New insights into Chinese social media: Internet users follow seven rules when sharing

What do users like to share on social networks?

• Under what emotions are users more willing to share?
• How many people are active sharers? What are their characteristics?
• How many people will delete the content they share?
• What are the differences between users’ sharing on Weibo and WeChat?

Of course, there is one final question:

——How has your world changed because of the existence of social networks?

In this year's Sing My Song program, a singer sang rhythmically, "They asked me what two things I do every day, and they are sleeping and browsing my Moments." The song titled "Brush Brush Brush" portrays a "patient" with severe social network addiction.

Of course, the reality is not that exaggerated. But if I tell you that an average WeChat user checks Moments 30 to 40 times a day, would this number surprise you a little?

Social networks have become a virtual window for modern people to see the world. The world displayed in this window is information shared by "send" buttons. The sharers are our friends, colleagues, classmates, relatives, lovers, and strangers who have never met but maintain communication relationships.

What we have to recognize is that the world we share does not represent the real world (voiceover: this does not only refer to the beautification brought by beauty tools). Instead, people are more willing to share their happy side, especially in the circle of friends.

This conclusion comes from a social sharing survey recently launched by Penguin Intelligence, in which 6,680 smartphone users across the country participated. Their answers show the sharing world of a social network.

The following is the full report:

1. The active majority: More than 70% of smartphone users share information on social networks

This social sharing survey among smartphone users nationwide mainly refers to "status" sharing including WeChat Moments, Sina Weibo, and QQ Space, and does not include personal and group sharing through instant messaging channels such as WeChat Address Book and QQ.

Previous studies have shown that China is one of the most active regions in the world in terms of social network sharing. This is indeed the case. The survey results show that 76.2% of the respondents said they would share information on social networks. Another 21% said they basically do not share, but mainly read what others share, and only 2.8% neither share nor read.

Among users who are willing to share, about three-quarters choose Moments as their first choice platform for sharing. “Swipe, swipe, swipe my Moments”, it is not difficult to see that Moments, which is mainly based on acquaintances and has a higher degree of privacy, has become the most core social sharing network in China.

Among those who rarely share, mainly watch others share, and neither share nor watch, the proportion of male users is much higher than that of female users. The proportion of male users in the former group is about 60%, while the proportion of male users in the latter group is close to 75%.

Here I would like to share with you some interesting data found by a Harvard University scholar. Mikolaj Piskorski found that two-thirds of the photos people browse on social networks are photos of women. "Men like to browse photos of women they don't know the most, followed by photos of women they know. Women like to browse photos of other women they know." Perhaps it is the huge "demand for watching" that motivates women to be more willing to share.

2. Beyond the 80/20 rule: One-third of smartphone users are heavy users who share on a daily basis

In terms of frequency of sharing, active sharers who post 3 or more posts a day account for about 10%. Another 23.1% of users post 1 to 2 posts a day. The sum of the two, that is, users who share at least one post a day, accounts for about one-third.

If we compare the frequency of browsing Moments and sharing Moments, we can find that if the number of times of browsing is high, some users will see more of the world presented by those active sharers, who may only account for 10% to 20% of their friends.

What are the characteristics of active sharers? By comparison, we found that they have the following characteristics: they like to share the same content on multiple platforms. They may be active in both WeChat Moments and Weibo. They are willing to try sharing in more forms, such as videos. Their active nature also allows them to have more friends they meet because of their interests and interact with them. In addition, they also share work-related information more frequently than others.

3. Spring and Winter: Self-media continues to rise, while e-commerce remains weak

50.8% of the respondents said that they often share their moods and status on social networks. The second most popular thing is liking articles, accounting for 35.4%.

This also explains why the media's dependence on social networks continues to deepen, and why self-media groups can rise rapidly in social network ecosystems such as WeChat.

Songs and videos are also content that users will share. It is worth noting that the proportion of video sharing has higher potential for growth.

Other application information and merchant red envelope discounts account for a low proportion of sharing, and may even have declined compared to the past. This shows that users have shown a certain degree of restraint and information self-purification in sharing information on social networks. For e-commerce, social platforms are not yet sufficiently compatible.

In addition, work-related information accounts for 12%. This is related to the fact that WeChat carries the workplace relationship chain of some users, which to some extent triggers the demand and motivation of users to share work content here.

4. The power of emotions: Women are much more willing to share when they are happy than men

This is the survey option that best shows the difference between men and women. When asked in which emotions you are more likely to share information, both men and women said they would share when they are happy, but women's need to share at this time is much higher than men, with the former at 50.1% and the latter at 30%.

Overall, when emotions fluctuate, in addition to when they are happy, women's need to share is higher than men's when they are sad or angry.

Men are more likely than women to share when they are bored or lonely.

5. The middle distance rule: Those who actively interact with you on social networks are not your closest friends

The more interactions there are, the more active users will be in sharing. According to the survey results, after information is shared, the users who interact with it the most are usually their good friends, followed by people they know at work and classmates.

Family members and lovers are not the groups that interact with us the most on social networks. Even for those who have lovers, the interactions between the two of them are not shown more in Moments. However, on Weibo, the interaction between lovers is more active than in Moments.

This set of data reflects, to some extent, our most real need for interaction on social networks - maintaining "mid-distance relationships". Relatives and strangers are not the main objects of interaction on social networks, but social objects in the relationship status of friends, colleagues, etc. have become the core interaction chain in social networks.

6. Social chain fragmentation: The proportion of users in large cities who use information filtering and blocking is much higher than that in third- and fourth-tier cities

Compared with users of other ages, those born in the 1970s are more worried that sharing too much will cause dislike among their friends. It is worth mentioning that those born in the 1970s are also the group that loves to share articles. About 50% of those born in the 1970s often share articles, while those born in the 1970s who often share their moods and life status account for only 36.8%. This is a clear difference from the groups younger than them.

15.4% of smartphone users said they often delete the content they share, and 16.1% sometimes set it to be visible in groups when sharing. Although not most people do this, the former is more obvious among those born after 2000, while the latter is more obvious in large cities - nearly one-fifth of users in first-tier cities will consider using group visibility when sharing, while this behavior accounts for only 8.5% in fourth-tier cities.

7. WeChat VS Weibo: WeChat users like to share when they are happy, while Weibo users like to post different content on different platforms

If we compare the three mainstream social networks in China, we can also find some differences.

WeChat Moments: Users born after 1980 are more likely to share when they are happy, share work-related information, fear that sharing too much will cause disgust, and interact more with people they know through work. The proportion of users in these aspects is higher than that of QQ Space and Sina Weibo.

QQ Space: Users born after 2000, share their moods and life status, share that they feel lost when no one interacts with them, and have more interactions with classmates. The proportion of users in these areas is higher than that of Moments and Sina Weibo.

Sina Weibo: Users born after 1990 are likely to share when bored, often share valuable or interesting articles, post different content on different platforms, and interact more with people they met due to interests. The proportion of users in these aspects is higher than that of Moments and QQ Space.

Overall, different social networks have gradually formed user sharing characteristics that represent their own styles.

Conclusion: The social network world is a filtered world

User sharing is the basis of social networks. Through sharing, people express themselves, build relationships, and spread information.

However, sharing in the world of social networks will bring "beautification" and sometimes "uglification". The user demands behind sharing, the sharing rules created by the platform, and the closeness of the social circle all affect the content of sharing.

There is a term in communication studies called "pseudo-environment", which was proposed by American scholar Lippmann in the 1920s. It is used to explain that the information people see is not an objective reflection of the real environment, but has been re-selected, processed and combined by the mass media.

Nowadays, what people see on social networks is not just mass media, but information that is selected and processed by individuals and their friends and then shared. These shares reflect different people's interests, personalities and interest motivations.

It seems that we have returned the right to choose information to ourselves, but at the same time, we are trapped in another "pseudo-environment" that has been selected and processed. This environment is still distant from the real environment.

Produced by Penguin Intelligence | Analyst: Wang Xin