Gen Z picks Ni Ni as one of the hottest Weibo influencers
BEIJING: Generation-Z consumers often get overlooked in the rush to woo Chinese millennials, but this post2000s group wields major spending power and has unique characteristics when it comes to consumer habits. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of social media, where a factor in determining some KOLs’ (key opinion leaders) influence is the age of their average follower.
At least this is what data from Secoo suggests — the research team for the luxury e-commerce platform poured through Weibo accounts to better understand the online behaviour of their Gen-Z customers, including their engagement habits and which KOLs and celebrities they follow. Notably, some of Weibo’s top fashion bloggers and luxury icons overall, such as Mr Bags and photographer Chen Man, didn’t make it into the top five ranking for users born after 2000, despite their high performance in numerous other categories.
According to Secoo analyst Chen Rui, this is because KOLs like Mr Bags mainly target followers who are “slightly mature, around 30 years old, and have been earning a living for at least three years.” These are followers who can generally afford the luxury handbags from brands Mr Bags works with. “But that doesn’t mean Gen Z make up a small portion of Secoo’s consumers,” Chen noted.
“What we discovered is Secoo’s users not only follow luxuryrelated accounts, but also enjoy following fun, comedic online content,” Chen said. “This indicates that luxury consumers are not just people who are more likely to follow KOLs that are simply earnest and informative, they also need a lot of time for entertainment.”
Thus, according to Secoo, accounts with more comedic content are likely to drive engagement (likes, shares and @’s) compared to straight-downthe-line fashion and beauty KOLs on Weibo. Gen-Z consumers are considerably more opinionated and thus driven to watch and respond to more emotional content online, but they’re also usually multi-tasking and have short attention spans. It’s no surprise then that several of their favourite KOLs on Weibo are known for creating and posting short, witty video content. These KOLs also often post across Douyin and other short video platforms, reframing their content as needed to fit the platform.
What we discovered is Secoo’s users not only follow luxuryrelated accounts, but also enjoy following fun, comedic online content. Chen Rui, Secoo analyst