Narendra Modi entered China's Weibo after two months of preparation

NEW DELHI: PM Modi's entry into Weibo came after weeks of careful preparation to embrace the leading Chinese social media platform, officials privy to the matter said. Modi, who has the third largest following on Twitter among world leaders after US President Barack Obama and Pope Francis, had decided to get on to Weibo two months ago, an official said.
The idea came from the PM himself before he was leaving for threenation tour to Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka, said the official.

Modi is known to have asked his aides about the social media pene tration in Seychelles & Mauritius.“When the numbers were provided to him, he said he wanted to join a Chinese social media platform to reach out to people there,“ the official said. BJP volunteers in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong were asked to give their inputs on what would be a good platform to join. The suggestions varied from QZone, Renren, Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo and Tudou. Finally , it was decided that Modi would join Sina Weibo.Modi is said to have spent some time getting familiar with the platform.

As of Sunday , Modi had 44,900 followers on Weibo. His first post, saying hello to people of China, has over 11 million reads; 8,733 forwards; 12,316 comments and 18,594 likes.