Li Guangdou: Weibo Marketing: The Power of Sharing and Spreading

Celebrity Weibo Network Note:

Li Guangdou's Weibo address: http://t.sina.com.cn/liguangdou (Li Guangdou Sina Weibo login)

2010 was a year of vigorous development for social networking sites and also the year when Weibo swept across the country. There are now 457 million internet users in China, and by December 2010, the scale of Weibo access users in China exceeded 120 million people. The DCCI Internet Data Center predicts that the actual non-redundant independent user numbers of Weibo on the Chinese internet will reach approximately 100 million, 168 million, and 253 million people by the end of 2011, 2012, and 2013 respectively. The emergence of Weibo has made both individuals and enterprises begin to consider the changes and possibilities brought about by new methods of communication.

The Information Spread in Panoptic Prison

Weibo brings about a transformation in the method of communication. In the past, the communication method was pyramid-shaped, from top to bottom. Now, communication has entered the stadium model, and society has entered an era of citizen journalism where everyone is an information source. Weibo promotes the arrival of the self-media era and also drives the transformation of social structure from panoptic prison to co-panoptic prison.

The so-called panoptic prison is a metaphor used by French philosopher Foucault for the way human society is controlled. In traditional society, social managers mainly achieve more cost-effective and efficient social governance through information asymmetry. This control form is akin to a pyramid-shaped prison invented by the ancient Romans: prisoners are incarcerated in different cells, while the guards are located in the surveillance room at the top of the highest layer of cells. They can see all the prisoners, but the prisoners cannot see them, and there is also a lack of effective communication channels between the prisoners. Whether the manager is present or not, the prisoners subconsciously feel they are being watched and will voluntarily restrain their behavior. Co-panoptic prison is a surrounding structure, it is more like a stadium structure, where the crowd surrounds an individual. The distribution of information between them has become relatively symmetrical. People no longer intently listen to the voices of managers and media, but instead communicate their information through whispering to each other. At this time, there is no complete sense of jailer and prisoner, each is relatively transparent, in the sight of the other, one can see and hear the words and deeds of the other, and interactive communication is generated.

Few Gatekeepers, Naked Running Requires Caution

Traditional communication methods are mainly unidirectional with low audience participation and insufficient interaction, strictly controlled. However, the development of the internet has broken this state, and the network-like spread of information allows it to radiate quickly within a short period. The gatekeepers are overwhelmed and unable to filter all the information. Weibo takes the trend of fragmenting information to its extreme. Even if you can hold onto the temple, you can't hold onto the monks. When everyone becomes an information publisher, the role of the gatekeeper begins to weaken, and information becomes more genuine and transparent before everyone. It's as if everyone is running naked, and the double-edged sword effect of Weibo gradually becomes apparent.

Traditional information dissemination requires communicators to be objective, fair, and expressionless, but Weibo, as a private medium, inevitably carries strong personal coloration during the process of information dissemination. In the blog era, celebrity Xu Jinglei was the queen of blogs; in the Weibo era, Yao Chen is the queen of Weibo. These interactive tools are icing on the cake for celebrities, becoming a platform for interacting with fans, but if handled poorly, they can also cause negative effects.

A Marketing Tool with Low Cost and High Return Rate

Where is half of your advertising budget wasted? Adhering to the principle that sales are king and effectiveness is the hard truth, companies struggling to survive in a crisis have been searching for effective marketing methods. Traditional media still holds a significant share in communication with its established market, but the exorbitant advertising promotion costs deter many companies. The advent of the internet has opened up a precise path for communication. The emergence of Weibo marketing has changed the state of high-cost marketing.

Word-of-mouth communication is a trusted and low-cost method of communication. Weibo, through mutual following, makes people acquaintances, allowing businesses to lock onto target consumer groups through search and directly disseminate information. Individuals can quickly learn the information they want by following, and business is done unconsciously. Then, through forwarding, more consumers learn about the information, and the enterprise and product are thus promoted. When the credibility of mass communication is challenged, the emergence of Weibo may transform future marketing into acquaintance marketing. In a familiar society like China, people tend to trust introductions from friends and family, and commercialization is seeping into Weibo, forming a new brand communication and marketing model.

Many companies have realized this opportunity and started setting up camp on Weibo.

The main operational functions of Weibo are: posting topics, following others, forwarding, and commenting. Forwarding is the primary way to spread information and expand influence. From domestic and international cases, it can be seen that successful Weibo marketing cannot do without a large number of forwards. To obtain forwards, the following factors are indispensable:

1. Proper tagging is crucial. Weibo provides tagging and search functions, and when some topics or words appear frequently, they become trending topics, gaining more attention from netizens.

2. Content that is humorous, interesting, has pictures, or offers benefits, covering any one or multiple of these items, will be more attractive. Companies doing Weibo marketing attract more fans by offering benefits. Good advertisements must possess image power, communication power, and benefit points, and the benefit point is the key to prompting consumer action.

3. Utilize social hotspots. Hotspots have considerable attention, are already being surrounded and spread, combining social hotspots with marketing is like having everything ready, waiting for the wind, often achieving twice the result with half the effort.

In the era of information explosion in self-media, Weibo has clearly become an indispensable communication platform. Its characteristics of close proximity, zero time difference, and equal dialogue have changed people's lifestyles and communication habits, altered the fixed patterns of corporate publicity, promotion, and marketing, and changed societal communication methods. Humanity has entered the micro-communication era. Weibo is a dark horse, and its marketing value still needs further development. Premature commercialization turning Weibo into a tool for pyramid selling is not a wise move. How to utilize the new communication structure produced by Weibo is a gradual process.

(Li Guangdou is a famous brand strategy expert in China and a brand consultant for CCTV)

(Source: The First Financial Daily, Author: Li Guangdou)