Analysis of China's future micro-blogging market pattern

Since 2009, Weibo really entered China, the domestic micro-blogging market has not been launched for a long time has been in full swing.

As competition intensifies, how will China's future micro-blogging market be divided? What are the main factors that will be affected by these determinants? How will the seating of several portals be ranked in the field of Weibo?

Is it 321 or 631?

For the differences in product characteristics, if the first do not consider Tencent Weibo, Sina, NetEase, Sohu three other portals according to market share to divide the words will be what kind of situation? is 321 (the first one occupies 3, the second occupies 2, the third occupies 1), or 631 (the first occupies 6, the second occupies 3, and the third occupies 1) pattern.

Unlike ordinary information-related products, Weibo has three core elements: User, user relationship, and flow. If it's just a scramble for information, the most likely scenario is the 321 pattern. And because there is an emphasis on interactive "user relationship" this element of the existence, but will enlarge the gap between each other, more likely is the pattern of 631.

From the perspective of long-term competition, the most valuable core users are the opinion leaders with social relations and high interactivity.

The competition in the first stage of Weibo is reflected in the competition for the various celebrity resources. The number of celebrity resources occupied by each house determines the rank of its current stage. At present, on the whole, the share of Sina Weibo is 2, NetEase micro-blog and Sohu's share of the microblog is 1.

At the same time, there are some structural differences between each other. The core users on Sina Weibo are more active in interactivity than the other two. NetEase Weibo and Sohu Weibo compared to Sohu Weibo in the entertainment advantages of more prominent, but the other aspects of the importance of a lower degree of access to resources is significantly less, this and high-level decision-making philosophy has a relationship. NetEase Micro-bo overall in the access to the resources of the relatively balanced, financial progress is also more significant, in the field of economic scholars have basically reversed the situation.

Will this pattern continue? Can celebrity resources be the only determinant?

Another commanding point.

If the first stage of competition is to the core users of the competition, then the second stage of competition is the user-scale competition, two aspects together determine the level of their commercial value.

The user scale is mainly affected by two factors: 1, celebrity resources to the user groups of the partition. Who occupy the two aspects of celebrity resources more, the corresponding user groups will be a bit larger; 2, the product characteristics of the user groups of the partition. The characteristics of the product are mainly embodied in the function and user experience, different types of user groups (for example, different gender, different occupations, different ages) have different preferences for product characteristics. There is an obvious instance, in the blog competition era, Sina blog to celebrity Strategy first, NetEase blog after the move, and ultimately in the user scale but beyond the former, a major factor is NetEase blog with its distinctive minimalist style has won a large number of young groups of love.

In six months to one year, the micro-bo market competition is mainly focused on the competition for celebrity resources, in this time period, several portal sites according to their respective celebrity resources, the formation of the river seat will continue. But in the gradual transition to the user-scale competition stage, because of the celebrity resources and product characteristics of the user group formed a double partition, the pattern will be very likely to be broken, thus forming a new sphere of influence.

From this point of view, Sohu Weibo in the second phase will face the greatest pressure, there are two reasons: First, entertainment highlights, other aspects of the loss of this structural imbalance will make Sohu Weibo development is not enough, in the user group is not fully mature, the entertainment as a single main battlefield practice is very dangerous, The extension space of its user scale is limited after all, secondly, from the angle of promoting the scale of the users, the range of products that can be integrated is very narrow. Tencent can integrate QQ, QQ space, etc., NetEase can integrate mailbox, so far, NetEase's multiple mailbox brand's overall market share is still the most. All these will increase the user size of Sohu Weibo pressure.

Comprehensive consideration of the seating position in the next stage of competition, from the point of view of the number of users, the most likely is Tencent Weibo, NetEase micro-blog, Sina Weibo, Sohu Weibo; from the angle of influence the most likely seating is Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, NetEase micro-blog, Sohu Weibo.

(Note: The author is netease financial micro-blog Commissioner, this article only represents its personal opinion, and its own unit.) ）

Wenma