Interview: How did an ex Microsoft UX designer get 50k WeChat followers with no investment?

Tingyi Chen WeChat guides & tips

WeChat accounts don’t simply go viral. Today, we interviewed Jiutian, the creator of a very popular WeChat account, Hi Better Me (女神进化论, WeChat ID: hibetterme), to try to find out the secret of creating a successful WeChat account. Hi Better Me is a WeChat account talking about makeup and lifestyle tips. It has been operating for less than 5 months, and …

WeChat outside China: what are the growth opportunities?

Thomas Graziani WeChat news

We outlined in our previous posts that WeChat has been focusing on growth in South East Asia, adopting an aggressive partnership strategy to fuel its expansion. AppAnnie rankings as of early May 2015 tend to sustain the idea that WeChat is getting traction in at least some countries. Let’s have a closer look at the data. GlobalWebIndex data GlobalWebIndex is publishing very comprehensive …

WeChat event platforms that we use, and two of them are free

Tingyi Chen New WeChat features

Events are a good way to drive O2O interaction. Although WeChat does not offer solution for companies to publish their event and collect payment, a lot 3rd party event platforms do, and some even provide this service for free.  We compared the 5 most popular WeChat event platforms in China that provide payment solution, and are all easily sharable on WeChat. …

WeChat bug enables to create fake “original” content

Thomas Graziani WeChat guides & tips

Over the last few months, Tencent has gone into a war against copycats of original content. The company laid down clearer rules for account naming and punished copycats and viral content. Under the new rules, you can report accounts re-publishing your content without being allowed, and the messages will be removed. But there are loopholes to by-pass the rules, here …

WeChat iBeacons: why it doesn’t work, and how to fix it.

Thomas Graziani WeChat guides & tips

A few months ago, Tencent pushed heavily connected objects to its platform. In an attempt to achieve the much-desired “O2O integration”, it unveiled new features such as a special “shake” feature enabling to access content from nearby connected objects. Yet, iBeacons just do not take-off in China, and it is mostly because of Tencent’s choices. What are iBeacons? iBeacons are …

WeChat users: how do they behave and how to attract them?

Tingyi Chen New WeChat features

The above chart is the list of monthly active users of social networks in China. WeChat has 4 times more monthly active users than its closest (non-Tencent-owned) competitor, Weibo. Why is WeChat different from other social networks in China? 1. WeChat is relationship oriented Compared with Weibo and Twitter, which are “interest based networks”, WeChat connects you with the people who …

WeChat viral marketing: what are the risks?

Thomas Graziani WeChat guides & tips

What is the best way to gain followers on WeChat? Most marketers would give you the same answer: give money, a free sample or a discount to users, and they will gladly share any of your content. This practice however has a name: incentivised sharing, and it is forbidden by WeChat terms of use. So what are the risks? What …

Apple Watch + WeChat: how Apple is trying to seduce China

Thomas Graziani WeChat news

During Apple March event, Tim Cook unveiled a variety of new products and features, from the new Macbook Air to an Open Source toolkit for medical research. But what stood out for viewers out there was the repeated attempt to seduce Chinese customers. An unexpected beginning The first frame of the Apple Keynote yesterday was more than unexpected: Yes, before …