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About Weibo: Understanding Chinese Social Media

12/10/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Few social media users have reason to care what Sina Weibo is; however, if they work for a multi-national company, it’s guaranteed that company is all over Weibo, and for good reason!

Weibo is the Chinese microblogging service with more than 505 million users launched in August 2009 for people who speak, read and write Mandarin and Cantonese. Daily active users number 54 million, says The Wall Street Journal. The site also caters to users from Hong Kong and Taiwan. To describe it further, it’s a hybrid of Facebook and Twitter with a 30 percent penetration rate in the country.

Sina (NASDAQ: SINA), which means new wave in Chinese, is the publicly traded online media company that created Weibo in China. Its site registers 100 million users, while its Sina Weibo has 56 percent of the Chinese microblogging market. What’s also appealing is that the top 100 users of Sina Weibo have 180 million followers combined.

Guess what else we can rely on trusty Wikipedia to inform us? There are about 100 million messages posted each day on Weibo. Sina is developing an English platform now and put a test up in January 2013; however, pulled it down after one week. Users have to be Chinese citizens to register on the platform.
Competition

Sina Weibo has enjoyed three years of un-rivaled monopoly on Chinese social media channels. Recently, however, Tencent Holdings is gaining with its “WeChat mobile app similar to WhatsApp and Line that allows users to post status updates, share photos and even strike up quick romantic encounters,” according to the Nov. 11, 2013 Wall Street Journal, “A Glimpse Into China’s Social Media.”

In the Wall Street Journal story written a day before third-quarter earnings Nov. 13, 2013, it was predicted by investors that Sina would lose some ground to Tencent. Upon checking status of the investor reports; however, Sina proved everyone wrong with an 11.38 percent boost while Tencent lost ground by 4 percent. Tencent boasts 236 million monthly active users, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Similar to support by Sina Weibo for the Chinese soccer team to play against Villarreal CF, Tencent has put $200 million to work for an advertising campaign with a single FC Barcelona soccer player, Lionel Messi, to advertise WeChat outside China.

Features of Weibo

If a user familiar with Twitter were to adopt Weibo, they’d find many feature similarities:
• 140 characters
• @ sign for the ID
• RT for retweet
• Hashtags to track trending topics
• Url shortener t.cn
• Newsfeed

Other features allow users to post emoticons, video and images with every post, repeat some or all of the comment, add favorites, verify whether the account is a celebrity or a poseur, and see the thread of the post immediately in the stream.

Registration

Since China is the fastest-growing economy in the world, you can imagine why global consumer products companies are drooling over how to reach the affluent Chinese market.

Prior, you had to be a resident of China to use Weibo. Now, all you need is a Facebook account to register if you’re outside mainland China. Multi-national businesses should regard this as good news because who isn’t seeking entrée into China for consumer products?

When a global consumer products company registers on Weibo, their account will be symbolized by a blue V badge indicating verification of an enterprise account.

Like Twitter and Facebook, there are bots and anonymous people who set up accounts to post content that is typically negative, controversial or anti-establishment. The significance of the blue V on an enterprise Weibo account is important for users to verify which account is authentic.

There are many people who want to post content on Weibo as Gucci, for example. If a user gets three posts from “Gucci,” they can easily discern which one is authentic by the blue V.

Users Can Authenticate on Weibo

Just like brands and businesses, users who actively engage on Weibo get to post a badge on their Weibo personal profile page. These badges are called active engagement badges and help position users who are high-level engagers. The badges for users dictate the frequency an account is in use. The badges are scaled via an LV number or level number. If you were to view LV3 on a user’s profile page, that indicates low-level activity; however, LV 7 is indicative of an active user.

Fashionbi Analysis of Weibo

Fashionbi is a world leader in fashion business intelligence via analysis of social media engagement among the world’s most well-known fashion brands and companies.

Part of its analysis includes activity on Sina Weibo both from the brand and user perspectives. Fashionbi looks at a variety of social media engagement factors to determine where users are most active. It estimates nearly 15 percent of the fashion brands it tracks are using Weibo.

In its analysis of Weibo user engagement activity for fashion brands, Fashionbi found that 50 percent of Weibo users who engage with fashion brands are accessing the social media channel via mobile devices. In particular, Coach gets 35 percent engagement on Weibo from a mobile device with an additional 28 percent of activity documented from an iPhone or Android device.

Mobile Advertising in China

Although Weibo users seem to have a penchant for mobile advertising, Sina needs to exercise caution about how many ads it places on Weibo. This is unmarked territory for all social media companies in China, and the hunger by the Chinese for what’s new in consumer products is dictating the speed with which companies are launching advertising campaigns. Consumers could tire of the prolific mobile ads interrupting streams; that threshold has yet to be met, however.

In China, unlike the United States, social media consumers seek mobile advertising to influence a buy decision. In a blog post about Tech In Asia, a recent study by RenRen showed 53 percent of Chinese who use mobile devices said a buy decision was influenced by a mobile advertisement while 76 percent said they have made a purchase using a mobile device.

Fashionbi suggests WeChat is the channel to watch for further mobile advertising proliferation as Chinese tourists use the app all the time. Luxury brands have an opportunity to meet vacationers when they have money to spend and time to shop.

Alibaba And Laiwang

Alibaba, the Amazon-like online marketplace serving China, is heavily aligned with Weibo. A partnership deal was struck earlier this year with Alibaba Group Holding and Sina Weibo that will generate $380 million in advertising for Sina over three years, states the Wall Street Journal. Brands selling items on Alibaba are also doing the same via Weibo with great luck. Coach, for example, has an online store on its Weibo brand page which is an appealing and simplified way for the billion consumers in China to engage and buy.

Alibaba is cash rich, and in response to concerns it has lacked in popular apps, it boosted efforts to create a new messaging app, Laiwang.

Founder Jack Ma is banking on employees to keep Alibaba growing. Look at these marketing initiatives the company has launched to grow:

• He sent a letter to the company’s 20,000 employees saying they had to add 100 friends on Laiwang or they will not get a bonus.
• The company is also using model appeal to lure new users to Laiwang. There are 30,000 young female models who will chat any time with new users on Laiwang.

There’s one thing Western nations can be sure of. The Chinese consumer is eager and hungry to more, and companies the likes of Sina, Tencent Holdings and Alibaba are providing the food via major investment in mobile apps, mobile advertising, sponsorships, promotions, e-commerce, and social media channel usability.

Would you like a piece of the pie?

This post first appeared on Steamfeed.com authored by Jayme Soulati.

Startups Should Hire PR Early

12/02/2013 By Jayme Soulati

During the earliest stages of a startup, there are many discussions and decisions about how a business will launch and with which bells and whistles to go to market. Marketing needs to be involved in these earliest stages; does public relations?

The very lawyerly answer is, it depends.

When you work with a hybrid public relations professional who brings 30 years of experience to a team, then public relations influences a startup’s business strategy. There is even counsel delivered by public relations that can influence business model. This expertise comes from years of innate knowledge acquired from representing clients across industries.

A public relations professional is a startup’s single-most critical member of the team, especially during pre-launch.

Why?

While marketing morphs the business, public relations stands in the wings absorbing the dynamics of company culture and adding expertise from the outside looking in. While executives are safely spinning their business model, public relations contributes external perspective from the vantage point of a variety of stakeholders.

What will media ask; what will executives say?
What would investors and boards of advisors want set up at the start point?
Will consumers be able to understand why this company matters?

Startups Spend Time Inside

The formation of a company requires intense focus on the inside of a company. There’s so much more that happens beyond writing a mission statement or determining company values, structure and model.

What’s likely most confusing is the fact that public relations, in the presence of marketing, will not influence the inside of a company as much as it will influence how the company is positioned for external consumption.

Please read that again.

Therein lies the major differentiator among marketing and public relations – we who do the latter will always be listening for the language we need from marketing to describe and position a company for audiences who reside outside the company.

Throughout my career, I have influenced the business model of a startup. Because I bring such a breadth of experience across industries, it’s comfortable for me to share insights based on three decades of influencing results and driving measurable campaigns.

Ultimately, the best team for a startup is one where marketing and PR work hand in hand so all the expertise is conjoined with the same goal. Usually, that’s rare as the startup budget cannot afford a seasoned or deep team with these key players.

Would I to choose which professional to hire at the outset, it would be public relations – a seasoned, hybrid professional who has continually innovated and morphed alongside industry and technology.

PR And Marketing

Public relations is blending more with marketing than ever before; that’s nothing new, it’s been happening for years, yet now everyone is finally labeling what’s happening. Although the disciplines of marketing and public relations are blurring, there is still a major gap in understanding of how public relations delivers.

The logical progression for a startup is to hire marketing to morph its insides with branding, mission, vision, values, etc. When done, public relations enters from the wings during pre-launch. The positioning begins.

Public relations rolls in with a message mapping process.
Executives are trained to deliver strong messages to external audiences.
The business model is tested with all the key audiences in mind.
A strategy unfolds to announce the company’s existence with the differentiators in place.
A media relations strategy is launched to announce to the market this company exists and is serious about earning a spot in the vertical market.
Social media and blogs are launched to continuously push content.
Public relations and marketing blend and work cohesively to execute strategy.

No Budget? Hire PR

What if a startup is working on a shoestring budget? There are seasoned public relations professionals who can bootstrap alongside a startup.

When a startup needs communications and marketing counsel, a public relations professional is the best hire at the outset. Someone who knows enough about technology, business, messaging, strategy, positioning, marketing blend, and much more.

Having the ability to write professionally is critical; adding someone to the team who is a professional blogger and media relations professional is smart for a startup.

To understand more about why PR is a better hire for startups than marketing,

contact Jayme Soulati at jayme at Soulati dot com. The hands-on experience is there.

You may dial 937-312-1363, as well.

Is $Billion The New $Million?

11/20/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Everywhere I look, I see $1 billion tossed around like candy in a parade. No one uses $1 million for anything anymore; in fact, a million anything is paltry, peanuts, and unimpressive. It’s just so yesterday, right?

Case in point from these headlines and tidbits:

• Twitter IPO seeks $1.4 billion
• Starbucks fined $2.8 billion
• Crocs Market Cap $1.2 billion and seeking price tag of $1.5 billion in leveraged buyout
• Hershey net revenue $1.51 billion
• U.S. Postal Service Delivers loss of $5 billion
• J.P. Morgan and U.S. Reach $13 billion accord
• Iranian gas firm driven to bankruptcy with $4 billion debt
• Western Union moved $79 billion in cash transfers in 2012

Corporations are drowning in money and being fined or losing more. It’s astonishing how much currency is afloat; yet, economies, governments, and small business are struggling big time.

Money Is A Mindset

Hard to think your own company is successful when everyone around you is dealing in billions, right?

Here’s the very good news – those who are dealing with that kind of valuation, market cap, debt, fines, and whatever else are the ones taking the heat, in the spotlight, getting sued, being investigated, and answering to investors.

It’s heartening to know there’s safety in flying under the radar and not having billions of dollars get tossed around like (read what I said in the first sentence).

To answer my own question, I do indeed believe billion is the new million. We smaller fish, however, cannot forget that we’re the drivers of economies, too. We hire people, we buy services, we tick and tock, and generally are accessible to the kids out of school who need a mentor or somewhere to intern.

I’m pretty content knowing that in my book, a million still matters…as long as it’s a black million and not red.

How about you?

How Twitter IPO Changes Its Focus

11/18/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Few people understand what happens when a company goes public. We watched how Facebook maneuvered an ever increasingly heated spotlight, and now Twitter is undergoing the same.

In this piece Nov. 11, 2013 in Advertising Age, “Twitter’s task: Getting new users to understand it,” it seems the biggest issue Twitter has with new users is its complexity.

To follow this line of thinking, go back to the very first tweet you posted. Perhaps you need to go back to the very first time you logged in and saw a blank screen with some stranger popping up to say hi. Were you as nervous as I and almost backed out?

There are still people who don’t engage on Twitter because they believe the common misnomer that it’s a bunch of people talking about what they eat and where they go to the movies. We in the know, know better, right?

Because Twitter is now publicly traded (NYSE: TWTR) with a valuation of more than $20 billion and a 73 percent “stock pop” (says Ad Age) on day one of trading, it has to think differently about how to behave:

Attract more of the masses (a major hurdle)
Onboarding new users and making them feel comfy out of the gate
Reduce consumer churn – the rate that new users drop off in a short period of time
Increase advertising dollars for marketers who want proof the users are there to click through and make a buy

Take a look at Twitter’s number of users in the U.S., says Advertising Age:

Q1 2013 – 48 million monthly active users

Q2 2013 – 49 million monthly active users

Q3 2013 – 53 million monthly active users

Facebook has three times the scale. At the end of Q2 2013, it boasted 179 million monthly active users

It’s like comparing apples to oranges, however, because look at the skill and understanding a Twitter peep has to communicate. When you read tweets from accounts trying to sell, they’re awkward. Engagement and relationship building are the keys to earning followers; Facebook is about existing relationships among friends you already know. Not so Twitter.

It’s because of Twitter that I have a new network of true and real friends I’ve met IRL, spoken with on the phone, engaged with on Skype, and hired into my business. Not so Facebook.

There are so many ways Twitter can be used to enhance knowledge of the world.

When there is a natural disaster like the ones in New Orleans, Haiti, the Philippines, New Zealand, and elsewhere, Twitter comes alive with tweets around the world providing updates about the crises and how peeps can help. Not so Facebook.

The hashtag is finally coming into its own as a way to follow conversations; its now in use by Facebook AND Google+. We owe that to Twitter as the first channel to adopt hashtags; I think I first began hashtagging #RockHot in August 2010, and all the threads of tweets featuring that phrase I created are documented. Pretty cool.

I digress…

What I’m hoping doesn’t happen with Twitter as it has with Facebook is the social channel’s intense need to put advertisers first and revenue above service. We who have been around since the early days know quite well the quirky and secretive nature of Twitter with a tribe mentality.

It’s too bad Twitter will change itself to appeal to the masses who don’t and won’t get it (although I’ve heard from a lot of moms that the kids are hitting Twitter in droves and foregoing Facebook). Groups of young boys (about freshmen age in high school) are forming Twitter accounts and buying followers to gain immediate traction.

Perhaps Twitter needs to look within among users who already prefer the channel over the others instead of trying at this late juncture to appeal to those who won’t get it to also thus appeal to marketers sinking advertising dollars into the channel.

Time will tell…

Big Data Analysis Invades Amazon TV

11/05/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Deutsch: Logo von Amazon.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Amazon continues to surprise. Its latest segue from online shopping and shipping megalopolis is a venture into streaming video via Amazon Studios. The team is attempting to predict the next hit TV series from pilots featured on Amazon’s website in April.

Rather than use internal creative professionals from studios and production houses to select TV pilots for long-term runs, Amazon put 13 pilots on its website and allowed visitors to vote.

Here’s what’s amazingly basic about this whole story. The metrics Amazon used to determine its pilot selection were:

Likes
Shares
Votes
Surveys
Comments

This fascinates me because of its simplicity. There is so much emphasis being placed on big data analysis and how data drive strategy. While Amazon is certainly using big data (in this case a lot of people placing votes, right?) to influence video streaming program selection, it didn’t indicate it used in-depth software and programming to analyze which show will become a hit.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Amazon Mines User Data in Search of TV Hits,” on Nov. 2-3, 2013, Amazon Studios has selected three of the top-ranked vote getters and put them into production. The pilots are slated to be made available to Amazon Prime members in November.

What does this imply for your own big data analysis? Could we perhaps be putting too much emphasis in data when the simpler metrics of likes, shares, votes, and comments are sufficient?

How are you using big data in your business? Is its analysis truly driving strategy, lead generation, and sales?

Coming from a public relations background where data used to be the bailiwick of marketing, the numbers were rarely my favorite. It’s hard to crack that barrier to entry, but it’s stupid not to. Numbers do tell stories especially when you’re smart enough to interpret them.

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