Chinese Social Media in Influencers’ era

10 
 
Chapter 1. 
 
Definition of Social Media 
Social media are nowadays part of daily life. 
There are a lot of definitions of social media, but one the most accredited is: 
“Social media is a group of Internet- based applications that build on the ideological 
and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange 
of user generated content”
1
. 
As Mayfeld indicates in his ebook, “What is social media?”
2
, social media is a 
group of new kind of online contents which share some characteristics like: 
participation because everyone is free to express his opinion through it; openness: 
everyone can comment, share information, there are no barriers; conversation 
because social media are seen as a two-way conversation; community because social 
media increase the creation of communities in which people share mutual interests 
and ideas. Connectedness because of the use of links to other resources and sites. He 
also indicates that there are six categories of social media: social networks, sites in 
which people are able to communicate, connect with friends and share contents; 
blogs - websites, with the form of online journals, but written in a friendly style; 
wikis, informational websites in which users can add their knowledge or edit the 
contents in them; podcasts, recorded digital audio which can be downloaded on 
personal devices; forums, online spaces in which netizens share their opinions about 
specific subjects; content communities, online platforms of multimedia content. One 
of the most popular is YouTube in which users share videos. The sixth one is 
microblog, which is a type of social network (blog) about the posting of very small 
digital contents (which, actually, is the main difference from a common blog). 
Then, Kietzmann in “Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional 
building block of social media”
3
 illustrates the seven “functional blocks” of social 
media, which are: identity, because people in social media insert their own identities 
by declaring personal information such as name, age, city in which they live, profile 
1 
Andreas M. Kaplan; Michael Haenlein “Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of 
social media”. Business horizons, v.53, n. 1, 2010, pp. 59-68. ESCP Europe, 79 Avenue de la 
Re´publique, F-75011 Paris, France 
2 
Antony Mayfeld, “What is social media?” iCrossing, 2008 
3 
Jan Kietzmann; Kristoffer Hermkens; P. Ian McCarthy; Bruno S. Silvestre, “Social media? Get serious! 
Understanding the functional building blocks of social media”. Business horizons, v.54, n.3, pp. 241-251 
Segal Graduate School of Business, Simon Fraser University, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC V6C 
1W6, Canada
11 
 
picture; conversations is the second functional block and it refers to the feature of 
social media in which users communicate and talk to each other exchanging point of 
views about any field of interest and sometimes they also convey through social 
media important socio-political messages and conduct their battles on them. Sharing 
refers to the aspect of exchanges, which is a central point on social media: pictures, 
posts, links, the principal scope is the distribution and reception of contents. 
Presence is the mutual possibility among users  to know if they are reachable in  
both virtual and real world. In virtual world this is possible through the status 
(available, online) or by checking the last time in which users were connected. The 
presence in real world is sharable with the localization of the geographical position. 
Relationship refers to the possibility of the users to be connected by exchanging 
some information or just for being friends in virtual or real world. Reputation  
allows users within social media context to recognize their own status or others. 
Reputation is not only a matter related to people, but also to their contents, in fact in 
some social media this feature is represented through likeability expressed by the 
others. The last functional block Kietzmann points out, is the concept of groups, 
which is one of the main aspect of social media because its basic principle is the 
creation of communities. 
 
1.1 Social media around the world 
1.1.1 Facebook 
Facebook has been one of the first social media, and the first that actually took 
root in people’s life. It was created in 2004 in Cambridge, Massachusetts by 
Mark Zuckerberg, along with others students and roommates and it is considered 
one of the Big Four technology companies, along with Amazon, Apple and 
Google.
4
 At the beginning, Facebook was only available for Harvard students 
and then for other famous universities students. Starting from 2006, it was, then, 
opened to anyone who wanted to create a personal account. Users share photos, 
text, information, links with the other users who are called “friends”, that have  
to accept in advance the request of “friendship”. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4 
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. October 19
th
 2019. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
12 
 
1.1.2 Twitter 
Twitter is a social network and microblogging system which is based on posting 
“tweets” 
5
 , public short messages that “followers” can repost and share 
(“retweet”). These tweets can’t exceed 280 characters of length for all languages, 
except Chinese, Japanese and Korean. This social network was created in 2006 
by Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Then engineer Jack Dorsey 
affiliated with them and the complete version of Twitter was launched in 2007 at 
the South by Southwest music conference, in Austin, Texas. It rapidly gained a 
huge popularity, in 2016 during US presidential election Twitter was the biggest 
resource of daily breaking news and in 2018 it reached more than 321
6
 million 
monthly active users. 
1.1.3 WhatsApp 
WhatsApp is a public-domain software, freely online distributed, multi-platform 
messaging and voice over IP service. It’s one of the most popular instant 
messaging app and it was firstly designed by Brian Acton and Jon Koum in 
2009. In 2014
7
 WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for US$19
8
 billion, the 
largest acquisition at that time. WhatsApp has 1.5 billion users from 180 
countries 
9
 and this makes it the most used and famous instant messaging app all 
over the world with one billion active users per day. Since January 2018 it was 
launched WhatsApp Business, a feature created for business activities of small 
and medium entity to facilitate communication with clients. This launch had a 
great success and gave to the app even wider range of use 
1.1.4 Instagram 
The word “Instagram” comes from the combination of other two words: instant 
camera and telegram. The main purpose of this social, since its beginning, was 
to post pictures and share them with other pictures lovers and sometimes to 
convey a message, that’s why hashtags 
10
 were also created. Instagram was 
launched in 2010 by its founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, while they 
were working on something different, on a check-in app written in HTML5, but 
 
5 
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. October 19
th
 2019. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter 
6 
Ibidem 
7 
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. October 19
th
 2019. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp
 
8 
Annelise Schoups. “Why is WhatsApp called WhatsApp?”. Rewind&Capture. July 28
th
 2015. 
https://www.rewindandcapture.com/why-is-whatsapp-called-whatsapp/ 
9 
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/02/whatsapp-facts-stats.html 
10 
Hashtag is the reference that can be posted together with a picture to explain it better and to categorize 
it.
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then they decided to focus only on the feature of sharing photos
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. The app had a 
great success at once, after only two months it already had one million of users. 
Since its launch, there have been a lot of changes, as the possibility to post short 
videos and the introduction of the “stories”, videos or photos that only last 24 
hours on the user profile, unless he/she decides to save them permanently. In 
2012 it was purchased for $1 billion
12
 dollars by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder 
of Facebook. 
1.2 Social media in mainland China 
The above mentioned social media platforms are very popular and famous in the 
occidental regions and in many Asian countries, but all of them in mainland China 
are actually blocked and censored by the government which control them through 
the use of the “Great Firewall”, the virtual barrier that separates Chinese internet 
from internet of the rest of the world. Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, 
Whatsapp, Youtube mostly don’t exist for average Chinese citizens, but this is not 
perceived as a big absence by them because Chinese internet has its own parallel 
system and its own networks and social media. Indeed, China can boast the most 
active habitat for social media in the entire world and the numbers speak for 
themselves. 91% 
13
 of Chinese online population, in fact, has a social media 
account, compared to “only” 67% of people in the US. 
So, Chinese social media deserve to be presented separately. 
1.2.1 QQ 
QQ is an instant messaging software service that was launched in China in 
February 1999 by Tencent Holdings Limited, a company that was born in 1998, 
founded by a Chinese entrepreneur, Ma Huateng. Its first name was OICQ, 
which stands for “Oh, I seek you”, it was then modified because it sounded 
similar to another instant messaging service name, “ICQ”, that could have sued 
Tencent Holdings Limited for plagiarism. In April 1999, few months after its 
launch, the app already counted 200 millions of users and it took over the other 
very popular social media in China, Qzone. 
 
 
 
11 
Eudaimonia. “How Instagram started?” January 26
th
 2017. 
https://medium.com/@obtaineudaimonia/how-instagram-started-8b907b98a767 
12 
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. October 19
th
 2019. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram 
13 
Xinyuan Wang. “Social media in Industrial China”. cap 2 “The social media landscape in China” 
pp.25-56, UCL Press. (2016) https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g69xtj.7
14 
 
QQ can be considered the biggest Chinese social media platform in terms of 
number of users. It must be said that, contrary to popular belief, QQ is not a 
Chinese version of Facebook for many reasons, first of all because it was 
launched five years before. QQ is unique and different from other social media 
platforms in several respects. Five aspects can be pointed out as the main 
features   of   QQ: 1)  anonymousness; 2) high media confluence; 3) high 
individualization; 4) visual richness; 5) hierarchic structure. Speaking of point 
one, anonymousness, real names are hardly ever used for QQ names, a QQ 
account user name is often a nickname that users choose (QQ ming) after the 
system automatically generates the “QQ number” (QQ hao). QQ number is 
always used for exchanging QQ information with people because it remains the 
same, while the QQ name is often changed by users according to a specific 
period or situation, since the QQ contact name can be also a short sentence. 
Young people are the category of users that changes QQ name most frequently. 
The principal characteristic of the QQ avatar window is the list of all contacts, 
with other add-on features. Unlike Facebook, which does not pay attention on 
distinction of contacts, QQ let users split their contacts into categories, like: 
“Friends”, “Family” “Classmate”, “Work colleague”, “Strangers” and “Black 
list”, giving the possibility to rename them. 
Regarding point two, the high media confluence, QQ provides multiple digital 
services on its avatar window: group chat (QQ group), video call, social media 
(Qzone), microblog (Tencent Weibo), email, online games, online music and 
online shopping (QQ shop). Because of this large provision of digital services, 
for most of Chinese people, QQ represents their first move into digital life: the 
first email is QQ email, first social media network used is Qzone, QQ music the 
first online music program and QQ games first online games. 
Point three refers to the high personalization and customization of QQ profile 
with background music, pictures and ornamental elements from Qzone, like 
online clothes and accessories to dress virtual avatars as users prefer. So, each 
QQ profile tends to be unique and different to all other. This characteristic of 
customization of digital spaces is very common all over the Asia-Pacific region 
and this gives a much higher sense of humanized relationship between users and 
their online profiles. Another difference between QQ and Facebook lies on this 
regard. For example, the check-in feature on QQ (qian diao) alludes to checking
15 
 
into the online space of QQ, in contrast to Facebook check-in which refers to the 
check-in in actual, real places users are at that certain moment and they want to 
share with virtual friends. 
High customization and visual richness are strongly connected. Chinese online 
designs are much more colorful and sophisticated, than Western ones that are 
characterized by simplicity. Chinese way of thinking is “more is better”, 
abundance is a lucky sign of prosperity and this reflects also on digital contents 
that have to be a “feast for the eye”. 
Last QQ characteristic is its hierarchical structure, which is related to the feature 
launched by the app in 2004, the QQ level system built on users’ active presence 
on the social: the longer the user is logged in, the higher level can obtain. So, the 
higher the level is, the more privileges user has on the platform, such as the 
possibility to create a QQ group and the access to more digital ornamental 
material. 
 
1.2.2 Sina Weibo 新浪 微薄 
Sina Weibo is one of the main Chinese social media. Its name derives from 新浪
微薄 Xinlang Weibo 
14
 , which means Chinese microblogging website. It 
shouldn’t be mistaken with the other Weibo platforms, such as Tencent Weibo 
or Sohu Weibo, commonly when someone says “Weibo”, in the majority of 
cases, is referring to Sina Weibo
15
. It was officially launched in August 14
th
 
2009
16
 by Sina corporation and its features can be considered as a mixture of 
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, since it provides written contents, photos, 
videos and short video contents, all together. It must be said that, some 
multimedia content on Weibo, were already available to Chinese users more 
than 18 months
17
 before Twitter in the US and that Sina Weibo provides much 
more features than Twitter, for example “Weibo Wallet”function, through which 
 
14 
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. November 1
st
 2019. https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sina_Weibo 
15 
Xinyuan Wang. “Social media in Industrial China”. cap 2 “The social media landscape in China” 
pp.25-56, UCL Press. (2016) https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g69xtj.7 
 
16 
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. November 1
st
 2019. https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sina_Weibo 
 
17 
Xinyuan Wang. “Social media in Industrial China”. cap 2 “The social media landscape in China” 
pp.25-56, UCL Press. (2016) https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g69xtj.7
16  
users can make online payments directly through the app. It is also a great 
resource in business and for marketers that want to boost sales through social 
media marketing strategy, since Weibo provides promotional campaigns. For all 
these reasons it cannot be compared to Twitter. 
Sina Weibo profile shows user’s name (in most cases nickname), a brief 
description of the user and number of followers and followees he/she has 
18
. 
There are three different category of user accounts in Sina Weibo: common user 
accounts, verified user accounts that are given an orange “V” badge for 
celebrities and a blue “V” badge for organizations and companies, which is 
useful to distinguish them from ordinary users and, it will also help to gain trust 
and reputation among followers. Last category entails the expert star user 
accounts, which is a paid VIP membership, launched in 2012 
19
, that allows 
users to enlarge their functionalities on the platform. Vip membership has 7 
steps, from VIP 1 to VIP 7: in order to upgrade their level, they have to gain 
“growth value”. 
Beside the use of social media in which to share entertaining contents, Sina 
Weibo, also became one of the main sources of information for Chinese young 
people, as many newspapers and journalists set their official accounts releasing 
latest news and current affairs. 
Its main features
20
 are: uploading text or multimedia content to share with other 
users, users can hold live streaming sessions or upload “Weibo stories”, daily 
life frames (pictures, videos or texts) of 15 seconds each that disappear within 
24 hours after sharing, similar “Instagram stories” feature. Users can post 
comments, likes, repost, share and chat and if they are particularly interested in a 
user’s account, they can click the button that keep them updated of any Weibo 
activity of that user or they can join group chats to discuss about topics they are 
interested in. Users can interact using fun emojis, stickers, GIFs, that enhance 
user’s experience and commitment. Another interesting feature is the one called 
 
18 
Asur, Sitaram, Huberman B.A and Louis Lei Yu. “Dynamics of Trends and Attention in Chinese Social 
Media”. SSRN Electronic Journal. December 2013 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259105833 
 
19 
Vanessa Wan. The ultimate guide to Sina Weibo: the largest Micro-Blogging platform in China. 
Dragon Social. April 2019. https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/chinese-social-media-weibo-and-twitter- 
comparison/ 
 
20 
Ibidem
17 
 
“hot topic”, it is very much used among celebrities to generate reactions from 
their followers and engage them in discussions about any kind of topic. Unlike a 
hashtag, “Super Topic” has its own page with moderators and can provide more 
reliable information. Super topic feature entails other features, such as “essential 
content” and “hall of fame”, these are selected by moderators, in order to show 
comments in order of relevance. There is a Weibo section, named “Hot”, in 
which the customized algorithm shows users contents in order of their 
preferences, according to the most searched issues by them. Beside “Hot”, we 
can find “Nearby”, “Ranking List” and “Food”. The “Discover” function is a 
search engine in which users can insert key words to find the content they are 
looking for and usually it is split into “Entertainment”, “News” and “Sports” 
section. From trending research and hot topics, Weibo draws a list of 50 trending 
topics most discussed by users, so that people can always be updated on the 
latest news about the issues they care most. 
One the most iconic feature, that differentiate Weibo from Western social media, 
is the game center Game.Weibo.com, that provides online games for users. This 
attracts people to remain logged in the app for hours. Another basic feature is 
Weibo Fit, which records health and sports data. 
Thanks to all these features, Weibo have built a lively social community that 
engages 431(by 2018)
21
 million monthly active users only and 93%
22
 of them 
access it via mobile devices, while Twitter “only” has reached 270 million 
monthly active users worldwide by January 2019
23
. Other interesting data about 
Weibo are: more than 80% of monthly active users are below the age of 30
24
, 
56.3% of users are male, while 43.7% are female. 
Under the commercial aspect, Weibo can be very well exploited by brands and 
companies, due to many features available on the platform. Thanks to the figure 
of key opinion leaders (KOLs) that is going to be deeply illustrated in chapter 3, 
better known in Western world as “influencers”, companies that want to 
21 
Ashley Galina Dudarenok, Lauren Hallanan “Digital China: Working with Bloggers, Influencers and 
KOLs” chapter 3, p. 39 Alarice International Limited, 3
rd
 November 2018 
22
Ibidem 
23 
Vanessa Wan. The ultimate guide to Sina Weibo: the largest Micro-Blogging platform in China. 
Dragon Social. April 2019. https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/chinese-social-media-weibo-and-twitter- 
comparison/ 
 
24 
Ashley Galina Dudarenok, Lauren Hallanan “Digital China: Working with Bloggers, Influencers and 
KOLs” chapter 3, p. 39 Alarice International Limited, 3
rd
 November 2018
18 
 
promote their products/services can make use of many formats. The support of a 
KOL is not an option, but it’s a must for a successful promotion on Weibo. First 
tool, used by brands on Weibo, can be sponsored posts: they work as same as 
traditional media ads, with the difference that the content is handled by the KOL, 
that with his/her expertise will know how to build and create it. Product reviews 
are another strategy for promoting sales on Weibo and works perfectly if the 
KOL is specialized in the field of the brand. Campaign launches are usually 
under the format of giveaway campaigns: brands, through KOLs’ Weibo profile, 
set up contest involving users to follow the account, forward a designated post 
and/or tag friends in order to have a chance to win the gifts offered in the 
giveaway. In this way the brand can enlarge his audience and reputation. Social 
selling is another strategy that is getting popular on Weibo: KOLs provide their 
followers a link trough which buy products and they get paid on the basis of how 
many clicks the link have generated. Live streaming is one of the newest feature 
for brands promoting on Weibo and it’s already getting a huge success. It entails 
KOLs’ live streaming, during which they release links for viewers to purchase 
items or get a discount. 
When speaking about ads and KOL promotion on Weibo, the four major 
options
25
 are: display ads, Weibo search engine promotion, fan headlines and  
fan tunnel. Display ads are random ads that appear in users’ search engines or on 
the side of users’ news feeds. These are usually used for promoting events, sales 
or campaigns. 
Weibo search promotion puts brands or companies pages’, that want to promote 
their business, at the top of the list for specific keywords. This is a great way to 
enhance visibility and attract followers. 
Fan headlines or fanstop is used on Weibo to enhance engagement with 
followers that are following brands’ accounts. A promotional post, which looks 
the same as others, with the only difference that contains a sponsored tag, stays 
on top of users’ news feed. 
Fan tunnel are useful to target audience and to increase followers. The audience 
can be targeted by: age, gender, region, interests and device types. 
 
 
 
 
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Ibidem