WeChat, China’s undisputed social media titan with over 1.2 billion active users, presents a unique challenge for global brands seeking to make their mark. It’s a platform with its own language, culture, and algorithms – a landscape vastly different from Western social media. A renowned outdoor apparel giant with a powerful global presence experienced this firsthand. Despite their brand’s international recognition, their WeChat engagement was falling flat, leaving them disconnected from a massive potential audience.
The Challenge: Beyond Vanity Metrics
The giant knew that simply measuring likes and shares wasn’t enough. They needed a deeper understanding of what truly drove engagement on WeChat – the kind of insights that could fuel a more effective content strategy.
Marketers in China often zoom in on “Open Rate” as a vital gauge for WeChat Official account performance. Another common goal? Growing that follower base.
While open rate offers insights into your existing followers, it doesn’t necessarily align with gaining new ones. The magic happens when your audience shares your content, drawing in fresh followers. WeChat users wield the power to share content on their Moments or send it directly to friends via chat.
Here, KAWO steps in to track how frequently your content gets shared, estimating the average number of new followers gained through these shares. Plus, we’ve got a secret weapon: the “Amplification Ratio”. This ratio reveals how your content spreads beyond your current followers, potentially reaching new audiences.
According to KAWO database, on average, 65% of readers read your content from Push Messages, around 6% through shared to moments and 8% via shared by a friend in chat. A quick glance might make you think “Sharing to Friends” is more effective than “Sharing to Moments”. But, it’s more likely for people to share content with friends than on their WeChat Moments. Our data shows roughly 77% of sharing happens with Friends and only about 23% with Moments.
Ever wished for content insights that match your brand’s vibe in just a few minutes? ChatGPT might just be your magic wand for Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn content 🪄
While ChatGPT works wonders in many realms, it faces a Great Wall in China. Unfortunately, it can’t tap into popular social networks like WeChat. So, if your brand shines in China using a WeChat Official Account, brace yourself for some extra legwork: You’ll need to manually select and tidy up data from the WeChat backend before feeding it into ChatGPT.
If the thought of working smart, not hard, resonates with you, this article is your secret weapon.😏
With a staggering 1.3 billion users, WeChat stands tall as China’s go-to app for messaging, socializing, payments, and beyond. From dawn till dusk, it intertwines with the daily lives of countless Chinese citizens. No wonder brands are drawn to it as a key channel to connect with potential and devoted customers.
In this post, we’ll cover some of the most important things brands and agencies need to know about opening a WeChat Official Account (OA) and getting it verified:
In recent years, the open rate for WeChat Official Accounts (“OA”) has been declining due to fierce competition for readers’ attention. However, this is not the case for accounts with mostly senior followers who tend to stay loyal and focused.
The perfect place to engage directly with seniors
Seniors (51 years and older) account for 23% of WeChat’s 1.31 billion monthly active users, [S]. WeChat’s extensive list of features designed for better communication, content sharing and entertainment makes it the most popular social media platform for seniors in China.
Wonderland for online community building
“乐退族” LORTUI (LOve ReTirement yoU & I ) is a local company focusing on education, culture and domestic travel services for seniors.
Long-term senior followers of its WeChat OA have helped the brand maintain 30k+ average reads for each main article. In addition, articles continue to receive views long after publishing, signaling that followers continue to grow and that users continue to come back to this channel for news and info.
The Boom of WeChat Channels
Modeled after “Dou Kuai” and launched in 2020, Channels was not originally considered a serious competitor, yet just 2 years later, its video views have increased by 200%, and live-stream views increased by 300%. The number of Channels’ content creators with 10k+ followers also increased by 308% [S].
