Learn From Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo is not a pull somebody’s leg. It’s the hottest microblogging service in China now. It consumes 90% market shares of China’s microblogging services, with extra than 140 million users in a reduced amount of than 2 years, while Twitter gained 200 million users in a reduced amount of than 5 years. It’s new, it’s hot, and it’s becoming larger and stronger.
I was a dedicated addict of Twitter for around 2 years, but I chose to convert to Sina Weibo recently. I’m ultimately pleased with the Sina Weibo, and in this placement I’m vacant to catalog out 8 fastidious things with the intention of Twitter can really learn from Sina Weibo, which also serve as possible reasons with the intention of why Sina Weibo can advance 140 million users in just a reduced amount of than 2 years of its realms, beating all other China microblogging services.
1. Threaded Annotation
Apparently most thriving microblogging services in China, such as Tencent Weibo and Sina Weibo, focus heavily on making addict’s social feedback simpler in their own services. The reason is pretty straightforward, we human are social creature, consequently we distress about what others reckon about us, and threaded annotation is really a huge plus in making the entire feedback tracking process simpler.
What’s the deal of the threaded comments? Water supply, in Twitter you have to browse the @mentions to see what people reckon about your tweets, and persons commenting tweets are even mixed with other commenting tweets with different topics. With threaded annotation, you can see all users’ comments, properly sorted under your tweet by just one click.
With viewing the annotation outfit of addict’s tweet, you can also add your own annotation in the box provided in the annotation thread. You can add @username to remind the author or any people about the tweet, or click on the ‘Comeback’ button located on the right feature of the commentator’s tweet to comeback the commentator. So you can see how addict-friendly is this threaded annotation feature, as all comments and replying actions are made in a release section, annotation thread.
2. fatty Media
One of the Sina Weibo’s facial appearance with the intention of most microblogging users praise about is its ability to insert rich media like images, videos, music, emoticons, and even polls without any plugin vital. This sparks a really fascinating argument between bloggers, do microblogging service really needs these facial appearance? The answer is absolutely yes, as if you’re the Sina Weibo’s addict, you can probably see the images and videos pretty much existed in most tweets.
Surprisingly, the rich media offers far extra than what you can presume. By just looking on the emoticon feature, it has finished 400 emoticons for you to use! Youngsters in China have fastidious interest on before a live audience emoticons, so this is a cult feature for them. There are also fun images provided by Weibo in image feature, which also pretty much serves like emoticons.
You can also upload video from your own computer, or just partaking the link from video site, and it will show thumbnails about the video, how friendly. The best business about the video feature is, if you partaking the link from supported video sites like Youku or Tudou, you will be capable to view the video without even leave-taking the site, a fantastic strategy for Sina Weibo to retain the users in its site!
One extra notable feature is the ability to start a poll by any addict, and it’s not just like the vital poll feature (Inquiry) of the Facebook. You can place in the description, options, influence whether users can choose release or manifold options, and ultimately, set the visibility of the poll and its end date, really complete and awe-inspiring feature isn’t it?
3. Micro Topics
Micro Topics is a relatively new concept in microblogging services, implemented by Weibo. It’s really straightforward to know, Weibo takes any tweet with the intention of’s related to fastidious theme, at that time make an unique leaf for all users to view and discuss the fastidious theme. For occasion, one of the hottest topics now is the World Of Warcraft Cataclysm, so a dedicated leaf is bent for WoW gamers to discuss about the game and its newest patch.
Micro topics is also very helpful in spreading news and knowledge. Aspire to discuss about the most recent Cisco’s issue happened in China? There’s a leaf for with the intention of. Aspire to know some killer tips to protect fit? There’s a leaf for with the intention of. Aspire to impart your kindness diary? There’s a leaf for with the intention of!
Water supply if you like the theme, there’re a tweet box with tags added for you to impart the theme on your own profile immediately, or you can push the link on the top of the theme’s leaf to promote the theme to your friends. I must convince with the intention of I’m really addicted to this feature, and the thought is austerely ingenious.
4. Trends Categorization
Alright, so what will you do every time you aspire to try out up the hottest trends in Twitter, but persons top 10 hot trends are not in your interest catalog? I encountered this issue very often, but I no longer have the constant issue in Weibo, as Weibo has a dedicated leaf for trends, literally named as Enter of Fame. Be the hottest trends of last hour, or now or even this week, Weibo’s Enter of Fame is permanently prepared to tell you what are trends with the intention of users really into in the specified time.
Categorization is ruler when it comes to sort overloaded trends, and Weibo scored full marks on this part by categorize all hottest trends into several categories such as all-function, sport, entertainment, finance, gaming, travelling, just about everything people might be interested about!
In the Enter of Fame, you can view the initially 10 hottest trends by the category, and you can probably dig into extra trends by click on the ‘Try out Out Extra’ link from the respective category. You can at that time view the left over 40 hottest trends in the category or, water supply, if persons trends soothe cannot satisfy you, you can even track back the hottest trends by setting the date located on the right feature of the leaf, fantastic!
5. Verified Account & Hall Of Celebrity
Verified Account is particularly bent for celebrity and well-known people, and you will be treated extra like celebrity if you registered a verified account of Sina Weibo. The reason? Sina Weibo wants persons celebrities shine even extra, so again, as you might have expected, they bent a dedicated leaf for highlighting celebrities, literally named as “Hall of Celebrity”.
What’s really fantastic about the Hall of Celebrity is its detailed categorization. Sina Weibo categorizes celebrities very water supply into several key categories like entertainment, sport, finance, tech, etc. At that time, inside the field like entertainment, there are even extra sub categories such as actor, musician, and entertainment executives. Also, newly tied celebrities do not call for to agonize about their fame will be roofed by elite users, as there is also a section which featured celebrities who just tied the world of Sina Weibo.
In the leaf, addict can either choose their favorite celebrities to follow, or austerely click on ‘Follow All’ button to follow all celebrities in the fastidious field. I can know why Weibo treats celebrities so seriously, as the celebrities themselves got tonnes of fans, so retaining them in the Weibo is the key strategy to convert their fantastic dedicated fans into loyal users.
6. Honor Reward System
Why is honor reward system existed in Sina Weibo? Since it’s fun, and it encourages users to tweet extra! Water supply everyone is a gamer by nature. We kindness to play game, and we loved earning reward with the intention of makes us proud in with the intention of fastidious game society. Sensing the benefits, Sina Weibo has implemented a very fascinating honor reward system to let users have fun on earning medals for confidential enjoyment or show-off.
If you reckon this honor reward system is just a game, you are underestimating Weibo. Water supply the entire system is not just about fun, but also one of the strategic plans in Weibo’s business ecosystem. Brands such as Nike and Transformers really partnered with Weibo to market their products by place forward medals, which mostly demand users to go fastidious action like retweet about their actions.
This is also a really clean marketing strategy for the brands as it not release helps to spread the consequence message, but also allows the logo of the brand to be exposed in users’ profile as a honor. Weibo has even built a leaf to introduce, promote and remind users about persons medals with the intention of are associated with fastidious consequence or brand.
7. Extra Style Templates
In microblogging services like Sina Weibo and Twitter, every profile is a confidential space. Even we’re not vacant to advertise ourselves, we hope to be different with any self else. We hope to have, at least some style templates with the intention of are not too common in the entire platform, and Sina Weibo solved this inquiry very water supply by providing finished 60 style templates, categorized into 5 groups which are ‘Newest Promotion’, ‘Classic’, ‘Make’, ‘Teach’ and ‘Actions’.
Of course, if you’re not pleased with these templates, you can permanently do it physically by using the template builder. With the builder, you can define font affect, place custom social class picture, apply tile social class and adjust the picture’s alignment. Pretty much like Twitter’s template builder, so you won’t have problem on customizing your own style template if you’re Twitter-converted addict.
I believe most of you will question how about using Themeleon, a service with the intention of contains tonnes of quality theme designs for Twitter? Water supply, I kindness Themeleon very much, but it’s absolutely excellent to have extra built-in design as it takes extra steps to authorize the Themeleon and apply the design to the Twitter, not to bring up with the intention of Themeleon lacks of excellent categorization and loads of people soothe do not know much about the concept of authorization, even causing some of them agonize about their privacy.
8. Weibo Consequence
Finally it’s a first concept with the intention of Sina Weibo brought to the microblogging service, Weibo Consequence. Weibo Consequence is vacant to revolutionize your concept about microblogging service from a place with the intention of collects everyone’s thoughts together, to a place with the intention of gets everyone caught up and have fun together!
Yes, with Weibo Consequence, you are not just limited to see what other people are tweeting, but also union actions with the intention of other users are union, sparking extra tweets and fun! There’re thousands of actions categorized into ‘Community Consequence’, ‘Prized Consequence’ and ‘Online Consequence’, with a few grand actions featured on the top of the leaf. Most Weibo Actions are sponsored by companies or persons, so get ready to chat your tough bring about with prizes!
I in person reckon this is a fantastic feature with the intention of gives people one extra reason to stay in the Sina Weibo. In earlier period we can release see what people are tweeting, and may be union fastidious conversation, and some people will eventually get bored with this repetitive cycle. With Weibo Consequence, we gather together to involve in fastidious actions, thus we don’t release win prizes, but also make new friends all owing to the consequence. Users can also promote the consequence to non-users, cheering them to join the Weibo for their actions.
Conclusion
So you can probably see with the intention of every major feature in the Sina Weibo exists to attract new users, retain elite users, and encourages all users to tweet extra and have extra fun!
But the war has just started. According the news from Huffington Placement, Sina Weibo is preparation its English translation platform to compete directly with U.S. based Twitter. I reckon the war is pretty tough for Sina Weibo, as Twitter is by now a greatly established microblogging service throughout the world, but hey, MySpace was once the social media behemoth with the intention of was ultimately taken by Facebook.
So what do you reckon about the competition between Twitter and Sina Weibo? Do you reckon with the intention of heavily censored yet feature-rich Sina Weibo will take finished the Twitter as the mainstream microblogging service? Or Twitter will ultimately defend its realm with, may be, new feature? Which new feature you will like to see on Twitter? Kindheartedly let us know your plotting!