It’s your data, we want you to have it… One of the most time-consuming parts of reporting is collecting all the data. It can be manual tedious work and we want to free up your time to do more important tasks. Now with KAWO you can effortlessly export any of your social stats. Simply search… Keep reading…
“Content is King, but distribution is Queen and she wears the pants” – Jonathan Perelman, BuzzFeed So it applies to your social media marketing on Weibo. Creating awesome content is the first step to success, but just as much effort should be put into promoting your content to make sure it is seen by the… Keep reading…
In this world of fake news and online scams it can be hard to know what is real on the internet, this is especially true in China. To combat this, Weibo has a complicated world of options to verify your account and let your users know they’re getting the real thing. Once verified you get… Keep reading…
In May, a pop-up tea store named Sang Cha (丧茶), roughly translated into ‘depressed tea’, opened in Shanghai for four days. This store was instantly a huge topic filling my WeChat moments and Weibo feed. Young people shared photos and jokes about the quirky concept which says mean things to their customers like… “You’re already… Keep reading…
The list of western personalities on Weibo just got bigger with a heavy weight name: Stephen Hawking. The world famous theoretical physicist wrote his first Weibo post early this morning, which was shared more than 172,000 times and has generated 327,000 likes at time of writing. “In my physical travels, I have only been able… Keep reading…
We recently released a new feature that helps you pick the best time to schedule your content. Since then we’ve had a lot of questions on how we were able to do this, so in this blog post, we’ll dive into some of the technology behind this feature. Data + Machine Learning = Insights Machine… Keep reading…
Our developers have been working hard to expand KAWO’s limits beyond the already available features. In addition to managing your content and internal communication needs, we want to help you make better choices for your brand in order to maximize engagement. That’s why we are launching the “Intelligent Scheduling” feature for Weibo! This new feature… Keep reading…
The social media era came along with a lot of new ways to communicate: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat are the big Western channels and Weibo and WeChat are the leaders in the East. It’s incredible what you can do with all of this social channels, but it can also be extremely challenging, as a… Keep reading…
With the release of KAWO v6, we have seen a host of new features take your Chinese social media game to a whole new level. One of the biggest advantages that we have at KAWO is an epic user base that is able to give us real-time feedback to help us improve our product. Having… Keep reading…
Weibo recently announced that it will soon remove its 140 character limit. You don’t really have to wait for this feature to be released, because making long Weibo posts is already possible. Here’s how. We don’t know if regular Weibo posts with their increased character limit will allow the embedding of rich media or markup. Two thousand… Keep reading…
It’s the “Super Bowl” of Chinese social media. “Le guerre finale” of digital marketing. The “Championship of Champagne Living”…okay, well maybe it’s none of those things but in reality the Chinese New Year presents digital marketers and brands alike with an unreal opportunity to cash in on an eager Chinese audience. And in the year… Keep reading…
Weibo has announced that it will soon remove its 140 character limit. This news comes only 2 weeks after Twitter confirmed that they are testing 10.000 character tweets. Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei has made public that paid Weibo members will have the new limit starting from January 28, while others will have to wait until… Keep reading…
Did you know that 11 out of 15 Weibo Account Managers don’t know when is the best day to post during Chinese New Year? I know, it seems shocking that over two-thirds of industry professionals don’t even know the best practice for doing their jobs. So, why does this matter? With brands trying to get… Keep reading…
Tip your favorite posts on social media? As in the way you (should) tip the lovely barista at the neighborhood café? What does that even mean? Well, it turns out that Weibo provides this feature to allow users to pay for those impressive articles, it called Da Shang(打赏) in Chinese. So, basically the user pays… Keep reading…
For the past 6 months we’ve been presenting our vision for social media management in China to Shanghai’s top agencies, with the hope that just a few of them share our vision with KAWO – to deliver greater transparency, more accountability, and better results for everyone. What started out as a learning exercise, soon made… Keep reading…
This is part one of an eight part series that aims to give you a social media view into various industries in China. This week we looked at the social media performance of twenty companies on Sina Weibo in the cosmetics industry from September 2015 to the end of November 2015. Here are the top… Keep reading…
Everything in this world exist for a reason, and the same goes for #hashtags. The most common function of hashtags that people know about is how they’re used to engage in topics and find pictures of a similar category. True enough, but hashtags actually have so much more to offer. For example, on Weibo, you… Keep reading…
In our archive, you’ll find some blogs underlining the importance of partnering up with influencer or KOL (Key Opinion Leader) in order to win the heart of the Chinese. You can read two of the blogs here and here. But among thousands and thousands of KOLs, how do you go about choosing “the one”? In… Keep reading…
Did you know that articles that contain images can get 94% more views than those that don’t? Better yet, were you aware that 93% of people surveyed say that visual imagery is the #1 factor impacting purchasing decisions? If these stats took you by surprise, you’re not alone. However, it also shows the need for… Keep reading…
It’s no secret that China has blocked some widely (read: globally) used social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat…the list goes on. With the help of VPN’s (Virtual Private Networks), mainland netizens (sometimes) can bypass “The Great Firewall” and surf on blocked websites. Nevertheless, not many netizens are willing to pay the… Keep reading…
For most companies, launching into China’s social stratosphere can seem like a daunting task. Among the ever increasing number of platforms, brands are often forced to enter the debate between China’s social goliaths, Weibo and WeChat. How are they different? Which is better? Is one replacing the other? To begin with let’s get this straight,… Keep reading…
A number of social media tools that currently exist only give you data and analytics on your activity. While that’s useful and pertinent, often times in the marketing and branding industry, how you’re doing against your direct competitors provides much more valuable insight to the digital traction of your brand. So, the question remains, “How… Keep reading…
This past weekend, our team had the opportunity to exhibit at RISE in Hong Kong. Despite there being over 500 startups in attendance, we were able to make some noise and meet some really cool people in the tech and startup scene. Here are some of the highlights: KAWO DOES PITCH 40 startups competed in… Keep reading…
Sina Weibo is a Chinese microblogging website. It is a hybrid between Facebook and Twitter, and is on of the most widely used social networking platforms in China. Brands are able to set up Weibo accounts in order to announce product releases, engage with their fans and followers, and to distribute brand relevant content. Here… Keep reading…
We’ve mentioned it a number of times on our blog, but the importance of KOLs is a topic worth revisiting. A KOL has nearly unrivaled influence on the masses when it comes to promoting your product or message, and they can assuage the process of achieving viral status on social media, which tends to be… Keep reading…
Multimillionaire megastar Taylor Swift – ‘three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing’. Whether this is a PR stunt or not, she and Apple have both received the attention they yearn for. News emerged on Monday that Apple had made a u-turn on… Keep reading…
Yesterday morning around 11 AM, Kobe Bryant made his return to the Chinese microblogging platform, Sina Weibo. The NBA star personally writes his own content on the account and has been an active user in the past as well, always causing Weibo’s huge population of NBA fans to get up in a wild bout of… Keep reading…
Even if you don’t log into KAWO everyday, we still send you an email when something important happens to your brand. Right now you can receive an email when the following events occur: A warning when your connection to Weibo is about to expire Your connection to Weibo has expired A post has failed to… Keep reading…
Chinese Netizens went into a repost frenzy on Monday afternoon when Apple CEO Tim Cook joined Sina Weibo, China’s biggest microblogging platform. We were also pretty excited to see Tim Cook join the platform, as he’s one of many recent celebrities (Ellen DeGeneres, PM Narendra Modi) to join the platform. Weibo user’s greeted the Apple… Keep reading…
Running an effective digital marketing campaign is one of the trickiest steps in the vast number of issues faced by Western brands and agencies seeking to enter the Chinese market. Western firms often fumble as they try to apply their tried-and-tested advertising tactics to Chinese social media channels such as Sina Weibo. At KAWO, we’ve… Keep reading…
Just a few days ago social media feeds around the internet blew up with the news that Twitter added a new feature: the ability to quote an entire post without taking up any precious real estate of your 140 characters. Little did they know, Twitter’s “innovative” new function was actually adopted from its Chinese micro-blogging… Keep reading…
Many factors can determine social media success, but in an atmosphere dominated and propelled by near real-time content, time and timing easily separate themselves as the most valuable prongs of social media strategy. The time when content is posted can be highly influential, which is why KAWO’s scheduling feature is engineered to help you reliably… Keep reading…
When you are a brand attempting to go global, one of the biggest challenges is maintaining a consistent voice across countries, time zones, and cultures. Likewise, if you are an agency representing multiple brands, it can seem nearly impossible to patrol countless social media accounts in order to find the best ones to post onto… Keep reading…
600 million registered users. 167 million monthly users. 69.7 million daily users. This is Sina Weibo. While the people are certainly there, how do you effectively reach them? Weibo gives you two options – Fengsitong (in-stream ads) and KOLs (key opinion leaders). Fengsitong The purpose of Fengsitong is for companies to push out information about… Keep reading…
By: Yujun Wu Have you ever wondered how to make popular Weibo posts? There are several ways to make posts stand out and help your brand interact with your fans. Keep it simple Although 140 characters may already seem very short, making your post under 10 characters can work surprisingly well. Keep in mind: sometimes,… Keep reading…
With the increase of disposable income and longer holiday periods, Chinese tourists are looking for more ways to spend their vacation time. To better attract these potential tourists, companies must meet them where they are – the Internet. In 2013, the number of Internet users jumped 2.3% from 618 to 623 million users. Of that… Keep reading…
By: Michael Lin The process of becoming a KOL (Key Opinion Leader) is rather mercurial. A chance overnight tweet can make you a pivotal influencer in the world of social media. On the flip side, you can spend potential years of persistence and dedication in order to position yourself at the forefront of opinion and… Keep reading…
By: Wenxin Huang Similar to western social media, Chinese Internet shorthand is comprised of idioms, acronyms, clever double meanings, etc. There is a wide variety ofChinese Internet slang, below are the main categories that currently exist. Acronyms and Initialisms: Trends of using acronyms and initialisms by Chinese Internet users startedwith SF, derived from Sofa, which… Keep reading…
By: Yujun Wu As the premier social media platform in China, Sina Weibo does a good job of integrating hashtags into the use of the platform. As is the case with the use of hashtags in Western social media, hashtags make it easy to track and monitor the amount of buzz a topic creates. By… Keep reading…
By: Micey Song What is the top platform in China? Where can people find the latest Chinese trends? Who has the most weibo users in China? The answer to all of these questions is the same: SINA weibo. As the top platform in China, SINA weibo is always developing new features to give users the… Keep reading…
After only four years of existence, Tencent’s WeChat is now one of the top mobile messaging platforms in the world. While some apps place most of their focus on one-to-one communication, WeChat distinguishes itself through its bevy of unique features. With everything from the quirky “Drift Bottle” feature to the ever-practical “Walkie Talkie” option, WeChat’s… Keep reading…
Contests are a great way to increase followers and engagement on Sina Weibo (who doesn’t like free stuff?). You’ve got your catchy post, your prize, and thousands of entries- all you have to do is pick the winner. Simple enough, right? Nope. Here’s where it gets complicated. Your first thought might be to choose a… Keep reading…
Like Twitter, popular phrases and topics are tagged with hashtags. Unlike Twitter, however, on Weibo, hashtags are preceded and followed by “#,” like #this#. Hashtags make it easy to follow a conversation stream and monitor the buzz around a topic. Not only is it a good idea to include hashtags you’ve created for events and campaigns… Keep reading…
The latest hot topic among those interested in China, tech, or some combination of the two, is the decline of Sina Weibo and rise of WeChat (Weixin in China) users this past year. Sina Weibo, China’s leading social media microblog platform, has over 500 million registered users and its real time updates make it similar,… Keep reading…
On January 15th, Manchester United launched their official account on Tencent Weibo – one of the leading social networks in China – with KAWO. Just 10 mins after launch the account had 5,000 followers, rising to 20K only a few hours later. China is a key demographic for football clubs, as evidenced by the growing… Keep reading…
CORRECTION: We misstated Liverpool as Bodogs official fan club in China as featured on the Kawo newsletter, however that is not correct. The official fan club of Bodog is Arsenal FC. Contests help build your fanbase and brand awareness, no matter what industry your company is in, but they require more work than just announcing… Keep reading…