MSL China Executive Whitepaper

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

Creating a Weibo That

Supports Your Business
By Stephy Liu, Johan Bjorksten, Fiona Shen, Jason Zhou

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

About MSL China

Following the union with Eastwei MSL, MSL China is now a top
5 international strategic communications agency in Mainland China.
With 200 colleagues across 4 offices, MSL China brings together
over 20 senior consultants with more than 12 years of strategic
communications experience in this key global market. Part of
MSLGROUP Greater China, the largest PR & social media network in
the region today, MSL China provides knowledge driven, integrated
campaigns and advisory services spanning nearly every industry and
communications discipline. MSL China has received recognition from
the International Business Awards, The Holmes Reports PR Agency
of the Year, the China International PR Association and Chinas
New Media Festival for its creativity and effectiveness in strategic
communications and industry-leading social media offering.

About MSLGROUP
MSLGROUP is Publicis Groupes PR, speciality communications
and engagement group, advisors in all aspects of communication
strategy: from consumer PR to employee communications,
from public affairs to reputation management and from crisis
communications to event management. With more than 2,900
people, its offices span 22 countries. Adding affiliates and
partners into the equation, MSLGROUPs reach increases to 4,000
employees in 83 countries. Today the largest PR network in Greater
China and India, the group offers strategic planning and counsel,
insight-guided thinking and big, compelling ideas followed by
thorough execution. Learn more about us at: www.mslgroup.com+
http://blog.mslgroup.com+ Twitter+ YouTube

In February 2011, MSL China published the whitepaper

Best practices in Chinese microblogs which discussed
a hot topic: should organizations leverage the new
weibo phenomenon for communications, and if so,
how? Half a year later, most companies in China,
from consumer electronics, lifestyle and automotive
brands to industrial equipment providers and other
business-to-business companies are tweeting away to
reach target audiences with corporate and marketing
messages.
Some brands are doing this successfully, generating
wide attention and word-of-mouth from online
communities. But many corporate weibo accounts
seem unable to engage with the online community,
dont generate a lot of commentary. In fact, after the
initial rush of interest, we are starting to see users
defect from company accounts; some brands have
fewer and fewer followers. Some promotion methods
that seem to have produced initial results forward this
tweet to three friends and receive an award are now
often viewed by initial brand fans as an increasingly
counterproductive irritant; even when a few people do
participate, they have learned to immediately
cancel their subscriptions after receiving the
award.
Because of this, our clients are no longer
asking us should I launch a weibo initiative?,
but rather how can I ensure that my weibo
account stays fresh and continues to attract
increasing numbers of users, so as to remain a
sustainably cost-effective promotion channel

for our brand? Against this background, and given the

fast developments in the weibo arena, we felt that it is
again time to summarize the most useful recent best
practices in microblog communications to achieve
what we might call a passing grade on the corporate
weibo account.
In this whitepaper, we will take the most popular
Chinese microblogging service, Sina, as our point
of departure. We will then look at the reasons why
local readers choose to follow or cancel corporate
microblogging accounts. Against this background,
we will share some best practices from MSL Chinas
experience of managing weibo accounts for a large
number of Chinese clients. More specifically, in order
to get a passing grade for your weibo, we believe
marketers need to
Objectively assess the current status of their weibo
effort
Analyze the reasons targets groups follow or
cancel their accounts
Master six key weibo management tactics
Create a sustainable platform for daily maintenance.

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

Understanding the status of your weibo

5 Typical Types of Brand Weibo Communications
By looking at a large number
of corporate and organizational
weibo accounts, we have found
that they can be classified in
order of maturity into what we
ca ll a imless, tr a ditiona l,
content-driven, interactive and
strategic/business-driven. The
graph lists some of the typical
characteristics of each type, with
the most primitive efforts to the
left and the most advanced to the
right. Most current microblogs in
China fall into the traditional and

Aimless
Blindly
maximizes
number of
followers

Traditional
Communicates
using PR
methods from
traditional media

Contentdriven
Pushes
interersting and
relevant content

Interactive

Strategic

Provides platform
for interaction with
audiences

Content and
interactivity
support
communications
and business
goals

content-driven categories, while the weibo that tend to really attract

target groups are interactive or strategic. Let us have a look at the
reasons for this.

The Suning Campus Club brand account displays over 700 posts
but all are nearly identical, and there is no audience interaction.

Aimless
The two main reasons that some weibo fall into this
category are lack of persistence.The company opens
a weibo account without systems in place to ensure
long-term content or a basic failure to grasp the real
benefits of a microblog. The latter often results in so
called zombie accounts. The easiest way to spot
zombies is to compare the number of followers with
the number of forwards per tweet : the account may
have over a hundred thousand followers, but there
may be as few as three or four forwards of each tweet,

whereas a normal or live account would have a

much higher proportion.
There may two reasons for this discrepancy: the
number of followers has been faked, or content quality
is not interesting to followers. Many clients spend
large sums on hiring so-called digital consulting
companies who achieve a seemingly high activity in
whats called astroturfing: using automated programs
or college students. To senior managers who do
not understand
the mechanics
o f m i c r o b lo g s ,
results may look
good, but in fact,
such efforts rarely
provide real value
for money to the
co m p a n y. T h e
potential adverse effect can be serious: users resent
being duped, and when they find out, companies in
China have recently found themselves in the midst of a
media crisis or even litigation.

Traditional
These microblogs are the result of old-school PR
methods: basically, shortening press releases or other
corporate content to 140 characters to fit the new
weibo medium, but keeping the formal tone of voice.
Accounts in this category can be spotted by the fact
that there is almost no interaction, discussion and
forwarding. This is a very common phenomenon. In
fact, the majority of company weibo efforts currently
fall into the traditional category. The root cause is
corporate conservatism and a fear of experimentation,
and often a failure to understand how social media
function. Traditional weibos are often made fun of
online; in our opinion, they usually have an adverse
effect on the brand.

Content-driven
A content-driven weibo effort shows that the company
already has a fundamental grasp of social media and
how to leverage them for communications efforts; a lot
of fast-moving consumer goods, consumer technology
and IT, and lifestyle brands have already entered this
space. The brand tells interesting stories and has
developed a close rapport with readers. The account is
managed by a professional team who update specially
created content on a daily basis: content is rich and
varied, often contains a blend of text and pictures, and
has an informal tone-of-voice that feels natural to the
online audience. A good example is Louis Vuittons
acclaimed weibo account.

Interactive
In order to reach this level, the company must
leverage an experienced weibo team that is capable
of launching content that actively drives interaction:
interesting activities and engaging discussions
that hook followers and foster a close and lively
relationship with them; @ANNASUI is a good example.
Taken to the highest level, such interactivity allows
the weibo to rely mainly on UGC, User Generated
Content and generate IWOM, Internet Word-of-Mouth;
examples are @BananaTaipei (a stylish bag company

from Taiwan) and @QiongYouWang (famous travel

review and discussion website).
Banana Taipei, a fashion brand from Taiwan, is one of the best
examples of how to leverage KOLs and consumer generated content.
The weibo account has also been successfully integrated with the
brands Taobao store to drive sales.

Strategic
The highest-value microblogs combine content and
interactivity based on the brand personality to drive
a targeted and measureable online marketing effort.
The whole microblogging effort is aligned with sales
and branding objectives to become a long-term,
sustainable business tool. When we analyze these
accounts, it is clear that content is being generated
according to a long-term (more than six-month) plan.
We also find that they are usually closely integrated
with other communications channels and activities.
In order to achieve these results, the weibo team
must have firm objectives, a sustainable strategy, a
well-defined online brand positioning, and a detailed
execution plan for content and interactivity. Of course,
the team must also be experienced and have the
staffing to execute the strategy on a daily, sometimes
hourly basis. Moreover, the communications team
must be structured in such a way that weibo content
can be aligned with other social media, traditional
advertising and PR, as well as sales campaigns and
other marketing efforts. Some examples in this
category are award-winning accounts such as @mini
China (Mini Cooper China), @durex, @Singapore
Tourism Board and @IKEA.

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

Why users follow or cancel

weibo accounts
Let us now look at the reasons that the above

the professional weibo communicator needs to

categories are so important for our analysis. Why

understand what makes online audiences tick.

is it that most company efforts fail to reach the

strategic level? The reason is simple: marketers

These answers are very much in line with our own

fail to understand user preferences, are unable to

experience from managing accounts: if you want to

establish real dialog and interactivity. Because of this,

succeed, you need to use themes that are logical and

there is no strategy to talk of, and the weibo account

relevant to users and interesting content that is in line

fails to generate business results. So just as every

with the brand image. Thats easy to say, of course

good marketer starts by looking at consumer needs,

but how should one go about achieving it? Lets have a

look at some concrete tactics.

Why do people follow a brand account?

The Weibo Poem

A popular internal MSL
China posting on the
principles of weibo
management. The posting
quickly went viral amongst
our consultants a great
example of how creative
format generates buzz and
increases the impact of
communications.

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

Getting to the passing grade

designing a high-ROI company
microblog
Six pillars of brand weibo operation

movie itself. If you dont do this right, you risk diluting

the brand or giving it a split personality. Establishing
the tweet image avoids this by explicitly deciding the
tone of voice, style and positioning of weibo content.
Some companies hire legions of students to fill their
microblogs with content; if this is your approach, you
will need to spend significant effort training a bunch
of teenagers to adopt a style that is engaging and for
other age groups: if you want to attract and keep 2835 female consumers, you need to make sure your
tweets are at the right maturity level. You may need to
train your actors to be versatile enough to support a
variety of brands aimed at different target groups.

Weibo contents

Tweet content
Tweet tone
You need to listen before you can tweet.
Before you launch the weibo, you must
establish a daily listening system which takes in not
only what followers are saying on your own account
(which is often influenced by your own editorial
activity) but also listens to whats going on in the
microblogging environment at large: what your target
group are saying when they are in their own forums.
Continuously analyzing the larger blogosphere is
the most important input for your strategy. Once
you understand what your audience needs and what
they care about, in essence allowing you to balance
your supply with the demand for various types of
content. Our colleague Gaurav Mishra calls this finding
the Social Heartbeat.

Tweet image
In this respect, weibo marketing is no
different from traditional marketing: in
the end, you are trying to create a clear image and
positioning in the minds of your target group. Building
a brand is like building up the image of a personality
in a movie: the script determines how the actor should
interpret the role; if the script is good enough, you can
exchange the actor without changing the style of the
The IKEA weibo image
Love family, love life at
home
Simple, honest
Pragmatic
Always provides
small surprises
Helps you find the
happiness and beauty
in everyday life

The brandsweibo positioning sets the stage for content, tone-ofvoice, design of interactive activities and follower management
@IKEA is a good example of a microblog with a personality that accurately
reflects the brand image. This clear positioning is one of the reasons that
the IKEA weibo is currently ranked higher than any other home furnishing
brand on Sina. The positioning also helps us maintain a relaxed, natural
flow of tweets that gain user comments such as IKEAs weibo content
is sweeter than first love and every time I get an IKEA tweet I feel like
building myself a home.

Content is king nowhere is this

m o re tr u e tha n i n s o ci a l m e d i a .
Brands and users communicate through content
and activities. As a result of the weibo revolution,
marketers are rediscovering the need to market
great content in addition to great products. You need
to begin by understanding what kind of information,
entertainment and other content users will be looking
for in your online brand space. One example is the
analysis from DCCI below on usage habits in the 70s,
80s and 90s generations; the differences between
age groups are clearly significant.
Since microblogging is a high-frequency communications
channel, the need for content becomes huge. We
categorize content as company-generated, usergenerated, timely and opinion leader cooperation.
As a very general rule of thumb, a ratio of 6:2:1:1 is
about right; but this of course varies significantly
between different companies, products and brands.
Company generated content can be produced using
what we call the tweet content matrix: this includes
positioning and style, target group characteristics
and the business and communications needs of
the company. The tweet content matrix ensures

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

that your weibo maintains a consistent editorial

style despite the fragmented nature of the
channel, makes it easier for the weibo team to
execute on the strategy as well as launching
opportunistic tweets based on ongoing events
without compromising the look and feel of
your account. The clearest example is the use of
#XX# tag series (in general, we recommend
using tags for themed campaigns; these can
be designed according to a topic tag creation
process which is illustrated below together with
the tweet content matrix.
In addition to the company-generated content,
leveraging a certain amount of user-generated
content is an effective tool. By finding ways of
encouraging audiences to contribute, which can
include active campaigns to solicit contributions, you
should generate at least the minimum level needed
to ensure that the weibo is truly interactive and doesnt
degenerate into a one-way loudspeaker.

results if you plan it well. Audiences tend to be

increasingly turned off by simple send this to three
friends and get a prize activities, so you need to find a
theme and reason to participate that is not trivial.

Brand account cooperation

engagement and involvement; in order to attract

weibo followers, we need to create an interactive
or, better yet, viral, promotion. We also need to
coordinate and integrate all online platforms:brand
weibo account, home page, campaign minisite, SNS
pages and so on.

It sometimes makes sense to implement co-branding

efforts with other official brand accounts, allowing
the to build on each others popularity, just as when
two people introduce each others circles of friends
to each other. There are several types of cooperation:
Brand cooperates with sub-brands or brands in the
same group is a ususal approach. A typical example
is th e co o p e r ati o n b et w e e n th e H o n g Ko n g
Tourism Board and local commercial brands; by
leveraging the popularity of local brands, and
multiplying their effect under a common umbrella,
the marketer creates a win-win situation. This also
creates an official endorsement of the individual
commercial brands, providing support for their
credibility and loyalty.

Brand cooperates with brands accrosing industry

can make surprise towards follows. This can create
an image of openness, liveliness and participation
for the brand, by leveraging common interests in the
target group. Such activities are not easy to design;
they must be carefully selected not to give a forced
impression. For this reason, it is used rather sparsely,
but we believe it is worth spending more effort in
this area. A successful example is the cooperation
between Trendmicro and Durex.

Competitions and awards

Tweet interactivity
As we have seen, content and interactivity
are the two key components that dovetail
to make a weibo truly attractive to users.
There are many kinds of interactivity; in order to build
your weibo into a marketing powerhouse, you need to
choose those activities that will attract your particular
target group. In this way, the account will come alive
and become a platform of two-way interchange. In our
experience, some of the most useful activities are:

Minisites and apps

If yo ur b u d g et a llow s , a n d co nsi d er in g th e
characteristics of your target group, launching a fullblown campaign supported by advertising on minisites
or apps can still generate good value. However, you
need to align the activity carefully with the positioning
of your brand. But even if the campaign relies mainly on
advertising, we still need to ensure that it encourages

This may be one of the most hackneyed and overexploited online tools, but it can still generate good
Using weibo to distribute content from influential KOLs is a great way of
promoting products and events. The Puma Social campaign featured
celebrity model Pace Wu, who already had a large weibo following, in
real-life events. Her weibo posts generated strong online buzz and wordof-mouth.

Combining weibo activity with traditional media and

other offline promotions. Many brands currently do
Brand cooperates with brands in the same industry
is conducive for winning fans.The Singapore Tourism
Board cooperates with travel and tourism portal eLong
in a fans interactive activity using awards and other
straightforward incitements to participate, generating
substantial attention for both accounts within an hour
of the activity.

this successfully, but there are two especially easy

ways of doing this which companies often disregard:
You can promote successful online activities such
as awards to generate print publicity in real-life
interviews, forums and panels; we can also leverage
digitial tools such as weibo to engage traditional
stakeholders journalists, experts and officials
before the physical activity takes place.

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

Technical tools like this weibo voting widget used by Hotel.com

can effectively help brands to understand consumer preferences
and behavior. The campaign provided incentives to consumers
who fed their information into the widget.

Coordinating with other online platforms

Many of our clients ask us to support in driving traffic to the
home page or e-commerce platform; we have found social
media, and weibo especially, to be a great complement to
traditional traffic support like Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) and click-through advertising. This is confirmed by
the DCCI figures below. Coordinating the brand's entire
online presence is becoming a must for successful internet
marketing.

When you search for the brand online, you will often find
that the weibo receives high rankings on the search engines,
in essence becoming the brands second face in addition
to the home page. By considering how target groups look
for information, and in particular their search behavior and
search terms, you can create tweets that frequently contain
the most popular phrases that users are looking for.

Tweet follower relations

By relations, we mean the way the
brand responds to online commentary
and how well it understands the needs and behavior
of followers. As a rule of thumb, no question or
negative comment should be left unanswered for
more than 48 hours. We always try to involve the
clients PR department and often Customer Service
department in drafting a standard weibo discussion
FAQ document. This document is usually an adaption
of traditional standard operating procedures from
customer service documents, where the language has
been revised to better suit the online environment.
We also try to ensure that the style reflects the
personality of the brand itself. The content of replies
should be practical, focused and to the point; but also

straightforward, personal and colloquial, making it

easy to read. Address users by their online nicknames
and avoid using polite forms of address.
Actively responding to questions and criticism is useful
both as a way of increasing interaction and dialog,
and as a way of adapting content to user interests and
needs.
In addition, analyzing followers in depth is also an
important part of managing the account. One way is
to simply conduct surveys and voting activities on the
account itself. We also recommend using add-ins or
widgetssuch as the Weibo Positioning Billboard

(), Weibo Fan Analysis ()

and Wei Fenxi () as analysis tools.

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

KPI
In our previous whitepaper,
we explained how to use
a number of generally applicable KPIs
(Key Performance Indicators) such as
number of followers, and number of
forwards. But as the weibo marketing
environment matures and companies
establish more specific goals for their
weibo activities, these metrics are no
longer enough. To capture the ROI of
our weibo effort, we need to combine

KPI of Weibo Account Influence Analysis

Follower Quality Index
Number of
followers

Number of followers

Active followers

Number of active followers

Percentage of active followers

Verified followers

Number of verified followers

Percentage of verified followers

Popular followers

Number of popular followers

Percentage of popular followers

Number of
sub-followers

Analyze the number of sub-followers (followers of each

follower) using theappropriateplug-in

Zombie followers

Number of zombie followers

Percentage of zombie followers

several qualitative and qualitative

metrics that better reflect our marketing
objectives and can provide input for
ongoing strategic improvements.
Based on experience, we suggest

Demographics

Age, gender, education, income,

geographical distributtion, etc

Topical Interest

Analyze follower interest and preferences

from comments and questions on our content

Brand Interest

Users comments and voting to analyze

the level of brand liking and loyalty

followers to marketing target group;

content attractiveness; and degree
of interactivity. These measures are
interrelated: no matter how influential
our followers are, if we want to achieve
marketing objectives, we must also
understand how closely they reflect our
target group.

A clear strategy is not enough; an effective weibo

the five categories the companys weibo belongs

initiative also relies on professional and efficient

to, there will be different tasks and priorities. Most

day-to-day management. Based on experience, the

of our clients ask us to strive for the most advanced

MSL China team has collated a checklist of the most

option: a strategically integrated weibo initiative that

important tacticts, listed in chronological order from

directly supports the companys communications and

inception to measurement. Depending on which of

business objectives.

Follower relevance

using a set of practical KPIs, including

influence of followers; proximity of

Brand weibo checklist

Engagement with content

Average number of forwards
of original postings
Average number of comments
on original postings

Proportion of original and

user-generated content

Average participation in activity, for example

uploads, forwards,comments.
Increase in follower number as result of
activity
As a rule of thumb, proportion of original
and user-generated content should be
3:1, but this depends on specific
circumstances

Relative proportion of positive, negative and

neutral comments

Engagement with brand

Relative proportion of positive,
negative and neutral comments
Direct effect of the weibo marketing effort this can be analyzed
using consumer survey tools,
focus groups or informal gatherings of weibo followers

Integration with other social

media platforms
Consumer dicussion and buzz around brand
outside the brand account.
Number of external links
Store traffic and sales

Brand Weibo Checklist

MSL China Executive Whitepaper

In this whitepaper, we have tried to provide a strategic recipe for weibo success. But in the end, no matter
how good the strategy, the extent to which your companys employees embrace microblogging will be the
key to success. The MSL China weibo team consists of a bunch of expert weibo enthusiasts, but we have
found that this is not enough; we must get all employees to become weibo ambassadors of the company.
Today, many of our employees are active on our own @MSL China account. Even our hoary old directors
have joined the weibo craze. @them if you have the chance!

Weibo management is like a love affair: even if you can achieve instant
passion using a few short-term marketing tricks, the real challenge is to build longterm attraction. You need to nurture trust and emotional rapport between your
brand and its followers; every now and then, you also need to provide a surprise
or especially romantic moment to keep the flame alive. Successful brands dont
try to generate love at first sight; they devote themselves strategically to creating
those deep and honest interactions that foster life-long relationships.