Category: Multicultural Markets in Canada

Multicultural Markets in Canada Social Media

Language barrier and work-around of Xiaohongshu

Post author By Leona
Post date February 20, 2023
No Comments on Language barrier and work-around of Xiaohongshu

Whopping number of active monthly users: 200 million plus; Generation Z; urban, fashionable, free-spirit; economically well-off, independent, pursuing high quality of life, are some of the characteristics of these users. These all look very tempting to be a business’ target consumers.

Easy to use integrated platform: publishing, sharing and collecting articles, photos and videos; virtual mall to sell products; pop-up stores to do instant sales; livestreaming; B2C advertisements with algorithm behind the platform targeting the right audiences, etc. are some of the functions that businesses big or small can utilize. However, for overseas businesses, perhaps the most desirable factor is that Xiaohongshu makes it easy for businesses to open and hold their own businesses accounts with very little restriction, unlike Wechat.

Before you jump in with both feet to open your account at Xiaohongshu, there is one biggest barrier: language requirement. The app can be downloaded from Google Play or iPhone app store. You can use a North American cellphone number to create an account. Depending on the language setting of your phone, the interface can be in English or Chinese. But that’s not enough though. Its English interface is not ideal, mixed Chinese and English together.

The reality is that, the audiences are mostly Chinese language users, even if you are targeting Chinese Canadian here in Canada, they still prefer the content created in Chinese language.

Here is an example of Mike Hurley, the current mayor of City of Burnaby’s account at Xiaohongshu. He is actively engaging with the Chinese community by posting regularly the things happening in the city hall. The comments under his posts indicate that people are pleasantly surprised by the fact that he even has a Xiaohongshu account. His posts sometimes are written in Simplified Chinese, and sometimes in Traditional Chinese font, so it is likely that they were written by different staffers, but it does not matter because people who read these do understand both written forms although they might not be able to write the one that they were not taught at school. The videos were all in English but with Chinese translations of the headlines and keywords in the text.

So far, it seems that this strategy works. As a municipal political figure on behalf of the city, although the postings are not frequent, perhaps once or twice a month, with average 100 words per post, he does get people’s attention without putting in too much effort.

But that’s about it. Language barriers are stopping businesses from tapping into this great app and the huge audience it is reaching. If you search users within the app, probably you may not be able to find a lot of familiar businesses holding their accounts at Xiaohongshu.

However, if you search the contents – i.e. the posts, there are numerous about the businesses here, literally every expect of the commerce: retail, fashion, food, dining, travel, education, finance, pets, sports, etc. These posts are arranged in the way of best targeting audiences’ interests (big data in behind), and those who have the most “likes” are served to the front. Typically, the “how to” posts are popular, just like in any other social media platforms, but Xiaohongshu is more popular among female users.

So, although language barrier exists, there’s easy work-around by utilizing local influencers who don’t charge a lot. Chinese communities here in British Columbia love exploring places and hidden stores that are less known. Supporting local businesses makes them feel good.

This lady, shown on the screenshot, does not consider herself a typical influencer because she only has 569 followers. She has other day job, but enjoys sharing good deals at Xiaohongshu. Her post on February 11, 2023 was about sharing her secret spot to buy fresh and cheapest possible apples in a farm store selling animal feed, hay and pet stuff.

Apparently, those apples were not perfectly shaped for grocery stores to sell, but still quite delicious according to the printing on the boxes. So, they were destined to feed calves instead of human. She went there to buy chicken feed and noticed these giant 30-pound boxes sitting on the wooden crates.

This post caught the attention of the netizen – with 146 “likes”, 226 “collected” and 103 comments, many people went to family-run farm store to buy apples, and of course then discovered other interesting things in this barn style place.

I was one of those people. In the past, I didn’t even look twice when I drove by the weathered barn house on Ladner Trunk Road – the signages totally faded! The staffs there were surprised that all of a sudden they saw an influx of Chinese faces coming to buy their apples, that didn’t happen before. They were wondering where they got the fame from? So I showed them this post on Xiaohongshu.

If you know who can be your advocate and talk about your business whole-heartedly at Xiaohongshu, the language barrier is really not that important. And even better, you don’t even have to invest in keeping your own account there. That’s the real essence of using influencers, the ones who build the bridge for you to reach Chinese speaking audience.

Multicultural Markets in Canada Social Media

What is Xiaohongshu(Little Red Book) and why it is useful?

Post author By Leona
Post date April 11, 2022

While Wechat public account is the most popular platform for businesses to promote to Chinese speaking audiences, many functions in particular vlog and livestreaming are restricted to Chinese domestic entities. For overseas businesses, it makes sense to use Xiaohongshu or (Little Red Book) to promote themselves.

What is Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book, or RED)

According to its corporate website in English: “With a mission to “inspire lives”, Xiaohongshu is a lifestyle platform that inspires people to discover and connect with a range of diverse lifestyles. Millions of users showcase their experiences on the platform daily, from cosmetics and beauty to fashion, food, travel, entertainment, fitness, and childcare, brought to life visually through a variety of formats including photos, text, videos and livestreaming. The innovative platform integrates the authentic content shared by its community with commerce, quickly becoming one of the most popular destinations for making lifestyle decisions.” That’s quite straightforward and thorough.

The difference between Xiaohongshu and Wechat

The key difference between Xiaohongshu and Wechat for overseas businesses is that, Xiaohongshu allows overseas businesses to register easily as a content creator just like an individual, or as an enterprise. A Chinese cellphone is not required. That flexibility is crucial because now you can tell the stories of your brand, open your store at Xiaohongshu, and do advertisements. All these do not require a Chinese cellphone, so you probably do not need a staff or agency in China to assist you.

Why Little Red Book makes sense for overseas business

The platform compared with those giants such as Wechat, Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou etc. is much smaller, with 25 million registered users and probably 80% of them are female – among which 70% were born in 1990s and 60% of the users reside in the relatively affluent cosmopolitan cities.

The functionalities are quite simple for users. You can create your own “notes” that can be text, photos and videos. Videos can be created from existing photo/video albums using ready-made templates, or simply editing your own video clips and photos into one longer form video – essentially this is vlogging. You can also do live streaming too. Just like other social media platforms, you can follow other people’s “notes”, and other people can follow yours. The notes being followed will serve up in the followers Moments. However, unlike Wechat, Xiaohongshu also has “Discover” function quite prominent. This is where the platform based on users’ interests and locations to contents (in other words, where the advertisement dollars will go to). Under “nearby” users can check out other users’ contents in the defined geographical proximity. If a user is interested in someone’s “notes”, that notes can be saved as “favourite” too. However, you can’t share other people’s “notes” within Xiaohongshu’s “Moment”, but rather, that can be shared to other platforms such as Wechat, Weibo and via private messages.

Xiaohongshu is very popular among Chinese Canadian for its easy functionalities and perceived “real people” who share their notes, tips, images and videos. The emphasis on the visual component of this platform makes it a very convenient way to showcase anything that can appeal to people visually, for example: travel, cosmetics, fashion, food & drink, arts & craft and many more. The key draw to this platform is “sharing the tips” – people want real people’s authentic opinions on their experiences and with proof (photos, videos, live streaming). They follow other peoples (they can use “Search” function to discover what they need), and probably they are followed by others.

So, if you are a business with lots of images and videos to showcase the experiences, Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) may help you capture audiences’ eyeballs. And what’s more, you can create and maintain an account as a content creator (individual), and then change that to a business account with proper application.

So, this is just another platform to consider if you are thinking of potential of getting to Chinese Canadian market segment here.

Tags Chinese language, Chinese social media, Mandarin, Social Media, Xiaohongshu

Multicultural Markets in Canada

Mandarin or Cantonese or Chinese?

Post author By Leona
Post date March 24, 2021
1 Comment on Mandarin or Cantonese or Chinese?

Mandarin or Cantonese or Chinese? Let’s distinguish what is spoken language and what is written language by Chinese Canadian, or Chinese ethnic groups in general. Cantonese, Mandarin are dialects and spoken languages. Written Chinese has two forms: Simplified and Traditional fonds.

In Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, official spoken language or one of the official spoken languages is Mandarin. In Hong Kong, Guangdong Province of China and many southeast Asia countries and USA, many people speak Cantonese dialect.

In terms of written form of Chinese language, there are two major written forms: Traditional and Simplified. Simplified form is predominantly used by Chinese who reside in Mainland China and those immigrated from Mainland China and Singapore. Simplified Chinese is also one of the official languages in Singapore (Singapore uses English, Chinese and Malay). Traditional form is predominantly used by Chinese people who reside or immigrated from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia (other than Singapore).

People who use traditional or simplified form of Chinese usually can understand what is written in the other form, although they may not always be able to write that form. Nowadays there are apps that can help making such switch-over, however, there are always things that cannot be translated 100% because languages do have variations from the geographic location that they are used. For example, Strawberry is called different names in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. Using app to “translate” or switch between two forms of written languages may not come out as 100% accurate.

So，if you ask a person of Chinese heritage what language he or she speaks, the answer may come back as: Chinese (that’s a general description that lumps all the spoken languages/dialects together), or people may give you very a specific answer such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, Hokkien/Minnan, Toishan, so and so forth.

But, if you are producing a marketing material to target Chinese audiences, it is much simpler. You only need to decide if the content will be written in Simplified fond or Traditional fond. Generally speaking, if you plan to target people who immigrated from Mainland China in the recent decades, Simplified fond Chinese will be most appropriate. For the most part of the people who immigrated from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Traditional fond Chinese will work.

Tags Cantonese, Chinese language, Mandarin

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden

Multicultural Markets in Canada

Chinese Canadian ethnic market – population snapshot

Post author By Leona
Post date March 15, 2021
1 Comment on Chinese Canadian ethnic market – population snapshot

If you are interested in promoting your products to local Chinese Canadian ethnic market (sometimes it is generalized as Multicultural market), you may want to know who they are, what languages they use, what kind of products that they are interested in, and where they are residing on social media world where you can pitch sales to.

A blanket definition that causes confusion

Chinese Canadian refers to Canadian of full or partial Chinese ancestry which includes Canadian born and non-Canadian born Chinese who reside in Canada. Chinese is a blanket term referring to ethnocultural heritage.

According to 2016 Census, total Chinese Canadian population is 1,769,195. In terms of language they speak, the same Census data shows 565,270 people speak Cantonese, 592,040 speak Mandarin at home. The number of people who speak dialects of Wu (Shanghainese), Min Nan (south Fujian Province and Taiwan), Min Dong (eastern Fujian Province) amount to approximate 46,000, who typically speak Mandarin too.

First and foremost, it is important to know that so called Chinese-Canadian, despite having lots of similarity, they are very different depending on how long they have been here, where they and their families came from, how strong their ties to the culture and heritage in China can be.

The misunderstanding that Chinese Canadian are the same is not just from the West. Media in both Canada and China tend to lump people with Chinese heritage outside of Mainland China into “immigrants”. For example, Chinese Canadian who have been here for generations sometimes are stilled called Chinese immigrants in present day sense instead of just calling them Chinese Canadian, whilst Caucasians no matter how long they have been in Canada they are rarely called so & so country immigrants unless it is referring to specific situation such as talking about their personal heritage here.

Chinese Canadian can be loosely lumped into three groups

Loosely, Chinese Canadian can be categorized into these sub-groups: The descendants of Gold Rush/rail-building era, immigrants from Taiwan & Hong Kong during 1980s-1990s, and immigrants from Mainland China during 1990s-2000s.

Immigrants and their descendants of Gold Rush, railway construction and coal mines

The first wave of immigration can be dated back to Gold Rush era, Chinese labourers came here to work on the mines and build railways. When the CPR was completed, they became unwanted then Head Tax was imposed from 1885 to 1923 to restrict them from entering Canada. Some who stayed continued working at coal mines here in BC. You can find remnants of Chinatown in Cumberland, Kelowna, Nelson and some other places in BC where only place names or photos remained, and the Chinatowns were burnt by the order of those cities in the name of public health & safety.These people and their descendants dissipated into cities such as Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, etc.

From 1923 to 1947 Chinese were excluded from immigration to Canada. Chinese communities here sent their young men to fight in WWI & WWII in some of the most dangerous battles, purchased Victory Bonds, rallied behind hospitals to support their country that maliciously mistreated them. The bravery and sacrifice of these servicemen changed the public views. Finally, in 1947 Chinese Canadian were granted voting rights. This part of Canadian Chinese population do keep their Chinese cultural and heritage roots their main language is English nowadays.

The Chinese Times (1906-1992) published by Chinese Freemason Society served this community for more than eight decades but the press stopped rolling when influx of immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan brought new breed of Chinese media here.

Arrivals of immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong in 1980s-1990s

The second wave of immigration started in 1980s when many Taiwanese came to Canada. The Census number in 2001 showed 70,790 Taiwanese residents here, however, that number dropped almost half in 2016, at 36,510. Soon after Taiwanese started to immigrate to Canada, wealthy Hong Kong Chinese started their exodus in 1990s before Hong Kong was returned to China after its colonial lease agreement with UK ended in 1997. Between 1988 to 1993, 166,487 Hong Kong people immigrated to Canada.

Immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong speak Mandarin and Cantonese, hold strong cultural and family ties to their original places. Many of them returned to Taiwan & Hong Kong for various reasons. However, the second and third generations of these cohort now also have become a large part of Chinese Canadian community. Depends on where they were born and spent their childhood, the degree of assimilation into Canada is different, they are more opened to Canadian media but in the meanwhile adhere to their Chinese heritage. The second and third generations of this cohort do speak English but keep their own languages too.

The second wave of immigrations brought new breed of Chinese media here, still traditional: Singtao, Mingpao, World Journal and some others, including publications that fully rely on advertisements.

The bulk of Mandarin-speaking population in Canada arrived in 1990s-2005

The third wave of immigration is from Mainland China. It started in late 1990s and has brought the largest number of immigrants to Canada. The number of arrivals peaked in 2005 and decreased since. They make up the bulk of over 649,260 Mandarin-speaking population in Canada (Top places of birth of immigrants and recent immigrants,2 Canada, 2016). Most of them reside in BC and Ontario.

Since 2000 with the large wave of the mandarin speaking immigrants settling down in Canada, plethora of Chinese media popping up. Many were free print publications (fully rely on advertisement) and they were very different from traditional media that has Hong Kong background. However, almost at the same time Mainland China was going through a tremendous digital media revolution. The usage of these digital media and social platforms seemed to have continuity and in alignment with their relatives and friends in Mainland China. From regular websites, QQ, SNS, BBS, blogs, to Weibo, Wechat, digital TVs, Vlogs (Weibo videos, podcast, Bilibili, Wechat videos and many more), immigrants’ usage of media channels quickly scattered and fragmented. At the same time those who came from media and technology field in China have started to establish their own Canadian-grown websites/Weibo/Wechat channels mainly catering to immigrants from Mainland China and they grow very fast.

This cohort of Chinese Canadian use QQ, Weibo, Wechat, Bilibili, Wechat videos, and digital media mainly but Wechat is used by all.

As you can see from above, you may want to adjust your tactics according to your target audiences: which Chinese Canadian cohort would you like to target?

Tags Chinese Canadian, ethnic Chinese Canadian, local media