There are over 1.1 billion registered users on WeChat and over 900 million who use the social app on a daily basis. As the WeChat platform pushes its WeChat Pay payment processing services overseas, there are now 900 million people who use the payment service as well - this is including users in China and users travelling abroad overseas.

WeChat has continually added new functions to make the value proposition to business owners more and more attractive. We have noticed a significantly faster registration process for overseas official accounts as well, allowing users to pay the verification fee using their credit card of WeChat Pay.

So with WeChat still in its growth phase with a big push to gain more users outside of China, why would a business want to be on Weibo?

Weibo has been referred to as ‘Chinese Twitter’, since its platform also has a limit of 140 Chinese characters per post and users on the platform are there to get quick updates. Though WeChat may appear to be the ‘hot’ app everyone wants to be on, Weibo has its own merits.

Here’s a quick snapshot of Weibo user stats:

• 600 million registered users

• 465 million monthly active users

• 203 million daily active users

• 90% of users access the app on mobile

• 49.90% of users are female

• 50.10% are male

• 832,000 advertisers are on the platform

The main attraction of Weibo for users are the celebrities that are actively posting their daily news and updates on the platform. It’s common for celebrities to make announcements on the Weibo platform, so users are on the platform reading the lastest ‘breaking news’ entertainment gossip.

Another selling point is Weibo’s quick and easy format of the posts - the short-format content is easier to absorb, in comparison to the long-form articles that are posted to WeChat official accounts.

If WeChat official account news articles can be compared to long-form news stories, like a news article in a magazine, then Weibo posts is similar to reading just the headlines of these news articles. Each of the platforms serve a different purpose. Whereas WeChat started as a messenger platform and has been gradually adding the social and news component to its platform, Weibo started out as a social platform focused on news sharing, and with continued activity from famous celebrities in China and around the world on the platform, Chinese users will continue to use the app. There is another ‘hot app’ that celebrities are starting to pick up, called ‘Douyin’ in China (and “TikTok” overseas) - but the activity level is much higher on Weibo as of this writing, and celebrities cross-post their Douyin posts onto their Weibo platforms as well.

In summary, if you are a celebrity or a consumer brand, it is beneficial to have an official presence on Weibo, because this platform is where Chinese consumers go to get the latest news. Sports teams like the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks have tens of thousands of followers on Weibo, and supermodel Coco Rocha has 7 Million followers.

The Weibo advertising platform is also more developed in comparison to WeChat Moments Ads, which still has plenty of functional restrictions for overseas companies. You are able to target using geographic, demographic and psychographic filters.

Want to learn more about how an official Weibo account and advertising can benefit your business? Contact us today at info@catalystagents.com.

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