How to start social media marketing in China: the first 90 days, week by week

Everyone sells the strategy. Almost nobody publishes the schedule. This is the timetable we hand to a board when a brand asks how to start social media marketing in China: what happens in week 2, what is still not live in week 6, and when the first lead arrives.

It’s written for a brand that hasn’t launched yet, and the slow parts are left in. Verification for an overseas company runs in working days, not hours. A Chinese name needs a trademark filing that takes months to clear. The first month of posts looks weak in the dashboard, and that’s normal.

Weeks	What happens	What is live at the end
Before week 1	Documents gathered, entity question settled	Nothing yet
1 to 2	Applications filed, verification fees paid, launch note posted	Accounts live, badges still under review
3 to 4	Chinese name chosen, trademark filed, profiles localized	Verified profiles
5 to 6	Content pillars set, first calendar approved	A month of content in the queue
7 to 8	The full calendar starts	Posts, and small numbers
9 to 12	First paid tests, first creator seeding	Search traffic and the first leads

Every wait below comes from a platform’s own help pages, the trademark office, or our own process, and each is cited where it appears. All sources were checked in September 2026.

Before week one: the four documents to have ready

The clock starts when the documents are ready, not when the contract is signed. Four items cover most of what the platforms ask an overseas company for, and the same four come back at every annual review.

Tencent’s help center lists what an overseas entity needs to verify a WeChat (微信) Official Account.

An overseas entity verifying a WeChat account needs its company registration certificate or business license, a color scan of both sides of the contact person’s ID, an application letter, an operation authorization letter, the contact person’s phone bill (or a stamped office phone bill or bank statement), and a trademark certificate if the account is named after a trademark. Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), overseas entity verification materials, confirmed September 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/190723Mjey67190723ey6Fbi.html

Xiaohongshu (小红书) takes the same kind of file and adds a translation rule.

Xiaohongshu enterprise accounts accept applications from companies outside mainland China. The form asks for entity information, an application letter, supplementary documents, and operator details. Any document not in Chinese or English needs a translation stamped by a translation company. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书) enterprise account verification guide, platform document, confirmed September 2026. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/picasso-editor/7072d509ee7370545a056b6f9030a926e8879dca.pdf

The Xiaohongshu route has more to it than that document list. Our step-by-step guide to Xiaohongshu business account setup covers the desktop-only rule for overseas entities, the three naming tests and the five published grounds for rejection.

Douyin (抖音) is the exception. Its own help pages describe the enterprise account as a product for companies in China.

Douyin’s FAQ describes the enterprise account as an account that companies in China can apply to verify. Source: Ocean Engine (巨量引擎), “What is a Douyin enterprise account,” May 2022. https://www.oceanengine.com/faq/douyin-qyh-kslj.html

Douyin enterprise verification asks for a business license and an application letter, costs 600 yuan for the first year and 120 yuan a year after that, and takes about two working days to review. Source: Ocean Engine (巨量引擎), Douyin Blue V verification FAQ, May 2022. https://www.oceanengine.com/faq/douyin-qyh-zmrzn.html

So a pre-entry brand opens Douyin through a mainland entity it already has, or leaves it for a later phase. Ask your agency which applies before the launch date is set.

Document	WeChat Official Account	Xiaohongshu enterprise account	Douyin enterprise account
Company registration certificate	Overseas certificate accepted	Overseas certificate accepted	Chinese business license
Contact or operator ID	Both sides, color scan	Operator details on the form	Legal representative ID for sole traders
Application letter	Chinese or English template	Platform template	Platform template
Operation authorization letter	Required	Not listed	Not listed
Phone bill or bank statement	Required	Not listed	Not listed
Stamped translation	Not listed	For documents not in Chinese or English	Not listed

Have four things scanned in color before week one: the registration certificate, the contact person’s ID, the two signed letters, and a phone bill or bank statement that ties the contact person to the company. Everything else is platform-specific and small.

Weeks 1 to 2: how to start social media marketing in China from abroad

The first decision is which entity applies. WeChat (微信) and Xiaohongshu (小红书) accept an overseas company. Douyin (抖音), as above, is built for a Chinese one. Settle this in week one, because it decides which accounts can be live in week two. Our platform-by-platform answer on whether you need a Chinese entity covers the edge cases, from Weibo’s agent route to agency-held accounts.

Then the applications go in and the platform clock starts. Tencent publishes its overseas review time.

An overseas entity pays a one-time review fee of 99 US dollars per application, and the review is completed within 7 to 15 working days after complete documents are submitted. Payment is by WeChat Pay or by card. Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), overseas entity verification FAQ, confirmed September 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/190723aQvMR31907233IF7FV.html

Three weeks at the long end. A mainland company moves faster on the same platform.

For a mainland entity, WeChat verification review takes 1 to 3 working days, and verification must be completed within 30 calendar days of registration. Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), Official Account registration review time, confirmed September 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/120911VrYVrA1312123qyyqI.html

Two more WeChat rules catch foreign teams. An overseas entity gets one account, and it has to be a service account.

Overseas entities can register one account on the WeChat Official Account platform, and only the service account type is open to them. The account becomes usable after verification. Source: Tencent customer service (腾讯客服), overseas entity service account registration, confirmed September 2026. https://kf.qq.com/faq/180312zQjeYV180312FNNbmA.html

Xiaohongshu publishes no review time. What it publishes is a deadline, a fee, and a rule about where to apply.

Xiaohongshu enterprise verification costs 600 yuan per application, is valid for one year with an annual review, and each order expires after 30 days. Overseas entities, annual reviews, and renames go through the desktop site, not the app. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书) enterprise account verification guide, platform document, confirmed September 2026. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/picasso-editor/7072d509ee7370545a056b6f9030a926e8879dca.pdf

We don’t publish our own turnaround figures per platform. In our experience the long end of Tencent’s range is the safe one to put in a board paper, and a Xiaohongshu order for an overseas company clears well inside its 30 days when the translations are stamped.

Our own process promises two weeks from contract to first post.

TheRedScroll’s process is a 30-minute discovery call, a fixed-price proposal, and live in two weeks: onboarding, accounts set up, first content published, fourteen days from signed contract to first post going live. Source: TheRedScroll homepage, September 2026. https://www.theredscroll.com/

That promise holds when the documents are ready on day one, which is why the section above comes first. The first post is a launch note on Xiaohongshu, where the account can post while its verification runs. The full calendar waits for the pillars in week 5. The WeChat badge can land in week three if Tencent takes the long end (the account exists from registration, the badge is what’s waiting), and nothing is lost while it does.

Weeks 3 to 4: brand localization and the Chinese name problem

While the reviews run, the naming work starts. Chinese users search in Chinese. A brand with no Chinese name has no search presence on Xiaohongshu (小红书) or Baidu (百度), and whatever name resellers or customers have already been using fills the gap.

A good name sounds close to the original and means something that fits the category. It also has to be free to register, and that is the slow part.

China’s trademark office reported that the average trademark examination period held steady at four months. Source: China National Intellectual Property Administration (国家知识产权局), 2026 national conference work report, January 2026. https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2026/1/7/art_53_203564.html

Four months is examination only. Publication and registration add more. So the name is chosen in week 3, filed in week 4, and protected some time after day 90. The accounts launch under it anyway. Both platform guides quoted above let an account name follow the registered company name or a trademark, so a brand without a Chinese trademark launches on its registered name and carries the Chinese name in the profile and the content until the filing clears.

Localization in these two weeks also covers the profile: a bio that reads like a Chinese brand statement rather than a translated tagline, a customer service contact on WeChat (微信) or WeCom (企业微信), and the compliance lines your category requires in the profile text. Dull work, and the first customer who lands on the page checks all of it.

Weeks 5 to 6: content pillars and the first calendar

Beyond the launch note and the profile, nothing is published yet. That’s deliberate. Weeks 5 and 6 are when the first month of content gets built, and building it before the calendar starts is what keeps week 7 from stalling.

Three or four pillars are enough. For a consumer brand on Xiaohongshu (小红书), the pillars we use most are the search-shaped how-to, the comparison, the behind-the-scenes, and the customer’s own note reposted with permission. For a B2B brand on WeChat (微信), it’s the case story, the explainer, the event, and the product update. Each pillar gets a cadence, and the calendar shows twelve to sixteen pieces for the first publishing month.

Two things a Western content team usually gets wrong here. The first is the look. Polished global creative gets throttled on Xiaohongshu, and phone photography of the product in a real Chinese setting does not. Our guide to Xiaohongshu marketing for foreign brands shows what the dashboard looks like when that happens.

The second is approvals. A piece that needs headquarters sign-off in another time zone takes a week to clear, every time. Agree the approval rule in week 5, not week 7.

Weeks 7 to 8: publishing starts, and why the numbers look bad

The calendar starts. The numbers will be small. Two reasons.

On Xiaohongshu (小红书), a new account’s notes reach the discovery feed first, and feed traffic dies in about three days. Search traffic, the kind that keeps a note alive for months, builds only once the platform has seen several notes on the same topic from the same account. In the client dashboards we run, that takes three to four weeks of steady posting.

On WeChat (微信), a service account’s pushes reach the people who already follow it. In week 7 that is your own staff and a handful of early customers. The read count on the first push is not a verdict on the content. It’s a headcount.

What to watch instead of followers: saves and comments per note on Xiaohongshu, the share of reads that come from search, and reads per follower on each WeChat push. Those three tell you by week 8 whether the pillars are right. Follower count tells you nothing yet.

Weeks 9 to 12: first paid tests and first creator seeding

By week 9 the dashboard shows which notes earn search traffic. Spend there, not on new ones.

Two things start. The first is seeding on Xiaohongshu (小红书): 20 to 40 key opinion consumers (KOC), ordinary users with a few thousand followers, post their own notes about the product through the platform’s creator marketplace, Pugongying (蒲公英), so that a search for the category returns real people using it. The second is a paid test behind the two or three notes that already proved themselves.

For a foreign company, the ads go through an agent.

Since February 2, 2026, overseas merchants gain access to Xiaohongshu’s Jiguang ad platform only through an authorized agent, with no self-serve account opening. Source: Ziyouxing Studio (自由行Studio), Xiaohongshu Jiguang overseas guide, August 2026. https://zyxstudio.net/articles/xiaohongshu-jiguang-guide.html

So the agent’s account opening belongs in the week 9 plan, and the deposit it sets is ad spend, billed at cost with the platform’s invoice attached. What the seeding and the test cost is covered in our guide to how much China social media marketing costs in 2026. TheRedScroll’s own rate card is on its pricing page.

The first lead usually arrives in this window. Someone searched the category, read a seeded note and then a brand note, and messaged the account or the WeCom (企业微信) contact in the profile. It rarely looks like much in the inbox.

What good looks like at day 90

Not a follower number. This is the checklist we use.

Check	Good at day 90	Not yet
Accounts	WeChat and Xiaohongshu verified, Douyin decided	Any account still under review
Name	Chinese name in use, trademark filed	Name still in committee
Content	Twelve or more pieces a month, on schedule	Posting when approvals allow
Search	Search is the largest traffic source on the best notes	All traffic from the feed
Seeding	First creator notes live and reported through Pugongying	Unreported creator posts
Paid	One paid test with a cost per read to compare against month four	No test yet
Leads	First inbound messages routed to a named person	Messages waiting for days

The line that matters most is search. When a note earns most of its reads from search, the account has started to compound, and the plan for month four is mostly to feed it.

The three things that most often delay a launch

Documents arrive one at a time. A missing phone bill or an unsigned authorization letter restarts a review. Tencent’s range only starts when the file is complete, and the 30-day order window on Xiaohongshu (小红书) doesn’t pause. Gather the four documents before week one.

The second delay is the name, when it goes to committee. A naming decision that sits with a global brand team for six weeks pushes everything from week 3 to week 9. Give it to two people and a deadline.

Approvals are the third, and they cross time zones. Content that needs headquarters sign-off for every piece ships late and reads late by the time it lands. A pre-approved pillar with local sign-off on each piece is what keeps the week 7 date.

None of these three delays happens in China. They happen at headquarters. Our China Market Entry service page describes how the entity question and the paperwork are handled for a client, if you’d rather not carry them yourself.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to launch on Chinese social media?

Two weeks from signed contract to first post, when the documents are ready on day one. That is the timeline on our homepage and the one this schedule is built on. Verification badges can land later: Tencent quotes 7 to 15 working days for an overseas entity. Ninety days is how long it takes for search traffic and the first leads to show up.

What documents do I need to open accounts?

Four items cover most of it: the company registration certificate, the contact person’s ID scanned in color on both sides, a signed application letter plus an operation authorization letter, and a phone bill or bank statement tied to the contact person. Xiaohongshu (小红书) adds a stamped translation for anything not in Chinese or English. Douyin (抖音) asks for a Chinese business license.

When should I expect the first results?

Small numbers in weeks 7 and 8, search traffic on the best notes by week 10, and the first inbound lead somewhere in weeks 9 to 12. Follower counts stay low for the whole first quarter, and that is not a problem. Judge the launch on the share of reads that come from search and on whether messages get answered the same day.

Book a call

If you are planning a launch, book a call. We’ll walk through this schedule against your own documents and dates, and tell you which week your first post can go out.