Promoting online English teaching services in China involves navigating a complex digital landscape dominated by local Apps, but makeable if you read this article 🙂 .

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As of 2024, you can effectively use the magic power of theseChinese platforms to expand your reach and enrollment among Chinese parents and students

  • Douyin: Create short, engaging English lesson videos.
  • Website SEO: Optimize for Baidu and ensure fast site performance
  • WeChat Video Channel: Post short educational English videos.
  • Kuaishou: Engage with interactive live streams and practical English content.
  • Zhihu: Answer English-related queries and establish your expertise
  • Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu): Blend English learning with lifestyle content.
  • Online Platforms Strategy: Use a diversified approach for broader reach and engagement.

1. Douyin : “Capture attention in seconds, teach English in minutes.”

Douyin, China’s leading short-video platform, is ideal for capturing the fast-paced, visually-driven audience. Create engaging, educational content such as mini-English lessons, tips for English exams, or fun videos that incorporate English idioms and phrases. Use catchy music and interactive stickers to enhance engagement. Douyin’s algorithm favors high-engagement content, so encourage viewer interaction through comments, challenges, and calls to action.

2. Website SEO “Optimize your presence, maximize your reach.”

For your online English teaching business, a China-optimized website is crucial. Ensure your site loads quickly within China and is optimized for Baidu, not just Google. Utilize SEO practices like keyword optimization with popular English learning queries in Mandarin, backlinking with local educational platforms, and regularly updated content such as blog posts about learning English. Accessibility and fast load times can significantly boost your site’s visibility and user engagement.

3. WeChat Video Channel : “Engage directly, educate effectively.”

WeChat Video offers a tremendous opportunity to reach a vast audience where they spend a lot of their digital time. Develop educational content that can be consumed easily on mobile devices. Short, informative videos that provide value, such as daily English vocabulary or common English mistakes, work well. WeChat also allows for direct interaction with followers through comments and shares, fostering a community of learners and increasing loyalty.

4. Kuaishou : “Go beyond entertainment, educate with engagement.”

Kuaishou is another popular short-video platform that caters to a diverse audience. Tailor your English teaching content to be more relatable and grassroots-oriented, which resonates with Kuaishou’s user base. Interactive live streams, where users can ask real-time questions about English, coupled with practical teaching sessions, can help in building a dedicated follower base. Offering incentives for shares and likes can also increase your visibility.

5. Zhihu : “Answer questions, become the authority.”

Zhihu, China’s equivalent of Quora, is an excellent platform for establishing authority in the English teaching niche. Respond to questions related to learning English, share useful tips, and participate in discussions about English examinations like IELTS and TOEFL. Creating detailed articles or guides on Zhihu can also drive interested users to explore your teaching services further.

6. Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) : “Inspire learning through lifestyle integration.”

On Little Red Book, blend lifestyle content with English learning. For instance, post about lifestyle topics such as travel or international movies, incorporating English learning tips relevant to those subjects. This platform is perfect for targeting a more lifestyle-oriented audience who might be interested in learning English for travel, leisure, or career advancement. Use high-quality images and storytelling to engage users and motivate them to learn English.

Online education has broken the limits of time and space. Such convenience makes more people willing to learn. With a computer, mobile phone, or other smart electronic devices, one can learn whenever and wherever possible. It is especially helpful for those who want to make good use of fragmented time and don’t have big chunks of free time for formal education. China is currently the market showing the biggest growth, in fact, the number of online education courses in China ranks No. 1 in the world.

Learning is digital

Online education has provided more efficient communication channels to meet learners’ demands of personalized learning and lifelong development. In particular, with the application of new technologies including cloud computing, study analysis, and artificial intelligence, designers of online courses can innovate their ways of teaching to improve the learning experience. Students have grown up in a world where technology and the Internet are fully integrated into their everyday life. Thus, they wish to use this resource in order to help them to study, to acquire knowledge in their interested fields, and even develop specific skills that will enable them to make a difference in the labor market. The first role of e-learning is to go beyond the academic field and to allow the student to build a unique profile thanks to customized and individualized training.

Today’s Chinese E-learning Perspective

China has a new perspective related to online training. In China, online training is needed to save time and solve the limitations of space. Each institution using online video can rake in more money without the need to hire a lot of classrooms. Today, most Chinese companies include E-training for their employees and E-learning has become a symbol stating a company has the spirit of continuous progress. At present, China’s GDP has increased from 7.7% to 9.3% and this increase strongly supports the commercial vitality of technological development. However, commercial vitality is a major requirement for the future by increasing numbers of educated people. Now, China is being invaded by various E-learning service providers from abroad who try to take advantage of the huge population of China.

The shift from PC to Mobile is real

Despite a high concentration of online education in PC, mobile-client has the advantage of enabling users to maximize fragmented time to learn, while PC cannot allow users to study in any place and at any time. Meanwhile, 95.1% of Chinese internet users are mobile netizens, meaning that people’s living habits are growingly based on the mobile client, which provides a foundation for mobile online education. Hence, driven by changes in user demand and living habits, domestic online education is shifting from PC to mobile client.

The huge development potential of K12 online education market

As the younger generation (post-80s and 90s) become parents, they have higher requirements on education for children and spend more on education; as the two-child policy is implemented, the number of children in the K12-education age group will increase steadily and market demand will further expand. It is expected the Chinese K12 online education market will grow at a pace of over 30% over the next five years, reaching RMB82.31 billion in 2021.
In addition, among 32 programs each with a total amount of more than RMB100 million in the online education industry in China in 2016, 15 ones involved K12 online education, making up 46.7%. The flow of capital clearly shows the development potential of the K12 online education market.

Learning English online remains at the top of the list

Ten years ago, about one-fifth of China’s vast population was studying English. According to the Economist, in 2006 China was already the world’s largest market for English language study, with English language books accounting for over a fifth of all book sales nationwide. By 2018, that number had grown to over 600,000 English students in China (about the size of the entire US population), accounting for one-third of mainland Chinese residents. The value of the English-training market in China is now about $6.5 billion USD and some analysts predict that this market will continue to grow at a rate of 12-15% over the course of the next few years.

MARKET YOUR ONLINE ENGLISH COURSE

Site or not site?

With all the social networks and free platforms that exist, there are those who think they can do without a site, but nowadays it is highly discouraged. The site will be your business card, the place where to present your course, where to meet you, and above all where to apply your SEO Strategy. Moreover, the site should be in Mandarin and have local web hosting cause this will significantly reduce the loading time of the site. This also will improve both your website’s ranking on Chinese search engines such as Baidu and the quality of user experience.

Do not forget the SEO

SEO is the main source of income for any business promoted online. In China, the most popular search engine is not Google but Baidu. For this, who has a website and wants to appear in the searches of Chinese users must optimize the SEO clearly for Baidu. Following the precise rules that are different from those applied to Google. Remember that your site must have an “SEO Friendly” title and a “description” with the main words related to your business.

Mobile is the channel you can’t do without

According to the China Statistical Report on Internet Development published in August 2017, China has an online population of 751 million, and over 95% are using mobile devices to access the internet. Meanwhile, Chinese people spend an average of three hours a day on their smartphones, mainly on social media and e-commerce. For brands that are marketing to Chinese consumers, a strong mobile presence is crucial.

On-line and off-line advertising

Bring web marketing into real life and vice-versa, creating initiatives that you can share on your site and on social media. The center of your advertising business is not the product, but the customer who, if satisfied, will report your services to all his friends. The best advertising in the world is one that can make you a satisfied customer, especially in China where word of mouth is a constant.

Be on social media is a must

Social commerce is one of the major driving forces of consumption in China. However, its social media landscape is complex and highly segmented. As a foreign, establishing a presence on the two major social media platforms – WeChat and Weibo – is a key step.WeChat is a multi-purpose message platform developed by Tencent with 1 billion users. Weibo is a microblogging site (Alibaba is a major shareholder) with 376 million monthly active users as of  2017. These two platforms are both good channels to communicate with, acquire and retain Chinese customers.

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27 Comments

  1. Thanks for all the well researched information about the huge prospects in Online English Teaching in China.
    1. We offer Digital Learning for:
    English
    Marketing
    2. We need an Agent that can Recruit Learners in China.
    3. We can agree on the PERCENTAGE SHARE.
    4. ONLINE ENGLISH LEARNING will be conducted Online, via SKYPE or ZOOM.
    5. The Agent can handle Online Students Recruitment.
    6. We only Conduct the Online Lessons.

    1. This is a fantastic article. Thank you!
      I am teaching online and have over 5 years experience. I do private lessons on Zoom and Skype and I hope to focus more on marketing this year.

  2. There is almost no foreign companies doing online learning in China, most of them are Chinese and employ foreigner like VIPkids

    1. Hello
      I am from Great Britain
      I would like to teach English to Chinese people . Can you offer me any guidance please very much appreciated

  3. I also want to start online English teaching and i think this blog will help me. Thank you for sharing the marketing strategies for the promotion of online English teaching.

    1. Hello, i am an ESL online teacher offering English lessons on zhumu and Skype I am currently looking for more students age gap 4years to 16 years. I have my Bachelors degree and I am tefel certified. Thank you ????

  4. I’m an enthusiastic, native and devoted Spanish Instructor with excellent communication skills demonstrated by 6 years of teaching experience. My personal style of teaching Spanish brings enthusiasm, cultural elements, and technology into my class to increase learning motivation. I teach with a contagious smile and open personality that helps me to interact with my students as I guide them through their learning process. Teaching my native Spanish language enables me to draw upon my own culture and personal experience as a foreign language learner as I teach my students to effectively communicate with me in my own language and, perhaps more importantly, to gain an appreciation for another language and culture. Extensive travel study and residence experience across Peru. English/Spanish

  5. I need an agent that can recruit online English Learners in China.
    I conduct the online lessons through SKYPE.

  6. I am a qualified English teacher with 28 years of experience. I have excellent ebooks in English but need someone to help me enter the online teaching world in China. I teach on zoom.

  7. Do you have any advice on how to:
    1) Broadcast on a platform that supports screensharing, facecam and chat with unlimited viewers , and
    2) how to monetize videos that receive large numbers of views.

    I’ve been online teaching to both Chinese students and teachers in public schools in China for the past 3 years. I’ve developed a growing following of students who help spread my info word of mouth on various Chinese platforms like WeChat. I did my first 2 live broadcasts this week using DingTalk as the broadcast platform. I had 11,000 viewers in the first broadcast and topped 50,000 in the second. My videos have already received well over 100,000 views. Now I’m trying to find a way to monetize my broadcasts and/or playbacks in a way similar to Youtube. I’m taking Youku for a test drive, but it’s very difficult for me to navigate (all in Chinese) and videos over 200MB don’t upload. The app that I’ve found to assist in uploading to Youku doesn’t work with Mac.

  8. Hi! I´m seriously thinking about starting an online teaching company. What I don´t know is if I can do this from abroad. I AM currently in China, but not for long. Doing a little research field here, and to be honest, it seems a good investment. Could you contact me for further information and fees?

    1. Hello! I’m an English teacher from the Philippines, I’m licensed and practicing it as of the moment. Could you please hire me to be an English teacher. I have laptop, I can teach through zoom and skype, please message me in my email address thank you❤️

  9. Hi. My name is Brian and would like to set up my Academy teaching English on line in China. .
    So we need an agent who can recruit students to learn English on line. We can also make an agreement on a commission or percentage in regards to recruitment of students.

    Our online classes will be taught using either Skype or Hangouts.
    If anybody is interested please contact me.

  10. Hello. Are you aware on any platforms in China for selling english lessons but with a delayed response. So not live online teaching?
    I am developing 2 English courses aimed at Chinese University to Adults aged but would like some help on where to sell and upload them.
    Is this something you can help with

  11. I have developed a series of public relations and etiquette classes with accompanying course materials I am looking to market in China and deliver on Zoom. Born and raised in British Columbia, Canada. Native English speaker. Bachelor of Arts, Communications. APR designation (Accredited Public Relations Professional).

  12. Thank you so much.Thank you for sharing the marketing strategies for the promotion of online English teaching. I have been teaching English for four years and I have loads of certificates. Thanks!

  13. Hi all,

    I run an online English teaching business and am looking for an agent who can recruit students wanting to learn English. Any help would be great!

    1. Hi Laila,

      We can help you with this. We connect our clients in China with teachers from the UK and around the world.

      Please drop me an email if you are still looking for an agent

      1. Hey! How are you?

        My name is Teacher Stirling. I am a native English teacher from Canada with 17 years teaching experience and with TEFL-TESOL certification. I speak 22 languages. I have lived abroad for many years: I’ve been living in Colombia, South America now for over 13 years. I have a special methodology for teaching English is such a way that I leave my students speaking just like me, a native speaker! English is known to be a very difficult language because of it’s ¨pronunciation¨ which is so ¨different¨ from it’s ¨written form.¨ My method makes this part a ¨piece of cake.¨ If you are ready to learn to speak English swiftly and natively, what are you waiting for? I’ll see you in class!

        Teacher Stirling

        Let me know if you can help me to my profile known by the Chinese students. thanks! Jesus loves you. Believe in Him alone and you’ll be SAVED!

  14. We teach fluency-level Business Interview Preparation in English and have a wonderful eBook that contains 21st Century English Idioms & Expressions for English fluency.

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