Why WeChat is the Super App for Users and Marketers

With social media and apps, as with any product made for human beings, it is common knowledge that how each individual reacts to it depends on their own life experiences. This means that the best way to succeed with the people, targeted demographic, that you want to ingratiate yourself with, personally or in business, you need to be aware and anticipate the wants and needs of those individuals. For example, you’re not going to make any friends trying to convince someone who has no legs to buy Louboutins. Read the room, bruh (as my teen likes to remind everyone).

More than just knowing your audience, you need to understand them and be willing to be flexible to accommodate changing needs. This is the same in romantic and friend relationships. I guess the part where we care enough to meet the needs of others is what makes us human; it’s the social aspect that we crave and that’s exactly what makes social media apps so appealing to extroverts and introverts alike.

READ ALSO: How to get invited to Disney’s Social Media Creator Days

For example, Weixin (pronounced “way-shin”), better known as WeChat, is a popular Chinese multi-purpose social networking app developed in 2011 by Tencent, a Chinese social media company. Within 3 years, Weixin had more than 300 million active users in China, Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. If you think TikTok is taking off, WeChat did it first. 

WeChat is similar to WhatsApp in the United States. However, WeChat is way more comprehensive than WhatsApp allowing users to send messages, share news and pictures, access social media and even mobile payments via their cell phone. It really is an app for everything, a super app. You say, “they’ve got an app for that”, the app is WeChat. With those kinds of capabilities, it’s no wonder if has over 1 billion monthly users worldwide. It’s the closest competitor is the Weibo app, if just depends on what you’re using it for.

Aside from messaging and calling features, WeChat provides text messaging, one-to-many broadcasting, video conferencing, hold-to-talk voice messaging, video games, photo and video sharing and location sharing. Why don’t we all have WeChat? I, honestly, never heard of WeChat until I started binge-watching C-Dramas like it was my job this pandemic and I can testify that everybody in my C-Dramas uses WeChat, so much so that I’m getting FOMO from it.

READ ALSO: C-Dramas to Save You from the Pandemic Pit of Despair

Why is WeChat so successful when there are so many apps out there? Easy, WeChat is user friendly. It is the result of caring enough to get to know the audience and enhance the quality of their lives. The developers have made sure that the app is an asset that makes life easier, more streamlined and more convenient in a world where we are all busy, overworked and exhausted. It’s so good at being useful that it’s not extraneous, it is a necessity to many. It’s as vital as the cellphone itself to most.

WeChat knows that its key demographic is young, urban smartphone owners and specifically targets them by providing them an “all-in-one-platform” app.

It offers a wide range of functions from sending a baby photo to friends, getting news, text messaging, to finding a cab on the street. WeChat is more than a combination of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and eBay. It rolls them all into one and makes those apps redundant. Why download 5 apps when you can do everything in one?

WeChat is easy to use. Everything about it from the interface to the functions are designed to be straightforward and easy to use. One feature that I love, that I use frequently on my phone, is voice messaging by just pushing 1 button, especially when you’re not in the mood to talk but you’re just too busy to type it all out. It’s the closest thing to talking to someone. If you know, you know.

WeChat also allows users to open almost everything within the app browser so you’re not constantly being rerouted to Chrome and a new tab. It’s easier, more aesthetically pleasing and less “noise” on your phone. WeChat provides so many capabilities for its users they don’t need to go anywhere else. It’s like having a really well matched and attentive partner, if all your needs are being met at home, why go out?

READ ALSO: The Last Bite a Love Story

This high rate of satisfaction keeps users in the app longer versus jumping in and out of various apps for separate functions. With all of the capabilities it has like the cab reservation function, Didi Taxi, allowing users to book taxis directly, Weixin pay features which eliminates the need to carry around your credit cards and cash and all the other social aspects, people can be highly independent and self-efficient. The best thing about WeChat is that it keeps changing to meet its user’s needs, continuously introducing new functions and features to keep up with the evolving and growing needs of its audience.

In Chinese culture, during the holidays, people give friends and family monetary gifts in red envelopes. A thoughtful feature WeChat introduced in January 2014, right before the Chinese New Year, was a Red Envelope “Qiang Hongbao” campaign.

• It allowed WeChat users to link their bank account to their WeChat account and send or receive red envelopes virtually.
• Just to keep things fun and exciting, Weixin allowed users to put a sum of cash in the Red Envelope and then distribute the money randomly among a group of recipients the user set up.
• The user sets the amount of money, i.e. $100 among 6 friends and the app randomly sent each friend an envelope with a surprise amount, it could be $1 or it could be $99.
• It was fun for the giver and receiver but more importantly, it encouraged people to use the app.
• Nearly 5 million people participated in the Red Envelope campaign and sent out 20 million cash-filled red envelopes virtually.

By meeting their audience’s needs and wants, WeChat has made themselves indispensable in those people’s lives. The app is a part of their daily routine and way of life. The best part is WeChat is always ready and available to help, always within an arm’s reach. How many people can we say that about?

Do you have WeChat? If not, what app are you most dependent on? Is there one that you would be lost without?