IH Digital named Sina Weibo's Official Agency in Southeast Asia

          Sina Weibo has appointed IH Digital as its official agency in Southeast Asia.

          The partnership allows IH Digital, Asia's 360 Digital Marketing Agency, to provide Sina Weibo advertising solutions and Weibo account verification services to businesses outside China; in the capacity of Sina Weibo's official agency. These services will be provided via IH's offices located throughout Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and The Philippines.

          Sina Weibo: The Chinese Twitter x Facebook hybrid

          With over 600 million users as of 2017, Sina Weibo is one of China's largest social media platforms where users create, share, and discover Chinese-language content.

          Evolving from what was initially a microblogging platform akin to Twitter, Sina Weibo has since developed into a fully-integrated platform for content aggregation and distribution -- not unlike the Chinese Facebook -- with long-form content, multi-media and video streaming features; the latter's addition securing Sina Weibo's place as the leading social media platform in China due to its unparalleled use by Chinese celebrities and KOL (key opinion leader) users.

          Adopted by businesses for social media marketing since 2011, Sina Weibo allows enterprises to promote their brands, products, and services to the platform's large base of Chinese social media users. Sina Weibo offers a wide variety of advertising and marketing solutions, ranging from social display ads, promoted feeds, to event-based ad and activity solutions.

          Reaching out to Chinese Tourists on Sina Weibo

          Preliminary estimates by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) show that Chinese tourist arrivals and spending in South East Asia hit record highs in 2016. Chinese tourists were the biggest spenders for the second year in a row, contributing a total of S$1.9 billion just last year alone.

          "Singapore experiences an influx of 250,000 Chinese tourists on a monthly basis. Lately, there has been a surge in the number of Chinese Free and Independent Travellers (FIT) using digital platforms as their main sources of travel information. We believe that attracting them via Sina Weibo is the most effective method," says Mr. George Foo, Chief Operating Officer for IH Digital.

          "While WeChat and Weixin (the WeChat version available to mainland Chinese -- restricted to businesses with operations in China) allow enterprises to offer highly personalized services to individual stakeholders, Sina Weibo excels for businesses seeking to drive awareness, engagement, and leads amongst Chinese consumers. In particular for businesses who do not have established operations in China, but are looking to reach Chinese consumers, Sina Weibo is the best Chinese social media platform for them to build awareness and credibility."

          Given that China's digital landscape is unique, Foo emphasized that businesses outside China should have a specialised team to support their advertising campaigns on Sina Weibo.

          "We are a multinational team. The local talents are armed with the necessary expertise to tackle both the Chinese and Southeast Asia markets. As such, we are able to support advertisers who are interested in reaching out to the Chinese outbound travellers."