The heavy storm yesterday afternoon in Beijing flooded some areas and stopped the operation of several lines of subway. However, there were a few lessons marketers can learn on social media marketing on Weibo from how some Chinese companies took advantage of the storm.
Lesson 1: Monitor the conversation & take advantage of trending topic
A Weibo user, whose seems to produce funny and humorous content, posted a few photos of him using a few Durex condoms as protection of his shoes from the rain, which was “retweeted” by some of his 8000 followers. In two minutes after the post was published, Durex’ official account “retweeted” this post to over 100K followers and interacted with people who replied.
At the time of writing this post, this single post was “retweeted” to over forty five thousand times with over seven thousand comments.
Lesson 2: prompt response to customers concerns via Weibo
Kuaishubao.com, an online book retailer, posted a message on its Weibo account assuring its customers that books would be delivered if the rain stopped before 6pm; if not, books would be delivered the next morning. Their customer service staff also made calls to customers about the delay.
Lesson 3: create fun on trending topics
Baihe.com, an online dating website, published this post on their official Sina Weibo account:
Here’s the translation if you can’t read Chinese:
[Beijing storm] The world’s most romantic thing is enjoying the “sea” view in the office at work, and seeing the “waterfalls” in the subway…
This post was “retweeted” over thirteen thousand times with over 1870 comments.
