London Mayor Fails at Weibo, Copy-and-Pasting Random Messages From Twitter

Surely the key element of social media marketing is to keep it relevant. And so London Mayor, Boris Johnson, seems to be failing at reaching out to Chinese folks on his new Sina Weibo account (see it here), as it consists almost entirely of inscrutable nonsense that has been copied-and-pasted from his official Twitter page.

Last night, Mr Johnson’s Weibo – now at 80,000 followers and rising rapidly – tweeted out this irrelevant message:

isabellagornall you can find them at http://t.cn/zOOzf18 for just £1.50!

The first name is a reference to a Twitter user that doesn’t even exist on Weibo. Most of his Weibo missives – presumably done by a staffer, not Boris himself – are similar mis-fires straight from his @backboris2012 Twitter profile. Also, Weibo uses a double hash for its hashtags, so all the Twitter-oriented ones – such as #backboris for his mayoral campaign – don’t work on the popular Sina social network. The vote for London mayor takes place on May 3rd, and it will therefore decide which man – Mr. Johnson, former mayor Ken Livingstone, or challenger Brian Paddick – represents the city during the Olympics.

Inevitably, as spotted by The Daily Dot, some Chinese netizens are having a giggle at the Mayor’s expense, joking that he’s inexplicably campaigning to Chinese voters. One other commenter said:

Hey old man, can you speak a little Chinese? We’re Chinese people, on Chinese soil.

While another politely requested:

Since you’re using Weibo, please write Chinese, mister Mayor.

But most of his followers on Weibo are just happy to see the Mayor on the service, where he seems to be reaching out to the previous hosts of the Olympics in the year that London prepares to host it in just 99 days time.