Harry Djanogly - how Asian brands are redefining user engagement

Photo credit: Roman Drits

Before the 1990s, the term “user engagement” didn’t exist. At the time, billboards and newspapers were the most novel way to interact with potential clients. The early 2000s set the stage for the current digital landscape with ecommerce platforms and the launch of the global ecommerce service, Paypal.

The completely innovative introduction of ecommerce platforms and websites has allowed brands and business in general to enhance their customer base and, most importantly, user experience.

Today, it takes creative methods for a brand to stay relevant in the ever-changing tide of the online world. Furthermore, to maintain ownership of its user base, it must redefine online engagement. So what are we waiting for, let’s get your engaged users back!

Encourage interaction with users

First of all, brands should encourage useful communication with and between users. In Asia, brands are a central part of everyday conversation and thus, play a very important role in chat conversations both on mobile and online.

Many Asian countries were the first to understand the power of chat apps, such as WeChat and Line, for customer interaction with brands five years ago.

They allowed brands to be part of these instant messaging platforms to actively communicate with users, giving brands a chance to chat with a user in the exact same way they text with a friend.

With Facebook Messenger’s recent introduction of bots, brands all over the world are starting to take part in this innovative process that had begun in Asia years ago. Brands will now be able to engage users through content, provide them with a more efficient customer service, and even allow them to purchase items directly on the platform.

China and user engagement

China’s Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT) are great examples of efficient user engagement. BAT represents three key categories: search engine, ecommerce, and social media respectively, while WeChat currently dominates user engagement on mobile platforms.

If strong Chinese engagement on these platforms are partially associated with censorship, it certainly doesn’t explain the whole story. These local platforms had stronger user engagement than their worldwide competitors even before Chinese authorities decided to limit the use of some larger services.

This singular engagement to domestic alternatives can be primarily related to local platforms’ understanding of the needs of Chinese users and adapting to these specific needs.

The commitment of the Chinese user is not restricted to online platforms but involves brands as well. Many Chinese online brands have indeed reused China’s positive attitude through gaming and have leveraged it by interacting with users, while playing games, for prizes and special deals.

While the user’s needs are met, so are those of the brand as they reinvent online conversation and bring their customers back into their turf.

More than words

Chinese brands have managed to show us that content is king, but there’s much more than that. How many times have we heard that the most effective way for a business to reach out to its audience is through valuable content?

Things have changed in the Asian market recently, however, and the new creative solutions brought by Asian brands seem to work out well. Given this remarkable primacy on user engagement, what are the latest trends that Asian brands have taken to implement their strategies?

First, brands are starting to express themselves in a more visual way as never before through photos, videos, and emojis, which are becoming a constant in all online branding plans.

More so, many brands have been implementing games and quizzes in their marketing strategies, aware of the Asian appetite for online gaming, especially on their mobile phones.

This way, users feel part of a wider community, communicating with other users while enhancing their engagement to the brand.

If you want to put your brand back in your hands, then user engagement is key. Understanding your audience’s needs, encouraging user interaction with your brand, and allowing for more options than traditional online marketing will all help bring users back and redefine what meaningful user engagement looks like.