如果想通过社交媒体提高品牌知名度，社交团队会在脸书上发布新的帖子，制定 Instagram 策略，并在推特上发布健身工作室的日常生活。但是，如果你大部分的目标市场都无法使用这些社交平台，尤其当你的目标市场是中国时，你该怎么办呢？

正因为此，创建官方微博账户是在中国建立品牌知名度的重要步骤之一。

虽然中国的13亿人口占世界人口比例最大，但中国的网络通信具有极大的局限性。一些主流社交平台，比如脸书、Instagram、推特及谷歌等被政府封锁。因此，中国发展出一些极强大的本土社交平台。在这些平台中，新浪微博和微信是最受欢迎的，拥有超过7亿的活跃用户。虽然微信被认为是微博的最大竞争者，但是两个平台提供的用户体验有极大的不同，这也吸引了不同属性的用户，所以成功的企业会同时运营两个平台账户。

我们来了解一下微博吧。

什么是微博?

新浪微博是一个建立于2009年，提供微博客的服务网站。截至到2012年，70%的中国互联网用户已经注册了个人微博账户。简单而言，微博是中国版本的推特和脸书。它是一个基于用户关系的信息分享、传播以及获取信息的平台。官方微博账户可以帮助品牌更好地开拓市场，并与潜在客户沟通。

每个帖子限制140字符、9个图片及1个视频，包括在微博平台内使用的话题标签。用户可以通过微博发布及分享大量信息，高频率发布微博是一个微博账号成功的不可或缺的因素。与推特类似，微博是基于用户关系的平台，其信息传播是单向性的。但两个平台在内容传播上却大有不同，微博用户发布的内容相较推特用户而言更具私密性。

如何使用官方微博账户

想要扩大会员数据库的企业可以在微博创建官方微博账户。企业账户相较个人账户，有更多的定制功能，例如品牌展示、产品分析、用户分析、以及客户服务等。

如何运营官方微博账户

刚刚创建企业微博账户时，有可能会觉得微博使用以及功能设置很复杂。但有了具体的营销计划后，你可以通过下述方式增长微博用户，扩大市场范围，并增加粉丝互动：

1. 明确目标

运营微博账户最关键的部分在于基础。你需要运用 SMART 原则（明确性、可衡量性、可达成性、相关性）设立一个明确的目标。比如，在6个月内新增1000名用户。精准的目标会帮助公司在社交平台上发展得更快。

2. 寻找目标客户

与微博账号进行互动的用户不仅仅是同一个群体。因而，公司需要制定更适宜的社交媒体执行方案。你应该关注的四个主要群体是：目标市场、客户、公司员工及其他受众。在发布内容前，确认以下问题的答案：

• 发布的内容是针对哪个目标市场？
• 你对每个市场都有了解吗？
• 发布这篇帖子的目的是什么？（报名、购买、收集邮箱地址、粉丝互动、用户增长）
• 如何推广发布的内容？（话题标签、背后动机、内容标签、与其他公司合作）
• 这对完成公司最终目标有帮助吗？

3. 记录观察小时数据

坚持不懈是成功运营一个社交账户的关键因素。只有定期发布内容，才可以保持账户活跃度以及增加粉丝互动。微博会记录用户在线时间，你的粉丝也可以看到。你也许有最棒的营销方案，但是长期与用户缺乏互动，用户数量将会直线下降。互动的类型包括发布内容，转发，评论，点赞，分享他人信息等。

4. 利用微博来提高品牌知名度

微博提供诸多社交功能供用户使用，包括：

• 微博直播：与脸书和 Instagram 的直播相似，微博也提供同样的功能。用户可以直播现场访谈，或是实时活动，并与粉丝进行互动。
• 微博投票：品牌可以通过微博投票系统来进行市场调研，并直接收集用户信息。许多企业支付高额的服务费来了解市场需求，而微博免费的投票系统可以让一切都变得非常简单！

5. 策略

作为社交媒体营销的一部分，你需要为微博定制特别的策略，以便在众多品牌中脱颖而出。这意味着，你不能复制推特平台的营销计划，不能发布同样的内容，不能照搬运营模式。微博内容需要本土化，并符合市场需求。如果你有在社交平台上投放广告的预算，并在其他平台上取得了不错的效果，你可以通过下列两个方式在微博上投放广告。

首先，你可以在微博上进行博文推广，就像在脸书上一样。确认预算，追踪点击率、喜欢次数，以及用户数量。创建广告非常简单，但广告投放功能仅限已认证的微博账户使用。已认证微博账户的另一个优势是在推广博文时，针对必需的广告主可以选择花费较少的推广方案，当有需要时再选择完整的推广方案。

6. 内容类型

微博的发布信息的方式与脸书和推特十分类似。常用方式包括：

• 文章
• 图片
• 链接
• 照片墙
• 活动
• 用户转发
• 引用
• 更新

微博已经成为世界上使用频率最高的社交平台之一。为了更好地帮助品牌发展，你需要通过发布有趣的信息以及品牌相关内容来保持用户粘性。

 

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So, you want to work on your studios’ social media. You’ve set up regular Facebook posting, an Instagram strategy and are Tweeting all the little things that are going on in your studio.

But, what happens if the bulk of your market, especially if you’re based in China, can’t see any of these platforms?

Because of this, setting up and promoting your studio’s Weibo account is one of the most important steps for you to take in order to build your presence in China.

The 1.3B people in China represents the most populated country in the world, yet it also represents the most heavily segmented and restricted space for digital communication. As the world’s most popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google are blocked, the country has developed a number of extremely powerful localised online community platforms. Of them, the most popular are Sina Weibo and WeChat, with over 700 million daily users. Although WeChat was classified as the biggest rival to Weibo, the platforms provide such different experiences and draw significantly different demographics that successful businesses know the benefits of having both.

Let’s have a look at Weibo.

What is Weibo?

Weibo is a microblogging platform that was launched in 2009. By 2012, 70% of Chinese internet users had registered their own Weibo account. It’s basically China’s hybrid of Twitter and Facebook. Its one-to-all communication style makes it one of the most important ways corporate accounts can reach their market and interact with potential customers.

Each post has a limit of 140 characters, up to 9 photos and 1 video, and includes hashtags as part of the platform’s format. Weibo is about mass distribution of information, and frequency is a key component of successful Weibo accounts. It works on the follower-followee type of relationship between members, where information can be unidirectional – similar to Twitter. One difference between the accounts though is the type of posting – Weibo members are notably more personal in their posts compared to Twitter users.

Weibo for your business

For business users looking to connect with and grow their current member base, corporate accounts are available for most organisations and groups. The profile provides a number of features and functions unavailable to personal accounts including business specific page displays, analytics, as well as profile monitoring and customer service tools.

Steps to successfully run your business’ Weibo

When you first make your company’s Weibo account, you might feel overwhelmed by the ins-and-outs of the platform. But, with some planning and direction, there are a few ways you can grow your Weibo followers, expand your market reach and increase interaction:

1. Clarify objectives

One of the most important steps in developing your Weibo account is in the foundation. You need to have a clear objective in mind, that is, setting a SMART goal (specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time sensitive). For example, one goal could be to gain 1000 followers in the next 6 months organically. This will keep you accountable and focused on progress.

2. Find your audience

There is never just one group of users who will be in contact with your Weibo account. As a result, you need to design your social media strategy accordingly. There are 4 main groups you should be looking at: your target market, your customers, your employees and the wider audience (everyone else). Ask yourself these questions when posting:

• Which market is this going to target?
• What do you know about each market segment?
• What is your goal for this post? (sign ups, purchases, email collection, interaction, followers)
• How are you going to spread this piece of content? (hashtags, incentive, tags, including other companies)
• Does this contribute to our overall goal?

3. Start logging the hours

Consistency is key for successful social media accounts. The only way to increase your profile’s activity and gain valuable interaction from members is to put in the hours. Weibo recognises the number of active hours, and your followers will notice too. You may have the best marketing in town, but without high levels of direct interaction, you won’t get the followers you desire. Types of engagement include posting and reposting to your wall, as well as commenting, liking and sharing others’ posts.

4. Use Weibo features to your advantage

There are 2 special social technologies within Weibo that you should become very comfortable using. These include:

• Live Weibo: similar to the Facebook or Instagram live features, Weibo gives you the same opportunity. It allows you to live stream an interview any other real-time event whilst interacting with users
• Weibo voting: Weibo’s super useful built-in polling system is a perfect way to for brands to survey their members and gather invaluable information straight from the source. Companies pay tens of thousands to find out what their market want and this is an extremely easy and FREE way to do so!

5. Tactics

As part of your social media plan, you need to think of some Weibo specific tactics in order to make any noise in such a crowded platform. This means your twitter strategy can’t just be repurposed, reposted and regurgitated onto your Weibo account – the content needs to be localised and targeting this new platform’s audience. If paid advertising is in your budget and has worked for you on other platforms, there are 2 main avenues for this in Weibo.

Firstly, you can promote a post on Weibo just like you can on Facebook. You can set a budget and track clicks, likes and follows per dollar spent. The set up is very straightforward but is only available to verified accounts. Another benefit of having a verified account is the ability to pay for repostings, with less expensive options from people you don’t have a choice in, to more expensive options for when you do.

6. Content types

The type of content posted is what makes Weibo so similar to Facebook and Twitter. Useful content types of posting includes:

• Articles
• Images
• Links
• Photo albums
• Events
• Member reposts
• Quotes
• Updates

Weibo is already one of the most used social media platforms in the world. In order for your business to succeed, you need to make sure all that traffic is being kept on your page through interesting and relatable context.