I used to browse feeds on it every morning, put it on the home screen of my phone, and thought that I would always love it. Now I don’t even bother to check the 12 unread messages in my Weibo mailbox. Sorry Weibo but I’m not the only one. People have been saying that Weibo has lost its edge and that local social junkies have found a new sweetheart Weixin, or WeChat.

Recently an independent SNS market researcher Zhiwei conducted a research on Weibo’s development history for local online media Huxiu (report in Chinese). Since Weibo is mostly a social platform with trends led by celebrity accounts, Zhiwei dug into the posts and reposts of accounts with over 10,000 followers.

Usage Trend of the Surveyed Sina Weibo Users (2009 – 2013) (source: huxiu.com)

 

Here’re some takeaways from the report.

  1. Reposting boom happened on 2011-6-26, 2013-2-4, 2011-6-20, 2013-2-5, 2013-2-8, etc.
  2. The number of reposts is still growing in a steady pace.
  3. Usage of the social platform relies on some top events like natural disasters, accidents, or festivals. Users are least active on weekends and long holidays.
  4. There was a gradual drop in social activeness after the 2012 peak and now it has fallen to the level of what it was in early 2011. Accordingly it has dropped by 30% compared to that in its peak days.
  5. Users are most active on Thursdays, while not active at all on weekends.