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The Best Social Platform Alternatives to WeChat for B2B Marketing in China

Coco Gao — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 06:03:15 +0000

The Best Social Platform Alternatives to WeChat for B2B Marketing in China

Most B2B marketers know of China’s behemoth user engagement potential across its social media space, but many are still unfamiliar with which local platforms to target besides WeChat.

And you can’t blame them—after all, WeChat is China’s most popular social app, with over 1.3 billion active users and all-in-one functionality making it a staple of daily life in the country. It’s no wonder why the app is such a critical promotion tool for Chinese brands across myriad industries.

However, the B2B marketing landscape in China is evolving rapidly.

According to a 2024 research report by Kawo, platforms once considered unfit for B2B are now gaining significant traction among B2B companies. Notably, Douyin has emerged as the third most used social network among surveyed multinational corporations, following only WeChat and WeChat Channels.

This shift reflects a fundamental change in B2B buying behavior. According to a report by B2B International, millennials are now well-embedded as decision-makers across companies, and even where they’re not primary decision-makers, firms regularly seek their input as users. This generation stands out for their preference for self-directed research during the early stages of the buying journey, relying heavily on easily accessible information for evaluation. For forward-thinking B2B brands, this presents a strategic opportunity: by building relationships with younger decision-makers early in their careers, they can shape the preferences of tomorrow’s senior buyers.

In response to these changing dynamics, alternative social platforms have emerged that befit—if not better suit—the needs, interests, and use cases of niche B2B audience segments. For brands looking to reach these users effectively, it’s essential to understand the features, target audiences, and content styles of these platforms to determine their suitability.

In this article, discover five alternative social platforms to WeChat that are worth including in your B2B marketing strategy to maximize reach in China:

XiaoHongShu (rednote, XHS, RED) – Where authenticity meets influence
Bilibili – The hub of in-depth content and youth culture
Douyin – Short-form video powerhouse
Zhihu – Authority building through knowledge sharing
Maimai – Professional networking reimagined

Here’s a sneak peek of companies that are already making use of these platforms.

1. Xiaohongshu (小红书)

XiaoHongShu (小红书), also known as “rednote”, “Little Red Book” and “RED”, is a social media and lifestyle-sharing platform that includes a wide range of consumer experiences and lifestyle content.

Often compared to Instagram, its user base primarily consists of well-educated individuals who prioritize product quality, healthy living, and sustainability. These users value individuality and self-expression, eagerly showcasing their unique lifestyle on the platform, with 20% comprising white-collar and blue-collar professionals.

Recognizing this sophisticated user demographic, an increasing number of B2B brands have established their presence on XHS.

Notable examples include Thermo Fisher Scientific (life sciences and clinical research), DingTalk (enterprise office systems) with over 800,000 followers, and Schneider Electric (digital automation and energy management).

XHS’s User Demographics

Why should you do B2B marketing on Xiaohongshu?

The growth of social media has transformed how brands reach and engage with their audiences, encouraging them to break away from traditional industry models and embrace new technologies.

As brands seek more authentic connections with users, XHS has emerged as an ideal platform for engaging with and building reputation in the Chinese market.

Here are more benefits of doing B2B marketing on Xiaohongshu:

Community Engagement: Xiaohongshu users interact frequently within interest-based communities, allowing B2B companies to build stronger connections with target customers through active participation in discussions and topic-driven interactions. This engagement naturally increases brand influence and recognition among key audience segments.
Smart Content Distribution: Xiaohongshu’s algorithm recommends relevant content to users based on their interests and behavioral habits. B2B businesses can maximize visibility among target customers by creating high-quality, relevant content optimized for the platform’s distribution system.
Organic Word-of-Mouth Growth: When B2B content resonates with users, it benefits from the platform’s natural sharing culture. Users actively spread valuable content within their networks, creating powerful word-of-mouth momentum that enhances brand reach and credibility.
Distinctive Brand Storytelling: XiaoHongShu encourages authentic brand expression, enabling B2B companies to showcase their unique story, culture, and innovations. This opportunity for differentiation helps brands stand out from competitors and capture target audience attention.

How to do B2B Marketing on Xiaohongshu?

Established brands can build their presence on XHS by creating and managing official brand accounts.

Unlike WeChat and official corporate websites, brand communication on XHS requires a distinct approach that differs from traditional channels. Content should be more engaging and authentic, featuring conversational copy with emojis, valuable insights, and visually appealing content that resonates with the XHS community

For brands new to the Chinese market, it’s helpful to start by collaborating with KOCs (Key Opinion Consumer)/KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) to generate more posts endorsing your brand locally. Additionally, participating in local offline events creates a dynamic engagement loop, encouraging users to interact with the brand across both digital and physical touchpoints.

Best practices for successful B2B marketing on Xiaohongshu include:

Developing original and engaging video or graphic content to showcase your industry expertise
Engaging in XHS hashtag topic campaigns to gain access to the platform’s recommendation algorithm on users’ discover pages.
Interacting with users through the official account by replying to comments, liking user-generated brand-related notes and offering valuable resources to the followers.
Ensuring content does not contain advertising or prohibited words that may limit content visibility.

Example:

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s XHS account launched an incentive hashtag campaign #我与赛默飞的故事 (#mystorieswithThermoFisher) that targeted their clients. The campaign aimed to build deeper relationships with clients while promoting brand reputation.

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s XHS Campaign: #我与赛默飞的故事 (#mystorieswithThermoFisher)

Share your work stories with Thermo Fisher Scientific and post on XHS to obtain a customized gift. Topics could include: 1. How Thermo Fisher Scientific impacted your experiment or work, 2. Extraordinary experiences with Thermo Fisher Scientific, 3. Unforgettable experiences working with Thermo Fisher Scientific

2. Bilibili (哔哩哔哩)

Bilibili is China’s premier youth culture and video platform, distinguished by its unique danmaku* culture and comprehensive content ecosystem. The platform’s foundation rests on PUGC (Professional User-Generated Content) videos, which deliver more in-depth content compared to short-form videos and require greater creative investment.

What sets Bilibili apart is its vibrant community dynamics, featuring high user interaction rates and the distinctive danmaku culture that encourages active participation. The platform has evolved beyond video-sharing to become a diverse community hub, encompassing animation, gaming, music, dance, technology, lifestyle, and various other interests.

The platform’s user base primarily consists of well-educated Generation Z users, characterized by strong purchasing power and enthusiasm for new experiences

Recognizing this valuable demographic, leading B2B brands such as Siemens (Industrial Technology), ABB Robotics (Industrial Technology), and LianLian Global (FinTech) have established significant presences on the platform, sharing technical tutorials and industry insights.

* Danmaku: Danmaku, or “bullet comments,” is a feature in East Asian video-sharing platforms allowing viewers to post comments that appear over the video in real-time, enhancing viewer interaction. It creates a communal watching experience where viewers can engage with both the content and each other simultaneously.

A screenshot showing the danmaku feature which allows users to leave real-time comments that slide across the top of the video.

Bilibili’s User Demographics

Bilibili homepage (PC)

Why should you do B2B marketing on Bilibili?

Bilibili’s user base consists of young professionals with strong brand loyalty and purchasing power, offering B2B companies a chance to connect with emerging decision-makers.

The platform’s creative nature allows companies to demonstrate their expertise while building a more contemporary and approachable brand image.

Beyond content creation, Bilibili’s format enables meaningful engagement that drives user stickiness. Regular interaction and quality content help build genuine connections with potential customers, fostering long-term business relationships.

Benefits of B2B Marketing on Bilibili

Showcase Complex Products Through Video Content: B2B products and technologies often require detailed explanation that traditional text and images can’t fully capture. Bilibili’s video platform enables companies to demonstrate features and advantages through dynamic demonstrations, real operations, and case studies. For instance, an enterprise software company can create videos showing interface navigation, data analysis capabilities, and business optimization processes – helping potential customers better understand the product’s value in action.
B2B companies can precisely reach user groups interested in their specific industry or field. Take an industrial automation equipment company for example – on Bilibili, they can connect with young engineers, technicians, and business owners who follow technology, machinery, and innovation content by presenting content that aligns with their interest.
Gather Real-Time User Feedback: Leverage the “danmaku” feature to gain insights into user perspectives, questions, and preferences.

How to do B2B Marketing on Bilibili?

Bilibili offers various content formats including videos, livestreams, images, and text. B2B companies can select formats based on their specific needs and audience preferences. For instance, use detailed videos to showcase product applications and operations, or conduct real-time Q&A sessions through livestreams to engage directly with users.

Bilibili users are drawn to creative and entertaining content. Even for B2B companies, it’s essential to present technical information in an engaging way. For example, transform traditional product introductions into storytelling formats, or use animated content to illustrate product features in a more approachable manner.

Best practices for successful B2B marketing on Bilibili include:

Maintain High Content Quality: Maintain high content quality and professionalism in your videos, especially when demonstrating technical features or providing detailed product interpretations. Low-quality or irrelevant content can negatively impact your brand image.
Collaborate with Content Creators: B2B brands can partner with KOCs/KOLs on the platform to create promotional content that resonates with Bilibili’s audience.

Example

Siemens China launched a series of original content on their BiliBili channel, creating office culture videos, engineering lessons, and technical product tutorials in both short and long formats. Their content strategy targeted Bilibili’s Gen Z audience, who showed strong interest in animation, education, and technology.

Siemens China’s BiliBili Video Series

3. Douyin (抖音)

Douyin, often described as the Chinese version of TikTok, is a short-form video platform that enables users to create and share daily life moments, creative content, and knowledge through videos ranging from 15 seconds to several minutes. Major brands like JLL, JD Enterprise Purchase, and ZTE have successfully leveraged this platform to showcase their corporate culture, technological innovations and industry insights.

The platform’s sophisticated recommendation algorithm ensures content reaches the right audience by accurately matching videos with interested users, significantly enhancing content visibility and improving overall reach.

Douyin’s User Demographics

Douyin interface (PC)

Why should you do B2B marketing on Douyin?

Douyin’s massive user base and effective recommendation algorithm provide B2B brands with immense exposure opportunities. By publishing high-quality short video content, brands can quickly increase their visibility and attract potential customers, breaking through traditional marketing’s geographical and industry limitations to expand their influence across wider markets.

Here are more benefits of doing B2B marketing on Douyin:

Rapidly increase brand awareness: Due to the huge user base on Douyin, the dissemination of Douyin short vides is wider than other platforms and can quickly increase brand exposure.
Direct visual display: Douyin’s short video format is highly engaging and effectively showcases a product’s features, benefits, and usage scenarios intuitively

How to do B2B Marketing on Douyin？

Focus on Short-Form Videos: Short videos are the heart of Douyin. Create concise, creative videos such as product demos, customer case studies, or quick industry insights that engage viewers while highlighting your brand’s features, benefits and value.
Embrace Storytelling: Unlike traditional marketing approaches, Douyin content works best when it tells a story, creating stronger emotional connections with viewers. Connect with your audience by sharing brand stories, customer experiences, and employee narratives.
Add Fun and Creativity: Douyin users love entertaining and creative content. Present your professional content in engaging formats like animated videos, situational comedies, or creative demonstrations. This approach helps attract attention and encourages users to share your content.

Best practices for successful B2B marketing on Douyin include:

Focus on Visual Quality: Douyin users have high expectations for visual content. Make sure your videos feature high-quality visuals, seamless editing, and appropriate special effects to meet user expectation. The better your content looks, the more likely it is to engage viewers.
Prioritize User Interaction: Douyin’s comment section and direct messaging features are key to building relationships. Actively engage with users by responding to comments and messages. Remember, Douyin offers higher user engagement compared to other platforms, so make the most of these interactive opportunities.
Stay Current and Timely: Content moves quickly on Douyin, and users are always looking for what’s new. Keep your content fresh by sharing the latest industry trends, product updates, and market activities promptly. Regular, timely updates help maintain audience interest and engagement.

Example:

JLL focused on building individual professional IPs for their consultants on their Douyin account, helping users connect more personally with experts. With this approach, consultants gained more trust and likes from users, benefiting both consultant credibility and brand reputation.

JLL Douyin Account: Consultant-Focused Videos

4. Zhihu (知乎)

Launched in 2011, Zhihu (meaning “do you know”) is China’s largest Q&A platform—and its equivalent of Quora—where you can post questions that other users can answer or form into a discussion.

As of Q2 2024, it has over 81.1 million monthly active users (MAU), primarily composed of mature individuals between 18 to 40 years old with medium to high incomes.

As such, Zhihu is one of China’s most credible, expert-led social networks, whose users have high search intent for well-informed content and insights from industry experts for various topics.

This stands in stark contrast to WeChat’s private domain channels—including official accounts, group chats, and WeChat Moments—where followers are typically existing customers without active search intent. By comparison, Zhihu allows companies such as Huawei, NVIDIA, and 3M to engage users who are actively seeking information about their products and services.

Zhihu’s results page for queries related to search term: “International schools”

Zhihu’s User Demographics

Why should you do B2B marketing on Zhihu?

Zhihu’s unique positioning as a knowledge-sharing platform poses several potential benefits for B2B brands.

For one, brands can better target niche audiences on Zhihu based on their query-based intent and deliver content tailored to their search needs.

Due to the longer average engagement time of interested users, longer-form content, in particular, tends to perform better on Zhihu.

At the same time, there is the option for brands to actively answer user questions to build customer rapport and enhance their own credibility in their niche.

Here are more perks of doing B2B marketing on Zhihu:

You can foster a loyal customer base with frequent and direct communication with your customers
You can soft sell your products or services as you build better customer rapport
You can increase the likelihood of your Zhihu content ranking higher on search results across search engines, like Baidu, and social platforms with in-built search, like WeChat Search. So, optimize your Zhihu content around keyword themes to maximize your reach.

An example of a top-ranking Zhihu result on Baidu’s (left) and WeChat Search’s (right) search results

How to do B2B Marketing on Zhihu?

To start posting content on Zhihu, you must register for a brand account—available only to businesses registered in China—and complete its signup and verification process.

You can begin posting once your account is verified, by which time ZhiPlus (知+) will also be available for you to apply for if you wish to run paid ad campaigns and promote posts.

PageGroup’s brand account page on Zhihu

However, note that brands from the finance/investment/trading, cosmetics/medical, franchising, and psychotherapy industries have restrictions imposed and are not permitted to post on Zhihu.

Best practices for successful B2B marketing on Zhihu include:

Creating well-researched, educational content to showcase your industry expertise
Actively engaging with users who have commented or reacted to your posts
Encouraging users to ask more feedback questions to generate back-and-forth discussions that resonate with them

Example:

NVIDIA China’s Zhihu account actively engaged with users by answering their questions and initiating discussions. The account shared new ideas in a Twitter-like style, demonstrating the brand’s commitment to user connection and enhancing its reputation.

NVIDIA’s Zhihu account answered 539 questions, proposed 14 questions, and shared 755 ideas.

WANT DIGITAL INSIGHTS STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX?

5. Maimai (脉脉)

Maimai (脉脉) is China’s most used professional social networking site—more so than LinkedIn—and has now accumulated tens of millions of users since its founding in 2013.

There are 11 million companies registered, and 98% companies with over thousand employees covered. Its users are predominantly entrepreneurs, managers, and white-collar workers from the Internet, media, and finance industries, 49% of whom reside in first-tier Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

But unlike most professional networking platforms, MaiMai lets users comment anonymously in chat forums under aliases like “Employee of Alibaba” (after they’ve verified their employment status), which, in turn, can encourage higher user engagement. (e.g.) For example, employees from companies like Xiaomi, Tencent and TP-Link often share work experiences, fostering discussions that provide valuable perspectives for job seekers and industry professionals

Maimai’s User Demographics

Why should you do B2B marketing on Maimai?

Maimai business account provides brands with profile features like the ability to write company bios, post updates, communicate with users in a comments section, view follower analytics, and more. On the user engagement side, it lets brands post content across a range of formats (images, video, long-form content etc.), operate private channels like group chats, and target audiences with paid campaigns.

Hence, if your primary target audience is active on Maimai, it could be an ideal brand awareness tool to attract new customers.

Here are more benefits of doing B2B marketing on Maimai:

You can run targeted lead-gen campaigns
You can understand who your followers are based on their profiles
You can filter your audience targeting by local region or city if you wish to concentrate your B2B marketing efforts by location

Tencent’s business account page on Maimai

How to do B2B Marketing on Maimai?

Best practices for successful B2B marketing on Maimai include:

Engage with your employees with Maimai accounts to amplify your brand page and grow its following
Regularly publishing high-quality posts to stay on top of your target customers’ minds
Leveraging Maimai’s various media formats to appeal to all your ideal customers’ consumption preferences

Example:

TP-Link’s Maimai account showcased company culture with popular hashtag topics like #印象最深的一次年会 #你的公司有哪些别出心裁的团队建设活动 (#impressivecompanyannualmeeting and #unexpectedteambuilding), which can increase content exposure and brand awareness.

***

To succeed with your B2B marketing in China hinges on being present on the right platforms where your target audience is most engaged and, in turn, optimizing your content for those platforms.

Ready to maximize your digital marketing in China?

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The post The Best Social Platform Alternatives to WeChat for B2B Marketing in China appeared first on The Egg.

How To Do Naver SEO 2024: The Ultimate Marketer’s Guide

Jiyun Kim — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 04:00:02 +0000

How To Do Naver SEO 2024: The Ultimate Marketer’s Guide

$1.8 trillion US dollars! That’s the tremendous GDP generated by the global economic powerhouse that is South Korea.

And this massive market potential—along with the fastest internet speed in the world and one of the highest smartphone penetration rates—makes Korea primed for digital engagement.

However, Korea remains relatively untapped for international brands who must navigate the unique Korean alphabet, distinct consumer behaviors, and a hyper-localized search environment.

Check out episode 06 of APAC in 3 for an introduction to Korea as a market and its #1 search engine, Naver. For a deeper dive, read our full comprehensive guide to Naver SEO below (you can even jump to a specific section from the table of contents).

Full Guide to Naver SEO

Korea’s Search Engine Market Share
FAQ: Is Naver in English?
SERP Layout & Features
Naver Universal SERP Features
Naver Algorithms & Ranking Factors
Naver Technical SEO: Basics
On- & Off-Page Optimization
Naver Blog Optimization
What is the Most Popular Search Engine in Korea?

Full Guide to Naver SEO

Korea’s Search Engine Market Share
FAQ: Is Naver in English?
SERP Layout & Features
Naver Universal SERP Features
Naver Algorithms & Ranking Factors
Naver Technical SEO: Basics
On- & Off-Page Optimization
Naver Blog Optimization
What is the Most Popular Search Engine in Korea?

Comprehensive Guide to Naver SEO

To help you take Naver SEO by storm, we’ve put together a comprehensive Naver SEO guide to analyze the market shares, SERP features, ranking factors, as well as best practices for monitoring your site so that you can optimize your digital presence across Korea’s diverse and opportunity-rich market.

Let’s dive in!

Naver is Korea’s #1 search engine, occupying 59% of Korea’s search market. Google and DAUM occupy just over 32% and 6%, respectively, while the remaining <2% is subdivided even further by smaller search engines:

Korea’s search engine market share by monthly average users (source: Statista as of March 2024)

FAQ: Is Naver in English?

There are no official English versions of Naver or its properties. The only instances you might see English on Naver are on its account signup page, Korean-English dictionary, and webtoons (i.e., online comics).

Despite this, a workaround is to use your browser to translate pages into English. After doing so, most of the Korean content gets translated, with a few minor exceptions like online shopping ads.

Naver’s homepage when Chrome’s auto-translate is applied

SERP Layout & Features

At a glance, Naver operates more like a portal or directory than a true search engine, like Google.

While you can search for information on Naver, results are much more localized—like on Yahoo! and MSN—and not comprehensively crawled from every webpage in the world. These sites, in particular, prioritize the latest trending content higher on their homepages.

Yahoo! and MSN’s homepages filled with trending content and platform properties

As you can see, search engines like Yahoo! and MSN are busy with trending content and search options from their own platform properties.

With that said, let’s dive deeper and uncover how Naver is laid out.

Naver Homepage

Naver’s search algorithm is built around the Korean language and delivers more relevant results on a single page, including content from Naver’s array of properties like Naver Café, KnowledgeIn, Naver Blog, and Naver Shopping.

Providing such a comprehensive and interactive search experience has made Naver one the world’s most engaged platforms, even though it’s targeted primarily to Korean speakers, with users averaging more than 27 minutes per visit.

Here, you can see Naver’s homepage jampacked with a variety of content types (images, videos, news, etc.), properties, and ad formats.

Naver’s homepage interface

Naver Search Tools & SERP Layout

On the universal search engine results page (SERP), you’ll notice Naver’s search tools at the top and a section below that with information relating to your search term.

Naver SERP – Search Tools and Related Information

Clicking the ellipsis icon on the top-right of the interface (under the search box) reveals additional options to filter your search, including:

Sort results by relevance
Sort results by date
Filter results by time range (one hour, one month, one week, one month, three months, six months, one year)

Note: Search options will vary depending on your search category (e.g., view, images, news, etc.).

Naver Vertical Search Categories

Naver-owned properties

Naver, like Google, offers access to a wide range of information via its vertical search categories located at the top of the SERP. Interestingly, the order in which these appear on both platforms varies depending on the search term and the users’ historical search behavior.

But unlike Google, Naver provides more of a blend of images and user-generated content (UGS) across properties like Naver Blog and Café, suggesting it is very much culture and lifestyle-driven—and that Koreans prefer more than just search results.

Note: As of Oct 2020, Naver removed the Website tab from its vertical search options, though you can still find organic results under the universal search tool.

Naver Related/Suggested Searches

There are key differences between related searches on Google and Naver.

Depending on the keyword, Naver either generates a list of related searches or suggested keywords (or sometimes neither).
On Naver, related searches are shown as keywords drawn from an analysis of related keywords, content, and the user’s search intent.

Naver SERP: Related keywords for the search term “weekly weather”

Naver Trending Searches

Naver’s trending search feature, which reveals popular keywords in real-time, was discontinued in March 2021 as it became overly used by companies to advertise their promotions.

Naver’s trending search feature (discontinued in March 2021)

But with the growing demand for new communication interfaces, Naver has instead been developing its other real-time feature, Naver TALK, which lets users chat with each other during live streams.

Naver Universal SERP Features

On Naver’s universal SERPs, each page consists of 10 or more different vertical search results.

Try picturing Google’s first SERP featuring 30 or more results ranging from images, videos, news, maps, books, scholar texts, and more; That does not even come close to Naver’s 19 different vertical categories—and this is without including their featured snippets.

Naver SERP: Vertical categories

With 19 different vertical categories, Naver’s SERPs are much longer and busier than Google’s, which display no more than 10 organic results per page. This makes diversifying your content portfolio a must to appear across Naver’s SERP opportunities.

Furthermore, the displayed SERP varies depending on the search query. Depending on the keyword, PPC ads may appear at the top, or organic search results may take precedence. Moreover, not all of Naver’s SERP features are consistently visible. For instance, for keywords with purchasing intent (e.g., toys), the Naver Shopping section is prominently featured. However, for informational queries (e.g., digital conversion), the Naver Shopping section may not be present, and instead, organic search results, news articles, or Naver book search results might be displayed. Consequently, it’s important to adjust your strategy for dominating the Naver SERP accordingly.

Naver places a strong emphasis on exposure across its platforms, such as Naver Blog, which frequently appear in organic search results.

Naver Paid Search Ads

There are various types of ad formats and specifications on Naver, which you can learn more about from our website.

It is, however, worth noting that ads can occupy a large real estate on Naver’s SERPs, so you should familiarize yourself with the different ad formats available for the keywords you are trying to rank for.

Naver SERP: Paid ads

Naver BLOG

Naver SERP: Blog section

Previously, Naver used to display Naver Blog and Cafe simultaneously under the View section. However, starting from February 2024, Naver View has been transformed into a combined platform for both blogs and cafes.

Naver Blog provides results organized by topics referred to as smart blocks.

Naver Websites

Naver SERP: Organic results section

Naver removed its website search function in October 2020, but organic results—from all Naver-owned properties—are now found under the universal search section on the first SERP.

In 2021, Naver announced an algorithm update based on the SOLID project, which promises a better matching of search intent and understanding of textual nuances in titles and meta descriptions.

By considering more ranking signals, the SOLID project has made Naver’s results more relevant and better trusted.

Naver Encyclopedia

Naver SERP: Encyclopedia results section

This vertical search section displays results from Naver’s own encyclopedia platform, as well as from Wikipedia.

KnowledgeIn

KnowledgeIn (지식iN)—Naver’s Q&A platform akin to Yahoo! Answers—continues to be highly popular among Korean users, who can post questions for other users to answer or raise discussions across a multitude of topics. Answers can also be up- or down-voted by other users.

Naver SERP: KnowledgeIn section

Naver Algorithms & Ranking Factors

Ranking Algorithm for View Search

In May 2021, Naver applied its robust new ranking algorithm to View search to deliver relevant and higher quality pages to users on its SERP. With more frequent indexation, it can better reflect user search intent and lay the groundwork for applying new ranking features quickly.

This is particularly important given the continuous updates to C-Rank and D.I.A+, two algorithms first applied to Naver VIEW back in 2016 and 2017.

The ranking update includes:

Providing well-indexed pages that reflect user search intent
Offering meta title/tags to index well-structured websites

Naver Technical SEO: Basics

Robots.txt

Although not as comprehensive as Google’s Search Console, Naver Search Advisor (previously Naver Webmaster Tools) is handy for submitting manual requests whenever you need the bot’s attention.

Among its functions, one of the most useful lets you create robots.txt files—albeit at a rudimentary level—and have them checked once updated.

Naver Search Advisor: Creating a robot.txt file

Naver Sitemaps

Due to the limitations of Yeti, the name of Naver’s search robot, the use of sitemaps might be even more crucial on Naver than on Google.

Note that Naver Search Advisor currently only reads XML sitemaps and supports optional tags , , and .

Once you have created it, submit your sitemap to Naver Webmaster Tools to help Naver crawl your site. Only one sitemap can be submitted per site.

Naver Search Advisor: Submit sitemaps

Monitor Your Indexation on Naver

There are two ways to check your site’s indexation on Naver.

Naver Search Advisor: It can monitor your site’s crawlability and indexability over the past 3 months.

Naver Search Advisor: Number of indexable pages in the past 3 months

Naver site search operator: Use this to index data on Naver and find indexable pages on the universal SERP.

Naver site search operator: Identifying indexable pages

Naver Open Graph Tags

Within these tags is information that will show up when pages are shared on social media.

Naver open graph tags

To emphasize how crucial tagging is for your social pages, South Korea ranked second (89.3%) in the world for active social network penetration as of January 2021.

Active social network penetration in countries and territories as of January 2021 (Source: Statista)

Naver Backlinks

You can monitor your backlink profile on Naver Search Advisor.

Naver Search Advisor: Backlink data

On- & Off-Page Optimization

Social Media

With regards to social, Naver Search Advisor currently only shows what social networks its crawler has found to be connected to your website.

But by using schema markup, you can send explicit signals to Naver from any of your social media channels, which can include Naver Blog, Naver Café, Naver Post, StoreFarm (Naver’s e-commerce), Brandstore, Naver TV, Facebook, Instagram, iTunes, Google Play Store, LinkedIn, Kakao Story, and more.

At the same time, you can disconnect any of them through Naver Search Advisor.

Naver Search Advisor: Overview of social channels linked to your site

Naver Blog Optimization

C-Rank Algorithm Applied on Naver Blog Search

C-Rank measures the authority and quality of blogs while D.I.A+ analyzes the search term to better understand user intent and optimize Naver’s SERP. As such, blogs written by authors with expertise in a specific topic would theoretically rank higher on Naver’s SERP.

Furthermore, Naver’s D.I.A+ algorithm crawls each blogs’ feature image and displays it as a snippet on the result to improve the look and feel of its SERP.

Here’s a look at Naver’s top-ranking blog results for certain search terms.

Naver SERP: Top-ranking blog results for search terms “monthly living cost” (left) and “movie recommendations” (right)

Naver Blog Category Selection

Since C-Rank prioritizes results based on how well they match a search term, it is far more likely for a blog specializing in a specific topic to rank higher on Naver’s SERP versus one without a theme.

And while C-Rank is capable of detecting a blog’s theme through deep learning AI, Naver recommends manually selecting your blog categories each time to improve the algorithm’s accuracy. We also recommend using manual settings wherever possible instead of depending your rankings solely on Naver’s algorithms.

To date, there are 32 topics under four main categories that bloggers can choose from:

Naver SERP – Related keywords for the search term Weekly Weather

Entertainment/Art

Literature
Movies
Art/Design
Exhibitions
Music
TV shows
Celebrities
Animation
TV programs

Lifestyle/Shopping

Daily lifestyle
Children and marriage
Animals
Images
Fashion and beauty
Interior/DIY
Food and recipes
Product reviews
Plants

Hobbies/Travel

Games
Sports
Photography
Cars
Hobbies
Domestic Trips
Overseas Trips
Restaurants

Knowledge/Trends

IT/Computers
Society and politics
Healthcare
Business and economics
Languages
Education

Entertainment/Art

Literature
Movies
Art/Design
Exhibitions
Music
TV shows
Celebrities
Animation
TV programs

Lifestyle/Shopping

Daily lifestyle
Children and marriage
Animals
Images
Fashion and beauty
Interior/DIY
Food and recipes
Product reviews
Plants

Hobbies/Travel

Games
Sports
Photography
Cars
Hobbies
Domestic Trips
Overseas Trips
Restaurants

Knowledge/Trends

IT/Computers
Society and politics
Healthcare
Business and economics
Languages
Education

Pick from 32 categories that best match your content

You can check out Blogchart Korea for real-time data on the distribution of blogs per category to know roughly how competitive each one might be.

Here’s a distribution chart you can find on the category selections from over 10 million blogs as of September 2021:

Proportions of category selections from over 10 million blogs as of September 2021

Naver Image Usage

Aside from standard regulations surrounding the publishing of images on the web, such as avoiding copyright infringement and explicit content, Naver has additional guidelines worth noting to improve the quality and ranking of your blog.

Use descriptive file names and captions. File names provide information about the image, and you can easily add captions directly to images via your blog post editor.
Check that your blog’s feature image is optimized. This is because each top-ranking blog post generates a snippet for its feature image on Naver’s SERP, which appears like this:

Naver SERP: Image snippets for the top-ranking blogs

What Is The Most Popular Search Engine In Korea?

Naver is the #1 most popular search engine in Korea. While Google is the #2 most popular search engine in Korea.

Although both search engines are designed to carry out web searches, Naver’s SERPs are much longer and busier than Google’s. And while this may look cluttered to an outsider, Naver’s blend of images and user-generated content suggests it is very much culture and lifestyle-driven—and that Koreans prefer more than just search results.

So, while you can take a universal approach to SEO—like keyword strategy and link building—for both Google and Naver, added optimizations are a must to stand out on Naver-owned properties and paid results.

Regardless of platform, fluency in Korean is a must to connect with Korea’s massive online audience.

And this will help you better connect with the world’s most connected society!

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How to Use ChatGPT for SEO

Bonnie Tsoi — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 02:56:05 +0000

How to Use ChatGPT for SEO

How to use ChatGPT for SEO – APAC in 3 – Episode 21

While interactive AI chatbots are far from a novelty—think menu chatbots on eCommerce websites or Google’s search assistant, Alexa—ChatGPT’s generative language model, trained on vast amounts of data, can go as far as generate textual answers, article drafts, summaries, and more for just about any topic.

It is also smart enough to partake in discussions with end users and answer prompts—instructions to guide conversations or interactions with AI—in a manner very close to a human, even being able to acknowledge mistakes and reject inappropriate requests in its follow-up answers.

Unsurprisingly, ChatGPT has been a focal point among marketers since launching in November 2022, thanks to its comprehensiveness and quality of answers and—of course—its potential applications in SEO.

Here, let’s explore five ways to use ChatGPT to power your content marketing strategy and improve your SEO.

Note: ChatGPT is available in all but a few countries, so when registering, check to see if you need to bypass any regional restrictions in your country of residence with a VPN or valid overseas phone number.

5 Ways SEOs are Putting ChatGPT to Work

The best use of AI tools in the SEO world is to scale content creation while streamlining the marketer’s workflow to be more efficient. That usually consists of letting the AI take on repetitive or time-consuming tasks like topic brainstorming, keyword research, and article drafting.

Beyond long-form content, ChatGPT has also demonstrated it can write meta descriptions, ad copy variations, and even debug code.

With that said, here are five ways SEOs can put ChatGPT to work for them and some key considerations when implementing each.

1. Creating and Optimizing Content

Creating relevant content regularly for your target audience can be a hassle but is essential to keeping your brand fresh on their minds—that is where ChatGPT can come into play.

For instance, you can use ChatGPT to create an article draft for you to refine by giving it specific topic points, say “What is a CMS”, and constraints, like a word count of 1,000 words. You may also use it to generate different versions of existing articles to avoid duplicate content on your site, which can hinder its crawlability, confuse search engines, and hurt your rankings.

Prompting ChatGPT to write an article about “What is a CMS”

However, remember that you should only ever limit ChatGPT to a ‘support’ role rather than let it create content for publishing entirely on autopilot—after all, it is still a machine not void of inaccuracies. It is also unlikely to be able to completely replicate the research, analysis, critical thinking, and value-creation that goes into producing high-quality content.

Not to mention Google’s algorithm—in line with its recent Helpful Content update that prioritizes people-first content and began devaluing content written purely for SEO—is becoming better at identifying AI-generated long-form content, even those that deploy anti-detection algorithms.

For these reasons, always do a human review of anything AI-generated to maintain content quality and avoid getting penalized for violating Google’s Search Essential guidelines, particularly when using ChatGPT to write your webpages and articles.

2. Writing Meta Descriptions

Aside from long-form content, ChatGPT can also help write social media posts, email pitches, ad copy, and page summaries. You can even repurpose summaries of longer articles generated by ChatGPT to form landing page copy or shorten them to a sentence or two for a meta description.

Prompting ChatGPT to summarize an article within 160 characters

3. Generating Title Ideas

ChatGPT can facilitate brainstorming of other relevant topic ideas to target—for example, by feeding it keywords, you can prompt it to suggest title variations relating to CMSs that must include “best CMS”.

Prompting ChatGPT to suggest title ideas related to “What is a CMS” that must contain the phrase “best CMS”

4. Conducting Keyword Research

Keyword research is an essential yet time-consuming component of SEO—but AI tools like ChatGPT can alleviate this time burden.

How? Simply ask ChatGPT to generate keywords for a specific topic (i.e., “What is a CMS”) and it will generate a list of relevant keywords and phrases within a matter of seconds. You can then add these to your new content or cluster them into themes to optimize relevant existing webpages.

Prompting ChatGPT to generate keywords and phrases related to “What is a CMS”

Note ChatGPT currently does not display search volume data for keywords it generates, so you’ll need to input them into other SEO keyword tools to access that data and decide which ones to target in your content.

ChatGPT’s intuitive response to a user’s follow-up request about search volumes for keywords related to “What is a CMS”

5. Generating Schema Code

Schema markup on a webpage helps search engines like Google better understand what that page’s content is trying to convey, aiding its crawlability. However, SEO professionals not experienced in coding may not be familiar with implementing schema code into the webpage HTML.

While there’s no shortage of schema generators on the Internet, ChatGPT can do so with ease and little instruction—simply copy and paste an extract into the tool and ask it to generate a specific schema code that you can, in turn, paste into your webpage HTML.

Prompting ChatGPT to write a schema code for an extract of text

If ChatGPT is here to stay, what does the future hold for SEO?

ChatGPT’s popularity is mind-blowing, considering it gained one million users within the first five days of launching—a milestone that took Netflix around 3.5 years to reach, Facebook 10 months, Spotify 5 months, and Instagram 2.5 months.

However, it’s not without its drawbacks. In its current state, it draws on data from no later than 2021, which means it’s unable to provide any information on current events. And while a later version of the chatbot will likely remedy this, there is still uncertainty surrounding how long its AI will take to learn about new events and relate them to other topics.

The future of search could well look like sending prompts to a chatbot and getting answers from language models such as ChatGPT’s. As part of a “code red” plan to compete with ChatGPT, Google has even recently announced it will begin rolling out an AI conversation technology it’s calling “Bard” for public testing.

As such, writing prompts—including how clear and descriptive it is in explaining your request—will become a key skill for SEOs to master, given their impact on the quality and originality of the ChatGPT-generated output. The fewer instructions there are in a content request, the likelier its output will turn out similar to others with similar requests, whether in their phrasing, structure, or sub-topics.

A comparison of two ChatGPT-generated articles from the same prompt (“What is a CMS”) that were similar in structure, just with different words

***

The future belongs to those who don’t shy away from technology but embrace it—that holds especially true for ChatGPT and other AI tools in the SEO world.

ChatGPT will likely continue improving and has the potential to make SEO faster and more efficient—even our small sampling of ways to incorporate it into your SEO workflow could potentially save you hundreds of hours every year.

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How to do China B2B Marketing on Baidu

Orange Feng — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 03:00:19 +0000

How to do China B2B Marketing on Baidu

How to do China B2B Marketing on Baidu – APAC in 3 – Episode 20

Baidu is far and away the leading search engine in China. According to its financial report for Q2 2022, monthly active users (MAU) on its app rose 8% year-on-year (YoY) to 628 million in June, with at least 84% of them being daily active users (DAU).

Like on Google (or any search engine for that matter), Baidu continuously updates its search algorithm, paving way for alterations in search results and, in turn, new opportunities to rank higher on its search engine results pages (SERPs).

But Baidu tends to rank results from its own integrated properties higher, which complements Chinese search behavior but poses unique challenges when carrying over universal SEO best practices to Baidu. Such challenges are particularly distinct for B2Bs since their search traffic relies more on general webpage searches.

Besides those from its B2B-specific platform (Baidu B2B), Baidu’s other properties have appeared more often across its search results for B2B-related queries. But understanding which to target based on your needs is critical to tapping into China’s hyper-lucrative market.

Here, we’ve outlined five Baidu properties with the highest potential for B2B brand exposure and how to leverage each of them for your China marketing goals.

The five properties are:

Baidu B2B
Baijiahao
Baidu Wenku
Baidu Baike
Baidu Zhidao

Baidu B2B (爱采购)

Launched in October 2018, Baidu B2B is Baidu’s B2B vertical search engine that lets users explore product or service information from credible B2B merchants. It boasts high search visibility on Baidu and tends to have at least one search result on Baidu SERPs for common B2B-related keywords.

Baidu B2B: Homepage

Baidu B2B also provides interested buyers with useful functions like the ability to filter and search for specific products or manufacturers, communicate with merchants, view quotations, conduct online transactions, and more.

As for sellers, it can help you attract users—especially those at the beginning of your conversion funnels—by matching your listing information and customer data with their search needs.

Baidu B2B is free-to-use for buyers, while sellers can place their listings on the platform through one of the following ways:

Advertised listings under the Baidu B2B SERP sections (through the Baidu advertising platform)
Join the Baidu B2B platform (annual membership fee of RMB ¥6980 per year)

Baidu B2B: Common Layouts

These are the three search result types from Baidu B2B that commonly appear on Baidu’s SERPs.

Note: Baidu B2B’s SERP features currently do not divert traffic away from the platform (i.e., to a seller’s official website). Instead, all communications and transactions are done through Baidu B2B. However, as a seller, elements like page titles, content, and images within your Baidu B2B shop can be customized to your brand.

Featured Image Snippets

Occupying much of the Baidu SERP real estate, featured image snippets display eight product images and details such as their name, price, and business name, and location by default.

Baidu B2B featured image snippet on Baidu’s SERP for search term: “Polypropylene”

Product Lists

Baidu B2B’s product lists are similar to its featured image snippets but purely text-based, displaying product information for the eight-most relevant products for a given search term in lists, including their product model, quantity, supplier, and price.

Baidu B2B product list on Baidu’s SERP for search term: “Mobile phone chip”

General Results

Baidu B2B’s general results appear like any standard result on Baidu’s SERP with a meta title and description, publish date/modified, site name, and—in some instances—a featured image.

Baidu B2B general result on Baidu’s SERP for search term: “Sensors”

Baijiahao (百家号)

Introduced in 2016, Baijiahao is Baidu’s content creation platform where publishers post content ranging from videos and livestreams to text articles to dynamic images. News and entertainment are among the most popular topics among users.

Baijiaohao search result in Baidu’s SERP for search term: “Active noise cancellation (ANC)”

It supports five different types of entities to register accounts, including individuals, news and media outlets, enterprises, governments, and other*.

*Other organizations: For all kinds of public venues, public welfare organizations, schools, associations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other institutions to apply.

Official Baijiahao (enterprise) account belonging to Alienware

Baijiahao is currently free for all entities.

But if you are a business and wish to enjoy the tools available exclusively to verified enterprise accounts, such as adding business phone numbers to your Baijiahao page, you’ll need to verify your account and pay an annual fee of RMB ¥600.

Alienware’s verified disclaimer on its Baijiahao enterprise account

Baijiahao currently provides six ways to monetize content on its platform, including:

Traffic revenue
E-commerce link cards*
Paid content (videos, online courses, research articles etc.)
Content marketing
Paid groups or exclusive communities
Patron buttons and widgets

*Through a verified enterprise Baijiahao account, brands can even add their own third-party product pages (via Taobao, JD, Baidu Wutong etc.) directly into their articles.

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Baidu Wenku (百度文库)

Baidu Wenku was released in 2009 and remains the world’s largest online Chinese document-sharing platform. Here, you’ll find educational materials, research papers, business and legal documents, novels, comics, and more. Its concept is similar to that of the Canadian professional content-hosting service Slideshare—but with a greater variety of document formats and types.

Publishing materials on Baidu Wenku is a common way to attract organic traffic from potential clients seeking more in-depth information about a higher-end B2B product or solution before purchasing it.

In recent years, Wenku has also developed into a user-generated content (UGC) platform where authors can promote and sell their content. To encourage more content creation on its platform, Wenku utilizes a credit system to reward authors and require users to download documents using credits, which can be purchased directly or earned by pricing their own content uploads.

Baidu Wenku search result on Baidu’s SERP for search term: “Nucleic acid extraction reagent”

Baidu Baike (百度百科)

Released in 2008, Baidu Baike is China’s Wikipedia equivalent, providing Baidu users with mostly authoritative articles on virtually every subject. As of October 2022, Baidu Baike has more than 26 million articles and over 7.6 million netizens contributing to entries.

Since Baidu Baike search results tend to rank high on Baidu’s SERP (i.e., among the top three results, oftentimes the first) for searches on brands, people, and places, brands should target Baike to rank for their own business or product-related search terms.

Baidu Baike search result on Baidu’s SERP for search term: “AMD Semiconductor”

Baidu Baike search result on Baidu’s SERP for search term: “Mobile Phone Chip”

Aside from optimizing for business or product-related searches, maintaining a corporate page on Baidu Baike—given its credibility as an authoritative source of information—can help boost your brand’s credibility, so be sure to follow suit by publishing educational and impartial content on your Baike page.

Baidu Zhidao (百度知道)

Launched way back in June 2005, Baidu Zhidao (meaning “Baidu knows”) is one of China’s most popular Q&A platforms that provides helpful answers to millions of questions about every topic imaginable.

Baidu Zhidao search result on Baidu’s SERP for search term: “MEMS Sensors”

Baidu Zhidao can’t funnel organic traffic to your site directly. But since its search results tend to rank favorably on Baidu’s SERP, answering questions related to your business niche can help educate potential customers about your offerings and, in turn, improve their perception of your brand.

***

Baidu and Google may seem similar on the surface, but the more you delve deeper into the two, the more apparent their differences become. Although Baidu has more features and ads crammed onto their SERPs, alongside deeper integration of their own properties, its algorithm—particularly in determining page quality—is much simpler to understand than Google’s and has a strong preference for everything Chinese.

If your brand or business wants greater search exposure on Baidu’s SERPs, the Baidu properties discussed in this article are worth the effort to try to rank for, especially the most popular ones like Baidu B2B, Baidu Baike, and Baijiahao.

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How to Succeed with B2B Marketing in Japan

Alvin Tsoi — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 03:14:38 +0000

How to Succeed with B2B Marketing in Japan

3 Keys to Successful B2B Marketing in Japan – APAC in 3 – Episdoe 22

Successful B2B marketing in Japan is dictated by a unique business culture and preferences that, although evolved with digitalization, still have many traits that remain omnipresent. For global B2Bs, then, understanding all facets of this culture is crucial to not only penetrating the Japanese market but also converting interested users into repeat customers.

Here are 5 must-know considerations for B2B marketing in Japan so that you may reach your target audience and, in turn, drive conversions for your business.

Tip #1: Localizing Your Website Requires More Than Just Translation

Many business owners make the mistake of thinking they can conduct business in Japan so long as they have a Japanese mini-site. However, such sites—usually comprising direct translations of content from a brand’s global website to Japanese—tend to lack the subtle but critical nuances in the language and culture to resonate with native Japanese users.

For one, Japanese users strongly value content readability and accuracy and use these to determine a brand’s credibility. So, if any content on your mini-site features broken Japanese, they will likely overlook it and not waste time trying to decipher your messaging.

The localization of your website in Japan is also much more than just translation. Instead, it requires careful consideration of local context and culture to break through to your Japanese target audience and match their needs. This includes tailoring your mini-site to appeal to the Japanese language, payment methods, currencies, unique culture, and more.

SEO is equally important—optimizing your content and headlines according to the most relevant and commonly searched terms in your niche will not only increase your site’s organic traffic but also help it rank higher for related searches. To stand out, also research what content your competitors across Japan are putting out and the search terms they are targeting so that you can one-up them.

Localizing and optimizing your content to serve Japanese audiences will take time. But if you don’t take this crucial step before kickstarting an advertising campaign, you’ll be spending ad dollars attracting visitors to your site that likely will not convert.

Tip #2: Optimize Your Landing Pages for Lead Generation

Creating landing pages specifically for acquiring leads is a common practice among Japanese B2Bs, particularly when managing search ads. The key here, however, is to design them with a sense of familiarity for local users and serve content that will appeal to their specific business needs.

For instance, when evaluating a product or service, Japanese users tend to prefer reading text over more visual or interactive forms of content preferred among users from English-speaking countries, such as images, videos, or infographics.

This comes from Japanese users’ tendency to avoid risk by gathering as much detailed information as possible before deciding whether to purchase and is reflected in the web design of many Japanese B2B review sites. As such, the lesser known your brand is in the Japanese market, the more critical it is to make your written content as comprehensive as possible.

Japanese websites tend to comprise more text-heavy information

Japanese landing pages tend to be longer

Tip #3: Tailor Your Customer Success Stories for Japanese Audiences

The Japanese commitment to customer service is world-renown—and this could not be truer for B2B marketing in Japan, where success stories play a key role in a customer’s evaluation process. These usually come in the form of case studies and testimonials tailored to a target customer’s specific needs and requirements and outline business solutions for problems or challenges they may encounter.

A good example of a customer success story in Japanese

As mentioned, Japanese users are generally more risk averse, so maintaining a dedicated webpage to showcase your client success stories will help potential customers visiting your site for the first time grasp your brand’s credibility and trustworthiness. So, if you are translating your client success stories from another language into Japanese, remember to localize further by providing Japan-specific examples and use cases.

Manga is also a popular online format in the business world in Japan, considering how prevalent anime and comic culture is in the country to the point of it having its own advertising genre. Google Japan’s support pages even showcase cartoons to explain how its algorithm works.

As such, Japanese users may grow more accustomed to your product or service if you deploy manga—on top of more orthodox visual formats—to illustrate your B2B information or customer success stories.

Manga and anime are popular online formats in Japan, even in a business context

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Tip #4: Leverage Japan’s Unique B2B Marketing Channels

Google accounts for more than 75% of the Japanese search market, followed by Yahoo! Japan with just over 14%. This makes Google Japan a familiar territory, albeit with some needed localization, for most global brands targeting Japanese B2B buyers on search. Still, some level of investment in Yahoo! Japan is recommended as its user demographic in Japan tends to be older with a preference for domestic trends.

How about channels other than search engines?

While LinkedIn is the go-to B2B marketing channel for most of the world, it has limited B2B scope in Japan since its users widely view it as a job search site than a professional networking platform. LinkedIn’s small proportion of Japanese users also tend to be bilingual or have worked internationally.

Facebook, by contrast, enjoys a role in Japan akin to LinkedIn’s for the rest of the world and is where the country’s business decision-makers live and breathe on social.

Moreover, Eight–a Japanese digital business card management app launched in 2012—now has around three million business users and presents an opportunity for B2B marketing. Like LinkedIn, it allows for detailed targeting by industry, job title, employee size, and company name.

On mobile, meanwhile, LINE is the most popular messaging app in Japan, used by more than 80% of its population. However, its targeting options for B2B are limited, making it better suited for businesses that enjoy a larger budget and want to boost their visibility and lead generation on social.

Tip #5: TV Commercials are Still Effective for Japanese B2B Awareness

Even with the rise of digital advertising, television commercials are still as effective as ever for brand awareness and demand generation and cannot be ignored by B2B marketers. The considerable number of B2B companies featuring in Japanese TV commercials only confirms this.

Here are a few examples:

Japanese TV commercial from Adobe

Japanese TV commercial from Biztel (Cloud contact center software)

Furthermore, according to a survey by Dentsu of professionals from small and medium-sized Japanese businesses, television programs and commercials ranked as their second-most accessed information source about B2B companies in the IT space.

TV was the second-most popular source for B2B company information in the IT space among a group of respondents surveyed by Dentsu

***

Ultimately, a winning B2B marketing strategy for Japan hinges on tailoring your website and content to your target audience’s needs and behaviors, but also leveraging the right platforms, and optimizing your content for consumption on those platforms.

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How to Get Your Business Found on Local Search in Japan?

Hiromi Hatakeyama — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 02:44:09 +0000

How to Get Your Business Found on Local Search in Japan

How to Get Your Business Found on Local Search in Japan – APAC in 3 – Episode 19

A prominent trait of Japanese user behavior is their tendency to use local business search platforms to search for brick-and-mortar store locations—anything from retail stores, restaurants, beauty salons, and more.

Popular examples include Hot Pepper—one of the most-used platforms for local restaurant and beauty salon searches—and Gurunavi, TabeLog, and Retty, all of which specialize in food-related searches.

Popular local business search platforms in Japan

But while these platforms are still popular, the use of Google Search (and Google Maps) is becoming more mainstream for local store searches in Japan, particularly for mobile searches—why is that?

In our latest APAC in 3 (EP 19), discover everything you need to know about getting your business found and scaling its presence on local search in Japan. For a more detailed overview, read on!

What changed the local business search landscape in Japan?

To understand this, we need to turn back the clock to early 2018—when the appearance of local search results on search engines began to change on the back of two significant events in Japan that upped the ante for local business search.

More Localization Introduced to Google Business Profiles Prior to Tokyo 2020 Olympics

With Tokyo hosting the Summer Olympics in 2020, Google Japan focused on improving Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) to help local businesses cater to the influx of international visitors.

Information about local stores began appearing under queries where they did not previously appear at all—no doubt this change affected the number of organic brand website visits. Google Japan also started applying automated translations to store reviews and held its first closed event (Google Local Guides CONNECT in Tokyo 2018) for top local guides on Google Maps.

More Features Added to Google Business Profiles During COVID-19

The impact of the declared state of emergency by Japan’s government in response to COVID-19 was hard-felt among local businesses in Japan, making downsizing or store closure for many brick-and-mortar stores a possible threat and, in many cases, a grim reality.

Over this period, Google Business Profile introduced new features to help store owners better manage their store listings according to the country’s COVID restrictions. This included a new service-based model added to the business status (i.e., delivery- or takeout-only) and new restriction-abiding notices (i.e., requirements for temperature checks, seating partitions, product packaging) added to listings.

How do local business search platforms make money?

Below is an example of the typical fee structure of Japan’s local business search platforms.

At its core, the operators behind local business search platforms monetize their platforms by charging listing fees from each store it hosts. And while there are free plans that don’t require a listing fee, their available features tend to be limited, so paid plans with more features and opportunities for search exposure (by pageviews) are more effective for attracting customers.

The fees are usually undisclosed and visible only to stores that sign the contract. Details of a platform’s fee structure can also vary by region. For example, listing fees are relatively more expensive in high-competition areas across Tokyo like Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Ginza. Even though the listing fees per platform are undisclosed, it is common for some stores in popular areas in Tokyo to spend upwards of ¥5 million per year.

With that said, here’s an idea of what kind of features usually come with the various paid and free plans.

Free plans: Only your store information is visible, and users cannot make reservations or send inquiries to you through the platform. Overall, stores on a free plan enjoy only limited search exposure within the platform and, in most cases, tend to be small businesses that don’t have their own website and use their platform profile as a substitute.
Mid-priced paid plans: Reservations can be made online or by phone from the store’s listed information. For the former, platforms generally provide stores with a dedicated dial-in number that appears on its listing. This means that the number on the store’s listing may not be its official phone number.
Premium paid plans: Stores with premium-priced plans can typically access the same features available on mid-priced plans but might be guaranteed more prominent search exposure on the platform. In addition, the platform operators may allocate you a sales representative to offer advice and support regarding how to manage your store page and optimize your listing.

Note: For paid plans, if your local business involves customers making appointments, your platform’s operators will typically charge you a small commission fee per successful store visit initiated by reservations made on it.

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Why Google Business Profile is More Important Than Ever…

Google Business Profile has updated its functionality quite drastically to reflect the changes in user behavior and store owners in Japan. In particular, the prominence of Google Business Profile results occupying the top of search results has increased and may affect the appeal of the local business search platforms.

On top of that, with the sales numbers of physical stores generally spiraling downwards from past COVID-19 restrictions, store owners may be urged to reduce costs associated with running paid listings on those platforms.

Location and business hours were the two things about a store that a group of Japanese respondents said they searched the most for on Google (Source: One Compath, 2020)

Let’s see what this looks like on Google’s actual search engine results pages (SERPs) for desktop and mobile.

Google SERPs for a popular ramen restaurant “AFURI” in Tokyo on desktop (left) and mobile (right)

For example, while a result from the local business search platform Tabelog ranked first for searches of a popular Tokyo-based ramen restaurant named AFURI, the restaurant’s Google Business Profile ranked first on the mobile SERP.

AFURI’s Google Business Profile also appeared beside the organic SERP section of the desktop results, pointing to how critical optimizing Google Business Profiles is for local business owners.

Benefits of Using Google Business Profile

Nowadays, businesses can make their listings much more comprehensive with Google Business Profile’s host of features, from push notifications, CTAs, performance tracking, and more.

Push Notifications to Customers

This includes the ability for businesses to push notifications for:

Temporary closure or temporary adjustment of business hours
Menu and discount notices
Safety measures reminders (e.g., packaging requirements, sanitation procedures)
Date-specific specials and promotions
Hot-selling items and new arrivals
Upcoming events and promotions
Translated with DeepL Translator
Your establishment’s availability of sports game broadcasts. For instance, you could showcase a badge on your listing to Tell your customers you’re streaming the World Cup (launched on Nov 10, 2022).

Google’s search results for search term “watch world cup games in Shibuya”

Calls-to-Action (CTA)

This includes the ability for businesses to include call-to-action (CTA) buttons for customers to:

Make reservations
Sign-up to your newsletter
Direct to your conversion pages
Reply to other customer reviews

Performance Tracking

This includes the ability for businesses to view stats about:

How many incoming searches were made and via which channels
How users interacted when they first visited your store page
How many times your store photo was viewed
How the number of photos submitted compare to your competitors in the same industry

***

Japan’s local business search platforms offer various functions to promote your brand and are now more than just a place to publish store information. Together with your store’s Google Business Profile, they form a pivotal engagement channel for customers at the beginning of your funnel.

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How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile in 2023

The Egg — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 06:10:48 +0000

How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile in 2023

How to Optimize Google Business Profile in 2023 – APAC in 3 – Episode 18

Did you know that 97% of Internet users search for local businesses online, and over 86% of them use Google Maps? This makes a Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) an essential tool for getting your business found locally on Google Search and Maps.

Google ranks profiles based on relevance, geographical proximity, along with other signals like user engagement and quality of information. So, even if your business has already claimed and completed a profile, you should look at optimizing it to ensure it’s performing at its best.

In our latest APAC in 3 (EP 18), discover how to optimize your Google Business Profile in 2023 to rank higher on local search and find new customers for your business. For a more detailed overview, read on!

Tip #1: Update and Optimize Your Basic Information

A complete and verified business profile is vital for your business to appear on Google Maps and within a local pack at the top of Google’s search engine results pages, or SERPs.

What are Local Packs: Local packs are Google SERP features that display business locations most relevant to a user’s geographically defined search query (e.g., “dentists in Singapore”), along with a Google map pinpointing their addresses.

Nothing frustrates users quite like searching for a company only to find that the information provided is wrong or outdated. It’s more common than you think for a phone number or street address to be incorrect or an old location not to be marked as closed, so be sure to claim your profile and manage it closely.

Your business name field must be your actual business name and void of keywords, so picking a main category that best fits will help Google match your listing with the most appropriate search terms.

Next, your company description should include what you do, who your offerings are for, and a call-to-action, all while ensuring it contains essential keywords to help users find your profile when searching for relevant products or services.

The description is limited to 750 characters long, and the first 250 are the most important, so make sure you front-load your key information. If you’re a restaurant, for instance, mention your ambiance, menu options, and special services before your history.

Pro tip: After updating and optimizing your basic information, them ASAP via any of Google’s available options, including post, email, or phone.

Tip #2: Showcase Your Business with Photos and Videos

Images and videos bring credibility to your listing and help users as well as Google learn more about your business and its offerings.

Upload high-resolution photos and videos of your location, products or services, and even your team. Uploading photos of your location’s exterior lets potential customers know what to expect when they arrive for the first time.

Photo guidelines:

Size: Between 10KB and 5MB. Recommended resolution: 720 px tall, 720 px wide. The photo should be in focus and well lit, and have no significant alterations or excessive use of filters.

Video guidelines:

Duration: Up to 30 seconds long. File size: Up to 75 MB. Resolution: 720p or higher.

Variety in your photos also helps Google since it automatically picks photos to show on your listing based on what it deems would best answer a user’s search query. Say, if a user searched “Nike Paragon Interior”, it would show photos of the store interior before anything else.

Google Vision AI is a tool that can help you understand how Google interprets your photo—just upload an image to the free demo, and it’ll tell you the keywords Google can derive from the image.

Pro tip: Use Vision AI to select photos with keywords relevant to your desired search terms.

Tip #3: Spur Engagement to Win More Customers

After completing your profile and putting your business on the map, spur engagement on it to stand out from competitors and increase your foot traffic.

Leverage your Q&A section to let customers ask questions about your business. But be wary—they too can answer questions asked by others, so it’s a good idea for you as the expert to be the first to address each question.

To keep your answers at the top, upvote them since the most-liked answers appear as the primary response. Do the same for questions since those with three likes or more usually appear prominently on your listing in place of the standard “See All Questions” link.

Asking your own questions grants you greater control over the conversation surrounding your business, so post your most-asked questions followed by their model answers to set up a pre-site FAQ page.

Questions will vary by business types, some examples include:

Do you ship worldwide?
What is your return or refund policy?
What payment options do you accept?
Do you offer gluten-free options?

Similarly, responding to your customer reviews not only potentially wins back loyalty from past customers but also conveys transparency to those just getting to know more about you.

And lastly, use the updates feature to share your latest news, promotional offers, or events, which comprise a thumbnail and brief description that pop up to a full-sized image and lengthier text when clicked.

Pro tip: Updates appear at the bottom of your profile panel on desktop and in a dedicated tab in the Google Maps app.

***

Whether setting it up for the first time or improving an existing listing, a business profile is your best friend for scaling your online presence, so be sure to revisit it from time to time and leverage the latest features from Google!

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How to Use Naver Blog for Digital Marketing in Korea

Jiyun Kim — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 07:38:43 +0000

How to Use Naver Blog for Digital Marketing in Korea

How to use Naver Blog for your Korea Marketing – APAC in 3 – Episode 17

Debuting in 1999, Naver has since remained the most popular search engine among Korean users, whose traction to the platform makes it near-impossible to approach Korean SEO the same way you would with Google SEO.

While Naver is a search engine by definition, it operates more like a portal with an exploratory search experience, facilitated by the seamless integration of native properties—like Naver News, KnowledgeIn, and Naver Shopping—throughout its search engine results pages (SERPs).

In fact, Naver Blog—alongside other properties focused on user-generated content (UGC) like Naver Café and Post—features prominently under Naver’s VIEW section near or towards the top of the SERP. This improved search visibility undeniably makes the Naver Blog vital for your brand awareness on Naver since Naver Search heavily favors content from its properties.

Check out APAC in 3 (EP 17) to discover why you need Naver Blog in your Korea SEO strategy and how to optimize your blog content to rank on Naver. For a deeper dive into the topic, including how to get your blog verified, read the full article below!

What Is Naver Blog?

As its name suggests, Naver Blog houses blogs and informal text entries from both personal and business profiles on Naver. With a staggering total of 30 million blog posts, according to Naver’s 2021 Blog Report, Naver Blog is where highly engaged and captive Korean users flock to for results relating to product reviews, culinary experiences, travel research, recipes, and so much more.

Why You Should Promote Your Brand on Naver Blog

Naver Blog is a great brand awareness tool that lets you present your brand—from your company background and history to products or services—in a way that resonates with more users on Naver, especially those just at the beginning of your conversion funnel.

Moreover, you can customize your blog’s background and layout to befit your brand image, as well as interact with users or answer frequently-asked questions in the comments section.

Your blog’s background and layout can be customized to match your brand image

While most search engines merge website and blog search results on their organic SERP sections, Naver makes the distinction clear on its SERP—in fact, often at the very top.

As you might know, Naver’s search results are displayed in several curated sections on a single SERP and heavily favors results from its UGC platforms—like Naver Blog, Café, and Post—higher on its SERPs and consolidates them under the VIEW search section, which is also navigable from the top search bar.

Depending on your search keywords, you might tend to find the VIEW section as the first-ranked section on Naver’s SERP, or at least just beneath the paid results at the very top.

For example, searching “egg tart recipes” on Naver saw the VIEW section rank first on its SERP. By contrast, inputting the same search term on Google search saw organic website results—not UGC—rank highest.

Naver VIEW sections for search terms “egg tart recipes”

Google’s SERP for search term: “Egg tart recipes”

Since Naver tends to rank its VIEW section higher on the SERP and organic website results towards the bottom, leveraging Naver Blog can translate to higher search visibility and, in turn, awareness for your brand.

By linking to your main website via blog articles, you’ll also open another doorway for incoming website traffic, specifically users who’ve already shown an interest in your brand, product, or service.

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How to Get Your Naver Blog Verified

To reap the benefits of Naver Blog, businesses must first sign up for a Naver account, which you can also use to access other Naver properties.

Verifying your Naver Blog—i.e., having the official tag (a green tick) appear next to your result on Naver’s SERP—provides a sense of credibility and quality to your content, which helps to establish trust and generate clicks.

Brands can verify their Naver Blogs by applying via Official Blog (공식 블로그), where Naver will assess blogs to check whether they operate within its standards. If you meet all the criteria, the official tag for verified blogs will appear beside your blog name on your SERP result.

The prerequisites for successful verification are as follows:

Your company must have published at least one article in the past year.
You can only operate one blog account for each company entity. This means you cannot have separate blogs for departments sharing the same business registration.
Your blog name must reflect your brand’s official name—for example, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd can appropriately use “Samsung Electronics” as its blog
Your blog must not violate Naver Blog’s operating principles and official application limit standards.
A profile photo and blog cover photo are required.

The official tag for a verified blog will appear beside your blog name on your SERP result

Tips for Optimizing Your Naver Blog Content

While pushing out content on Naver Blog won’t guarantee that they will consistently rank at the top of Naver’s SERP, there are ways to increase their likelihood of ranking higher.

Here, let’s discuss three tips to bear in mind when creating Naver Blog content.

Tip #1: Understand Naver’s Algorithm

Naver’s VIEW search section is powered by the platform’s C-rank (Creator Rank) and D.I.A+ (Deep Intent Analysis Plus) algorithms, so you must know how Naver determines whether or not to promote your site.

Introduced in 2016, C-Rank analyzes the content source’s credibility, popularity, and authority rather than focusing on the content itself. It favors creators who are experienced writers and experts in their field rather than uncredentialed bloggers who cover many categories but specialize in none.
Introduced in 2020, I.A+ analyzes user intent by search query to provide more relevant and better quality results. To improve its matching of results and user queries, DIA+ also evaluates content quality, user feedback on content, and session duration (i.e., time spent on the content).

Pro Tip: All updates to Naver’s algorithms can be found on their Search & Tech blog, so ensure you regularly check it out.

Tip #2: Think Brand Engagement

Naver heavily prioritizes content that keeps users engaged on a webpage longer. But aside from the written content itself, there are other factors that can contribute to higher user engagement on your Naver Blog.

For instance, feature images and thumbnails are of utmost importance since they are the first visual elements users see on your SERP result. Therefore, they must be eye-catching enough to attract clicks while also befitting to user search intent—but avoid clickbait!

Furthermore, maintaining a casual and conversational tone of voice—a mainstay of Naver Blog content—will improve your content’s readability compared to content ridden with technical jargon. This is a key factor to remember on Naver, even more so than on Google: The more you can keep your audience engaged with Naver’s properties (in this case, Naver Blog), the better you will perform on Naver.

Tip #3: Leverage Collaborations and Influencer Marketing

Thousands of influencers and KOLs are present on Naver Blog, making it an ideal springboard for influencer marketing strategies to drive more traffic to your website.

Collaborating with famous bloggers—particularly those who are established in your niche or industry—means you can tap into their audience pool and benefit from their existing connection with these customers.

If you operate in B2C, you can ask influencers to introduce or review your product or service to their audiences—and direct traffic to you by linking to your website.

By providing them with unique UTM-tagged links linking back to your conversion pages, like a sign-up or purchase page, you can track the traffic performance and conversion rate of your collaboration with each blogger to inform your strategy.

Influencers can review your products/services, share promo codes, and link to your promotion pages

***

Naver Blog is vital for maximizing your visibility on Naver’s SERPs and as a communication channel to interact and share the latest news/events with your customers. Hence, be sure to fully understand Naver’s ranking algorithm and tailor your content to capture user interest and keep them engaged.

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3 Content Marketing Trends Set to Dominate 2023

The Egg — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 05:51:24 +0000

3 Content Marketing Trends Set to Dominate 2023

Top 3 Content Marketing Trends for 2023 – APAC in 3 – Episode 15

Users today value authenticity, inclusivity, and shareability in their content more than ever, leaving marketers with new and existing opportunities to tie these values into their content marketing.

So, on top of providing value, your content must align with your customers’ interests and content consumption preferences and engage them on the right channels.

What’s in store for content marketing in the year ahead? Check out APAC in 3 (EP 16) for 3 trends set to impact your content marketing strategy in 2023.

Trend #1: Video Content Will Continue to Reign Supreme

Videos are already a popular engagement tool but will dominate the content world for years to come.

As users develop shorter attention spans with less time on their hands, videos are becoming more consumable on-the-go. Regardless of length or format, a well-made video can relay your message in a way that resonates strongly with your audience.

There are now more video creation tools across desktop and mobile, and the production process is less intimidating and easier to incorporate into content marketing strategies.

But video creation is only half the battle, so follow up by optimizing their search discoverability to boost views and drive those all-important conversions.

To do this, confirm your videos are found by Google using the Video Indexing Report in Google Search Console, make your videos the focus of their webpages, and optimize those pages’ contents for video-related queries.

Pro tip: The Video Indexing Report in Google Search Console can show you if Google has issues including videos on your website into search results.

Trend #2: Personalized Content Becoming Mainstream

Today’s users crave content that speaks directly to their individual preferences, wants, and needs, which has resulted in content personalization expanding into many different forms.

“Spotify Wrapped”—a yearly recap for every Spotify user with individualized data points from their past year of listening—is a prime example of hyper-personalized content at its zenith.

But there are myriad ways brands can use personalization to their advantage. In e-commerce, for instance, interactive quizzes are helping brands improve their product recommendations and personalize the shopping experience.

To get the most out of your efforts, leverage customer data to track how your users interact with your content and inform your targeting based on their behaviors and preferences.

Pro tip: Leverage customer data platforms to analyze your users’ behaviors and preferences beyond a campaign-only lens since today’s users interact with brands across multiple channels.

Trend #3: AI for Content-Creation, Humans for Value-Creation

Speaking of data-driven approaches, AI is revolutionizing how marketers ideate, create, serve, and measure content.

Computer programs have long been writing data-centric content like weather forecast, financial reports, and sports recaps. More recently, AI content generation has become a hot topic for marketers, with AI content tools creating everything from ad copy, product descriptions, to entire blog articles.

AI is also helping marketers deliver personalized experiences, predict winning creatives, and identify SEO keywords and topic clusters for content optimization.

But that doesn’t mean brands will necessarily forgo human writers and the insights, humor, and empathy they bring. Instead, a marriage of the two will be likelier as they find their niches.

How AI will be used and applied to different content types also remains to be seen. But the smart marketers will be those who figure out early on how it’s going to fit into their workflow to help them scale while still maintaining content quality.

Pro tip: Experiment by assigning human and AI tasks to different team members—not to pit them against each other, but to have them compare human vs. AI strengths and weaknesses relative to your content marketing needs.

***

Content is transforming—and on top of how we create it, how we market it will need to adapt to new and increasingly unique trends and strategies if we are to cut through the online clutter.

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How to Leverage Private Domain Traffic in China

Coco Gao — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 05:30:21 +0000

How to Leverage Private Domain Traffic in China

How to Leverage Private Domain Traffic in China – APAC in 3 – Episode 15

Although public domains give you access to near-limitless online traffic to increase your brand reach in China, they are highly competitive spaces without much potential to foster any real connection or trust with your customers.

And as the country’s web industry experiences a growth slowdown and grows ever more saturated, leveraging customer value is paramount. As such, increasing revenue from the customers you already have is as essential to your growth strategy as acquiring new customers.

That’s where private domains (私域) come into play—by helping brands maintain direct communication with their target customers and engage them directly to drive retention and repurchases.

Check out APAC in 3 (EP 15) for tips on how to leverage private domain traffic in your China marketing strategy. For a deeper dive into the topic, read the full article below!

What is private domain traffic?

Private domain traffic marketing is the method whereby a brand’s communication with its customers is “funneled” into private channels (i.e., “private domains 私域”), where it has complete control over how and when it wants to communicate with this audience.

This stands in contrast to “public domains 公域”, which are traffic sources not controlled or owned by brands. Instead, brands here will usually use different methods to direct public traffic to their campaigns or accounts before trying to engage the users and bring them into their private traffic pool. Examples of public traffic sources include search engines and user traffic on some e-commerce or social networks.

Ultimately, the purpose of private domains is to continue “selling” even after customers leave your website. Since it often only takes a catalyst to trigger customers to repurchase, private domain channels help by keeping your brand fresh on their minds and increasing their likelihood of returning to you (i.e., user stickiness).

Why use private domain traffic?

Private domain channels offer myriad benefits for brands. They can:

Ensure you’re consistently targeting the right customers
Improve your brand perception among ideal target customers
Maintain direct, two-way communication with customers and a build long-lasting relationship
Boost customer engagement, retention, and repurchasing rates
Lower your customer acquisition cost

Where to leverage private domain traffic?

Before the upsurge of private domain traffic in social marketing, brands would typically cultivate their own customer communities via more brand-owned channels, like EDM and brand website/blog. Many brands in western countries still rely heavily on these channels to reach their customers.

Now, brands in China are increasingly shifting towards social media applications to achieve this, opting for platforms popular with their target customers that can enable private domain traffic with free, user-friendly features and allow for direct marketing campaigns.

In China, WeChat has been a popular source of private domain traffic among brands, owing much to its behemoth userbase and comprehensive ecosystem encompassing messaging, social media, e-commerce, and payment functions.

In this case, a brand’s WeChat official account, group chats, and WeChat Moments are all forms of private domain channels on WeChat—each considered a “private asset” of that brand since they are operated by the brand.

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How to attract private domain traffic?

There are two main types of private domains you can leverage in your marketing.

Build Your Own Community

Firstly, you can leverage public traffic domains—your main website, for example—to attract customers before funneling those who are more likely to convert into private communities like group chats, even if they’re hosted on third-party apps like WeChat.

Here are some tips to consider when building your own community:

Organize group chats: Private domain channels, particularly group chats, rely heavily on moderators and quality content to stay relevant. Therefore, after gathering interested users in a private group chat, you’ll need to cultivate a proactive brand voice to build a long-lasting relationship with your customers.
Host live webinars: By addressing customer pain points in live webinar sessions, you can build rapport and attract more targeted and higher-quality leads to your private domain channels.
Offer personalized services: Based on your customers’ concerns and queries, you can offer 1-to-1 customer support via private chatrooms.
Target users by past behavior: You can set up profiles of your repeat customers in a CRM system and monitor their purchasing behaviors to inform your targeting strategies.

Find Pre-Existing Communities and Audience Groups

Each KOC/KOL curates and manages their own group of followers, so you can reach out to those that align with your brand.

Here are some tips to consider when leveraging pre-existing communities and audience groups:

KOC/KOL campaigns: Aside from moderators and content, promotions can hugely appeal to customers in your group chats. To this end, you can enlist key opinion consumers (KOCs) to stir excitement and mix your brand-owned community with target platforms and communities by offering regular promotions—e.g., discounts, coupons, lotteries, live broadcasts. Unlike key opinion leaders (KOLs), however, KOCs are usually amateur influencers keen on testing or reviewing products they are interested in, so they will likely resonate better with your target customers.
Industry experts: As free knowledge-sharing grows ever more ubiquitous across online communities, you can blend your brand-owned community with target platforms and communities by inviting industry experts to share their expertise about industry trends relevant to your business category. This will appeal to customers seeking educational value when joining your private domains.

***

At a time when online attention spans are diminishing, private domains can help brands establish more vertical and sticky customer acquisition and engagement channels.

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APAC in 3 Archives | The Egg

The Best Social Platform Alternatives to WeChat for B2B Marketing in China

The Best Social Platform Alternatives to WeChat for B2B Marketing in China

1. Xiaohongshu (小红书)

XHS’s User Demographics

Why should you do B2B marketing on Xiaohongshu?

How to do B2B Marketing on Xiaohongshu?

2. Bilibili (哔哩哔哩)

Bilibili’s User Demographics

Why should you do B2B marketing on Bilibili?

How to do B2B Marketing on Bilibili?

3. Douyin (抖音)

Douyin’s User Demographics

Why should you do B2B marketing on Douyin?

How to do B2B Marketing on Douyin？

4. Zhihu (知乎)

Zhihu’s User Demographics

Why should you do B2B marketing on Zhihu?

How to do B2B Marketing on Zhihu?

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5. Maimai (脉脉)

Maimai’s User Demographics

Why should you do B2B marketing on Maimai?

How to do B2B Marketing on Maimai?

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How To Do Naver SEO 2024: The Ultimate Marketer’s Guide

How To Do Naver SEO 2024: The Ultimate Marketer’s Guide

Full Guide to Naver SEO

Table of Contents

Full Guide to Naver SEO

Table of Contents

Comprehensive Guide to Naver SEO

Korea’s Search Engine Market Share

FAQ: Is Naver in English?

SERP Layout & Features

Naver Homepage

Naver Search Tools & SERP Layout

Naver Vertical Search Categories

Naver Related/Suggested Searches

Naver Trending Searches

Naver Universal SERP Features

Naver Paid Search Ads

Naver BLOG

Naver Websites

Naver Encyclopedia

KnowledgeIn

Naver Algorithms & Ranking Factors

Ranking Algorithm for View Search

Naver Technical SEO: Basics

Robots.txt

Naver Sitemaps

Monitor Your Indexation on Naver

Naver Open Graph Tags

Naver Backlinks

On- & Off-Page Optimization

Social Media

Naver Blog Optimization

C-Rank Algorithm Applied on Naver Blog Search

Naver Blog Category Selection

Naver Image Usage

What Is The Most Popular Search Engine In Korea?

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How to Use ChatGPT for SEO

How to Use ChatGPT for SEO

5 Ways SEOs are Putting ChatGPT to Work

1. Creating and Optimizing Content

2. Writing Meta Descriptions

3. Generating Title Ideas

4. Conducting Keyword Research

5. Generating Schema Code

If ChatGPT is here to stay, what does the future hold for SEO?

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