February 2018

Why are quiz games so popular on WeChat?

February 19, 2018

It is no doubt that WeChat is pushing the boundaries of social & digital media in China. And now it has added another feather to their cap with Quizz. The rising trend of live quiz on WeChat began when Wang Sicong published a quiz app game named Chongdingdahui. And since then, live quiz apps have witnessed a strong growth and have opened up a new marketing avenue for brands.

So, what are these live quiz apps all about?

They are live online streaming apps with amazing cash prizes. The 30 minute show has a host who presents the questions to the contestants, who answer the question within 10 seconds. The huge incentives and cash prizes have managed to capture the attention of millions of users. Popular celebrities are also invited to host these shows to attract more players.

Based on a research conducted by a renowned research firm, live quiz apps is actively used by around 1.5 to 5 million users. Over above the cash prizes and celebrity hosts, Chinese residents also find live trivia entertaining as they must answer all questions correctly within a given time frame to win the grand prize! The app sends out push notifications to users before the live stream begins. In order to incentivize more users to play the game, the apps have also introduced features like Team Mode and Resurrection Card.

Team mode allows the players to form a team to increase their chances of winning the game. The resurrection card is for the users who’ve invited a friend to install the app and can be used when the user answers incorrectly.

How have brands marketed themselves on live quiz apps?

It is no surprise that brands have leveraged live quiz apps after witnessing its huge popularity. For instance, Huawei sponsored an episode of Millionaire Winner to promote their smartphone. Throughout the show, the host mentioned the name of the brand and held the product to promote it. Certain questions about the brand were also a part of the quiz to raise brand awareness. Alternatively, few other brands also announce hidden tips in product posters to drive traffic to their social media handles. Here’s an example of how Thomas Cook innovatively leveraged WeChat.

The popularity of the live quiz apps has given birth to another route of marketing for brands. Players not only pay attention to the game but also to the sponsored content accompanying it. This allows the brand to directly market their products/services to their prospective users.

About Us:

KRDS is a leading social media & digital agency with offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and Paris.

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5 mistakes to avoid on WeChat

February 13, 2018

China has over 720 million internet users who use social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo. Chinese social media is unique and brands have to understand the needs of the local audience to deliver relevant content, increase engagement and drive sales.

Brands are yet to fully understand the multiple social media platforms due to its dynamic nature. Due to this reason, it has become extremely easy for brands to make mistakes on social media that can have a negative impact on their business.

Here are a few common mistakes that you must definitely avoid –

Turning a blind eye to PR crisis

With the rise of social media, there was also a simultaneous increase in PR crises. Users openly express their thoughts, feedback, or even rant about any dissatisfactory experience! The problem arises when a brand fails to address negative feedback from users. Plenty of times, brands resort to ignoring and deleting negative comments or responding with the most robotic reply. These actions only intensify the public discontent.

Buying fake results

This is a common error that is committed across social media platforms all over the world. Brands pay service providers and third parties to help increase their followers or article views through bots. The data that follows is not a true reflection of the brand’s social media presence. While these methods may seem fruitful in the short run, it only hurts the brand image in the long run when exposed by users.

Choosing the wrong KoL/Influencers

KoLs and Influencers are extremely useful for building the brand credibility, visibility and engagement on social media. However, sufficient research must be done in advance to understand the requirements and choose an influencer who would be the perfect fit for the brand. Careless selection will negatively impact the brand and degrade its image.

Lack of overall strategy

A single brand advertises on multiple social media platforms. The look and feel of each and every platform is different. There is even varying user behaviour on each of these platforms. Therefore, brands must have a solid social media strategy in place to prevent unfocused marketing efforts.

Not adapting to the revising rules & regulations

Everything in social media changes in a split second. The Chinese Government constantly reviews and updates the online rules and regulations. Brands must keep an eye out for these changing rules or it might lead to serious repercussions for their business.

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How WeChat boost E-commerce in China?

February 9, 2018

WeChat is one of the most widely used apps in China. With over 900 million users, the app has been making waves in China with their constant innovations and updates!

It’s only natural that the most popular app has somehow affected the purchase behavior of users online.

Let’s see how WeChat has impacted the Digital consumer trends –

Mobile

Mobile has become the most popular device for online shopping in China. Around 84% of consumers have made their purchases from a mobile device in 2017 whereas it was 71% in 2015.Since the majority of the sales are made on mobile, brands must be able to advertise and engage with users on the platforms they frequent the most.

Social Media

In an era where social media is everything, it plays a huge role in affecting the purchase behavior of users. Brands are starting to understand the true potential of social media and they are focusing their energies towards reaching out to potential customers on digital. 51% of consumers open push notifications sent from a brand’s official WeChat account. 27% consumers indicate that they tend to buy more after receiving those notifications.

E-commerce

The demand for E-commerce in China has been increasing rapidly and acts as a key catalyst for retail. Infact, the growth in E-commerce has been surpassing the growth in offline retail. Last year, online sales grew by 28% whereas, offline sales only increased by 5%.

E-commerce across borders

E-commerce is not only seeing an increase within China, but also in international purchases. The percentage of customers that buy from overseas website have risen from 34% in 2015 to 64% in 2017. Young shoppers from 18-35 years are the leading force behind this surge.

With this huge untapped potential for rise in E-commerce, it would be interesting to see how brands are leveraging WeChat to achieve their goals.

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WeChat Conference 2018 in a nutshell

February 5, 2018

The Tech mogul in China, Tencent holds a WeChat Developer Conference every year where they announce the latest additions, developments, new features to their platform. Last year, WeChat introduced mini-programs, a sub-application that allows the users to access thousands of apps within the WeChat platform.

This year, Tencent has not unveiled any new features, instead, they will be focusing more on mini-programs. They believe that mini-programs are the way forward for both users and businesses.

Here is what you can expect in 2018 from the most popular features on WeChat –

Mini-programs

Currently, there are around 580,000 mini-programs on WeChat. The company wishes to encourage more developers to create mini-programs on the platform. Since its introduction, international brands like KFC, Swaroski, Coach and Tesla were quick to embrace this app to reach its users in China.

WeChat has even introduced a mini-program called CityExperience that is essentially like a travel guide. Cities like Sydney, London and Dubai have already become a part of CityExperience and the company is hopeful of adding more locations to this mini-program.

App for WeChat official accounts

Previously, brands have struggled to open WeChat official accounts, especially if they didn’t have a corporate presence in China. But not anymore! Brands can now open official accounts without a corporate presence in China.

But the biggest problem is that the brands can update content on the official account only from a desktop rather than being updateable from the WeChat app. To address this problem, Tencent is working on an independent app that might keep the content updation mobile friendly. This app is said to be on the similar lines of the Facebook Pages Manager.

WeChat Tips makes a comeback

According to a report in Wall Street Journal, Apple and WeChat have reached an agreement over the Wechat Tips. WeChat Tips is a function that allows the users to compensate the content creators for their quality content. This function was disabled last year when the creators of Apple communicated that it fails to comply with the rules of the App Store.

Social gaming is in!

WeChat is also rapidly expanding into the mobile gaming territory. The platform has over 300 million active users. It has also partnered up with renowned video game developer Ubisoft – this will allow Ubisoft’s subsidiary company Ketchapp to launch WeChat games in 2018.

Tencent hopes to combine their gaming division with their massive social platform user network to increase their social gaming revenue.

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