Are you new to the Taiwan market, unfamiliar with the local digital marketing trends, and tools available?
Not knowing the trends, the right tools and platforms for promotion will reduce the chance of your business being seen by your customers, and hinder your success in Taiwan.
Taiwan has her unique digital marketing culture. Marketing tools, popular social media platforms, and the way local people use social media can be very different from your own country. This also creates marketing opportunities (such as live-stream marketing and “group moms”) that are unique in the market.
In this article, we will dissect the Taiwan digital marketing landscape using the latest digital marketing survey data, explaining trends and tools which you can take advantage of for gaining visibility and driving sales to your business.
Also check if you’ve made these 5 marketing mistakes by foreign entrepreneurs in Taiwan.
1. Different digital promotion strategy for different age groups
Different age groups in Taiwan have different preferences and usages of social media platforms. While Facebook is still the dominant social media platform with the highest user number1, the growth in audience number skews towards the 40s to 50s. On the other hand, Instagram has seen tremendous growth over the past 3 years in 20s and 30s age groups2.
Social media usage habits vary between different age groups too. Middle age to senior generation (age 41 or above, born before 1979) mainly use social media to share pictures and updates3. Posting content (on topics such as health, finance and current issues) of their interest and encouraging them to share with people they care about will be a great way for connecting with this age group.
Younger generation (born between 1995-2015) use social media to chat and hang out with friends, follow news of influencers and celebrities 3. Making funny graphic content (such as memes) is a great strategy for getting viral as teens love to share memes with friends. Working with influencers is another good way for attracting their attention.
Don’t know how to make a meme? Here’s a short video on how to make a meme in 3 minutes, using a free tool.
2. Mobile friendliness
If you have been living in Taiwan for a while, you will notice many Taiwanese can’t seem to put their phone down. Indeed. research shows that on average Taiwanese spend around 8 hours daily on the internet, and most of them (95.8%) use cell phones to go online1.
Make sure your company website or online store looks good on mobile, because nothing makes a customer lose trust with you faster than a mobile site that doesn’t load, or only displays partially. Customers are also impatient with sites that load slow on mobile, and may give up visiting the site if the load time is too long. Thinking about how you can improve the user experience on your mobile site will go a long way in getting businesses. Talk to your website developer to see how you can improve website mobile friendliness if needed.
3. Great influence of online information on Taiwanese’s purchase decision
Latest study (Feb 2022) shows that Taiwanese customers go on to social media to “find content from brands” (27.1%), “looking for things to do or buy” (26.2%) and “finding products to purchase” (26%)1, this reflects the strong influence of online content on local customer’s buying decision.
Make sure your company has an active social media page and posting regularly will not only help you get online visibility, but also build trust with your customers. If your customer looks you up on social media and sees an inactive account with only a few posts, they might think your business is inactive.
Having a google map listing, and getting as many reviews as you can will also help tremendously with your business, as clients often search for businesses or services nearby with keywords on google map, and they would also read reviews before making a buying decision.
Read this article on why managing your google map listing is important for your business in Taiwan.
4. LINE as an important customer relationship tool and marketing tools
If you are in the Taiwan market but haven’t been using LINE for marketing, you should start now.
LINE is the top instant messaging tool in Taiwan with 95.7 % penetration1.
You can open a LINE official account for your business for FREE, and it will give you an array of customer relationship management and marketing tools.
How to make the best use of LINE’s official account? You’ll need to ask your customers to add your account as a “friend” first, then every month you can send up to 500 free broadcast messages to your customers on LINE to keep them updated about your business. You can use the app’s marketing function, such as creating and distributing coupons to encourage return purchase. These are functions that you will need to pay to do on platforms such as Facebook.
You can open your LINE official account here.
5. Make short-form videos
Short-form videos under 1 minute (like this one) have become the hottest trend in marketing, as Instagram started to allow Taiwan users to post reels (short-form videos) in April this year. Although Facebook reels aren’t officially rolled out in Taiwan, when you are posting a reel, Instagram can help you to push your reel to Facebook.
These snappy, punchy videos are good for catching audience’s attention. They are also powerful in helping you grow your follower number, as Instagram and Facebook have been actively pushing reels to people who may be interested in viewing, helping you to gain visibility beyond those who are already your followers.
Wondering how you can take advantage of this marketing trend? Read this article on how to create and use reels to promote your business.
6. Live stream marketing
Live stream marketing may not be common in the western world, but is popular in Asia.
From research, 17.2% of Taiwanese netizens go online to watch live streams, offering huge potential for promotion.
Through live-streaming, the host showcases the product, very often with a demo. This is a powerful way for engaging the audiences because they will be able to see the product in action and the immediate effect or benefits, which eliminates their concern of whether the product is effective. They can also ask questions and get instant feedback from the host. The host can also do flash sales limited to the live streaming time, to heighten the sense of urgency and push sales.
The common platforms for doing live stream marketing in Taiwan are Facebook, Instagram, LINE and shopee.
7. Influencers and “group moms”
Taiwaneses value relationships and they have a higher trust with people who have already bonded with them. That’s why influencers and “group moms” have an influence on their followers’ purchase decision, and many companies are eager to work with them in promotion.
There are influencers (also known as “KOLs”-key opinion leaders in Taiwan) in essentially every area in Taiwan-from consumer goods such as food, electronic products and cosmetics, to service businesses such as travel and education. Some influencers are dedicated in building a relationship with followers, and have a higher influence on their followers’ thoughts.
23.3% of Taiwanese netizens say they go online for “celebrities and influencers”, a mention or demo of the product/service by an influencer can give a lot of exposure for the brand and trigger public interest in purchasing.
“Group mom” are usually full-time moms who take on a side hustle of organising group orders. They usually have built their own community on LINE, Facebook or through word-of-mouth. They might have a smaller follower number than influencers, but because they have a tighter bonding with their communities, and know how to trigger interest from their audiences for the products, sometimes they may be more capable than influencers in persuading their audiences into buying.
How business owners can work with “group moms”?
Owners would usually offer group moms a discounted price to purchase their product, then group moms would organise group orders so their communities can purchase the product at a cost lower than the market price, and the group moms earn the price difference as profit.
We hope this article will help you understand more about the digital marketing landscape in Taiwan, and the different tools available for promoting your business in the market.
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