing on the huge audiences available to meet their own commercial ends. They face two options: create their own livestreaming content, or place their brand within an already well-subscribed source of livestreams. The live streaming e-commerce market size in China has expanded 121% in 2021 compared to the previous year, and has reached 961 billion RMB! This market size is expected to rise by another 150.73 billion RMB by the end of 2022.

The former option offers perhaps the highest reward, but also involves the most risk, and will need significant investment of time and resources. Livestreaming is fiercely competitive, and brands will need to think very carefully about what might get the attention of audiences.

Budweiser took this route and excelled in 2020. When clubs and bars closed, or were emptied of patrons, because of COVID-19, they took to the online airwaves, streaming DJ sets and inviting people to party with them from home. As a result, they saw double-digit growth in direct online sales, and triple-digit growth in sales on third-party delivery apps.

The rise of KOLs in China is now well-charted territory. More commonly known as ‘influencers’ in the West, KOLs now play a huge part in the Chinese mediasphere and e-commerce.

They range from the expected – those who do makeup tutorials, post images living the ‘high life’, or narrate themselves while playing games – to the unconventional – those who eat a whole week’s worth of food in an hour (which is now actually prohibited), or simply sit and study in silence. Boasting follower and view counts whose numbers reach beyond seven-digits, it’s a no-brainer for brands who want exposure to try and get on board somehow.

Enlisting KOLs can involve simple product placement, a product review, or inviting them to a marketing event. Brands might organise parties, excursions or fashion shows, invite KOLs to livestream, and feel the knock-on benefits.

This is also a fairly competitive market, as viewers will want to see something new, and perhaps unique, from the stream. Chinese vlogging platform Xigua (西瓜) is a good place to look for examples – in 2018 they took a selection of their most popular content producers on an all-expenses-paid cruise from China to Japan and back.

So, where to start? Here’s an overview of the top platforms for livestreaming in 2021, then a few tips for how best to execute.

Livestreaming in China: The Top 10 Chinese Platforms

#1 Douyin

Known as TikTok outside of China, this is the app that needs no introduction. It is simply a behemoth. For brands, the important thing here is to create truly creative, interesting content that is responsive to the latest trends.

Douyin is a the top 1 platform in China for Livestreaming sales. Connecting your Taobao and Red stores as well as Douyin native e-commerce shop, this tool is creating more than 9 million live-streaming sections per month.

According to the Douyin 2022 ecological convention, platforms gross merchandise value (GMV) growing 3.2 times year-over-year.

According to Statista ,in 2022 Douyin reported having 86.8% of its users streaming live content in China  and spending at least 89 minutes watching videos on the platform each day!

Giving the perfect platform for Influencer marketing business, this tool is home to booming new talent: Liu GengHong (刘耕宏）, Dongyuhui (董宇辉 ) and Jianailiang (贾乃亮).

#2 XiaoHongShu

XiaoHongShu, AKA ‘RED’. RED emerged in 2019 as a fairly unexpected e-commerce frontrunner. Favoured among young women, who make up around 90% of the user-base, it gained a reputation for reliability and authenticity.

The vast majority of the content is user-generated, and the platform itself is specifically geared towards e-commerce. If a user likes a product featured in a livestream, they are only one or two clicks away from viewing it, purchasing it, and having it delivered.

A brand account allows for direct interaction with users, allowing companies to respond to comments, convert interest into sales and maintain relationships.

#3 Kuaishou

Kuaishou is another relatively new kid on the block, and one that packs a punch. It started as a GIF-sharing platform in 2011, but opened up livestreaming in 2016, and boasts upwards of 300 million active users.

The reason it’s still considered new is because it’s only recently integrated e-commerce and transactions into its livestreaming platform. More than US$30bn of transactions were processed in the first nine months of 2020, an eleven-fold increase on the year before.

#4 Taobao Live

The granddaddy of e-commerce, Alibaba, and its offshoots Taobao and Tmall, represent the vanguard of China’s livestreaming sales boom. On Single’s Day (11^th November) 2020, sales from livestreaming surpassed $3bn in less than 24 hours. For example, Estee Lauder’s Singles Day livestream pulled in US$28m in sales, garnering more than 500 million views.

Taobao Live is available year-round, however. The aforementioned Budweiser livestreaming campaign was a tie-in with Tmall, wherein they were cooperated to create an additional custom landing page for the products.

#5 Inke

Inke is a general-content angled livestreaming platform, popular with gamers and those seeking light-hearted content.

What sets them apart is a ‘battle mode’, where users will agree on a predefined challenge, such as holding a pen on their upper lip, or balancing a spoon on their nose, then livestream the challenge within a timeframe.

Viewers can send cash-paid-for-gifts to the livestreamers to determine who is winning, and the loser then must complete a forfeit.

#6 Bilibili

What started as a video service for anime fans is increasingly being described as China’s closest equivalent to YouTube. For those new to the platform, they should know that its users are still very much tied in with its fandom history, however. Livestreams that involve cosplay or anime-themed elements are popular.

#7 Yizhibo

By partnering with Baidu and Sina Weibo, social e-commerce platform Yizhibo has secured an audience from one of the ‘big four’ (BATX) tech giants in China, and one of its most subscribed traditional social media platforms.

Given its tie-in with Weibo, users are less likely to be interested by straight-down-the-line sales livestreams, and more interested by viral content such as challenges and celebrity interaction.

#8 Huya Live

Known internationally as Nimo TV, Huya mainly focuses on gaming livestreams. It provides official coverage of esports competitions. Tie-ins could include more traditional advertising deals, or collaboration with gaming KOLs.

#9 Douyu

Another huge gaming livestreaming service which, in 2021, is slated to merge with Huya Live.

#10 Meipai / Meitu

The once-popular Meipai app abandoned, leaving its young, female user base to seek beauty tips elsewhere. Owner of Meipai, Meitu, launched its own app in the end of 2020, but it remains to be seen how successful it will be.

Want to enter Chinese e-commerce market? Learn about 5 options besides Tmall!

How to set up your Livestreaming Campaign in China in 2024

Pick a host for your livestreaming in China.

This needn’t necessarily be a KOL – there are agencies now who represent livestreaming hosts, just as agencies represent TV hosts. Think carefully about the target audience, and who they might relate to, or look up to.

Plan your content very carefully

You do not want to be going viral for the wrong reasons. First, consider the regulations around which words, phrases and topics may or may not be used. For an outline of these, click here.

Second, think about the culturally sensitive topics you may wish to avoid. A quick search on the internet for brands falling fowl of Chinese consumers is a good place to start.

Promote your livestreaming in China in advance

Use more traditional social media to get the message out there, and build hype.

Choose an appropriate timeline

Is it Singles Day? Okay, a 20-hour livestream marathon may be okay. If not, consider commuting times, or evenings after dinner.

In need of livestreaming services? Contact us today!

HI-COM is a multilingual communication agency dedicated to providing China-specific social media communication and e-commerce marketing services to businesses around the world. Working with more than 100 brands, HI-COM is the go-to partner of companies that want to enter China market! Contact us for your free consultation today!

As the second largest consumer economy in the world, China has been at the forefront of marketing trends shaping the global economy. According to China’s Ministry of Commerce, in 2020, China saw sales of consumer goods reach 6 trillion USD. Home to major online e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba and JD.com, China has also ranked in as the world’s largest online retail economy for the past 8 years.

The country’s mature online retail economy, high mobile penetration, and comprehensive e-commerce infrastructure has made it the perfect environment for the emergence of a variety of innovative marketing trends in the past few years. These trends have not only reshaped marketing playbooks within China, but also impacted consumer markets around the globe. Understanding these new trends will help businesses around the world effectively craft cutting-edge marketing strategies.

What marketing trends should we look out for from China in 2022?

1. From KOL to KOC marketing

KOL (influencer) marketing, also known as influencer marketing, was one of the major trends to emerge in the social media era. However, as China’s online consumers become increasingly internet savvy and media reports started exposing KOL misconduct, the prestige of KOL endorsements have waned. Today, China’s consumers, especially the digital natives of Gen Z, are increasingly turning towards KOCs, or key opinion consumers, for product recommendations.

KOCs are seen as more “real”. With fewer followers and a more approachable internet presence, they are seen as the everyday consumer. By providing product reviews and recommendations from an end user perspective, they hold more sway over consumers looking for quality products as opposed to brands with cultural cachet.

In China, marketers are turning towards a two-pronged approach of combined KOL and KOC marketing, using KOL marketing to increase brand exposure and using KOC marketing to more granularly target specific consumer groups.

Further reading:

KOC marketing in China: what it is and how to get started with it

All You Need to Know Before Starting a KOL Campaign

Top KOLs in China 2021-2022

Top 10 affordable KOLs that generate sales

2. Livestreaming

Livestreaming marketing became possible in 2016 with the launch of Taobao’s livestreaming function Taobao Live. It has since only exploded in popularity since the COVID-19 pandemic. With the integration of e-commerce functionality on livestream-ready social media platforms like Douyin, Xiahongshu, and Kuaishou as well as the integration of livestream capabilities on e-commerce platforms like Taobao and JD.com, livestream marketing has become a mainstay in today’s Chinese marketing strategy.

Last year, on Taobao’s Single’s day shopping festival, livestreams accounted for 6 billion USD in sales. Livestream marketing’s success is the result of combining the frictionless one-click purchasing of e-commerce, the interactivity of livestream product presentations and Q&As, and the dynamism of live product demonstrations.

This trend has now expanded beyond China, with Amazon and Walmart dipping their toes in the livestream marketing trend last year.

 

Further reading:

Top livestreaming platforms in China that generate leads

3. Social E-Commerce 

The emergence of platforms like Xiaohongshu and the development of e-commerce functionality on various social media platforms in China have ushered in the age of social e-commerce. According to e-Marketer, in 2019, Chinese social e-commerce sales totalled 186.04 billion USD, a figure that has only grown in the last two years.

An important innovation in Pinduoduo’s massively successful marketing model was the social aspect of community promotion of products. Social media platforms like Douyin and Xiahongshu took advantage of their massive userbases to integrate e-commerce functionality in the last few years. WeChat’s comprehensive ecosystem, with mobile payments, instant messaging, mini-programs, and official accounts offered the perfect environment for social e-commerce to thrive.

Today, Western platforms are playing catch-up, with Facebook and Instagram refining their e-commerce functionality only with the massive changes in shopping habits brought on by COVID-19.

Further reading:

How to register a store on Xiaohongshu, one of the most popular social e-commerce platforms in China

4. Group-Buying

In 2018, Pinduoduo went public, raising 1.6 billion USD through a US IPO, becoming one of the largest deals of the year. In just three years since founding, the upstart platform broke into the upper echelons of China’s e-commerce market.

It’s secret success? The group-buy feature.

The group-buy feature allows communities and neighbourhoods to place large orders together to get direct wholesale prices. These deals are accessed through WeChat mini-programs, and community leaders post links to various popular or on-sale products in WeChat groups. The massive discounts and communal nature of this marketing model have helped it become extremely popular in smaller cities across China.

Best platforms for group-buying in China

The group-buying market was worth over 11 billion USD in 2020 and is estimated to exceed 16 billion USD this year. In the three years since Pinduoduo’s IPO, Alibaba and JD.com have created their own group-buying functions to challenge the Pinduoduo’s massive market niche.

5. Private Traffic

As an alternative to the increasingly expensive option of paid traffic, private traffic (私域流量) marketing has taken off in China.

While most private traffic in the West is accomplished with blogs and mailing lists, China’s unique internet ecosystem has seen the rise of private marketing via WeChat. By setting up exclusive WeChat mini-program clubs and WeChat groups, brands can easily cultivate communities of consumers with share lifestyle aspirations. Private traffic allows brands to become less reliant on e-commerce platform search algorithms and give businesses the power to present their brand directly to consumers.

This more intimate environment of closed groups allows for higher rates of CTAs than large scale advertising campaigns. In addition, by building a closer relationship with consumers, private traffic increases customer retention rates.

6. Targeting of Lower Tier Cities (下城Xiachen)

As China’s top-tier cities become increasingly saturated for luxury and lifestyle products, brands are turning towards China’s rapidly burgeoning lower-tier cities. Once considered the market for domestic brands, lower-tier cities are now an integral target in the marketing strategies of more and more foreign companies in China.

Lower-tier cities in China, while not having the same cultural exposure and name recognition as tier one cities, constitute a vast portion of China’s population and have seen increasing spending power. Lower-tier city middle income earners have cheaper living costs and a slower pace of life than their tier one city counterparts and are happy to spend their growing wages on consumer goods.

As such, lower-tier cities are now major drivers of China’s consumer market growth, with 70% of Alibaba’s newly registered users coming from lower-tier cities in 2019. Notably, Pinduoduo’s emphasis on lower-tier cities played a crucial role in its meteoric rise.

7. Artificial Intelligence

From AI powered customer service, AI real-time translation/captioning, AI logistics optimization, AI product recommendation algorithms, to AI powered virtual influencers, advancements in the field of AI have created a vast trove of use-cases for marketing. These new advancements will free up resources for other marketing strategies and help to create more efficient pathways to reaching consumers.

Major Chinese tech and e-commerce platforms have been heavily investing in AI, including Alibaba, Bytedance (Tiktok), Baidu, and more. As a developing technology, AI technology integration into the Chinese marketing sphere is a major trend to watch out for in the coming years.

8. Personalization and Customization

According to a 2018 study by Luxue, customization is the top service requested by Chinese millennials.

While not a new concept per se, the trend of personalization and customization in the apparel market has been steadily growing in China. Product customization was a costly prospect reserved for high-end clientele not so long ago, but with the rapid development of e-commerce there are now more direct avenues of communication with customers.

Today, personalization and customization are widely offered by major fashion brands in China, often taking advantage of WeChat’s mini-program features, as seen in campaigns by Calvin Klein and Longchamp.

HI-COM is a multilingual communication agency dedicated to providing China-specific social media communication and e-commerce marketing services to businesses around the world. Working with more than 100 brands, HI-COM is the go-to partner of companies that want to enter China market! Contact us for your free consultation today!