1. M AY 2 0 1 5 i n s i g h t 3 3
BY NATALIE LOWE
social media
Look BeforeYou Leap
Y
ou probably don’t need to hear it
again, but participating in social
media is becoming even more
critical to business success than
ever before. Increasingly, more and
more brands are using social media to talk to and
engage their customers, hoping to enhance
customer and brand loyalty.
No doubt, you have heard of WeChat. Even
though it’s only three years young, it’s already
gotten 600 million subscribers, of which roughly
460 million are active users, with 150 million
users located outside of China. To put things into
perspective, China has a population of 1.369
billion, so almost half of the Chinese population
is on WeChat.
In response to these trends, a lot of companies
are jumping on the WeChat Bandwagon without
fully understanding why.
First of all, too many brand marketers start
their channels without first putting together a
plan on how to make their brand thrive in today’s
digital landscape. To break it down, before brands
start looking at the executional piece, they need to
start with the overall picture by asking a few
simple yet fundamental questions:
• What are my business objectives and
communication goals and how can I leverage
A communications experts says the popular WeChat platform can
be a powerful tool for business but only with a thoughtful strategy
imaginechina
Natalie Lowe
College student Che Yanjiao, 22, left, makes 500,000 yuan ($80,453) a month selling masks on WeChat. She is seen here in
Chongqing among her supplies

2. 3 4 i n s i g h t M AY 2 0 1 5
communications (this includes all digital and
traditional communication channels) to help me
reach my business objectives?
• How will I measure success? Measurement is a
topic that generates a lot of discussion as there isn’t
a benchmark as to how campaigns are best
measured. The most common and easiest way for
most marketers to measure the success of any
campaign is to put forward quantitative results.
For example, number of fans, views per post and so
forth. But realistically, how do these numbers
translate into ROI (return on investments) for a
brand? It might be more valuable to measure
qualitative results such as engagement, brand
awareness, message comprehension, purchase
intention and so forth. Of course, the KPIs set for
your brand will depend on your overall business
and communication goals.
Secondly, many brand marketers continue to use
WeChat as another mechanism to broadcast news and
updates that are being published on digital platforms that
already exist. So if you were to follow a brand using their
corporate website and subscribe to their Weibo and
WeChat accounts, you could be receiving the same
information three times. As a customer, would you
feel like you’re getting value from the brand?
So, how can you make WeChat work for your
brand, and build a loyal fan base?
• Figure out if WeChat is for you – even though
WeChat is the latest craze, don’t just jump on
because everyone else has. As mentioned
above, do a deep exploration of your business
goals and how communications can help you
achieve those. Communications can be an
effective and strategic tool when the right level
of planning is done correctly.
• Understand your brand audience: Your brand
audience could be your most loyal customers,
influencers in the industry, media, target
customers or all of the above. Once you’ve
identified your brand audience, define their
demographics and consumer behavior: who
are they, how do they access and consume
information, what influences them to choose
your brand over competitors and who do they
listen to?
• Develop great content to build your fan base –
China Digital Landscape Snapshot
Source: We are social, January 2015
“A lot of brands
make the
mistake of using
social media
just to
broadcast
company
information…”

3. M AY 2 0 1 5 i n s i g h t 3 5
Content is more than just copy and visuals.
Expand your horizons to include multimedia,
videos, audio, infographics, animation and so
forth.
As a result of the ubiquity of information and
the accessibility of thousands of digital platforms
and sites, brands need to cut through the noise
and present content that is digestible and easy to
comprehend in a matter of seconds. WeChat is a
permission-based application, so in order to get a
strong following, you need to develop content that
is compelling and sticks in people’s minds,
encouraging them to share with their own
network and community. To put it simply: think
of WeChat as a connection platform that
facilitates a relationship. You want to grow and
build on it, define what type of relationship you
want, and what will enhance the loyalty of all
parties involved.
For example, PwC is committed to diversity

5. M AY 2 0 1 5 i n s i g h t 3 7
and inclusion, which are important pillars of
PWC’s corporate culture and strategic priorities
for the growth of the organization. “We
recognize the value that diversity brings to PwC
and we celebrate that richness in our work force
and clients,” said Connie Lau, PwC Diversity and
Inclusion Manager. “We believe diverse talent
and teams working together make better
decisions and deliver more robust outcomes.
Everyone wins.”
To reinforce that message, PwC, in support of
International Women’s Day, launched a two-
pronged approach to demonstrate their active
support of diversity to their brand audience,
which includes professional women, graduates
and university students. On March 5, 2015, as a
lead-up to International Women’s Day, PWC
launched their “The Female Millennial: A New
Era of Talent Thought Leadership” piece, which
was published globally. On March 8, 2015, PwC
produced a video message by Zhou Xing, PwC’s
China and Hong Kong Diversity Leader, that went
out on PwC’s WeChat and Weibo channels,
attracting more than 15,000 views and 400
forwards and favorites on WeChat and 27, 000
reads on Weibo. The same message was internally
circulated to employees to demonstrate the firm’s
appreciation for its people. (Note: PwC measures
the success of their posts based on 10 percent of
their overall fan base)
• Engage, not broadcast – A lot of brands make
the mistake of using social media just to
broadcast company information. Social media
is much more personalized than conventional
media platforms. The use of WeChat permits
brands to build stronger one-on-one
relationships with customers, which means
messages need to be personalized and appeal
to one’s emotions rather than shouting out
their own corporate mission statement.
“Traditionally, Chinese consumers have had a
transactional relationship with brands based on
products and offers,” said Charles Voon, General
Manager of Kongming, a social marketing and
e-commerce agency based in Shanghai.
“Emotion-based and service-based relationships
with consumers require you to acquire a deeper
understanding of your audience and to identify a
shared belief and value system from which to
build the relationship.”
Let’s take a look at how Kongming works with
Costa. Both are aligned in the sense that they
agree product content should not dominate the
content mix of their WeChat channels. Instead,
Kongming and Costa dug deeper into their
audience and learned that they are interested in
British lifestyle and coffee culture. Kongming also
continued to monitor what types of content
resonates most strongly with the audience and
uses this information to inform future content
planning.
“We also look at fun and engaging ways to
have the consumer help co-create with us and
share their stories,” said Voon. “Most recently, we
helped Costa launch a DIY stencil interactive
experience that allows consumers to create their
own latte art on WeChat.”
WeChat is becoming the preferred social
media network in China. However before
jumping on the bandwagon, brands need to
strategically build out their digital ecosystem and
assess whether WeChat will be a part of it, and
how to best leverage this channel to enhance
stronger one-to-one relationships with their
brand audience.
Lowe is Managing Director of COMM&D (pro-
nounced “command”), an independent branding
and communications agency based in Shanghai.
Lowe advises leading foreign and local brands
across B2B and B2C sectors. Lowe is also co-chair
of AmCham Shanghai’s Marketing & Media Com-
mittee.
COSTA