In terms of monthly users, Weibo is the second largest Chinese social media platform after WeChat. However, unlike WeChat, it is still primarily PC based. Weibo is one of the most powerful marketing tools in China offering wide range of possibilities for reaching people across various demographics and psychographics.

Weibo offers to marketers a powerful Weibo Index tool to learn more about what platform users are searching for. Compared to previously covered Baidu and Qihoo tools, it is structured in sig
nificantly different way allowing generating other types of data.

It is important to note that social media platforms like Weibo could be quite similar to search engines in many ways. Platform users search for terms in a similar way as they do using Baidu or Qihoo. This allows Weibo to generate wealth of information that could be indispensable for marketers looking to customize their message for this particular audience.

Weibo Index into four main tabs: historic keyword trends, real time trends, geographical interpretation and user attributes analysis.

Let’s examine what Weibo Index shows for the same keyword we used for Baidu and Qihoo tools covered earlier.

The first graph shows search volumes for a keyword on PC and mobile. It is quite clear that there is a certain correlation with the search results we have seen with the search engines: both types of data show a sharp peak in the second half of March:

Looking at both PC based and mobile searches reveals the fact that most searches have been done from mobile Weibo app rather than PC based website:

Next tab displays search volumes in the past 24 hours. Here, peaks occur in different times compared to results from the search engines. Apparently, Weibo searches for iPhone 8 have peaked at around noon and then again at 23:00:

Such information can be particularly useful for social media marketing. It can allow marketers to figure out optimal timing for posts to receive maximum exposure on the network. In fact, the data can even be reduced down to an hour level in order to identify search volumes of every single minute within a particular hour!

The location tab shows geographic distribution of the searches:

Here the situation is also a bit different from the results we have seen with Baidu and Qihoo. It seems that people in Hebei and Zhejiang provinces were the ones most interested in iPhone 8.

Last tab, audience attributes, shows even less correlation with the search engines data for this particular term. This time, women represented the vast majority of the audience (80%) vs. only 20% of men. Also, the audience is significantly much younger on Weibo: most people searching for iPhone 8 were between ages 19-24.

This information could lead to a different approach for marketing this specific product. On Weibo, marketers could be tailoring the ad to a largely young female audience while Baidu and Qihoo ads should cater to older male crowd. Optimizing marketing approach across different platforms would be much more difficult without having such data.

Last section of the audience attributes tab relates to user persona that seems quite irrelevant for this particular keyword. Also, Weibo shows the data on zodiac signs of the users searching for a particular term:

Apparently, Libra born users were more active in their search for iPhone 8. Why was that the case? I guess we will never know.

In any case, Weibo seems to be the only network out there that enables marketers to incorporate astrology into their marketing…

Continue to WeChat Index tutorial >>>

Here are our tutorials on China keyword research tools:

Keyword research on Baidu: Baidu Index

Keyword research on Qihoo: Qihoo Index

Keyword research on Weibo: Weibo Index

Keyword research on WeChat: WeChat Index

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Qihoo, also known as 360Search and So.com, is the second largest Chinese search engine. By various estimates, it holds between 15 to 25% of the search market share and is fairly popular among younger users.

It is also often noted that Qihoo search results tend to be more accurate than Baidu’s and advertising with Qihoo is also a bit cheaper. Despite once posing a real threat to Baidu’s dominance, Qihoo is still trailing Baidu in terms of overall popularity.

Qihoo Index is the keyword research tool that can be used to complement Baidu’s. Also, it doesn’t require registering an account which makes it a bit easier. Other than that, the functionality and the type of data Qihoo Index generates is quite similar to Baidu Index which was covered earlier.

Here we are using the same keyword “iPhone8” to see the results. The first panel presents the total number of searches and the trends overtime. Just like with Baidu Index, the data can be displayed for the last 7, 30 or 90 days as well as for custom date ranges.

The top panel shows 5,340 searches for iPhone 8 over the last 30 days which is about 5 times less searches on Baidu for the same period.

Similar to Baidu, Qihoo index indicates various kinks, peaks and valleys of the curve with a letter corresponding to a specific media mention. Hovering over those letters opens a pop-up with more details on the source linked to an article:

Another Qihoo Index graph specifically focuses on media mentions. Just like with Baidu, each change in the curve can be further examined for more details related to a specific news source.

The graph above displays search activity in the last 24 hours. Quite predictably, the search reaches two of its peaks in the morning and afternoon with a dip in between (a lunch break?) before flattening out during the night hours.

Next diagram shows related keywords in key phrase surrounding the main keyword. Analogous to Baidu, the keywords are grouped based on search volumes and relevant position:

Related searches data displays the keywords searched by users before or after that specific search term. In this case, “iPhone 8 price” was the strongest related key phrase. Also, users seem to be often searching for iPhone 8 pictures:

Also like Baidu, Qihoo Index also shows geographic distribution of searches. It seems that most iPhone 8 related searches were coming from the richest Chinese provinces and cities which reflects traditional popularity of Apple products in those areas.

Insights into audience are largely similar to the results we have seen with Baidu for the same term: men represent the majority (70% vs. 30%). The age brackets used by Qihoo are a bit different with Baidu: almost half of the people interested in iPhone 8 were aged between 25 and 34.

Another dimension that is available only with Qihoo Index is classification of the users by attributes. Apparently, Qihoo uses other search terms attributed to the same user in order to build what is called “persona” in marketing. Learning more about customer profiles through this method can provide further useful insights for a marketer.

Continue to Weibo Index tutorial >>>

Here are our tutorials on China keyword research tools:

Keyword research on Baidu: Baidu Index

Keyword research on Qihoo: Qihoo Index

Keyword research on Weibo: Weibo Index

Keyword research on WeChat: WeChat Index

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: Qihoo Index first appeared on Sampi.co.

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Being the largest search engine in China, Baidu keyword research should be the one to start with. Currently, Baidu offers Baidu Index tool that is free for Baidu advertising accounts, offering some basic information to users.

Here is an example of searching for keyword “iPhone8” (most Chinese users would typically type in “iPhone8” without space between the two words).

First, Baidu Index would match it with a keyword in the database before displaying the data. This means that for some rare keywords or those with low search volumes, this tool may not show any results. For those cases, a more powerful keyword research tool within Baidu advertising account must be used.

The top section shows the numbers for search volumes on PC (25,999) and mobile (20,070). It is remarkable to note that the overall search volume for this particular term is only 20% larger on PC vs. mobile.

Some points on the graph are also marked with letters: A, B, C, D etc. Those can be linked to a particular events such as mentions in media. Viewing the relevant content can give a researcher further insight on what was behind peaks and valleys of the chart.

Next, Baidu Index shows some more data on related keywords and how they are related to the original one in a key phrase (sometimes called long tail keyword). The size of the bubble illustrates the search volume and the color – the relative position.

Manipulating the slider allows viewing snapshots of the related keywords at different time periods. It can also help getting an idea on how the searches were changing over time.

The data is further detailed in the list of top related keywords that come before or after this specific keyword. This panel also lists the sites that have received most hits as a result of this keyword search:

Unsurprisingly, the most common key phrase was about the timing of iPhone 8 release.

Next graph specifically focuses on media mentions of the keyword. From here, user can view the actual article. This helps figuring out which type of news helped driving more searches and which had little to no effect.

The following series of data focuses on the audience. The map below illustrates search volume distribution by province. From here, the data can be further drilled down to the levels of area and city.

Finally, the audience is broken down by age distribution and gender. According to Baidu, iPhone 8 was mostly searched by males between ages of 20 and 39.

Continue to Qihoo Index tutorial >>>

Here are our tutorials on China keyword research tools:

Keyword research on Baidu: Baidu Index

Keyword research on Qihoo: Qihoo Index

Keyword research on Weibo: Weibo Index

Keyword research on WeChat: WeChat Index

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: Baidu Index first appeared on Sampi.co.

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All of the major Chinese search engines, as well social media platforms, offer some type of basic tools for China keyword research and trends measurement. The latest launch of WeChat Index feature holds a lot of promise. With nearly 890 million monthly active users, it has the potential to offer the most accurate picture of online searches. Unfortunately, it is still severely limited compared to the tools from Baidu, Qihoo and Weibo.

Another missing component in the overall China digital landscape is the absence of shopping trends measuring tool from Taobao, the largest ecommerce platform in China. After launching the beta of Taobao Index at the end of 2011, it was discontinued last year. Alibaba promises to relaunch a better tool in the future but it has already been a year since the original Taobao index went offline.

The first tool we are going to look at is Baidu Index.

Continue to Baidu Index tutorial >>>

Here are our tutorials on China keyword research tools:

Keyword research on Baidu: Baidu Index

Keyword research on Qihoo: Qihoo Index

Keyword research on Weibo: Weibo Index

Keyword research on WeChat: WeChat Index

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: Measuring Search Trends first appeared on Sampi.co.

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According to the most recent data, WeChat has passed a milestone of a billion users which puts it far ahead of any other Chinese social media platform. Measuring trends on such an enormous network could potentially bring the most statistically accurate data to marketers.

Up until a few weeks ago, it was not possible to get a hold of such metrics on WeChat. Fortunately, the platform has just released a new WeChat Index tool that allows viewing some basic trends on keywords.

The good news is that, from marketers’ perspective, WeChat is finally moving in the right direction. However, the bad news is that the data that is generated by WeChat Index is very limited. There are no any equivalents to options available from the previously reviewed tools: Baidu Index, Qihoo Index and Weibo Index.

In order to access the tool, user has to enter Chinese words “微信指数”into the search bar and tap on the first result. This opens up the prompt as shown above.

If one is planning to use WeChat Index frequently, it easier to simply pin this page to the top of the chat sessions by choosing option “Sticky on Top”.

Typing the keyword “iPhone8” returns the search trend graph:

Just like with the other index tools, the data can be viewed for 7, 30 or 90 days but there is no option to customize the date range:

It is still not clear what the total number (350,016 in this example) actually represents. In fact, it remains the same no matter what date range is chosen (a bug?):

Although, WeChat Index is a good start, in its present form, it can hardly offer any useful information. Also, it seems that only popular keywords, probably those with high enough search volumes, can be viewed.

Despite the fact that WeChat could record all the search and user related data, WeChat Index doesn’t display any geographical distribution, audience analysis or related keywords. So, essentially, it is only good for getting an idea on general search trends within the network for certain popular keywords.

Release of WeChat Index to the public is still a very good start and points to the possible course correction by Tencent. It has started to move, albeit slowly, from a private communication network to discovery platform.

Also, WeChat search function now has more options and is increasingly used for searches on wide range of topics. In order to read the articles from the search results, one has to follow the account it was posted on which opens another route for official WeChat accounts to acquire new followers.

Here are our tutorials on China keyword research tools:

Keyword research on Baidu: Baidu Index

Keyword research on Qihoo: Qihoo Index

Keyword research on Weibo: Weibo Index

Keyword research on WeChat: WeChat Index

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: WeChat Index first appeared on Sampi.co.

The post Basics of China Keyword Research: WeChat Index appeared first on Sampi.co.

In China, Sina Weibo and WeChat are two most popular platforms. Sina Weibo has evolved around desktop use while WeChat only works with mobile. I have already those platforms in much more details in this blog. For now, suffice it to say that, for the purpose of market research, Weibo is much more suitable and this is what I will be focusing on.

Using Chinese Social Media Channels for market research

First of all, searching for something like “sunglasses” on Weibo is unlikely to be a very useful exercise – most results would probably quite irrelevant returning mostly some news or pictures of people wearing sunglasses.

While searching Chinese social media channels, it is much better to make a more focused searches such for specific brand names of competitors for example.

In any case, when it comes to searches for social mentions Weibo is fairly similar to Twitter with the difference that instead of preceding a term with #, it should be enclosed with # like this: #太阳眼镜#.

One useful aspect of a search for a broad term is finding out who is advertising with that keyword. Here is the screenshot of a sample search results with the ads shown on the right panel:

The best way to use social media search is to find out about the competition and how they are using this channel. For example, let’s search for one of the famous brands for sunglasses – Oakley (the brand name searches don’t require #):

The first result would usually be the official brand account followed by news and social mentions which also can be quite useful.
While browsing competitors accounts it is a good idea to note how many followers they have, how frequent they post and whether they receive engagement on their tweets.

In the above example, Oakley’s account reveals a fairly active channel with over 80K followers and 5.5K tweets (as of November 2015). The company seems to be engaging in promotions via sponsored sports events and many tweets feature new designs and product launches:

In summary, social media searches on Weibo are best for researching competitors and their ways of using this highly effective marketing channel. It can help you to figure out how much emphasis on social media your marketing campaign should include and what you should be tweeting about to keep your targeted audience engaged.

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If you are selling a physical product, one of the best ways to find out what is already available is to research Taobao (Taobao.com), the primary C2C marketplace in China and its B2C equivalent, Tmall (tmall.com). Both platform belong to Alibaba and are similar to Amazon but much bigger.

Chinese Marketplace Sites Search

As mentioned before, none of Taobao or Tmall results will appear in Baidu searches, this is why it is important to research this channel separately.

While typing the search term (“sunglasses” in our example), more results will be shown as you type in, giving some insights on what other terms are frequently searched for (of course, you need to understand Chinese to make sense of it):

Additional search terms may give some more clues on what else you should be researching.

Taobao will also display a multilevel filters allowing for more targeted searches. In case of “sunglasses”, the results can be filtered by glasses shapes (oval, round, square, aviator, rectangular etc.), lens color, suitability for different type of face, gender and so on as well as price range.

The results, each with an attractive product photo, short description and the price, will be displayed right below the filters:

Typically, most results will be linking to either Tmall (like in the case of fashion items) or Taobao itself. Tmall is a type of an upscale version of Taobao with a strict policy against fakes. In the physical world, Tmall can compared to a branded department while Taobao is more of a bazaar style market.

How Taobao can help with the market research? First of all, it is the best to research product prices and price ranges for different subcategories of products.

Secondly, you will be able to better understand the overall popularity of the product category, competition and sales channels.
Finally, seeing so many competing offers grouped together may give you more insight on how yours could fit in the mix.
Side note: occasionally, you may even find your own products sold by someone else that you may not be aware of.

Stay tuned for the upcoming post on how to perform basic market research with Chinese social media.

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This post is the first one in the upcoming three part series covering basic market research in China.

Baidu Search

Due to a number reasons, the familiar digital marketing tools, which are mainly run by Google in the Western markets, are not available in China. Google search engine market share in China has fallen below 1% this year and all the Google services, such as Google docs, Google maps, Google analytics etc., have also become blocked from access. This fact alone is making life quite difficult not only for marketers but for regular citizens and businesses.

Luckily, there is an alternative and it is Baidu (baidu.com), the largest Chinese search engine with about 60% market share.

In fact, just a few years ago, Baidu was much more dominant reaching about 80% of the total search market. Since then, other popular services became more competitive and managed to grab larger market share away from Baidu. Those platforms are 360 Search (haosou.com) and Sogou (sogou.com) holding somewhere around 30% and 15% respectively as of the end 2014.

Here I will be mainly focusing on Baidu but, in principle, other search engines are fairly similar and can also be used for the purpose of basic market research.

Just like with Google, your basic research can start with a simple search term of a product translated to Chinese. Now, a word of warning, I strongly advise against using Google Translate or other machine translation program for that. You must find a native speaker to verify the term that you are interested in.

Let me give you an example. Suppose you are interested to search for the term “sunglasses”. Here is what Google Translate would return:

Unfortunately, even though the translation may technically be correct, no one in China actually uses the term太阳镜.

The proper term for sunglasses is太阳眼镜 and this is what you should be using for Baidu search. Once again, Google Translate cannot be relied upon even for a translation of simple keywords, let alone complex “long tail” ones.

Anatomy of a typical Baidu search results

Here is an example of a Baidu search results for the term “sunglasses” (太阳眼镜). Paid results are typically grouped at the top and on the right panels like in the example below:

Compared to a typical Google search results page, with Baidu, it is somewhat harder to tell the difference between paid and organic results. In fact, the only thing that indicates paid ads would be a small word “推广” at the bottom right.

For popular keywords, there would be very few organic results (if any at all) on the first results page.

Next, you would typically see results from Baidu-owned sites like Baike (equivalent to Wikipedia) or Baidu Zhidao (Chinese “Yahoo answers”).

News related results would be ranked next followed by the results from ecommerce sites. Interestingly, links to the largest ecommerce platforms of Alibaba, Taobao and Tmall, would not be shown at all. This is the result of the fierce competition between Baidu and Alibaba.

Finally, closer to the end of the page in this example, you can finally see a few organic results followed by another block of ads:

What can you learn from Baidu search? First, you can immediately see the level of competition in your intended market. If there are many paid ads, be prepared to compete with those advertisers for the same keywords.

Next, you will be able to learn who the main competitors would be and what they are offering. It’s a good idea to go and see their sites, explore the offers, sales strategies and distribution channels.

Finally, basic search would give you a better sense on whether it would be wise to invest in Baidu pay-per-click (PPC) or SEO to get ranked organically. I’m going to discuss those choices in more details in the future posts.

Stay tuned for the upcoming post on how to perform basic market research with Chinese online marketplaces.

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Also, the type of banners ads  that are considered to be more effective in China tend to be flashier and more animated, something that Western users typically find most annoying.

According to polling by iResearch China, the ad’s relevancy is the most important factor in user’s decision to click it (36.5% indicated that as the main factor), followed by the quality of the copy (34%).

32.5% of respondents indicated that promotional info, such as discounts, coupons or attractive pricing prompted their clicks. Finally, great visuals and sound effects is what attracts 31.4% of people.

Much less visitors were clicking an ad based on frequency – only 15.3% clicked an ad because they have seen it multiple times. However, that is still a fairly high number that makes retargeting (remarketing) a highly effective strategy for serving banner ads in China.

Different types of banner ads in China and their effectiveness

Banners on ecommerce sites

According to various data, banner ads on Chinese ecommerce sites are, by far, the most effective. According to iResearch, nearly 8 in 10 users paid attention to those ads and over 60% of users routinely click them. Since such advertising is often highly relevant to users who are searching for specific products, those results are not surprising.

Banners on portals and search engines

Over 70% would notice ads on portals and search engines and over half would click them which makes it the next best channel for placing banners ads in China after ecommerce sites. Such high numbers are explained by the fact that there is a higher degree of intent and interest on the part people who are searching for a specific term or visit specialized websites.

Banners on video sites

Although about 70% of visitors to video sites like Youku or PPTV notice the ads, they are the most disliked types of banners ads in China. Another research from Tencent Penguin Intelligence found that the majority of internet users aged between 16 to 20 did not watch video ads, and 11.6% even said they were “intolerable.” These types of ads are mostly disliked on mobile. With the typical length of a pre-roll ad on Youku being about 1 minute, those finding are hardly surprising.

Banners on social media sites

In general, banner advertising on social media sites such as Weibo is often considered ineffective. Another research by Kantar, discovered that a dismal 13% of visitors on those sites liked such ads while while 24.2% said they were put off by them with 42.1% simply ignoring them. In our experience, post boosts work much better in social media due to their higher relevancy to users’ interests.

Mobile banner ads

Mobile ads is the fastest growing sector which offers the most potential. New mobile ads networks are improving efficiency, although the industry is still in the experimentation stage. Many networks are still looking for the best ways to monetize and the prices may vary widely. One of the biggest problems with mobile ads is the fact that they often get clicks by accident. This, in part, is caused by limited “real estate” of the small mobile phone screens. On the other hand, larger smartphones and “phablets” offer more potential.

Ads on gaming sites

The biggest problem with these type of banner ads in China is the relevancy – it is hard to figure out precisely who would be interested in checking out the latest fast food restaurant offer while playing a game. Even though the marketing reach with gaming ads can be quite large, CTR is often low. Most effective banner ads on gaming sites and mobile games often feature new games and related apps installs rather than unrelated or broad subjects.

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Douyin, which literally means “shaking sound” (or “vibrato”) in Chinese, has, without a doubt, created some major shockwaves in Chinese digital world and has become the top success story, particularly in short videos space. In June 2018, the app reached 150 million daily active users and has established itself as the world’s fastest growing app, with the biggest music video community globally.

Zhang Yiming, founder of Toutiao – another hugely popular news aggregator with over 120 million active daily users – is the man behind Douyin success. The technology behind both platforms is underpinned by AI-based algorithms that are designed to learn user preferences in order to fine tune serving the most suitable content.

PHOTO: Zhang Yiming, founder of Beijing ByteDance Technology Co.(Photo by Giulia Marchi/Bloomberg)

Douyin is a deceptively simple app allowing users to do basically do these three things:

1. Watching 15 seconds long video clips that run as a never-ending feed;
2. Shooting and editing 15 seconds videos directly with the phone;
3. Adding filters and special effects to the videos and secretly hoping that they will go viral.

How does an app, which was virtually unknown a year ago, become such a sensation practically overnight? How did it manage to beat the earlier and already quite popular short video apps?

Here are the main reasons for Douyin success:

Technology is the key

Douyin main advantage lies in the technology under the hood. Although, it may seem ridiculously simple, there is a lot of intelligence packed into the platform. It uses sophisticated machine learning algorithms deciding which videos should be served to users, so no two feeds are ever the same. The goal is to hook the users serving them videos that they are most likely to enjoy.

Serving it straight

Rather than focusing on refining the search function, the app developers were betting on having a continuous stream of clips with minimal user control. Only watching the full video or skipping it advances you to the next one. Those choices themselves provide the necessary feedback to the app, which is, in turn, used to further refine the feed.

Tapping into the right demographics

Douyin has been marketing the app for just the right audience: young people in their early-to-mid-twenties, living in 1st and 2nd tier cities and primarily females. As the app popularity continued to rise, now about half of the users come from 3rd and 4th tier cities and the gender split is getting more even.

As it is often noted, with all the entertainment options around, the attention span of that particular demographics is notoriously short making bite-sized 15 seconds clips especially easy for consumption.

Unleashing creativity of common people

The vast majority of the clips are produced by ordinary people using their phones, most typically shot over a popular song’s background. The app makes it super easy for anyone to come up with original content – video editing function are easy to use and by adding special effects and applying original filters, the clips can be made ready for sharing within minutes.

In fact, most of the videos that went viral on Douyin were the dorkiest ones imaginable.

Moreover, in order to stimulate creativity, Douyin often runs contests asking users to shoot videos on a particular topic.

Nurturing early adopters

Douyin has understood the importance of getting creative early adopters on board as early as possible. It reached out to artists and internet celebrities generating the pool of loyal content creators who could produce high quality clips.

As the user base grew, more and more people saw the success of those early adopters. As a result, the prospect of stardom drove even more users to the app, creating a powerful network effect.

The post Behind Douyin Success Story: How Did It Pull It Off? first appeared on Sampi.co.

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