Microblog: helping online shops reach out to cunstomers in a new way

 

   I am a big fan of online shopping in Taobao and sina microblog. As a matter of fact, both of them are very popular in China now. Considering that microblog is a new and widespread social media tool, no one can ignore its influence on this society. The online shop in Taobao marketplace is no exception. Since the majority of other countries’ people know little about microblog and Taobao marketplace, next, I will make a rough introduction of them.



http://www.weibo.com/

  Microblog is a broadcast medium in the form of blog. It’s very popular in China now, especially in some big cities and among the young people. Microblog differs from a traditional blog that its content is typically much smaller, in both actual size and aggregate file size. And it allows users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images or videos. (source from Wikipedia) In all, maybe I can use a formula to summarize this tool:  microblog = twitter+facebook+youbube+news. And a video from YouTube can let us have a general understanding of this tool.

 

 



http://www.taobao.com/index_global.php

   Taobao marketplace is the largest website for online shopping, founded by Alibaba Group. It facilitates consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online retail stores. (source from Wikipedia) With the online shopping becoming more and more common and popular, many people, especially the youth, regard Taobao as their mainly shopping destination. However, compared with the large corporation, most of the online retail stores can’t afford the fee to do some research in this market and survey their consumers through some professional companies or experts. Consequently, microblog is an easy and useful way for them to listen and talk to their customers, energize their stores and help their customers support each other.

What’s more, I will use an example to demonstrate this issue. Eunchae’s house is a store, I shopped a lot when I was in China, that mainly sells cosmetic product and some interesting stuff from South Korea.( http://eunchae.taobao.com/) The storekeeper has a microblog account(http://www.weibo.com/eunchae) that helps her a lot in the selling. Next part, I will take Eunchae’s house as an example to talk about how microblog help the online shops reach out to their consumers in a new way.
 1.  Listening. Since the most of whom play microblog are young people, as well as those who prefer to shop online. So the target audiences are microbloggers, which means that shopkeepers can use this tool to listen to their consumers and better understand them. The shopkeeper Eunchae introduces some new products in the microblog and makes a simple survey whether her consumers will like it or not.

2. Talking. It’s more likely that consumer will search their microblog than shop in the online shop every day. So shopkeeper Eunchae will put some advertisements— part of the products are in a big discount or you can post your comments of the products you have used before  to earn the present—in the microblog , which can spread her ideas to her target audiences.

3. Energizing. Based on the function of the microblog, you can @ your friends to share something interesting with them. So when consumers think that this store is deserved to shop in and the products inside are high quality, they will let their friends know.

 

 

 

 

4. Supporting. Considering that consumer will post some reviews of the products they used, exchange some information about the products or resell something that are unsuitable for them, other consumers can get some advices from microblog. It means that they can support each other from this tool.
 

 

 

  In conclusion, microblog is a useful and efficient tool for online shopkeeper—it is worthy to have its place in their groundswell strategies. For online shopkeepers, keeping an eye on their target audiences is crucial to the success.