With a population of around 1.4 billion people, everyone wants a piece of the Chinese market.

And as Chinese consumers become increasingly connected in cyberspace, digital marketing provides a shortcut for businesses and brands to that opportunity, provided, that is, marketers select online channels wisely.

Speaking at the Emerge by TechNode conference in Shanghai on Thursday, chief marketing officer of key opinion leader (KOL) marketing platform Parklu Elijah Whaley told delegates that while Chinese social, content and commerce platforms offer similar functionalities, there is a key differentiating factor—user purpose or intent.

The question, according to Whaley is, “Why am I walking into this app or what am I explicitly getting out of from interacting with the ecosystem?”

The seamless ubiquity of WeChat makes it the go-to place for online marketing, but the platform is particularly good for CRM, and as a place for conversation given its core function in messaging friends, families, and coworkers.

“We see a lot of partners really wanted WeChat to be a marketing platform,” he said. “But it’s more of a place to interact with your customers.”

Taobao’s embedded WeChat-like CRM service Weitao is a great place to conduct KOL marketing, according to Whaley, because consumers log on to the platform with the intention of buying stuff. He said that users are willing to engage with content on the platform because they are trying to learn if the item is the one they want to buy.

Whaley believes location-based content represents the next-generation for search. Apps like Douyin and Xiaohongshu have “nearby me” button. This feature could be a huge advantage for travel brands, restaurants or as a way for offline businesses to influence and attract consumers.

Given that, marketers should never use the same strategy, KOLs, or content across different platforms, Whaley said.

He added that content—in the form of product reviews, short videos or live-streaming—and generated by a new breed of online influencers, or KOLs, is a crucial feature to China’s digital marketing dynamics, or even a greater role than their counterparts would play in the Western countries.

While gifting in the business world may be considered as a form of graft in the West, it is an important part in the physiological development of relationships in China, where reciprocity, or the idea of gift exchange, is one of the most important aspects in building relationships.

“Content is a form of gift,” said Whaley, explaining that among the Chinese KOL communities, there’s a sense of indebtedness that comes from having received the gift of information from someone over time and that builds trust and reciprocity. “That’s why we see conversion rates that we don’t see in the West,” he added.

In addition to ease of e-commerce integration and payment tools, such deeper, psychological elements at work in Chinese society provide an additional reason that helps explain why KOL marketing is gathering force in China, Whaley added.

A 2018 analysis from marketing company MarketingToChina showed that Chinese consumers download an average of 44 mobile apps each, far higher than the global average of 26 applications per smartphone user.

China’s leading short video platform Douyin is reported to launch its official digital marketing matching service for key opinion leaders (KOL) and businesses: the Star Map Platform (星图平台).

With the platform, KOLs and business owners asking and offering similar prices for a marketing project will be matched. However, details of the Star Map Platform have not yet been revealed.

This is not Douyin’s innovation. Kuaishou, one of Douyin’s rivals, already has a deal taking (接单) function available for KOLs. Additionally, China’s Twitter-like Weibo also has a Mini Task (微任务) function.

With Weibo’s Mini Task, in which the price and bidding system’s operational details are relatively transparent, the actual price offering and bidding take place on WeiQ, the new media marketing platform.

On WeiQ, a KOL can either explicitly show an expected reward price to directly receive requests from business owners, or only show their Weibo accounts and negotiate with potential deal seekers who are interested in the content the KOLs produces.

If Douyin’s Star Map Platform is similar to WeiQ’s business matching mechanism, the platform will gradually build up a market-oriented video streaming space where supply and demand will actively facilitate correct matches. Douyin’s video and commercial marketing ecosystem, in turn, will see a new shift and increased potential.

According to an article circulated among local media, one metric for measuring a KOL’s cooperation price is the number of fans. One fan, as a calculation base, is valued at RMB 0.03. Any extra influence can incur a higher bidding price. Wang Xiaoqiang, a KOL on Douyin, is rumored to expect an average market price of RMB 80,000 ($ 11875.3) for a 15-second video cooperation, thanks to his 1.37 million fans.

However, Wang’s case will not be a norm once the Star Map Platform is launched. Actual sales performance, clearer industry segments, and increasing numbers of KOLs entering the field with clear commercial expectations will gradually lead the market to a standardized one.

Meanwhile, the Star Map Platform is likely to offer brands and business owners more flexible options.

On July 12, global luxury brand Chanel launched its first official video account on Douyin. The account displays promotion videos for Chanel’s watches, whose prices range from RMB 40,000 to RMB 1.08 million. The brand, leveraging Douyin’s 150 million domestic daily active users, received around 50,000 likes per video. Compared to some local KOLs’ 100,000 + likes and Chanel’s reputation among Chinese millennial consumers, the luxury brand hasn’t got all it expected.

With the Star Map Platform, Chanel and other brands will be able to reach out to KOL partners who will optimize the marketing with the best negotiable price.

On July 16, Douyin announced that it has 500 million monthly active users globally. In June, the video platform’s domestic monthly active user hit 300 million. The major user group that contributes to over 40% of Douyin’s total users are now young people between 24 and 30 years old.

Bytedance’s short video app Douyin (抖音) will establish an official program for multi-channel networks (MCNs) to manage key opinion leaders (KOLs) on its platform, according to a report.

MCNs are agencies that work with multiple channels or content creators to gain success on video platforms. Previously Douyin was against these companies, which approached KOLs privately. MCNs would use Douyin to gain KOLs and fans and then move them across to a competitor, thereby reducing traffic.

Additionally, Douyin initially recruited and paid KOLs from other social networks in order to accelerate its growth. “Douyin was one of the first social networks in China to have really leveraged the influence and content of KOLs in this way,” Elijah Whaley, chief marketing officer of Parklu, told TechNode.

According to Whaley, directly employing KOLs ensured Douyin had a constant source of high-quality content and was able to attract significant numbers of new users through the KOLs.

“Obviously, the strategy worked beautifully, and now that Douyin is at scale, so they don’t need to employ KOLs any longer,” he said.

Douyin will gradually transfer already signed KOLs to officially approved MCNs. MCNs will be selected to be included in the Douyin MCN program based on their operational and content production capabilities. Selections will be made based on an entities number of accounts, historical page views,  and month-by-month growth.

The company will then recommend fans (in the millions range) to the MCNs in batches, and a three-way contract will be signed between Douyin, MCNs, and KOLs.

In allowing MCNs to operate through official channels, Douyin is effectively regulating their operation on its platform, and making MCNs responsible for the quality of the content that the KOLs produce. “Douyin is transferring the cost, management, and difficulty of maintaining a KOL community to the MCNs,” Whaley said. “Douyin’s bread and butter is advertising, and that’s where they want their core focus. This is a smart and natural move on the part of Douyin.”

Douyin’s parent company Bytedance has made headlines in the past few months for its legal spats with competitors. Most recently, the company filed an RMB 10 million lawsuit against Baidu for unfair competition. The case came just a few weeks after a very public disagreement with Tecent after the social media giant blocked Bytedance content on its messaging apps. Prior to this, Tencent filed an RMB 1 lawsuit against Bytedance for damaging its reputation on Douyin and Toutiao.

Updated July 5, 2018, 14:00: Added comments from Elijah Whaley, chief marketing officer of Parklu

Xiaohun, a gay KOL (key opinion leader) from China, runs a successful WeChat official account dedicated to the LGBT community in China. Starting in June 2015, he now has over 20,000 followers on WeChat. He mostly writes about same-sex marriage, equality, and sometimes he shares his life in a rural island in Fujian Province, where he lives together with his boyfriend.

If you can’t see anything, try iQiyi instead.

Once Xiaohun learned that  Gay Pride would take place at the end of October, he knew that he had to go—with his boyfriend.

“We’ve never been to a gay pride parade before, so I asked around on my WeChat official account,” Xiaohun told TechNode. “I received lots of comments. Some said we could meet up here at the parade, so I created a group and chatted on and off.”

For Xiaohun, the WeChat official account isn’t just a place to post personal photos and diaries but serves as a platform for the underserved LGBT community in China.

“In the past, gay people didn’t have their own platform,” he said. “Now that we have WeChat official accounts, we can report on our own stories by ourselves. I’m the reporter who reports on myself.”

As a KOL, Xiaohun has to put himself in the spotlight and often times shares his personal stories as a gay man. “I’ve come out to my colleagues and parents when I started to write,” he said. “I had no concerns, and could just write whatever I want.”

“I got thousands of followers in the first month—way faster than I expected,” said Xiaohun, adding that WeChat, as a platform, is a good place for the LGBT community to exchange information.

Editor’s note: This was contributed by Miranda Tan CEO and founder of Robin8 , China’s leading influencer marketplace powered by big data and AI. Robin8 has profiled over 30 million influencers across 12 social platforms in China. Robin8 helps brands find the best influencers for their campaign and provides end-to-end performance attribution.

As media results become more decentralized, every person becomes a source of traffic. Brands generally devote a significant portion of their online marketing budget to traditional KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) – that is, the social media celebrity with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. But research from social scientists and an analysis of the actual ROI on completed campaigns in China shows that brands might get a better ROI by including micro-influencers in their spending.

The idea that a smaller network might be better dates from long before social media. It started with Dunbar’s number. That’s the theory that says our brains can’t maintain more than about 150 stable relationships, with influence declining as the number of relationships grew. Social scientist Robin Dunbar wanted to test whether or not online social networks shattered this limit, so that individuals could maintain more relationships by using social networks.

Last year, Dunbar published the results of two studies showing that the size and range of online social networks is similar to that of offline face-to-face networks. Dunbar says, ‘This suggests that, as originally proposed by the social brain hypothesis, there is a cognitive constraint on the size of social networks that even the communication advantages of online media are unable to overcome. In practical terms, it may reflect the fact that real (as opposed to casual) relationships require at least occasional interaction to maintain them.”

Close Relationships Convert Better

Once you compare Dunbar’s hypothesis to your own personal experience, it’s easy to understand why the closer your relationship is with a social media contact, the more likely you are to be influenced by their opinions and recommendations. WeChat is one of the hottest platforms for micro-influencer marketing.

On platforms like Baidu, where paid listings fill the first page, most users just skip over them without even reading the headline. But on WeChat, where recommendations come from people we have a closer relationship with, we’re more likely to pay attention to the links, recommendations, and reviews. And on Taobao, where e-commerce influencers convert directly to sales, the impact can be even bigger.

It’s natural for traditional marketers to want to quickly reach as many people as possible. But real-time campaign tracking on WeChat, Weibo, Zhihu, Taobao, and other Chinese social media platforms shows how more limited, targeted action can deliver better results.

Who to Target

If you’re considering a social media influencer campaign, the first step is to match a brand with a KOL or micro-influencer. It’s important for a brand to have a natural connection to the topics that each influencer talks about naturally, as well as the products and information their friends and followers are searching for.

Here’s an overview of the kinds of influencers your brand can work with, along with the basics on how to chose among them.

Of course, there are other groups who can help you build your brand on Chinese social media, including (newspapers, magazines, journalists, etc.) best reached through traditional public relations, creative professionals (photographers, artists, designers, craftspeople, etc.) who might use your products in their projects, and (of course) your company’s employees and “super fans” – those who live, breathe, and gladly share positive news and ideas about your products.

Chinese Consumers Respond to Their Own “Tribe”

Going back to social scientist Robin Dunbar’s theory, it’s obvious why smart marketers are getting such good results with micro-influencers. Dunbar says that the inner circles of an individual’s relationships constitute their tribe and that humans are still tribal beings at hearts.

What he means is that the 150 contacts someone is closest two are the most likely to be influenced, and that influence declines rapidly beyond a certain point. The exception appears to be A-list KOLS — celebrities, whose fans will often buy a product their idol has endorsed even though they have only a tenuous connection to the celebrity.

But relying on celebrities to promote your brand in the Chinese market is no more cost-effective than harnessing the power of dozens, or even hundreds, of micro-influencers who can deliver as many sales as the celebrity at a lower cost-per-conversion.

Analysts are seeing a bit of a backlash as some celebrities have gone overboard with their product promotions. Many of the traditional KOLs are excellent resources for brands, but savvy marketers are increasingly seeing better results from campaigns that spread the budget over more micro-influencers rather than concentrating on just a few individuals.

To do this, marketers are turning the power of the individual by using tools, including big data and AI, that can profile and rank all social media users, match potential influencers with brands based on an analysis of the influencer’s content and audience, and provide real-time tracking once campaigns are underway.

Meitu has proven to the world that there is a demand for beauty-enhancing software products, but it has yet to show investors that its selfie-loving users are willing to pay for its feel-good apps. On August 24, Meitu Inc. reported an RMB 33 million ($4.95 million) adjusted net loss for the first half of 2017, down 87 percent year-on-year. The company, which went public in 2016 and became the largest internet IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since Tencent, continues to draw skepticism about its ability to turn a profit.

Founded nine years ago in China’s southeastern coastal city of Xiamen, Meitu has transformed from a PC photo touch up software to a suite of beauty-enhancing hardware and apps. The latter include its three pivotal products on the path to monetization: Meitu, its legacy photo-enhancing app; Meipai, a short video sharing app; and BeautyCam, a selfie app. The company now claims 461 million monthly active users (MAU) and has pocketed RMB 2.18 billion ($327 million) in total revenues in the first six months of 2017. In comparison, the Chinese dating app-turned-live streaming social app Momo (NASDAQ: MOMO) has made $577.5 million in net revenues in the same period with 91.3 million MAU.

Meitu has a mission to empower users to become more beautiful, and it trusts that it can cash in on its predominately young, beauty-conscious female users from ads, e-commerce, and games—the three major revenue channels on the Chinese internet, currently dominated by the BAT trio of Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent.

“We can tap into all three areas. When your user base is big enough, you can do anything,” says Cai Wensheng, the legendary Chinese angel investor who became Meitu’s founder and president, in an interview earlier this year (in Chinese). “Ads and e-commerce suit Meitu better, and we will be stepping up these two segments.”

As a self-labeled “internet company”, Meitu’s revenue has so far mainly come from hardware—smartphones that can detect your skin tone, age, and gender to touch up your selfie accordingly. 847,090 units of these phones were sold in the first half of 2017, contributing to 88.7 percent of Meitu’s total revenues. Smartphones are costly to make, however, and fierce Chinese smartphone giants like Huawei—who shipped 73.01 million phones in H1 2017—are clamoring to get in on the selfie game.

Although Meitu and BeautyCam are by far the biggest players in the area of beautifying apps, they stand as utilities, suffering from high replaceability and low average usage time. A QuestMobile report shows that in June, rising players Faceu and B612, whose parent company Line merged it with the popular Korean app Snow, are edging in while Meitu and BeautyCam saw 20 percent and 21 percent declines in MAU respectively. Meitu knows its shortcomings, so when it went public, CEO Wu Xinhong announced a vision (in Chinese) to turn the company into a social platform to monetize its gigantic user base.

Meitu’s other core product, Meipai, which means “beautiful filming” in Chinese, has been the major drive in the company’s platformization and monetization plan. According to Jpush’s data (in Chinese), Meipai has a 3.5 percent penetration rate after Kuaishou, whose 13.3 percent gives it a vital lead amongst China’s short video apps. This is a fast-rising sector thanks to the nation’s increasingly cheap data and growing mobile penetration. While industry watchers question the purchasing power of Kuaishou’s lower-tier city users, Meipai’s overwhelmingly young, female users from tier 1 and 2 cities, a main force in the “she-economy,” seem more promising.

The short video sharing app began generating revenue last year by selling virtual items in live streaming and this segment has become a primary boost to the parent company’s increased revenue in internet value-added services. But no one can guarantee these users will stay. As is the case with live streaming, short video platforms are burning money to poach talented content creators. Toutiao, now valued at a staggering $22 billion, recently announced an RMB 1 billion ($150 million) subsidy plan (in Chinese) for its new short video arm Huoshan. Meipai also debuted an initiative to match brands with KOL (key opinion leaders, or internet celebrity), with whom Meipai shares revenues.

The outlook for ad revenues is more dismal. Advertisers still favor long-form videos like drama series or game shows on major video portals. After all, how many users want to watch a ten-second ad for a one-minute video? In March, Meitu launched Pushion (美铺), which means “beautiful shop” in Chinese, to test the water of fashion-focused e-commerce. The market is already crowded with existing players like Xiaohongshu and Mogujie, not to mention e-commerce giant Taobao which fashion KOLs call home. It remains to be seen how a company can turn a generation’s beauty obsession into commercial possibilities, as Cai often reminds Meitu’s analysts: the company is still in the infant stages of monetization.

Editor’s note: A version of this by Lauren Hallanan first appeared on the PARKLU blog. PARKLU  is a digital platform that helps brands find, collaborate, and engage with China’s social influencers. Lauren lived in China for 8 years where she developed a large fan base.

Weibo Stories function is an exciting addition to the platform that Sina-Weibo is heavily promoting. However, it is still in its early stages in terms of reach and engagement, and a bit unoriginal. As more users start understanding how to utilize and incorporate stories into their content mix, should we bet on it taking off?

Our answer is yes. Let’s look as some issues Stories has to overcome before getting to why it has a ton of potential.

What is Weibo Stories?

Weibo introduced Stories in April 2017 and has been rolling it out part by part over the past few months. It’s remarkably similar to Instagram Stories but has fewer features. Stories can be viewed by all Weibo users currently, but only KOL accounts that are verified and approved can post.

But it doesn’t appear Weibo will lag for long, as they have been updating the function and adding new elements weekly. The “Location” feature and AR face filters are the most recent examples. Before that, many users were recording themselves with filters on Snapchat or China’s Faceu app and then uploading those to Weibo Stories. Here’s a features comparison chart:

The Bad

So far, Weibo Stories has been slow to take off, and Stories posts are receiving fewer views than the regular photo and video posts. However, the function has huge potential, and Sina Weibo is pushing it hard—it’s only a matter of time before it becomes part of Weibo users’ habits. The same thing happened with Instagram’s stories. While many people didn’t understand the feature at first or see how it could benefit them, it has since become integral to the platform.

The Ugly

Two things hold the Weibo Stories function back right now:

1. It lacks features. (However, it is likely Sina-Weibo are working to solve that at this very moment.)
2. Many people misuse Stories, i.e. they don’t use it to tell stories. Additionally, they use it sporadically and aren’t posting consistently enough. Stories must be ongoing — not just one or two pictures a day — and have a flow. Too many users are posting random, unconnected pictures and videos.

Instagram Stories that attract followers bring users along on their daily adventures and show behind-the-scenes footage that’s too raw for their main account pages. Active Weibo storytellers get their audience excited for what comes next. There aren’t many people doing that on Weibo.

Even the featured accounts and those in Weibo’s ads just had one or two photos that were nothing special. Boring content will make it harder for Stories to catch on.

The Good

Despite the shortcomings, there is a tremendous opportunity for early Stories adopters, especially those who use it consistently and in interesting ways. Here’s why:

One original Stories feature is this: When a user comments on a Weibo story, their comment appears on-screen, similar to a live-stream. In contrast, user comments on Instagram stories get sent as direct messages to the person who posts them. The fact everyone can see comments creates a feeling of greater engagement.

It is getting increasingly harder to be seen on Weibo. Often you have to use paid promotion to get your content to the top of your followers’ homepages. Weibo Stories, on the other hand, is located at the top of the homepage. When you share new stories, your icon will automatically be shown there.

The success of Stories is critical for Weibo, and they are devoting a lot of resources to promote it. Besides posting celebrity-filled ads, they are using many promotional methods that could benefit your account or brand:

A couple of weeks ago Weibo offered free hongbao (virtual red envelopes with money, usually a couple of cents) to users who follow an account they discovered through Weibo stories. This gave people a huge incentive to watch stories and to follow new accounts. They also gave hongbao to users every time they posted a story, encouraging them to develop the story-sharing habit. While the promotion has ended, it shows Weibo is so committed to this new feature that they will pay people to use it.

Every day Weibo selects stories from random accounts to be featured on the official Weibo Stories account. If you’re featured, hundreds of thousands of people will see your account.

Weibo has a recommended stories page with different categories and accounts to suggest for each category. Being included on this page would greatly benefit any account.

Weibo will likely add e-commerce features such as the ability to include links and “swipe up to see more,” as you can on Instagram stories.

Weibo users have become desensitized to all the ads in videos and photos, but not many brands use Weibo Stories. That means users are less likely to expect content to include ads, which can make your marketing seem very natural if done correctly.

Being an early adopter always has advantages, and now is no different. As with any social media platform, making adjustments to suit your audience’s needs and the platform is key. Just as Facebook is pushing and promoting live-streaming, Weibo’s putting a lot of chips in Stories. If you’re a KOL, best start using this feature now while everyone else is still making up their minds.

• Why big ad agencies are failing to keep up
• How content is being democratized
• Why Taobao is dominating live streaming
• How influencers are building the brands of the future
• Why it’s better not to focus on viral content (hint: being a successful influencer isn’t easy)

Links

• John Artman: Rules for Weibo KOLs shed light on Alibaba-Tencent tensions
• Eva Yoo: Lessons from failed influencer campaigns in China
• Eva Yoo: 3 ways Chinaccelerator Batch 11 startups monetize with KOL marketing
• How to leave an iTunes review

• John Artman, @knowsnothing, TechNode
• Matthew Brennan, @MattyBGoooner, ChinaChannel

• iTunes
• RSS feed
• Music: “Theme from Penguins on Parade” by Lee Rosevere, Music for Podcasts 3

Check out this episode!

• Differences in live streaming platforms
•  Gifting as a business model
•  How to make a live stream interesting
•  Agency practices (hint: it’s not always ethical)
• Transition from streamer to KOL

• Lauren Hallanan: China Live
• Emma Lee: Momo sees record revenue growth thanks to live streaming
• Charles Custer: Fei Cheng Wu Rao: China’s Hottest Dating Show
• Tracey Xiang: Report: China’s live streaming market grew 180% in 2016
• How to leave an iTunes review

• John Artman, @knowsnothing, TechNode
• Matthew Brennan, @MattyBGoooner, ChinaChannel

• iTunes
• RSS feed
• Music: “Theme from Penguins on Parade” by Lee Rosevere, Music for Podcasts 3

Check out this episode!

Chinaccelerator unveiled its Batch 11 startups at their demo day on June 14th in Shanghai.

Graduates of previous batches include:

• Shopal, helping retailers connect with Chinese investors
• BitMEX, a commercially successful company enabling people in China to invest in global investment vehicles via bitcoin that recorded US$ 70 million USD volume,
• Chozun, helping global travelers to get services in China
• Fashory, a top 5 fashion app in Southeast Asia that growth hacked in China to make RMB 200,000 sales in just one week

As a seed investor as well as a growth hacker for early stage startups, ChinAccelerator has given good examples to growth hack WeChat, social media, content, and companies to get customer and user.

From their latest batch 11, we can see how their startups are monetizing KOLs (Key Opinion Leader). The value of China’s internet celebrity market is tipped to surpass RMB 100 billion in 2018, according to Beijing-based research agency Analysus.

“In China, the opportunity is bigger, but overseas celebrities don’t have a digital presence. Through WeChat, Baidu, and Weibo, we help them to build a social biography and monetize their fans,” Mattia Baldassare, CEO of eFanswer told TechNode.

Superstars in various industries, including music, entertainment, and sports have a huge fanbase in China market, and China represents a huge potential market for these stars to monetize their fandom. However, not many can monetize on it, because of the language barrier, and because these celebrities don’t understand Chinese fans. That’s where these startups come in, allowing them to seek a bigger opportunity in China, using different methods: biography, gaming, and chatbot.

1. eFanswer: Monetizing football through biographies

Mattia Baldassare previously worked as a lawyer for Holland football players. One day, Alessandro Del Piero told him he wanted to publish his biography. Mattia later thought of a new way to write a biography: Fans can submit questions to their favorite football stars. By answering 300 questions from their fans through voice, audio and text, celebrities can easily publish a biography.

In 2015, they sold 50,000 copies of his biography in Holland and made US$ 300,000. Inspired by this outcome, Mattia created a platform where football celebrities can connect with their fans.

With the tagline “Netflix for books,” eFanswer enables celebrities to share their life stories with fans through text, audio, and video across social platforms both online and offline. They have sold over 180,000 copies of 6 football stars’, recording US$ 300,000 revenue and over 1.2 billion total video views in 2016. Now they are targeting China market, where English Premier League fanbase is over 300 million.

Now the platform features 10 celebrities, including Claudio Marchisio, Alessandro Del Piero, Giorgio Chiellini, motor GP champions Jorge Lorenzo and Samuel Etoo, and NBA player Danilo Gallinari. Soon Pope Francis will also receive 300 questions from his followers to publish a book himself.

2. Lihaoma: Monetizing KOLs with gamification and prizes

Lihaoma gamifies social advertisement and KOLs to entertain and engage followers to increase overall brand awareness. Followers can play easy and intuitive games to get social commerce discount game to drive sales on Taobao and Weidian, and win awards.

“Using games, followers show 3 times better engagement. When we included Q&A games, brand’s website showed 30% more traffic, and their WeChat content showed 30% more engagement and conversation. Because consumers needed to find the answers on the brand’s websites to find the answers,” Benjamin Claeys, CEO of Lihaoma told TechNode.

3. B2 Talent Asia: Helping global musicians become KOLs in China

Using chatbots can help KOLs to manage the huge amount of fans. A chatbot strategy combined with Q&A, games, celebrity’s holograms can help KOLs build bigger growth.

“China is the fastest music market in the world, with 20 million digital music downloads. Western superstars can come into China KOLs, but they don’t have tool and teams to do that,” CEO of B2 Talent Asia told TechNode.

B2 Talent Asia enables global musicians to become KOL in China by providing a Pan-Asian celebrity management service and social media service. They help the musicians grow the follower base on social media and monetize their fan base with merchandise sales. Previously, they helped Southeast Asian stars Jannie Weigel and Dome Pakora Lam build 500 million follower base in China.

ParkLU, a digital advertising platform that connects China’s internet celebrities (wǎnghóng 网红) and brands, recently released a list of rules that are currently being enforced on Weibo.

Based on insider sources, KOL surveys, and their own testing, the rules show the lengths both Sina and Alibaba are willing to go to protect their influencer/e-commerce ecosystem.

KOLs and other content creators are becoming increasingly important to online commerce with many influencers working directly with agencies to monetize their content. Indeed, learning from their previous experience with Weibo influencers, Sina has been very careful in controlling their live streaming ecosystem.

We spoke briefly with Elijah Whaley, CMO of ParkLU, about these rules and what they mean for e-commerce and content creators.

What do you make of these rules?

Obviously, some of the rules are to combat other social and e-commerce platforms. While others are believed to be a strategy to gain more ad revenues such as the rule stating only one brand can appear in a single post. I think some rules are needed, especially the plagiarizing and reposting rules that are needed to block zombie accounts.

Others just seem strange, like posts with long images will be penalized. I’m not totally sure what the thinking is there except maybe their image scanning technology can’t catch a QR code at the bottom of an oversized image. Not clear why this would be a rule, especially because long form images are quite popular in tutorial and comic posts.

How will this affect the ecosystem?

First off, everything will need to stay under the Alibaba/Sina/Youku umbrella if it’s to avoid penalties, but that’s not that surprising really; WeChat has blocked Taobao and T-mall for a long time. It’s just tit-for-tat.

Honestly, I think this type of behavior from Weibo weakens their value proposition to users right when Weibo was getting pretty good. No other social platform in China provides creators with the same level of content flexibility. The sad thing is it’s the users who lose out when internet, tech, and commerce monopolies duke it out in China.

There’s this constant tightening and loosening taking place, so who knows how long is will last. A while ago Weibo posts couldn’t be natively shared to WeChat, but now they can. I’m confident that ways of hacking the rules will be discovered.

It might hurt some small internet/tech/e-commerce players and definitely consolidates the power of the big players that much more.

Editor’s note: This article by Dannie Li first appeared on China Tech Insights, an English research unit affiliated to Tencent’s Online Media Group.

“This coat is pure wool. It’s lighter and thinner than regular woolen overcoats, while at the same time it’s just as warm,” the girl in the camera explains to her fans through her live stream while putting on a slight pink double-faced cashmere overcoat. “Is it heavy enough, though?” types a fan in the chat box on the upper right-hand corner of the screen. “I think it’s better suited to wintertime in the South. Winter winds in the north are too strong,” the live streamer explains patiently to the fan.

This live streamer, wearing a sweet smile and a rimless round-framed pair of glasses, is Zhang Dayi, a widely-known cyber celebrity in China. A regular scene for Chinese fashion influencers – introducing products through live streams has become the new trend. In this one-hour long live video, Zhang displays 10 coats and sweaters in her first half hour. She acts as a shopping guide, a model, a stylist and even as customer service, presenting clothes her team designs while giving style consultations and answering questions about the design, fabric, and price of her clothes. This live video has been viewed 9.73 million times over the last two months.

Who would have thought this amiable girl-next-door would’ve raked in a record-breaking nine-digits operating one of the top-selling stores on Alibaba’s online marketplace Taobao?

Born in 1988, Zhang began her climb to fame as a fashion magazine model in 2009. In 2014 she set up her own Taobao shop with her partner, Feng Min, the founder of internet celebrity incubator Ruhan E-commerce. Astutely managed, her Weibo accounts saw a boom in follower growth from 250,000 to more than 4 million in one and a half years. Part of her fame stems from the sales legends that surround her: she is said to have established record sales over two consecutive Singles’ Day online shopping festivals on Taobao. On Singles Day 2016, her Taobao shop made it into the top ten for Taobao’s  Women’s Wear category.

Zhang is one of the most prominent cyber celebrities in China. Behind much of her success in retailing is the rising trend of China’s “Internet Celebrity Economy”.

China’s Wanghong Industry

Internet celebrities (more commonly known as ‘wanghong’ in Chinese), can be traced back to the emergence of the Internet. Through the ups and downs of different social platforms – from BBS’ to online forums, social networks to short video sites, video streaming platforms and now live streaming services – the history of the renewal and replacement of different kinds of internet celebrities can be observed.

“Back in the latter half of 2014, we noticed the rise of cyber celebrities, and they saw explosive growth in 2016,” said Zeng Ming, Chief Strategy Officer of Alibaba in an article posted on WeChat.

The word “wanghong” has seen a boom in search volume since November 2015 according to Baidu Index, the big data platform of search engine Baidu. In February 2016, Papi Jiang dubbed the top “wanghong” of 2016, became a household name for her viral short videos. She focused the public’s attention on the internet-based cyber celebrity. Not long after Papi Jiang came to the boom in Chinese live streaming platforms that we see today.

In both the US and China, the term “Internet celebrity” encompasses a wide range of types. They rise to fame through different platforms depending on their different skills and talents. Some are popular gaming live streamers, others are Weibo punsters with millions of followers, and still others are internet cosmetics phenomenona like Michelle Phan. Together they form the “Internet celebrity” phenomenon, meaning they enter into the public’s imagination through taking advantage of the internet, especially now with the mobile internet. Through meticulous planning and the cultivation of an audience centered around personalities, they find various ways to monetize their huge fanbases.

The development of this ecosystem in China and the US has seen a shift to where internet celebs are now able to make money out of their fans. In the U.S., among the many kinds of web celebs that have risen to fame on social media, the most successful kinds to have monetized their huge fanbases are the fashion icons. They blog about style or do make-up tutorial videos, becoming Youtube or Instagram personalities earning large sums from brand sponsorship.

In China, however, the most profitable types of internet celebrity are the fashionistas based on Weibo and Taobao. They are now becoming a significant force in the online retailing business in China.

How do fashionistas in China build their fan bases? A case study of Zhang Dayi

The first step to understanding the essence of a fashion influencers success in retailing is to find out how they convert fans into buyers. Here is a map of the working mechanism operating in the industry.

Fashion sellers usually start with Weibo, the leading social media platform in China. They publish content to their accounts regularly, which ranges from daily life observations to fashion recommendations in the form of photos, videos, and live streams. What attracts fans is often the integration of many elements. Using Zhang Dayi as an example, let’s take a look at what these essential elements are.

Personal charisma: an outstanding appearance, good taste, personality or an enviable lifestyle. With a pretty face and a slim figure, Zhang Dayi is considered attractive in the eyes of many. Having been a model for at least nine years, she has formed her own taste in style and is experienced with modeling and photoshoots.

Another key to attracting viewers is to demonstrate an enviable lifestyle. Cherie, another top Chinese fashion influencer, said in an interview that, “ your fans have to believe that you are truly living the perfect life as seen through your photos, rather than just posing.” She adds, “you are actually selling a kind of lifestyle through these photos you show them, something which satisfies a fantasy that their lives could be as good as yours when they put these clothes on.”

Style: their expertise and aesthetic taste are key to nurturing loyal fans and converting them into consumers. According to a report by CBN Data released in May 2016, a majority of the consumption around internet celebrity-run Taobao shops stems from females aged between 22 to 28 years old dwelling in first and second-tier cities. This group of people typically shows strong consumption for beauty products.

Meanwhile, the fastest growing market segment derives from those born after 1995. Chinese people in their early twenties are marked by a pursuit of fashion trends and personalization, while at the same time, having not formed a strong sense of style and being more inclined to be impacted by recommendations from internet celebrities. Celebrity recommendations save users the trouble of searching for products in the vast sea of choice afforded by e-commerce platforms. These recommendations are also felt to be exclusive, which grants users a sense of uniqueness allowing them to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack.

Affinity: apart from content updates, another vital routine for the internet’s wanghongs is fan maintenance. Keeping an approachable image through frequent interaction with fans brings them much closer to their fans. Instead of the sense of superiority and distance one might feel interacting with an A-line superstar, the relationship between fashion influencer and a fan is more equal, mutual and intimate. Zhang Dayi creates an image of a frank, honest and amiable girl in her fans eyes. Her fans call her “auntie” and nickname themselves “E cups”. Interacting with her fans via comments and replies on Weibo is part of her routine. This also includes regular surveys of fan design preferences via social media posts. Even when she becomes embroiled in fights with people who condemn the quality of her products, her fans come out to fight back and show their support.

Shared values: another reason for the success of a celebrity brand is the existence of a shared set of values among fans. Internet celebrities form a set of values through the social images they post across the web. A fan might admire an individualistic attitude towards consumption and self-investment. For instance, a post by Zhang Dayi reads, “you are not simply spending money shopping, you are building an ideal empire for the person you aspire to be.” Celebrities are commonly portrayed as being attractive, but at the same time, strong and capable of operating a lucrative business at a young age.

China’s wanghong’s are constantly reinforcing this image and conveying values to fans through their exclusive communities created on social media. Fan recognition of these values increases the coherence and group loyalty of the community. In all, the web celeb becomes an incarnation of a set of values, and fans aggregate around a celebrity under the spell of this powerful force of attraction.

The Weibo platform ecosystem facilitates the job of influencers by offering various communication channels including embedded short videos and live streaming functions in-app. The Weibo app is also well-designed for converting viewers to shoppers. It provides a window-shopping function that enables a user to browse products sold by the influencer within Weibo. It also has a seamless connection with the Taobao app (Alibaba has a strategic investment in Weibo) meaning users are able to be directed to Taobao effortlessly through in-app links.

A maturing business model: how influencers are innovating the retailing industry

Effective social media for internet celebrities serves as an essential element for success in a later e-commerce business. It reduces a lot of the cost incurred typically acquiring users. However, this is only halfway to earning real money from fans.

To complete the last step of an online retailing business, influencers need the help of a range of professionals including those from apparel design, supply chain, manufacturing, inventory management, e-shop operations and after-sales service. There is no way that these diverse positions can all be fulfilled by the influencer alone particularly when massive numbers of orders are made.

This is where fashion influencer incubators have emerged providing a vital new role in the industry to assume some of these responsibilities. Presently a majority of internet celebrity affiliated Taobao stores are backed by behind-the-scenes incubators. Ruhan, the incubator behind Zhang Dayi, is now the leading player and the most successful case of this particular kind of incubator.

With the participation of Ruhan E-commerce, Zhang can focus on promotion and customer relations, in other words, fan management.

Ruhan E-commerce assumes the role of supply chain manager and e-shop operator. In terms of supply chain management, the company is in charge of fabric purchase, patternmaking and design, and outsourcing manufacturing to partnering factories. In terms of online shop operations, apart from daily routines and after-sales services, Ruhan also innovates by offering pre-sales and flash sales in order to avoid inventory overstocking, which is a deep-rooted problem for the traditional apparel industry.

For those having just started on their journey, with little experience in styling and social media operation, Ruhan E-commerce provides designers, buyers, and even assistants to assist with shooting photos, selecting samples and making patterns. The company also acts as talent management helping with curating a set style and image for its clients and training them to blog, pose for photos, and interact with fans.

A disturbing image issue

Despite the proven profitability of internet celebrities in China, the perception of internet celebrities varies among both fan groups and the broader public. China Tech Insights has observed a dramatic contrast between the breathtaking sales volume taking place on the business side and a generally negative attitude held towards both internet celebrities and their businesses.

According to our survey, 41.7% of respondents reported a dislike of, or even disgust of internet celebrities, mainly due to the stereotypical impression formed of web celebs. 51.1% reported a neutral feeling towards them mainly due to a lack of knowledge. Only the remaining 7.2% showed a positive attitude.

The Chinese term, “wanghong” is actually somewhat of a negative term for many Chinese people. A stereotypical impression of a Chinese internet celebrity usually includes a female who, in her quest for sudden fame, has abandoned her brains for hype and scandal. Though wanghong’s are typically received as pretty and/or cute, their appearances are often not recognizable in public due to the apparent prevalence of cosmetic surgery and overdone photo retouching. To make things worse, the market is saturated with the standard East Asian ideal of beauty: a palm-sized face, light skin tone, big eyes and a slim figure.

This kind of negative impression only hinders a budding brand attempting to establish trust outside of an existing fan base. The founder of Ruhan E-commerce said in an interview that he disliked people referring to his clients as “wanghong’s” rather, he prefers the term “KOL” or Key Opinion Leader. He describes his clients as “professional content creators in the [fashion] industry”.

Zhang Dayi is no doubt the most successful case of a web celeb pivoting from a field to becoming a fashion influencer and a Taobao owner. However, there are tons of other fashion influencers who are finding it harder and harder to acquire fans. Though shedding the negative image has become a top priority for the internet celebrity industry – essential for long-term development – this will likely be a slow and unpleasant process.

Nevertheless, regardless of when exactly the public begins to hold a different attitude toward this group, the undismissable fact is that web celebs have already become a leading force today in the online retailing business in China. And this success is likely to grow and last.

China’s media and entertainment sector will see a compound annual growth rate of 10% by 2018, according to PwC’s forecasts and the concert sector is not going to be left behind. Reyin, an A to Z service app for concert lovers in China, is a great example of a platform that is not only capitalizing on the growing interest in concerts but also effectively using (key opinion leaders) KOLs to monetize.

“China is starting to have a good mix of concerts. Big ones still have large audiences. But then the number of middle size and smaller scale concerts are growing,” Daniel Chang, CEO and founder of Reyin told TechNode. “Organizing and planning concerts is still less than those of Western countries. We want to see even more.”

Concerts are not only money making business for the entertainment companies and sponsors in China. Concert live streaming has taken off as well, and a flock of Chinese tech companies and music companies are offering affordable tickets for concert lovers to enjoy the concert at home. Daniel says these businesses do not compete with Reyin since Reyin provides unique on-site experience with concert KOLs.

The most basic functionality of the Reyin app helps users to find the concert they want and book concert tickets for them. But, they also have a premium membership model: users pay an annual subscription of RMB 3,999 (~US$ 581) for 3 concerts anywhere around the world and 9 held where they live. Daniel says the company has been cash positive since the beginning of 2017.

The real differentiator for Reyin, however, is their group of concert KOLs living overseas. They invite Reyin users to come to concerts in their country. For example, Lanty is a Chinese student living in Sheffield, UK. She writes about her experiences going to concerts in the UK and takes Reyin users to concerts and festivals.

More than 1,500 fans have attended concerts abroad led by a resident Reyin KOL.

According to Daniel, there are three groups of concertgoers in the China mainland market: heavy users who go to concerts whenever they can, especially to see famous bands or DJs; those who want to experience something different style of music and events; and those who usually only go when their friends invite them. Daniels says that a majority of their users are in the first two groups.

Founder and CEO of Reyin, Daniel Chang was born in Taiwan and lived in the U.S. for nine years, where he worked at e-commerce company NewEgg as a marketing director.

“I went to about 300 concerts in the U.S. When I came to Shanghai in 2012, I thought there are too few concerts in China. So I started the company to find all the concerts in China,” Daniel says. “I’m also a heavy user of my own service.”

Founded in 2014, Reyin received angel investment in 2015 from Peacock Capital, a Hong Kong-based venture capital, focusing on lifestyle and entertainment sector.

“We believe in the live music event industry that it connects people and provides them with an experience that cannot be replaced by recording or broadcast, and we believe Daniel and his team can make a difference in this industry,” John Au, director at Peacock Capital told TechNode.

Now the company is raising pre-A round for faster growth and overseas expansion. Reyin has overseas concert guide KOLs covering local concerts in 25 countries and 45 cities. The Shanghai-based company plans to expand its service to Shenzhen and Guangzhou and further its expansion to East Asia, adding more KOLs to its app.

Editor’s note: A version of this post first appeared on WalktheChat’s website. WalktheChat specializes in helping foreign organizations access the Chinese market through WeChat, the largest social network on the mainland.

WeChat analytics company Newrank released data from a survey of 1,032 zimeiti (自媒体 or self-media in English) in China. Some of the interesting findings include:

• most operators make less than 5,000 RMB/month, far less than the country’s average wage
• over 50% of their revenue comes from WeChat and KOL advertisement combined
• almost 50% work more than 8 hours a day on their account
• almost 71% say they are actively looking for investment, or plan to in the future

Who are they?

The survey reveals that social media account operators in China are:

• Majority male: 74.1%
• New to the job: 45% of them have been operating an account for less than a year, and only 16% for more than 3 years

We also learn that the participants of the survey are:

• Mostly young people: only 11% of them are older than 37 years old, while 42% are under 22
• Located in large cities: 66% of the account operators are located in Tier 1 or Tier 2 cities
• Highly educated: 88% of them have a bachelor degree or above

40% of the operators are doing it as a side job, or plan to go full time but aren’t quite there yet. Only 16% of the accounts surveyed were part of media agencies.

The data reveals that 71% of the operators are actively looking for investment or might do so in the future.

This reveals that “Self-published-media” is, if anything, more similar to startup culture than it is to traditional media culture.

However, these social media accounts are not making much money. 71% of them make less than 5,000 RMB per month. That’s less than the average wage for the entire country (5,169 RMB/month in 2015) and far less than first-tier cities of Beijng (9,277 RMB/month), Shanghai (8,664 RMB/month), and Shenzhen (7,728/month), according to a Zhaopin report in early 2016.

Although we have heard much about large WeChat accounts charging 30k RMB and above for each of their native ads, this represents a tiny portion of accounts; most of them are actually struggling to monetize.

The majority of accounts are using either WeChat native ads (31.7%) or KOL advertising (24.5%) as a way to monetize

Most account operators are mostly struggling with continuously producing content (47%) and defining their business model (26%, which makes sense given the trouble we saw they have monetizing).

Only a small fraction (5%) is considering finding investment as their main struggle.

“Self-media” also turns out to be a challenging job: nearly 50% of the operators work more than 8 hours per day, 18% of them more than 11 hours per day, and 41% of them do overtime every day or nearly every day.

Most encouragingly, most of the account operators seem content: 60.2% are happy to keep on with it next year, and 84% overall are planning to stay in the industry next year.

Editor’s note: A version of this originally appeared on the China Business Cast. China Business Cast is a podcast featuring experienced entrepreneurs and business people making things happen in China. If you want to learn from on the ground accounts of how business actually gets done in China, this is the program for you.

Ready for the last episode of 2016?!

This episode is quite different from the ones we did before as it’s a recording of a talk given on one of Mike’s Global From Asia Hong Kong trips given by Kim Leitzes  from ParkLU. ParkLU built a platform that connects brands and SME’s with key opinion leaders  (KOLs) in China.

So, don’t expect an interview, but it’s still really interesting. Have a look at the show notes, lot’s of topics there.

To all our listeners have a Happy 2017!!

Listen to the episode here or subscribe.

EPISODE CONTENT:

• Kim Leitzes  – background
• The Increasing budgets on KOL marketing. How much are companies are spending now?
• Which KOLs should you approach?
• Who are these KOLs?
• The difference between celebrities and a KOLs?
• How does a Chinese consumer find your product? What’s the customer journey?
• Why or why not consumers will buy from you?
• What’s the reason Taobao has 20 images presented?
• Do and don’t when reaching KOLs?
• What are the 3 steps you need to ask the KOLs when posting for you?
• Is there a minimum of KOLs you need to work with?
• Is it more powerful to get one top tier KOL or working with many smaller ones?
• What’s the biggest mistake brands make when approaching KOLs?

Episode Mentions:

Intro

• Enter China
• Masterminds page
• Music Credit → NEU project (NEU China for Berlin / NEU Diverge for Beijing)
• China Business Cast WeChat group add Mike -> “Michelini” or Shlomo -> “shlomof”
• Asia Podcast Network
• HK trip global from Asia

Interview

• Taobao
• Weibo
• Baike zhidao (Similar to China’s Quora)
• ParkLu
• Kim Leitzes Linkedin page

TechNode does not necessarily endorse the commentary made in this program.

In China, key opinion leaders or KOLs are often seen as a silver bullet for brands that want to successfully advertise or run marketing campaigns on Chinese social media platforms, such as WeChat. However, many brands have no idea how to leverage KOLs properly.

“[The brand] kind of forced me to use the press release as social content,” said a KOL in a survey conducted by ParkLU, a platform that connects KOLs and brands. “No matter how I explained [it], they were just being stubborn.”

On Thursday, during CHat Shanghai, a conference on WeChat and global messaging trends, Kim Leitzes, the founder and CEO of ParkLU, offered insight into the lives and minds of Chinese KOLs in a talk called “Confessions of a KOL.”

Through one-on-one interviews with different KOLs, Ms. Leitzes identified do’s and don’ts when collaborating with KOLs, like sticking too closely to advertising KPIs or worse, encouraging KOLs to buy followers.

“The brands that succeed at [leveraging KOLs] take a long term view,” Ms. Leitzes told TechNode. “They are looking for long term partners and the KOLs that continue to build credibility as opposed to those [that] become too commercial.”

In China, KOLs refer to a wide variety of internet celebrities, including bloggers and livestreaming hosts. There are also different tiers of KOLs, from Papi Jiang, who has more than 18 million followers on Weibo, to budding fashion KOL “Pomegranate Granny Report” (石榴婆报告, our translation), who has 57,000. A number of companies and agencies, such as ParkLU and Robin8, are dedicated to helping brands find the right KOLs for their marketing campaigns.

For brands that want to use KOLs to boost brand awareness or market products, understanding KOL dynamics is essential. Here are 3 points from ParkLU’s talk on KOLs that we think you should know about:

1. KOLs need space for creativity.

A huge turnoff for KOLs – especially top tier ones – is a controlling client. For example, in some cases, companies will send press releases and photos to KOLs and expect them to post them directly on their social media channels.

“Why would you engage a KOL to copy paste your press release?” said Ms. Leitzes during her talk. “There are certain KOLs who do want to copy paste. […] and you should run for the hills.”

Some companies see KOLs as a traditional advertising channel, such as a banner space on a website, says Ms. Leitzes. However, KOLs are valuable not only because of their visibility and access to social media channels, but their unique personality. In particular, KOLs can have a very niche, but powerful following. This differentiates them from traditional celebrities, such as movie stars and pop singers, who might appeal across a number of different verticals and demographics simply because they’re famous, not because of the content they post.

It’s that authenticity and quirkiness that give KOLs an edge over traditional advertising. By stripping KOLs of their voice and style, brands lose many of the benefits of hiring a KOL in the first place.

2. An effective KOL strategy leverages the halo effect.

On social media, brands need to create the impression that something is a social norm, says Ms. Leitzes. “Three, four people are talking about it [or] maybe no one is talking about it,” she says. “That’s what you need to do with KOLs. […] You need to create your own echo chamber.”

To do that, companies need to hire multiple KOLs for one vertical per campaign. Isolating KOLs across different verticals or hiring just a few can drastically limit the success of a campaign. In addition, KOL campaigns are even more powerful if companies have the budget to hire several top-tier KOLs as they typically influence other KOLs that are lower on the totem pole.

“If you don’t have a lot of brand equity and trust, why would a mid-level or mid-tier KOL vouch for you?” Ms. Leitzes told TechNode. “If they see a top-tier KOL […] validate your brand, give it social proof, give it the cachet, the rest are much more comfortable doing it.”

3. Develop long term relationships with KOLs – don’t obsess over short-term KPIs.

At the end of the day, using KOLs to market products or promote brand awareness is content marketing. That means consistency is key.

“The people who really benefit from KOLs do it every month,” says Ms. Leitzes. They’re always managing that mix – the tried and true and the new ones.”

It also means that calculating the value of a KOL from engagement KPIs alone, such as clicks and pageviews, is not a good way to assess their influence. In particular, analytics on different Chinese social media platforms, namely WeChat, are disparate. Until detailed analytics from different platforms can be pooled together and analyzed in aggregate, tracking the effectiveness of KOL campaigns will remain a challenge, says Ms. Leitzes. In addition, depending on the industry, there can be a significant lag between marketing campaigns and their ultimate effect.

“It’s much better now,” says Ms. Leitzes. “But it used to take thirty days from the point where someone first saw a product they liked on an overseas e-commerce site, and then they had to do all this research [and] go on this enormous sixteen point journey, researching on Baidu, on social, on Taobao, before they finally made a purchase.”

“So if I’m looking at sales conversion, do I just look at seven days?” she says. “Not if you’re doing cross border.”

It can be easy for companies, especially digital agencies, to obsess over short-term engagement KPIs, such as clicks and shares. However, it’s important to remember that KOLs are people, says Ms. Leitzes. In the long run, companies will reap much more by focusing on cultivating brand advocates rather than short campaigns with the right numbers.

Image credit: Instagram/anny_styleontop

This article is part of Technode’s coverage of CHat Shanghai, where TechNode was a media partner.