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WeCom: The Essential Chinese Business Communication Tool for the Online Era

June 9, 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift towards online business for businesses around the world. As a result, WeCom, a communication and collaboration platform developed by Tencent, has become increasingly popular among businesses. It offers video conferencing, instant messaging, and file sharing, making it a valuable tool for remote work.

Moreover, it has also helped businesses adapt to new customer behaviours and preferences, such as online shopping and virtual events, and stay connected with their customers in the absence of face-to-face interactions. Online communication tools like WeCom have become essential for companies looking to stay competitive in the current business environment.

Let’s get to know this platform in more detail in this article.

What is WeCom?

WeCom, developed by Tencent, is a business communication and collaboration app. Formerly known as WeChat Work, it offers features like group chat, video conferencing, file sharing, and task management.

It integrates with email, calendar, and CRM systems. It’s popular in China, supports multiple platforms and languages, and allows larger group sizes and more contacts compared to WeChat.

It also enables interaction between WeChat and WeCom users. Certain features may be restricted based on user settings and permissions.

How is it different from WeChat?

WeCom is targeted for business communication needs whereas WeChat can be used to post articles, run ads and get connected with potential customers. Some of the significant differences between these apps are

WeChat allows an individual account to create a group with up to 500 members, while its business equivalent allows up to 10,000 group members for an organizational group and up to 2000 members for other groups. The organization can use it to invite customers, vendors, suppliers, and partners to join its groups for more accessible communication. Similarly, a WeChat account can add up to 5000 “friends,” but an individual WeChat Work account can add up to 50,000 “friends.

Besides, a WeChat account can send up to 200 messages to friends, while the other account has no limit for bulk messages.

Another feature that makes it more business-friendly than WeChat is that professional accounts can share the information of their “friends” (e.g., customers) with other professional members, which makes for seamless work handover or workflow support.

Moreover, these powerful features can be beneficial for business networking as well as operations management. Users of both platforms can interact with each other, as both platforms are developed by Tencent and are integrated with each other. This means that users of WeChat can send messages and make calls to WeCom contacts, and vice versa. Similarly, users of WeCom can also interact with WeChat contacts by adding them to their WeCom contacts list and sending messages or making calls through the app.

Additionally, WeChat Work provides various APIs to allow organizations to access and integrate it with other applications, including those of the WeChat ecosystem and third-party partners.

APIs – Application Programming Interfaces

Tencent provides a range of APIs that developers can use to build custom integrations and extensions for the platform. Here are some of the most popular APIs:

Chat API: This API allows developers to build custom chatbots and integrations for chat feature, enabling users to interact with third-party services and applications directly within the platform.

Directory API: This API provides access to user and group information within, making it easier to manage users, groups, and permissions.

Event API: This API allows developers to receive real-time notifications for various events, such as message send/receive, user login/logout, and group chat creation/deletion.

Contact API: This API allows developers to manage and synchronize contact information between the platform and external systems.

Authentication API: This API provides secure authentication and authorization for third-party applications that need to access features and data.

Drive API: This API enables developers to build custom integrations for cloud storage and file sharing features, allowing users to access and share files directly within the platform.

🌏 Why should brands use CRM Integrations on WeChat?

These are just a few examples of the APIs available for WeCom. Developers can access the full API documentation and resources on the WeCom developer website.

WeCom Usage in China & How Covid-19 Influenced Its Usage

WeCom, Tencent’s dedicated product for business communication and office collaboration, reached 180 million active users with more than 10 million companies and organizations last year.

When Covid-19 hit and everyone was forced to work, tools like WeCom made the transition easy for people to keep up with their work and business. WeCom facilitated remote work and virtual events during the pandemic.

WeCom helped with:

Increased Adoption: As businesses and organisations shifted to remote work and online collaboration, there was a surge in the adoption of WeCom. According to Tencent, the company behind WeCom, the app saw a 200% increase in usage in China during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020.

Hybrid Work Model: As China emerged from the pandemic and returned to work, many businesses adopted a hybrid work model, with employees working both in the office and remotely. WeCom played a key role in facilitating this model, as it allowed employees to communicate and collaborate seamlessly regardless of their physical location.

Virtual Events: With the cancellation of in-person events and conferences, many organisations turned to virtual events to connect with customers and partners. WeCom’s video conferencing and group chat features made it a popular platform for hosting virtual events.

How B2B Brands Can Use WeCom

Customer Support: B2B brands can use WeCom to provide customer support to their clients. They can create a dedicated customer support group within WeCom and allow customers to contact them via chat, voice, or video calls. This can help businesses provide faster and more personalised support to their customers.

Sales and Marketing: B2B brands can use Wecom to communicate with their potential clients and partners. They can create groups and invite prospective clients to join them to provide product information, answer questions, and share marketing collateral. This can help businesses build stronger relationships with potential clients and generate leads.

Collaboration: B2B brands can use Wecom to collaborate with their external partners, vendors, and suppliers. They can create groups and invite external parties to join them for discussions, document sharing, and project management. This can help businesses streamline their supply chain management and enhance collaboration with external parties.

Event Management: B2B brands can use Wecom to manage their events and conferences. They can create groups for attendees, share event schedules, and send notifications to keep attendees informed about the latest updates. This can help businesses enhance the attendee experience and engage with their audience more effectively.

💼WeChat for B2B sector & 10 Ways for a B2B Brand to Generate Leads on WeChat

How B2C Companies Can Use WeCom

WeCom can be used by B2C companies to enhance their communication with customers and improve their overall customer experience. Here are some ways B2C companies can use WeCom:

Customer Service: B2C companies can use WeCom to provide customer service to their customers. They can create a customer service group within WeCom and allow customers to contact them via chat, voice, or video calls. This can help businesses provide faster and more personalised support to their customers.

Marketing: B2C companies can use WeCom to promote their products or services and engage with their customers. They can create groups and invite customers to join them for product launches, promotions, and other marketing events. This can help businesses build stronger relationships with their customers and increase customer loyalty.

Sales: B2C companies can use WeCom to facilitate sales with their customers. They can create groups and invite customers to join them to provide product information, answer questions, and place orders. This can help businesses enhance their sales processes and provide a more convenient shopping experience for their customers.

Feedback and Surveys: B2C companies can use WeCom to gather feedback and conduct surveys from their customers. They can create groups and invite customers to participate in surveys or provide feedback on their products or services. This can help businesses gain valuable insights into their customers’ needs and preferences and make data-driven decisions.

Overall, WeCom can be a valuable tool for B2C companies to enhance customer communication and engagement. It improves customer service, and increase customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Setting Up WeCom for Your Business

Employers can create a WeCom account by following these steps:

Firstly, go to the WeCom registration page: https://work.weixin.qq.com/
Secondly, enter your company information, including company name, industry, and contact information.
Create an administrator account by entering your email address and creating a password. This account will have full access to your company’s WeCom account and settings.
Verify your email address by clicking on the verification link sent to your email.
Set up your company’s WeCom account by following the prompts provided by the platform.
Once your account is set up, you can invite employees to join by providing their phone numbers and email addresses.

Note that there may be additional steps required for verifying your company’s information and setting up specific features within WeCom, such as third-party integrations or customer support channels. Be sure to consult WeCom’s documentation and support resources for more information on how to customize and optimize your account for your business needs.

🗣️Top 5 alternatives for LinkedIn in China you need to know now

Conclusion

WeCom has revolutionized business communication in China. It provides an efficient and secure platform that empowers organizations to thrive in a fast-paced and interconnected environment. By leveraging the features and capabilities of WeCom, businesses can enhance their productivity. They can also foster collaboration, and build strong relationships, ultimately driving growth and success in the dynamic Chinese market.

If you want to know more about the Chinese market contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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Exploring WeChat Channels Backend: Features & Stats

April 28, 2023

WeChat Channels: In today’s digital age, social media has become an essential part of our lives. From personal to professional use, we all use social media platforms to connect, share, and grow. One such platform that has gained immense popularity in recent times is WeChat Channels. Channels are one of the most important features that Tencent plans to invest in this year. We wrote more about it in WeChat Channels: An In-Depth Look at the Statistics and the Future Plans.

One of the key features of WeChat is that it can be accessed both from the mobile and desktop levels. While the mobile version is ideal for content creators who want to create and share content on the go, accessing Channels through the desktop version offers more functions and a clearer overview of statistics.

Some of the key channel statistics that WeChat provides are follower metrics, message data, engagement metrics, average open rates, location and demographics, and content performance. WeChat’s channel statistics provide valuable insights for businesses to track their performance and make data-driven decisions to optimize their marketing and engagement efforts on the platform.

Let’s dive deeper into this to understand how the WeChat Channels backend works to take the utmost advantage of the platform for different business needs.

You can access it at: https://channels.weixin.qq.com/

WeChat Channels Backend Homepage:

One of the key features of WeChat is its desktop-level functionality, which allows users to schedule the publication of posts and view important daily data.

WeChat Channels Backend Homepage

Upon logging into WeChat, users can see the most important daily data from the previous day. This data includes key statistics such as the number of views, likes, and comments on recent posts. This information is useful for businesses and individuals who are interested in tracking the performance of their content on the platform.

In addition to viewing daily data, users can also schedule the publication of their posts directly from the desktop. This functionality allows users to plan and prepare their content in advance, which can be particularly useful for businesses and individuals who want to maintain a consistent posting schedule.

WeChat Channels Content Management:

Preparing and scheduling social media content can be a time-consuming task for content creators. On the desktop backend of WeChat Channels, brands have the ability to prepare their posts and schedule them for publishing at a later time. This includes the ability to upload videos or create carousels of images, write engaging copy with relevant hashtags, add location tags, and schedule the post for a specific date and time.

WeChat Channels Backend Post Scheduling

In addition to these key features, brands can also add a short title for SEO purposes, helping to optimize their post for WeChat search engine and improve its visibility for the Channels algorithm. By carefully crafting the title and post description along with hashtags, content brands can increase the chances of their post being discovered by users who are actively searching for related content.

🏆 Explore top practices for WeChat Channels posting in WeChat Channels – How to Post for Success?

WeChat Channels Data:

The statistics page is where the most important information sits. We have access to all the data, including followers’ data, demographics, and post data.

Firstly, we can see changes in the follower base.

It is worth noting that following the WeChat Channels account requires a separate action to follow. As of now, official accounts where brands post articles although can be linked in many ways do not share the follower base pools.

WeChat Channels Data

On this page, we can track changes in the follower base by different time ranges and actions performed. We can also see our followers’ demographics, such as gender, age, location, and system used.

Secondly, we can see data regarding our posts. By day and time periods, we can see total views, engagements, and source of traffic.

For each unique post, we can see:

Completion rate
Views
Average playtime
Engagements such as likes, recommendations, comments, shares
Set as ringtone

These data points help content creators to understand what kind of content is resonating with their audience. This way they can optimize their strategy accordingly.

Other functions of WeChat Channels desktop:

In addition to the above data points, the WeChat Channels backend also provides other important functions. For example, live-streaming, e-commerce, comments, and private message management. These features can be linked with WeCom, WeChat’s enterprise communication and management platform. The heating tool is another useful function that allows content creators to boost views and increase exposure.

Live-streaming: WeChat allows users to live stream videos from their desktop. This feature can be used for personal or business purposes, such as conducting online workshops, tutorials, and product demonstrations.

🎥 Learn more about WeChat Channels Livestreaming in one of our most popular blog posts

E-commerce: WeChat has a built-in e-commerce platform that allows businesses to sell their products directly on the app. It allows for a seamless and instant shopping experience.

Comments and private message management: WeChat’s desktop backend allows users to manage their comments and private messages more efficiently. This feature can be used by businesses to improve their customer service and respond to customer inquiries more quickly.

Heating tool: WeChat’s heating tool is a feature that can be used by businesses to boost their views and increase exposure. This feature can be used to promote a business or product to a wider audience.

Explore our Beginner’s Guide to WeChat Channels

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the WeChat Channels backend is a powerful tool that provides valuable insights and statistics for content creators to analyze their performance and optimize their strategies. By leveraging this information, content creators can understand their audience better and tailor their content to engage and grow their followers. With the help of additional functions such as live-streaming, e-commerce, and heating tools, content creators can further enhance their presence on WeChat and achieve their marketing objectives.

If you want to know more about the Chinese market and how we can help create successful WeChat campaigns for your business contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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WeChat Open Class Pro: A Look at What’s in Store for Businesses in 2023

March 2, 2023

WeChat Open Class PRO is a hyped and highly-anticipated annual conference organized by Tencent and aimed at creators.

In addition to showcasing exciting new developments and plans that WeChat has in store, the event aims to offer insightful information about how medium and small businesses can use the platform to spur growth and raise brand awareness.

Let’s see how this can impact brands and businesses that use WeChat to reach their customer base…

Why is WeChat Class PRO important for businesses?

Weixin Open Class PRO also referred to as WeChat Open Class PRO, is a yearly conference organized for developers, companies, and marketers to learn about the most recent features, updates, and best practices for the largest social media platform in China. We covered the event last year – WeChat Weixin Open Class PRO 2022.

Here are some reasons why Weixin Open Class PRO is important for businesses:

Keep up with the newest features

Businesses can learn more about the most recent features and updates, including Mini Programs, WeChat Pay, and WeChat Work, thanks to Weixin Open Class PRO.
By using new features to improve their marketing and customer engagement strategies, businesses can benefit from this information and stay one step ahead of the competition.

Find out the best practices

Businesses have the chance to learn how to use WeChat to grow their operations from successful case studies and industry experts through Weixin Open Class PRO.
This can help businesses maximize their marketing efforts, improve customer engagement, and raise brand awareness.

Access to Tencent resources

Businesses can access resources from Tencent, including its developer tools and APIs, through Weixin Open Class PRO.
In order to better serve their customers, this can assist businesses in developing customized WeChat solutions, such as Mini Programs.
In general, Weixin Open Class PRO is crucial for companies looking to stay competitive and use WeChat to promote business expansion in China.

📹 Watch the whole recording of the WeChat PRO 2023 conference here

What can we expect for 2023?

Based on the Open Class PRO and our own observations, we can tell that:

WeChat Channels:

After a year of new features including adding customer service integrations, WeChat Channels will continue to grow. Check out WeChat Channels Stats 2023 & Growth Plan to find out more.
Moreover, Tencent made a commitment to help creators. Their team stated that they would offer in a total of 5 billion free views in traffic, as well as richer and more comprehensive monetization tools and incentive policies, in order to assist anyone who is serious about broadcasting, growing, and earning money.

Backstreet Boys WeChat Channels

New Formats:

WeChat appears to be introducing new ad formats and improved integrations.
There is certain format fatigue as the article format has been the same for years. This year, Tencent tests to implement new formats like:
- Images will be stacked and horizontally viewable in a 3:4 aspect ratio.
- Up to 300 characters will be allowed in the description section.
- Optimized services related to image display to gain traction.

WeChat Image Message New Format

WeChat Search:

The WeChat search engine continued to expand, reaching 800 million monthly users:
- Earlier this month, WeChat released a small program called Search data assistant.
- Wechat’s backend has been updated with new features to help brands better track it.

🔍 A Quick Guide to WeChat Search As a Marketing Tool

WeCom:

Undoubtedly, WeCom will expand as well. WeCom, Weixin’s product specifically designed for businesses, offers practical office automation and communication tools. It is also being adopted by the education sector more and more.
According to the Industry Resilience and Recovery Potential Report 2023 that Weixin released at the Weixin Open Class PRO, SME businesses with fewer than 500 employees saw a 35% increase in the number of daily active WeCom enterprise users in the manufacturing sector year over year.

AI development:

Lastly, it’s worth noting the advancements made by the WeChat AI team. In 2022, the AI team made improvements to the WeChat dialogue open platform called co-enterprise WeChat.
They also introduced a new service called “dialogue robot” for corporate WeChat. It will allow for more seamless integration between robots and artificial customer service in the customer service scene. This natural integration enabled companies to serve their users more efficiently.

Conclusion

Firstly, WeChat’s annual Open Class Pro conference is a crucial event for businesses seeking to stay ahead of the competition and expand their customer base in China. Moreover, we can expect continued growth and innovation from WeChat in 2023, with the 2022 conference focusing on mini-programs, payment, and search functions, and advancements in the app’s short video service, Channels.

Furthermore, with Tencent’s commitment to investing in traffic and monetization tools, as well as advancements in ad formats and WeChat AI, businesses can anticipate new opportunities for engagement and growth on the platform.

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about WeChat, please contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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Maximizing WeChat Channels: An In-Depth Look at the Statistics and the Future Plans

February 16, 2023

WeChat, China’s biggest app, grew from just a chatting messanger to a major business platform a long time ago. And Channels, the video sub-platform of WeChat, is becoming one of users’ and businesses’ favorite features.

Channels advanced last year, with more services and content available to both consumers and businesses. Since the start of its internal beta testing on January 21, 2020, it has experienced significant user engagement. The feature, which enables anyone to record, create, and share videos, saw total user time exceed 80% of that of Moments, the latter of which offers mutual contacts with asynchronous photo, video, and audio sharing.

If you’re not very familiar with WeChat Channels yet, explore our introductory post for beginners here – A Beginner’s Guide to WeChat Channels.

Now, let’s analyze the WeChat Channel statistics and growth plan for 2023.

WeChat Channel Statistics

WeChat Channels have powerful tools for businesses to connect with their target audience and drive growth – with the help of innovative content. The total number of views has skyrocketed, with a 200% YoY increase and a 400% YoY increase in video views based on AI recommendations.

The number of daily active creators and video uploads has also surged, with a 100% YoY increase, and significant growth in the number of viral videos and original video views. However, short videos are not all.

Live streaming has also seen tremendous growth, with a 300% increase in users, a 156% increase in viewing time, a 614% increase in content creators, and an 83% increase in broadcast time.

🎥 Learn more about live-streaming on WeChat Channels

WeChat Channels continue to expand its support with new features like live streaming e-commerce, quick sharing, and product windows. This makes more brands eager to leverage a massive userbase to drive their sales and reach their target audience.

The GMV of live-streaming e-commerce on Channels has grown by over 800% since 2021. Moreover, the average transactions now exceed RMB 200.

Top Events in 2023

WeChat Channels have become one of the most popular platforms for users to watch and share short videos.

It’s clear that short videos are a hit among WeChat Channels users. The number of views for short videos in 2022 increased by 237% compared to the previous year, showing just how popular they have become.

When it comes to the most popular short videos, five topics stood out. These were the workplace, cultural history, financial management, eloquence/speech, and trivia. This shows that users are interested in a wide range of topics.

WEChat Channels Stats 2023

For those looking to be entertained, WeChat Channels has a plethora of options. The top five concerts in 2022 included “Yearning” by Li Jian, Cui Jian’s first online concert, the Backstreet Boys’ first-ever online concert, Luo Dayou’s “Childhood” concert, and “You Want a Good Concert.”

Backstreet Boys WeChat Channels

In addition to entertainment, WeChat Channels users are also looking for ways to improve their physical health. The top six fitness keywords searched by users were yoga, bodybuilding, boxing, body, aerobics, and diet meals.

For those looking to explore, WeChat Channels offer a wealth of travel content. For example, the top 10 most popular destinations in WeChat Channels included:

Yellow River Xiaolangdi Reservoir,
Huashan Long Sky Boardwalk,
Tiananmen,
Leshan Giant Buddha,
Yellow River Hukou Waterfall,
Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie,
Forbidden City,
Gulangyu Island in Xiamen,
Macao Green Mao Port,
Former Residence of Chairman Mao in Shaoshan.

WeChat Channels’ Growth Plan

In the fast-paced digital world, it’s essential for businesses to keep up with the latest trends and technologies to reach their target audience. WeChat Channels is one such platform that provides a unique opportunity for businesses to reach a vast audience through its innovative features and rich content ecosystem. According to WeChat Weixin Pro Class 2023 (our coverage of the 2022 edition available here), Tencent plans to invest more into Channels in the coming years.

Short Video

The short video feature on WeChat Channels has seen significant growth in the past year. As a result, with more and more creators joining the platform, the content ecosystem has become more diverse and prosperous.

Moreover, the time spent by WeChat Channels users has also increased and is now approaching that of WeChat Moments. The video views based on recommendation algorithms have increased by over 400% YoY, making it a great opportunity for businesses to reach a vast audience.

To provide comprehensive author services, WeChat Channels has upgraded its creator traffic and honor incentives, with new product capabilities such as online content heating, video product sharing, and video monetization tasks.

These tools will provide creators with more monetization options and help them grow and get better returns on WeChat Channels.

In 2022, the number of daily active creators and video uploads increased by more than 100% YoY, original content played increased by 350% YoY, and the number of creators with 10,000+ fans increased by 308%.

🗺 Learn how to optimize your WeChat Channels posting with our quick guide

Live Streaming

WeChat Channels’ live broadcasts have become an integral part of users’ social lives, covering a range of content from hot events to daily information communication and celebrity speeches. Above all, it provides a platform for individuals to start broadcasting and showing themselves, encouraging diverse content production.

The platform provides a rich live broadcasting ecosystem:

the viewing scale increasing by 300%,
the viewing time by 156%,
and high-quality launch time by 614%.

WeChat Channels has always encouraged the production of diversified and high-quality content. In order words, providing a platform for “every individual to pick up his mobile phone and start broadcasting.”

As a result, this led to a significant increase of 101% in 2022 and total anchor revenue growth by 447%.

To sum up, live streaming will invest 5 billion in traffic incentives and more rich and perfect realization tools and incentive policies to help every individual have a good start, growth, and income.

E-commerce Live Streaming

Live Streaming Channels

The commercial potential of WeChat Channels live broadcast has continued to grow. With sales increasing by more than 8 times YoY and the platform’s public purchase conversion rate by more than 100%.

The top three categories of consumption are clothing, food, and beauty. Finally, it’s worth noting that the purchasing power on WeChat Channels is split between 20% male and 80% female users. This information is useful for businesses and content creators looking to target specific demographics with their products and services.

The launch of WeChat Channels stores provides businesses with convenient and efficient business tools, with over 90% of sales coming from the WeChat Channels store. The platform has connected over 1,000 service providers, contributing over 30% to Channels’ sales.

Firstly to better support brand merchants, WeChat Channels will soon release an incentive plan for merchants. Secondly, Tencent will provide more opportunities, including traffic, brand identity, and other services. For instance, the platform will also continue to increase its support for service providers and focus on investment. For example, in areas of identity authentication, traffic incentives, and operational tools.

Conclusion

WeChat Channels have come a long way, with improvements in short video, live broadcasting, and e-commerce. Above all, with the continued development of the ecosystem and the implementation of incentive policies, WeChat Channels will continue to attract more users and creators, providing a platform for rich and diverse content.

If you want to know more about WeChat channels and help create a content strategy for WeChat, contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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International official WeChat account vs local WeChat official account

February 1, 2023

Opening an official account can be a daunting task for companies, especially those based overseas. Until a few years, it wasn’t possible for foreign entities to register their official WeChat account or they had to use 3rd party business license in order to do so. Still, many online sources insist that an account created with a foreign business license is not visible to users based in China.

We are happy to let you know that none of the above is true.

Firstly, foreign companies have been permitted to open and legally own a WeChat official account entirely controlled by their overseas entity since 2018. We have helped dozens of our clients to register an official account with their overseas paperwork.

Secondly, all of their content is visible to their followers based in and outside of China. Let’s see how to get started with the WeChat official accounts!

International vs Local WeChat official account

When it comes to WeChat official accounts, be they international or local, it looks the same for the audience. To clarify, the difference is only in the account creation and features of the WeChat services.

Type and number of official accounts

Brands with a Chinese business license have the option of a service or subscription account, the two types of official WeChat accounts available, whereas brands with an international business license can only choose a service account.

>>> We explain more about the differences between service and subscription accounts here

Furthermore, only one international official account can be created under one license, but with a Chinese business license, you can create two official accounts under one license.

Other services

Chinese WeChat accounts get easier access to additional services like advertising, whitelisting or WeChat Pay, etc., while it is slightly more complex for international accounts to access these services, although some are still available.

For example, overseas businesses might be restricted from advertising in certain industries and application for an advertising account on WeChat is not automatic but granted on a case-by-case basis. Since we are working directly with Tencent, we are able to help with these issues and troubleshoot immediately.

Time and fees

The registration time for an account using a Chinese business license is usually a few working days. For accounts registering with an overseas account, each application is reviewed individually and it can take more time. Normally, the process of registration takes up to 14 days and is relatively smooth.

However, in recent months, the next step – verification of the account, can take a couple of weeks. Verification is required for the account to be recognized as official and in order to unlock key account features. From the user’s perspective, a verified WeChat account also means that it’s legitimate and can be trusted.

When it comes to the fee that brands need to pay WeChat for yearly account validation, Chinese WeChat official accounts need to pay a fee of 299 RMB, and international official accounts have to pay a fee of 99 USD per year.

Admin

An extremely important role, the admin will scan the QR codes to approve any major changes o the account, appoint article editors, and more. Every WeChat account must have an admin. Admin must approve all major account operations by scanning a QR code, including adding operators with limited authorizations but who can fully prepare and publish articles.

For accounts using a local business license, Tencent requires a Chinese citizen (Chinese local ID) to be the admin, it’s best to have a trusted employee appointed.

For the accounts using the international business license, the admin can be a foreigner. A personal WeChat account verified with a bank card (can be overseas and can be unlinked after the procedure and passport information will be required.

It’s extremely important to hand over the admin role if an employee is leaving a company, otherwise, the process is quite troublesome. But nevertheless, it’s the company that is always the owner of the account and not the admin. It’s just quite hard to appoint the new admin without the previous one scanning the approval codes.

Pros and cons of Chinese and international WeChat official accounts

From the user’s / follower’s perspective, there is absolutely no difference. Brand followers based in China or abroad will receive exactly the same updates and articles.
For international accounts, an additional application is required to start media buying (WeChat ads) or WeChat payments (WeChat pay for e-commerce).
Apart from admin, there are operators (in this case e.g. agency or other company employees) who can post but cannot approve major changes on the account.
Both types of accounts have the same login page and backend, which are available in Chinese and (partially) English.
So apart from some minor inconveniences like additional verifications for media buying, the international account has exactly the same functions. It’s just the legal setup behind it is a bit different e.g. allowing a non-Chinese to be the admin. Apart from that, the login page for creators and articles shown to fans look the same.

If your company has a local branch in China, we strongly suggest you consider opening an account using local paperwork as the process is much faster and smoother. Locally-created accounts have access to more features too.

On the other side, if you can’t appoint a local person to be an admin, you might prefer to go with an international account. Alternatively, we can also support you to appoint a trusted admin on our side while you’ll be 100% the legal owner of the account.

Under any circumstances, we don’t recommend registering an official account using 3rd party business license as in this case you won’t be the legal owner of the account. In the worst-case scenario, your account can be suspended and all articles and followers lost.

Introduction to WeChat Official accounts

WeChat official accounts are one of the easiest ways for brands and businesses to reach their target audience. You can use it to build a customer database as well as attract and retain customers for your business.

There are two types of WeChat official accounts available, they are

WeChat subscription account
WeChat service account

Service and subscription accounts offer very different user experiences hence the user journey and landing on the article vary.

Subscription accounts are gathered in a separate folder where accounts are shown according to an algorithm (most often read accounts) compared to chronological order before. Moreover, service accounts have the same priority as user contacts in terms of notification status and appear on the main page in chronological order.

WeChat subscription account

A content-centric approach to consumer activation and interaction with limited features but a high potential for reaching consumers

A subscription account can push once per day with up to 8 articles in each push (but only the top 2 articles are visible in the feed),

More frequently posting accounts are gathered within one folder.

Originally in chronological order, now switched to algorithmically sorted with most read at the top of the user’s feed.

As there is no direct notification (users see a red dot implying that there are some new updates) frequent pushes are less obtrusive for users.

Pros:
- Frequent posting possibilities.
- Less annoying to users.
Cons:
- Dramatically lower exposure as the account is tucked inside the subscription folder with other accounts causing a multiple-step user journey.
- Advanced coding options or CRMs not available.
Good for: news, FMCG, daily updates, etc.

WeChat service account

Provide a service or tool to customers.

Service accounts show directly in main screen with contact-level notification priority.
Service accounts can push 4 times per month with up to 8 articles.
Appear in chronological, real-time order.
Direct notifications (users see a red dot among chats from their contacts) make each notification much more noticeable for users.
Pros:
- Direct notifications.
- Greater exposure.
- Bespoke solutions like CRM integration, WeChat Pay integration, etc.
Cons:
- Direct notifications can be much more obtrusive for users and each push can cause efflux of followers if they find the content is not interesting enough for them.
- Good for: B2B, luxury, e-commerce.

How to Open a WeChat Official Account Abroad

There are two ways to create an international WeChat official account

You can directly go to WeChat and create your own account for your brand
Collaborate with agencies like The WeChat Agency, where we help businesses to set up WeChat accounts using their own paperwork.

Here’s how to create an international WeChat Official account directly through WeChat

Step 1: Register an account on WeChat’s Official Account platform

Step 2: Pick your account type (The default account type for the international official account is “Service account)

If you prefer a subscription account, you will can only do it with a Chinese business license.

Step 3: Fill in the registration form

In this step, you fill in the basic information for example registration email. Be careful as you won’t be able to change this email later on.

Step 4: Confirm account type

Step 5: Register your Official account

Businesses need to provide their company name, registration number, the admin’s name, and mobile number along with the admin’s ID card number, passport number, or driver’s license number

Step 6: Fill in your account info

In this stage, businesses have to choose a name for their WeChat official account, write a bio or introduction, and confirm the country the business is operating from.

Verification

Step 7: Verify your WeChat Official account

Businesses have access to the WeChat Official Accounts platform once they’ve finished filling out the account information. Account authentication happens here.

Since unverified accounts are deleted after 30 days, this is significant. Additionally, they have restricted access to basic functions like the verification tick.

Select the “WeChat verification” option from the “Settings” menu to verify the account.

Then, on the verification page that appears, click “Enable.”

Step 8: Begin the verification process

After clicking “Enable,” a prompt to download the verification letter and start the official application process will appear.

Step 9: Complete and sign the verification letter.

Businesses need to certify the following in the verification letter:

Company name
A point-of-contact
The passport number
Country of citizenship
The WeChat Account ID

Please note that at this step you will need the signature of the legal representative of the company’s team as well as the contact person.

Please note that the point-of-contact does not need to be the confirmed account administrator from step five. It can be if the business wants it to be, but it’s not a requirement.

Businesses should print the verification letter, sign it, then scan and send it back to the computer so that it can be processed in the next step.

Step 10: Fill in the requested information for verification

Businesses must supply the following information to verify the company:

Name
Company registration number
Company address
Upload both a scan of the business license and the verification letter from the previous step.

Businesses must offer the following in order to verify the point of contact:

Their full name
Mobile number (which will need to be verified via SMS)
Landline number
Email address
ID card number, passport number and/or driver’s license number
Businesses must upload copies of their identification documents and most recent mobile phone bill as well.

The mobile phone bill must have the contact information (name, phone number, company name, and at least three months of payment history) and be uploaded in English.

Step 11: Confirm the business account name

You will now receive a prompt to confirm the name on the official account. Most importantly, you must confirm that any custom names you choose do not conflict with any trademarks held by other businesses or WeChat account names that have already been registered.

Tencent can reject your application if you fail to meet either of these two conditions.

Step 12: Choose whether you want an invoice

Click “E-invoice” if a business would like an invoice for their registration fee. Once the account has been verified, they will receive this in ten days.

Step 13: Pay the registration fee

Now it’s time to pay the registration fee of $99.

Businesses can pay this via WeChat Pay or bank card, whichever they prefer.

Step 14: Review and setup

The WeChat team will review your application for verification over the coming weeks and get in touch by phone during Chinese business hours.

Businesses’ official accounts will be verified and ready to use if all of the preceding steps are followed correctly!

In conclusion, WeChat is a great choice for international businesses to set their foot in China. With the help of WeChat’s official account, businesses can create and publish content from their own country and create a customer base in the Chinese market.

If you want to know more about WeChat international accounts and want help setting up an official account, please contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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This Christmas, Find Out What Brands in the Chinese Market Have Been Up To

December 22, 2022

In the last decade, Christmas has settled as an important event for brands in China. Of course, it is not as large as traditional Chinese holidays or e-commerce festivals, but many brands, particularly those with Western roots, are celebrating with their fans in various ways.

Shopping malls, restaurants, and entertainment venues in China’s major cities are all decked out with Christmas trees, and Santa is on his way to deliver gifts to children. This year, we looked at several different international and domestic brands to see how they celebrate Christmas.

🎄 Read our previous article about how Christmas changed in China over the last couple of years

Christmas in China

When it comes to any festive campaign, social media plays an important role. With WeChat being the biggest social media platform, brands are super keen to get the best engagement for their campaigns. We’ve seen a lot of beautifully crafted interactive articles and WeChat campaigns for this Christmas. Again, we worked with Montagut to produce a fun interactive post that led readers through a short narrated story with a Christmas-themed setting. Scan the QR code to open the article and interact with it for yourself.

Montagut Christmas China WeChat

This is not the first time we’ve collaborated with Montagut on holiday content. Click here to learn more about our “Winter Wonderland” Christmas campaign.

Christmas in China is more about gifting between couples during romantic dinners or self-gifting than it is about family gifting. As a result, many jewelry brands are taking this task seriously and planning eye-catching and interesting campaigns. Tiffany and Boucheron created some cool interactive posts. Harry Winston, on the other hand, delights with an online quiz that helps you find the best gifts for your other half or for yourself. Fendi prepared a whole winter-themed universe leveraging WeChat Channels, stickers, and gaming, all in one! Not to mention creating a super cute brand mascot – Brother Fen to top off the trends targeting Chinese Gen Z.

🔥 Explore more about China’s Gen Z as Luxury Consumers

Fendi – Brother Fen’s Universe:

Fendi China

Harry Winston Mini-Program Quiz:

Christmas WeChat Interactive Posts:

Interactive Post from Pandora:

Interactive Post from Boucheron:

Interactive Post from Tiffany:

Advent Calendars in China

Many beauty companies have released Christmas-themed products as well as full-fledged advent calendars. Following last year’s public relations disaster, in which the Chanel advent calendar was deemed overpriced for the value of the products inside, other brands’ seasonal blind boxes fared well this year due to customer satisfaction with better product quality and price points.

In China, blind boxes are a popular marketing tool, and advent calendars fit the bill perfectly if done correctly. Brands such as Charlotte Tilbury, MAC, or Diptyque released theirs through their own channels as well as in collaboration with KOLs. The following are some of the 圣诞限定礼盒 (Christmas Limited Edition Box) mentions on Xiaohongshu, “RED,” where users were unboxing and showing off their treasures.

RED Xiaohongshu Advert Calendar China

Christmas on Chinese E-commerce Platforms

Naturally, compared to complete promotional takeovers during 11/11 or other shopping festivals, Christmas is less visible on e-commerce. However, many brands prepared their own promotions and Christmas content for their official Tmall stores. Many brands took a creative approach to Christmas, tying the festive season with more inclusive winter, astrology, or winter sports themes rather than a dull Santa and reindeer approach. Since the Olympic Games in Beijing in early 2022, the latter has also become synonymous with winter. Astrology is also a big trend leveraged this Christmas, particularly in makeup, and can be seen not only in Western brands like Dior and Gucci but also in Perfect Diary.

Christmas Tmall Taobao

This year’s lower enthusiasm for celebrations is also related to the recent surge of COVID-19 cases across China as a result of relaxed restrictions, which appears to be the first step toward China’s reopening in 2023.

📌 Click here to learn more about WeChat interactive posts and how you can make the most of it!

Takeaways

It only makes sense for a brand with European roots to want to celebrate this holiday with its customers and provide them with a little extra. You can engage and amuse your fans with a comprehensive marketing campaign, depending on your goals and resources. You could also offer exclusive holiday discounts or festive add-ons. Alternatively you could just wish them a happy holiday in a special post or interactive article.

Additionally, international B2B brands shouldn’t be reluctant to celebrate Christmas with their clients. In fact, this is one of the few times when you can get away with using lighter language. We assist our clients in planning holiday events each year that will highlight their brand values and improve their relationships with their staff, partners, and clients. See some of the examples from previous years:

Last but not least, since Christmas is here, it means that Chinese New Year is also approaching fast, and this year it falls particularly early on January 22. It’s the last chance to start getting ready for China’s most significant holiday. There are a number of options, including intricate campaigns, interactive articles, holiday posters, and even red packets.

🧧 Visit our article to learn more about what a “red packet” (hongbao) is

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What is Whitelisting and How It Can Help Brands Boost Collaborations on WeChat?

December 5, 2022

All WeChat content creators and marketing managers will agree that getting organic views under their articles is getting tougher year by year. In the highly-saturated space as WeChat is, ads are of great help but do you want to know how to reach new audiences through organic content? That is possible by collaborating with so-called hot accounts (industry accounts with a big reach and strong reputation) and influencer accounts on WeChat.

We saw a lot of our clients partnering with other accounts to promote their brand but despite sometimes high fees, these sponsored articles didn’t generate any additional traffic or new followers for the client’s account. Did it happen to you too? Learn how to avoid these mishaps in our article and which methods will work towards your particular goals.

What is Whitelisting?

So what is exactly whitelisting and how to share content on Wechat using this method?

Whitelisting is the method of allowing access to resources created and posted by your account to only authorized parties. When it comes to WeChat as a social platform, whitelisting can be very beneficial for users and businesses alike. By leveraging whitelisting your brand can reach new audiences who are already curious about your industry and potential customers.

Shortly, you can allow other accounts to reshare or as WeChat call it, reprint, your articles on their accounts.

Content that can be redistributed in this way must have the ‘original content’ mark meaning that you’re the owner of the content.

Content producers can click the “original content declaration” button in the backend when publishing to claim full ownership of the content. In order to do so the articles must be at least 300 characters long. Note that articles without this designation can be easily copied and redistributed without your knowledge. It’s always good to tick the ‘original content’ box! Find requirements for accounts that post mostly visual-based content and can’t read 300 characters on the official WeChat / Weixin website.

Types of sharing content in WeChat

By default, all accounts can reshare articles from other accounts on WeChat. However, this function is not very popular. It doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing or attractive. You can see it below.

There are two main types of authorization for third-party partners to reprint your content.

First of all, the authorization can be granted for individual articles or for all content posted on your account (global reprint permission 全局可转载帐号). The second option means that the whitelisted partner will be able to share all our articles at any time.

In both cases, you will have additional options to consider when allowing other accounts to reshare your content. You can:

Require a partner account to display a link to the original official account: You can require always have a link to the original article visible. This will enable the readers to visit the original article and potentially
Give permission to edit: You can grant the resharing account permission to edit the article; otherwise, the article will be forwarded in its entirety.

Whitelisting

As you can see you can choose different options depending if the relationship with the partner is to be a one-off or a long-term one.

Secondly, keep in mind that if you don’t require the partner to show the link to the original article you’re losing the chance to redirect the fans to your account. Having a contact card tile with the link to your account or a QR code is a must if your goal is to drive traffic to your account.

Reprinting – how is it displayed on WeChat?

Sharing WeChat B2B

As you can see in the 3rd option, users will see right away the original source of the article and they can click to follow your account. Your partner on the other hand can add a short note about why they are reposting this article or any other comment or introduction.

New option!

Just recently, we spotted a new feature in the WeChat backend. This new option, ‘quick repost’, means all accounts can repost your new article. This option comes with some limitations but it’s a good way to get your content spread. It gives you less control on who can share the article but on the other hand, accounts won’t be able to remove the source or modify it.

According to WeChat:

When quick repost is on, the source will always be displayed when this article is reposted, and cannot be modified.
Quick repost does not affect the repost authorization of whitelisted accounts. The format is as follows.

Interesting thing:

Reprinted articles cannot contain internal WeChat links.

Collaboration and mutual distribution

WeChat’s official accounts can work with other accounts in a variety of ways to spread their content among a chosen target audience. This can be done either by providing a ready-to-use article to partners that will be shared via a whitelisting process. You can also opt to create a new, original article.

It is critical that sponsored content maximizes efforts and truly directs readers from the partner account to the original content on your account. For example, a QR code or contact card at the end of the article will help users to reach the original source.

Similarly, if your brand has several official accounts, the most effective way to cross-promote would be to mutually whitelist each other and regularly reshare key content across.

Collaborations with KOLs in WeChat

Collaboration with KOLs (key opinion leaders), your industry experts, or hot accounts from your industry can be very beneficial. After that, publication brands can work with KOLs to direct traffic from these accounts to your account.

Brands that cannot advertise on WeChat

Accounts belonging to restricted industries can also greatly benefit from whitelisting as a key method of promotion on WeChat. Since there are stringent regulations for certain sectors it’s often impossible for these brands to advertise on WeChat.

But brands in these sectors can only grow organically on WeChat and actually thrive. This is where a carefully planned collaboration strategy helps. Because of that collaborations can help reach new audiences, and with whitelisting facilities, organic content from these brands can get better visibility.

⛔️ Learn who can’t absolutely advertise on WeChat. Does your brand fall within one of these categories?

Case study on magazine collaboration

Let’s observe the advantages of collaboration with one of our clients.

Client: AkzoNobel International Marine Coatings

Industry: B2B Marine & Protective Coatings for the shipping industry

Target Audience: Major shipping companies

Objectives: build brand awareness and brand equity

Solution: Collaborate with expert magazines from the industry to publish content from the brand on their WeChat account.

Results: Magazine articles surpassed by 80% and 125% the brand’s best-performing owned article of the whole year among the relevant target audience

Whitelisting Sharing WeChat B2B case study

These PR-style collaborations also serve as backlinks for WeChat SEO, boosting the brand’s ranking in the WeChat search results. These collaborations produce results both in the short term (by providing brand visibility to magazine followers). In addition, in the long term, it improves the WeChat search index ranking.

🚢You can see the full case study here: Case Study: AkzoNobel (B2B Management)

Conclusion

Collaborations, be they with KOLs or partner brands, are crucial to expanding customer bases by reaching new audiences. In conclusion with whitelisting, you can reach high-quality followers with organic content. This is especially helpful for brands that cannot advertise on WeChat and solely rely on organic content to reach their potential customers.

If you want to know more about collaborations and content sharing on WeChat, please contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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How to Make a Great First Impression on WeChat with an Official Account?

November 4, 2022

WeChat’s active users are steadily increasing, and it has over 1.29 billion monthly users. Today, WeChat is one of the leading social networks worldwide, ranking fifth in terms of active users. As literally, everyone in China is on WeChat so are the brands using the official account function to connect with their fans, business partners, and potential prospects. On average, most of the users followed between 10 and 20 WeChat official accounts. So, it is very crucial for businesses to stand out in order to attract potential customers, and it is not easy.

Here are a few things you can do to make the best first impression on WeChat as the brand’s official WeChat account

How do WeChat users discover and start following official accounts?

How do users come across a WeChat account? There are different ways one might come across a brand’s official WeChat account. People might find official accounts thanks to QR codes which are ubiquitous in China and can be placed on:

Marketing materials,
Web sites,
Newsletters,
Brochures,
Business cards.

The target audience that is using the WeChat app can reach the Official accounts through:

WeChat search – an extremely important touchpoint,
Top stories,
Group Chats,
WeChat Channels,
Mini programs,
H5 pages, and many more.

Other methods of fan acquisition

There are even other ways a user can reach an official account inside the WeChat app. However, WeChat users may also be reached through paid promotions, collaborations with KOLs, and other partners. KOL marketing is huge and can benefit businesses by creating awareness. If you think that KOL/influencer marketing is only for lifestyle brands, you might want to rethink your approach. Since WeChat brand marketing is all about official accounts, you can also collaborate with bigger accounts to promote your brand. You can subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about new posts or follow our official WeChat account at KRDS-Agency.

How to make the best first impression on WeChat?

When the audience lands on the account, they first see the main page. It is the flagship of a brand presence on WeChat and it creates the first impression on the audience about the style and the message of the brand. A brand’s official account can be an equivalent of an official website.

Firstly, the main page showcases the brand logo, description, and menu, and has the latest articles published. It is very important to keep in mind that the information is accurate and stays aligned with the brand. Secondly, you should make sure it is presented in a clear and user-friendly way.

Moreover, there is a welcome message. When a user starts following an official account, a welcome message will be prompted automatically. Typically, the welcome message contains information about the company, the current campaign, a link to the mini-program, and more.

Along with the welcome message, you can see a menu at the bottom. A proper and well-maintained menu is critical as it is one of the most frequently clicked items on the entire WeChat account.

Many users want to get the information right away that they are looking for. It is the first place people reach out and navigate through the account. Therefore, menu tabs should be embedded within WeChat or link to a website hosted on the Chinese server. You can also mirror the menu from the official website.

User’s journey through the WeChat official account

Stage 1: First impressions

Regardless of how users found your account, they will land on your main WeChat page and will make a decision if they want to follow your account. They will see the account name, brand logo, description, your company name as on the business license. They will also see how many of their friends are also following your account. Still, even before following you, they can see the latest articles (make sure the thumbnails look nice and eye-catching), interact with the menu tabs and see if you have a dedicated video Channels account.

🎥 What are WeChat Channels and how you can incorporate them in your WeChat planning?

Stage 2: Why should I follow?

When someone first follows an account, they immediately come across the automatic welcome message. In the welcome message, clearly and simply inform what kind of content they can expect from the account. For example, it’s a good idea to include a brief introduction to your company, quick links to your offerings, and contact methods.

WeChat Welcome message

Stage 3: Did I find what I was looking for?

There is a WeChat menu to help with this. The WeChat menu is an extremely important part of the official account. It is actually quite often overlooked or not updated regularly. For instance even inactive accounts, still see considerable traffic each month just to their menu tabs.

ℹ️ Learn more about the menu

ℹ️ How to optimize your WeChat menu?

WeChat Menu

Stage 4: Auto-replies

It happens that users don’t find the information they were looking for in the menu. Sometimes they simply prefer a one-on-one and direct conversation. In order to facilitate your customer service work, you can set up automatic replies prompted by the most frequently asked questions and relevant keywords. In other words, your followers don’t need to wait and get an instant reply.

Conclusion

WeChat is a huge deal if you want to attract an audience. The audience can judge a business through the WeChat official account. So, it is very important to understand how to maintain the account in a better way to attract and make the audience follow the WeChat official account.

If you wish to know more about WeChat marketing and content creation or other marketing techniques in China, please contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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Why should brands use CRM Integrations on WeChat?

October 27, 2022

CRM or even sCRM is not something completely new. However, when store foot traffic dropped dramatically when the pandemic first appeared in China, brands were no longer able to rely solely on their offline sales. This pushed brands to step up their game and drastically improve their presence online. We can say that even though Chinese audiences were no strangers to private traffic before, COVID-19 really boosted this phenomenon. Clienteling, especially with the help of WeCom (previously WeChat Work), became one of the biggest trends in Chinese retail but B2B can leverage it just as well.

Learning and understanding consumer data, user journeys, and content consumption patterns are very important for a successful marketing strategy. This is where customer relationship management (CRM) plays an important role. CRM can help connect brands with their customers. With more users becoming selective about what they read and view, it is crucial for brands to have a solid CRM strategy.

There are two types of CRM,

The traditional CRM
The social CRM or sCRM

Traditional CRM includes mails, emails, phone calls, etc whereas sCRM is customer relationship management through social media platforms like WeChat in China.

To learn more about WeChat CRM, as well as how to begin using WeChat for marketing, continue reading.

Advantages of CRM

Before going deep into the world of WeChat CRM, let’s see the advantages of using CRM in the first place. How it actually adds value to your business:

CRM systems enhance better customer service
Helps to identify new potential customers
Helps to scale up the business
Simplifies marketing and sales process
Improves the customer loyalty
Provides detailed analysis of customers
Helps to observe the most resonating topics and adjust content strategy accordingly

CRM in China is different from Western CRM. So, it’s a great option to choose WeChat CRM for businesses that are targeting Chinese customers. WeChat is more than just a content-pushing platform. Brands can really improve their interaction with their followers – clients or potential leads – thanks to a deeper understanding of their preferences and behaviors.

WeChat sCRM

WeChat CRM is a powerful way for brands to connect with Chinese consumers, but it can be difficult to get started. CRM platforms give customers a user experience that goes beyond an impersonal buyer-merchant relationship. This leads to better conversion rates and more potential customers.

WeChat generates data whenever a user interacts with a brand. The data gives a picture of a customer’s platform behavior because it includes information on the content checked and interacted with. The data also provides useful information on how a customer interacts with a brand on WeChat. However, as every marketing manager working on WeChat and checking the backend is aware, the data offered by WeChat is very limited.

We can only see the follower’s avatar and display name (not a WeChat ID)
We only get overview data like age, gender, location, system
There is no way that we can connect this information by using only WeChat’s built-in functions

It’s possible to create tags and segregate followers manually however it’s a very laborious task. Based on that we can also do a very simplistic targeting when we publish a new article but only limited to country, gender, or our own previously created groups.

WeChat Segmentation

Upgrade your WeChat presence

It’s a very different situation if we connect a sCRM API with our WeChat account. A brand can more effectively engage customers on WeChat thanks to the data produced by the customer’s WeChat activity. Through the use of sCRM platforms, businesses can create campaigns and strategies that are more specifically aimed at high-value leads. In the end, this increases conversion rates and results in satisfying user experiences.

🇨🇳Before proceeding with any sCRM integrations on WeChat, make sure to be aware of the latest China’s latest Personal Information Law.

How to integrate CRM into WeChat

Integrations in WeChat are not the same for all brands. Brands have to understand their business needs to pick the best tool that works for them. These will not be the same for B2C or B2B brands. While lifestyle brands will focus more on selling through WeChat, B2B brands are more likely to leverage WeChat CRM to generate and collect leads. E.g. brands that have offline shops and offer WeChat payments to their clients will be able to connect the store data to their WeChat.

💼10 ways for a B2B brand to generate leads on WeChat

Target audience plays a huge role in determining the best integration tool based on their demographics, technology usage, and more. By knowing your audience, brands will be able to make better-informed decisions about their integrations.

It’s worth mentioning that only service accounts can use API and 3rd party tools to do segmentation.

Salesforce and WeChat

Many foreign companies entering the Chinese market already had rich databases on Salesforce.

Now, they can also link it with WeChat as it’s optimized for China. Salesforce allows tracking not only article interactions but also menu clicks, mini-programs logs, and more. There are some challenges to connecting both but it can be very rewarding and optimize user experience for your followers in the long run.

For example, Salesforce has some more advanced functions than Hubspot.

Other integration tools for WeChat

Here are some of the other WeChat integration tools available on the market with locally-developed solutions:

Youzan

Youzan offers a simple data analytics system and a user-friendly WeChat library for managing shop operations. With almost 100 different tools to improve the user experience, this platform was specifically designed for WeChat. For businesses looking to sell products, Youzan is a good option.

Key features:

Order management system for WeChat shops
Able to connect to Weibo
Simple WeChat backend operation
Schedule posting time
Auto-reply feature for web page articles

Drip

Drip has seamless integration with Wechat and a user-friendly backend. You can easily integrate WeChat accounts with Drip for customer management, posting articles, managing QR codes, and other basic functions.

Key features:

Personalized campaigns
Basic WeChat backend functions
HTML5 slides
API is flexible
Receive customer messages directly on WeChat

Parllay

Parllay manages clients with thorough profiles, and provides client analysis, precise group messaging, and multiple enterprise APIs. It’s a platform that focuses on big data and is an expert at spotting significant data trends. It has numerous e-commerce integrations like QR-based checkout and payments.

Key features:

Tracks WeChat user behavior effectively
WeChat QR code tracking
Multi-channel engagement
User tag automation
Predictive segmentation

Conclusion:

CRM can be a little daunting and finding the best solution is hard as there is no one size fits all. It is very important to understand your brand needs and pain points to choose the best one out there. Social CRMs are popular now and WeChat CRM is very crucial for any business that is entering the Chinese market. It helps to manage WeChat contacts and marketing activities effectively. Your brand can experience higher conversion rates and be in a position to always stay ahead of the competition by fully understanding WeChat sCRM.

If you want to add a CRM integration to your WeChat account or wish to know about other marketing techniques in China, please contact our team. We use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build meaningful partnerships and develop their networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com.

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Chinese Advertising Regulations and Those Who Can’t Advertise on WeChat

October 17, 2022

China, like the majority of nations, has enacted laws governing advertisements to safeguard the health and safety of consumers. The Republic of China’s Advertisement Law stipulates general rules that all advertisers must abide by.

There are also more stringent regulations for certain sectors, such as the tobacco, alcohol, and healthcare industries. However, as non-traditional media platforms like WeChat have grown in popularity, the nation has tightened its regulations on advertising.

Get started with WeChat advertising

WeChat is one of the most used social media platforms in China. That’s why is very attractive to brands looking to market their products in China. Marketing using WeChat can reach a huge number of target audiences.

And here comes the WeChat advertising. WeChat advertising enables companies to display promotional messages through:

WeChat Moments
Official Account articles
Mini-programs

Additionally, WeChat advertising is a great tool for brands to enhance and maximize the number of WeChat Official Account followers, it helps companies to drive their traffic and generate conversions into sales.

Industries banned or restricted in WeChat

The Chinese government in general has many laws and bans that overlook advertisements, including ads on social media platforms like WeChat. Here are some of the industries banned by the Chinese government for advertising.

Pharmaceutical/drugs;
Obscenity;
Pornography;
Gambling;
Superstitions;
Terror;
Violence.

In addition, regulated industries for advertisements in China are:

Alcohol
Tobacco
Health and Medical
Investments
Real estate
Education
Legal Services
Airlines
Financial Services

However the list is very dynamic, and WeChat always has the final say on whether your company is eligible or not to run ads on the platform.

On the other hand, note that for overseas entities WeChat requires a separate application for a WeChat advertising account and the scope of ads is strictly related to your company’s registered business. It can get quite tricky, right?

However, if your company falls within any of the above categories not all is lost. You still have plenty of indirect and legal solutions to promote your content on WeChat. For instance, you can focus on WeChat SEO and optimizing your keywords to whitelisting. Subscribe to our newsletter for more news on this topic.

Advertising regulations on WeChat

The key elements of the advertising law as they apply to WeChat are outlined below. Firstly, qhen attempting to create effective advertisements, WeChat also has its own terms that are frequently updated:

Avoid superlative adjectives like best, highest, greatest, etc when talking about any product or service
Do not place a brand, product, or service on a scale like 5-star rating or international/national ratings
Kindly avoid using words such as top quality, excellent, cutting edge, or premium when advertising a product/service in WeChat
Do not use words with “one” like “one of the top”, “one of the best” or “one of a kind” etc to describe anything in WeChat advertisements
Please avoid any mentions of scarcity in an ad like very rare, unique, one few left, etc.
Do not mention anything claiming to be “national leader” or of “international quality” or words similar to this
Do not use any national flag, emblem, or anthem of any country in WeChat ads
You can only use RMB for settlements and foreign currencies are not allowed
The content of the advertisements must be practical and should not be exaggerated
Should not talk about transportation, educational, commercial, or cultural facilities under planning or under construction
All the images used in the advertisement should be realistic
For the ads related to bank loans and other bank services, complete details of the bank must be provided
WeChat ads should not have language that sounds discriminatory

Secondly, there are more requirements for advertising:

When publishing ads about limited sales, the exact dates and duration must be provided in the advertisement
Do not provide statistical information in WeChat ads until a proper evidence source link is given
Avoid ads with unlicensed tie-ups with major events happening in the country like Winter Olympics, Olympic Games, etc.
Should not use language that can possibly manipulate the consumers
Do not use Click-for-gift tactics in WeChat ads. Any gifts offered must include all the details like name, value, quantity, and any timeline for the event
Never use words referring to a special title like superstar, leader, or synonyms

In addition, WeChat accounts registered with overseas business licenses must apply separately for WeChat advertising accounts.

In conclusion, advertisement regulations are a great way to protect consumers. Similarly, China, like any other country, wants to protect consumer safety and health. But the restrictions are stricter than in most countries, and it’s common for all social media platforms, including WeChat.

On the other hand, WeChat has its own restrictions too, which makes it even harder to advertise using WeChat ads. In addition, specific wording requirements might make your ad not pass the verification by Tencent.

If you are a business that’s looking to advertise on WeChat, it is very important to understand the rules and regulations on the government and platform levels and above all abide to the requirements to not have your WeChat official account suspended or deleted.

At The WeChat Agency, we use our knowledge and expertise to help businesses build content in accordance with the advertising regulations in China and WeChat. We help create meaningful partnerships and networks among Chinese customers. For additional information, please contact us at contact@thewechatagency.com. Feel free to subscribe to our monthly newsletter too.

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