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Pictures on microblogs: Twitter vs. Weibo

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Pictures on microblogs: Twitter vs. Weibo

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Content Xia 1

Pictures on Microblogs: Twitter vs. Weibo

Wentao “Jason” Xia
Program: Strategic Public Relations
Thesis Committee Chair: Jennifer Floto
May 2013

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Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 3
2. Background ....................................................................................................... 6
2.1 Microblogs .................................................................................................. 6
2.2 What is a Retweet? ....................................................................................11
2.3 Microblogs’ various functions .................................................................. 12
3. History ............................................................................................................. 12
3.1 Twitter....................................................................................................... 12
3.2 Weibo ........................................................................................................ 13
4. Interface ........................................................................................................... 15
4.1 Twitter Screenshot .................................................................................... 15
4.2 Weibo Screenshot ..................................................................................... 16
5. Twitter vs. Weibo ............................................................................................. 17
5.1 Similarities ................................................................................................ 17
5.2 Differences ............................................................................................... 19
6. Picture sharing as a social activity .................................................................. 21
7. Methodology ................................................................................................... 23
7.1 Content Analysis ....................................................................................... 23
7.2 Subject Selection Method ......................................................................... 23
7.3 Subjects .................................................................................................... 24
8. Content Analysis .............................................................................................. 25
8.1 Number of Retweets ................................................................................. 25
8.2 Poster’s Influence: .................................................................................... 31
8.3 Account Owners’ Background Study ....................................................... 37
8.4 Sentiment Analysis ................................................................................... 41
8.5 Relevance ................................................................................................. 44
8.6 Subject ...................................................................................................... 47
8.7 Reasons for Retweeting ............................................................................ 49
9. Case Studies .................................................................................................... 52
9.1 Justin Bieber ............................................................................................. 52
9.2 Xiaoxian Zhang ........................................................................................ 54
10. Public Relations Takeaways ............................................................................ 56
10.1 Twitter ................................................................................................... 56
10.2 Weibo .................................................................................................... 58
10.3 Microblogs in Common ........................................................................ 60
Items ......................................................................................................................... 62
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 65
References ................................................................................................................. 68

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1. Introduction
When Jack Dorsey and his co-workers created twttr (the original name of the social
media phenomenon) in 2006, only a few people were optimistic about this weird online
text message service, even within their 20-some-employee startup company, Odeo. Six
years later, the evolved version of twttr has become one of the leading social media
platforms in the world: Twitter. According to the data from Semiocast, Twitter reached
half a billion registered accounts globally in June 2012 and is increasing that number by
one million accounts every day (Hodgson).
While Twitter was creating its legend, a tech giant across the Pacific carefully
observed this new, growing social media star and created its counterpart in China. The
tech giant was Sina Inc., one of the top four online media companies in China. The
Twitter counterpart’s name was Sina Weibo (now named Weibo). Started as the Chinese
version of Twitter in 2009, Weibo now thrives on the Chinese semi-open internet, where
some websites are selectively blocked, like Facebook and Twitter. As a regional social
media platform, Weibo recently attracted global attention because of its massive user base
and large number of active users. According to a report from Xinjing News, in 2012,
technology professionals in China believed that the number of registered accounts on
Weibo had passed 300 million only three years after the launch of the platform, while it
took Twitter six years to reach the same number.
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Social media services like Twitter and Weibo are called “microblogs.” They have
become a major branch of the social media platforms, and have been widely used in
public relations.
Microblogs were originally created as text-based services. From its name
“microblog,” meaning “short blog,” we can tell that, on this platform, text is the core.
However, in a visual era, picture truly matters. Modern users are no longer satisfied
with the strict character-limit of text messages. For them, taking pictures is a more
convenient and practical way to record and share their lives on social media than typing
texts and worrying about the character limit as well.
The text-based social media platforms responded to the users’ needs. In August 2011,
Twitter started to allow its users to upload pictures directly to Twitter. Before that, users
had to seek the aid of third-party applications to upload pictures to Twitter. Weibo had
already had picture upload functions when the platform was launched in 2009.
The author realized this trend and wanted to study how visual communications
would affect public relations activities on microblogs. The research will benefit public
relations practitioners from two perspectives:
Understand microblog users
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Public relations practitioners need to understand their audience to maximize the
influence of public relations messages. Microblogs connect public relations specialists
with users on the platform. Therefore, understanding the preferences and behaviors of the
microblog users is critical to public relations practitioners. This paper will study the data
on visual communications on Twitter and Weibo, and finally summarize microblog users’
preferences in certain categories. The results of this study will be beneficial in the
strategizing process for public relations practitioners.
Understand microblog platforms
To optimize a public relations strategy, practitioners need to understand the
landscape of the platform. The study will conduct detailed comparison and contrast
between Twitter and Weibo. Because public relations practitioners are highly dependent
on visual imagery and reliable message distribution, the research in the paper will assist
them in gaining knowledge of the two microblog platforms. The result of the study also
will help practitioners learn the techniques of picture usage on microblogs and optimize
their social media strategies.
This paper will focus on the study of the most shared pictures on the two microblog
platforms, and the paper will explore how those pictures function on social media
platforms that are fundamentally text-based. This paper also will seek to identify the
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differences in visual communication between Twitter and Weibo. To fulfill the study
purpose, research methods like content analysis and interviews are used in this paper.
2. Background
2.1 Microblogs
Merriam-Webster.com gives a definition of microblogging as “blogging done with
severe space or size constraints typically by posting frequent brief messages about
personal activities.”
The definition from Merriam-Webster is half true but not accurate. Although
microblog means literally “short blog,” there are other features of microblogs that the
definition fails to cover. To define “microblog,” other features, such as social connectivity,
content consuming mechanisms and multiple interactive methods, should be considered.
Moreover, this definition is outdated in its description of the content of microblog
tweets
1

1
To avoid confusion, all terms like “Tweet,” “Twitter post,” “Weibo post,” “weibo” are called “tweet” in this
paper.
. Microblog messages are no longer confined to personal activities as they now
cover news, critical remarks and commercials.
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2.1.1 Social Connectivity
Rayne Fan, the COO of SocialBeta.com, an influential blog on social media in
China, mentioned during an interview with the author that users on microblogs are
connected by one-way “weak ties” instead of a two-way relationship, or “strong ties.” “In
terms of social connectivity, Twitter allows a user to follow any number of other users.
The Twitter contact network is directed: user A can follow user B without requiring
approval or a reciprocal connection from user B.” (Naaman, Becker and Gravano 903)
User A can follow user B on a microblog, but it is not necessary for user B to follow user
A back.
Unlike other social networks services like Facebook, which are mainly online
versions of the users’ networks in the real world, microblog “followers” are not
necessarily people a user knows offline. They could even be complete strangers.
Connected by “weak ties,” the relationships a user has on a microblog are extremely
loose, either with his or her followers or the users he or she is following. The status of
this relationship creates many possibilities on microblog platforms that social networks
like Facebook could not achieve.
For example, because of the open-following mechanism on microblogs, ordinary
people are now able to follow celebrities and public figures and be involved in their
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conversations. On the other hand, celebrities now have chances to interact with their fans
personally, without relying on the media as their messenger as it was in the past.
2.1.2 Content Consuming Mechanisms
On microblogs, content is king. Unlike social networks, the connections on
microblog are no longer built purely on relationships outside the digital world, but more
likely on content. On microblogs, users’ tweets are open to everyone on the platform. A
user will possibly follow one microblogger because of the attractive content he or she
creates.
Rayne mentioned that most of the microbloggers he was following on Weibo are
professionals in the fields he was passionate about, such as sports, news and technology.
He could read their tweets and learn from their ideas, but he did not know these people
personally.
Tweets on microblogs usually have short life spans. A recently created tweet is
likely to be submerged in the sea of tweets from others immediately. Therefore, the only
way to keep the tweet “alive” is to constantly let it appear in other users’ tweet streams.
One of the solutions is to encourage followers to retweet it in order to increase its
appearances.
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2.1.3 Interactive Methods
On microblogs, there are many interactive methods according to different
communicational needs. A microblog is a multi-layer communication ecosystem.
Interestingly, even though the only way to publish on a microblog is to “tweet,” there are
multiple ways to comment, interact and exchange ideas with the tweet writer and other
microblog users. There are two-way interactions like “reply” and “retweet,” one-way
interactions like “favorite” and private communications like “direct message.”
2.1.3.1 Reply
A user can add his or her comment to an existing tweet from others, or from him- or
herself.
2.1.3.2 Retweet
A retweet is like a quotation in academic writing. A user can repost someone else’s
tweet into his or her tweet stream. Details about retweeting will be illustrated in the
section titled “What is a retweet?”
2.1.3.3 Direct message
A user can send a message to another user privately. Direct messaging is a private
communication method on microblog platforms.
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2.1.3.4 Favorite
The “Favorite” button is similar to the “Like” button on Facebook. A microblog user
can “Favorite” a tweet to show his or her support.
2.1.4 Accessing Methods
2.1.4.1 Web Access
The Web is the most popular way to access microblogs. According to Infographic
Labs, about 64% of Twitter users are using the Web to access their accounts.
2.1.4.2 Mobile Access
Mobile access is growing because of the popularity of smartphones. On Weibo,
two-thirds of users accessed their Weibo accounts with their mobile phone applications.
(Yang)
2.1.4.3 Tools Access
There are multiple microblog management tools that can help users store, evaluate
and manage their microblogs. Organizations frequently use microblog tools in their
online marketing campaigns and daily microblog account management.
2.1.4.4 Text Message
Although the text message is out-of-date, we cannot deny its existence. In the
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Twitter Help Center, there are still instructions of how to tweet with mobile phone text
messages.
2.2 What is a Retweet?
Since the paper will focus on the study of pictures that received a large number of
retweets on Twitter and Weibo, it is necessary to elaborate on the role of “retweeting” on
microblogs.
“Tweets” are the posts on microblogs. The length of a tweet is restricted by a certain
number of characters (140 on Twitter). According to the Twitter Help Center,
“a retweet is a re-posting of someone else's Tweet.” The number of retweets is one of the
most crucial parameters to evaluate the influence of a tweet. “First is the simple fact that,
if retweeted, your tweet reaches more people. Second, and more importantly, a retweet
comes with an implicit, and often explicit, endorsement.” (A. Malhotra, C. Malhotra and
See 61) There are several reasons that may contribute to this action. A retweet may show
the retweeter’s endorsement of the original tweet or an intention to promote it.
In other words, the more retweets a tweet receives, the more likely that the public
value that tweet.

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2.3 Microblogs’ various functions
Since microblogs contain features like conciseness, swiftness and simultaneity,
scholars and regular microbloggers have created and developed additional functions..
“Twitter was mainly used in two different ways: as an information platform or a
social network. Subsequently, to better leverage its great wealth of both textual and social
information, researchers have used Twitter to discover breaking news, detect natural
disasters, improve real-time web search, characterize media events and identify
influential users or interesting content.” (Xu et al. 545)
3. History
3.1 Twitter
In 2006, the management of a startup company named Odeo Corp. had to stop and
think about the company’s possibly bleak future. After a few days of discussion, the
managers asked the employees to divide into small groups to brainstorm and work on
their best ideas for salvaging their beleaguered company. . In one of the groups, a young
Web designer named Jack Dorsey “had an idea for a completely different product that
revolved around "status"--what people were doing at a given time.” (“The Real History
Of Twitter”)
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“One day in February 2006, Noah Glass, Odeo’s co-founder, Dorsey, and a German
contract developer Florian Weber presented Jack's idea to the rest of the company. It was
a system where you could send a text to one number, and it would be broadcasted out to
all of your friends, and Glass named it, Twttr.”(“The Real History Of Twitter”)As
mentioned earlier, Twttr was later renamed as Twitter. It was originally created as a text
message service. Years later, however, web usage on Twitter became dominant. There are
still a few legacies from the “SMS era.” One of them is the 140-character limit. There
was a legitimate reason for it, “because 160 characters were the SMS carrier limit and the
founders wanted to leave room for a username.” (BusinessInsider.com)
After years of development, Twitter has become a global microblog platform with
more than 500 million registered accounts.
3.2 Weibo
Unlike Twitter, which started from an original idea, Weibo is about innovations and
strategic thinking based on existing products.
In the Chinese “semi-open” internet, where some of the internet websites like
Facebook and Twitter are selectively blocked, Weibo was not the earliest adopter of the
microblog service. In May 2007, Fanfou, the first Chinese microblog service provider,
was launched in Beijing, mostly as a Chinese version of Twitter. In the following two
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years, Fanfou was the most influential Chinese microblog, whose users increased to 1
million by the middle of 2009.
However, after the July Urumqi riot in the summer of 2009, the Chinese government
shut down most of the domestic microblog services, including Fanfou. Sina, as one of the
traditional “big four” online media sites/companies in China, quickly detected the
opportunity and launched its microblog product, Sina Weibo (the predecessor of Weibo),
in August, 2009. In less than one year, the “big four” in China all had their own
microblog services. Sina, however, as the first adopter after the microblog shuffle,
occupied an advantageous position.
It took a series of strategies to localize and seek the justification for and expansion
of Weibo. Sina marketers invited many celebrities to join Sina Weibo, which caused an
early boom in the number of registered users. Sina also built a good relationship with the
government. Many local police stations and congress representatives opened their Weibo
accounts to seek a closer relationship with citizens.
Now Weibo is the largest microblog provider in China according to its number of
active users. (Niuniu)

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4. Interface
4.1 Twitter Screenshot
Twitter’s interface is remarkably simple and clear. The function-and-navigation bar
is at the top of the screen. The profile information is in the left column, and there is a text
box right below the profile. The stream column is on the right of the screen.
To post a picture, a user needs to click the text box to open it, and an image upload
button will appear at the bottom of the box. For each tweet, only one picture can be
attached.
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The posted picture will not directly show up in the stream. A user needs to click the
tweet to unfold it and see the picture attached to it.
4.2 Weibo Screenshot
Weibo’s interface is more complicated than Twitter’s. The function-and-navigation
bar is at the top of the screen. It also integrates four buttons directing users to the four
channels of Weibo: Front page, Applications, Groups, and Games. The left column
incorporates many functional buttons. The right column includes the user’s profile and
targeted advertisements or “recommendations” from Weibo.com. The text box is on top
in the middle of the screen for users to write tweets. The stream column is right below the
text box.
To post a picture, a user needs to click the second button below the text box. Unlike
Twitter, Weibo provides options for uploading pictures. A user can choose between
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uploading one local picture, multiple local pictures, or a screenshot, or he or she can take
a picture from the computer camera and upload it immediately. Users can select how to
upload pictures according to their needs.
The tweet pictures will directly show in the update stream in a reduced scale. Users
can click the picture to enlarge it.
5. Twitter vs. Weibo
5.1 Similarities
5.1.1 Weak Social Ties
As microblogs platforms, Twitter and Weibo have similar social connectivity
systems. The relationships between users on microblogs are extremely loose. Rayne
called them “weak ties.” The social connections are not as strong as on Facebook, and
users are able to follow any other individuals or organizations on Twitter and Weibo
based on their interests. Rayne mentioned in the interview that he would like to follow a
person on Weibo if he met him or her personally at an industrial event: “It’s more
acceptable to follow him or her on Weibo instead of a social network platform like
Facebook because we just met and we are not as close as to add each other on Facebook.”

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5.1.2 Social Circles
Thanks to these “weak ties,” microblog users usually have a social circle larger than
their social networks in real life. In an interview, USC Professor Burghardt Tenderich
talked about his views on Twitter. “For Twitter, you can communicate with people outside
your network. For Facebook, however, even if it has a Twitter-like updates function, they
are only seen by the people within your network.”
5.1.3 Media Features
Both Twitter and Weibo have strong media features. Microblog users are able to get
the latest news much faster from microblogging than reading newspapers or watching TV .
Since it is extremely convenient to publish news on social media, and messages can
spread like viruses, news media sites/companies are now publishing their breaking news
on microblogs like Twitter and Weibo. However, traditional media sites need time to edit
and process their news materials.
This feature is beneficial to the media as well. People are posting the news
happening around them. Therefore, social media becomes one of the media’s news
sources.

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5.2 Differences
5.2.1 Differences in Function
For years, the Twitter team focused on improvement of the microblog features and
kept the simplicity of the functions and the cleanness of the interface. In the interview,
Rayne mentioned that he believed that Twitter did not change much in the past few years.
However, Weibo has changed a lot in comparison to its original version. As noted,
Weibo launched as Twitter’s Chinese version. In the past few years, however, Weibo
integrated more functions like the timeline, groups, Location Based Service (LBS), and
image editing, making it a comprehensive social media platform. As Rayne said in the
interview, “The new functions on Weibo have made it closer to Google+ and Facebook
than Twitter.”
5.2.2 Differences in Information Capacity
On Twitter, the 140-character-limit would not allow a user to write too
much--usually only enough for one sentence or several phrases.
However, because the Chinese characters are having larger information capacity
than the English characters, a 140-Chinese-character tweet on Weibo can have a much
larger capacity for information than a 140-English-character tweet. In Michael Anti’s
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TED talk A Powerful “Chinanet” is Growing Behind the “Great Firewall,” he conducted
an experiment: he chose an episode from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The Chinese version of
the episode takes one Weibo tweet, but the English version takes four tweets on Twitter.
5.2.3 Differences in Background
Twitter was a startup company. Every feature on Twitter had to be created from the
ground up.
Behind Weibo is Sina Inc., one of the technology giants in China. From its parent
company, Weibo has received abundant technological support and take advantage of its
massive user base. Moreover, Sina is one of the leading Chinese online media
sites/companies and Sina’s team is particularly experienced in new media management
and integration of multimedia resources. In addition, as Weibo can receive financial
support from Sina, it is hard for Twitter to match Weibo’s pace of development.
5.2.4 Differences in Social Environment
Twitter is an international social media service provider. Although the largest
portion of the users is from the U.S., there are users from other countries such as Brazil,
Japan and the U.K. Twitter has to take care of various needs from different users; hence it
will be hard to localize its functions and design according to the needs of one country.
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In this regard, Weibo and Twitter are different. Weibo’s users are Chinese or
overseas Chinese who have similar cultural backgrounds. With this premise, Weibo was
able to adopt many localized designs to meet the particular needs of Chinese users.
6. Picture sharing as a social activity
Visual communication has become popular on the internet recently with the success
of picture-sharing social media platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram. People are
interested in sharing pictures with their families, friends and even strangers through these
social media platforms.
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The trend towards the visual parallels the changes in social media usage habits. With
constant updates of technology, smartphones have increasingly advanced cameras that are
able to take high-resolution pictures. “As more people engage with social media via
smartphones, they are discovering that taking a picture ‘on the go’ using a high-resolution
phone is much less tedious than typing out a status update on a two-inch keyboard.”
(Walter)
The picture-sharing social media services allow people to not only enjoy the pictures
by themselves, but also the chance to appreciate the fun of sharing. “It is not a passive
activity. You can see how many other people liked an image, show it your own love, read
the comments others have left and leave your own. It is a social activity.” (Holtz, 8)
Meanwhile, not only ordinary people but brand managers are also learning to
leverage visual communication in their marketing and branding strategies.
Two years ago, marketers were spreading the maxim that “content is king,” but now,
it seems, “a picture really is worth a thousand words.” (Walter)
“Pictures have also become a short form way of communicating lots of information
quickly and succinctly,” says Detavio Samuals, the EVP and Director of Client Services
at GlobalHue, one of the nation's top market advertising agencies, “The need for
publishers to get to the point quicker than ever came about as humans became more
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pressed for time and content became more infinite.” (Walter)
“Walter Lippmann said, ‘Pictures have always been the surest way of conveying an
idea,’ wrote Lippmann, ‘and next in order, words that call up pictures in memory.’”
(Lester, 63) A picture attached to a tweet can significantly expand the information
capacity of that tweet.
7. Methodology
7.1 Content Analysis
The author collected top retweeted pictures on both platforms during the same
periods of time. The following part will give a thorough analysis of the most retweeted
pictures on each platform.
7.2 Subject Selection Method
The author collected the most retweeted pictures on Twitter and Weibo during three
weeks: October 14- 20, October 21-27, and November 4-10, 2012. Since the author was
not able to get access to the first-hand data to decide the most retweeted pictures on
Twitter and Weibo, he employed different methods to collect data from Twitter and
Weibo.
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The source of the Twitter pictures is the weekly theme blog on Mashable named
“Top 10 Twitter Pics of the Week.” The blogs noted that the pictures’ source was an
organization named Skylines. All of the Twitter pictures used in this paper are collected
from three Mashable articles that provide lists of the most retweeted pictures on Twitter.
Each one of them provides a list for one week.
On Weibo, there’s a daily updated ranking list named “Hot Weibo of the Day.” The
author collected the most retweeted pictures on the list every day during the same three
weeks as the Mashable blogs posting the top 10 Twitter pictures. Since the pictures list on
Weibo only shows the top pictures of the day, the author had to collect the most retweeted
pictures for each day and make a weekly ranking at the end of the week. The author
collected the top 8 pictures of the first week, the top 12 of the second, and the top 10 of
the third. The study in this paper focuses on qualitative research, so the difference of the
number of pictures in the three weeks will not have a significant impact on the final
result.
7.3 Subjects
The subjects of this study are the 30 most retweeted pictures from Twitter and the
same number of pictures from Weibo during the same time.
There are two reasons that possibly affect the fact that these pictures are the most
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retweeted pictures during the three weeks:
The Twitter pictures on Mashable are from a picture-index website widget company
named Skylines. It indexes live photos that are tweeted through many picture services,
including Twitter, TwitPic, Instagram, Yfrog and Lockerz.
The top pictures lists on Weibo could be edited by Weibo staff before releasing them
due to the internet censorship rules in China.
8. Content Analysis
8.1 Number of Retweets
There are two reasons that contribute to the action of retweeting:
The retweeters liked these pictures, so they retweeted. The number of retweets
possibly reflects the number of endorsements received from people who saw the pictures.
The action of retweeting proved the pictures had value to be shared. Besides his or
her own endorsement, the retweeter believed that his or her friends also needed to see the
pictures.
8.1.1 Twitter
On Twitter, except for the Twitter picture from Barack Obama on the day he won his
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presidential re-election that received a historical 621,000 retweets, the other 29 pictures
on the list all received between 17,000 and 90,000 retweets. The retweet numbers of the
29 pictures are distributed evenly within the range.
Then we looked at the tweets in each of the three weeks. In the first week, the
number of retweets ranged from 17,000 to 44,000; in the second week, from 30,000 to
60,000; and in the third week, from 30,000 to 90,000 except the Obama photo’s 621,000
retweets.
8.1.2 Weibo
On Weibo, the size of the number of retweets is quite close to that on Twitter. For
the 30 Weibo tweets, the largest number of retweets is 130,000; the smallest is 22,000.
There are 29 Weibo tweets evenly distributed within the range. The one exception out of
30 pictures is the one that received 130,000 retweets.
For each week on Weibo, there was an unbalance in the number of the pictures for
each week, as mentioned earlier: 8 for the first week, 12 for the second, and 10 for the
third. The range of the number of the tweets is 35,000 to 59,000 for the first week, 31,000
to 74,000 for the second week, and 22,000 to 45,000 for the third, except for the one that
received an exceptional 130,000 retweets.
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8.1.3 Twitter vs. Weibo
8.1.3.1 Close number of retweets
Comparing the two lists from Twitter and Weibo, the numbers of retweets are fairly
close on the two microblog platforms, and all of them are in the range between 20,000
and 100,000. On both platforms, receiving 20,000 retweets is the approximate minimum
to enter the top 10 list.
8.1.3.2 Both platforms have pictures with exceptionally high retweets
We found that there are pictures with exceptionally high retweets on both Twitter
and Weibo. For these pictures, the numbers of retweets they received were significantly
higher than for any other tweet pictures on the list.
On Twitter, the tweet picture from President Obama after his successful re-election
received 621,000 retweets, nearly six times those of the second most retweeted picture on
the Twitter list.
On Weibo, there was one picture explaining the background picture of QQ’s log-in
interface that received 130,000 retweets. It received about twice as much as the second
picture on the list.
When a picture receives extensive attention from the public, its number of retweets
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could reach millions. It reflects that pictures on microblogs have the potential to get a
vast volume of retweets.
8.1.4 Samples of Exceptionally Large-retweeted Picture
8.1.4.1 Twitter Picture (See Item1)
It is important to note that during data collection, a significant outlier occurred. The
picture is from President Obama’s first tweet after he was successfully re-elected. This
tweet became the most retweeted picture on Twitter to date and “broke the popularity
record held by singer Justin Bieber, whose tribute to a fan who died of brain cancer
garnered a ‘mere’ 200,000-plus retweets, according to AllTwitter, which tracks the social
network.” (“Four More Years”)
One of the reasons that led to the picture’s large number of retweets was that
President Obama has a vast follower base on Twitter. President Obama has the fifth
largest number of followers on Twitter. ("Top Twitter User Rankings & Stats") He used
Twitter extensively in his presidential campaigns and during his first term in the White
House. In addition, President Obama is highly active on Twitter. He uses Twitter as one
of his personal branding tools to communicate with his followers.
The high level of attention on the presidential election from the public is another
reason for the picture’s number of retweets. American presidential elections are held
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every four years, and every single one of them becomes popular news globally. American
people invest their time and effort in the presidential election, no matter if they are
participating in local campaigns or having endless discussions with their families and
friends. Many related events like primary elections, candidates’ campaign efforts and
television debates build up tremendous attention. The election also attracts attention from
international media. In the late night of the Election Day, millions of people were waiting
for the result and the speech from the newly elected president. There were millions of
people online waiting for the first words from the winning candidate. When the audience
saw the tweet, “four more years,” from President Obama and the tweet picture of the
hugging Obamas, the tweet was an outlet of emotions for audience. Millions of retweets
carried this picture around the globe and conveyed people’s emotions. The tweet gave the
answer that the audience was waiting for, and this was probably why the tweet received
such a large number of retweets in such a short time.
8.1.4.2 Weibo Picture (See Item2)
The content of the 130,000-times-retweeted tweet on Weibo was a lot of pictures
with text description giving the background story of an image that appeared on the log-in
interface of QQ, a popular instant messaging computer program in China. Like Google
may use modifications or humorous features on its logo on special events, QQ uses
special background pictures on its log-in interface during traditional festivals and
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holidays in China.
The tweet picture explained the story behind the log-in background image. It was
the Double Ninth Festival in China, a festival that is dedicated to caring for and
appreciating senior citizens. The background image of the QQ log-in interface was a
drawing by an elderly lady. She was 76 and extremely poor. Her source of income came
from selling pastels she drew on a footbridge. The background image of QQ on that day
was one of her works. The QQ team chose this picture on the day to promote the Chinese
tradition of caring for the elderly.
There might be two reasons that caused the wide spread of the tweet picture.
To begin with, QQ is the most popular instant messaging software in China with an
incredibly large number of users. Almost every person in China who has access to the
internet has a QQ number. A recent web application released by QQ indicated that there
are around 100 million people on QQ simultaneously on an average day/24-hour period.
(I’m QQ) Therefore, before the tweet picture was posted on Weibo, there might have
been tens of millions of people who saw the QQ interface background picture on that day.
Moreover, the picture is beautiful, but most people may not know the story behind it.
There was a line in one corner of the background image: Double Ninth Day, a beautiful
drawing from an elderly lady. The mystery of the background image and the meaning of
Xia 31
the line created curiosity. Some people may have Googled it and found the reason that the
picture was chosen. The rest might feel relieved because the picture on Weibo answered
the question they had when they logged into QQ earlier in the day. Possibly the best way
to share their joy of finding the answer was to retweet the tweet.
8.1.4.3 Findings
The two highly retweeted pictures on Twitter and Weibo have some similarities:
There was a massive audience concerning the topic related to both of the tweet
pictures. For the pictures on Twitter, it was the people who cared about the presidential
election. For the Weibo picture, it was the enormous number of QQ users.
The audience had expectations or curiosity before they saw the tweet or the tweet
picture, or in other words, the tweet answered their questions. For Obama’s tweet, it
announced the result of the election that the audience anticipated for months. For the old
lady’s drawing, it explained the behind-the-scene story of an unfamiliar background
image of a popular computer program that most people in China use every day.
8.2 Poster’ s Influence:
The following chart illuminates the findings by sorting the tweet pictures according
to the number of followers their posters have.
Xia 32

The chart shows remarkably different landscapes on Twitter and Weibo. For Twitter,
most of the posters of those tweet pictures have a large number of followers. However,
the posters of those Weibo pictures are almost evenly distributed into the three categories.
The posters with a small number of followers could create highly tweeted pictures on
Weibo, but it seems this is unrealistic on Twitter.
8.2.1 Twitter
The tweet writers on the list comprised just a few people, most of them celebrities.
Pictures from these people dominated the list.
The 30 pictures of the three weeks came from only 8 people: Justin Bieber, Barack
Obama, Harry Styles, One Direction, Liam Payne, Felix Baumgartner, Alredo Flores, and
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
≤1 million 1-10 million ≥10 million
Number of Followers
Twitter
Weibo
Xia 33
Brandon Nieto. Among these people, Justin Bieber had 11 pictures on the list, more than
one third of the total; popular English-Irish pop boy band members Harry Styles and
Liam Payne had six and seven on the list, respectively; the space jumper Felix
Baumgartner had two; each of the rest had one tweet picture on the list.
The author recorded the posters’ (except for Felix Baumgartner, who closed his
official Twitter account after the space jumping event) number of followers on Twitter
and created the following chart.

From the chart, we can tell that a few people are dominant on this list. The chart
shows two almost transverse lines and a few other dots. The dots comprising the higher
line represent Justin Bieber’s pictures, and the lower uneven line belongs to One
Direction and two of its members.
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
30,000,000
35,000,000
Number of Followers - Twitter
Number of Followers -
Twitter Account
Xia 34
Only Brandon Nieto fell into the category of having less than one million followers.
He had about 140,000 followers. Although this is a small number compared to other
celebrities on the list, for regular Twitter users, however, 140,000 would be an
exceedingly large number of followers.
In the category of one million to 10 million followers, there are four people for 15
pictures: Alredo Flores, Liam Payne, One Direction, and Harry Styles. Alredo Flores’s
number of followers was slightly over one million, 1.25 million. The other three had
followers between 7.8 to 9.1 million. It is worth noting that all three of these Twitter
accounts are related to One Direction. One of them is the band’s official Twitter account,
and the other two are Liam Payne and Harry Styles, two members of the band. Among
the 15 pictures that fell into this category, Payne had seven, Styles had six, and both of
the others had one.
In the category of over 10 million followers, there were 12 tweet pictures. Eleven of
them belonged to Justin Bieber, and the other one came from Barack Obama. Bieber had
31 million followers, the largest number of followers on Twitter. President Obama, with
his 24 million followers, ranked as the fifth largest account on Twitter. (“Top Twitter User
Rankings & Stats”)
In the three weeks of the study, almost all the tweet pictures on the list came from
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Twitter accounts with massive follower bases. Even the account with the smallest number
of followers on the list had 140,000 followers. Moreover, the picture sources were
concentrated on several people whose tweet pictures accounted for a large portion of the
list. In this study, they are Justin Bieber, Harry Styles and Liam Payne.
8.2.2 Weibo
Unlike Twitter, the dots representing Weibo picture posters are distributed evenly on
the chart. All three categories are quite balanced, and no category has either an extremely
large or small number. Instead of concentrating on several people, the tweet picture
posters on Weibo are quite diverse. The account with the smallest number of followers
had only 1000 followers, and the account with the largest had as many as 25 million.
From the chart, we can tell that most of the picture posters had relatively small
numbers of followers compared to those on Twitter. Almost two thirds of the accounts on
the list had less than two million followers. There were only eight accounts that had more
than 10 million followers.
The accounts are quite diverse. The 30 tweet pictures came from 26 different Weibo
accounts.
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13 different accounts fell into the category of having below one million followers.
The smallest account only had about one thousand followers, and the largest had about
620,000 followers. The accounts are almost evenly distributed across the range.
In the category of one million to ten million followers, there are seven accounts for
ten pictures. Three pictures belonged to “Gyatso Living Buddha – Mercy Fund,” a
religious leader in Tibetan Buddhism. Sina Entertainment had two pictures on the list. In
this category, the account with the smallest number of followers had 1.3 million; the
largest had 7.1 million. The dots within the category are well-distributed.
There are six accounts for seven pictures in the category of over 10 million
followers. A romance writer Xiaoxian Zhang has two pictures on the list. The others
come from different accounts. In this category, the smallest account had 12 million
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
30,000,000
Number of Followers - Weibo
Number of Followers -
Weibo
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followers, and the largest was Kun Chen’s account with 25 million followers. He is a
popular actor in China who owns the no. 5 account on Weibo.
8.3 Account Owners’ Background Study
To study the background information on the tweet picture posters, the author sorted
the pictures according to whether the owners were verified accounts or not. Both of the
microblog platforms have account verification services.

Based on the charts above, it is evident that on both platforms, the vast majority of
the tweet pictures came from verified accounts. In other words, most of the pictures
posters released their authentic identities when posting the pictures.
There are more pictures from verified accounts on Twitter than on Weibo. In this
study, there was only one account on Twitter that was not verified. On Weibo, there were
97%
3%
Twitter
Verified Unverified
87%
13%
Weibo
Verified Unverified
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four unverified accounts. This also reflects that the tweet picture posters on the Weibo list
are more diverse than those on the Twitter list.
8.3.1 Twitter
The tweet picture posters’ backgrounds on Twitter are concentrated on celebrity.

On Twitter, the majority of the picture posters are entertainment celebrities.
Considering that only eight people posted all 30 of the pictures on the list, and five of
them are entertainment celebrities, there is no surprise that the celebrities dominate the
results.
In the category of entertainment celebrities, as mentioned above, there are only five
Entertainment
Celebrities, 26
Other
Celebrities, 3
Others, 1
Poster's Background - Twitter
Xia 39
people, but they concentrate on two celebrity brands: Justin Bieber and One Direction.
Justin Bieber owns 11 pictures on the list. Alfredo Flores’s only picture on the list is one
with Bieber. The rest of the fourteen pictures in the category came from One Direction’s
official account and two members of the band. It is obvious that certain celebrities in the
entertainment industry are attracting attention continuously from Twitter users.
In the category of “other celebrities” there are President Obama’s one picture and
two pictures from the space jumper Felix Baumgartner.
8.3.2 Weibo
The posters of the most retweeted Weibo pictures have more diverse backgrounds,
including celebrities, the media, brands and marketing-oriented accounts etc.

Entertainment
Celebrities, 7
Other
Celebrities, 5
Media, 5
Marketing, 4
Brand, 1
Others, 8
Poster's Background - Weibo
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Entertainment celebrities occupy the largest portion. Unlike the picture posters on
Twitter, which revolved around two celebrity brands, the tweet picture posters on Weibo
in this category were different from each other. Each one of the pictures was about the
celebrity’s personal brands and did not take advantage of other celebrity brands.
In the “other celebrity” category, there were three tweets from the religious leader
Gyatso Living Buddha, and two from the romance writer Xiaoxian Zhang. It is
interesting to notice that the phenomenon on Twitter that the picture posters were
concentrated on certain people exists in this category. There are only three tweet picture
posters that have more than one picture on the list, and two of them are in this category. It
possibly reflects that figures in this category are more likely to receive constant attention
from Weibo users.
The media also takes a portion of the result. Among the five media accounts, two of
them are entertainment media companies/sites/etc. and the other three are different news
media companies. Pictures of breaking news are likely to attract attention and retweets.
There are several Weibo accounts that could be classified as “marketing accounts.”
They are commonly seen on Weibo and most of them are managed by online marketing
companies. These marketing accounts usually keep creating and reposting high-quality
tweet content about singular topics in order to accumulate followers who have interests in
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these topics. The marketing companies then make money by using these accounts to post
advertisements occasionally. From this study, we can tell that many of these marketing
accounts are very good at spreading their tweet contents.
One of the tweet pictures came from a brand’s advertisement. The creativity and
humor of the advertisement possibly attracted the audience’s attention.
Celebrities’ tweet pictures dominate the list on Twitter, but the backgrounds of the
tweet picture posters on Weibo are more diverse. Although celebrities still occupy a large
portion, there are many other accounts with various kinds of backgrounds, like media,
marketing accounts and brands.
8.4 Sentiment Analysis
The author divided the pictures into three categories (positive, neutral and negative)
according to the pictures’ sentimental states. The author evaluated the sentimental state
based on the content of the complete tweet, including both the picture and the text. The
result is illustrated in the following chart.
Xia 42

8.4.1 Twitter
The most retweeted pictures on Twitter were mostly positive and neutral. More than
half of the tweets’ contents were neutral. Only one of the tweets was delivering negative
information.
Since most of the tweet picture posters were celebrities, it is not surprising that most
of the tweets’ emotional states were positive and neutral. Celebrities always want to
portray positive images to the public. Most of the positive tweets/pictures were about the
celebrities’ recent achievements, such as Justin Bieber’s live concert, President Obama’s
re-election, and Felix Baumgartner’s successful space jump.
Of the neutral content, most of it was random life shots by the celebrities. One
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Positive Neutral Negative
Sentiment Analysis
Twitter
Weibo
Xia 43
Direction members Payne and Styles love to take random snapshots and post them on
Twitter. Although these pictures are ordinary, these celebrities’ followers are willing to
retweet them.
The only negative picture came from the unverified account, Brandon Nieto. The
picture describes the sorrowful story of Amanda Todd who killed herself because of years
of bullying. The video she shot before she killed herself was extraordinarily powerful and
became a hot topic of news and online discussion.
8.4.2 Weibo
On Weibo, the three categories have similar numbers of tweets. There are 11
positive tweets, 9 neutral ones and 10 negative ones. The results are well balanced.
Similar to those on Twitter, most of the positive tweets were from celebrities. There
were also other kinds of content like humor and life philosophy. As mentioned earlier, it
is interesting that a religious leader and a writer are more popular on Weibo than some
top entertainment celebrities.
Neutral tweets included some celebrities’ tweets, wisecracks and some informational
content. It is worth noticing that most of the marketing tweets fell into the neutral
category. Most of the content from these marketing accounts are wisecracks that attract
Xia 44
large numbers of retweets.
The negative tweets covered two topics: negative news about celebrities and
revelations about the dark side of society. There were two pieces of news about
celebrities, one of them about the divorce of a celebrity family and the other one about
the death of a celebrity. The rest of the tweets were news such as revelations about the
improper behavior of some civil servants and a few notices of missing children.
8.5 Relevance
This part explores the relationship between the picture and the tweet text. This study
aims to find how many tweet pictures directly related to the tweets’ texts.
The author divided all pictures into two categories: “directly relevant” and
“indirectly relevant.” There are two criteria:
The tweet picture directly relates to the text.
If the picture is removed, the original tweet (text + picture) will be incomplete.
Pictures that comply with both of the above criteria are categorized as “directly
relevant.” The rest are “indirectly relevant.”

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8.5.1 Twitter

On Twitter, most of the pictures are directly relevant to the text. This means that the
pictures are the highlights of the whole tweets. The posters were tweeting because they
wanted to share the pictures with their followers.
The result is predictable for two reasons:
The text of a tweet is short and usually cannot contain too much information.
Therefore, when the poster is posting a picture, the picture usually becomes the core of
the tweet since one picture could deliver more information than one sentence of text.
Most of the posters on the list on Twitter are celebrities. The pictures from
Directly relevant
87%
Indirectly
relevant
13%
Relevance - Twitter
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celebrities are mostly about their lives. Those un-photoshopped celebrity photos would
not usually be in a celebrity’s Twitter stream except for being reason of the tweet.
For the pictures that are “indirectly relevant,” they are mostly expressing the feeling
of the words. For example, we can tell that the picture attached to President Obama’s
“four more years” tweet is probably a prepared photo instead of one taken at the scene.
Therefore, I categorize this picture into the category of “indirectly relevant,” because
even without the picture, the content of the tweet is complete. However, the picture
makes the content more vivid.
8.5.2 Weibo

On Weibo, the “directly relevant” pictures still occupy the majority of tweets, but
Directly relevant
63%
Indirectly relevant
37%
Relevance - Weibo
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the “indirectly relevant” pictures take a larger portion of it than they did on Twitter. More
than one third of the pictures on the list are “indirectly relevant.” There are three reasons
possibly leading to more “indirectly relevant” tweets on Weibo than Twitter:
On Weibo, the attached pictures are shown directly to the readers in their Weibo
stream. However, on Twitter, the readers have to click a tweet to see the picture.
Therefore, some Weibo tweet posters can use pictures in a tweet to attract the readers’
attention when they are browsing their Weibo streams.
For one Weibo tweet, 140 Chinese characters are enough to write complex sentences.
Pictures attached to tweets are more likely to serve as supplementary to the tweets.
There are some abstract types of content on the list like life wisdom tweets from
Gyatso Living Buddha and the writer Xiaoxian Zhang. Their tweets usually receive a
large number of retweets, but the pictures attached to the tweets are scenic photos that are
used to express feelings. From another perspective, it is hard to find any “directly
relevant” pictures because their tweets are too abstract.
8.6 Subject
This part will study the subject of the picture. According to the theme, the listed
pictures are categorized as figure, object, and scenic view, etc.
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These are the few times that Twitter and Weibo have similar results. They possibly
show some similar taste between audiences on microblog platforms.
On both of the platforms, figure pictures occupy the largest portions. Object pictures
Figure, 18
Object, 6
Scenic view, 4
Screenshot, 1
Poster, 1
Subject - Twitter
Figure, 14
Object, 7
Scenic view, 5
Words, 2
Screenshot, 1
Poster, 1
Subject - Weibo
Xia 49
and scenic view pictures take the second and the third places.
The result shows that readers tend to be more interested in figures than objects and
scenic views. Figures are the most attractive themes—no matter in celebrity pictures or
news pictures.
However, there are differences between Twitter and Weibo pictures, even though the
percentage distributions look similar.
For figure pictures, Twitter and Weibo have different focuses. Almost all of the
pictures on Twitter are celebrity-related. On Weibo, however, although half of the figure
pictures are about celebrities, the other half are mostly revelations about the dark side of
the society, such as notices of missing children.
The object pictures on Weibo are tremendously diverse.
8.7 Reasons for Retweeting
This part explores the possible reasons the listed pictures were retweeted. After
some primary study, the author divided the pictures into four categories:
Celebrity: The personal influence of the poster led to his or her followers’ retweets.
Event: An event related to the tweet triggered the large number of retweets.
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Picture: The retweets can be attributed to a fascination with the picture itself.
Text: The verbally attractiveness of the picture description was retweeters’ main
reason of sharing. The picture took advantage of the text and also became popular.
There is no doubt that most of the pictures on the list have more than one of the
above reasons to receive a large number of retweets. However, the author only used the
primary reason in the analysis. For example, although President Obama has enormous
personal influence on Twitter, the picture after his successful re-election was categorized
as “event,” since it was the impact of the presidential election that primarily pushed
forward the large number of retweets.
8.7.1 Twitter

Celebrity
87%
Event
13%
Reasons of Retweet - Twitter
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Celebrity related pictures dominate in Twitter’s top retweeted picture list. There are
occasionally events like Obama’s re-election and Felix Baumgartner’s space jump. The
popularity of event pictures pales in comparison with the popularity of celebrity pictures.
For example, almost every one of Justin Bieber’s Twitter pictures is on the list.

8.7.2 Weibo

On Weibo, the results are more diverse and complex.
Celebrity pictures on Weibo are not as popular as they are on Twitter. Only 20% of
the listed pictures relate to celebrities. Readers on Weibo tend to pay more attention to
Celebrity
20%
Event
37%
Text
30%
Picture
13%
Reasons of Retweet - Weibo
Xia 52
event-oriented pictures than to celebrities.
Among these event pictures, most are revelations about the dark side of society. This
reflects that the readers on Weibo are likely to be concerned about the social environment
they are living in and the breaking news around them.
Many pictures serve as supplements to text messages. 30% of the pictures were
retweeted mainly because of the content of the text. As mentioned earlier, 140 Chinese
characters are enough to convey a large amount of information. The text could be
attractive enough for the readers. Pictures could also be used as teasers here.
Some pictures are powerful enough to attract a large number of retweets without
having been posted by celebrities. On Weibo, since the pictures directly show in the tweet
stream, many could stand out if they are attractive enough. The pictures in this category
are either informational or humorous.
9. Case Studies
9.1 Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber is currently one of the most popular and influential stars in the world.
As one of the early-adopters of Twitter, he has always kept a large follower base. His
number of followers now ranks no. 2 on Twitter, after Lady Gaga’s.
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Bieber is highly active on Twitter. He uses his Twitter to record updates about his
performing life. Most of his text-tweets are indications of where he is or words that
encourage himself as well as his followers. He also thanks his fans, or “beliebers,” a lot
on Twitter.
Most of his tweets are purely short texts, and they are extremely oral and
informal--sometimes only a few phrases. His tweets are like text messages from a friend
who is chatting about his work and mood. The readers can feel the energy and intimacy
from Bieber.
As a celebrity, he also pays much attention to interacting with his followers. He
constantly retweets his fans’ tweets and creates conversations with them. His retweets are
usually about his recent activity. For example, when he was about to give a concert in
Utah, he retweeted a tweet from a fan in Utah.
There are two main kinds of pictures on Bieber’s Twitter stream. One is the casual
life photos he takes by himself, mostly through his smartphone. The other kind is the
well-photoshopped promotional pictures, such as posters of his concerts.
According to the author’s observation, almost all of these photos are able to receive
dozens of thousands of retweets. The tweet texts that describe the pictures are extremely
simple, sometimes only one or two words.
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9.1.1 Tweet Picture Sample (See Item3)
Text: "Why does my face look like that?" — Justin Bieber
Retweets: 30,617
This photo is Bieber with his fans. This picture was probably taken with Bieber’s
phone. The picture is original and is not photoshopped. The text is as short as one
sentence. It is quite casual and has a bit self-mockery. A photo like this may help Bieber
build a closer relationship with his fans, and it is beneficial to his personal brand.
This picture received 30,617 retweets in one week.
9.2 Xiaoxian Zhang
Xiaoxian Zhang is a Hong Kong-based writer, novelist, and columnist. She became
famous in China after her first book, “The Woman on the Bread Tree,” was published in
1995.
Most of Zhang’s works are romantic novels, helping her accumulate a giant
population of female reader in China--and also on Weibo, ranking 24
th
by number of
followers (19,125,784 on Dec. 26
th
, 2012). Although she did not have as many followers
as the 23 people before her, she had an exceptionally high rate of retweets for almost
Xia 55
every tweet she posted. According to the author’s observation, most of her tweets
received more than 10,000 retweets and occasionally reached as high as 40,000 to 70,000
retweets. The average number of retweets her tweets receive is much higher than those of
anyone who has more followers than her.
Her tweets mostly follow patterns. The text is about her thoughts or remarks on life,
usually from a female perspective. The text is mostly philosophic and obscure, sounding
like riddles. It seems that the Chinese love this writing style, as her tweets regularly
receive dozens of thousands of retweets. She attaches to every tweet a picture that
emotionally connects to the feeling of the text, such as a photo of a scenic view. The
picture mostly does not directly relate to the text but serves to express her emotion. One
advertiser explained pictures like these as “a bit like movie trailers for written
content--they provide a snippet of what an article, brand, site or other piece of content are
about, so that you can quickly decide if it is what you wanted or not.” (Walter)
9.2.1 Tweet Picture Sample (See Item4)
Original Text: 愛或者不愛一個人，有時候也許只是一瞬間的感覺。一直以為是
愛，就在某個瞬間，覺得不愛了，真的不愛你，也可以沒有你。可是，在下一個瞬
間，突然又覺得，原來還是很愛你。
Text Translation: Love or do not love somebody, sometimes it is just a feeling in a
Xia 56
split second. You always think you are in love. Suddenly, however, you felt it was not
love; he did not love you and could live without you. However, a second later, you felt
you were in love again.
Retweets: 34,589
This tweet received more than 30,000 retweets in one day. Zhang loves to write
tweets that describe emotions or thoughts from a female perspective. She uses plain
words to express deep connotations. It seems that her words have invisible power.
Since her tweets are frequently in the list of the top 10 tweets of the day, and most of
her tweets are accompanied by pictures, these pictures can often enter the list of the most
retweeted pictures of the day.
10. Public Relations Takeaways
Based on the content analysis from the above chapters, this part will summarize the
study’s implications that will possibly benefit the public relations practitioners. Because
of the limit of this study, the implications might change if more samples are collected.
10.1 Twitter
10.1.1 Number of Follower = Influence
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In general, the number of the follower one has is equal to his or her public social
influence. In this research, the author found that all of the listed tweets had posters with
huge follower bases. The tweet picture poster with the smallest number of followers had
140,000 on Twitter, which is already a huge number for normal Twitter users, while on
Weibo, the smallest number of followers was merely 1000.
This is possibly ascribed to the “brand awareness” of Twitter users. A larger number
of followers may lead to a larger number of people who can potentially read the message.
Moreover, the number of followers is also a proof of the message poster’s personal
credibility. A message from a poster with a larger number of followers will convince the
audience to believe and thus repost the message.
Therefore, PR practitioners should notice that the influence of one tweet on Twitter
is largely reliant on the number of followers its poster has. To maximize the social
influence of tweets in PR campaigns, the person who posts the message is extremely
critical. PR practitioners should not only craft good content but also choose the right
person to publish the message on Twitter.
10.1.2 Celebrity Is the Key
Almost all of the Twitter tweet pictures on the list came from celebrities. This
suggests that the “celebrity effect” on Twitter works. Celebrities’ popularity extends to
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the microblog. Twitter users love to read and share celebrities’ tweets, and celebrities on
Twitter are under spotlights, as they are in real life. Tweet pictures from many celebrities
continuously receive extremely large numbers of retweets on Twitter, such as those from
Justin Bieber and One Direction members. Their tweet pictures comprised a large portion
of the complete collection of tweet pictures for this research.
PR practitioners could take advantage of this phenomenon. Using celebrities
strategically as brand promoters could be effective in PR campaigns. Their followers are
usually very active in sharing updates from the celebrities. In addition, celebrities tend to
have large numbers of followers.
10.1.3 Positive Content Is Welcomed
From the results of the sentiment analysis, it can be inferred that Twitter users prefer
positive content. Only one of the thirty tweet pictures on the list was categorized as
negative. In PR campaigns, executers should focus on creating more positive content.
10.2 Weibo
10.2.1 Content is King
On Weibo, users are paying more attention to the quality of the content than to the
popularity of the tweet posters. Weibo users love to retweet messages of good quality, no
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matter how many followers the tweet posters have. Many tweet pictures on Weibo’s
ranking of the most retweeted pictures have proven this point.
To plan an effective PR campaign on Weibo, the executers need to put their efforts
into creating high-quality content. On Weibo, anyone’s tweet could go viral if the content
is distinctly new, inspiring, or funny.
10.2.2 Influential Users Have Diverse Backgrounds
Unlike the top influencers on Twitter, which are majorly celebrities, social
influencers on Weibo have diverse backgrounds. Although celebrities still comprise a
large portion of the results, there are online influencers with other backgrounds, such as
writers, religious leaders and media people.
The diversity of online influencers on Weibo provides many possibilities in PR
campaigns. The campaign executers do not have to limit their choices to celebrities as
their brand promoters, but can choose any Weibo influencers who fit the brand images.
10.2.3 Texts ＞Pictures
According the research, Weibo users are likely to pay more attention to tweet text
than to pictures. Possibly because of the larger information capacity of a Weibo tweet (as
compared to a Twitter tweet), text usually plays a major role in the tweets. Although
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pictures are widely used in Weibo tweets, many of them are supplementary to tweet text.
This feature offers PR practitioners options when using pictures in Weibo tweets. A
message creator could adjust the amount of text in a tweet to match the picture according
to different circumstances. If the message creator uses a picture strategically in a tweet,
the text and picture may support one another and achieve a successful promotional result.
10.3 Microblogs in Common
10.3.1 Celebrity Effect
The “celebrity effect” still works on microblogs. Although the online influencers on
Weibo have more diverse backgrounds than those on Twitter, it does not stop celebrities
from being more popular than most of the other Weibo users. On Twitter, celebrities are
dominant on the list of the most retweeted pictures. Celebrities usually have large
numbers of followers. Moreover, their followers love to the share updates from the
celebrities.
For PR practitioners, leveraging the online influence of celebrities is always a good
idea.
10.3.2 Teasers Create Viral Tweets
There are two pictures in this study that received exceptionally large numbers of
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retweets. One is from Twitter, which is the tweet from President Obama after he won his
re-election. The other is from Weibo, which explains the story behind QQ’s background
picture. Their numbers of retweets are beyond normal and made each of them the most
retweeted picture on their platforms in this research, making them anomalies.
Both of the tweet pictures unraveled the suspense. The pictures allowed people to
realize something that they were unaware of in the first place. The “surprise moment”
made people want to share the pictures.
Similar strategies could be used in PR campaigns. Teasers create curiosity, while the
tweets serve as answers that lead to the “surprise moment.”
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Bibliography
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"Brazil Becomes 2nd Country on Twitter, Japan 3rdNetherlands Most Active
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"FAQs About Retweets (RT)." Twitter Help Center. Twitter.com, n.d. 02 Mar. 2013.
"'Four More Years': Obama Twitter Photo Breaks Record." The Sydney Morning
Herald. Agence France-Presse and Fairfax Media, 8 Nov. 2012. Web. 02 Mar. 2013.
Hodgson, Lucy. "Twitter 2012 [Infographic]." The Blog Herald RSS. N.p., 22 Feb.
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Holtz, Shel. “Tech Talk.” Communication World Nov-Dec. 2012: 8-9. Print.
"I'M QQ." Im.qq.com. Tencent, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2013.
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"Microblogging." Merriam-webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 02 Mar.
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Xia 67
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References
Complete list of pictures used in this study:
1. Twitter
2
B-SKIP (fuccyoudis2o9). “R.I.P Amanda Todd...she committed suicide because of
bullying :'( This is her story...:/

pic.twitter.com/R9tcQ0V1”. Photograph. Twitter Picture.
Web. 12 Oct 12, 9:33 p.m.
Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “Boyz night”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. n.d.
Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “Can’t wait to perform for all of my lovely ladies on
tour”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. n.d.
Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “i will always protect u... pic.twitter.com/d2J4N9zr”.
Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 21 Oct 12, 10:19 a.m.
Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “I LOVE U... #believetour
pic.twitter.com/yWncQm3C”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 21 Oct 12, 10:22 a.m.
Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “Just me”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. n.d.

2
Two pictures were untraceable because the account was closed.
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Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “Merry christmas from the family :)”. Photograph.
Twitter Picture. Web. n.d.
3
Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “see u tonight.

Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “Me and @judahsmith”. Photograph. Twitter Picture.
Web. n.d.
#BELIEVEtour
pic.twitter.com/xu4mH5aT”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 21 Oct 12, 10:38 a.m.
Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “This is PAC the hamster my new believe tour pet I
will bring him to every meet n greet http://instagr.am/p/RB3bL6gvqB/”. Photograph.
Twitter Picture. Web. 20 Oct 12, 8:25 p.m.
Bieber, Justin (justinbieber). “Why does my face look like that
pic.twitter.com/sX8kfWdq”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 25 Aug 12, 6:45 p.m.
Flores, Alfredo (AlfredoFlores). “The boys are back!”. Photograph. Twitter Picture.
Web. n.d.
Obama, Barack (BarackObama). “Four more years. pic.twitter.com/bAJE6V om”.
Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 6 Nov 12, 8:16 p.m.

3
This picture appeared twice in the list.
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One Direction (onedirection). “Liam playing some tunes!
pic.twitter.com/SU0WAeeQ”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 15 Oct 12, 6:28 a.m.
Payne, Liam (Real_Liam_Payne). “Anyone else think brit payne is the cutest , ready
for winter in her hoody pic.twitter.com/gtMAk3rd”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. 19 Oct
12, 11:37 a.m.
Payne, Liam (Real_Liam_Payne). “Nothing better than a bit of English countryside
on a sunny day ... pic.twitter.com/RjSh8xxy”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 16 Oct
12, 8:38 a.m.
Payne, Liam (Real_Liam_Payne). “Poooorrr shoeee pic.twitter.com/nDWsbLgp”.
Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 18 Oct 12, 9:14 a.m.
Payne, Liam (Real_Liam_Payne). “Quiteliked this pigeon :)
pic.twitter.com/9BCymvcc”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 14 Oct 12, 9:02 a.m.
Payne, Liam (Real_Liam_Payne). “So my dog chewed up a shoeee woopsss
pic.twitter.com/jWfuLA5v”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 18 Oct 12, 9:12 a.m.
Payne, Liam (Real_Liam_Payne). “What the ....... Is THiSSSSSS
pic.twitter.com/KJnLMohF”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web. 2 Nov 12, 6:16 a.m.
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Styles, Harry (Harry_Styles). “Banana Face.”. Photograph. Twitter Picture. Web.
n.d.
Styles, Harry (Harry_Styles). “Good morning Paris!”. Photograph. Twitter Picture.
Web. n.d.
Styles, Harry (Harry_Styles). “Good Morning Stockholm!”. Photograph. Twitter
Picture. Web. n.d.
Styles, Harry (Harry_Styles). “I lose the hair game..”. Photograph. Twitter Picture.
Web. n.d.
Styles, Harry (Harry_Styles). “Niall having a look..”. Photograph. Twitter Picture.
Web. n.d.
Styles, Harry (Harry_Styles). “Think I'm gonna liiiike it! @anniemacdj :D .xx
pic.twitter.com/OJ8TqG0w”. Screenshot. Twitter Picture. Web. 16 Oct 12, 1:07 p.m.

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2. Weibo
4
阿信. Man Holding Camera Len. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 7 Nov 12, 10:33
p.m.
陈坤. Birthday. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 18 Oct 12, 0:00 a.m.
董吕平. Tortured Child. Weibo Picture. Web. 24 Oct 12, 8:19 p.m.
杜蕾斯官方微博. Obama v.s. Romney. Weibo Picture. Web. 7 Nov 12, 12:24 a.m.
搞笑库. Letter. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 15 Oct 12, 7:01 a.m.
韩庚. New Haircut. Weibo Picture. Web. 23 Oct 12, 4:14 p.m.
何光伟. Angry Official. Weibo Picture. Web. 25 Oct 12, 9:30 p.m.
湖南锦旗哥浣铁军. Suicide. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 18 Oct 12, 10:07
a.m.
加措活佛- 慈爱基金. Budda. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 15 Oct 12, 9:17 a.m.

加措活佛- 慈爱基金. Burning Incense. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 19 Oct 12,

4
One picture was removed by the tweet poster.
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7:52 a.m.
加措活佛- 慈爱基金. Prayer Flags. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 7 Nov 12, 7:01
a.m.
贾乃亮. Newborn Baby. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 7 Nov 12, 12:35 p.m.
据说你也喜欢这调调. Lost Kid. Weibo Picture. Web. 25 Oct 12, 4:01 p.m.
李星文. Movie Poster. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 7 Nov 12, 5:26 p.m.
刘思宇_. Fire Station on Fire. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 21 Oct 12, 3:16
p.m.
羅志祥. Dog. Weibo Picture. Web. 5 Nov 12, 9:21 p.m.
木秋落. Lost Child. Weibo Picture. Web. 24 Oct 12, 12:31 p.m.
潘粤明. Statement. Screenshot. Weibo Picture. Web. 21 Oct 12, 5:01 p.m.
头条新闻. Parcel. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 22 Oct 12, 5:54 p.m.
微博新鲜事. Calendar. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 7 Nov 12, 8:32 p.m.
新浪娱乐. Dead Singer. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 19 Oct 12, 10:22 p.m.
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新浪娱乐. Divorced Actors. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 20 Oct 12, 8:32 p.m.
新闻晨报. Standing Baby. Weibo Picture. Web. 22 Oct 12, 8:05 p.m.
犹太人智慧启示录. Street View. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 10 Nov 12,
12:37 p.m.
俞灏明. Recovering Actor. Weibo Picture. Web. 22 Oct 12, 3:39 p.m.
张小娴. Sea View. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 19 Oct 12, 8:44 a.m.
张小娴. Sunset. Weibo Picture. Web. 5 Nov 12, 9:06 a.m.
智慧百科全说. Checkbox. Photograph. Weibo Picture. Web. 25 Oct 12, 9:10 a.m.
周陟. QQ Log-in Interface. Weibo Picture. Web. 23 Oct 12, 5:27 p.m.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Xia, Wentao ""Jason"" (author)

Core Title Pictures on microblogs: Twitter vs. Weibo

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Strategic Public Relations

Publication Date 04/29/2013

Defense Date 04/25/2013

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag microblog,OAI-PMH Harvest,Public Relations,social media,Twitter,visual communication,Weibo

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Floto, Jennifer D. (committee chair), LeVeque, Matthew (committee member), Wang, Jian ""Jay"" (committee member)

Creator Email wentaoxi@usc.edu,xiawtde@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-246852

Unique identifier UC11288180

Identifier etd-XiaWentaoJ-1605.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-246852 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-XiaWentaoJ-1605.pdf

Dmrecord 246852

Document Type Thesis

Rights Xia, Wentao ""Jason""

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA