Social media

Social media has become the major way of communication and it has achieved the great successes in the world in recent years. Actually, social media such as Facebook, Renren, Weibo, Twitter and LinkedIn has become a lifestyle and part of the Generation Y. Beside the social media, another significant change to our life in recent years is the emergence of ecommerce. Facing the bright future of social media and ecommerce, the collaboration of these two domains has been the trend, which changed the digital world. Thus, our research revealed that the cooperation between Taobao (Chinese e-bay) and Sina Weibo is a successful case in the e-commerce. A large number of users on Weibo provided a basic element for the e-commerce on Taobao in China. Furthermpre, its wide audience is curious about new things, has the basic judgment due to the certain education background, and prefers shopping online. For the firms, Weibo provides a platform to spread messages to their audience and to build supporters’ communities. The advantages of the cooperation of Weibo and Taobao include the increased number of customers, enhanced customer relationship management, and additional marketing opportunities. On the other hand, the disadvantages are tied to the lack of reliability of the information about products, questionable reputation of some companies and the lack of comprehensive understanding of products due to a word limitation with 140 Chinese words in description. Weibo in China is now in the development stage. Therefore, it is essential that the company follow some specific trends. It is important to build up the key words searching engine because it allows people find the products that they wanted easier and faster. Customer feedback platform should be used to develop new products. To ensure the accuracy of information, it is recommended to use authentication and establish junk mail box. It is also essential to create effective management of friends on Weibo to facilitate the world-of-mouth advertising. Finally, it is important to launch quick payment in order to achieve one-stop shopping. Social media is not just a marketing tool, but it also reveals the demands and goals, and when analyzed through additional filters, data can predict the future. In the future, social media could be utilized to predict …