Weibo is one of the most popular social media platforms in China with hundreds of millions of registered users and a presence across 190 countries. Well-liked for its emphasis on video, photo, and live-streaming – content that can be easily distributed to promote products and services – this platform offers excellent opportunities for Brands to generate awareness and engage with a large consumer audience.
Many Brands have already implemented successful social media and paid advertising campaigns on Weibo, including Coca-Cola, Louis Vuitton, and Unilever. Others are looking at how they can tap into China’s market by incorporating Weibo into their marketing strategies. With so many active users sharing content, this platform should be a core component of a Brand’s overall marketing efforts.
Weibo Campaigns
Before Brands can use Weibo, they must set up a verified corporate account, which proves their credibility and wins consumers’ confidence. Once set up, they can benefit fromtwo types of marketing campaigns on Weibo: system and creative.
System campaigns are well-defined and only available to verified accounts. There are several types:
- Lucky Roulette– This campaign involves a lottery that enables users to win a variety of prizes.
- Flash Sales– This campaign, most effective for e-commerce and O2O businesses, lets users win gifts or discounts for promoted products for a limited period of time.
- Repost– This campaign, known for achieving top results, requires users to share a specific post or follow a Brand’s account to be picked as a random winner.
- Content Collection–This campaign encourages users to post original content, such as reviews and videos related to the Brand advertised, for the chance to win prizes based on the quality of the posted content.
- Free Trial – With this campaign, Brands distribute product samples based on users’ reasons and feedback prior to the official product release.
- Pre-ordering – This campaign, often for high-end products like electronics, makes products available to users who purchase prior to the product being availability.
Like the name suggests, creative campaignsare more imaginative and less rigid. Available to both verified and non-verified accounts, Brands can develop tailored campaigns in which they control the rules, prizes, and number of winners. While most are in the form of posts, others resemble quizzes that are interesting and entertaining. Often, successful campaigns are associated with hot topics, holidays, and popular events.
Weibo Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is another way for Brands to promote their products and services on Weibo. While the costs can vary significantly, the publicity is more targeted and the investment can be especially rewarding in terms of increased visibility and consumer reach.
There are several forms of effective advertising strategies:
- Fan Tunnels– With this type of advertising, a specific post or account is promoted with a headline across feeds to target consumers by age, gender, region, and interest.
- Fan Headlines– This type of advertising uses headlines to promote a post or account across feeds, but it targets existing followers and their connections.
- Weibo Banners– This form of advertising involves a banner at the top of the website and mobile app pages that leads consumers to the Brand’s homepage.
- Weibo Search Engine Promotion–This form of advertising uses a search bar with terms based on hot topics and puts an account at the top of the results list when keywords are searched.
- Weibo Paid KOL– This type of advertising consists of paying a well-known Key Opinion Leader to promote posted content.
Including a Weibo campaign, paid advertising, or both in a marketing strategy can be very beneficial for strengthening a Brand’s reputation, engaging with Chinese consumers, standing out from competitors, and generating sales.
Need assistance with a marketing strategy on Weibo? Tolmao Group can help. Specializing in helping Brands expand in Asia, they can provide assistance in developing adertising plans and implementing campaigns on Weibo. Contact Tolmao Group at: info@tolmaogroup.com.
Five Tips for Using Weibo in Marketing Strategies
- Identify target market. Determine target audience’s demographics, like age and gender, and track relevant information about users’ posts and interests.
- Create engaging content. Use images, videos, and other visuals to promote products and services to catch the attention of and connect with users.
- Be active. Respond to comments regularly and post new content often to be visible, current, and approachable.
- Make use of social media influencers. Ask influencers and bloggers to write and post blogs and articles.
- Be social media savvy. Use SEO to show up in searches in Baidu, verify Weibo accounts, post often so content is ranked, and include hashtags to be part of hot topics.
