China's Social Media Content Marketing in 2017

2017 will be a year when social content marketing makes a major leap forward in China. Social is swiftly moving into the center of marketing plans for brands in China. An important trend is that social media is changing its role. Rather than just being a tool for marketing, social media is also providing customer service.

Moreover, business will need to improve social media skills in 2017, and more training needs to be dedicated to developing this skill. This is important, as social media can help organizations deal with PR crisis. If you have some severe PR crisis, you need to address the conversation on social platforms. If that happens and you have no team armed with expertise to handle it, you’re going to be in a very difficult situation.

In China, WeChat is still one of the most popular social media platforms in 2017. Anyone who has lived in China, for whatever purpose, may be using it for work or study, and must have witnessed the power of WeChat. The importance of WeChat in Chinese people’s daily communication is simply immeasurable. Firms should consider to include WeChat in their social media marketing strategy.

Here are some content marketing trends for China's social media in 2017:

Customer-oriented. Trends are shifting from mass marketing to a more personalized form – tailored for individuals to affect the decision-making or purchasing process. This requires a brand to shift its focus from products to customers. It means more engagement, so you could know your customers well, and have a good understanding of what they want and what makes them take actions, in a bid to build good relationship with them.

Lots of quality content. People are looking for fresh content, which has high value for them. If quality is not good or content is too slow to load or access, users are likely to go to visit other websites for a better experience. Content also needs to be interesting and well optimized.

Interesting and varied content. Videos, audios, images as well as text can all be used to deliver messages and tell stories about your brand. Interactive content is also important for a higher level of engagement with users. This might involve inviting customers to post their own photos or texts, or asking them to join campaigns, or answering questions online.

Accessible and integrated content. While people in China are using their smartphones a lot, they also use desktops, tablets, laptops and iPads. This means that content needs to be accessible on different devices. The suggestion is to integrate content in some way, such as encouraging video watchers to comment on social media, or casting votes for your brand, or join campaigns through a particular mobile app.