Is there anything Weixin doesn’t do?
Allen Zhang organized the team in Guangzhou that began in 2010 to develop the Weixin app for the Internet company Tencent. (Credit…Qilai Shen for The New York Times)
Upon reading the case study about Weixin, I began to think that it was just another Facebook. It seemed to have most of the same features but with a few extras. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this app was SUPER-POWERED.
Weixan spent an enormous amount of time getting to know the audience it was trying to serve. They determined “If audiences can get all they want from one platform, why bother to find other options. This helps to explain the success of Weixin.” Weixin targets mobile users, it is always with people no matter they are at work, waiting for their food in a restaurant, or taking the subway. Weixen (link here) has achieved the goal of a successful campaign and continues to add new features to ensure future success.
As social media platforms evolve, it becomes even more challenging to fit into their audience;s need, tastes, and interests, especially when each platform can have similar functions. Weixin’s app features are targeted to those users who are looking for that one-stop-shop app.
A great example of this is the cab reservation function called “Didi Taxi”. Who wouldn’t want to be able to stay in the app you use for everything else to be able to book a taxi via Weixin payment.
Weixin in 2020
So after reading the case study, I was curious about what had happened to this super-powered Weixin since 2014. I found this information here:
By 2012, when the number of users reached 100 million, Weixin was re-branded “WeChat” for the international market.
It seemed like something big must have happened so I tried to look into this a bit more as I had a few hunches.
“WeChat is called Weixin in its home country and known as WeChat outside of China. Yet WeChat and Weixin are not homogeneous. However, as Weixin gets more fame internationally, its English name is widely used by international marketers. When people talk about WeChat, 99% of the time, they mean Weixin, the one has full functions.” (Source: WeChat and Weixin – The differences)
So, in conclusion, I believe that Weixin has probably become a product targeted to just China users, but its big brother WeChat covers the globe. What a complicated business model in my mind, but probably genius in many ways.
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Great post Joel. Very conversational and down to earth while maintaining an informative approach. I agree with the overwhelming convenience of never having to leave an app because it has all of the features you could virtually ask for within the course of your typical everyday life. Weixin is the swiss army knife of social media platforms and their value proposition leaves you wondering how community and convenience was ever really possible “pre-weixin” existence. Weixin became the expectation and therefore the lifestyle standard for its consumers; every social media platforms aspirational objective. I like how you evaluated the current state of affairs for Weixin/ Wechat in 2020 in order to gain a proper evaluation of growth over the last several years. I also wanted to give a shout out to your title and featured image; very appealing as a reader. Great work overall in my humble opinion.