China Tech Companies Are Better At Social Media

Since I’ve started following Weibo accounts, I’ve noticed a big contrast between the way Chinese tech companies use Weibo and American tech companies use Twitter.

American companies use it primarily to pimp themselves and their products. It’s basically non-stop advertising. It’s all about them.

Chinese companies do some pimping too, but they also provide actual useful information for users.

A good example of this is Xiaomi which, in-between running a bunch of contests for their users (instead of serving themselves, as most American companies do), today gave their users information on what to do if their phone is lost or stolen.

The Weibo communique:

Chinese:

#小米手机学院#【手机万一丢失 隐私安全怎么办？】第一步：登录小米云服务定位手机，清除所有数据；第二步：立即挂失，拨打运营商电话，办理停机保号业务。第三步：冻结帐号、修改密码后解绑手机里各种聊天软件。第四步：尽快拿着身份证等证件到营业厅补卡，恢复使用！详细见图片，欢迎转发收藏！

English:

# # [College millet phone in case of loss of privacy handset how to do? 】 The first step: Sign millet cloud services to locate the phone, erase all data; Step two: Immediately report the loss, call the telephone operator, handling security number of business downtime. The third step: to freeze the account, unbundling phone to change the password after a variety of chat software. Fourth step: holding identity cards and other documents as soon as possible up card to the operating room, recovery use! See detailed pictures, welcome to forward collections!

And the attached graphic that illustrates the steps:

I’ve also noticed that Chinese tech companies tend to do fewer postings in the course of a day. If they do a ten a day, that’s very high — and when it’s high, it’s usually for their users, such as announcing the winners of a contest. The very-social companies do five to six posts.

And not everything is product or company-related.

See this Weibo from Xiaomi …

Get up every morning and suddenly found himself when the phone was gone! ! ! (Figure rpm)

… which must be clicked through for the full effect.

And this Weibo from Onda (which makes little sense when translated, but the attached graphic says it all).

Chinese tech companies will also send out notices of product reviews at sites. And they’ll also “retweet” users. The overall sense is that this is real social media — not just a new way to advertise.

And yes, there are also Chinese tech companies that are horrible at social media, not doing any postings until they have something to sell. What they mainly do with their silence is make people wonder if they’re still in business!

But the Chinese tech companies that are best at social media put Twitter-using American tech companies — with their larger scale and revenue and budgets — to shame.