A General Guide of WeChat Official Account

WeChat has become one of the most popular communication tools in China in recent years. It can be seen as a combination of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (but a China version), with more and more functions added on, users can even use it as a searching engine. If you come to China, you can find that the first app and last app a Chinese use in a day are always WeChat.

WeChat can be used to pay/transfer money, to create group chat, to share links, to deal with business issues…WeChat is a necessity if you want to keep a long contact with your Chinese business partner/client.

Can these explain all?

In fact, it is not only a personal communication app, it can act as a medium between individuals or organisation and individuals, or it can be used as a platform for organisation itself to deal with internal management. Most of WeChat users would follow particular WeChat official accounts to receive updated information or to communicate with the brand.

The following content can probably answer more questions about the WeChat official account.

- Why does WeChat become so important?

- What does WeChat official account can do for a brand?

- Why does a WeChat official account work better than an individual account for your company?

- What are different types of WeChat official accounts?

- How do you create a WeChat official account with a Chinese business license?

- How do you create a WeChat official account without a Chinese business license?

Why does WeChat become so important?

From a most updated data in 2019, there are 10.82 billion users in WeChat, and 50% of user spent over 1.5 hours on the app every day. The main contact tool for Chinese people is WeChat, which was Tencent QQ before. Through WeChat, people can send context, voice message, photos to contacts, and they can make video call or voice call. Users can share someone`s name card to others, thus WeChat is seen as an important social platform. People would share photos, videos and context in ‘Moments’ with friends, and they can ‘like’ and ‘comment’ under posts. After WeChat introduced its computer version, it became more common in the business environment—which became easier for sending documents through WeChat. Also, most of the business would encourage their users to scan WeChat payment QR code in cash desk or use the Mini Program in WeChat to achieve to the same function as an app (then the user can do many things).

By receiving or reading the content conducted by official account, users can be a reader and a sharer at the same time since users can leave comments in the passage and share content to chat or ‘Moments’. Except for that, people can use WeChat to transfer money, give a prize to the author of some particular passage or to pay to the company when they consumed in offline platform. It is just an app can do everything.

What does WeChat official account can do for a brand?

By using a WeChat official account, you can make the process of introducing brand/product value much more easier—to make Chinese clients know about you in their ways. This should be included in your marketing plan in the first step, and you will need to manage it well with appropriate content. It acts as a key platform to present your brand image and communicate with consumer/follower at the same time. In other words, you can receive your follower`s message and reply them either in real-time or within 12 hours.

Basically, you can post context, photo, video and voice message through the WeChat official account to your followers, which is as much the same as a Facebook account, but a China version. Any relevant information including event invitation, related content about your brand or product can be added.

Moreover, the WeChat official account can provide you some loyal and active user. It is a multi-direction communication tool that user can follow the account through any other platforms (both online and offline) through a QR code- It helps to guide user into other social media platforms of the brand/company/individuals. What is more, it makes the market research much easier since the user is mostly targeted, and they are more willing to complete the market research or share their unique opinions for the account.

Before you set up your official account, you will need to ensure the market positioning of your brand. For example, what does your company do and what can the WeChat official account do for your brand? And one of the most important things, what kind of different information can customer obtain from you instead of others? Since there are millions of official accounts in WeChat, to obtain followers (especially loyalty followers) and certain amount of reading volume are two main targets that most brands want to focus on. In the report, it suggested that the official account to provide ‘valuable’ content to followers in order to obtain higher reading volume. The follower will not unfollow your account if they think you have provided useful information, even you don’t send post every day.

‘Company’ segment represents about 72%

Why does a WeChat official account work better than an individual account for your company?

First, let`s have a look on the difference between them. It will probably help you to understand the reason behind it.

- The targeted customer is different

The individual account can only satisfy with one-to-one or one-to-more communication. However, if customers do not add you in WeChat, you just cannot communicate with each other. Although you can create a group chat, but the maximum people in a chat group is only 500, and your group chat is possible submerged in other one-to-one chats. You cannot share such long context in the group chat, it is just not a suitable place for reading it.

The role of an official account is more for business function. The company can share information in a simply one-to-more mode that a brand interacts with its followers (sometimes can be your potential customers). Also, followers cannot interact with each other.

- The ‘following’ way is different

When individual users add each other, they usually know the contact by telephone number, WeChat username, QR code, contact card forward or find from a WeChat group chat.

However, if someone follows an official account, he will usually know the account in the following ways:

• Read passage that shared by friends in ‘Moments’

• Info card forward from friends

• Search the brand name

• Search some keywords and find that an official account shared opinion about it

- The application of medium is different

You will need to use computer to log in to a system control panel to manage your official account, thus it makes the editing more flexible.

Through the official account, you can share your thoughts with your followers. Since the platform of WeChat official account is continued developing, the account also becomes a tool for customer management system. This is usually used by brands which have offline stores, or those have regional stores, they will suggest customer to follow the online account for promotion, check-in function or related information.

Secondly, you can use this platform for building your brand image. You will have the ‘comments’ function once you achieve 1000 followers, and then your followers can leave their comments. You can also direct followers to an external link for activities or further information.

What are different types of WeChat official accounts?

There are 4 types of official accounts, they may vary from the registration process/required material and featured functions.

- Subscription Account

[Broadcast content to all of your followers.]

[Best suited for media company and individual publishers.]

This type of account will be integrated into one folder/section in the WeChat. Followers will not receive notification when subscription account has shared a post. But followers can set the account as a ‘star’ account so that they can receive read the post in priority.

Here is an example of interface of the subscription account for Coke Cola China.

• Section 1 refers to the menu of the account, you can have up to 3 choices in your account.

• Section 2 refers to some basic information about the account including WeChat ID (people can find you with this ID as well), account owner (information you provided in the before-authentication process) and trademarks.

• Section 3 is where you can know your reading volume, which can be seen by audiences too.

• Section 4 is a QR code you can add in the passage, most of account will add one at the end in every passage since people can simply click on the QR code for the ‘follow’ page.

• Section 5 is the volume that audience share in the ‘Wow’ section in WeChat, which is also seen by audience. (‘Wow’ section is a place where people can only share passage from official account)

• Section 6 is where followers can add comments from, the comment will be displayed after your permission. If you want to apply them, your reply will be shown below as well.

• Section 7 is an interaction section for all users that they can ‘like’ the comment for support.

Here is another example of interface in a subscription account.

• Section 1 refers to your account name/title

• Section 2 is the ‘menu’ section, you can have 3 choices in total.

• Section 3 refers to the expansion from those choices, and you can have up to 5 in each choice.

• The one above refers to interface when people is able to send either context or voice message to official account.

Sums up…What can you do with the subscription account?

• You can send up to one message on the platform every day (after 12am will be another day)

• You can send all different types of message through platform

• You can reply to follower either individually or publicly

• You can have ‘comment’ function once you have 1000 followers

• You can have 3 choices for menu, and 5 in each expansion

• However, your followers can block your post without unfollowing you

- Service Account

[Offer online services and manage users.]

[Available to businesses and organisations.]

To be noticed: According to the newest policy, oversea user can only register its official account as a service account.

As a service account for a company, it is more official than the subscription account having more functions and interactions with followers. In a service account, you can have more than one online assistant to answer user‘s question on time. Its post frequency is 4 times maximum in a month, and follower can see it in obvious position instead of be folding in the folder. There are 3 choices in the menu, when people click each of them, it will expand up to 5 selections. Followers will get notification when any service account has shared a post. The location of service account will be in the same place where individual chat and group chat at. The font colour of service account will be in blue in order to separate with individual chat and group chat (which colour will be in black). The follower amount of service account is the real number that user can receive your message, the message from service account cannot be blocked.

This is an example of service account from Pepsi China Career.

Sums up…What can you do with the subscription account?

• The account type that oversea corporation can only register with

• Only the corporation account can obtain authentication in service account

• Act as a CRM tool by grouping your followers/users in order to send particular messages

• You can set a menu under the message section with up to 3 choices

• Each of choice can expand in 5 more sections

• You can only send 4 messages each month

• Followers can get notification when you share a post, which cannot be blocked

• People can pay to some companies/organisations through service account

- Mini Program

[Distribute services from within WeChat while maintaining an excellent user experience.]

[Available to businesses and organisations with service offerings.]

It is more suitable and useful for those have offline projects, or you can use it to make some mini games for followers.

Below are some examples for mini program:

• KFC delivery: basically, it acts as an app

• A drawing game made by company

• Bazaar electronic journal: for buying and reading journals

• PANDORA online shop: customer can be directed from ‘search’, or from passage. They can customise their bracelet from this mini program

• Mobike: act as its app for scanning QR code on the bike

• Guangdong metro line search: customer can use this program to check the transfer information or line map

• ZARA online shop: basically, it acts as a ZARA app

Sums up…What can you do with the subscription account?

• Another place for your app

• Online shop

• Create an interactive program

• More to discover…

- WeChat Work

[Helping businesses with interval communication and office efficiency.]

[Suitable for registration of corporate customer.]

It is more like an inter-corporation app for the company itself. If you want to have more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

How do you create a WeChat official account without a Chinese business license?

1. Register and create an account on the official website

2. Select your current region and then the account type (You can ONLY SELECT ‘Service account’ if you don’t have a Chinese business license.)

3. Provide some company-related information for authentication. i.e. Company name and the registration number; the type of company; account admin information.

4. Material list for further verification

• WeChat verification letter with official seal

• Qualification document

• And so on…

5. Wait for the email from the third-party authentication organisation for further reaction required

6. It will roughly take 1-5 working days for authentication, if you don’t need to provide any other information, you can have your registration done within 7 working days