The use of micro blog as a platform to launch new product brought a positive effect on N8's advance sales in China, says Flann Gao (top), head of social media communications with Nokia China. Zhang Tao / China Daily

Customers, marketing potential attract companies to social networking sites

It is not often that companies can hold a product release conference with over thousands of attendees. But in a sign of things to come, Finnish telecom giant Nokia successfully used the new medium of micro blog or weibo to launch its products in China.

Apart from a traditional press conference in August 2010, Nokia also unveiled its flagship smartphone N8 on all of its official social networking sites (SNS) in China, including weibo. Eight A-list celebrities were invited to join the party about N8's debut on micro blog and then share their views on the model. The postings led to heated discussions among their followers and the company received more than 420,000 messages during the online event.

Flann Gao, head of social media communications with Nokia China, says that the use of micro blog as a platform to launch new product brought a positive effect on N8's advance sales in China. During the launch day, the N8 smartphone was ordered 10 times more than Nokia's previous flagship model.

Nokia China is not the only company, which sees tremendous business potential in micro blogs. A micro blog is different from a traditional blog in several ways. Not only is the content smaller, it usually is a short sentence, image or embedded video. In short think of Twitter, but with more options.

Since their debut in September 2009, micro blogs have rapidly emerged as the most influential SNS in China. Sina and Tencent are the two major players in the field, reported respectively that registered users had exceeded 100 million by February. According to Sina, more than 10,000 companies have opened official micro blog accounts on its platform.

Nokia's micro blog, which debuted in January 2010, has more than 110,000 followers on Sina so far. Despite the sensational success of launching N8 online, Gao regards micro blog as a communication platform more than a marketing tool.

"In the old times, we needed to invite press to pass our information to customers. But with micro blogs, we can communicate with our customers directly," he says.

"It is open and interactive. We post the latest information of our company, launch new products and provide services here on a daily basis. Customers can understand us better. It is good for the company's image," says Gao.