Best 5 Chinese Music Apps

Here is the top list of China’s hottest music apps selected by WeChat Apply team

1. KuGou (酷狗)

KuGou’s karaoke feature (Screenshot from KuGou app)

KuGou, meaning Cool Dog, made its way to the top range by appealing to a very wide audience, in particular those in small towns, according to a report from Sixth Tone. This means that a large portion of their content is dedicated to square dancing tunes and KTV by local hipster population. KuGou has  won users by integrating KTV streaming which enables users to receive “song coins” that can be transferred into real currency. Users can comment on songs through “bullet screens” (弹幕) where comments stream across the video, listen, watch, and interact through the social platform.

Although the app has 228 million MAU, Kugou is still figuring out how to earn money, but it has been earning from their live streaming service Fanxing. KuGou and KuWo are both owned by the China Music Corporation which merged with Tencent’s QQ Music in July 2016.

2. QQ Music (QQ音乐)

QQ is Tencent’s very first social product. It started out as an instant messaging tool back in 1998. Although QQ Music shares some  same features as Kugou, such as radio, KTV, and live streaming. It caters to a more urban crowd. QQ Music also offers articles and enables users to watch music videos, concerts, and interviews with famous musicians, including international stars such as Linkin Park.

The app has 211.43 million users. It owes its success to Tencent’s huge presence in the Chinese market, including WeChat. This enabled the service to strike deals with major record labels and allow its users to buy concert tickets through its payment service.

3. KuWo (酷我)

KuWo is an app with a focus on KTV streaming. The App hosts KTV tournaments with cash rewards. It also streams and broadcasts popular talent shows and comedies. KuWo also reserves a part of its app for China’s rising DJs.

KuWo offers a wealth of video content bordering on trashy which users can comment through bullet screens (Screenshot from KuWo)

Like other apps, KuWo offers song purchases and subscriptions. It tries to make money with in-app gaming and its own brand of headphones and speakers. The app has 107.72 million MAU.

4. NetEase Cloud Music (网易云音乐)

What differentiates NetEase Music from other apps is its stronger focus on indie artists, enabling it to compete with internet giants like Tencent and Alibaba. Besides short videos, the app has social features that enable users to interact with performers which have profiles on the service. It also has a music streaming option for joggers called Run FM (跑步FM) that selects music with a BPM rate that matches the listener’s running tempo. Aside from music, users can listen to podcasts and watch videos.

With 62.7 million MAU, NetEase is the first music service Unicorn securing RMB 750 million in Series A financing in April 2017.

5. Xiami Music (虾米音乐)

Xiami started off as a P2P platform but had to abandon the model due to copyright regulation. Recently the service added more niche content by featuring emerging musicians with original creations. It has launched The Undiscovered Nationwide Spotlight music program, a talent search where users can explore and select their favorite out of more than 6000 artists.

Xiami Music, with 14.4 million MAU, is owned by Alibaba along with another music app called Alibaba Planet (阿里星球).

No different to other online battlefields in China, Music Apps will see more intense competition in 2018. Let’s stay tuned to see who will be up or down the list this year.

The post Best Chinese Music Apps 2019 appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

If you’re a Western university seeking to market your academic offer to Chinese students, then there are two key challenges to overcome; 1) ensuring your institution can be found online by your target audience and 2) building brand awareness and trust.

These challenges can be met with the right integrated marketing strategy, which will begin with the creation of a Chinese language website, tailored for your target audience (and typically, encompassing both Chinese students and parents alike).

In this blog, we’re going to look at the steps Western universities should take to successfully create a Chinese language website.

Do Western universities really need a separate Chinese language website?

In the past, some universities would simply choose to offer a language translation option on their English language website. This was primarily because of the time and expense involved to create websites a decade ago.

However, a simple translation option misses a trick. Firstly, Western website content is targeted for Western readers and doesn’t take into account the unique content needs of a Chinese audience. Secondly, it tends to offer a poor user experience. Chinese digital users are highly sophisticated and expect to see content that is targeted to their locality, with appropriate storytelling, symbolism, nuance, cultural appreciation and engaging, relevant content – as well as the right language!

The easiest and best way to deliver this is through the creation of a bespoke Chinese website, tailored to the needs of the audience. So what is the process to getting Chinese website design right?

1. Start with research

You already know that your Chinese website design needs to be optimised for mobile, with over 98% of the 772 million internet users in China preferring their smartphones. Did you also know though that Chinese branding for your institution is well worth the investment, to help localise your website and make it more relevant to your audience? Remember that names are highly significant with Chinese consumers, and a carefully chosen Chinese brand and name helps to add value, provide engagement and connection, and supports brand awareness – whilst allowing you to differentiate from the competition. It’s always worth bearing the key principles of close personal relationships (Guanxi) and trust (Xin) in mind when seeking to market to this audience.

2. Plan your localised Chinese website

This means considering content, design, coding and user journeys. Every aspect should be considered with in-depth knowledge of your market. For example, when planning your content you must ensure that it is:

– accurately translated, both in terms of concept and idiom as well as vocabulary
– of the right length, as Chinese characters can lead to a 25% text length shrinkage from English and have a knock-on effect on graphics, tables and more.
– correctly formatted, with simplified Chinese characters and traditional Chinese characters being preferred in different parts of China.

It is also important to remember that the Chinese like to carry out plenty of research as consumers. They also value the recommendations of their peer networks, are naturally risk-averse and value quality Western universities. Case studies, trust marks and accreditations, employment prospects, university partners, trusted recommendations from Chinese alumni… all of these are examples of content that can be leveraged effectively for a Chinese audience.

3. Register the .cn domain

Register your Chinese domain extension (.cn or .com.cn). This will support your digital marketing efforts and give your website credibility. There is a fairly complex administration process required to do this, but Market Me China can assist with the registration certificate, ID requirements and other documentation needed by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), and manage the process end to end for you.

4. Organise hosting in Mainland China or Hong Kong

Again, this takes some administration, as universities with a business licence in China can host their websites within the country to get around the Chinese firewall, but they must get a corporate ICP licence from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This takes around 20 days if the process is followed accurately. If your institution doesn’t have a Chinese business licence, it is best to maximise accessibility by hosting your Chinese website in Hong Kong.

5. Build and test on your audience

User journeys in China differ from the West. For example, Chinese users like to be able to access important information from the homepage and appreciate long-form content. They expect to see social media integrated at all turns and value symbols of trust. Tailoring of content is essential, any translation must be done carefully and expertly, and – of course – content remains king! Chinese users love useful, engaging, trustable content that adds genuine value. Additionally, if you need to integrate a payment platform for any kind of booking or purchase, then you should also ensure that your Chinese website is integrated with AliPay, WeChatPay or UnionPay.

6. Integrate with social platforms and online advertising

Successful Chinese websites will invariably have links to social platforms such as Weibo and WeChat, allowing brands to maximise the reach and shareability of their content, and to extract the maximum value of content repurposing across channels. You should also ensure that your landing pages are correctly linked with any online advertising campaigns you are planning in China.

7. Assess and improve

At Market Me China, we use a three-tier benchmark to assess Chinese websites. This weighs up cultural customisation, Chinese UX and translation quality. By combining this approach with analytics and user feedback, we can help our clients to continually improve and refine their Chinese marketing efforts for the best possible results.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post What Western universities should know about Chinese website design appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

4 Ways to Gain WeChat Followers without Spending Big

In 2018, not only online traffic tends to become more pricy, but also the cost of acquiring new social fans will go up. Acquiring new fans at controllable cost has become a challenge that the brand marketing manager must overcome.

While those premium brands with big marketing dollars have a lot of more liberty on buying driving traffic, other brands will have to leverage some light investing and smart ways to attract followers to fit in their limited marketing budget.

WeChat Apply, as a service provider for Tencent social advertising, has been living and breathing in the new media era. We want to share with you the 4 most frequently used methods to increase followers for WeChat official accounts without spending big.

WeChat Ad

It is a display programmatic type Ad offered directly by WeChat. Advertiser is able to do two types of Ad: Official Account Ad and Moment Ad

The Official Account ad appears at the bottom of WeChat articles in the WeChat Eco System. It offers the advertiser the option to build ad to for the purpose ranging from following, App download, pick voucher and other promotion. It supports the ads in multiple formats of landing pages.

The Moment Ad used to be the luxury play only affordable to those deep pockets couple of years ago.

BMW China used to burn RMB1 million (AUD $200k) a day on WeChat Moment Ad nationwide in China.

Since the beginning of 2018, Tencent has lowered the entry bar to those medium brands. An anonymous source from a household mobile phone company tells WeChat Apply that their mobile phone. The brand launched a WeChat Moment Ad campaign targeting all WeChat users located in Australia on Valentine’s day 2018, it received 1 million impressions and 10%+ CTR. IT was an absolute killer result.

Cost of fans acquisition:★★★★★

Effectiveness:★★★★☆

Retention: 40% ~ 60%

Scope of Application – all kind of official accounts

WeChat Wi-Fi

WeChat Wi-Fi provides Wi-Fi beacon device and developer ports integrated with WeChat official account. The set up can provide free Wi-Fi to people around shop, pop up store, cinema, exhibitions, train station, airport, shopping Centre and other public space as such.When users are promoted to follow the WeChat official account in order to connect to Wi-Fi.  The new fans number increase can be significant however it is kind of all cover approach other being selective on target audience.

Cost of fans acquisition  ★★★☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★☆☆

Retention: 20% ~ 35%

Scope of Application: Telco, Travel and Transport type with national or regional presence

 WeChat Payment

WeChat Payment has become a standard-to-have way for Chinese consumers nowadays to pay for their goods and services. It is applicable both online purchase and offline store visiting. User were by default “forced” (if they do not untick) to follow the official account after the payment is completed.

It is really a good tool to capture those real paying customers and nurture them in the subsequent community managing and social influences with the aim to get their repeating purchases.

Cost of fans acquisition ★★☆☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★★☆

Retention: 50%~60%

Scope of Application: eCommerce, Finance and Investment management type

Doll Machine & Photo printer

Users are attracted to scan QR code attached to the Doll Machine or Photo Printer in order to get free use. It is an effective way to attract new followers in public space.It fits to those brands who are not very critical about segmentation of audience. Retention rate is not very high, people tend to follow when they want to use and unfollow afterwards. However it can work well for those brands selling kids products/services.

Cost of fans acquisition ★★★☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★☆☆

Retention 25%~40%

Scope of application: Entrainment, Photography, Cultural and lifestyle.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post 4 Ways to Gain WeChat Followers Without Spending Big appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

How to get your first 10,000 Weibo followers without a cent on paid Ad

Like any matured powerful social app, Weibo, you can call it a Chinese version of Instagram+Facebook, has already makes heaps ads revenue from their social advertising tools for business to spend on, however, given Weibo has reached 340million monthly active users in 2017, 30% up on the previous year, is there an organic marketing approach to grow followers and turn your fan base into a lead funnel?

Over the past year, our WeChat Apply social team helped a B2B software company client starting with an empty account and zero followers. In the brief span of just 50 weeks, we accumulated more than 14,000 followers for the client. As a result, my client now gets about 15 to 20 leads a month from Weibo for their supply chain enterprise-grade software services targeting China-based corporations in China market.

How would you like to do that?

Let me explain how you can follow our example and build up your Weibo Chinese audience that will help you market your business in China

1. Start with Goals

As with so many other things in business, it all starts with a set of goals.

What do you want to do on Weibo? What are you hoping to get out of it?

You might decide that you want to use Weibo as a cost effective way to penetrate into China market without large capital investment？Or you might be thinking that Weibo is a great way to share pictures, videos, stories or announcement of your products or your business because it’s rich media focused. Maybe you’re just looking to land some direct purchases from your Weibo account cross border?

Whatever your goals are, make sure you approach Weibo marketing with an eye toward fulfilling it. Then start looking for ways to gather your audience.

On Weibo, you have two demographics: partners and customers.

Partners are people in the same industry or in an industry related to your niche. They’re not necessarily competitors, though.

For example, if you’re a web developer, then people who design WordPress themes might be among your partners. They complement, rather than compete, with your business.

They can also help you promote your business.

How? By commenting on and liking your updates. They help give your Weibo account the appearance of authority.

Then, there are Weibo followers who are in your target market. Those are the people whom you want to become customers.

Once you’ve identified partners and people in your target market, it’s time to start gathering information about them. What are their typical qualities? Where do they spend their time online?

And this is important: Whom do they follow on Weibo?

That’s important because you want your Weibo account to attract them. Fortunately, you can do that by imitating other accounts that they already follow.

Find between two and five Weibo accounts that your distributors and potential customers follow and analyze them. What kind of content do they post online? Who follows them?

Also, take a look at their bio. How do they describe their business? What does the profile photo look like?

Go through their posts and look at the hashtags they use. Make a note of the most popular hashtags. You’ll probably want to use those in your own posts.

It’s important, though, to make sure that the post corresponds to the hashtag you use. Otherwise, you’ll be branded a spammer.

Finally, take a look at their most popular posts. Make a note about the types of photos used in those posts and the topics they cover.

Now that you’re armed with that information, it’s time to get to work.

2. Build a Profile That Converts

Your profile is where you’ll put the link to your landing page. That’s why it has to be optimized for conversion.

Weibo does allow links on stories, though. Those are collections of photos and videos put into slideshow format (an idea Weibo “borrowed” from Snapchat).

If you think you can promote your brand best by marketing with stories, then you can add links outside of your profile.

So how do you produce a profile that converts? Follow a few simple steps.

First of all, give yourself an appealing bio. Remember the basic rule of marketing here: Emphasize what you do for customers. Tell people that you fix their problems and make their lives better.

In other words: Don’t just talk about what you sell. Instead, tell people how your products or services benefit them.

Also, give yourself a fabulous profile photo. Go professional with the picture if you have to. It’s your one chance to make an outstanding impression and convince people that you take your business seriously.

You should also give people a reason to click on your link. Whet their appetites with a tease such as a discount or a freebie. Then, tell them they can learn more by clicking on the link.

Keep in mind: There’s nothing wrong with having a landing page dedicated solely to people who arrive at your site from Weibo. In fact, you’ll probably make your Weibo visitors feel special if you do that.

You can also do the “Mashable trick” with the link on your profile page. As the name implies, that’s a technique perfected by the website Mashable.

Here’s how it works: When you post a photo, add a caption that explains the photo and include text like: “For more information, click on the link in our profile.” Here’s the important part: After posting the photo, change the link in your profile so that it goes to a part of your site relevant to the Weibo post.

In other words, change the link in your profile with each update.

3. Create an Editorial Calendar

If you want to move ahead of your competition on social media, create an editorial calendar. Many brands don’t bother with that.

An editorial calendar is a schedule of your upcoming posts. It tells you what you’ll post and when you’ll post it.

Get the ball rolling on your editorial calendar by going over the successful posts you learned about in step 1. Then, go and do likewise.

Yes, copy the type of content that others have used successfully and use it yourself. Imitation isn’t just the sincerest form of flattery. It’s also a great way to promote your brand.

Keep in mind: Some stuff is copyrighted. You obviously don’t want to run into a copyright dispute or lawsuit.

You can, however, post content very closely related to the successful posts of others. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Also, don’t come across like a sales rep on Weibo. If you just post content that’s trying to make a sale, you’re going to have trouble gaining and keeping followers.

Instead, mix up your content a little. Post some humorous memes now and then. Share lifestyle tips. That will help you add some personality and humanity to your brand.

Make sure that some of your content uses the hashtags you found in step 1. You especially want to use the more popular hashtags, because they should give your posts greater exposure.

4.  Publish and Engage

Once you’ve got your editorial calendar in place, it’s time to start following it. Promote your business by publishing content on a regular basis.

There’s more to being successful on Weibo than just posting content, though.

Remember: Weibo is part of social media. It’s called “social” media for a reason.

You need to be social on social media.

That means you should engage with other Weibo users. Follow accounts in your niche and accounts related to your niche. Like and comment on posts you appreciate.

If you’re viewed as an active member of the Weibo community, you’ll come across as a genuine user and not somebody who’s just trying to sell something.

Also, you’ll often get a follow back from the people you follow. That’s especially true if they’re interested in your business.

Here’s another thing to do: Look at the top profiles in your niche. Then, go through some of their posts. Follow people who are commenting on those posts. These are the most engaged people, so there is a chance they will engage with you also.

All of this will help your posts show up in Weibo Search, which can send more people to your profile and business.

5. Analyze, Scale, and Promote

After a few months of Weibo marketing, take some time to review what’s working best for you.

Go over your analytics. Make a note of the types of posts that receive the most engagement. Be sure to publish posts with similar themes in the future.

Also, make a note of what types of posts are receiving the least engagement. Scratch those kinds of posts off your editorial calendar if there any more like them coming up. Replace them with the kinds of posts that are more successful.

Finally, consider running ads on your top posts. That will give you a chance to effectively add a link to them.

6. Rinse and Repeat

Repeat step 5.

Go through your analytics constantly to find your top performers. Then, add more posts just like those to your editorial calendar.

Also, keep on engaging with other posts. Remember, you’ll appear “real” if you’re liking, following, and commenting on the posts of other Weibo users.

Finally, focus on growth. Keep working to build your audience so you can reach more people. Then, customers will find their way to your website.

About WeChatapply

Wechatapply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post How to get your first 10,000 Weibo followers without a cent on paid Ad appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

From Imitator to Innovator: Evolution of WeChat In 7 years

In China, more than 80 percent of smartphone owners are actively using this mobile App WeChat. That’s almost a billion of users; more than the population of the US, Russia and the UK combined.

At its start, WeChat was just a replicate of WhatsApp Messenger with push-to-talk feature, also known as walkie-talkie. But now it has evolved as a mixture of WhatsApp, Instagram, Skype, Apple Pay and many other apps that westerners are familiar with.

As this “king of Apps” in China near its seventh birthday, its developers are considering the app’s future: In addition to copying and mixing, they are trying to create something new.

Cross-platform for the win

The App was launched on iOS in early 2011, and ported to Android right afterwards. At first look, it looked just like WhatsApp with its somehow similar green icon and user-friendly interface.

But under the hood it was carefully crafted to penetrate the Chinese market. Most Chinese phone players didn’t need to register for an account to use WeChat. They can sign in with their mobile phone numbers or other social media accounts.

It sounds very normal to people nowadays. But at a time when mobile operators asked extra charge for inter-operator texting, it was a killer function.

Cross-operator availability is the key for WeChat’s initial success. It’s huge for the App’s developer, Tencent, whose desktop-dominating messenger QQ had a struggle in the rising mobile market.

Tencent buried their company name deep inside WeChat. A lot of users were not even aware they were still on Tencent. The ad-free experience was also very different from previous Tencent software.

WeChat also provided location-based service, enabling users to find other nearby users. The App was called a “one-night-stand tool” for a while.

People-to-people, money-to-money

WeChat succeeded in gathering mobile users, but it needed more to keep them following.

In April 2012, Tencent introduced social networking to WeChat. It works mostly like Instagram. You share your photos on your stream and watch others’ stream at the same time.

It’s still one of the most popular ways to share photos with friends in China. Other ways to enhance communication include a sticker shop copied from famous Asian chatting App Line and a “game center” for users to compare their mobile game scores.

These features helped WeChat to reach 200-million-user milestone in the same year. But Tencent wanted even more. If you get tired of sharing photos with friends, you can share it with everyone by making your account public like a blog.

WeChat’s enormous users attracted salesmen, who used public accounts to distribute coupons with potential customers. The method was so widely-used that Tencent eventually added online payment to WeChat in 2014, igniting the wildfire of person-to-person wholesale model in China.

Small change indicates big confidence – WeChat used a Nasa satellite photo of the blue planet with Africa the Human’s origin. After Sep 2017, WeChat quietly changed the photo to an APAC centered view taken by a China’s own geostationary orbit satellite.

This move threatened Alibaba, who owns Taobao, the largest online shopping platform in China back then. Alibaba founder Jack Ma started to fight back by building his own messenger Apps, but none of them have come near where WeChat has gone.

At the same time, WeChat Pay cut a big chunk off from Jack Ma’s decade-lasting online payment empire. According to data company iResearch, the market share of Tencent’s payment platform in China rose from 10 percent in 2014 to 40 percent in 2017, while Alipay shrank from 80 to 54 percent during the same time.

Kill other Apps

As WeChat became a must-have for Chinese mobile users, Tencent went on to stabilize its monopoly by merging even more features into the App, including car hailing, hospital appointment, civil service and many, many more.

In 2016, head of the WeChat team Zhang Xiaolong announced a new plan to make all other mobile Apps unnecessary.

Dubbed as “Mini Program,” Zhang created an App store inside the WeChat App.

For the phone users who do not want to install too many Apps, this is absolutely good news. Open WeChat and you have everything at hand.

Demonstration of WeChat’s Mini Program. Users can access mini-apps by swiping down the recent conversation list. The mini-app is listed in system multitasking UI as a standalone app.

Any App maker can share WeChat’s vast fan base, WeChat Apply team believes the Mini Program is a game changer and has passed its initial stage and in 2018 it will become widespread a lot more.

So after seven years of development, what will the Chinese App market dominator do in the future? Stay focused on WeChat Apply to for more updates about the WeChat annual gathering.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post From Imitator to Innovator: Evolution of WeChat In 7 years appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

Key Insights of Nielsen 2017 China Consumer Market Report

WeChat Apply team has distilled some key learning which we found helpful for overseas brands to be aware of what happened in 2017 in China consumer brands landscape at very top level. The content of this blog is originally sourced from 尼尔森Nielsen WeChat Official Account ID Nielsen_China

The consumer confidence index in China continued to rise and hit a new high in the fourth quarter of 2017, but the consumer market is highly competitive with high attrition rate. Product iteration accelerates, more than half of the 2007’s Top 100 brands have gone without a sound.

Brands are challenged by the new generation of consumers who love tasting new. Marketing costs increase, consumers are distracted, short term marketing ROI plummets

Consumer Trends: Rise of New Generation of Consumers

According to the Nielsen survey, new-gen consumers pay more attention to the emotional experience and interactive experience. Products attract consumers by highlighting individual characteristics of packaging and Consumption Scenarios. Sports become consumer’s social topic, car buying demands more self-focus.

More women are looking into those traditionally monopolized by men and more women participate in high-intensity activities such as marathons and gym exercise. Sports clothing and equipment sales rise.

Next Gold Mine –Consumption Upgrade Nielsen CEO Survey 2017 shows that consumption upgrades are the number-one driver for manufacturers as well as retailers.

Consumers are more willing to pay for outstanding quality, exceptional performance, and emotional experience.

Beyond pursuing high quality, Chinese consumers are more willing to take the initiative to adjust their diets to enhance their health. In terms of product categories, healthier fruit tea, pure fruit juices, yogurts are growing rapidly, while those of ready-to-drink products’ growth are slowing down.

The core of retail revolution is around empowering consumers to experience in a context. And while consumers are experiencing, brands need to make sure the last mile of journey – ordering and paying become super easy and effortless. The later one is supported by WeChat Official Account powerful functions and pervasive WeChat Pay, similarly Ali platform, Alipay, etc. 2017 witnessed eCommerce giants started penetrating into traditional shopping centers and retail outlays. It is just beginning of the new retail revolution.

In general, the new generation of consumers love showing off themselves with strong female purchase involvement. At the same time the super-consumer, they enjoyed being involved in product design and promotion. The brand should provide a variety of personalized products and services to meet the needs of fun experiences, increase women-related investments stimulate women’s purchases, more importantly, improve consumer interaction and drive customer community development.Consumer upgrade, healthy green and retail evolution are three major forces reshaping the China market. Brands should be clearly aware of Cross-sector penetration, nationwide sports programs supplemented by healthy diet and green consumption. New retail revolution is to enhance the shopping experience. Satisfying and pleasing consumers are still brands’ focus.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post Key Insights of Nielsen 2017 China Consumer Market Report appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

In a restaurant in Sydney, the cash register has a paper sign saying Minimum spending $30, and Amex surcharge 3%.

After a nice dessert, waiter sees your pen signing gesture and nods his head. He walks towards the cash register. A couple of minutes later, he comes to your table and a handheld wireless POS. You browse through the bill while pulling out a non-Amex credit card from your wallet and hand it over to the waiter. He swipes your card on the POS. Then you crunch in passcodes on the device.

“Would you like a receipt? “ The waiter asks.

“Yes, please”, you reply with a courtesy smile.

A curly docket is popping out of the device with a printing mechanical sound and a slashing noise.

“Here you go.” Says the waiter. You stuffed the docket in your wallet with a Thank you.

This way of paying restaurant bill simply would not happen in restaurants in Hangzhou. Because the bill paying story above is too slow and time wasting.

Facial recognition to pay for restaurant bills has really come into reality in Hangzhou. In September 2017, Alipay announced the technology went online at KFC’s flagship restaurant in KPRO, a shopping town in Hangzhou. Customers can authenticate their payments by having their faces scanned. The “Smile to Pay” application takes just one to two seconds to recognize and identify a face, which follows the scan with a second verification through a mobile phone. The technology is fully insured, and users of Alipay can disable or enable the feature any time.

Combined with 3D cameras and likeness detection algorithm, ‘Smile to Pay’ can effectively block spoofing attempts using other people’s photos or video recordings

Saving face is a classic Chinese culture element and now Hangzhou siders are just stepping into an era of Spending face.

What do you know about Hangzhou

Westerners are quite likely aware of China Big 4 when talking about Chinese megacities, Beijing Shanghai Guangzhou, Shenzhen,北上广深 respectively. While things are changing fast in China, Hangzhou, 180 km southwest of Shanghai, on China’s eastern seaboard, is rapidly catching up to be a leading and iconic city representing China’s latest tech and economic trends.

It was the most splendid and prosperous city in China since it was the capital city in Song Dynasty 1000 years ago. It has since been a hot tourist destination thanks to its West Lake, a World Heritage Site, green tea, silkworks and a lot more.

Now it is known by the world the hometown of Jack Ma, Alibaba’s Head Quarter base, strong entrepreneurship culture, open-minded and efficient government to private sectors, 9 million well-educated population there, etc.

Hangzhou has become the driving force of China New Economy because of the e-commerce giant Alibaba. It has another new tag – global mobile payment city. Hangzhou people can go wallet-less when they go out.

Alipay enabled subway networks

As the subway line 2 started commissioning near closure of 2017, the Alipay was also rolled out at all 72 subway stations. People can use Alipay to get in and out of the subway. They will never have to buy ticket or card in Hangzhou. All they have to do is scan their mobile phone’s QR to scan in and scan out.

Alipay enabled bus networks

In May 2016, Hangzhou launched the service of scanning Alipay QR while boarding bus. The service has now covered all 5000 strong buses in Hangzhou, again the city is the first among its competitors in the country to implement Alipay on the bus. It is also expected WeChat Pay is soon to apply to the entire public transport network. The technology and the practice have been learned and adopted across China

Birthplace of bike share service in China

As early as 2008, Hangzhou began to build a public bicycle network, which was six years earlier than the nowadays shared bike frenzy. Hangzhou siders give the bike a nickname, the Little Red, which is rented hundreds of millions of times a year. The city’s owned Bike share technology has been licensed to 175 cities in China with good profit return to the city’s taxpayers. Now Chinese city dwellers and visitors are just so familiar with scan the QR at the back of the shared bike and hook it up with WeChat Official Account then connect to unlock, ride, park and go.

Once at a train station at Sydney, I bump into a schoolboy who asking me spare a dollar or two helping him buy a train ticket home? I think the way of his asking is out of date compared with the street beggars at Hangzhou. It is said that street beggars in Hangzhou accept alms by displaying their mobile phone QR codes next to their coin plates.

It was the Hangzhou which helps Alibaba be successful or was the Alibaba who makes Hangzhou successful? Another chicken-egg question.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

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Culture Recognition

There is deep rooted preference in Chinese culture that discriminate private sectors and appreciate government authority due to China’s thousands years of centralized government oriented political, economic and cultural evolvement.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post Culture Recognition appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

WeChat, owned by Tencent and known as Weixin in China, will total 494.3 million users in China in 2017, according to WeChatApply’s latest forecast.

Adoption of the platform is widespread among smartphone users, with an estimated 79.1% of handset owners accessing the app regularly in 2017. China’s mobile audience is very likely to communicate via WeChat; some 84.5%* of mobile phone users are expected to access the platform.

While any thought of WeChat as simply a communication tool , would be far from accurate. Users will spend more than one hour and half a day using WeChat this year, according to Tencent. In addition to messaging features like texting, video conferencing, as well as photo and video sharing, the app’s more advanced functions are primarily responsible for driving engagement. Give donations, Share Red Pocket money, online shopping, booking ride services, food ordering, checking your facilities bills and pay those bills, login third party platform using WeChat logins, etc. have made the platform an essential daily ecosystem for consumers breathe and live in China. It becomes people’s natural habit to browse through WeChat’s friends moments or digesting WeChat Official Account’s social posts while standing in life, seating on trains, waiting for food, etc.

Additionally, an April 2017 study from China Channel found that 83% of WeChat users access it for work and business purposes.

With WeChat’s large presence in China, WeChatApply expects 40%of the population (1.379 billion in 2016) and every 6 out of 10 Chinese internet users to regularly use the platform this year.

Tencent first launched WeChat in India five years ago, marking its first foray into international markets. So far, WeChat has done well in markets with a large population of expats from China, or with large populations of Chinese-speaking people, such as in US, Canada, Australia, Europe and South America. WeChat has effectively penetrated into its global market by introducing its Payment Solution WeChat Pay as the door opener to the non Chinese markets.

On the contrary, more and more overseas B2C, B2B businesses, education organizations, tourism groups, even government organizations are realizing the importance of the unique Chinese characteristics of social economy and are seizing the market entry opportunity provided by WeChat to target Chinese audience. For example, Study Adelaide, Tourism Australia, Macquarie University, City of Melbourne Council, Westpac and countless others have recently applied and set up their WeChat official account on which they build their Chinese language marketing content and strategy. Interested to learn more about how to get started? Seek advice from our professional team at WeChatApply, the official WeChat authorized partner looking after Asia Pacific and Oceania region.

*Data sources eMarketer post written by Corey McNair on 13 July 2017

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post WeChat Users Surpass 490 Million This Year appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.