Chinese cities once again come to the "center stage" with intensive competitions

Reference Think Tank and Shiyan Index recently jointly released the "Chinese Cities Overseas Social Media Communication Power Index". This index uses April 1 to 30, 2024 as the monitoring period, with 133 Chinese cities as monitoring targets, and the data coverage is 4 overseas social media platforms: Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.

Overseas social media is an important window for overseas audiences to understand China. Showing the local characteristics of a city and attracting more attention from the audience is an important part of "telling Chinese stories well". During this monitoring period, Chinese cities such as Nanjing, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Chongqing shared daily life, beautiful scenery, cultural landscapes, special activities, etc. through their accounts on major overseas social platforms, showing the city in a flexible way in multiple dimensions. features and win the attention of overseas audiences. At the same time, Chinese cities such as Nantong, Weifang and Chengdu have once again aroused public opinion in overseas social media by hosting large-scale events such as the marathon, the World Kite Championships and the Thomas and Uber Cup.

▲Top 10 Chinese cities’ overseas social media communication power index

In terms of comprehensive communication power, the top ten cities are: Nanjing, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Suzhou, Changzhou, Shaoxing, Cangzhou, and Xi'an.

▲Top 10 comprehensive communication power index of overseas social media in Chinese cities

In this monitoring cycle, Nanjing still performs outstandingly, reflecting its continued and stable development of overseas social media communication with significant effects. During this monitoring period, on the Facebook platform, the Nanjing account "DiscoverNanjing" combined the World Arts Festival and World Book Day to carefully create interactive posters with literary themes, using Chinese classical style paintings to highlight Nanjing's uniqueness as the "Literature Capital of the World" Charm and deep heritage. This interactive method not only increases the sense of participation of overseas netizens, but also stimulates the curiosity and imagination of overseas audiences, helping to further encourage them to personally experience and understand Chinese culture and Nanjing.

On the Instagram platform, the account "DiscoverNanjing" combined with the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, carried out online creative interaction, carefully planned 5 issues of long-format comics, and used the nautical narrative as a clue to bring Yunjin and Nanjing cotton into the Jinling map, using long-format comics. Telling the story of mutual learning between China and France in weaving culture will convey the artistic charm of Nanjing textiles to the world, which will help enhance Nanjing’s overseas image and reputation.

▲Screenshots of Nanjing Facebook and Instagram accounts

Facebook Communication Power Index of Chinese Cities

In April 2024, the cities in China ranked relatively high in the Facebook Communication Power Index are: Beijing, Nanjing, Xiamen, Yancheng, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Yantai, Chengdu, Nantong, and Weifang.

▲Top 10 Facebook communication power index in Chinese cities

Among the above dimensions, Weifang performed outstandingly during this monitoring cycle, with eye-catching interactive data. The number of interactions increased from 7,300 in March to 80,144 in April, and the interaction rate increased nearly 10 times. As the capital of kites in the world, the World Kite Championships kicked off in Weifang on April 20. The Weifang Facebook account continues to publish relevant topics, attracting the attention and interaction of overseas audiences. By fully displaying its local characteristics, Weifang further strengthens its overseas image recognition.

▲Screenshot of Weifang Facebook account

In April 2024, the cities ranked relatively high in the X communication power index of Chinese cities are: Nanjing, Xiamen, Yantai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nantong, Suzhou, Ningbo, and Qingdao.

▲Top 10 Chinese cities’ X communication power index

Nantong, as the city with the largest improvement in ranking during this monitoring cycle, performed well. With the help of the marathon, the Nantong account continued to plan topics, attract overseas audiences to participate in interaction, and use this to promote the city's characteristics, and the communication effect was good. Compared with the number of interactions in March 1995, the number of interactions in Nantong in April increased to 17,122, highlighting the significant role of large-scale sports events in increasing the city's overseas attention.

Instagram Communication Power Index of Chinese Cities

In April 2024, the cities in China ranked relatively high in the Instagram communication power index are: Nanjing, Chengdu, Beijing, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Cangzhou, Shanghai, Harbin, and Shaoxing.

▲Top 10 Chinese cities’ Instagram communication power index

In this monitoring cycle, the Chengdu account took advantage of the 2024 World Horticultural Expo and the Chengdu 2024 Thomas and Uber Cup to continue to update relevant topics and interact with overseas audiences, with good results. In terms of topic planning and content setting, Chengdu sticks to the event itself, but focuses on introducing the payment methods, food, clothing, housing, transportation, travel strategies and other related supporting services that overseas audiences are more concerned about in Chengdu. The content of online posts is both down-to-earth and approachable, which helps Chengdu improve its reputation as an overseas city.

▲Screenshot of Chengdu Instagram account

YouTube Communication Power Index of Chinese Cities

In April 2024, the cities in China ranked relatively high in the YouTube Communication Power Index are: Qingdao, Chengdu, Nanjing, Beijing, Taizhou, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Cangzhou, and Suzhou.

▲Top 10 YouTube communication power index in Chinese cities

In this monitoring cycle, the number of subscriptions to Hangzhou accounts on the YouTube platform has increased significantly. As one of the fastest growing cities in China in recent years, Hangzhou has attracted a large number of foreigners to settle here. Based on this characteristic, most of the video content released by Hangzhou is the experience of foreigners living in Hangzhou about urban life and advanced technology. They express their impression of Hangzhou through their personal experiences, which is conducive to continuously improving Hangzhou's overseas communication reach.

The "Chinese City Overseas Social Media Communication Power Index" takes the main official accounts of Chinese cities as the index evaluation subject. Based on their multi-dimensional communication data on multiple overseas social media platforms, and through index model calculations, it achieves an index of the city's international communication effectiveness. Score. Platform weights are dynamically set based on factors such as global user size, activity, influence and relevance of each platform, and each platform index is weighted and calculated to form a comprehensive communication index. The algorithm of the international communication power index system includes two parts: qualitative and quantitative. Among them, the weight of quantitative indicators accounts for 80%, and the weight of qualitative indicators accounts for 20%.

The data acquisition method for this index is: screening the official accounts of Chinese cities with communication behaviors on overseas social media platforms, including them in the big data monitoring system, and obtaining the communication behavior data of the official accounts, including but not limited to content creation data; interactive communication data , including data generated by behavioral actions such as sharing, commenting, and recognition; user enjoyment information data, including data generated by behavioral actions such as subscription/following, browsing, etc. Index model design and drawing are provided by Shiyan Index.