The majority of people fear change in social media regulation.

68% of respondents expressed their concerns about possible limits on social media and communication platforms in the city, demonstrating the potential significant impact that platform regulations would have on the daily lives of Hong Kongers. 17% "did not know" how they felt when asked about potential restrictions, and the rest were not worried.

Currently, only 23% of respondents use a VPN to navigate online and 17% do not know what a VPN is.

The study, held at the beginning of 2022, found that 60% of respondents would use a VPN for YouTube and 55% of them would use one for Instagram if these platforms were restricted in Hong Kong.

The research discovered that Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube were the most popular social media and communication platforms in Hong Kong, with YouTube having the highest penetration rate.

Instagram is the top social media platform in Hong Kong, with 86.1% using it for following and sharing content whilst also using it to learn about new things.

WhatsApp surpasses all other platforms for communication and business, with 65.1% using it for such purposes.

The findings also showed that if YouTube and Instagram are restricted locally, WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu (RED) would be the top 3 preferred replacement apps.

Solutions & Opportunities for Brands and Marketers

As Social Media Specialists in the field, Digital Business Lab recommends 3 ways forward for brands and marketers to sustain close relationships with their audiences.

1. Sustain Continuous Communication with Audiences with or without a VPN

For enterprises in China, VPN is a grey area. If a VPN is to be used, a comprehensive legal check has to be initiated for eligibility to obtain a VPN licence and to source for a VPN operator. If a VPN is not the way out, the organisation's marketing plan will likely be restructured.

In-house research was carried out using Facebook Ads as a barometer to understand the impacts of targeting & retargeting. Facebook was used as it is the most popular social media channel (including Instagram) and has a full scale of functions.

Here are the key findings based on Facebook Ad Manager:

• Geographical targeting will not be accurate due to inaccurate IP addresses
• Ads might also become irrelevant due to geographical impacts (e.g. ads in Dutch might be shown to users who switched their VPN location to the Netherlands but are physically browsing from Hong Kong)
• Retargeting VPN users through website data as a source will be impossible, as Cookies will not be saved correctly with anonymous website visits
• Social media-based or customer lists (e.g., email addresses) as sources will not be affected

"Digital Business Lab suggests accelerating your marketing collaboration with your/our ad tech partners, focusing on audience identification. Approaches such as proximity marketing data or app data can provide highly accurate audiences & automated expansions. To illustrate, our ad tech partner Adsquare can tell us that 294K people in Hong Kong are using Payme."

2. Be Present in Replacement Apps

Without VPN services available in China, popular social media sites used by brands for global marketing campaigns, such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and WhatsApp, are not accessible to target audiences on the mainland, which might happen in Hong Kong in the future.

This is why brands and marketers should choose to develop their global online presence by joining replacement apps such as WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu.

A good starting point is to understand the local population's current usage of the Chinese Apps, and then prioritise the platform usage based on marketing objectives. For example:

• Xiaohongshu would be a priority for lifestyle-related brands
• Use WeChat and Xiaohongshu first for brand development
• Use Douyin (Taobao), Xiaohongshu (for opening RED stores), Weibo (Taobao), and WeChat (JD.com or WeChat e-commerce mini program) if marketing objectives are Sales-focused

3. Implement Both!

References

1. ^{^} Media OutReach (www.media-outreach.com)
2. ^{^} survey campaign in Hong Kong (standard-insights.com)
3. ^{^} future social media landscape in Hong Kong (digital-business-lab.com)