The Era of Weibo (Microblog)

My Canadian friend who is learning Chinese and fascinated with Chinese culture once asked me: How to get involved in China? Any shortcuts to learn its culture and make Chinese friends? I told him that he should try register an account on Sina Weibo.

Many people may not know what Sina Weibo is. If I told you that it is akin Twitter in China, now you get it.
Sina Weibo, established in 2009, belongs to China’s largest Internet portal Sina Corp. The social site has more than 140 million registered users and is expected to hit 200 million by year-end. Weibo is the literal translation for microblog and is often referred to as a Twitter-clone for China.
Sina Weibo took less than two years to gain half the 300 million users five-year-old Twitter has today. Weibo is only available in Chinese now, whereas Twitter has rolled out in America, Europe, Japan, and Korea.
While Twitter announced its own photo sharing service last year, Sina Weibo already has a feature-rich interface that allows users to embed and repost photos, videos, participate in polls and thread comments to encourage group conversations – features that brands could use to create buzz and engage fans.

Sina’s national GM Li Xiang said one of the company’s plans is to help businesses create commercial opportunities on Weibo. More than 30,000 businesses are on Sina Weibo from McDonald’s and Starbucks to beauty and sports categories such as Maybelline, Clinique, Adidas, Nike, and even luxury brands like Burberry and Cartier.In May 2011, Unilever used Sina Weibo as its key activation platform to kick off a three-month campaign for Dove, inviting millions of Chinese women to share their personal beauty stories. Weibo’s commercial features include display, location-based services, community, video, and apps.
Moreover, many registered Weibo users also open their online retail shop on it. Weibo created a big net for Chinese people all around the world. Most retail business on Weibo are “Purchasing Overseas for You” which means Chinese people who live overseas use Weibo to contact the buyers in mainland who want to buy foreign products, especially luxury brands, such as Chanel and LV. Through communicating on Weibo, people who live overseas go and purchase luxury products for people live in mainland and send the product back to China. This short selling chain grows fast recently and become one of the hottest topics among Chinese people overseas.