Short video is where a very large share of Chinese attention, discovery and increasingly purchase now happens. That makes it tempting and makes the usual foreign approach — adapt the international campaign, post it, measure — reliably disappointing. The platform does not distribute content because it is well made; it distributes content that holds attention in the first two seconds and that arrives often enough for the system to learn who to show it to.
What the format actually demands
- Frequency. A brand posting twice a month is invisible; the cadence is closer to several times a week.
- A face. Content carried by a recognisable person consistently outperforms content carried by a logo.
- Vertical, native, unpolished. Repurposed landscape advertising is identified as advertising and skipped.
- Chinese written and spoken by someone fluent, with the humour and references that come with it. This is the part that cannot be outsourced to a translation.
Is it right for you?
For a consumer product with visual appeal, a demonstrable use or a story, it can build awareness faster than anything else available. For an industrial or B2B product with a long sales cycle and a few hundred possible buyers in the country, the same effort spent on a professional account, on content that answers buyer questions, and on being found in search will produce more. The honest question is not whether short video works — it does — but whether your buyers are found that way.
The realistic commitment
Someone producing content continuously, in Chinese, who understands both the product and the platform, for at least six months before the results are readable. That is a role, not a project, and it is the reason most foreign brands that announce a Chinese video presence have an abandoned account eighteen months later. Deciding not to do it is a perfectly good decision; deciding to do it badly is the expensive one.
Platform rules for commercial accounts, advertising and e-commerce functions differ for foreign entities and change regularly. Verify the current requirements before building a plan around a specific feature.