New and old players are accelerating forward, how do new ways of playing on social platforms "impact" local life?

Marketing through social media is a new trend in today's era. Insights and analysis of future development directions provide valuable references for the industry. This article describes the relevant content and hopes it will be helpful to you.

Social media has gradually become an important battlefield in brand digital marketing. Brand owners' investment in social marketing has gradually increased. How to improve marketing effectiveness and serve product sales conversion has become a core issue of concern to brands.

Clour will focus on multiple industries such as fast-moving consumer goods beverages, digital 3C, maternal and child care, beauty and skin care, toiletries, local life, etc., and conduct in-depth exploration of consumer preferences, brand marketing, and new consumption trends. It will combine platform selection, influencer layout, content strategy and other dimensions to analyze the logic behind brand social marketing and gain insight into development trends.

Today, content platforms are "declaring war" on service platforms by using group buying as a starting point. Service platforms are using their own relatively complete service systems as a "shield" while also accelerating the creation of content "weapons". In the future, competition in the local life track will become increasingly fierce.

Crawler summarized the current user consumption and social marketing trends in the local life track, and released the "Brand Social Marketing Research Series - Local Life", analyzing the marketing trends of local life content on social media platforms, gaining insights into future development directions, and providing valuable references for the industry.

1. Overview of local online life content

Local life services refer to the service form in which the platform brings the information of offline merchants such as catering, retail, leisure and entertainment, beauty, cultural and tourism services online. An "offline store" is a "local life merchant" (store POI). Consumers can obtain information such as the merchant's geographic location, service content, price discounts, etc. online, place orders online and consume offline, and can comment, rate, and share on the platform to participate in the merchant's reputation building.

Report source: Clour, citation requires authorization

According to public data, in the first quarter of 2023, Meituan's food delivery revenue was 34.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16%, and Alibaba's local life (Ele.me + Fliggy + AutoNavi Maps) revenue was about 12.5 billion. In 2022, Douyin helped 980,000 small and medium-sized businesses to generate revenue, and the income of life service experts increased by about 7 times. By January this year, the number of comprehensive industry merchants who received orders on Douyin increased by more than 6 times compared with the same period last year, and the total order volume increased by more than 3 times year-on-year.

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From the perspective of the platform, traditional comprehensive service platforms and vertical service platforms are making content-oriented layouts, continuously cultivating and introducing content experts, and increasing live broadcast business. Content platforms and e-commerce platforms are rapidly opening up cooperation policies for local merchants, deepening the construction of basic service capabilities, and continuously enriching local merchants on the site and adding more service types.

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Clour believes that the development of local life business has entered the 4.0 stage, and "new e-commerce scenarios" and "new nearby consumption" have become the main features of the current stage. Local consumption scenarios are scattered across multiple platforms and models, and the combination of offline store short videos + live broadcast operations has gradually become a new trend.

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2. Consumption habits, platform preferences and decision-making factors

According to the results of Clour’s user survey, ordering takeout, group coupons, and buying groceries are the main types of online consumption for local life users. The proportion of users who consume content and products on the same platform is higher, and the online consumption decision-making link for local life is shorter.

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About 46.4% of the surveyed people prefer to browse local life content on social platforms while consuming, while 44.8% of the surveyed people prefer comprehensive platforms. 20.8% of the surveyed people will place orders on comprehensive service platforms after browsing local life content on social platforms. About 60.66% of the surveyed users choose to browse local life content on Douyin.

"Comprehensive and objective information" is the key for users to choose comprehensive platforms for local life consumption. The platform mechanism of weak social interaction and strong word-of-mouth has enabled comprehensive platforms to attract a large number of amateur users. Comprehensiveness and authenticity are the considerations for users to choose comprehensive service platforms for consumption.

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In contrast, "rich and authentic content" is the key for users to choose content platforms for local life consumption. Content platforms gather a large number of consumers with interest in content. On the one hand, it is easier to directly convert users through live broadcasts, short videos, pictures and texts, and then verify consumer coupons offline. On the other hand, through online content seeding, users can be encouraged to purchase consumer coupons across platforms or conduct offline transactions.

The report is from Clour, and the citation must be authorized. Comprehensive platforms such as Meituan and Dianping are most preferred by users in new first-tier cities, and their wide coverage of cities and businesses is their advantage. Users in second-tier cities have a higher preference for local life consumption on content platforms, but their city coverage is insufficient and there are still valuable areas to be explored.

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From the perspective of the impact of content on user consumption decisions, content related to joint interactions and special benefits attracts attention and prompts users to pay more attention to stores. According to online survey data from Cloury, about 57.4% of surveyed users are attracted by IP activities and creative activities, and 51.6% of surveyed users pay more attention to information such as limited-time special offers and limited-time openings.

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At the same time, 52.5% of the respondents said that information about new products, new stores, and first stores can more easily motivate them to participate in group purchases, and "freshness" has become an important driving force for users to place orders. For example, the "M CHAO" section launched by Dianping has attracted the attention of many young users by recommending trendy stores and new stores.

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It is worth mentioning that the quality of door-to-door delivery services is a key factor influencing users' orders for "home delivery services". When users place an order for "home delivery services", the convenience of making appointments and price factors are almost equally important.

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Overall, there is a strong demand for local life content, and the browsing and ordering behaviors are highly coordinated. Comprehensive service platforms are still the main battlefield for users to place orders for local life consumption. Comprehensive and objective merchant information is its main advantage, and rich content is the core reason that drives users to choose social platforms to place orders.

3. Local life social platform marketing methods and business cases

Relying on its content marketing and user advantages, social platforms have increased their investment in the local market, gradually forming their own characteristics and advantages, and forming a relatively obvious difference from comprehensive service platforms.

1. TikTok

Douyin’s local life layout started in 2018 and began to take full action in 2021.

At present, the "Same City" Tab has formed a local business aggregation page, and has launched a series of dedicated platforms for the operation and investment of local businesses, and gradually improved the infrastructure construction. According to Crawley's data, among the TOP1000 content with the highest interaction volume in local life on Douyin from April to July, food and livelihood content each accounted for more than 40%, and celebrity and big V content accounted for 22.3%, contributing 30.8% of the interaction volume. Big Vs and celebrities' offline check-ins, store visits, and evaluation content cover a large number of user interactions, and are the main force of Douyin's offline urban life service content.

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2. Xiaohongshu

Xiaohongshu has been focusing on local life transactions since 2023, strengthening the "nearby" content of lifestyle. In April of this year, Xiaohongshu recruited in-store catering merchants and service providers to participate in the internal test, and officially launched the group buying function in May. In July, the platform launched a store exploration cooperation center, and at the same time released store exploration activities, and experts can visit stores to earn commissions. In Xiaohongshu's local life content from April to July, food-related content accounted for 46%, and photography check-in content has become a feature of the platform. In addition to eating, drinking and having fun, "taking good pictures" is also an important demand of Xiaohongshu users.

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3. Kuaishou

Kuaishou has accelerated the pace of local life commercialization. This year, it began to connect with local life merchants and signed group purchase business with a large number of catering brands. At this stage, the main product type is "cost-effective group purchase". The newly launched "dare to compare prices" mainly uses platform subsidies to launch a low-price offensive, covering 45 cities, mainly chain catering merchants.

Food is the most popular content in Kuaishou’s local life. Among them, dessert stores that focus on “product promotion” use the atmosphere of Kuaishou’s old irons to conduct down-to-earth store live broadcasts, emphasizing information such as product quality, cost-effectiveness, and package discounts; chain restaurants whose main purpose is to “keep customers in the store” have their bosses visit the store and introduce the restaurant’s services and product flavors in various ways to attract users to check in.

Report source: Clour.com, citation requires authorization. Overall, the combination of hot content, local lifestyle expert content, and high-frequency live streaming has become a normalized marketing combination. From "reaching and planting grass", "searching and purchasing", to "on-site consumption", and then to "repeat purchase", a complete local lifestyle marketing chain has gradually taken shape.

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4. Insights into local lifestyle social marketing trends

According to Clour’s user survey data, users’ e-commerce consumption behavior of watching and buying (i.e., planting seeds in the content and placing orders to buy them) has migrated to local life. The operations of local merchants are becoming more "e-commerce-oriented", and marketing is becoming more sophisticated, gradually converging with the marketing paths of e-commerce brands. This puts a greater test on the local merchants’ ability to coordinate online and offline operations.

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On the platform side, social platforms participate in offline activities in various ways, integrating themselves into offline scenes to increase marketing topics. At the same time, in order to better meet the marketing needs of merchants, social platforms focus on supporting local talents and local MCN organizations, and more regional organizations emerge.

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Nowadays, competition in the local life track is becoming increasingly fierce, with old players upgrading and new players entering the market, and new ways of playing on social platforms constantly impacting the development of the industry. The browsing and ordering behaviors of local life are highly coordinated, and the demand for content is becoming increasingly strong. "Rich and authentic content" is the key reason why users choose social platforms. In addition to online store operations, content operations are added, which puts higher requirements on the online and offline collaborative operation capabilities of local merchants.

Author: Ji Nan, Source: WeChat public account: "TopKlout"