How does social media help marketing?

With the rapid rise of SNS websites and media platforms with strong social attributes, such as Weibo and WeChat, not only the general public is faced with a sense of panic that my eyes, my hands and my heart have nowhere to put, but also brands often feel blind when telling stories. Social media platforms not only lack unified division and standardization, but also the behaviors of social media users are relatively complex, and the public's cognition of social media is relatively vague. When we engage in online marketing, are there more marketing options besides effective media exposure?

Kello China recently released a white paper entitled "Kello's Professional Insights into Social Media". The data provided in it shows that 100 is a social media platform among the top websites in China at present, and this does not include social channels such as Sina Blog and Tencent Weibo, which are still very popular portals without independent domain names. At present, Sina Weibo, the most popular media platform in China, ranks seventh in traffic, and Douban ranks 23rd, followed by Tianya and Renren, ranking 24th and 25th respectively.

In these various media platforms, according to the different user attributes and marketing order of different social media platforms, each social networking site has unique advantages with segmentation characteristics, and plays its own communication and interaction role in online marketing.

The differences in user relationships and content attributes reflect the essential differences between different social media platforms. The user relationship of social media originates from the strong relationship in real life, focusing on fun and entertainment experience; Weibo users' relationship intensity is weaker than social media, and they pay more attention to information transmission. Blog is completely open, focusing on the in-depth knowledge of a certain field.

In social media, SNS users are mostly "commentators" and "contacts", and the interaction between users is higher than other platforms; On the Weibo platform, 37% of users are authors, who create a lot of content and spread it quickly; In BBS forum, users mainly play the role of "commentators", so the trend of public opinion is mainly determined by the theme of the post.

Under the condition that the current media form is not standardized, marketers are easily misled, but in fact, although social media is more aggregated than the previous media form, the media classification method of "one divided into three": self-owned media, winning media and buying media is still the most suitable media combination method.

To sum up, the best usage mode of domestic social media platforms can be summarized as: 1. Clarify the characteristics and capabilities of social media platforms; 2. Clarify the behavioral differences of consumers on different social media platforms; 3. Clarify the purpose and goal of communication; 4. Customize the marketing plan that reaches the target directly; 5. Manage and implement multimedia communication strategies.

The infographic below summarizes the platform characteristics, user characteristics, matching with communication objects and media attributes of major social media in China.