We are thrilled to announce NDN Group’s latest partnership with GELOS to introduce Douyin (抖音) TikTok marketing to Hong Kong. It is a short video app that has 500 million monthly active users and 250 million daily active users. Brands big or small are scaling fast and producing fun engaging content on their platform.

You are probably wondering what is the difference between Douyin and TikTok? In 2017, the apps’ parent company ByteDance brought TikTok’s competitor Musical.ly, merged the two together and became the app we know today. TikTok is the overseas name Douyin uses. ByteDance also owns Jinri Toutiao (今日頭條).

With the sophistication of the Internet environment in Mainland China, where businesses are fully immersed into the online to offline model, it makes perfect sense that Douyin is more e-commerce-focused and brands use it as a sales funnel. On the contrary, TikTok is more entertainment-focused, at least for now. It has plans to be more.

This short video app is gaining momentum globally because it fulfills people’s need for instant gratification in today’s fast-paced world. KOL or influencers who became popular on their platform are producing captivating content and bringing high conversion rate to brands.

Look at popular beauty KOL Austin Li (李佳琦). He is known for his record of selling out thousands of lipsticks in an instance his personal best was 14,000 pieces in a minute. The novel idea of a man reviewing lipstick color live and his comedic ways of reviewing products is why fans love him and why mega beauty brands like Chanel, MAC, Shiseido and Tom Ford love to work with him. When Li says “Oh my god, buy it!” that particular color will sell out.

Well-known hot pot chain Haidilao was able to increase 1,000% ordering on a single dish because they created a live stream video on how to cook that specific meat for hot pot.

Austin Li and Haidilao are selling two very different category of products, yet they both enjoy a high conversion rate because of a strategic usage of Douyin TikTok. There are many more showcases where brands achieved exponential growth within a short period of time regardless of their product. The market is so optimistic, they believe that any product will perform well on the platform.

With ByteDance behind Douyin TikTok using powerful algorithms with machine learning, to aggregate and distribute content, your brand message will be optimized with precise targeting. So rest assured your marketing budget won’t go to waste.

Are you a local brand in Hong Kong with no payment gateway or setup in Mainland China, but keen to enter the market? We can assist and offer advice. Get in touch with us to discover more and learn about our trial package.

Advertising is more than how much money you spent; it’s about reaching out to the right audience at the right time. Earlier in March, McCafé owned by Mcdonald’s piloted coffee delivery service in Hong Kong, exclusively available on the McCafé App. We’ve helped our client to launch a large-scale advertising campaign on social media with geo-targeting, an advertising effort combining online and offline technology based on geographic location.

Case study

The campaign is divided into two phases, first to activate seamless touch points in specific areas in Hong Kong to identify our target audience. Three core business districts were targeted: Central, Causeway Bay, and Quarry Bay. Seamless touch points were placed at all the McCafé branches in the above locations, plus some of the nearby commercial buildings and competitor stores. Whenever someone carrying a mobile device passes by one of the touchpoints, anonymized data of that device will be captured instantly. In total, we’ve captured over 500,000 device ID to proceed to the next phase.

For the second phase, we pushed an offer “Buy 4 coffee, get 2 free” via Facebook to our target audience, i.e. the captured ID. In order to maximize click-through rates and ROI, we also conducted A/B testing to refine our creative designs and improve user experience. In addition, the customers are required to use the McCafé app to enjoy the offer, thereby promoting the app downloads. The mobile app has been listed on the “trending” searches on the App Store for at least 2 days.

More about geo-targeting

Geo-targeting offers a personalized customer experience, delivering ads, offers and shopping information to a large number of high-potential, relevant customers. The technology monetizes online social networks and offline location data to drive brand engagement and actual sales at the same time.

With the massive amount of customer data collected, geo-targeting also provides valuable insights for market research on shopping patterns, e.g. the best time to push an ad and the popularity of physical stores.

We’d love to hear your creative thoughts on how to make use of the location-based technology. Let’s get inspired together and see how our team can help to transform your business.

In order to maintain the integrity of content across its family of apps, Facebook has been adopting a strategy called “remove, reduce, and inform” since 2016. The strategy involves removing the content in violation of its policies, reducing the spread of problematic content that’s not in violation of its policies, and providing users with information so that they make informed choices when deciding what to click, read or share.

Remove

Facebook’s Community Standards page sets out what content is or is not permitted, and is designed to create a communication environment that embraces real-world safety, diversity, and equity.

Facebook has recently introduced a new section on this Community Standards page where users are regularly informed of the latest updates. A new feature named “Group Quality” has also been implemented to help admins of Facebook groups understand better how Facebook enforces its standards.

Reduce

While some types of content might not violate the Community Standards, they are not exactly popular among Facebook users, e.g. misinformation and clickbait. Utilizing technology and people in its fight against photo and video-based false news, Facebook has been gaining momentum enforcing against fake accounts and coordinated inauthentic behavior. Measures have been introduced to help users identify false news. Certified fact-checking partners are also used to assess content in 24 languages.

Going forward, Facebook is to continue consulting academics, fact-checking experts, journalists, and other organizations to find new ways to snuff out fake news stories. Groups found to have repeatedly shared false content will have their overall News Feed distribution reduced.

Inform

Features, e.g. the Context Button, have been launched to provide background information related to News Feed content to help users evaluate source credibility.

As part of its upcoming plan, Facebook is set to expand the Context Button to images as well. Existing features, e.g. the Page Quality tab, will be enhanced, and more features like the Trust Indicators will be added in order to provide clarity on a news organization’s ethics and standards.

Messenger

Facebook will be bringing its Verified Badge to Messenger, helping users avoid scammers. Messenger users will be given more control over who can reach them and whom to block. In a move to curb the spread of false news, Messenger will also have its own Context Button and Forward Indicator.

As scammers are constantly evolving their techniques, Facebook is determined to continuously step up its efforts in its war against misinformation.

You have a product that is sure to sweep customers in China off their feet. Your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have always helped you reach out to customers everywhere else in the world, but if you think you can pull the same tricks again, think again. The social media market in China is a completely different digital landscape. To start with, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are not available in the country. It is wise to equip yourself with the latest social media strategies in China before launching your product.

1. WeChat

WeChat is an all-in-one messaging app that is like a combination of Facebook, Whatsapp, Google News and more. Businesses can create accounts for promotions and implement CRM functionality. WeChat is so big in China that many businesses don’t even have traditional websites and choose to focus on maintaining their WeChat accounts only.

2. Sina Weibo

China’s answer to Twitter, Sina Weibo is a micro-blogging platform particularly popular among young white-collar workers and KOLs. Businesses can communicate directly with followers and can even sell their products through Weibo.

3. Tencent QQ

QQ is an instant messaging app particularly popular among the younger generation in 3rd and 4th tier cities. Businesses can pay to have marketing content created and published for them. QQ is great for businesses selling non-luxury products.

4. Youku Tudou

Dubbed Chinese Youtube, Youku offers an online viewing analytics tool, making it possible for businesses to identify audience by demographics, location, and other information. Paid advertisement is also available.

5. Baidu Tieba

Similar to Reddit, Baidu Tieba is a keyword-based discussion forum where discussions on any and every topic can be found. It makes a great social media marketing tool for new businesses.

6. Douban

Douban used to be a film and series rating platform like IMDB. As it scales, it has turned into an interest-oriented social networking platform expanding into paid learning content, podcast channel and more. Users use the platform for reviews, ratings and discussions, and for that very reason, it’s a great place for word-of-mouth marketing.

7. Zhihu

Quora-like question-and-answer site Zhihu often sees lengthy posts that cover very specific questions and has outstanding trust rankings on search engines. Businesses can raise brand awareness by answering questions and providing content on Zhihu.

8. Meituan-Dianping

Similar to Yelp, Meituan-Dianping provides a platform for users to share reviews of restaurants, except Meituan-Dianping reviews businesses like beauty salons, hotels, and gyms as well. Being the largest review service provider in China, Meituan-Dianping is an excellent channel to advertise and offer location-based promotions.

9. Momo

Seen as a clone of Tinder, Momo is the largest dating app in China that offers advanced targeting for its advertisers based on location, interest, demographics, etc.

10. Meitu

Meitu is an image-editing app and has recently announced its plan to become a social media platform as well. Currently, the new social media features are in beta and have been receiving encouraging responses. It is set to become a powerful advertising tool, especially for businesses with a focus on women.

Understand the social media tools available in China is crucial to building connections with your target customers. Our team based in Shanghai is ready to help if you need any advice for the mainland market. On a further note, some of our clients work closely with our Hong Kong team for China marketing service.

The latest WeChat Spring Festival data report claims their daily active users reached 1 billion, hitting its peak during Lunar New Year’s Eve. The legendary app began 8 years ago, transforming from a messaging app to the biggest all-in-one social and marketing platform in China.

Earlier in February, we’ve helped KURZ Group, a worldwide leader in hot stamping technologies from Germany, to launch a CNY engagement campaign via H5 pages – the most prevalent WeChat interactive platform for campaigns dedicated to branding, events or specific products.

Showcase

KURZ Group is not new to the Chinese Market nor WeChat; it owns an official page and an e-store on the social media platform to drive online sales. This year, our partner had their eyes on a seasonal campaign, with clear objectives on increasing exposure and engagement with fans during CNY.

Our team in Shanghai customized a red packet giveaway campaign, combining the traditions of giving red packets and the popular WeChat hongbao feature. The campaign boasted an impressive increase in engagement within 5 days.

A mobile shaking trigger was incorporated to add flavors to the game, meaning that a mobile shake was needed to open the red packet and receive the gift. To enter the giveaway, users were also required to fill in basic contact information for us, providing access to meaningful user data for sales leads.

H5 entertaining features

H5 is basically a marketing mobile webpage shared among friends on WeChat. Alongside interactive graphics and videos, H5 supports a wide range of designs and formats to appeal to your audience, e.g. animations, festive greetings and games. You may also incorporate external page links to an official webpage or shopping websites to drive organic traffic and boost sales.

Data tracking

H5 provides tracking of user activity and profile data via WeChat analytical tools, showing traffic sources and demographics of viewers like gender, language and the province they are located. It also includes performance indicators such as views, frequency of interactions over and change in the number of followers.

The aim of your H5 campaign design is to make the page shareworthy – get as creative and fun as possible. Whether you have questions on WeChat marketing or genius ideas on your next H5 campaign, we’re all ears and ready to help.

Have your colleagues been disappearing en masse a couple of times a day for 15 minutes each time? Don’t worry, they’re probably just playing trivia game — the online game app of the moment.

The Rise of Trivia Game

Trivia game is a live Q&A style game show app where you can win real cash prizes. The best part? You can play for free! It’s a rather simple game. During each of its 15-minute episode, each player is given 10 seconds to answer each question. If the player gets the answer right, they move along to the next question. If the player gets it wrong, they are out of the game. There are 12 questions in each episode. Players who get all 12 answers right get an equal share of the jackpot.

Launch of QQAA

QQAA is great to engage customers and build brand awareness. You can localize content easily by hiring emerging influencers or celebrities to host the episode, asking the latest questions in lifestyle, entertainment, music, or link to your products. All you have to do is make the questions interesting and fun. Players just need to login then they can start playing.

It is a win-win for both the player and sponsor. Player gets to play for free, while sponsor gets to promote their message subtly into the quizzes. A good way to engage customers and build awareness.

Trivia game shows great potential to replace TV. To start with, anyone can now be the star on a live quiz show. Imagine extending this to reality shows where you can be the judge or direct the camera to where you want it to be. TV will no longer be TV as we know it.

Whether you want to initiate a partnership with something cool or want to market your products and services through gaming experience, QQAA is an opportunity you don’t want to miss. Get in touch now for more details.