Weixin: China's One-Stop-Mobile-Shop
- Dawn M. Keddy
- Nov 10, 2024
- 3 min read
Know Your Audience
As a social media practitioner, it is important to first know your audience before you market your product or showcase your digital brand, and “to consider your unique social media audience as an individual, rather than a macro unit of aggregated mass” (Mahoney & Tang, 2016, p. 82).
Keep in mind that mobile users choose what they search on the internet and what apps they use based on who they are and what they like, regardless of whether they fit in with a larger crowd.
Because audiences have so much social media available to them, you must make your brand stand out and provide each user with an experience they can relate to individually.
Remember, the members of your audience are driven by “both individual characteristics and cognitive factors” (Mahoney & Tang, 2016, p. 95). This means you must create content that attracts users across a spectrum of characteristics, interests, and cognitive associations.
How Did Weixin Develop Its Audience?
Weixin reached its target audience by providing “young, urban smartphone owners” (Mahoney & Tang, 2016, p. 92) with a social media repository of apps embedded in the Weixin app – essentially a one-stop-virtual-shop.
How Weixin's Features Fit Their Audience
In China’s mobile industry, Weixin has made it easy for its audience to do almost anything by offering a “wide range of functions from sending a baby photo to friends, getting news, text messaging, to finding a cab on the street” (Mahoney & Tang, 2016, p. 92).
Weixin User Preferences and Flexibility
Weixin is customizable to the individual mobile user. And since Weixin “keeps introducing new functions/campaigns that attempt to satisfy audiences' new needs or to fit audiences' mood at a certain time or in a certain context,” (Mahoney & Tang, 2016, p. 93) they continue to grow its audience.
Elements of Weixin and the Chinese’ Daily Life
Weixin developed their social media product with apps to fulfill a Chinese user’s every need, and “since Weixin targets mobile users, it is always with people no matter where they are” (Brennan, 2015) and, according to Slotta (2021), there are currently more than one billion smartphone users in China.
Photo by: Static.Wixstatic.com
Considering there are six billion users worldwide, China harbors one-sixth of the entire mobile user industry.
Integrated Technology and Accommodations
Weixin achieved its ability to integrate technology that appeals to the individual characteristics of its target audience by performing initial audience analysis, as well as continuous follow-up audience analysis.
Paying close attention to the metadata, user reviews, comments, and surveys, Weixin positions itself ahead of the needs of its audience.
Weixin Success Outside of China
Well, by and large, WeChat is Weixin’s international companion, and it’s quite popular. Because Weixin is licensed strictly for mobile users with China’s national exchange, all others are directed to WeChat based on their mobile phone numbers.
Two very popular features, Weixin’s Wallet and Cards and Offers apps, are “the entrance of the money transactions and important tools for brands to provide benefits to their customers,” (Brennan, 2015) and they are hidden in the WeChat app for international mobile users.
Photo by: ChinaChannel.co
But fear not, WeChat users, Brennan (2015) suggests a simple workaround to resolve the issue, advising readers to change the language setting to Chinese by following these steps: Me > Settings > General > Language.
So, while many people once thought the apps were actually two separate apps with distinctly different features and functions, they are essentially the same. Simply put, mobile users with a Chinese exchange must use Weixin under China’s restrictions, and WeChat is a nearly identical version for all those who live somewhere other than China.
References
Barboza, D. (2014, January 20). A popular Chinese social networking app blazes its own path. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/technology/a-chinese-social-network-blazes-its-own-path.html.
Brennan, M. (2015, December 1). WeChat International & Weixin are not the same! China Channel. https://chinachannel.co/wechat-weixin-are-not-the-same/.
Mahoney, M. L. & Tang, T. (2016). Strategic social media: From marketing to social Change(pp. 82, 92, 94). Wiley-Blackwell. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119890365.
Slotta, D. (2021, August 16). China: Smartphone users 2026. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/467160/forecast-of-smartphone-users-in-china/.
This is a great blog post. I think it's really interesting the way that China targets its users and understands the intricacies of their phone use. I think it's impressive that Weixin wrapped everything you might need into one app--the idea that you never need to leave that app is insanely convenient. I also didn't know WeChat was basically a copy of Weixin, or a sister app. I also think we are seeing a lot of apps these days have areas for offers or ways to link your cards to the app itself so that monetary transactions can happen seamlessly--which makes it easier for them to make money.
Great post!