The Chinese netizens can’t live without their social media and forums! They are super active on them. The number of monthly users on platforms like Weibo and Zhihu proves this daily. Lots of international brands are using Baidu SEO to market their brands. But, do you know that the largest online community in China is Baidu Tieba (百度贴吧)?
If you’re an international brand wanting to expand in China, it will benefit your organization to take a closer look and better understand Baidu Tieba. It’s a worthy alternative to the other massive platforms available. Other platforms like Weibo and Zhihu might get you a massive following, but Baidu Tieba will get you right in front of your target audience and find your niche market if your strategies pan out. Let’s dive into Baidu Tieba further so you have a good idea of what your brand can take advantage of?
Highlights
- What is Baidu Tieba?
- Main features that you have to know about Baidu Tieba
- Baidu Tieba vs. Reddit
- Popular Baidu Tieba categories and their different functions
- How to create engaging and effective posts on Baidu Tieba?
- How to take advantage of Baidu Tieba as a brand in China?
What is Baidu Tieba?
Baidu Tieba, also known as Baidutieba, Tieba, and 百度贴吧 in Chinese. It was established in 2003. Baidu Tieba accumulated over 300 million monthly active users by 2015, and its total registered users surpassed 1.5 billion! It claims to be the most prominent Chinese online community and a community of young people. Most users were born after the 1990s.
Baidu Tieba is an interest-based community forum. Tieba means “post articles.” You can find any topic that you are interested in on this platform. Its centralized interest network community effectively allows brands to promote targeted marketing. If you don’t know Chinese, you can search Baidu Tieba in the search bar, which will direct you to an English version, or visit it and translate Chinese into English.
Each Tieba a has a Tieba host as the primary coordinator. And there are hundreds of thousands of Tiebas on the platform.
Main features that you have to know of Baidu Tieba
Direct access to the local communities
The most significant advantage that Baidu Tieba will give your brand is direct access to the local communities through its billions of users. Also, the detailed categories are clearly marked. You need to get familiar with the varying jargon used on Baidu Tieba. And you need to know about the experience points, Tieba host, Tieba rules, and friends list to engage with the communities you are targeting.
User content-oriented and hyper-interactive
The types of posts shared on Baidu Tieba vary tremendously, and there is no specific fixed-format you need to follow. Your posts might concentrate on discussing a topic of interest, talking about the news, hosting a Q&A session, or maybe even sharing your daily life… the list goes on. But the critical feature embedded in all hot posts is its interactiveness–everything is “live”! And because of this, a thriving post on Baidu Tieba can never be created and left alone. It’s an ongoing conversation. You need to interact with readers and manage responses to keep your posts trending and ranking on top.
Another great thing about Baidu Tieba for brands is its focus on user content. This means that you don’t need to be a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) to be influential on Baidu Tieba. What matters is that your post is interesting and engaging to trigger continued discussion.
The vertical structure of Baidu Tieba
As mentioned previously, Baidu Tieba is a platform that consists of countless specific Tiebas as individual communities. Although they are all under Baidu Tieba and have an essentially identical web page layout, each Tieba is independently self-governed. And each of the Tieba has its own Tieba Host as the primary coordinator. Therefore, you could say that each Tieba, having little to no interaction with one another, is a highly independent forum on its own.
Baidu Tieba vs. Reddit
Similar to Reddit, Baidu Tieba combines aspects of social media, news, and message boards to create a community-driven forum. By interaction and sharing in various Tiebas, there are countless communities on Baidu Tieba. Both Reddit and Baidu Tieba are broken into many categories and individual sections that focus on specific topics and themes. The main differences are that the content presented on Tieba is much richer with various channels and is super mobile-friendly.
Top Baidu Tieba categories and their different functions
Since Baidu Tiebas are independent, every Tieba focuses on different content and topics. The function of each Tieba can vary extensively, and categories are broken down into further subcategories. Here are a few of the top categories to explain some of the things Chinese users are interested in.
- Celebrity Tiebas: Celebrity Tiebas is one of the most popular Tiebas for Chinese users. And it is often filled with positive comments due to the high chance of getting banned by Tieba Hosts if the comments break their Tieba rules.
- Interest Groups Tiebas: Interest groups Tiebas are great for brands! Anything you can think of is on these Tiebas. They range from fashion lovers to sports fanatics to gaming pros or health experts. Mobile gaming is one of the most used categories where users share strategies and receive gaming rewards for interactions.
How to create engaging and effective posts on Baidu Tieba?
There are many ways brands can utilize their paid advertising on Baidu Tieba. But, organic content on Baidu Tieba can be a fantastic way to expose your brand and save on costs when promoting your business. At least for a start, you can concentrate on building engaging organic content. Then, you can develop strategies for both a robust organic output and targeted advertising. Since one of the features of Baidu Tieba is to segment users, you have the opportunity to reach your exact target audience and become a top post with long-term success. Here are some essential aspects to consider when making a Baidu Tieba post.
- First, build your creditability: Establishing a creditable account before posting is key. Make sure your brand’s introduction is well accurate and complete. We recommend posting and interacting with other Tieba posts before posting one of your own. This will help you earn experience points.
- Quality over quantity: A high-quality post will benefit your brand more than making multiple posts with low-quality content. Quality is something that your brand needs to focus on.
How to take advantage of Baidu Tieba as a brand in China?
- Highly-targeted marketing: Baidu Tieba is an ideal space for international brands, especially niche brands, to reach smaller segments of users based on interests. The platform is set up to allow each Tieba or post to be catered specifically to its community. So, there is no distraction for users. They can concentrate on your brand messages and what you want to say.
- A deeper understanding of the China market and its consumers: You have got to know that Chinese consumers like a brand with a narrative. If you support specific advocacies that many people back, that will be a big chance to spread the word about your business. Baidu Tieba is an excellent platform for getting very close and having real interactions with your target consumers.
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