The Dilemma and Breakthrough of Pinduoduo-Style Social Viral Growth in European and American Markets: New Thoughts on Web3 Growth
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The Dilemma and Breakthrough of Pinduoduo-Style Social Viral Growth in European and American Markets: New Thoughts on Web3 Growth
This article provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges and opportunities faced by Web3 projects in conducting social virality marketing in European and American markets, exploring how to overcome cultural differences to achieve effective growth.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Stella L
As Web3 projects expand globally, many are beginning to consider how to overcome growth bottlenecks caused by regional and cultural differences. The social virality model that has repeatedly succeeded in Asian markets often fails when applied to Western markets. Behind this phenomenon lie deeper layers of cultural divergence and user psychology.
Pinduoduo's Model: The Secret to Social Virality Success in Asia
Pinduoduo brought the concept of "social virality" to its peak in the Asian market. From its founding in 2015 to 2020, Pinduoduo achieved a staggering growth in annual active buyers reaching 788 million (according to Pinduoduo’s financial reports), becoming China’s second-largest e-commerce platform within just five years.
The reasons are threefold. First, it is rooted in Asia’s strong collectivist culture. In this context, interpersonal networks are deeply intertwined, and people have a strong sense of group identity. Sharing discount information does not create social pressure—in fact, it is often seen as a way to maintain relationships. This cultural foundation provides fertile ground for social virality.
Second, the highly digitalized social environment across Asia plays a crucial role. A mature mobile payment ecosystem combined with frequent social media usage has fostered a well-established digital social culture. Users are accustomed to sharing all aspects of life on social platforms—including shopping experiences and promotional deals.
More importantly, Pinduoduo demonstrates precise understanding of user psychology. It successfully transforms “saving money”—an individual act—into a social conversation topic. Through carefully designed gamification mechanisms, it reduces overt marketing cues and skillfully leverages community dynamics to generate powerful engagement. This approach not only encourages organic participation but also sustains long-term user activity.
Notably, Pinduoduo’s success relies not only on the mechanics of social virality itself, but more critically on its deep understanding of local user behavior. By seamlessly combining two seemingly contradictory concepts—"saving money" and "socializing"—it created a unique “social + commerce” model. This nuanced grasp of local user psychology offers valuable insights for adapting social virality strategies in other regions.
This successful model has since been tested across Southeast Asia. Multiple local social e-commerce platforms using similar mechanisms have shown strong vitality in markets such as Vietnam and Thailand, further demonstrating the high compatibility between this model and Asian cultures.
Western Markets: Fertile Ground or Barren Soil for Social Virality?
As Pinduoduo’s overseas counterpart, Temu adapted the social virality model upon entering the U.S. market. Its “Referral Bonus” program features simple rules with significant impact: users who invite five new users via WhatsApp, Twitter, or Facebook receive a $20 cash reward, with higher rewards for more referrals. Although legal restrictions prevent a full replication of Pinduoduo’s “team-up-to-cut-price” mechanism, this system still triggered viral spread.
Data confirms its effectiveness: in January 2023, Temu topped the U.S. iOS free download chart for 28 consecutive days. By year-end 2023, its monthly active users (MAU) ranked second only to Amazon, achieving approximately $16 billion in GMV within a year—surpassing SHEIN, which had been in the market longer.
Worth noting is that even in Temu’s case, the social virality strategy underwent multiple iterations. The initial requirement of inviting five friends for a $20 reward was later changed to seven friends for the same amount—an adjustment reflecting continuous observation and responsiveness to market feedback. This iterative optimization process offers practical lessons for Web3 projects.
Yet, Temu remains one of the few successful examples of social virality in Western markets. Numerous failures over the past decade warrant reflection. Facebook launched a “Refer-a-Friend” program but eventually had to revise it due to user backlash against spam-like invitations. Groupon presents an even stronger cautionary tale. Once valued at $16 billion at its 2011 IPO, the company saw its valuation plummet to around $320 million by November 2024, largely due to user attrition from overreliance on deep discounts and social pressure. This cliff-like decline highlights the fragility of incentive-driven social marketing models in Western contexts. Snapchat’s referral initiative faced similar hurdles. Despite popularity among younger users, its virality campaign faltered due to privacy concerns and fatigue from persistent promotional messaging.
These cases reveal key characteristics of Western markets: strong privacy awareness, heightened skepticism toward commercial promotion, and a cultural preference for individualism that discourages users from identifying as “marketers.” More fundamentally, these markets show lower tolerance for aggressive marketing tactics, with users preferring decisions based on personal judgment rather than peer pressure.
However, recent data suggests Western audiences are not entirely resistant to social virality. Take Telegram, for example: user numbers have surpassed 950 million, including over 10 million paid subscribers, many from Europe and Russia. In 2024, acquiring users through the Telegram ecosystem has become a clear trend for Web3 projects—indicating Western users’ openness to innovative social formats.
Significant opportunities do exist in Western markets. First, the sheer user base offers ample room for growth. High digital adoption rates and seamless cross-platform navigation habits provide favorable channels for viral propagation.
Even more encouraging, competition among Web3 projects in Western markets remains relatively low, leaving room for optimization in user acquisition costs. With relatively high receptiveness to innovative marketing approaches, there is a rare window of opportunity to redefine social virality.
The Dilemma: Why Can’t Traditional Social Virality Be Copied?
Culturally, the deeply ingrained individualism of Western societies stands in stark contrast to the collectivism prevalent in Asia. Western users generally uphold strong personal boundaries, remain naturally cautious about promotional content, and place exceptional value on privacy protection. These cultural traits make traditional social virality tactics difficult to implement effectively.
Social pressure manifests particularly strongly in Western markets. Users commonly worry that commercial promotion could damage authentic social relationships and resist being labeled as “promoters.” This psychological burden severely limits the natural spread of virality campaigns.
Building trust poses an even greater challenge in Western markets. Crypto-related projects often face low credibility in these regions, where users maintain a cautious stance toward emerging technologies. Establishing trust requires longer timelines and greater effort. Additionally, Western users demand more sophisticated marketing—direct financial incentives alone rarely suffice, requiring more refined methods of value delivery.
Breakthrough: Redefining Social Virality for Western Markets
To break through in Western markets, the primary task is strategic transformation. The traditional “pressure-based marketing” model must evolve into a “value-sharing” model. This means designing growth strategies that emphasize individual benefit over group pressure, highlight user autonomy, and cultivate positive motivations for sharing. When users perceive real value and feel they can freely choose whether to share, the resulting传播 tends to be more effective.
Gamification elements also require localization. Given the psychological profile of Western users, interactive mechanisms should prioritize individual experience, minimize overt marketing signals, and offer personalized ways to participate. Such adaptations must go beyond functional design to address underlying user psychology. The new growth paradigm should explore optimal incentive structures within regulatory boundaries—striking a balance between effective virality and user comfort.
For Web3 projects, there is a unique advantage: automated reward distribution via smart contracts ensures fairness and transparency throughout the process. This not only reduces user skepticism toward marketing activities but also builds trust through blockchain’s inherent verifiability. For instance, projects can record invitation logs and reward distributions on-chain, allowing every participant to verify the fairness of the campaign.
When implementing such systems, several key points deserve attention:
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Transparency: Clearly communicate rules and reward mechanisms to build trust.
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Autonomy: Provide users with full choice and avoid coercion.
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Value Orientation: Emphasize individual gains over social pressure. In Web3, “rewards” can take native forms such as waitlist whitelist access, points, tokens, or NFTs.
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Privacy Protection: Strictly comply with local regulations and respect user privacy preferences. Web3 virality campaigns can leverage blockchain technology to protect sensitive user data like wallet addresses.
On the technical side, innovation will play a pivotal role. No-code tools have dramatically lowered entry barriers, enabling operations teams to quickly iterate strategies. Robust data analytics capabilities support decision-making and help projects better understand user needs. Meanwhile, native product integration, simplified participation flows, and transparent reward systems will all contribute significantly to improved user experience.
In addition, social virality should be complemented with other marketing channels for a multi-pronged approach. Temu’s success wasn’t built solely on virality—it invested heavily in social media ads and traditional advertising (e.g., Super Bowl). On average, each American user encountered 60–70 Temu ads across platforms. While most Web3 projects may lack Temu’s massive ad budget, they can combine influencer/KOL content marketing with social virality to achieve better results.
The Future: A New Paradigm for Web3 Social Growth
As Web3 projects go global, achieving effective user growth across diverse cultural contexts will become a critical challenge. In Western markets, social virality is not impossible—it simply demands deeper localization and innovation. Particularly in the Web3 space, advancements in next-generation social protocols and decentralized identity solutions may unlock new opportunities. These technological innovations can better protect user privacy while enabling more diverse modes of value transmission. Project teams must closely monitor such developments and integrate them into their growth strategies.
With the right tools and strategies—and a deep understanding of local user psychology—Web3 projects can indeed establish a new social growth paradigm tailored to Western markets. In this process, flexibility, transparency, and user experience will be decisive factors for success.
In this global Web3 growth race, the true winners won’t be those who blindly copy past successes, but those who adapt locally and innovate boldly. Only by genuinely understanding and respecting market differences can one gain a competitive edge in the tide of globalization.
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