Article originally published on
https://theconversation.com/the-dark-side-of-social-media-influencing-181553

More than half of the world’s population is on social media daily. With 4.48 billion active users worldwide, social media has become the norm. Terms like followers and influencers that used to be associated with religious groups, are now the norm amongst social media users. No wonder, many “devoted” users feel disconnected or lost when they go offline. This is when social media’s influence becomes problematic.

There are fundamental reasons why social media could become an issue. This platform is designed to dazzle users and keep them engaged in exchange for their time and participation. This industry is projected to earn US$13.8 billion in the form of ads and in-stream purchases. Livestreams, reels, and polls are key features where users spend most of their time while influencers are motivated to create content that will make followers feel a sense of belonging and connected. Alas, there are plenty of content and so little time!

Parasocial Relationship vs. Sense of Belonging

When followers become “attached and obsessed with influencers” followers often elicit behavioral shifts that could be harmful to themselves, the people around them, and sometimes even to influencers. Such attachments can be categorized as “parasocial relationship” and “sense of belonging.” According to research, “parasocial relationship is followers’ perception of their one-sided relationship with an influencer, and sense of belonging is the feeling of being an integral member of the influencer’s community.” Problematic social media engagement is often a result of developing both attachments.

Therefore, followers must consciously manage their level of participation. Setting daily time limits, turning off notifications or simply “disconnect” are some ways to prevent deep attachments. Influencers may also help prevent unhealthy engagements by openly talking about the issue and reminding the users of their well-being beyond screen time.

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Nowadays, social media translation is a must for successful cross-cultural marketing campaigns. It has become a valuable asset to international business’ growth, as it helps you establish an authoritative online presence.

Well-researched and localized social media content will strengthen a brand’s identity and image on a global scale while preserving its uniqueness in each market.

Importance of Social Media Translation

At first sight, it may be hard to understand or recognize the importance of social media translation. With more than half of the world using social media, it makes sense that translation is a crucial step to take while expanding your business.

First and foremost, what is social media translation? To put it simply, social media translation involves translating and localizing some or all of your social media materials to appeal to your target audience, in a specific locale, in a meaningful way. This can include the adaptation of linguistic elements, such as metaphors, idioms, or puns.

Social media translation can make or break your relationship with your audience. It always requires a deep understanding of the target audience’s nuances, wordplay, and cultural references. To deliver your message successfully, it’s not always just translating the content, but localizing and transcreating the content so that it reads as native to your audience. It’s creating a feeling or emotional connection when your target audience reads your message.

Translation vs. Transcreation

Transcreation is more than just a literal translation, it’s a way of adapting content in tone and style to resonate more closely with the culture of the target market.

Different audiences might not find a play on words funny, and it could be considered rude; so if your target audience’s culture is significantly different from the source’s culture, transcreation would be the best approach.

Social Media Platform

It’s common to hear about the widespread use of Facebook, but it’s not as widespread as you might think. For starters, the platform is not allowed in China, and in Russia, most people use an alternative version called VK. That could mean you’re missing out on two major markets by not choosing a platform wisely. So doing your research and becoming familiar with the different platforms available in the markets you want to target, can help your business get off to a strong start. Many countries have their own social networks: Germany has a well-known platform like LinkedIn called Xing and in France, the equivalent one is Viadeo.

Social Media Language and Tone

Social media is all about being genuine to your target audience. To make sure your social media posts come across accurately and with the right tone, you’ll need to use a professional translation service. This will help ensure that your communications with customers are natural and reflect your brand’s voice.

Social Media Materials —Think Global, Act Local

When creating your marketing materials, be sure to stay consistent with your message so that your audience doesn’t get confused. Many organizations faced communication failure in a particular region, and the reason is often due to a lack of consistent terminology across all platforms.

Terminology (and its translation) needs to be consistent across your website, brochures, user guides, presentations, videos, and social media. Your translation agency should carefully craft your marketing message to ensure it is understood the way you intend to attract customers, sell products and educate users, your brand materials should be accessible in your customer’s local language.

Conclusion

Marketing and translation go hand in hand. Therefore, an internationalization strategy requires a creative translation approach, especially for your brand’s social media content. Be sure to stay authentic, culturally correct, and consistent across your communication channels. To deliver your message successfully, it’s not always just translating the content, but localizing and transcreating the content so that it reads as native to your audience.

Globalization Partners International has a team of multilingual social media professionals that can help achieve your social media marketing goals.

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It is well-known that the gateway to the Chinese market is different than in other parts of the world. Therefore, any business that plans to expand its presence in the Chinese market will need to consider a different approach in terms of translations for SEO, digital marketing, and social media, to adapt to the fast-paced Chinese digital world. As an example of the differences, Chinese internet users use Baidu instead of Google as their main search engine, so an SEO optimization approach for Google may not apply to Baidu. In this blog, we will explore the approaches for Chinese SEO and Social Media localization.

SEO: Translation or Localization?

Translation can be considered a part of the localization process, where the source texts (the language content is originally authored) are translated directly into the target language. The translations should be consistent and in line with the source content. Localization goes a step further in conveying the message in the target language, it also takes into consideration the cultural differences, background, and contextual components to present the product or service in the local (target) market. 

If the content you are translating does not have cultural references or has limited marketing usage, then the translation should be sufficient. However, if you are aiming to adapt your product or services for the local market, then localization should be utilized. Even between different English-speaking countries, localization is necessary to appeal to the target audience. As an example, a British shoe brand marketing in the US would want to use American measurement metrics in order not to confuse the US market and customers. 

Chinese SEO Localization 

When it comes to SEO strategies, one should without a doubt employ localization instead of translation. As mentioned above, businesses should consider methodologies for the Chinese search engine Baidu instead of Google, achieve the maximum desired results. 

An important factor to consider is the selection of key terms. Due to cultural differences and user habits, Chinese internet users may use very different key terminologies in their daily searches of a product or services than an English user for example. Consequently, you will need to carefully research and decide on the key terms to be used for your products/services in the Chinese market. One of the initial steps of your Chinese SEO strategy will be to research Chinese keywords. This step will help identify the most optimized terms before localization and will ensure they carry the key messages to your target market. An experienced translation/localization partner that has insights into the Chinese market or specializes in Chinese SEO localization can help you realize your Chinese SEO goals. 

Chinese Social Media Localization

Social Media is another popular and important way to promote your brand, products, or services. This applies to the Chinese market too. However, unlike Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which dominate the western world for social media marketing, Chinese internet users use completely different social media platforms. 

Here are the popular Chinese Social Media platforms:

• WeChat
• Weibo 
• Xiaohongshu 
• Zhihu
• Douyin
• Bilibili

WeChat is one of the most popular apps as it combines multiple daily functions such as messaging, social media, payment, etc., in one app. Weibo literally translates ‘to microblog’, where people can share updates to their contacts as well as interact with others who follow them on Weibo. Xiaohongshu is a social-ecommerce platform that integrates user-generated content sharing and ecommerce. 

An important step will be thorough research and analysis of the market for your brand, product, services, and your competitors. Understand and learn from local brands and competitors on their way of communicating with Chinese internet users and customers. 

Finding the right social media platform is an important step for your Chinese social media localization strategy. It will depend on your line of business, and you will need to define your goals, target audiences, etc. For example, if you are a cosmetic brand targeting female users in their 20s to 30s, you might want to focus on growing your exposure on Xiaohongshu, and if you are providing local community services, you might consider WeChat. With different goals or during different stages of your branding, a specific or multiple social media platforms can be utilized to achieve the desired results. 

In summary, the sophistication of the Chinese internet and market requires businesses to develop smart and tailored SEO and Social Media localization strategies, to enable them to communicate with Chinese customers and internet users. With over 20 years in the industry and expertise in the Chinese market and global SEO localization, GPI can be your trusted partner to localize your content and convey the right messages to the internet-savvy Chinese audience.

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Introduction

Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) has been described as the “Chinese Instagram.” It is a social media platform that brings together e-commerce, user-generated content (UGC), and product reviews. The platform focuses on attractive photos, text, and short videos tailored towards lifestyle trends and products. There are over 300 million registered users in this “lifestyle community platform.” In 2019, the company was valued at $3 billion USD after a round of investing that included $300M from the Alibaba Group.

Who Uses Xiaohongshu?

Xiaohongshu is one of the preferred marketplaces of Chinese young people. According to the user portrait analysis index of Xiaohongshu provided by iResearch, the age of its users is mainly distributed among people born in 1985-1990, of which 24-35 years old account for nearly 60%. The platform also skews towards female users, accounting for nearly 90% of its user base. With more than 50% of consumers living in tier-one cities, Xiaohongshu users tend to be among the affluent consumers in Chinese society, which leads to its primary topics like fashion, cosmetics, and travel.

How to Grow Your Business in Xiaohongshu

1. Celebrity Recommendation to Drive Traffic and Promote Products in the Whole Network

Xiaohongshu has become popular because of its celebrity users. Like Tiktok, it relies on celebrities to redirect their traffic to the platform, so celebrity recommendations are a major feature of Xiaohongshu. At the same time, the recommended products are easily given the label with the star’s exclusive recommendation, and many fans and users will pay for them without much thought. Moreover, celebrities tend to recommend their personal favorite items, making them more relatable to their fans and strengthens the recommended products’ reliability. The products are usually recommended by celebrities in the form of pictures, texts, and videos, which also increases the user’s trust in the products. These recommendations then convert users into ‘direct purchasing power’ every business-for-consumer model craves for.

2. Use KOL (Key Opinion Leader) to Increase Brand Exposure

Unlike other e-commerce platforms, Xiaohongshu has established a content-sharing community based on UGC (user-generated content). Among them, KOLs have a large amount of fan traffic and lasting fan attention, so they have a strong influence in Xiaohongshu. Brands can take advantage of Xiaohongshu’s KOLs to embed the brand’s product image in their fans’ mind. Brands can also gain considerable popularity and search volume from the Xiaohongshu platform and thus increase exposure and conversion rates for the brand itself.

3. Use KOCs (Key Opinion Consumers) to “grow grass”: guide consumption and trigger users to quickly place orders

KOCs in Xiaohongshu means Key Opinion Consumers. “Grow grass” here means to recommend their favorite products to others. With the development of Xiaohongshu, the focus of the audience is becoming more and more subdivided, and more people are keen on KOC-guided consumption. This includes sharing their own comments and preferences in Xiaohongshu and building trust among consumers by recommending useful and reliable products. In this biosystem, brands promote their products through KOCs and KOLs, and audiences communicate with each other in the Xiaohongshu community through comments and private messages, which establishes a networked social relationship and triggers a wide-ranging Internet celebrity economy.

4. Xiaohongshu Viral Marketing: To Strengthen Brand Impression

Research shows that 81% of consumers will be influenced when they are making purchasing decisions because of frequently appearing content. Therefore, if you want your brand to be quickly exposed on Xiaohongshu, the key point is to cooperate with KOLs to create a “phenomenal refreshment” for the brand with high-quality content. Firstly, to initiate topics through big data analysis, target group portraits, and peer-competitor keyword data.

Then, to invite several KOLs to publish “grass notes” (recommendation notes) and attract more KOCs to participate, which forms a unique UGC atmosphere. At the same time, let KOLs and KOCs interact with their fans, and it will expand the influence of topics to a greater extent. Then the topics will be pushed to the top according to the content recommendation mechanism of the Xiaohongshu platform. Finally, the brand product purchase link will be embedded into KOL’s “grass notes” to further improve the purchase rate.

Conclusion

Xiaohongshu has become one of the fastest-growing e-commerce platforms in China with its popularity amongst young and rich Chinese consumers. To grow your business in Xiaohongshu, you will need to understand the mechanism of this platform, apply promoting strategies by using the influence of KOLs and KOCs, and strengthen your brand impression with consumers. In addition, keeping up with trending topics and new regulations is also important.

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