Alibaba and Sina released “Weibo for Taobao” version on August 1, 2013. Before that, they had linked their accounts, and cooperated in various areas, such as exchanging and sharing their user data, online payment and internet marketing, etc. They combined social media and E-business platform to explore a totally new area: Social Commerce.
Billion User Base with Improved User experience
According to iResearch, in June 2013, the common visitors of Sina Weibo and Taobao accounted for 39.3% of total visitors, with 130 million users.
After their accounts linked, they have improved their user experience and get huge benefits.
- Convenience for user log in: user can use either Weibo or Taobao account to log in the two platforms.
- Easy to switch platform: user can buy products through “Card” directly and share their interests via posts. User also can jump to Taobao via Weibo.
- Advertising: the huge benefit for Taobao seller is that they can do advertising and internet marketing through Sina Weibo.
Alibaba: Get User Data and Avoid Cannikin Law
From the aspect of Alibaba, they acquired benefits listed below after cooperating with Sina Weibo.
- Internet Marketing: Sina Weibo can provide extra internet marketing model besides “Taobao Zhitongche” advertising.
- Data: Alibaba acquired user information and data from social media platform Sina Weibo. Alibaba also can do data mining accurately based on social media users’data.
- Cannikin Law: Alibaba has shortage in mobile areas,by cooperating with Sina Weibo, they avoided Cannikin Law and improved their mobile areas services.
Sina Weibo: Acquire More Information About Shopping and Ready to Commercialize
According to Q2 2012 Sina finance report,their revenue reached USD 10 million in advertising which showed great commercial value of social media platform.After cooperating with Alibaba, they can easily acquire data from e-business sellers and customers. They can perform data mining and improve their advertising and E-business.
