Weibo is one of the popular social media platforms with more than 650 million users. With such a vast audience, Weibo offers splendid marketing opportunities for businesses to engage their customers. Let’s look at some Weibo marketing strategies that are used by western companies to attract an audience and seize marketing opportunities.

Building Relationship with Target Audience

To achieve success on the Weibo platform, western companies focus on interaction with the audience. On Weibo, the interaction between the account manager and target audience takes many forms such as

· Liking: Account managers like a “post” that speaks highly about their services or products or showcases their brand. This shows gratitude and appreciation to the post that attracts audience attention.

· Comments: Account manager can directly reply to the user’s comments or comment on the user’s post.

· Repost: Account manager can repost Key Opinion Leader post about their brand or repost general user’s questions along with answers or repost positive testimonials.

· Messages: this is a private form of communication where only the sender and the receiver can see the messages. This form of communication is useful to resolve a customer’s complaints or problems.

Creating Engaging Content

To create engaging content, you need to keep the target audience’s interests in mind. You can create diverse types of content and tag them into various categories. The tagged categories are helpful to thought leaders to follow and engage prospects. Here are some of the types of content used by Western companies to engage the audience.

· Sharing text with images is one popular way to interact with Weibo users. Since pictures are popular with Weibo users, they can be searched on Weibo.

· Watching and sharing videos are one of the popular activity of Weibo users. Western companies post attractive videos on a regular basis that helps in strengthening of the brand.

Here are some exciting examples of Western companies using Weibo differently to seize market opportunities.

Durex

Durex is a popular trademarked name for a range of condoms. The company leveraged the Weibo social media platform to increase its market share and sales in China. Here are some important elements of marketing strategies used by Durex on Weibo.

• Fictional Character to Interact with Fans

The company created a fictional character named “Little Dudu” to interact with fans and respond to their comments in a fun, playful, and entertaining way. The Little Dudu became a powerful tone of voice on Weibo that helped the brand stand out with authentic conversations.

• Alliances with Popular Opinion Leaders

Key Opinion Leaders with millions of followers prove helpful for brands to achieve their goals. Durex formed alliances with key opinion leaders and reached millions of their followers through repost of their campaigns, ads, and messages.

• Creation of Engaging Micro-Topics for Enhanced Interaction with Users

As a part of Weibo Marketing strategy, Durex used the features of the micro topics to attract and invite people for an interesting discussion on a topic. Durex created several engaging micro-topics to increase interaction with the users. The company created a Weibo page which had more than one million followers.

Durex used the Weibo page to share videos, articles, photos, blogs, and other rich forms of content. In a two-week period, the company posted around 139 updates. Out of these 139 updates, 60 were entertainments messages in the form of videos and graphics.

16 updates focused on providing health-related information or material related to a brand’s product. 4 posts were related to product promotion and introduction. 14 posts offered to buy incentives and coupons while 35 updates sought follower’s interaction. The posts on the Weibo page attracted a large amount of interest with lots of posts and comments from the users.

• Integration of Weibo on Other Platforms

Durex integrated Weibo with other platforms like Youko, Renren, and e-commerce platforms to align the brand with quality and business objectives.

Lancome

Lancome, a French beauty brand used Weibo to extensively build up its market position. The company created hashtag campaigns linked to style beauty and use of its products. Most of the brand’s posts were reposted several times and also received a large number of comments.

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