(Chinese Version)

On August 20th, 2015, the Chinese Valentine’s Day, WeChat unveiled an official website of its WeChat friends circle advertising service, where advertisers can apply to get their own advertisement shown in hundreds of millions of Chinese WeChat users’ friends circle in just five steps.

Up till now, WeChat has already posted a series of ads in its users’ friends circle, among which some are pretty eye-refreshing, while others are nothing special. Chinese users are becoming increasingly particular about ads, so that advertisers are forced to think really hard in order to best cater to the favor of most target consumers.

So far, WeChat has already carried out two key functions, friends circle and public account, which might help WeChat make a great fortune. WeChat attracts new users as a social networking app and keeps its users through public accounts. After launching its advertising service, WeChat makes a fortune through posting ads in its users’ friends circle. Once upon a time, a PPT about the guidelines for posting ads in WeChat friends circle was well circulated on the Internet. Different versions of this PPT all suggest that WeChat is quite cautious about its advertising service, and will only post qualified ads from Fortune Global 500 enterprises.

Most of the guidelines in the PPT turn out to be accurate, with only one exception: WeChat will post ads from any companies, not merely limited to Fortune Global 500 enterprises. However, WeChat is indeed very picky about advertisers who want to post their ads on friends circle. How come? On the one hand, WeChat has always been attaching great importance to user experience and will always provider better user experience to its users, so WeChat will only post ads from reliable sources and of high quality. On the other hand, WeChat has to take on the responsibility for its 700 million users, make well use of its resource and lead the future s-commerce (social commerce) industry. In my opinion, the influence of WeChat advertising service towards s-commerce lies mainly in the following three aspects:

First of all, WeChat advertising pushes forward a new way of advertising: posting ads directly in users’ friends circle. In the era of the mobile Internet, consumers are pretty easily attracted by ads that appeal to them and buy relative products. Moreover, WeChat advertising might make C2B model come true and include consumers in the product developing, manufacturing and pricing process. WeChat helps advertisers not only better reach their target consumers but also better understand the need of its consumers and develop personalized products that cater to specific consumers.

Secondly, WeChat advertising service adds more fun to traditional advertising on print media and web pages. WeChat users can now like, comment and repost ads they like and chat with their friends about the idea of the ad and even the brand itself. WeChat succeeds in bridging the gap between consumers and businesses, as is put in WeChat advertising service’s slogan: Ads can also be part of your life. WeChat advertising service invites ordinary people to share their ideas on ads and combines social networking with ads to make todays’ ads more fun and accessible.

Thirdly, WeChat advertising service is the best gateway towards young consumers. Whether we admit it or not, the mobile Internet is dominating today’s business world. According to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the number of Chinese netizens has already reached 668 million by this June, among them 600 million are mobile Internet users, and people aged from 20 to 29 are the majority. Internet is playing a larger role in the everyday life of Chinese people. In the near future, over half of Chinese people will shop online, more and more young people will get access to the Internet earlier in their lives. Thus, only those who win these young people can stand out in tomorrow’s business world.

According to WeChat User Global Report 2015, combined monthly active users (MAU) of WeChat reached 549 million at the end of the first quarter of 2015. The average age of WeChat’s users is 26 years old. 97.7% of WeChat’s users’ age is below 50. 86.2% of WeChat’s users’ age range from 18 to 36 years old. 25% of users check WeChat over 30 times a day, while 55.2% of WeChat’s users check WeChat over 10 times a day. All these figures suggest that WeChat has already become the most popular social networking app in the mobile Internet age in China, and thus WeChat is the best platform to target young consumers.

However, not all brands should turn to WeChat friends circle to post their ads, and not all brands can all of a sudden win a large crowd of consumers after posting a piece of ad on WeChat. For me, a product should fit the following three standards to be well-spread in WeChat friend circle:

1. It has to be one single product with high discount.

2. It has to be fashionable enough to attract consumers.

3. Advertisers should think really hard to attract consumers on first sight with several eye-catching pictures, an interesting line and a surprising animation beneath the hyperlink. To be honest, few ads have left good impression to WeChat users by now.

Traffic has always been the money-grabber for any social networking apps, whether it’s Facebook, Weibo, or WeChat. I can say for sure that WeChat advertising service is only a beginning of WeChat’s future business adventures, and the first trial towards s-commerce for many advertisers. It remains to see how WeChat will better target consumers in the near future.

[The article is published and edited with authorization from the author @Chu Wei, please note source and hyperlink when reproduce.]

Translated by Levin Feng (Senior Translator at ECHO), working for TMTpost.