China users’ time spent on digital media has exceeded that on traditional media in 2015. Digital media is the largest media by ad revenue; online ad revenue will continue to grow, especially mobile ad revenues.

According to eMarketer, China internet users on average spend over 6 hours 8 minutes on media per day, of which over 3 hours on social media, 2 hours 40 minutes on TV, 11 minutes on  radio, 10 minutes on newspaper, and only 1 minute on magazine. 94.8% users over 18 years old watch television while spending less time is spent. 46% users use the internet (PC), 43.1% use smartphones, and 42% use feature phones.

The compound average growth rate (CAGA) of print media (newspaper and magazine) from 2011 to 2015 is -7.4%. The CAGA of newspaper is -5.1% and the CAGA of magazine is -7.4%. A report from Kantar shows the number of social media users in urban aras grow quickly from 28.6% in 2013 to 34% in 2014, which indicates that social media gradually become mainstream.

Diversification is one of the most obvious features of China social media, the post-90s are the largest group whose average age in 2014 is 30.4 years old; the average age in 2013 is 28.8 years old, which indicates that more different age-groups begin to use social media.

The number of users in the second, third and fourth-tier cities has increased while the number of users in first-tier cities has declined. The ratio of high education users dropped.

Chinese users prefer to use mobile internet for social media. Most people like using WeChat and Weibo on mobile apps while browsing BBS on computers. And different age level users have different internet behaviors. The post-90s often watch videos, the post-90s often shop online, and the post-70s often read news on the website.

In 2013, China internet users use Qzone most frequently while in 2014 WeChat became one of the most frequent-used mobile apps in China. More original content were generated on WeChat Weibo for the first time in 2014, and the engagement on WeChat was higher.

Chinese users who only read information on social media tend to be more according to data of Chinamedia 360. In 2014, 46% social media users didn’t participate in topic discussion or leave comments compared with 39% in 2013. A majority of users expected to get instant and practical information from social media; and users were more concious of privacies. Thus interactivities turn to be less.

Let’s take Wechat and Weibo as examples.

The average age of WeChat users is 26 years old, 97.7% users are under 50 years old. Most of WeChat users are employees, freelances, students and staff in state-owned enterprises.

WeChat has become an important part of Chinese life. 25% users on average open WeChat over 30 times per day, and 52.2% users over 10 times. About half of WeChat users have over 100 WeChat friends, 62.7% users have over 50 WeChat friends.

WeChat official account is one of the major features of WeChat. About 80% users would follow official accounts, especially accounts of companies and media. 29.1% official account users follow WeMedia accounts, 25.4% follow verified media accounts, 18.9% follow companies, 5.9% follow marketing accounts, and other 20.7% don’t follow any account. Over 40% users want to get information from official accounts.

Official subscription accounts can be categorized in entertainment, health, news, beauty and fashion by content. 42% accounts would interact with fans. Entertainment accounts are most welcome.

Combined MAU of Weixin (Chinese version of Wechat) and WeChat were 600 million as of 30 Jun 2015. Weibo MAUs reached 212 million in Q2 2015. 72% are 19 to 35 years old, the post-80s and post-90s are major parts of Weibo users. Male users made up of 60.9%, and female of 39.1%. Users in South China and East China are more active on Weibo than users in other parts of China.

Also read: WeChat Offers 8 Solutions For Smart Devices

WeChat quietly launched a cash reward feature for WeChat official accounts yesterday. Also this month, WeChat launched measure to fight plagiarism on official accounts posts.

This new feature for WeChat official accounts is meant to encourage original quality content. Readers can “like” the post by donating a small amount of cash.

There has been increasing focus on original quality content on social media since last year. Weibo.com in mid 2014 launched a new program for “we media” to encourage  unique and quality content creation on Weibo. Weibo will share revenue with We Media users, generated via advertising, paid topic discussion, and product selling.

The new feature for WeChat official account is similar to an existing similar eature on Weibo. Some Weibo users think WeChat cloned this feature from Weibo.com.

Read more: 20 Charts on WeChat Shopping

Weibo.com has been encouraging high quality user generated content with We Media Project which it can offer to the users to be a more valuable platform and it can monetize as well. Qihoo 360?s Wemedia platform has also fully integrated with Weibo WeMedia.

Weibo.com added a feature this week for Weibo accounts admitted to We Media pojrect: paid content. With this feature used, users need to pay to view the full article or pay a subscription fee.

In addition, a feature called Weibo Dashang, similar to “Buy Me A Coffee” is also added as reward from fans to increase publishers’ revenue.

Weibo news feeds optimization program has officially launched and the official Weibo announced that with data analysis and users’ reporting, it will block the display of the low quality content to improve user experience.

At the mean time, the exposure of high-quality Weibo will also be increased for higher engagement.

Weibo has been testing this program for three months, during which the exposure of the low quality content was lowered by 35% and the total number of Weibo content views was up by 14%

Three types of low-quality information will be filtered out:

• Low quality content with little interactions or engagement
• Spam marketing content
• Auto-published content by authorization to third-parties

This update will not only improve the user experience on Weibo but also increase the views of high quality content especially We Media group who shares ad revenue generated on Weibo platform.

Last week, Weibo announced premium publisher program called WeMedia to encourage more unique and quality content creation on Weibo.

We just found that Qihoo 360’s Wemedia platform is now fully integrated with Weibo WeMedia, who previously also pulls content from Wechat. 360 WeMedia homepage features Technology and Finance, education, culture, featured posts, popular articles and top influencers. All sections are links to corresponding Weibo article page.

We Media, or “zi mei ti” in Chinese, refers to individuals and a group of individuals who are independent with large number of followers or fans on Chinese social media creating quality and unique content on certain topics. These are often influencers in China.