This article was published on April 16, 2013

Hootsuite widens its service in China with support for Tencent Weibo


Hootsuite widens its service in China with support for Tencent Weibo

HootSuite, the popular social media management platform, continues to reach out to the Greater China market, as it announced this morning that its roster of Chinese social networks now includes Tencent Weibo, the main competitor to Sina Weibo.

Last autumn, the company integrated functionality for RenRen, commonly understood as China’s Facebook, along with simplified Chinese language support. Not long before that, the company introduced functionality for Sina Weibo, commonly understood as China’s Twitter, and rolled out traditional Chinese support for users from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Since HootSuite remains blocked in China for the time being, the addition to Tencent Weibo to the platform will primarily be to the advantage of international companies looking to broaden their social media presence in all parts of China.

The Tencent Weibo integration allows HootSuite users to:

  • Utilize Tencent Weibo’s general search function
  • Access home pages, followers, @mentions, posts, and messages
  • Preset posts at specific times, add pictures and links
  • Manage multiple accounts
  • Search for users’ basic information

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Tencent Weibo tends to feature less drama than its major rival, and therefore receives less attention from the international community. However, its user base remains large – over 500 million registered users, the majority of which are located in second and third-tier cities.

HootSuite also announced it would be launching several meet-ups in mainland China in order to get in touch with its local fan base. The next step for HootSuite, one would guess, would be to integrate WeChat – Tencent’s behemoth social messaging service that many expect  could cause Sina Weibo to lose users.

At present, HooSuite has over 6 million registered users worldwide.

Image Credit: KARL-JOSEF HILDENBRAND/AFP/Getty Images

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