Women Flocking to Ximalaya FM to Vent Their Frustrations
Over the past summer, several popular TV shows such as Nothing But Thirty (三十而已), Sisters Who Make Waves (乘风破浪的姐姐) and The Talk Show (脱口秀大会) shed light on some of the hardships and societal pressures that women in China face and generated a lot of discussion online about these topics.
Some common frustrations that women have include being urged by parents and relatives to get married when they turn 25 or 26, body shape anxiety, great pressure to balance work and taking care of a family, especially those new mommies, or not getting support from their husbands either on work or on family issues.
While many Chinese women face these problems, they often have trouble sharing these negative feelings in their daily lives. Maybe they feel they don’t have anyone to confide in, or are afraid of losing face in front of their family and friends by admitting they have problems. Many people also choose not to share negative things with their parents to keep them from worrying about them.
Ximalaya Has Become the Place to Vent
Because of this, many women have gone online to find support, specifically to Ximalaya FM, a popular podcast and live audio streaming platform.
Ximalaya FM’s “emotions” (情感生活) channel has over 20M active female users. Most of them are post-80s, followed by post-00s and post-90s. Relationships, marriage and family, career development are hot topics that women love listening to.
The top KOL in that category is called “小默127127” (Xiaomo) with over 1.2 million followers. Her most popular podcast “默默道来” has been played over 1.28 billion times.
Celebrity Audio Live Streams
Ximalaya FM also has an audio live streaming feature which essentially allows anyone to broadcast their own live radio show.
From Oct 21 to Oct 27, Ximalaya FM started a series of livestream with top celebrities Yi Nengjing (伊能静), Yang Tianzhen (杨天真) and others. These celebrities shared their life stories, how they combat those issues that we mentioned in the beginning, what other issues they were facing currently. As of Oct 26, the topic had attracted over 100k women to post about their experiences.
How Can Brands Leverage This Increased Attention on Women’s Issues?
Brands can consider their brand values and what they stand for and see how they can connect them to issues that women in China are facing today and create a campaign around them. This will resonate with consumers who have the same issue. But it is important that brands don’t sell women’s anxiety.
Read more: 一条音频千万播放！喜马拉雅如何成为亿万女性用户的情感树洞？
