Sina’s Weibo, China’s domestic Twitter rival, dwarfs twitter with overwhelming scale.
According to statistics, around 56 million accounts have been opened on Twitter, yet only an estimated amount of 21 million users actively publish each month. On the other hand, Sina Weibo has 140 million users and 50 million active monthly users. According to a recent report from China Daily, Sina claims that with 10 million new accounts signed up each month and it is expecting significant revenue growth from Weibo in the next two years. Weibo changed millions of people’s daily life by becoming an indispensable part of it.
Marketing is playing an essential role here as 60,000 accounts of Weibo are verified accounts for celebrities and major brands. Yes, major brands! Weibo is making itself a successful marketing intermediary by enhancing marketing for brands and products using promotions and videos (e.g pushing campaigns out at peak times – 10 to 11.10am and 2 to 3.30pm – and looking at other chargeable service for brands). Marketing authorities predict that Sina’s advertising revenue will grow about 50% due to this phenomenon. A very good example would be the top 100 “grassroot” accounts have created profits of about 20 million yuan from advertisement since they opened their accounts. Sina Weibo appears to have become the social media of choice for most brands to stage their engagement with the Chinese market. Twitter should definitely be aware of that.
Reference:http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/jul/15/weibo-twitter-china
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