Guide to Kuaishou Marketing (+Best practices)

Kuaishou is a short-video platform similar to Douyin. Unlike its more upscale competitor which targets big brands as well as urban youth, Kuaishou is primarily aimed at lower-tier cities, rural populations, and migrant workers who use the app for comedy videos or live-streaming of mundane tasks like daily trips.

Kuaishou trends in 2024:

1. Live Commerce: Kuaishou is transforming into a powerhouse for live-streaming e-commerce, allowing creators to sell directly during broadcasts, blending entertainment with instant shopping.
2. Smarter AI: The platform is leveraging advanced AI to deliver personalized video feeds that keep users glued by perfectly matching content to viewer preferences.
3. Diverse Content: Kuaishou is broadening its appeal with an expanded range of content categories including educational tutorials, fitness programs, and DIY projects, attracting a wider audience.
4. Augmented Reality (AR) Enhancements: By integrating AR technologies, Kuaishou lets users create interactive and visually captivating content, from filters to virtual environments.
5. Global Reach: Building on its domestic success, Kuaishou is pushing into new international markets, especially in Southeast Asia and Latin America, aiming to capture a global audience.
6. Green Initiatives: The platform is promoting environmental consciousness, encouraging content that supports sustainability and eco-friendly practices among its community.
7. Safer Experience: Kuaishou is ramping up its safety measures with tighter content moderation and robust security protocols, ensuring a secure and enjoyable environment for all users.

Since February 2021, Kuaishou has gone public, the shares have more than doubled. This is the biggest tech IPO since Uber in 2019. In addition to being a Chinese social media platform that brings together 300 million daily active users, it is one of the main apps in China’s short video market.

What is Kuaishou? 

Kuaishou is a Chinese short video platform that shares many similarities with Douyin. Unlike Douyin, which has an algorithm that recommends content similar to what you spend the most time watching, Kuaishou puts forward recommendations from people you know.

Kuaishou was originally just a simple tool for creating gifs, a series of moving images commonly used on the internet. The group now employs nearly 20,000 people. Based in Beijing, it generated over the first nine months completed in September a turnover of 40.7 billion yuan or 5.2 billion euros. 

Kuaishou and Douyin (internationally known as TikTok) are two of the most popular short-video platforms in China, but they cater to distinct audiences and offer different features. Here are five key differences between Kuaishou and Douyin:

1. User Demographics:
   • Kuaishou: Traditionally attracts a user base from lower-tier cities and rural areas in China. It is popular among a more mature audience, including older generations who appreciate the platform’s authenticity and community feel.
   • Douyin: Skews towards a younger, urban demographic from higher-tier cities. Its users often seek trendy, creative content and are typically more influenced by celebrity and influencer culture.
2. Content Style and Perception:
   • Kuaishou: Known for its raw, authentic content. It supports a more grassroots level of video creation, where everyday people share real-life experiences, fostering a sense of community and relatability.
   • Douyin: Focuses more on polished, high-quality videos. It’s a hub for viral trends, dance routines, and highly stylized clips that are often more visually appealing and professionally edited.
3. Monetization and E-commerce:
   • Kuaishou: Strongly emphasizes live-streaming for e-commerce, making it easy for users to sell goods directly through live videos. It is renowned for its effective conversion rates in live-stream sales.
   • Douyin: While also integrating e-commerce features, Douyin leans more towards brand partnerships and influencer endorsements for monetization. It frequently collaborates with high-profile brands and celebrities to engage in advertising campaigns.
4. Platform Algorithms and Engagement:
   • Kuaishou: Uses an algorithm that promotes longer viewer engagement with content, encouraging more interactions between users and creators. This fosters strong community bonds and repeated interactions.
   • Douyin: Employs a highly sophisticated algorithm optimized for rapid content consumption, pushing videos that are likely to go viral, thereby maximizing reach and view count quickly.
5. International Presence:
   • Kuaishou: Has a relatively limited international presence, focusing more on consolidating and expanding its user base within China and some parts of Southeast Asia.
   • Douyin: As the global version of TikTok, it has a massive international presence, making it one of the most recognized social media platforms worldwide, with a broad user base across many countries outside China.

Who are Kuaishou users?

In 2022, the app recorded more than 598 million monthly active users and 346 million daily active users. There were around 379 million content creators on the platform in 2022. Kuaishou has many young active user groups and the company also claims to have up to 200 million live streams every day. Kuaishou’s initial rural orientation changed, as the platform started to grow, becoming one of the most popular apps for user-generated content.

Demographically, it is different from Douyin because Kuaishou is more focused on Tier 2 and Tier 4 cities. As you can read in this article about Douyin, conversely users come from Tier 1 like Shanghai or Beijing. On Kuaishou, only 10% of users live in top-tier cities.

What is interesting is that, unlike platforms like Little Red Book which consist mostly of female users, in 2022 Kuaishou’s demographic consisted of 44.2% of female and 55.8% male users.

Kuaishou’s large active users are young with 80% born after 1990. For this generation, the idea of breaking into major Chinese cities and becoming KOL is their dream. However, the cultural forces of society oppose them because of their geolocation.

Moreover, for the most part, they have few economic opportunities. The platform allows them to express themselves freely as well as aspire to share their true self and create personal engagement experiences with a growing community of rural app users.

Kuaishou users are:

• Young (80% born after 1990)
• Evenly split between male and female 
• E-commerce shoppers
• Interested in lifestyle content
• Located mostly in lower-tier cities in China

Kuaishou effectively attracts rural content creators that always felt odd on the platforms focused on luxury content and promotion or product placement of big brands. There is more rural life shown through the rural content creator’s lens, as Kuaishou’s approach emphasizes this type of genuinely engaging content.

Benefits of using Kuaishou for business

• Kuaishou is focused on e-Commerce marketing, they actually have integration with Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. 
• On Kuaishou, there is a 3 to 5 times higher conversion rate when it comes to selling in e-Commerce and to selling your products compared to Douyin. 
• There is a very engaged community that is more willing to purchase than Douyin has.
• The user base on Kuaishou is smaller, people are not advertising as much as on Douyin, so it is cheaper to advertise or do marketing for your products.
• Kuaishou is more relationship-based than any other platform
• Kuaishou’s live-streaming feature has a more engaging community too because of its relationship based. Today this is the best platform to do streaming e-Commerce. The engagement rate on Kuaishou live-streaming is 5% against 2% for Douyin.
• Kuaishou is trying to expand its target to first-tier cities. Through partnerships with e-commerce platforms, it tries to reach a wider audience, such as Beijing or Shanghai, by targeting its urban Kuaishou user base.

Kuaishou: an e-Commerce platform

Kuaishou is a beneficial resource for brands looking to advertise on a low budget and sell their products to a more rural target, as Kuaishou’s users come from lower-tier cities and rural areas. When it comes to online shopping, consumers in third and fourth-tier cities should be considered.

Indeed, this part of the Chinese population is today more active than the inhabitants of the first-tier cities. This is because they have more free time and the cost of living is much lower, allowing them to better follow trends and make purchases on websites like Tmall Luxury Pavilion, where Alibaba has reported an increase of 80% from 2020. Some remote locations have seen sales of luxury goods increase by more than 150%, according to McKinsey & Company.

Kuaishou has become the choice of many e-commerce sellers because this platform inspires companies to create new types of content and reinvent themselves. We see that the platform is pushing to build its e-commerce system, it is currently integrated with 6 platforms such as WeChat.

The Chinese company has also started trading in mobile games. This is because users can purchase items from their favorite streamers directly through the app. 204.06 billion yuan in transactions went through Kuaishou last year.

How to create certified business accounts on Kuaishou?

To be able to promote your brand through short-form video content on the platform, you need to create a certified business account first.

Who can get a certified account?

There are two account types on Kuaishou:

• Individual creator accounts: They can create and share content, interact with friends, and use the platform as a standard non-commercial user. This is the case for artists, sportsmen, KOLs and KOCs, or content creation for example.
• Business accounts: They can be opened by brands to promote their products, raise brand awareness, and communicate with potential customers.

What are the benefits of having a business account in Kuaishou?

• There are sub-categories so that the different types of organizations can be identified and found easily.
• The certified account can be used as a standard but also has additional functions such as e-commerce integrations, advertising, and other app design features.
• You get an advertising discount.
• Kuaishou will send you growth recommendations.
• Kuaishou will place a “V” logo next to your account name as proof of legitimacy and authority.
• The certified account gives more visibility to your profile.
• You can add a purchase link to your short-video content.

How to do marketing with Kuaishou?

Kuaishou is a great platform for marketing, but it’s important to craft a well-tailored marketing strategy that will match your brand. Here are some of our marketing tips;

Get your certified business account

After authentication, professional accounts can access many benefits as we have seen previously. Thanks to this, your brand will be able to improve its marketing strategy, in particular with the reduction in the cost of certain paid advertising.

Post videos during peak hours

According to official data, the rush hour for Kuaishou is 10 p.m. If you want to post a video at this time, you should post it 30 minutes to 1 hour in advance to give it time to upload and review.

Use trend tags

You can have more visibility with trend tags because it is like another way to have impressions on your video. Users can find your posts by checking content related to special tags like hashtags, brands, music, hot topics, or featured products. 

Post original marketing video post

As for Douyin, it is sometimes better to work with KOC (Key Opinion Customers). This type of micro-influencers is famous for being cheaper and especially more original. They are closer to the potential customer and give a complete product review.

This is a good thing for a platform based on the relationship between its users. To support these quality creators, Kuaishou announced a plan to increase traffic and impressions last year that paid off with substantial growth in 2020.

Live-streaming

Live streaming is one of the three primary services of the platform. It is an effective way to increase the fan base for branded accounts. Streamers can clearly show products to consumers, sell products, and interact with audiences to explain products in detail. All of this can be done within the short-video app.

How to create engaging content on Kuaishou?

There are various methods used in marketing to maximize user engagement. The commitment, as far as Kuaishou is concerned, is one of its major assets thanks to its communitarianism based on the relations between the members.

If Kuaishou gets a good entry, it is because it dominates live streaming. For a live-streaming to work, it must be attractive. The important thing is to share and entertain the user. Lives that simply consist of questions and answers are less entertaining. You have to find a goal in live-streaming and share while offering content otherwise the members leave very quickly and do not listen to all the information.

Several methods exist to properly prepare for live streaming such as announcing a date in advance, informing your community of a big announcement or an event not to be missed during this live streaming, or even practicing the advance to avoid bugs.

It is necessary to know your target. For this, it is essential to be regular, to do different styles of positions, and to consult your statistics. Over time, certain types of videos and several types of audiences will emerge from your community. You will be able to focus on the content that pleases you the most in order to adapt to the users.

Work with Kuaishou Influencers

Using the increasing presence and popularity of Key Opinion Leaders and influencers (KOL) to create popularity in your brand to quickly create a larger audience. Nowadays, KOL marketing on Kuaishou offers brands a very lucrative opportunity. During its November 6 shopping festival, for example, KOL Xinba generated more than $57 million in sales for partnered brands in just one day. 

To build an effective KOL strategy for Kuaishou, you’ll need to:

• Partner up with a KOL relevant to your target consumer
• Select a KOL with a proven track record 
• Provide direction 
• Maximize exposure with paid marketing
• Analyze ROI 

Kuaishou Paid Advertising

There are many ways to integrate your advertising on the Kuaishou platform. In addition to cooperating with KOLs and operating business accounts, businesses can also use several types of ads. These include display ads, newsfeed ads, and discover ads, all of which can be in the form of short video clips or banners. These can be used to direct traffic to account profiles, specific videos or live streams, games, external websites, and e-commerce stores. 

• Open screen ads: They are displayed every time the application is opened. With this advertising, you can quickly gain brand awareness. 
• Newsfeed: It can include videos or live streaming links on the Discovery page. 
• Localized content strategy: Merchants can also buy location-based services and make ads that reach specifically targeted users.
• Launch challenge: Here you have to launch challenge campaigns with a topic tag encouraging users to make related videos, spontaneously promoting the brand and building the brand’s reputation.

Each advertising solution can be targeted to users according to their gender, age, location, interests, and behavior on the platform.

Examples of Campaign on Kuaishou by international brands:

Toyota Corolla

Toyota Corolla launched a challenge with a topic tag and encouraged users to create a video associated with the brand’s theme song and tag it, sharing their story of pursuing the dream.

They also seamlessly integrated online and offline resources. The top-ranked users in the challenge competition could win prizes and get the chance to participate in the brand’s offline event.

The Chelsea FC

The most notable official sports account addition to Kuaishou at the end of 2020 was Chelsea FC. Chelsea hosted their first live stream on Kuaishou in January, with an influencer taking fans through a stream of classic goals and matches, whilst setting quizzes and encouraging interaction in the comments.

The reaction from fans was positive and views reached around 300K across the stream, a healthy number for a newly opened account. This could lay foundations for the incorporation of live commerce into the streams in the future, as we have seen many other brands do on the platform.

To conclude Kuaishou Marketing

Kuaishou is a growing platform that should not be overlooked by international brands in their marketing strategy. The rural Douyin today weighs over $ 180 billion, making it the largest IPO. Content-based on the relationship between users strengthens the engagement rate of potential customers and offers a conversion rate 3 to 5 times higher than on Douyin for e-Commerce.

To increase its visibility it is possible to make partnerships with KOLs or live-streaming since Kuaishou is the leader in this field. Plus, with a certified account, additional options will benefit your business with discounts on paid advertising, growth recommendations, and credibility. All of these will allow you to consolidate the best possible marketing strategy to reach your target audience.

Need help with your Social Media Strategy in China?

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Contact us, we provide cost-effective digital marketing solutions & Social Media Management for China since 2012. We will schedule a free consultation to get to know your needs and learn about your brand.

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