1. Introduction

In the digital era, social media has significantly reshaped marketing, providing businesses with unparalleled chances to connect with consumers. With the growing prominence of platforms like WeChat, TikTok, and Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), it is crucial to understand their distinct features and user behaviors for effective marketing strategies. This article examines the diverse role of social media in marketing, emphasizing its definitions, development, and key elements that enhance marketing effectiveness. By investigating the relationship between user behavior, content creation, and new trends, this paper aim to offer practical insights for businesses navigating the complexities of social media marketing in a constantly evolving landscape. Ultimately, this analysis highlights the importance of adaptability and innovation for companies aiming to meet varied consumer demands and broaden their market reach.

2. Definition and Development of Social Media

Social media refers to online platforms that allow users to create, share, and disseminate various forms of content while interacting with others. Its core characteristics lie in two-way communication and extensive connections through social networks. As technology advanced and the internet became widespread, social media has become an integral part of modern life, impacting both personal daily routines and business activities.

In recent years, several representative social media apps have played a crucial role in its development, such as WeChat, TikTok, and Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). Since WeChat launched in 2011, it has evolved from a messaging app into a multifunctional platform encompassing communication, payments, shopping, and more. Through features like Moments and public accounts, WeChat enables users to engage in social interactions and access information conveniently, greatly enhancing the efficiency of daily life [1].

TikTok has attracted a massive user base with its short video format and intelligent recommendation algorithms, quickly pushing content that matches users' interests. By allowing users to create and share videos easily, TikTok fosters strong interaction and entertainment within social media. Xiaohongshu is a community platform centered around life sharing, where users post photos, videos, and texts to share shopping and lifestyle experiences. This model not only influences traditional consumption patterns but also offers new shopping experiences through authentic user feedback and interaction [2].

These platforms symbolize the rapid development of social media and have transformed people’s lifestyles by making social interactions and information sharing more convenient and efficient.

3. Characteristics of Social Media and Its Impact on Marketing

The rise of social media has introduced unique features that have significantly transformed marketing strategies. One prominent characteristic is strong content interactivity. Social media platforms allow users to freely express their opinions, comment on posts, like content, and share it with their networks. This interactive environment fosters a sense of participation and connection between users and brands. When users see their feedback acknowledged, it narrows the gap between them and the brand, enhancing communication. For example, on platforms like WeChat and TikTok, users can engage directly with businesses through comments and direct messages, facilitating smoother interactions and improving overall marketing impact.

Another key feature is the rapid dissemination of information. Social media enables companies to quickly publish and update marketing content, reaching target audiences almost instantly. The speed at which information spreads on these platforms means content can gain traction rapidly. Users can further amplify this by sharing and forwarding content, accelerating its reach. For instance, a viral video on TikTok can dramatically increase a product’s visibility in a short period, allowing brands to leverage fast dissemination for effective marketing [3].

Personalized recommendations and targeted marketing represent another significant advantage of social media. Platforms utilize user data, including interests and behaviors, to offer tailored content recommendations. By leveraging big data and AI, businesses can precisely target their marketing messages to specific customer segments, enhancing the likelihood of conversion [4]. Algorithms on platforms like TikTok and Xiaohongshu recommend relevant ads and product content based on individual user preferences, making marketing efforts more targeted and effective [5].

In summary, social media’s features of strong interactivity, rapid information spread, and personalized targeting substantially enhance marketing effectiveness. These characteristics help businesses build better connections with users and increase their brand visibility.

4. Factors Influencing Marketing on Social Media

Social media platforms possess several characteristics that significantly affect marketing strategies. By analyzing these aspects, we can better understand how social media impacts marketing.

4.1. The Impact of User Characteristics on Marketing

The characteristics of social media users heavily influence how marketing strategies are shaped. Each platform tends to attract different user demographics. For instance, WeChat appeals to a wide range of age groups and is used for both personal and professional purposes, whereas TikTok primarily attracts younger users who favor creative, short-form video content [6]. By understanding these distinct user traits, businesses can tailor their marketing approaches more effectively. Developing detailed user profiles based on demographic data, preferences, and behaviors allows companies to craft targeted marketing campaigns that speak directly to their intended audience.

4.2. The Influence of Rapid Information Dissemination on Marketing

One of the most defining features of social media is the rapid pace at which information spreads. Due to this fast dissemination, it is crucial for businesses to create engaging and high-quality content that stands out and encourages interaction. Well-produced content can significantly enhance brand visibility and foster positive engagement, while poorly executed content could harm the brand's image [7]. To ensure marketing success, companies should regularly update their content and align it with trending topics and audience interests to maintain relevance and appeal.

4.3. Social Media Trends Shaping Marketing Strategies

Social media trends play a critical role in shaping marketing strategies. Current trends include increased platform commercialization, offering a variety of advertising options; the integration of artificial intelligence and big data for better targeting and personalized marketing; and a heightened focus on personalized content to enhance user experience. Additionally, stricter regulations on social media have created a safer online environment, encouraging users to engage more confidently in online transactions. By staying aware of these evolving trends, businesses can adapt their strategies to better navigate the dynamic social media landscape.

Through examining these factors, it becomes clear how social media's characteristics and trends are influencing modern marketing approaches.

5. Problems with Social Media

5.1. The Challenge of Continuously Changing Consumer Behavior

Nowadays, there are many social medias for users to play with. Social media refers to digital platforms and applications that enable users to create, share, and interact with content and each other. These platforms facilitate communication, community building, and the exchange of information in various forms such as text, images, videos, and audio. Examples of social media include social networking sites, microblogging services, forums, blogs, wikis, and media sharing platforms. It is difficult for enterprises to meet the diverse needs of consumers. Studies show that the behavior patterns of different users on social media are very different. This difference not only affects the user experience of the platform, but also plays an important role in the dynamics of information dissemination. For example, some users are more inclined to actively participate in content creation and sharing, while others are mainly content consumers (i.e. passive use). Users of the Xiaohongshu are mainly contributed by females. Moreover, users like to share lives and experiences on the Xiaohongshu. However, users in Douyin cover a wide range of ages and there are both males and females. Douyin users usually update funny videos, some bloggers like to share their daily vlogs, or there are millions of middle-aged females like to take dancing videos and update them. All in all, videos in Douyin are diverse due to different groups of users, they have different jobs and personalities, so the style of their videos are quite different. Their hobbies are also different, as a result, consumers always have different needs.

Also, different social medias have different impact on consumers. By analyzing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms, it can be found that these platforms have a significant impact on consumers' purchasing decisions. For example, some studies show that social media "expands consumers' online purchasing behavior". More and more young people pay more attention to the practicality and cost performance of products, and their needs for emotional experience are also increasing. The wide use of the social media makes it easier for consumers to obtain product information, compare different brands and make more rational purchasing decisions. Consumers are no longer satisfied with basic needs, but to pursue a higher level of consumption experience.

5.2. The Over-commercialization of Social Media Platforms

Commercialization refers to the process of introducing a new product or service into the market with the aim of generating revenue. In the context of social media marketing, it often refers to advertise in the middle of the content. It involves a series of activities that transform an invention or innovation into a commercially viable offering. This process typically includes market research, product development, pricing, distribution, sales, and marketing. Commercialization is a critical step for businesses as it bridges the gap between research and development and the actual earning of income from a new product or service.

The trend of commercialization in social media platforms has brought a series of problems to brand marketing. As companies put more effort in commercialization than in branding, they might not attract as many fans as before. Commercialization often requires companies to advise during their vlogs or posts, it will cause the disguise of audience. Less audience or traffic limits the potential performance of the company’s marketing campaign. Social media platforms earn revenue by placing a large number of advertisements to users, which is accused of encroaching on the user experience. For example, some studies show that the increasing commercial advertising on the platform may lead to a decrease in users' trust in the platform and even a decrease in interest in social interaction [8]. Users are not willing to see advertisements appear in the videos they watch, especially in their favourite bloggers’ videos. This may lead to the declined interest in using those social media platforms.

Also, platforms may excessively collect user data for commercial interests, leading to user privacy issues which are serious for users. For example, in recent years, large- scale data breaches at several high-profile companies, resulting in the illegal acquisition of personal information of millions or even hundreds of millions of users, including but not limited to user names. Passwords, ID numbers, bank card numbers and other sensitive data. It brings huge security risks and economic losses to users. For example, large platforms such as Facebook have had many data leaks. For example, the Cambridge analysis incident in 2018 led to the unauthorized use of 87 million user data for political purposes [9].

5.3. Vicious Competition of Companies

Nowadays, competitions between companies are quite intense, excessive competition and malicious competition are common phenomena. Malicious competition usually refers to the behavior of enterprises that interfere with market order by improper means and hinder the normal competition of other enterprises. These methods include price fraud, false propaganda, malicious slander against competitors, etc. It is mentioned in the literature that malicious competition not only harms the interests of other enterprises, but also undermines the fair competition environment of the whole industry. For example, [10] mentioned that the platform uses price fraud and false propaganda to achieve a competitive advantage, which seriously damages market fairness. In addition, malicious competition can also lead to market monopoly and further exacerbate injustice. Monopoly refers to an enterprise or a small number of enterprises gaining a dominant position in the market by controlling market resources or crowding out competitors, making free competition impossible. According to [11], although China has made some progress in restricting administrative monopoly after the implementation of the Antimonopoly Law, government restrictions are still an important obstacle to market competition. [12] It is also pointed out that monopoly behavior limits innovation and hinders economic development. Monopoly markets usually lead to rising prices, declining product quality and limited consumer choices, which ultimately affect the healthy development of the entire economic system. In order to gain advantage in such intense competitions, companies may adopt improper competitive means to gain a larger market share and profits, including spreading false information to mislead consumers or competitors. These false messages may relate to product quality, prices, market share ect., aiming to influence consumers’ purchasing decisions or competitors’ strategic deployments. It brings disadvantage to consumers and increases the legal risk of companies.

6. Strategies of Making Social Media Marketing Better

6.1. Understand Consumer Needs, Take Multiple Measures

Facing consumer’ need diversity, brands are compelled to adopt more sophisticated and targeted marketing strategies to stand out in the crowded social media landscape. One such strategy is actively guiding consumer behavior to achieve better marketing results. It can guide consumers to complete shopping on social media platforms through: understanding consumer needs, better displaying products through videos and pictures, providing preferential discounts and other means, promoting customer loyalty through brand stories, ensuring after-sales service and other measures.

Define marketing goals. Identify specific marketing goals, such as increasing brand awareness, increasing website traffic, increasing conversion rates, etc. Set quantifiable metrics for each goal, such as follower growth, click-through rates, conversions, etc. In-depth understanding of the target audience. Use questionnaires, user interviews and other ways to collect user data. Use social media Analytics tools (e.g. Facebook Insights, Google Analytics) to track user behavior. Content Innovation and Quality control Conduct content audits to eliminate underperforming content and optimize popular content. Hold regular creative meetings to encourage team members to come up with new content ideas. Implement a content calendar plan to ensure regularity and diversity of content delivery.

6.2. Optimize Platform Content, Reduce Over-commercialization

Optimize the output content in social media, produce more quality content, and increase the user's love in social media. Different platforms produce different but suitable content, such as Xiaohongshu main text pictures, Douyin main video. Select bright topics, novel themes, original content to obtain better marketing results. The platform should improve the privacy policy, improve transparency, clearly inform users of the collection and use of their data, and provide stronger data control functions [13]. Apply more advanced technical means, such as encryption, anonymization, etc., to protect user privacy, strengthen privacy education, improve users' privacy literacy, and make them more cautious when sharing information [14].

6.3. Improve the Legal System, Optimize the Market Environment

In order to curb malicious competition and monopoly behavior, some studies have proposed specific measures. For example, the implementation of the fair competition review system can significantly improve the degree of strategic transformation of enterprises, especially in non-state-owned enterprises . In addition, it is also necessary to improve the anti-monopoly law and increase law enforcement. [15] It emphasizes the restriction of the government's administrative monopoly through legal means in order to establish a fairer market environment. Although the existing measures have achieved some results, further research and practice are still needed. On the one hand, we should strengthen the supervision of emerging industries, such as information technology and Internet platforms, to prevent the emergence of new monopolies and malicious competition. On the other hand, it is also necessary to systematically evaluate the effect of policy implementation and optimize laws and regulations to cope with the changing market environment.

Collaborations with other brands or influencers can also help brands stand out in a crowded market. By partnering with complementary businesses or personalities, brands can tap into new audiences and leverage the trust that their partners have already built with their followers.

Finally, it's crucial for brands to stay agile and adaptable. The social media landscape is constantly evolving, and what works today may not work tomorrow. Brands that are willing to experiment, learn from their failures, and quickly pivot their strategies will be better equipped to handle the ever-changing digital marketing terrain.

7. Conclusion

Through in-depth analysis of the profound impact of social media on the marketing field, companies can gain insight into the true needs and behavior patterns of users, and thus tailor more precise and effective marketing strategies. In this process, companies not only need to deeply understand the psychology and preferences of users but also need to keenly capture the dynamic changes and emerging trends of social media platforms.

To adapt to this rapidly changing environment, companies must maintain a high degree of flexibility and innovative spirit, continuously adjusting and optimizing their marketing strategies. This means being brave enough to try new methods, new technologies, and combining the characteristics of social media to create unique marketing plans. Only in this way can companies maintain a leading position in the fierce market competition and consolidate and expand their market share.

Authors Contribution

All the authors contributed equally and their names were listed in alphabetical order.