Chinese consumer sentiment about Australia on Social Media
As a foreign brand in China, you may be finding it challenging to stay attuned to the ever-changing landscape of the China market since the border closures. You’re not alone – it is the most common issue that we hear about from brands we talk to. Even staff on the ground are finding it difficult as many of their overseas stakeholders have been disconnected from the China market for at least three years, adding complexities to cross border communications, understanding and decision making.
Reading western media can sometimes give a skewed view of what’s really happening in the market too. It often doesn’t capture consumer sentiment from the ground. In just one example, Australian newspapers’ articles about China over the past few years may have you believing that there has been very little love for Australia from Chinese consumers lately. That simply isn’t true, as we’ve analysed below.
We try and do our little bit to provide on-the-ground insights by writing this newsletter every week. And for brands who want deeper, easily accessible information specific to their needs, we offer our Category Tracker dashboards and suite of marketing and research services. This week, we are thrilled to announce the latest tool in the belt for staying abreast of the China market, our AI-driven Brand Health Tracker.
The Brand Health Tracker’s online dashboard tracks and analyses keywords on Chinese social media, in a beautifully simple to use, English interface. We monitor mentions, engagement and sentiment across Douyin, Weibo, WeChat and Baidu, with more platforms coming soon. It is a valuable way to monitor what Chinese consumers, KOLs and others are saying about your brand and campaigns. You can also add additional keywords to monitor competitors, your category, relevant trends from sustainability to fitness, to perceptions of your products’ origins.
We’ve aimed to keep it as accessible as possible with our introductory offer of $99/month. You can learn more about the features, see a video of it in action, have a try of the features yourself with our demo, or sign up to unleash the insights, by clicking/tapping here.
To demonstrate some of the insights, we’ve used the Brand Health Tracker to analyse Australia on social media over the past couple of weeks. As with most keywords on social media, the majority of content is neutral - 83.6% in this case. Just 5% of posts are negative, whereas over 11% are positive, with consumers most upbeat around 14-15 November due to the Xi Jinping and Anthony Albanese meeting on the sidelines of the G20.
Although the leaders’ meeting was big news, marking the end of the six-year diplomatic freeze, it was only the third-most engaged subject. ‘Life Abroad’ posts relating to Australia had higher engagement, as Chinese increasingly explore migration options in light of worsening Covid conditions and regulations in China. Topics related to ‘Study Abroad’ had the second highest number of posts relating to Australia.
But it was Australian topics related to sport which topped engagement on Chinese social media. Obviously, the FIFA World Cup is getting a lot of air-time with the many football-obsessed Chinese. The Socceroo’s victory against Tunisia on Saturday has created a lot of online buzz in China, as has Australia’s general World Cup participation from its fellow Asian Football Confederation member. Interestingly, it is lower profile sport exchanges with Australia such as badminton and men’s basketball which have also created quite a buzz in China, reminding us how important sports exchanges are for reaching Chinese consumers. But our cute fury friends who trumped sport this month, with a Douyin video featuring an extraordinarily intelligent Australian sheepdog taking the crown as the most-engaged post related to Australia.
Geographically, posts coming from Beijing are more positive than those from Shanghai, whereas Guangdong is more upbeat, and out west in Sichuan, even more positive still. When talking about Australian locations, Sydney generated the most buzz, but Melbourne had the highest engagement. Western Australia had the most positive sentiment.
The keyword ‘Australia’ provides a small illustration of how the Brand Health Tracker can help you understand what, how and when Chinese consumers are talking about in topics relevant to your brand. It can assist in monitoring the success of campaigns and hashtags, or just the general feeling about your brand. It also helps to identify which related topics are resonant, and which don’t move the dial. If you’re focusing on specific geographies through events, brick-and-mortar, or targeted online initiatives, you can track how much buzz they are creating. All blissfully easy to use, and for remarkable value. Find out more about the Brand Health Tracker and have a go on the demo here.
