A new Chinese website, www.51afl.com, was launched on the July 1 and attracted nearly 5000 independent visitors - 92 per cent of which were from mainland China - in its first week.
But it's been the social media pull using websites such as Chinese online communities Douban and Tianya that has directed the majority of traffic to the Mandarin-speaking site, as well as creating interest in the game in the lead-up to the Kaspersky Cup - AFL Shanghai Showdown on October 17.
"We use those groups to feed content and those discussions to then pull traffic back to the site," CEO of Shanghai social media company Mailman, Andrew Collins, said.
"We believe that content drives greater engagement and keeps people on the site.
"We also learn a lot more about the people that come back to the site by having them engage."
The strategy has shown so much potential the AFL is considering using a similar model to promote the game in other areas that are unfamiliar with it.
"The AFL believes this is a highly innovative and effective way of generating interest and excitement in our game in China," AFL general manager of market development David Matthews said.
"We also think it's a great opportunity to learn new ways of connecting with an audience and it's an approach we may look at as we enter new markets such as Western Sydney."
The Chinese AFL site features promotion of the Melbourne-Lions clash at the Jiangwan Sports Centre, information on the rules, general news content and a section that focuses on information about Australia.
It also promotes human interest stories written by local people who have experienced the game, and encourages viewers to comment and ask questions.
Collins said the response to the site had been better than expected, with the objective to use Chinese people to sell the game to their compatriots.
"Instead of creating an advertising-led traffic campaign where you buy media and push banners to drag traffic back, we use a content-led brand strategy," he said.
"We create content, put it on the website and then we feed the content through social websites in China.
"If your challenge is communicating a foreign brand or product that the people have no prior experience with, there's no better way to connect and create a relationship using content."
Collins, who was born in Albury but has lived in Shanghai for the past three years, used a similar model to sell American Airlines to the Chinese by growing a brand through online content.
He said the feedback from Chinese people who have experienced the game online through text or video had been overwhelmingly positive so far.
"They find it most exciting to watch, very different and somewhat challenging to learn the rules, but quite exciting," he said.
"Some of them are surprised they haven't heard of the sport before."
Collins said he was confident both the online and offline promotion of the Kaspersky Cup would see a projected crowd of 10,000 attend the match.
The AFL is in discussions with the Shanghai Media Group regarding a potential live broadcast into the Shanghai region, which could reach as many as 100 million people.
