China’s Tmall, for example, has integrated social media as a consumer-powered review and
recommendation system where products with higher scores are given more exposure, indicating just
how impactful social media reviews are on a product’s online visibility and in a larger sense, a brand’s
reputation. Active social media users in China largely overlap with consumers that have spending power,
compared to the West where those with greater spending power tend to be much older and use social
media less34.
Facebook continues to reign as the dominant social network being used across Asia Pacific, with Twitter
ranking second in the region. However, the usage rates for these international platforms vary across
markets. While consumers in Indonesia and India led in terms of Twitter users, Chinese instant messaging
app WeChat and business networking site LinkedIn also showed significant usage35. WeChat has also
leverages social media to promote services to its 300 million users, including 100 million overseas, by
offering various services from mobile payments, mobile commerce options, taxi booking services and
consumer-to-consumer (C2C) money transfers. Users can even link their credit card account to the app
to complete transactions through their mobile device36.
Source: Waggener Edstrom Communications, 2014
34 http://www.forbes.com/sites/helenwang/2014/08/25/why-china-will-lead-innovation-in-social-and-mobile-commerce/, 35 CONTENT MATTERS: The
Impact of Brand Storytelling Online in 2014, 36 http://etc-digital.org/digital-trends/eCommerce/social-commerce/regional-overview/asia-pacific/
In South Korea, a leading apparel brand powered by SingPost eCommerce launched a social campaign
on Kakao. In the week prior to the social campaign, total visits stood at 11,637. After the campaign, the
brand saw a significant jump to 20,110 total visits, an almost 100% increase, illustrating the success of
the campaign and the impact of social on eCommerce in the region. Just like the broader eCommerce
sector, APAC’s social media landscape is highly diverse and as such success stories indicate, it is critical
for brands to take a local approach to their social media and content strategy by carefully considering
consumer preferences in each country
space by posting ratings or reviews of their purchases. In China, 75% of internet users post at least one
review or rating per month, whereas less than 20% of users who do so in North America and Europ