Companies switch tactics as gains from online ads slip

As such, trusted experts in certain niches or who have professional specialties stand out. The Miaozhen report found healthcare professionals, designers and scientists are gaining more clout as opinion leaders.

"You need to have a value proposition you want people to engage with－one that provides affinity and trust. It's something you can leverage later to sell, and that's what KOLs are doing," Whaley said. A value proposition is a statement of the benefits a company offers a customer.

In a high context culture environment like China－where communication is often indirect－consumers hope to establish trust and affinity with a brand, and KOLs, or even the more ordinary key opinion consumers, might serve as the best catalyst, experts said.

On lifestyle community app Xiaohongshu, brands from a wide variety of different industries－including fashion, skincare and food and beverage－roared into the Chinese Lunar New Year with a range of creative tiger collections－for the Year of the Tiger－that they are actively marketing.

Xiaohongshu also tracks emerging trends among China's young urban population by reflecting KOL content and users' daily routines through a function known as Note. It spotlights popular trends such as "glamping"－a combination of the words glamour and camping－sweet wines and trendy skincare regimens.

Last month, Xiaohongshu listed air fryers, going green and modern Chinese style among the emerging lifestyle trends for 2022, creating an abundance of opportunities for brands to leverage.

"We are able to provide insights to brands on how to ride the wave of these lifestyle trends from a business perspective," said Wang Yajuan, Xiaohongshu's chief marketing officer.

"The lifestyle content shared by users on the platform can help other consumers make better decisions, and because the user community is constantly generating opinions and actively participating in conversations, Xiaohongshu can help brands better understand user needs and support them in their iterative process," she said.

Internet platforms, on the other hand, are working hard to foster new influencers, who have yet to develop a sizable fan base but produce high-quality content in the form of short videos.

WeChat is doubling down on short videos by beefing up the presence of its Channels short video platform within the app.

The platform will prioritize support for individuals posting original videos about knowledge-sharing, lifestyle and information. It also will offer rewards, including cash incentives and traffic bonuses, to over 10 million content creators. That is expected to maximize exposure of their work to a wider audience, Zhang Xiaochao, who is in charge of Channels, said during a WeChat annual open class event in Guangzhou in January.

Apart from getting tips from fans, more online hosts stand to receive commissions from sellers of merchandise they endorse in their livestreaming sessions. Channels also connect qualified content creators with brands, enabling video producers to monetize their dedicated following thanks to large amounts of traffic.

Merchants can also bank on livestreaming via Channels to facilitate online transactions. WeChat says three-quarters of purchases via Channels were made by women, with top transactions including clothing, furnishings, food items, skincare and cosmetics.

"Channels has vast potential for smaller merchants to attract and retain customers and close the loop from traffic to transaction, because it is based on a distribution mechanism of social connections derived from WeChat," according to a report on Channels by domestic media tracking agency TopKlout.

With the recent fall from grace of several leading online hosts such as Viya, livestreaming-based e-commerce is likely to become less transaction-focused and more driven by interest or content, providing an advantage to platforms that encourage such content, said Zheng Zhuoran, an independent digital marketing analyst.