Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Business in China

As a startup or small business owner in China, there’s a lot to accomplish with limited resources. Social media marketing, on the other hand, is a pretty low-cost marketing way and gives you a direct channel to approach current and potential customers.

In order to know how social media can help promote your business while saving you considerable time and resources in China, below tips on social media marketing for small business can be considered.

1. Set your goals

Using social media for small business is obviously a great idea, but you may wonder what the real benefit is. Social media strategies in China are usually created based on your purpose or goals. Some are designed to drive brand awareness while others are built to improve engagement or specific call-to-action. Moreover, your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable and relevant.

2. Start with a plan

Everyone knows the importance of a plan, but people, more often than not, will create a WeChat account or Weibo page without thinking about how these tactics can help their business. Doing social media in China requires a good planning of budget and labor distribution.

3. Identify your target audience

Social media is one of the best ways to reach your target audience in China, but first you have to figure out who they are. Some details will help you figure out which social platforms are best for you and the type of content you should share, details including their age, location, income, education, career, interests or hobbies. Based on your defined target audience, what are the key problems or concerns you can address or solve? Define those pain points and write it under each profile.

4. Choose a platform

After you’ve defined your audience and message, take the time to find out which social platform they prefer. Each platform has a different primary audience, cadence and focus. As a small business, your time and energy is very valuable. It’s important to understand the differences between each platform so you could take your efforts in the right direction.

5. Adopt a social media management tool

It’s common to see small businesses fail because of too much operational work to run a platform. Social media management tools like Sprout Social make it easy to share content across multiple networks, track brand mentions and get detailed reports and other crucial tasks every small business needs.

6. Boost results with social advertising

If you want to accelerate your social media marketing, it’s worth your time to explore paid advertising options. Some social media platforms can offer a number of advertising solutions to help business gain more sales, website traffic, brand exposure and audience engagement.

7. Be authentic

Make your social media channels and website a true reflection of yourself and your brand so the audience will believe your content. It’s also easy for you to update regularly in this way. Speak and write in your personal style, but be careful to match the tone of your business.

8. Don’t forget about mobile

Most users in China use WeChat or Weibo on smartphones and tablets. It means that many of your social media followers will be getting your information via mobile, so it's important to make sure your content is optimized to provide a great mobile experience.