(I) Social Networks
Based on social networks, people connect with friends, colleagues, classmates and other people with the same interests and backgrounds to share information and interact. The most well-known social networks are Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, etc. For example, as the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook has 1.3 billion active users per month. In addition, about 30 million small companies use Facebook, of which 1.5 million companies publish paid advertisements on Facebook. At present, well-known domestic cross-border e-commerce companies such as Lightin the Box and DX have opened official Facebook pages, and Facebook overseas marketing has attracted more and more attention from cross-border e-commerce practitioners.
(II) Blogs and Microblogs
Blogs are one of the earliest forms of social media. Users can conduct marketing promotion by publishing content and interacting based on content. Small and medium-sized enterprises can build their own blog sites or conduct marketing on blog sites (such as blogspot.com). Microblogs are a short and concise way of publishing information, allowing users to publish a limited number of words, as well as videos and pictures. Microblog fans can interact by forwarding or commenting on microblog content. One of the most well-known microblogs overseas is Twitter, which is currently the world’s largest microblog site with more than 500 million registered users. It allows users to post messages of no more than 140 characters, which are also called “tweets.”
(III) Video and picture sharing sites
Using social media, users can upload their own videos, audio or pictures, and interact with other netizens through sharing sites. For example, YouTube is the world’s largest video site, with thousands of videos uploaded, viewed and shared by users every day. Compared with other social networking sites, YouTube videos are more likely to bring viral promotion effects. Picture sharing sites include Pin- terest, Instagram and Flickr. For example, Pinterest has more than 30 billion pictures, and brand advertisers can use pictures to promote related products and services, and users can directly click on the picture to purchase.
(IV) Other social media
In addition to the above channels, there are also social bookmarks, social news, forum communities, etc. Social bookmarks, also known as web bookmarks, are social sites for collecting and sharing hyperlinks. Users can collect, classify and organize online information of interest for their own and friends’ convenience. Currently, some of the more famous social bookmarking sites include delicious (del.icio.us) and stumbleupon.com. Social news sites allow users to share or directly upload articles and news, and other users can comment. Well-known social news sites include digg.com and reddit.com. Forum communities mainly gather netizens with the same interests to exchange information with each other. From a marketing perspective, they are particularly suitable for promoting products with certain professional thresholds, such as electronic products.