What happened
China's Twitter equivalent, Weibo, has become a major conduit where luxury brands can communicate with Chinese consumers. On July 15, Weibo hosted a panel titled: Empowering Luxury Innovation and Expanding Brand Influence. With Weibo’s edge in social listening and data tracking, the social media giant explored social interaction opportunities for its luxury partners.
The panel highlighted how luxury brands could leverage the social platform to elevate their social assets, with case studies of successfully presented virtual runways on Weibo. Of particular importance in these sessions were conversations about connecting brands with celebrities and their fans. Meanwhile, the panel offered solutions for luxury players looking to connect with younger Chinese generations via two typical trends with growing popularity: golf and esports.
The Jing Take
Social platforms have become an indispensable tool for a brand's digital transformation. Given that China has its own unique social and e-commerce ecology dominated by leading tech giants, luxury players have been cooperating with them to map out their digital matrix. And Weibo plays a crucial role in understanding social followers, optimizing marketing tactics, and branding.
From H1 2020 to H1 2021, the overall social traffic of luxury-related content on Weibo reached 168.2 billion, marking a 70.3 percent year-on-year increase. This growth rate was driven by multiple factors. First, discerning brands have experimented with innovative online and offline activations since the COVID-19 pandemic, such as livestreams, exhibitions, and runway presentations in multifaceted formats. But also, Weibo owns the strongest celebrity and KOL networks of all social platforms in China. That allows brands to leverage celebrity power, gain new customers, and maintain high social stickiness with followers.
In addition to duplicating basic social initiatives like posting campaigns, brands can also collaborate with social platforms to explore more in-depth and tailored content. This approach will help them reach their target segments and niche communities while also maintaining their relevance to Chinese digital natives.
The Jing Take reports on a piece of the leading news and presents our editorial team’s analysis of the key implications for the luxury industry. In the recurring column, we analyze everything from product drops and mergers to heated debate sprouting on Chinese social media.