Chinese Social Media Marketing- Sina Weibo (Getting Started)

XQ. February, 2013

Agenda

• Re-cap: Sina Weibo Statistics

• How Does Sina Weibo Work?

• How to Engage with Target Audience?

• How to Track Weibo Account Performance?

• Our Services

500 million users 46.2 million daily active users

* Source: Sina 2012 annual report

SINA WEIBO IN 2012

2012 London Olympics

SINA WEIBO IN 2012

• February: 82 million posts on Valentine’s day

• May: 300 million “thank you parents” posts during “Mother’s Day” and “Father’s Day”

• July: 6 million “Xiao Mi” mobile phones sold

• November: Tmall transaction reached RMB 1.9 billion in one day.

• November: 42 million posts discussing Diaoyu Island incident

SINA WEIBO IN 2012

OVERSEAS ENTERPRISE ACCOUNTS

“400 million accounts, over 130 thousand corporate accounts, millions of international and domestic celebrities, businessmen and politicians are on Weibo, including Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Bill Gates, Gregor Robertson, Kevin Rudd, Christine Lagarde, etc.

Sina Weibo has been a darling of both domestic and international brands. The platform offers brands a quality, diversified target audience and sophisticated engagement tools. 56% of Weibo’s 400 million users follow at least one brand.

100 million new posts a day.”

USERS ARE YOUNGAND WELL-EDUCATED

Although most registered users are male, active users are female.

65% active users are female.

70% content concerning brands from woman.

PURPOSE OF USING SINA WEIBO

Entertainment and “fun” content are reposted most often compared to twitter

Magnitude of reposts are also much higher than twitter

HOW DOES SINA WEIBO WORK?

• 140-character limit• Mention or talk to other people

using "@UserName" format

• Add hashtags with "#HashName" format

• Follow other people to make his/her posts appear in users' own timeline,

• RT @UserName

• URLs are automatically shortened using the domain name t.co.

• Users are allowed to insert graphical emoticons or attach own image, music, video files in every post.

• Comments to a post can be shown as a list right below the post

• Brand page

Sina Weibo Twitter Facebook

140-character limit 140-character limit No

Mention or talk to other people using "@UserName" format Mention or talk to other people using "@UserName" format

Mention or talk to other people using "@UserName" format

Add hashtags with "#HashName#" format Add hashtags with "#HashName" format No

Follow other people to make his/her posts appear in users' own timeline, like people’s posts

Follow other people to make his/her posts appear in users' own timeline,

Follow other people to make his/her posts appear in users' own timeline, like people’s post

Re-post with “@UserName” RT @UserName No

URLs are automatically shortened using the domain name t.cn

URLs are automatically shortened using the domain name t.co

No

Users are allowed to insert graphical emoticons or attach own image, music, video files in every post.

No (Insert a picture) Users are allowed to insert graphical emoticons or attach own image, music, video files in every post.

Comments to a post can be shown as a list right below the post, the commenter can also choose whether to re-post the comment, quoting the whole original post, to commenter's own page.

No Comments to a post can be shown as a list right below the post

TIME LINEStatus updates

Recommended accounts to follow

Instant Message

Updates from people you follow

PROFILE PAGERegistered personalinformation

Number of followers, posts andaccountsthat I follow

Verification

Accounts I followed recently

Personal Accounts Enterprise Edition

Verified Accounts

VIP Membership Accounts

“DaRen” (Experts) Accounts

Verified Weibo accounts are the same as Twitter’s, displaying a ‘verified’ badge to make it easy for the public to recognize an account (mostly public figures who have a certain popularity or reputation). Need ID card registration.

VIP Membership have six levels while all start at Level 1 (VIP1) at 10 yuan a month or 108 yuan for annual payment. As the member logins more often, the level will go up.

Interests based real-identity registration system, majority of the registers are young people.

Sina Weibo Enterprise Edition is a Weibo upgrade version for enterprise accounts. With multi-function page and a management dashboard, it provides more functions and features including personalized page display, data analysis, and more social CRM elements.

ACCOUNT SYSTEM

Verified Account

PERSONAL ACCOUNTS

• Real-name registration• Categorized by professions,

industries and specialties• Verified badge • Expose to new users in the • same industries or have the

same professions has Sina randomly promote verified users on Sina Weibo front page.

PERSONAL ACCOUNTSVIP Membership Accounts

• VIP Membership have six levels while all start at Level 1 (VIP1) at 10 yuan a month or 108 yuan for annual payment. As the member logs in more often, the level will go up.

• VIP members get four types of privileges: status showoff, extra functions, mobile and security features.

• VIP Only Mobile Features: VIP Sina Weibo members can use voice posting to Weibo account by dialing 950 138 333 on mobile, receive SMS alerts when specified user logs in and followed users’ birthdays arrive.

• Security Privileges: VIPs will receive security alert via SMS, probably when things like login at unusual location takes place.

VIP Membership Accounts Extra functions VIP members get include:

• Accelerated growth of Weibo Levels (normal user grows to a higher level by accumulating more login hours)

• Increased limit of maximum number of users one can follow (non-VIP can follow up to 2,000 users on Sina Weibo); VIP1-VIP3 can follow up to 2,500 users and VIP4-VIP6 up to 3,000

• Higher priority to be recommended to other users

• Increased limit of maximum number of users one can “quietly” follow (currently any user can follow up to 10 users without being found) to 15 for VIP1-3, 20 for VIP 4-5 and 30 for VIP6

• Increased limit of maximum number of users one can “block” from showing his or her posts on timeline (normal member can “block” up to 5″) to 50 for VIP1-3, 80 for VIP 4-5 and 100 for VIP6

PERSONAL ACCOUNTS

DaRen Accounts

• Have a real self-profile photo.

• Bond to a mobile number, so he/she can send Weibo via mobile phone.

• Follow a minimum of 100 people.

• Have a minimum of 100 followers.

• Follow back at least 30 people (this may impose a 30% follow back rate) required to select 3 interests.

ENTERPRISE EDITION

The platform enables brands to create an official presence through a verification system (verified accounts are marked with a “V”, very similar to the Twitter ones). Profiles can be customized by adjusting the background and the possibility to share graphic elements such as pictures and videos.

ENTERPRISE EDITION

ENTERPRISE EDITION

ENTERPRISE EDITION

ENTERPRISE EDITION

HOW TO ENGAGE WITH TARGET AUDIENCE

• Content Calendar• Q&A • Small and ongoing

campaigns • Weekly statistic analysis• Social data and CRM

DAILY COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

TOP 10 BRAND WEIBO POSTS IN 20121. Nike: Olympic

2. BMW: Single’s Day

3. McDonald: Consumer Day

4. Arsenal

5. Mini: Censorship

6. Vancl

7: Bestguard

8. Burberry

9. Durex

10. The Best

INFLUENCER ENGAGEMENT

• Identify industry thought leaders

• Closely monitor influencers’ posts and engage in a creative and fun way

• Celebrity endorsement (paid service)

• Offline engagement (Live update on Sina Weibo)

REMARKABLE EXPERIENCE

HOW TO TRACK WEIBO ACCOUNT PERFORMANCE

THE WEIBO ANALYTICAL DASHBOARD

• Fans: • Number of fans, growth

rate. • Demographic • Interaction • Behavior

• Keyword monitoring • Trend analysis

• Page view

• Click through of embedded short links.

OUR SERVICES

•Marketing plan for Chinese market

•Website translation to Chinese

•Weibo account set up

•Content writing & adaptation of existing content for Chinese readers

•Followers engagement

•Lead nurturing

•Reporting & analysis