Micro-blogging in China

Version 1.0

Topics

•  What is microblogging? •  Micro-blogging in China •  The Weibo Landscape •  Starting a Weibo Campaign •  Weibo Fast Facts •  Best Practices •  Don’t Forget Mobile •  Summary •  Fast Facts- Digital Jungle

Defining Micro-blogging

“Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging

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Understanding

Micro-blogs in China

Enter Weibo

The phenomenon of microblogging ("weibo" in Chinese) in China started as a copycat of Twitter, which is not accessible in the mainland, but is now a trend growing at an even more impressive rate than its western model.

The Weibo Landscape

Chinese Weibo Platforms

The Weibo Evolution

Over the past two years, the number of subscribers to China's top two weibo service providers alone has already skyrocketed past the 200 million mark. It took Twitter four years to reach 195 million users.

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Micro-Blogging Leaders

Registered Users

100 million 100 million 32 million 20-30 million

A report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) showed that over 70% of microbloggers use their weibo account as their primary source of news and some 60% say it is trustworthy.

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Starting a

Weibo Campaign

Weibo Marketing Strategy

1. ENGAGE •  Find and engage

existing fans

•  Post discussions and provide useful resources

•  Invite fans to Comment/Poll

•  Provide useful links/ digital goods

3. ADD SCALE •  Leverage offline

events

•  Promote your

Weibo account

through existing

media

•  Add your Weibo

links to your brand

Web site

4. MEASURE •  Reach

- Fans

- Mentions

•  Engagement

- Discussions, content, Retweets, and posts

•  Action

2. DRIVE ACTION •  Provide applications

that enlist ambassadors

•  Provide coupons to

track purchases

•  Hosts contests with

opt-ins for further

contact

- Contest entries - Coupons redeemed

- Purchases driven

- Web traffic driven

-Application users  

Before you Start, The Check List

Complete this checklist of questions to build a successful Weibo strategy for your brand before you jump in.

What is the engagement value: what can you offer people that they will find valuable?

Are you ready to respond to your customers and encourage them to talk about your brand?

Are you ready to make a commitment beyond a simple Weibo post? How will your other marcom strategies integrate with Weibo? What assets - tools and content – can you leverage?

Do you have your company behind you and resources available? How will you measure success?

Micro Blogging Basic’s

Comment Making comment as you would with a conventional blog (unique quality of Chinese micro-blogs).

@ Retweet Acts like an echo where you can repost the tweet

#Customized Topics# By adding double hash tags, a user can create custom topics that can be tracked and easy accessed in searches

Direct Messaging (DM) DM is the private part of a micro-blog’s open platform. Users can communicate via chat- like private messaging.

Follow Following allows you to see their tweets. The other user is doesn’t require reciprocal following.

Message - 140 characters Main body is limited to 140 characters, requiring precise and clear messages.

Micro Blogging UI

Message Box Using Chinese characters you can get more information than with English characters

Hot Topics A list of the trending topics

Followers The number of tweets & followers

Messages The posts from the people I am following

Extra Links •  Emotions •  Pictures •  Video •  Music •  Topics •  Polls

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Some

Weibo Fast Facts

Market Share (users/time)

Graph from CICC ‘s Investment Focus: According to iResearch, Sina takes 56.5% market share on active users basis and 86.6% browsing time basis in 2010 China’s micro blog market.

Sina Weibo Stats

Here are some the stats for Sina Weibo platform:

•  Monthly Increasing Rate of Register: 33.8% •  Rate of Mobile Blogging: 38% •  Number of App(Plugin) in Sina Weibo: More than 800 •  Blogs per Day: 25,000,000 •  Number of Users of Sina Weibo: 100,000,000 (March, 2011) •  Number of Partnered Sites: 10,000 •  Total Blogs: 200,000,000 (Nov, 7, 2010) •  Blogs per Second: 785 •  Daily Traffice that Weibo Brings: 30,000,000

Data comes from the Sina Weibo developer conference & their corporate site

Male/Female by Topics on Sina Weibo

Data from DDCI: (Oct, 2010)

Platform Reputation

Socio-graphics

Activity Comparison

Data from Baidu Index: Tencent microblog (green) shows significantly less buzz (activeness & on site time) than Sina Weibo (orange).

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Some

Best Practices

Micro-blogging Recommendations

Like all social media campaigns, each channel has their own characteristics and recommended best practices. Please find some ideas about how to improve your micro-blogging activities:

•  Do some casual research and search keywords to understand who is discussing topics you are interested in.

•  Find out what people are saying about your company/brand/product, and what information they're looking for.

•  Identify people that share common interests and follow them •  Inject some personality into your messages. •  Be professional. •  Engage with users. •  Monitor your account. •  Develop guidelines. Not every staff member at your company should be

using a weibo account in the organization's behalf. •  Avoid taking offense. •  Involve your chief executive or a celebrity (brand ambassador)

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Not Forgetting

Weibo on Mobile

Micro-blogging via Mobile

With so many people stuck in trains and buses each day while traveling to work, micro-blogging has become the way to fill this boredom and in turn has created a huge online micro-blogging community.

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Closing the

Micro-blog

Example Weibo Measures

Micro-blogs can be a very effective platform to develop engaging and innovative campaigns. However, it is always critical you measure your campaigns.

• Number of fans for your brand pages • Number of brand mentions • Number of news updates x fans   • Number of discussion topics • Number of tweets • Number and tone of reviews posted • Amount of content or offers shared • Video views • Click through rates for advertisements • Number of contest entries • Number of applications downloaded • Offline actions driven by coupons or special offers • Web traffic generated

Parting Thought

“Every industry and business is going to be re-though about in a social way. Therefore, the real disruption is about people redesigning these into ‘social spaces’. The social spaces will become interconnected areas for business, home and play”

Dr Mathew McDougall, CEO Digital Jungle

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About

Digital Jungle

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Digital Jungle Fast Facts

•  Socially Led, digital marketing specialists

•  Global reach

•  Offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney

•  Spun out of SinoTech Group in 2011

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•  Delivering digital strategy and execution services: –  Customer and competitor insight –  Digital strategy –  Social Media Marketing –  Search Engine Marketing –  Affiliate Marketing –  Media Buying –  Mobile Services and Apps

•  We work for global and domestic

organisations, across various market sectors, helping our clients: –  Engage with their key audiences –  Transform their business –  Maximise growth Marketing

World Class Digital Marketing Experience

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Our Commitment

The mission of Digital Jungle is to help our clients improve their business position and gain real value from their digital marketing investments Through our expertise in social media digital marketing programs and the application of search, affiliate and online marketing, we commit to: • Driving incremental direct revenue • Generating ROI unrivaled by traditional media • Protecting your online reputation • Increasing your market share over your competitors • Building your brand awareness

We look forward to working with you.

Dr Matt McDougall, CEO, Digital Jungle

Dr Mathew McDougall| matt@digitaljungle.com.cn

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