4 practical tips for operating a Weibo account!

1. Background

Whether it is radio, television, QQ, WeChat, or Weibo, the emergence of these media is inseparable from the development of science and technology. Science and technology are the basis for the emergence of emerging media and are driving the innovation and development of media. The fundamental reason for the emergence of things lies in their social needs, which is the audience's need for information dissemination methods in the new era. Weibo is a social platform that relies on user relationships to forward, share, disseminate and follow mechanisms to obtain real-time information. Its emergence is based on the development of network technology, integrating communication software, mobile phone communication functions and websites, which provides technical support for the emergence of Weibo.

In the great wave of new media development, Weibo, as one of the largest social media platforms in China, has seen a steady growth in users. According to official Weibo statistics, the number of monthly active users in September 2020 was 511 million, and the number of daily active users was 224 million. Weibo users are mainly those born in the 1990s and 2000s. The users are gradually getting younger, and the trend of youth is unstoppable. How can companies retain potential consumers among these users, seize marketing opportunities, and operate Weibo accounts well? This article has compiled some practical tips for operating Weibo accounts, please read on!

Data source: Weibo Data Center

2. Why do you want to use Weibo?

Companies need to constantly promote themselves and establish a good corporate image. In the Internet age, there are various marketing methods, and online marketing is the preferred option for corporate marketing. Internet marketing includes many marketing channels, so why choose Weibo?

1. Realize brand communication

Brand communication is the most direct effect that Weibo brings to companies. Weibo's open social nature makes it convenient for companies to spread and promote their products. It also makes rational use of people's fragmented time, making it a more direct way of promotion. Active forwarding by users and fans can help companies promote their products. At the same time, reposts by official Weibo and well-known bloggers in various fields can attract more potential users and enable more accurate delivery, and the scope of promotion can extend from one’s own Weibo to the entire Weibo platform. For example, the previous Alipay Chinese Koi campaign was forwarded over 1.7 million times, achieving brand communication. Moreover, the success of brands such as Du Lei*, Jiang Xiao*, and Zhifu* in Weibo marketing has made companies see the potential for the development of Weibo marketing and provided companies with experience to learn from.

2. Conduct follower management and achieve sales conversion

Weibo followers are potential customers of the company, consumers who purchase products, or powerful buyers attracted by word-of-mouth communication. For these users, we should make full use of Weibo's forwarding, commenting, private messaging and other functions to maintain a good relationship between users and the company. As shown in the figure, appropriate replies and interactions with followers can narrow the distance between the company and users, invisibly affect the company's position in the minds of users, and better promote sales conversions. You can also use Weibo showcases to link to Taobao shortcuts to help with sales conversions.

3. Become a publicity outlet and tap into potential users

The open communication feature of Weibo also provides convenience for corporate publicity. It can be used as a platform for information release and as a "spokesperson" for the company. It is an outlet for corporate publicity. Weibo's communication is transparent and efficient, which can reduce impurities contained in information. It is a communication channel that companies prefer. In addition, companies can also choose to mine big data to locate precise customers. For example, Zhengzhou ** Hot Pot Restaurant can use the search function of Weibo to find users in Zhengzhou who want to eat hot pot, and then communicate with them through comments and private messages to increase customer acquisition rate.

3. Practical Weibo Operation Skills

1. Basics

(1) Setting up basic information

Nickname: A company can name its nickname as the company name or brand name (it is best if the brand name is well-known to the public). For example, Xiaomi, Alibaba, and Huawei China all use their company names as their nicknames, and Weibo nicknames are unique.

Avatar: Companies can directly use the company logo as their avatar.

Introduction: You can put a background introduction of the company. If you need to direct traffic to WeChat, you can also add it.

Cover background image: You can find a panoramic view of the company or design it yourself and upload it. (You can add some advertising introduction to the cover image)

(2) Basic cognition and function

◆ The difference between orange V, blue V and gold V

◆ The difference between Weibo and headlines

Weibo can only publish messages with a maximum of 140 words, which is similar to WeChat Moments and QQ Space. Headline articles are long Weibo posts with no word limit, which is similar to WeChat public accounts and QQ Space logs. There is a difference between the two.

◆ Basic functions

Custom menu: Similar to the menu of the official account, you can put links and introductions

Private message function: You can include contact information for business cooperation in the introduction to obtain cooperation opportunities; you can also take the initiative to discuss cooperation by sending private messages to the other party.

Topic: Topics are preceded by the symbol #, and the number of characters between two #s is generally no more than 8. Weibo has hot search lists, entertainment lists, news lists, and city lists, covering current political affairs, entertainment, and economic and cultural content. You can learn about related news through these topics.

Pinning: Selectively pinning a Weibo post to the latest one allows people who click on the Weibo post to see it at a glance and avoid missing out on important information.

2. Skills

(1) How to increase the number of fans

● Mutual promotion of business. For example, you can cooperate with companies that have the same target customer groups, forward each other's Weibo posts, promote each other, or exchange resources. One of the conditions for redeeming the prize in the lottery information sent on Weibo is to follow your Weibo.

● Weibo red envelope. By posting red envelopes on one’s own Weibo, the individual account will automatically follow Weibo while receiving the red envelopes. The cost of attracting fans is not high and it also has a certain effect.

● Reward for forwarding. You can provide company products or currently popular products and encourage users to forward them with rewards, so as to help increase your Weibo followers.

● Fans Pass. This is Sina's advertising platform. Based on massive user data, it sets conditions such as region, age, and preferences to transmit corporate information to this group of people and achieve precise reach.

(2) Types of activities that can be done

Prize-giving activities. The rewarded forwarding mentioned above belongs to this category of content, which also includes smashing golden eggs to win big prizes, rewarded collection, free trial products, etc.

Essay writing activity. Collect user-written stories about your company. For example, your experience of using the company's products, your feelings or opinions about the company, etc.

Voting activities. Voting can be used to attract user attention, and the content of the voting can also be further exposed. For example, when Produce 101 was popular, many people on Weibo were posting their voting links, and there were many participants.

(3) Weibo posting time

Generally speaking, Weibo is used more frequently when people have free time. According to official Weibo statistics, 12:00 and 22:00 are the golden surfing time periods. So, we mainly choose four time points to post on Weibo: on the way to work, during lunch break, before dinner, and before bed, so as to reach as many people as possible. At the same time, pay attention to the frequency of posting. It is recommended to post no more than 6 Weibo posts a day, and there should be more than 2 hours between each Weibo post, otherwise it will easily make users feel tired.

Data source: Weibo Data Center

(4) Choose the right content to capture users’ attention

In terms of content, you should choose practical and exclusive content, communicate with colleagues in product development, obtain first-hand information on the product, launch relevant topics and sections of content, provide product manuals and precautions, share them with users as soon as possible, and take the initiative. For example, a certain cosmetics company shared and communicated with users while the product was still in the R&D stage in order to win user favor. When a new product was launched, it held a limited-time flash sale on Weibo, and the shares were sold out in just three minutes.

Tips:

● When the number of likes, reposts and comments is small, first consider whether it is a problem of small number of fans. More likely, it is a problem of content. Users can be guided to like, forward and comment through activities or blog posts.

● You can use the Micro Index to analyze the popularity of keywords, that is, select relevant keywords for search queries to see the popularity trends.

IV. Conclusion

The role that Weibo brings to enterprises is self-evident. It can increase the number of fans of the enterprise's Weibo, gain more attention, let more people know about the existence of the enterprise, and enhance the company's visibility. When a company encounters a product crisis or a spokesperson crisis, it can be used as an emergency public relations channel to solve the problem in a timely manner and prevent the damage from escalating. You can also sell products on your corporate Weibo and offer limited-time discounts, limited-time flash sales, and other activities.