KAWO, the leading social media management platform in China, has launched its 2023 “Guide to China Social Metrics.”

The guide provides brands tips to navigate the unique Chinese social media landscape – helping marketers understand where each platform sits in the marketing funnel and how metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) can be translated into actual business success.

Examining six social media platforms, WeChat official accounts and Channels, Douyin, Kuaishou, Little Red Book (xiaohongshu), Weibo and Bilibili, the whitepaper discusses how brands can make KPIs work, recommends ways to calculate statistics and assess content performance with data analytics, methods to compare commonly used progress and goal tracking tools, and details different ways to measure conversions.

“China’s social media platforms are diverse, unique and present a challenge for brands who are investing millions in reaching their audience but may not have the right tools to measure results and impact,” said Alex Li, Chief Executive Officer, KAWO. “We hope that this guide will present brands with a framework to understand the Chinese social media landscape and allow them to astutely leverage each platform across the customer journey – be it in China, or among the millions of Chinese diasporas around the world that use these platforms.”

Overview of Mainstream Chinese Social Platforms

With the social media landscape in China constantly changing, it is imperative to have a broad understanding of the ecosystem before diving deeper into how success is measured across platforms. In the Guide, KAWO provides a snapshot of the current state of Chinese social platforms along with the type of content popular with Chinese consumers.

Utilizing the Right Social Metrics for the Right Stage of the Customer Journey

With an understanding of the entire ecosystem in place, brands must next understand the intersection of each social platform with the different stages of the customer journey – and the suitable social metrics to measure success.


For example, brands must pay attention to building trust in the consideration funnel – where audiences weigh their options before they decide to invest in a brand. A suitable metric during this period is whether followers are won or lost, during this period.

A common mistake by marketers is moving too quickly from awareness to purchase without nurturing their audience properly. In this case, losing followers upon publishing content can be an insightful metric to evaluate a brand’s performance at the consideration stage of the customer journey – revealing that audiences fall off after awareness and are not yet convinced further down the funnel.

Brands are Becoming More Efficient at Retaining Followers

KAWO has found that over recent years, brands, as a whole, have become more efficient in retaining followers. In an analysis of WeChat Service and Subscription accounts, KAWO data showed that the Win-Loss Ratio – a comparison of the number of followers lost per every 100 gained has decreased since 2020.

In 2020, Service accounts – used mainly for managing and maintaining customer relationships – were mostly losing more followers than they gained, while this improved to as low as 47 lost followers per 100 gained in 2023. For Subscription accounts – focused mainly on raising awareness and promoting the brand – the ratio dropped from a high of 0.94 in 2020 to a low of 0.37 in 2022 before creeping up in 2023.


The Case for an Alternative to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KAWO also argues in the Guide that an alternative to traditional KPIs – Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) – should be considered for social media metrics as it is suitable for creative and collaborative works that are hard to measure through typical KPIs.

To achieve long-term ambitions, OKRs should be clearly defined and differentiated from KPIs.
KAWO’s “Guide to China Social Metrics” whitepaper is available for download here. It provides readers with the following:

1. An overview of mainstream social platforms in China
2. Key metrics and social listening considerations
3. Customer journey and the marketing funnel on social media
4. KPI selection for the various social platforms in China
5. Making KPIs work
6. Measuring conversion

By KAWO