Although Weibo now no longer completely dominates China s online social scene, it’s still growing very fast (see sections below). There are of course special features of Weibo that make the platform particularly effective for KOL advertising: its extensive integration with Taobao & small, the largest e-commerce sites in China, and its wide coverage on the Chinese internet. Moreover, due to the unique features offered by the Weibo community, many online businesses have adapted Weibo’s viral marketing techniques and strategies – and have made excellent business gains in doing so!
One aspect of viral marketing that makes Weibo so efficient is its enormous reach, both in terms of its audience and its influence over them. Millions of users access Weibo every day, making it one of the biggest online communities in the world. This makes Weibo perfect for a KOL campaign – since the site attracts a totally different kind of audience. Unlike other Chinese social networking sites, many of whose members are younger and more technically savvy, many Weibo members are middle-aged or older, with disposable income. As such, a KOL campaign would appeal directly to the group’s more mature, adult members. For example, advertisers on Weibo can target their ads to the older user population – the demographic profile makes these ideal customers for products targeting middle-aged men and women.
Another aspect of this marketing strategy is that it targets a unique and captive audience. Unlike most forms of online marketing campaigns, the demographic profile of a Weibo audience is static and tends to remain that way. Unlike other marketing campaigns, which may have to deal with constantly changing audiences, a Weibo campaign remains relatively set in place. This means that even as the audience gains more exposure to Weibo, it will stay quite separate from the audience on the site itself.
One advantage of this marketing strategy is that it has a built-in testing mechanism. Unlike traditional search engine optimization (SEO), the target audience for SEO campaigns on Weibo tends to be very different than the target audience for most other forms of marketing campaigns. SEO is based on search engine results, which require adjustments to your campaigns after a certain amount of time has passed. On the other hand, SEO on Weibo requires a fairly low-cost initial investment to achieve good rankings in search results. These initial rankings, however, are far from guaranteed.
It is also important to remember that a Weibo campaign cannot rely purely on traditional off-page SEO methods such as linking and article writing. Weibo offers its own unique advantages when it comes to promotion: it allows you to create and promote your products and services with only a small amount of information on Weibo itself. It makes it easier to spread the word about your business and brand – and it makes it easier to reach a bigger audience. Traditional off-page SEO strategies such as links, articles, and press releases still have a role to play in an effective marketing strategy on Weibo.
In summary, a great way to promote your business or brand awareness in China and the Chinese mainland is through Weibo Marketing. This is because it allows you to connect directly with the target audience for your product or service. It makes use of a very different form of advertisement – the use of social media. You can even test Weibo campaigns before launching them on Weibo! It is also cheaper than most traditional forms of advertising in China and the audience is very different from traditional audiences in the west.