How a Beijing Expat Got 2 Million Followers in Just 3 Months
For the generation of millennials currently drowning in student debt, working back-to-back jobs and increasingly unlikely to own their own homes (sob), becoming a key opinion leader (KOL, or influencer in the West) is starting to look like a pretty attractive option. Making videos for social networking sites that you already use every day, building a fanbase who fawn over your every post, getting to travel, being your own boss, and making your own content, sure beats working split shifts at McDonald's.
Yet with the market already very saturated, the path to fame and fortune is far from clear. Just how many #fitspo accounts can Instagram actually support, anyway?
Well, entering the Chinese social media market may just be the break that you're looking for. With many Western social networking sites blocked in China, China has created its own arsenal of social networking sites, and as China's influence grows, they're also gradually starting to reach international users. Best yet, domestic users apparently love to subscribe to foreigner accounts.
Curious about what being a KOL actually entails, we talk to one of Beijing’s up and coming Chinese social media stars who operates mainly on the world’s biggest app platform Douyin (branded as Tik Tok abroad). Approached by a business owner who wanted to promote his English teaching company, Ben Johnson saw an opportunity and went for it. We take a look at this weird and wonderful world.
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
My name’s Ben Johnson and I currently live in Beijing, working in the marketing department of an English teaching company. I’ve been living in China on and off for a couple of years now and love it. We make short videos to put on Chinese social media platforms to market the educational products we have.
What kind of content do you produce?
They’re all short videos. A lot of them are cultural comparison ones where we act out funny cultural differences, for example how parents react to their kids getting their grades back - a Chinese mom freaks out when their kid doesn’t get 100 percent but the Western mom doesn’t care if her child gets like a C or something.
Johnson produces short videos to help viewers learn English
How did you get into this line of work?
Through a friend. We started doing part-time work for this guy who said he ‘wanted to make foreigners famous.’ We were a bit skeptical at first, so I ended up quitting my job and working for him on a temporary contract. It ended up working really well. We started in May with the aim of getting 1 million fans by September, and we ended up with over 3 million by the end of September.
This guy said he wanted to make foreigners ‘famous in China.’ Do you think he succeeded with this?
Our following happened really quickly. We got our first million followers within the first month, then it slowed down a bit. I would say, not crazy famous – I’m not a celebrity, but I do get recognized quite often in the subway, or whilst out shopping etc.
What’s it like being recognized? How often does that happen?
I’d say a couple of times a week. It’s pretty standard. I’ll just be doing something random with friends, and someone will be staring at me – more than the usual stare – and they will say my Chinese name (which even my friends don’t know), and they’ll explain they saw me on one of the social media platforms. Or even sometimes when I’m on dating apps, I’ll have people send me screenshots of my social media profile just being like, ‘Hey! I’m a fan!’ For me, that’s definitely a bit of a turn-off.
Tell us a bit about the various social media platforms you work with. Are they Western platforms or Chinese platforms, or a mixture?
So, they’re all Chinese platforms. The biggest one is Douyin (抖音) where we have over 2 million followers. We also use Huoshan (火山), Kuaishou (快手), Weibo (微博)... There’s about 10 of them, it’s hard to keep track. They’re kind of like a Chinese version of Vibe/Instagram, mainly short videos (15 seconds to 1 minute long).
Do you also have your own personal account as well as a work one?
Yeah, but I don’t pay as much attention to my personal one as I do my work one. I’ve still got a decent following of over 200,000 on it which in Australia, I think I’d actually be famous. But in China, it’s just a small amount. One of my most popular videos on my personal account is just me singing a Chinese song but it has 28.5 million views.
Follow Ben by searching 和歪果仁说英语 on your social networks.
Not sure that being a KOL is for you? Browse the jobs available in Beijing via our classifieds here:
Photos: Ben Johnson, Giphy
Want to know what awesome events are happening in town? Scan/Extract the QR code above to get the list of our Editors' Picks.
Got something to sell? Looking for a job? Or probably your soulmate? Then scan/extract the QR code above to visit our Classified Ads.
Do you have what it takes to be a True Runner?
Scan/Extract the QR code above to check out our current job openings.
Always something fresh
Scan/Extract the QR code above to follow us!
Tap on the cover to access the latest print issue