What
does the Chinese use for sharing photos? WeChat.
What
does the Chinese use for chatting? WeChat.
What
does the Chinese use for digital marketing? WeChat.
WeChat
is the most used app for a Chinese mobile user, it can function as Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, Skype, Snapchat, PayPal and etc. WeChat’s critical role as a digital marketing
tool in China is self-explanatory. More over with the ability to support quick
mobile payment, WeChat can be used as a convenient retailing platform in the
future.
WeChat
as a social medium in China, its role as both a communication platform for
daily users and a digital marketing platform for businesses has become
irreplaceable nowadays. Its success as an instant messenger, even surpassed
once the single largest communication platform; QQ, another product of TENCENT.
Without extensive competition from, such as Facebook and Twitter, within the
domestic market, WeChat is extremely active with 650million monthly users,
although the number cannot be compared to that of Facebook, its user represents
76% of the entire population （about 857million） who has access to mobile data in China.
According
to a recent study published in 2016, majority of the WeChat users are male and
over 40% of the entire user are employed. Over 90% users are active daily and
about 50% of them use WeChat more than an hour every day. Currently, WeChat has
focused on non-profit services, except just a few areas in entertainment, such
as games and Emojies, and advertising. WeChat, as a strategic product of
TENCENT, is limiting the number of charged services to expand user base now. One
of the strategic approach, and which perhaps will become the most profiting
field for WeChat in the future is the WeChat pay; a mobile payment system, for which
the company has been preparing since 2013. With the huge user base and a
dynamic business potential, WeChat presents a very competitive advantage considering
profitability in the area of finance and digital marketing in China.
For
marketers WeChat is a necessity now, not only because it is a free tool used for
communicating with the customers, but also an important platform for companies
to promote its brand, culture, and product. Companies can register a WeChat Public
Account (shorted as WPA in the following context), a free service, and use it
as a podcasting platform. Although everyone can create their own WPAs, a
company can distinguish its WPA by getting a certification from WeChat. With
the certified logo showing in the profile, users can safely trust the
authenticity of the information from this account. Companies can even promote
the WPA by paid per click advertising service in WeChat to get more followers.
Recently,
another creative marketing approach using MOMENTS function is being used by
many companies. The MOMENTS function in the WeChat is very similar to the Twitter.
Instant contents, in the form of text, link, image, or a mix of them, are
shared between friends. The new marketing approach involves cooperation with a
group of professional influencers in the MOMENTS. These influencers, trained specifically
to create effective promotional contents, charge companies with a certain
amount of fees in order to share them.
In
the future, WeChat pay will play extremely important role for companies. By 2016,
200million users bound their bank card to WeChat pay. The estimated payment
made through WeChat pay was as high as $550 billion in 2016.
As
marketers, not only we should use WeChat as a promotional tool, but more importantly
see the potential of it being used as a retail platform in the future.
