Due to the huge popularity of social media in China, real-time
listening command centers are becoming more common place. And
brands are increasingly prepared to modify their strategies on
the fly as a result of monitoring social media.
In China, 76% of netizens (users of the Internet) create
original social media content, compared to just 24% netizens in the
US. CIC, a Kantar Media company, has seen comments on Weibo
increase from 500,000 in January 2011 to 8 million in August
2012.
Key Numbers
- 76% of Chinese netizens create original social media content
- 800m combined number of Sina and Tencent weibo users
- 13m monthly comments on beauty brands in China
CIC has plenty of examples of brands using social media
monitoring: for social CRM, China Telecom and Dell provide
real-time customer service by engaging with complaints and concerns
on Weibo. For direct sales, the beast, a flower shop, actively
tweets romantic stories and followers can order flowers via direct
messaging. For reputation management, cosmetic brands monitor
real-time consumer reaction to frequent media reports about "toxic"
ingredients.
The London 2012 Olympic Games provided a great chance to see the
impact of real-time listening and engagement in
action. The most popular engagement tactic was
"spoofing" the most talked about content. For example, when
netizens began to comment on Mr Bean at the opening ceremony,
popular dating website Jiayuan photoshopped Mr Bean surfing the
site for a Chinese date.
A social media listening command center can be challenging to
launch, but it offers an amazing opportunity to engage with and
learn from the largest Internet population in the world.
You can read more in this article: 'The Value Of Listening Campaign Centers' in
Campaign.