7 Chinese Platforms to Promote Your Business in China (2026)

Here are the platforms that actually work to promote your business in China in 2026. China now counts 1.125 billion internet users, 80.1% of the population, according to the 57th CNNIC report published in February 2026. Almost all of them, 1.074 billion, watch short video. You need visibility on local platforms, because the Western ones are not an option here.

I am Olivier Verot, founder of GMA. I have been running digital campaigns in Shanghai since 2012. I have opened, killed and rebuilt accounts on every platform below, so I know which ones still pay back the effort in 2026 and which ones just burn budget.

The ‘Great Firewall’ means Chinese consumers never see Google, Instagram or Facebook. The result is a separate internet with its own search engines, its own social apps and its own shopping habits. Chinese buyers research a lot before they buy. They will check you on three or four apps before they contact you.

The list below used to be eight platforms. In 2026 it is seven, and one of them did not exist as a marketing channel three years ago.

The 2026 picture at a glance

Before the detail, here is where each platform stands. Numbers are from Tencent’s FY2025 results, QuestMobile’s October 2025 new media panel, and platform filings.

1. Baidu, still where the buying research starts

Why Baidu still matters for your business in China

The old line was that Baidu handled 70% of online research in China. That is no longer true and you should stop planning around it. Search has split. In 2025, short video platforms took more than 42% of all search queries, and general AI assistants now cover 91% of surveyed users for at least some searches.

Baidu is still the first stop for anything considered, technical or expensive. Industrial buyers, distributors, importers and anyone doing due diligence on a foreign company go to Baidu. That is where Baidu SEO earns its keep.

You need your own Chinese website, built on Mandarin keyword research, not a translated version of your English site. It must be hosted in mainland China or Hong Kong. A site hosted in Frankfurt will load in six seconds in Chengdu and Baidu will rank it accordingly.

Baidu works as a group of connected properties. Baidu Tieba is its forum, organised by topic, where people share experiences about products. Baidu Zhidao is its question and answer service. Both rank well in Baidu results, which means a thread about your category can sit on page one above your own site. Owning those threads is cheaper than buying the ad slot above them.

Baidu case study: Damac

Damac, a Dubai luxury real estate developer, ran a Baidu campaign that put them on page one for 15 keywords. It brought around 120 qualified property investor leads per month. Nothing exotic about the method. We found the words Chinese investors actually type, and we made sure the answers they found were ours.

2. WeChat, the platform you cannot skip

WeChat and its international version reached 1.418 billion combined monthly active accounts at the end of December 2025, up 2% year on year, per Tencent’s annual results published in March 2026. It is not a social network. It is the layer everything else runs on: messaging, payments, ID, invoices, customer service, loyalty.

WeChat Official Account

A company sets up an official account to publish content, push notifications to followers, and get shared into ‘Moments’. Chinese buyers check whether a foreign brand has one. No account reads as no commitment to the market.

The mistake I see most often: brands treat the official account as a newsletter and post twice a month. The account then dies quietly. WeChat is not a reach machine. Organic reach on an official account post is typically low single digits of your follower base. Its value is depth, not volume.

Private domain, the reason WeChat pays back

This is the part most foreign brands miss. In China, “private domain” means the audience you own and can contact for free: WeChat groups, personal advisor accounts, mini-program members. Ad costs on Douyin and Xiaohongshu keep rising, so brands buy a customer once and then move that customer into WeChat, where the next ten purchases cost nothing in media.

The mechanism is simple. Every package ships with a QR code and a real incentive. The scan adds the buyer to a WeChat group run by a named staff member, not a bot. That person answers questions, posts restock alerts and runs small group-only offers. For our clients in food and cosmetics, private domain groups regularly drive 25 to 40% of repeat revenue after twelve months.

WeChat groups

Groups are the fastest way to put content in front of people who already care about your category. A recommendation inside a group of 200 buyers carries more weight than any ad. This works both ways, so a bad batch of product travels just as fast.

WeChat H5 brochures

The H5 brochure is a mobile page that opens instantly inside WeChat. Cheap to produce, useful online and offline, and still the best tool for product listings and company introductions in a B2B setting.

• Interactive and pleasant to read on a phone
• One QR code to show at every trade fair instead of printing flyers
• Replaces the heavy PDF nobody opens
• Shows a potential Chinese partner that you understand the market

WeChat Channels

WeChat Channels is Tencent’s short video feed inside the app. It broke the old limit where your content only reached friends and followers. Now content can travel through the whole platform. Channels also carries live commerce, and Tencent has been pushing it hard because it keeps transactions inside WeChat instead of sending users to Douyin.

WeChat mini-programs

Mini-programs are apps inside WeChat. No download, no app store. Combined with WeChat Pay, they let you run a full store, a booking system or a membership scheme without asking a Chinese consumer to install anything. For most brands entering China, a mini-program shop is a faster and cheaper first move than a Tmall flagship, which costs deposits, commission and a full-time team.

WeChat also integrated DeepSeek into its search, which changed how content gets surfaced inside the app. We covered what that means for brands in our note on WeChat and DeepSeek.

3. Douyin, where interest e-commerce happens

Douyin passed 907 million monthly active users in October 2025, with roughly 750 million daily actives spending about 112 minutes a day in the app. Its e-commerce GMV was on track to pass 4 trillion RMB in 2025, growing more than 30% year on year. Full breakdown in our Douyin statistics page.

Forget the idea that Douyin is a young people’s app. QuestMobile’s October 2025 panel puts 22.2% of Douyin users at 51 or older. It is now a mass channel, closer to national TV than to a niche social network.

How to promote your business on Douyin

The term to understand is interest e-commerce. On Tmall or JD, a customer searches for a product they already decided to buy. On Douyin, the algorithm shows a product to someone who was not looking for it, and the video creates the demand. That is why Douyin works for impulse categories and struggles for high-consideration purchases.

Three levers, in order of cost: content posted by your own account, paid distribution through Qianchuan, and creator partnerships. Creators do the heavy lifting. A brand account with no creators behind it stays flat.

The top-tier livestreamer story still gets told at every conference. One host selling tens of thousands of units in minutes. It happens, and it is almost never profitable for a foreign brand paying the fee. The money is in mid-tier and small creators bought in volume, which is also how you find out which message converts. More on this in our Douyin marketing guide.

4. Xiaohongshu, the search engine disguised as a social app

Xiaohongshu, also called RED or Little Red Book, passed 350 million monthly active users at the end of 2025, with users spending over 74 minutes a day in the app and platform GMV estimated near 600 billion RMB for the year. Numbers and demographics in our Xiaohongshu statistics page.

This is the platform that changed the most since this article was first written. Xiaohongshu is no longer a lifestyle feed. It is where Chinese consumers, especially women aged 18 to 35 in tier 1 and new tier 1 cities, run their pre-purchase research. QuestMobile puts 54.2% of its users under 30 and 37.2% in tier 1 and new tier 1 cities.

People type a brand name into Xiaohongshu the way they used to type it into Baidu. If nothing comes up, or if the only posts are complaints, the sale is dead before you knew it existed.

How the KOC mechanism works

Xiaohongshu punishes anything that looks like an advertisement. What works is volume of ordinary-looking posts from real users, known as KOC, key opinion consumers. You send product to 100 or 200 small accounts, they post honest reviews using the keywords buyers type, and those posts become your search results.

Two rules. Brief them on keywords, not on wording, because identical phrasing across posts gets the whole batch suppressed. And declare commercial posts through the Pugongying platform, because undeclared paid content gets accounts restricted.

We wrote a separate piece on treating Xiaohongshu as a search engine, which is the mindset that gets results in 2026.

5. Weibo, for launches and press

Weibo is China’s microblog, around 580 million monthly users. It is an open network, so posts reach people who do not follow you. That still makes it the fastest way to create a public moment: a launch, a celebrity endorsement, a store opening, a crisis response.

Weibo skews young and urban. QuestMobile puts 58.6% of its users under 30 and 36.6% in tier 1 and new tier 1 cities.

Be honest about what Weibo does. It builds awareness and it feeds journalists. It rarely sells directly. Treat it as your press room, not your shop.

Four ways to advertise on Weibo:

• Display adverts
• Weibo search engine promotion
• Fan Headlines
• Fan Tunnel

Display ads sit in the search section, on the home feed and next to new posts. Weibo allows keyword targeting based on what users search.

Weibo worked well for the Austrian children’s drink brand Twist & Drink. They built a campaign around a cartoon character per flavour, replied to consumers directly, and grew their following by 134%. They also embedded WeChat QR codes into Weibo posts to move that audience into a channel they own. That cross-platform move is the important part.

6. Kuaishou, the other half of the country

Kuaishou sits around 400 million monthly users and is the number two short video app. Its user base is the one most foreign brands ignore: 56.3% come from tier 3 cities and below, and 22.6% are 51 or older, per QuestMobile’s October 2025 data.

Kuaishou is built on relationships rather than viral hits. The algorithm gives more weight to accounts a user already follows, and it spreads visibility across many creators instead of concentrating it on a few stars.

Kuaishou converts differently from Douyin

Live streaming carries a much larger share of activity on Kuaishou than on Douyin. Audiences are smaller and the host talks to viewers by name. Sales come from trust built over months of daily streams, not from one viral session.

That makes Kuaishou a poor fit for luxury and a strong fit for value products, food, household goods and anything with repeat purchase. If your price point is 90 RMB, Kuaishou will outperform Douyin on margin.

Kuaishou used to send traffic out to Taobao, JD and Pinduoduo. It now pushes its own in-app shop, so plan to sell inside the platform.

7. AI assistants, the channel nobody budgeted for

This one is new, and it is the reason the list changed. Chinese consumers increasingly ask an AI assistant instead of running a search. ByteDance’s Doubao reached 272 million monthly active users and DeepSeek 163 million, with Tencent’s Yuanbao around 53 million, measured over the 2026 Spring Festival period. Conversational AI now covers 91% of surveyed search users for at least part of their queries.

What that means practically: someone looking for a European packaging supplier now types the question into Doubao and reads three recommended names. If you are not one of them, you were never in the running.

How to get quoted by Chinese AI models

This is generative engine optimisation, GEO. The mechanism is different from SEO. These models do not rank pages, they assemble answers from sources they trust and re-read often. In practice that means:

• Publish factual, structured Chinese content that answers a question directly in the first two lines, because that is the chunk that gets retrieved.
• Get mentioned on the sources each model favours. Doubao leans on ByteDance properties, so Toutiao and Douyin content matters. Tencent Yuanbao leans on WeChat official accounts.
• Keep your facts consistent everywhere. Models cross-check. If your founding year differs between your site and your Baidu Baike entry, they drop you.
• Publish comparison and specification content. “Best X for Y” pages get retrieved far more than brand storytelling.

Cost of entry is close to zero compared to media buying. Most foreign brands have not started. That window will not stay open long.

What we removed from this list, and why

Two platforms were in the earlier version of this article and no longer earn a section.

Zhihu, China’s Quora, reported around 81 million monthly active users, down 26.6% year on year. It still ranks in Baidu results, so a handful of well-written answers remain useful for e-reputation in technical categories. It is no longer a channel you build a strategy on.

Toutiao remains a large news aggregator and a workable cheap ad inventory for B2B, but as a standalone channel it lost its case. Its real value in 2026 is indirect: Toutiao content feeds Doubao’s answers.

A client example: one wrong platform, 40,000 euros

Elena runs an Italian kitchenware brand, family-owned, mid-premium price point. She came to us after spending roughly 40,000 euros on Douyin ads and livestream fees over five months. Sales: about 90 units. Her conclusion was that China did not want her products.

The problem was the platform, not the product. Her pans sold at 680 RMB. Douyin’s interest e-commerce works on impulse, and nobody impulse-buys a 680 RMB pan from a brand they have never heard of. Worse, when the few interested viewers searched her brand name on Xiaohongshu, they found nothing at all.

We moved the budget. Two hundred KOC seeding posts on Xiaohongshu over four months, briefed on the search terms people actually use for cookware, plus a WeChat mini-program shop and a group for buyers. Baidu SEO on twelve product-category keywords ran in parallel.

Nine months in, monthly revenue was around 310,000 RMB, with 34% of it repeat purchases coming out of the WeChat groups. Customer acquisition cost fell by roughly two thirds versus the Douyin period. Not a miracle, just the right channel for a considered purchase.

Where Chinese platforms are heading

• Search fragments further. Baidu, Xiaohongshu, Douyin and AI assistants each hold part of the query volume. You need presence on all four, not a single SEO budget.
• Everything becomes a shop. Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou and WeChat Channels all closed their loops. Traffic that leaves a platform now converts worse than traffic that stays.
• Micro-drama as ad inventory. CNNIC counted 664 million micro-drama viewers in December 2025, 59% of all netizens. Brand placement in these short serials is becoming a standard media line.
• Older users are the growth. With over 22% of Douyin and Kuaishou users aged 51 and above, the “China digital equals young consumers” assumption is out of date.
• AI in customer service. Chinese brands answer WeChat and Douyin messages with AI first, humans second. Response time expectations are now measured in seconds.
• Compliance keeps tightening. Undeclared paid posts, unverified health claims and cross-border data handling all draw penalties. Budget for it.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a Chinese company to promote my business on these platforms?

Not for everything. You can run a WeChat official account, a Xiaohongshu account and a Weibo account as a foreign entity, usually with an agency handling verification. You do need a mainland Chinese business licence to run Baidu paid search, to open a Douyin or Kuaishou shop, and to collect payments through WeChat Pay in RMB. Many brands start cross-border, validate demand for six to twelve months, then set up a WFOE once volumes justify the cost.

Which platform should I start with if I only have one budget?

It depends on your price point and buyer. B2B, industrial, or anything above 2,000 RMB: start with Baidu SEO plus a Chinese website, and add AI search visibility. Consumer products between 100 and 1,000 RMB aimed at urban women: start with Xiaohongshu. Volume products under 100 RMB: Douyin or Kuaishou. In every case, add a WeChat official account, because that is where the relationship lives afterwards.

How long before I see results?

Paid campaigns give data in two to four weeks, but the first numbers are usually bad because targeting needs learning. Xiaohongshu KOC seeding starts moving search results in about eight weeks and compounds from there. Baidu SEO on a new Chinese domain typically takes four to six months to hold page one. Plan a twelve-month budget. Brands that stop at month four almost always lose the money they already spent.

Can I reuse my Instagram or TikTok content in China?

You can reuse the raw footage. You cannot reuse the campaign. Formats differ, text overlays and pacing differ, and claims that are fine in Europe can be illegal in China, particularly in cosmetics, food and health. Chinese platforms also downrank content that looks recycled from abroad. Budget for local production, or at minimum local re-editing and rewriting by a Chinese team.

We can help you promote your business in China

GMA is a digital marketing agency based in Shanghai. We build and run brand presence across Baidu, WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Chinese AI search for foreign companies entering or scaling in China.

We work with B2B manufacturers, consumer brands and service companies, from first Chinese website to full e-commerce operation, with in-house Chinese and foreign teams.

Tell us your category and your price point and we will tell you which two platforms are worth your budget. Drop us a message and a specialist will come back to you.

Sources

• CNNIC, 57th Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development (February 2026)
• QuestMobile, 2025 New Media Platform Review (October 2025 panel)
• 199IT, Tencent quarterly results: WeChat monthly active accounts

Written by Olivier Verot, founder of GMA, Shanghai. Connect on LinkedIn.