Foreign stars give weibo a go
August 1, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
SO effective is Chinese weibo in promotion and marketing that Western celebrities are using it too, but finding the initial euphoria fades fast. A new platform tries to fan the buzz. Li Anlan reports.
Sina weibo, China's wildly popular Twitter-like social networking platform, has more than 300 million registered users and has become a favorite way for Chinese celebrities to communicate with their fans.
The top 10 accounts, those with the highest number of followers, are all Chinese celebrities in the entertainment industry, including actors, singers and TV hosts.
Actress Yao Chen (known for her performance in the comedian TV drama series "My Own Swordsman") tops the ranking with 22,847,183 followers as of today and has published more than 5,900 posts since she joined in 2009. Most of her recent posts get thousands of comments.
It must be noted that China's online world is often filled with fakes and paid shills who post and comment to boost ratings.
So effective is weibo in promoting people that Western celebrities in a range of fields are signing up too. Some are a flash in the pan, some endure, some just want to keep their name out there and hopefully build a Chinese fan base.
Thousands of non-Chinese celebrities have weibo accounts; Koreans and Japanese are quite successful.
But it's far more difficult for Western stars to keep the buzz going, even when they post in Chinese.
"The celebrities overseas who have signed up on Sina weibo are mainly in finance, technology, entertainment and media, as well as international politicians," says a staff member at Sina who declines to give his name. "Sina has rich resources for media and we invite celebrities and users to experience weibo when we are interviewing them."
The same verification criteria apply to both Chinese and overseas individuals and corporate or organization accounts.
In February 2011, American actor Tom Cruise officially joined Sina weibo and posted greetings in both Chinese and English. He has made a go of it and has more than four million followers, the highest among foreign celebrities owning a Sina weibo account.
In June, a website named FansTang was launched. It's a communications platform for international sports and entertainment celebrities and aims especially for interaction with Chinese fans. Stars post in Chinese as well as English.
The website also collaborates with weibo and social media sites Renren.com to reach a wider audience.
Celebrities on the FansTang roster include Chace Crawford, Matthew Morrison, Paris Hilton, Linkin Park, Jason Mraz and Chuck Hayes, among others.
Aware that China is a huge market, they update regularly and post on other social media websites.
"In terms of selecting the celebrities, when starting the business, initially the goal was to sign up celebrities, with less focus on the relevance of that celebrity to the Chinese market," says Adam Roseman, founder of FansTang.com. "Now as we've progressed, the focus is exclusively on the celebrities who are very relevant to this market."
Initial euphoria
When an international celebrity opens an official weibo account, the greeting message usually receives thousands, even tens of thousands of responses since people are excited to see that stars they like are part of the community. When American actor Chase Crawford from "Gossip Girl" TV series wrote his first FansTang post, he said, "I'm excited to now be able to share updates with all my Chinese fans. Thank you for your continued support and talk to you soon." It was translated into Chinese and received more than 8,000 comments and 13,000 reposts.
American actress Katie Holmes has 66,332 followers. Action star Dwayne Johnson, or The Rock, has 130,000 followers. But a glance at the official weibo accounts of international celebrities shows that public interest soon drops off after the honeymoon and first several messages. And it keeps declining, unless there's some activity to boost it. It is the same true of FansTang.
Paris Hilton updates her FansTang status but she gets fewer than 50 responses; still, she has more than 500,000 followers. This is a common phenomenon with many accounts, since it is difficult to really narrow the distance between fans and celebrities. TV shows and music are not enough.
According to Roseman, the aim is to provide as many opportunities for interactions as possible, including bringing celebrities to China for commercial appearances and endorsements.
Devices such as giveaways also generate attention. In July there was a drawing on weibo for signed photos of Crawford, and that post got more than 50,000 reposts. The next project is to invite two fans to visit the site of American TV series "Nikita," which stars actress Maggie Q. Still, some Western celebrities give up.
Australian Hugh Jackman, famous for his role in the "X-Men" films, joined weibo in September 2011. He had 117,627 fans and had written only 39 posts when he stopped using the website in January. He shared photos with friends such as Brooklyn Brawler and information about his film "Real Steel." The response to his daily life updates was low, only in hundreds. His last weibo message read: "Happy New Year... here's to a safe, healthy and peaceful new year. All be happy."
It's not uncommon for accounts to go cold. A year ago, British actress Emma Watson, who played the Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" series, joined weibo, posting, "Hi everyone, this is the real me (@EmWatson)! Very excited about my new weibo page. Love, Emma x."
Watson wrote nine posts in five months and stopped using weibo in December, though her posts received thousands, even tens of thousands of reposts and comments.
Sina weibo, China's wildly popular Twitter-like social networking platform, has more than 300 million registered users and has become a favorite way for Chinese celebrities to communicate with their fans.
The top 10 accounts, those with the highest number of followers, are all Chinese celebrities in the entertainment industry, including actors, singers and TV hosts.
Actress Yao Chen (known for her performance in the comedian TV drama series "My Own Swordsman") tops the ranking with 22,847,183 followers as of today and has published more than 5,900 posts since she joined in 2009. Most of her recent posts get thousands of comments.
It must be noted that China's online world is often filled with fakes and paid shills who post and comment to boost ratings.
So effective is weibo in promoting people that Western celebrities in a range of fields are signing up too. Some are a flash in the pan, some endure, some just want to keep their name out there and hopefully build a Chinese fan base.
Thousands of non-Chinese celebrities have weibo accounts; Koreans and Japanese are quite successful.
But it's far more difficult for Western stars to keep the buzz going, even when they post in Chinese.
"The celebrities overseas who have signed up on Sina weibo are mainly in finance, technology, entertainment and media, as well as international politicians," says a staff member at Sina who declines to give his name. "Sina has rich resources for media and we invite celebrities and users to experience weibo when we are interviewing them."
The same verification criteria apply to both Chinese and overseas individuals and corporate or organization accounts.
In February 2011, American actor Tom Cruise officially joined Sina weibo and posted greetings in both Chinese and English. He has made a go of it and has more than four million followers, the highest among foreign celebrities owning a Sina weibo account.
In June, a website named FansTang was launched. It's a communications platform for international sports and entertainment celebrities and aims especially for interaction with Chinese fans. Stars post in Chinese as well as English.
The website also collaborates with weibo and social media sites Renren.com to reach a wider audience.
Celebrities on the FansTang roster include Chace Crawford, Matthew Morrison, Paris Hilton, Linkin Park, Jason Mraz and Chuck Hayes, among others.
Aware that China is a huge market, they update regularly and post on other social media websites.
"In terms of selecting the celebrities, when starting the business, initially the goal was to sign up celebrities, with less focus on the relevance of that celebrity to the Chinese market," says Adam Roseman, founder of FansTang.com. "Now as we've progressed, the focus is exclusively on the celebrities who are very relevant to this market."
Initial euphoria
When an international celebrity opens an official weibo account, the greeting message usually receives thousands, even tens of thousands of responses since people are excited to see that stars they like are part of the community. When American actor Chase Crawford from "Gossip Girl" TV series wrote his first FansTang post, he said, "I'm excited to now be able to share updates with all my Chinese fans. Thank you for your continued support and talk to you soon." It was translated into Chinese and received more than 8,000 comments and 13,000 reposts.
American actress Katie Holmes has 66,332 followers. Action star Dwayne Johnson, or The Rock, has 130,000 followers. But a glance at the official weibo accounts of international celebrities shows that public interest soon drops off after the honeymoon and first several messages. And it keeps declining, unless there's some activity to boost it. It is the same true of FansTang.
Paris Hilton updates her FansTang status but she gets fewer than 50 responses; still, she has more than 500,000 followers. This is a common phenomenon with many accounts, since it is difficult to really narrow the distance between fans and celebrities. TV shows and music are not enough.
According to Roseman, the aim is to provide as many opportunities for interactions as possible, including bringing celebrities to China for commercial appearances and endorsements.
Devices such as giveaways also generate attention. In July there was a drawing on weibo for signed photos of Crawford, and that post got more than 50,000 reposts. The next project is to invite two fans to visit the site of American TV series "Nikita," which stars actress Maggie Q. Still, some Western celebrities give up.
Australian Hugh Jackman, famous for his role in the "X-Men" films, joined weibo in September 2011. He had 117,627 fans and had written only 39 posts when he stopped using the website in January. He shared photos with friends such as Brooklyn Brawler and information about his film "Real Steel." The response to his daily life updates was low, only in hundreds. His last weibo message read: "Happy New Year... here's to a safe, healthy and peaceful new year. All be happy."
It's not uncommon for accounts to go cold. A year ago, British actress Emma Watson, who played the Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" series, joined weibo, posting, "Hi everyone, this is the real me (@EmWatson)! Very excited about my new weibo page. Love, Emma x."
Watson wrote nine posts in five months and stopped using weibo in December, though her posts received thousands, even tens of thousands of reposts and comments.
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