Imagine a world with no Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Gmail, Whatsapp and many more important online platforms we use everyday. That world is China. Thankfully, to substitute these applications there is an all in one app called WeChat. WeChat acts as China's social media, PayPal, and even an online dating Platform.
Getting Started
Download the App from Google play store or Apple IOS
Features
The first and easiest feature in WeChat is messaging. The messaging interface looks similar to any messaging app such as WhatsApp, Facebook or even your regular texting on a mobile phone. When you first set up an account, you will have the option to import your contacts and see who is already a part of WeChat then add them as an official WeChat contact. Once approved for messaging, you can edit their "remarks" which is just basic information about them such as: tags, description and photo. You now can contact them at any time through messages, voice & video call call and can see their activity such as posts and comments (similar to Facebook and Instagram). Without their approval, you will not be able to see any of these.
As mentioned before, WeChat is used in China to substitute things like Facebook due to the Chinese government blocking. However, for people outside of China, there is an option to link Facebook. From my research and experience, it seems that linking your Facebook to WeChat just posts your moments that you share on WeChat to Facebook as well. It is similar to linking Instagram to Facebook. It is advised to think before linking the two because Facebook is a very personal social media page whereas WeChat is not.
That being said, with WeChat Discover, WeChat can act almost like the Tinder or Omegle interfaces. On the bottom of the WeChat application there is a Discover button. This page allows you to add friends with their QR code if they're right in front of you (similar to Snapchat adding), or you can see who is near by or you can connect with random people across the globe with their shake feature. With almost 1 billion users across the globe, there is always someone on WeChat and most of the time, there is someone shaking their phone. Go to the shake feature, shake your phone and WeChat will connect you with someone and tell you how far away they are. Being in the United States every time I shake my phone I connect with someone thousands of miles away and their username is written in Chinese. I haven't reached out to them, However you can click on their profile and send them a greeting.
Another great feature is Message in a Bottle, a fun way to connect with people across the globe. Users can virtually write a message and throw it into a bottle and someone will come and "Pick" a bottle from the ocean. A clever way to connect people and start conversations world wide. To use this feature, go to Settings> General> Features> and under disabled features there will be "Message in a Bottle" Enable it to play.
Under disabled features there will also be an option to enable a step counter called WeRun. Surprise! WeChat is a pedometer as well! You can compete with your friends and share how far you traveled.
Wait! There's more!
WeChat also acts as a substitute for PayPal. This is one of the most important features of WeChat. Mobile pay is the preferred method in China when paying for everyday transactions. Instead of asking "Do you take card?" people are asking "Do you take WeChat pay?" Being the universal payment method of China, it is hard for people without WeChat to pay for things. If you're traveling to China, make sure your WeChat pay is set up before hand. Goods and services are paid by scanning the users personal QR code set up through their user name and mobile wallet. WeChat Pay is also used to give money as gifts. In the Chinese culture, the color red is a symbol of energy, good luck, and happiness. Chinese use red envelopes to give cash as a gift and WeChat pay has digitized this tradition. Users can send people money similar to Venmo or Facebook pay, however the interface shows a red envelope to symbolize their tradition.
These are just a few of the many features of this all in one application that replaces so many different applications. WeChat seems to be user's everything. From their wallet to communication medium to entertainment, it is hard to not have this app. WeChat's success comes from being a one stop shop so that consumers only have pull out one tool for all their transactions. Consumers don't like to have too many choices. For example, here in the United States, my friends tend to use Venmo, however, I chose to use Facebook pay. It is very annoying when people owe me money and want to pay on Venmo, but I want them to pay on Facebook. I refuse to download another application to take up more room on my phone. With that, Facebook is also developing to be a one stop shop for it's users. Facebook copied the Snapchat stories feature, acts as a news source, voice and video calling and a wallet and many more that I have yet to discover.
WeChat vs Facebook
WeChat has recently passed Facebook in market value by approximately $1 Billion. WeChat is valued at $523 Billion and Facebook at $522 Billion. WeChat's success is solely based off the lack of substitutions available in China. Citizens have no other options for social media channels so their best and only choice is WeChat. WeChat tried to go global but failed. Why? WeChat was late to the game. In most markets there was already a dominant chat app and people will not bother to switch. If all your friends are using Whatsapp, you will too. There was also no significant reason to switch to WeChat. I personally never even heard about WeChat until my digital marketing class. There was nothing special about it that the application that makes me want to switch. It simply isn't a part of my culture the way Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram is. The last and most important reason WeChat failed globally is their lack of adaptation to other markets and cultures. I downloaded it to write this blog however, I was unable to set up my wallet, figure out how to search things in my language and many more feature I missed out on because it is catered to Chinese citizens only. WeChat may seem like a threat to Facebook number wise, however unless Tencent does some serious research on adapting to Western Cultures I doubt it will take over. Especially with the number of users across the globe being Facebook: 2.07 billion active users and WeChat being half of that at almost 1 billion.
Marketing Implications
Similar to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram users can follow company pages on WeChat. What does this mean for marketers? If companies want to interact with Chinese citizens, WeChat is their only option. It would be wise for companies to create a WeChat to learn Chinese culture, however not crucial if your company has no interest to sell in China.