Baidu’s Content Creation Platform Baijiahao has been a successful and popular addition to the Chinese internet landscape over the past few years. Baidu is one of China’s most-visited websites, with an estimated 580 million monthly visitors (as of June 2021). It also offers a variety of services such as search engine optimization (SEO), Paid ads, Forums, maps, etc …, and since 2016, news aggregators/content creation through its platform, Baijiahao. Baijiahao allows users to upload videos, articles, or images that can be monetized by companies looking for additional channels for advertisement.
Baidu and It’s complex eco-system
China’s largest search engine is similar to Google and had 1.1 billion mobile users in 2019. In 2021, Baidu becomes the 6th dominant search engine in the world. 78% of China netizens use it and daily logged-in users reach 77%. As showcased in the picture, popular searching topics are shown on the first searching page.
Baidu eco-system:
Baidu offers a wide array of services and subsites on top of its well-known search engine, including mapping and video platforms, we call it the Baidu Ecosystem. It also has 57 other search & communities such as Duer which is an online encyclopedia or Baidu Baike – their version of Wikipedia with over 250 million articles in the Chinese language only. Baijiahao is part of this eco-system
What is Baidu BaiJiahao?
In 2016, Baidu launched Baijiahao a blog-style platform where about 1.9 million publishers post news and share content from bloggers & journalists to create an “ecosystem” for people who want to consume media in new ways.
The launch of Baijiahao was seen as a response to Toutiao and Wechat News). These types of apps and programs are designed around giving creators more control over how their work appears online as well as increasing audience engagement through interactive features such as polls, live video chat rooms etcetera which can also help businesses reach marketing goals by driving traffic back onto your site just because you added these
Baijiahao reached 4.2 million publishers with 42% growth year on year in 2021. Popular dominant media outlets on Baidu are People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and CCTV which can direct user traffic towards newsfeeds or search results.
More than 95% of the referral traffic on Baijiahao comes from Baidu’s search results while most of the rest of the traffic also comes from Baidu’s eco-system-related program. Apps like Weibo and Douban also send some traffic but it is rather low with less than 1%. When using digital channels in China for your marketing, keep in mind that big groups (BAT but also Bitedance) all tend to have their own eco-system, and it’s rare they collaborate with each other, and Baijiahao’s traffic is the perfect example of that.
The topics discussed on Baijiahoa are various from videos games, to news or electronics, etc
Why companies doing business in China should create content on Baidu BaiJiahao?
Content in all types such as texts, videos, and live streams uploaded to Bai Jiahao(website and App) can be automatically collected by Baidu App and Baidu Search which can be beneficial from Baidu’s enormous traffic. Creation uploaded to Bai Jiahao can be socially shared to Weibo, WeChat, and QQ as well.
In terms of the back-end resources, Bai Jiahao enables you to access content management, followers management, paid consulting services, free picture database, etc. Content creators can also apply for entrepreneurship acceleration service which contains industry instruction, branding, and financing, etc. When doing business with Bai Jiahao, Baidu Payment and product placement can help.
Bai Jiahao launches projects to encourage creators to compete and participate with the prize of funds, resources acceleration assistance, etc.
Its operation and marketing center provides informative guides such as B2B operation guides, live streams, popular keywords searching and content creation cases in industries, etc.
BaiJiahao system:
Baidu eco-system includes BaiJiahao App, Baidu Wenku(shared professional and academic documents), Baidu Cloud, Baike(Wikipedia), Post(Tieba-Reddit), etc 12 supportive platforms. These apps are all interconnected and work with each other as we could see on the referral traffics graph earlier.
Fundamentally, user-focused and localized original content can connect more with China readers and viewers, explaining the success of forums such as Zhihu and news aggregators like Toutiao. Co-creating with artists, KOLs, and celebrities can bring social influence and potential sharings.
Baidu has its own Baidu Analytics for traffic ranking and marketing analytics so you can learn more about your users within the Baidu eco-system but also by linking your website to the system (requires more paperwork than doing so on Google analytics).
How to get an official Account on Baijiahao?
Just like most apps and platforms in China, having an official account (enterprise) on Baijiahao comes with benefits and tools compared to a simple users account. The biggest and most obvious advantage here is that once a company gets a verified account, its content will rank on Baidu’s research results.
Choose your account types between personal account and organization account. then prepare the required documents such as ID, business license, and China phone number(Baidu Account).
There are different types of organization accounts on Baijiahoa:
- Media
- Business
- Government
- Others
It takes between 15 minutes to 3 working days for a business account to be reviewed and approved.
Example of company using Baijiahao:
The brand Ivan Commerce offers courses in the beauty industry is leveraging Omni channels to expand its marketing strategy. The brand claims to have seen a rise of 30% of the transaction rate from paid content on Baijiahao. Ivan Commerce also mentioned that customers loyalty seems stronger when customers come from Baijiahao.
Baijiahao: to conclude
Baijiahao may not be necessary but in the context of an omnichannel strategy and to push organic traffic and improve online reputation, the program certainly is one you would like to take into consideration. Because it belongs to Baidu’s eco-system, it works seamlessly into the app making the process smooth and simple for users but it also tends to rank higher. Just like using Baidu’s forums and Q&A, content on Baijiahao could be the boost you need to finally get the traffic from that competitive keyword you’ve been struggling with.
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Read more about Baidu:
- In our Guide to Baidu SEO, you’ll find ou more about China’s #1 search engines, its users habits and how to to optimize your content & Website to improve your ranking.
- We introduce you to Baidu paid advertising with our Guide to Baidu PPC. Discovers the main types of paid advertising available with Baidu PPC, the cost to expect and some best pratices to run efficient campaigns.