How I Convinced a Colleague to Join Weibo

Some people might heard of Weibo. It literary means "micro blog" in Chinese, which is basically, you know, Twitter! Although there are many Chinese social media companies try to replicate the Twitter's success, they were luckily blessed because Twitter is blocked out from the majority of Chinese Internet users. Sina.com was the first to introduce "Wei Bo" in China, and since then the word "Weibo" is recognized among the users and became widely popular.

At a business dinner with one of my colleagues in Shenzhen, I asked the question whether they use Weibo. And I was stunned to hear a quick "no" from a colleague at similar age. With over 100 Million subscribers at that time, Sina's Weibo by itself is already a white-hot topic among many Chinese citizens and is especially among the 20-40 years old. I asked my colleague why, and his answers was that he was too busy to "waste" time on tracking and listening strangers online.

I then put my "techie" hat on and tried tried to convince him that Weibo is about sharing information with more transparency and efficiency. My colleague argued how busy his life is. He travels often as a marketing person. He visits customers during the day and answers emails in the evening. He has a new born baby that cries at night, and he has to spend most of his weekend helping his wife with housework. Where is the time and energy left for Weibo?! The arguments flied back and forth, and I even dragged another lady at the dinner table who's also a Weibo activist. He could not be convinced.

I decided to give a last try and took a different approach. Knowing that Chinese parents constantly search for safe milk powder after the "contamination-gate" took place in China, I asked my colleague if he would be interested in finding where he could buy imported, safe milk powder quickly and easily. "Of course" was the quick and easy answer I expected. Thereafter, I really didn't have to sell much once I realized my customer's "needs". I told him that he could easily find out from Weibo by searching the key phrases. There are people on Weibo want to promote and sell their milk powder. There are also many groups of Chinese parents on Weibo that share their milk powder shopping experiences. Although I've never tried myself for none of these, I was pretty certain of my assumption at the time.

The story goes that after a couple of month, I visited Shenzhen again and had another lunch with the same guy. He told me he joined Weibo that night when I told him about Weibo would help him find good milk powder quicker, and he later found it was indeed very interesting to "play with". He followed a few celebrities and told me that he saw different personalities of the celebrities from his previous perceptions.

I am not a sales person for Weibo or Sina, but since I believe the product's value in life, I wanted to share it with people who also can use it in better ways. I convinced him of its value by understanding his needs, and I called that a home-run for marketing!