As part of our ‘Getting to know you’ series, Social101 loves to chat to movers and shakers who are either Sydney-siders, or passing through.
In addition to finding out more about their top picks for Sydney and recommendations, we also love to find out more about their life, their careers and future plans.
When we found out that Chinese Super Influencer Shan Xu (Sherry) was coming to Sydney on a ‘Honey Moon Tour’ with her new husband, Di, we jumped at the chance to catch up! Sherry Xu, was in Sydney on a partnership with VTN.
VTN provides members with access to the best Australian and New Zealand premium health and wellness brands, including beauty brands like Vida Glow, cellular health brands like SRW and cosmetics brand Napoleon Perdis.
During a typical day long live sale event, Sherry can sell over $25M AUD of goods. (Yes that’s right 25 MILLION AUD) . The figures more than speak for themselves. She can reach around 10 Million Chinese consumers via her personal social network – not too shabby! Quite inspiringly, Sherry represents a new generation of Chinese women who are able to leverage the opportunities of social media for live commerce sales, her success has already made her a multi-millionaire
Quite frankly I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pick her brains on this topic, and hopefully pick up some tips of my own along the way:
$25M (a day!) in sales is enormously impressive! How do you get to this incredible amount?
I’ve been streaming on Kuaishou for about 3 years now, my audience has grown really quickly. To build my following and make a success of the Live sales format, I invest time in understanding the brand’s background story, the product efficacy and the science or technology.
Because a live sale event is generally 12 hours in duration, there is time to go into so much detail on each product, that really makes a difference from a sales perspective – the audience has time to consider the product, engage and then decide to purchase because they keep watching.
You have to time to really deep dive into the product and the brand stories and I use all the products personally – so I can share an authentic user experience. The personal advocacy and genuine love of the product is something that’s really important for me. With SRW and Vida Glow, I’m not only talking about the products but also building a picture of the Australian lifestyle – the Great Outdoors, the sun kissed beaches and the health and fitness elements of this country that my audience are interested in.
I do around 3-5 days of focused preview activity, to lay the groundwork for the product efficacy and familiarise the audience with the products. Think of it like a movie trailer, and then the LIVE sale is the movie itself. You have to build anticipation, but not give too much away. The duration of the live sale event is important, it takes a massive personal effort to sell for 12 hours and provide continuous focus during that time. The audience want to support you in that, and they show their support by purchasing goods.
Tell me about your partnership with VTN, how did it come about and what is your role?
I have signed a contract as a representative for VTN’s global products, so I have permission to sell their portfolio of health and wellness products on my channel.
They have premium skincare brands such as Minenssey and Thalissi and beauty brands like Napoleon Perdis Cosmetics which has been in Australia for almost 30 years now.
There are also some very trend driven brands with great science behind them, like plant based nutrition brand eimele and cellular health and anti aging brand SRW.
For this particular LIVE event on 9th August, I’ll focus on selling Vida Glow and SRW products, so those brands have been my key focus this week.
How long did it take you to build this massive media and consumer presence?
The nature of every fan is different, and what everyone likes to watch is different. Therefore, we mainly use creative short videos format to increase fans, we try to post some content every day and have been doing this for about 3 years now.
Short videos can have interesting or aspirational content, they share a snapshot of foreign travel, VIP experiences and an exquisite lifestyle. By posting quality content frequently, you accumulate the stickiness of fans. If they like your channel, they will keep coming back for updates, to see what you’ve been doing. It’s a bit like following a TV soap, but much shorter. You can catch up in less than 2 minutes!
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Knowing that you are here on your honeymoon tour, what do you most want to see in Australia?
This is my first time visiting Australia, and what I most wanted to see here are koalas and kangaroos, of course!
So the day that we arrived, we went to Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park and had a really enjoyable close up experience with Aussie animals. After settling in, I feel very at ease in Sydney, which allows me to really relax at work and slow down the pace of what I’m doing.
Everything in China is really busy and my schedule is crazy, so it’s great to be able to unplug from that a little.
I’m enjoying experiencing one of the world’s leading capital cities and the lifestyle that comes with it – I have been so impressed with the beauty of the harbour and the restaurants.
Do you have any favourite celebrities or influencers overseas? Can you tell us why you like them?
I admire Kim Kardashian because she is also a strong woman. Looking at her career, she is also a self-made celebrity and has pioneered the ‘reality’ format on TV. As well as building her own brand, she is doing partnerships, charity events and so on. It’s impressive to see everything that she crams into a day.
I am inspired by Kim to achieve a similar thing for Chinese women, using our example as females in the spotlight to influence more independent, brave and successful women who have the confidence to break from previous expectations of women’s role and behaviour within society.
For the many readers of SOCIAL 101 media who want to become or are exploring becoming bloggers or influencers, can you share 3 tips for them?
- Take the time to love and understand yourself more deeply. Because bloggers and influencers are very exposed, it’s helpful if you are comfortable and happy within your own skin. Lots of influencers have good looks but beyond that, they have good energy, charm, magnetism.
- Be authentic. It’s actually really easy to spot when individuals are not being ‘real’ or they don’t care about the brand or product they are representing, or the activity they are doing. Find brands to team up with that align with your interests, it makes for a much better experience for everyone, including your customers and viewers.
- An understanding of marketing is really helpful, because not only will you work with brands, but you’re also building your own brand. Every piece of content is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle and even though the piece is tiny, it helps to contribute towards a bigger picture. So it’s important that it’s right.
What do you think about the future of social media and the emerging trend of internet based, live sales?
The Internet has brought great convenience to everyone, and I believe this channel will continue to develop and evolve in the future through new technologies like VR. In China, anyone can use the Internet to carry out their own personal shopping requirements, including buying groceries, clothing, beauty, health products and so on.
The underlying logic of e-commerce is convenience because you need energy and time to go to an offline store. Shopping on the Internet can shorten the time taken to buy weekly or monthly essentials, and there are 30 days of free returns. Every Kuaishou host is like a miniature online mall, they have a wide variety of categories, allowing you to stock up on products by buying in bulk. Additionally, every host is very professional, you need to know every product in great detail, they are more professional than the salespeople you would find in most stores. China’s e-commerce market is content-oriented, using storylines or Vlogs to introduce products to audiences in a way that combines entertainment and lifestyle with the shopping experience.
Techniques such as shopping with friends, using products live on air work well to keep viewers engaged. with the Vlogs, you can build a scenario such as wearing a certain set of clothes, or a specific hair style, make up or jewellery that might help your sales result. Lots of Hosts try different ‘looks’ in their live sales and find out which performs best for them over time. Interestingly, it’s not always the ones that are the most edgy or fashion forward that deliver the most engagement.
Please share one of your life mottos that can inspire our readers?
Always keep trying hard, do your best and don’t stop until you’re proud or you can’t do any more.
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