Life beyond WeChat and Weibo: 15 niche social networks in China

WeChat and Weibo are huge in China, each with more than half a billion registered users. But their respective might in messaging and microblogging hasn’t stopped entrepreneurs from building niche social networks for all kinds of specific groups of people. China’s netizens have, in turn, flocked to these fun and hyper-focused new apps.

They’re not meant to replace WeChat or Weibo – indeed, many of these specialist social apps integrate with the country’s top social networks. The idea is that they’re useful as communities based around one particular area, like moms, gamers, photos, food, or fashion. They do one thing and they do it well.

Here’s our list of 15 niche social networks in China:

Meet You

Meet You started out as a menstruation tracker app before evolving into something more social and full-featured. It’s now a health and lifestyle oriented social network for women of all ages while still retaining the period-tracking calendar and a few other useful tools such as a health diary.

On the social side there are groups related to health, weight loss, clothing, fitness, relationships, and travel. The app now has two million monthly active users and 1.2 million daily active users.

The startup kicked off this year with a fresh US$15 million in funding and then in June it got another US$30 million

Dayima

In the same mold as Meet You, Dayima is a period calendar app and women’s social network. It features user forums where women discuss a variety of topics and also has tracking and metrics for other aspects of one’s personal health, like weight, fitness, sleep, and mood.

In a unique move, men can use Dayima too. A dude can scan a QR code from his partner’s app, and he’ll be directed to a simplified version of Dayima where he can see his significant other’s calendar and access a couple’s chatroom.

The startup claims to have 45 million registered users, of whom 3.2 million are daily active users.

Dayima secured US$30 million in series C funding in June.

LMbang

Laiwang

SmellMe

Momo

Blued

Bilin

Wumi

Pengpeng

Pinco

Weico+

Papa

P1

Ricebook