The War of WeChat and Little Red Book in Marketing
WeChat and Little Red Book are the most prevalent apps used in China, but Wechat is used more widely and it has grown into an “everything app that connects users to shopping, gaming, ridesharing, and government services. More than 1.1 billion monthly active users globally in Wechat, and Wechat is most popular with people between 26 and 35 years old according to a survey by CAICT. Chinese people spend more than one-third of their online time on Wechat, so it’s a great platform for marketing the brand to create brand awareness through Wechat. On the other hand, Little Red Book which is a trusted social shopping platform helps above 100 million users, especially young women, discover beauty products, special restaurants, and travel. To be more specific, it’s more likely to be an innovative content-sharing site with the product search engine. Instead of a traditional e-commerce website, it is word of mouth advertise based on trusted user-generated content, so it’s much easier for products of a new brand to be promoted in Little Red Book based on the trusted platform.
-Differences Between Two Platforms Regarding Marketing Strategies
Because of high user engagement on Wechat, there are multiple marketing tactics to lift brand exposure, including promotion ads on moments, mini-programs, influencer promotion article and self-promotion on its business account. For the first promotion method, it’s unavoidable to see promotion ads when the users glance over their friends’ moments so it’s an effective way to increase exposure. The target audience will make awareness of its products. Mini programs and official business account are other channels to introduce its brand and products, and it can build a positive brand image and launch small campaigns to make more people know it, such as drawing a lottery.
The most interesting and smartest way to promote products is to invite an influencer account to write an article about soft advertisements due to high acceptance by the consumers. For instance, GQ Experiments is one of the most popular KOL on Wechat, and the screenshot shows that Hershey’s campaign on women’s day. The campaign’s topic is tasting joys and sorrows of the queen’s life based on five flavors, so GQ combines the topic with the hottest TV drama to promote the chocolate. It is close to the hotspot and seems interesting to consumers.
It’s much more trusted on Little Red Book than Wechat because the promotion way of LRB is based on word of mouth. However, most merchants notice that is a business opportunity, so they spent money on promoting products by influencers and celebrity who may not care about the quality of the products and focus more on the money. As a result, there are having a possibility of products recommended by others is not a good product. Oppositely, some authentic posts regarding new insight on small brand’s products by products’ experiencer are more acceptable on LRB. Some travel places, restaurants, and products with comments and likes are good recommendations and are necessary to discover it. It depends on the consumers trusting or not, so the consumers need to improve their taste of judgment and differentiated ability. Â