A Research On Brand Communication Of Chinese Automobile Brands In International Social Media

Since the auto sales exceeded 10 million in 2009,China has become a big country in auto industry.In the past decade,Chinese auto industry has maintained a high sales volume and market share,but it is not satisfied with the previous achievements.but aims to become a automobile power.Taking the internationalized road is necessary to fulfill Chinese dream of auto power.For Internationalized brands,integrating into the international market depends on international media and international communication strategies.Therefore,this thesis is going to analyze the brand communication of Chinese auto brands in international social media.Via documents,contents,and comparative analyses,the thesis makes a comparative study on the published contents of GEELY,GM and BYD in social media.In order to highlight the characteristics of Chinese cars in foreign social media,this thesis also makes a comparative analysis to a foreign auto brand — German Volkswagen,which makes the communication characteristics of Chinese automobile brands in social media more distinctive.There are 2212 tweets about the four auto brands,and 553 for each brand.This thesis takes Twitter,one of the four major social media all over the world,as the medium for this study.Through comparative study on the contents,it is obvious that according to the information about Chinese auto brands on Twitter,the sources of information are mainly innovative,and many retweets are related to the brand,but the retweeting sources are often not standardized or authoritative;tweet forms are diverse,in which the most popular one is the form of text + picture;users' like,retweet and comment,mainly in brand promotion,are linked with the transmitting capacity of information;holding large-scale activities and releasing interactive Q&A tweets are conducive to igniting users' behaviors of like,retweet,and comment;among users' comments,the general concerns are about overseas after-sales services of China automotive,especially the long maintenance cycle and low maintenance technology.Finally,in order to expand overseas markets,Chinese auto brands must strengthen the advantages and make up for the deficiencies.In response to theanalysis results,the author proposes the following suggestions: first,improving the overseas maintenance system;second,paying attention to the tactics of information spreading and improving the user's interactivity;third,creating a goal-oriented and creative official account on Twitter;four,interacting with the users in a timely and efficient way through multiple channels.