A comparison of the electric quotient between Sina Weibo and Twitter

Last week, foreign media reported that Twitter was negotiating a partnership with Stripe, the former, who wanted to use the services provided by the latter to help retailers carry out their electricity business through the Internet and to launch services that would allow users to shop online from Twitter's social network. According to the news, in this partnership, Stripe will be mainly responsible for Twitter processing user Weibo submitted credit card payment requests.

It is reported that this service is now in the final stage of preparation, but not fully completed. Analysts believe Twitter's move suggests that Twitter, which has traditionally been social as its main business, has begun to seriously target brands, retailers and manufacturers to sell directly on social networking sites.

The history of Twitter's electric business

This is not the first time Twitter has ever had a phone call to a dealer. "Last February, Twitter and American Express (Anglo Express) launched a service to allow Express card holders to buy specific products on the Twitter platform, but only if they had synchronized their credit cards with Twitter accounts. At the same time, Twitter has had similar collaborations with Starbucks, where users can post specific messages after synchronizing their Starbucks accounts and buy Starbucks gift cards for their friends. ”

But whether it's working with the express company or with Starbucks, Twitter's electricity-supplier test is done in a way that works with outside companies.

"But in all fairness, Twitter has not yet embraced the business as much as it does now." According to two sources, Twitter is usually just the development of electricity-related products and then put them on the shelf. Twitter, for example, has developed a service called "Transfer to others via Weibo" (tweet to send money to others), and another version of "microblogging shopping" (Tweet to Buy) service, but these two services have never been officially launched. In addition, the company's support for the electrical business related projects has been changing.

The partnership between Twitter and Stripe was thought by the media to be a fresh start, as the company has renewed its huge interest in the use of electricity as a revenue strategy. Last August, Twitter had named Nathan Hubbard, former chief executive of Ticketmaster, a leading entertainment ticketing and marketing firm, to take charge of his own business.

Second, Twitter's electric business strategy

According to media reports, the type of electric quotient Twitter wants to build is similar to that of square harsh. "The portal to this platform could be a stand-alone feature and also appear on Twitter's main stream," he said. "They want to collaborate with large retailers and display checkout cards (check outcards) directly on the platform, rather than just using hashtag as an electric dealer." "said one source.

In addition, Twitter's strategy should be to do more on the front end of the commodity display platform, they do not participate in the back end of the link, which is the Twitter and stripe to achieve the intent of the reason.

But the problem with the square harsh model for businesses is logistics and after-sale. Twitter itself will not do the logistics, so that the delivery needs of the shopkeeper to fix themselves, the entity owner may not have opened the shop, services can not be standardized, followed by the sale, after the sale who to do? Twitter? or a seller? How to operate rights? These are the problems that Twitter dealers are likely to encounter.

As you can see, Twitter is still cautious about the electricity business. Whether through cooperation with third parties to understand the situation, reduce the risk of the practice, or only "front-end display" approach, there is no radical electric business practices.

But no matter what, Twitter's pursuit of liquidity will not change.

After talking about Twitter, let's look back at the domestic Sina Weibo.

Third, Sina Weibo's electric business exploration

Sina Weibo has never ceased to explore the electric business.

Since Sina micro-Broad V, grassroots large-scale creation of Weibo-Taobao drainage mode, Sina Weibo has become a power seller's battleground. At the same time, Sina Weibo also began to face the micro-Bo's electrical property, and has been exploring.

Millet mobile phone snapped, launched Sina Micro-Bo electric business to explore the first gun. December 19, 2012 10 o'clock in the morning, by Sina Weibo and Millet mobile phone joint director of Millet mobile phone snapped up booking activities officially open. The reservation is open until 24 o'clock 20th and the number of bookings is 1.3 million within 38 hours. Sina's full firepower, information flow promotion, hot topic recommendations, micro-topics, micro-tasks, large account forwarding, micro-blog home recommended, mobile microblogging client top bulletin, member value-added services, SINA platform Support-the full platform to open, Sina public relations resources are fully mobilized, For micro-BO shopping first list of the final detonation constantly add firewood, the topic continues to heat up.

December 21 Noon 12 o'clock, snapping spree officially detonated, limited to Sina Weibo booking user participation, support "Micro bo wallet" online payment. 50,000 Millet mobile Phone 2 in 5 minutes 14 seconds was robbed and empty, 240,000 people participate in snapping up. From 17th to 21st, the number of Millet Sina Weibo account visits reached 14.71 million times, an increase of 800,000 fans. 230 million exposures, make an appointment to buy micro-blog 3 million times, micro-blog users of the original 2.33 million related microblogging, 5 million related micro-blog, hundreds of media reports, Baidu has 300,000 related news-all kinds of data show that Sina Weibo and millet mobile phone created a sensational and successful event marketing.

In 2013, Sina Weibo launched the same as snapping up the video box, smart New Year special edition Sina Weibo limited-limit snapped up activities, have achieved good results.

Last April, Alibaba's 580 million dollar stake in Sina Weibo, Sina Weibo began to accelerate the electronic business.

August 13, micro-blog and Taobao launched based on user account exchange plans, and issued a Taobao Taobao business version of the microblog.

July 13, Sina Weibo online flash purchase platform tuan.weibo.com, daily 9 o'clock in the evening on the Line 1 goods, timed snapping, most of the flash purchase of goods from Taobao.

January 7, 14, Sina and Alipay announced the full opening of micro-blog and Alipay account, the joint launch of micro-bo payment, micro-Bo platform online transactions, offline business daily consumption can be directly paid by the micro-blog clients.

Micro Bo Electric business exploration, never stopped.

Iv. Sina Weibo accelerates the electronic business

This period of time to land Sina Weibo, if the user has the same time landing Ali, Micro Bo right corner will have a hint "binding Taobao account," "Fan price" more concessions! Detected Taobao account, agreed to "Taobao account binding agreement" immediately. This is the Ali wave after micro Bo through the Alipay account after another electric business practices.

According to Sina, there are now more than 400,000 businesses open Sina Weibo. Taobao version of the microblogging, currently about 48% of the micro-blog active users have their Taobao account with the interactive.

Will Sina Weibo be the next online shopping mall? Or will it become a mobile version of "Taobao"? I think we can not take care whether it will become a network shopping mall, will become a mobile version of the "Taobao." As long as the microblogging is valuable to users, users will not abandon it, on the contrary, Weibo if the user has no value, users will abandon it. As for its electronic business or social, this is not a problem.

At least for the moment, Sina Micro-BO Electronic business is conducive to its own development, even can be said to be forward-looking. At the very least, its foreign "brother" Twitter is looking for electricity.

Although it appears that the commercialization of micro-blogging has become a better way to cash in on Weibo, there are some differences between Twitter and Sina Weibo. The former is carried out by itself (or acquired), and it may become a Twitter strategy for the purpose of cash-for-use. Sina Weibo and the electronic business is based on Ali to carry out, it is only part of the Ali strategy, Sina Weibo is only the source of the flow of Ali, can also be said to be Ali's ATM machine.

The same electro-commercial, different results.

Looking far away, we seem to see their different future.