For the first time, we are used to thinking of WeChat as the English name of Weixin (微信). However, Weixin is the version for mainland users, while WeChat is designed for overseas users, and they don’t belong to the same system or servers. Actually, they are actually two separate entities, targeting two different user groups in the way of accessible contents and features. To make it simple, you can see Weixin and WeChat as two different versions of the same app.

We are going to list some key differences:

Regions and Markets

Firstly, Weixin and WeChat target different user groups in different regions. Weixin operates in mainland China while WeChat serves overseas users.

When users go to the App Store and download the app, the version is determined, whether it is the Chinese version or the international one, by your phone number at your first login. You get Weixin if your phone number is based in mainland China (+86). If not, you get the international version, WeChat.

Wallet and the Cards and Offers

As compared to Weixin, WeChat doesn’t have the Wallet and the Cards and Offers functions. And these two functions are normally used by businesses or individuals for mobile payment, sending or receiving coupons or tickets, bounding electronic membership or VIP cards in China mainland. They are the entrance of the money transactions and important tools for brands to provide benefits to their customers.

The Wallet function allows users to complete various kinds of transactions:

• Making QR Code payment.
• Giving Red Packets (红包; red packets are monetary gifts which are given during holidays to friends or relatives in China, and Weixin made this tradition virtual and mobile) to friends and so on.
• Transferring from banks or to friends.
• Purchasing movie tickets.

The Official Accounts

the official WeChat accounts are also different from the official Weixin account.

Since Weixin and WeChat are using different servers, the data of these two versions are stored in two different places.  If you registered your official account through WeChat international version, then your account will not be seen or subscribed by a Weixin mainland user, and due to the strict censorship regulations, the China mainland Weixin users cannot join any campaigns launched by your official account resisted with WeChat international.

Therefore, foreign marketers need to distinguish the two different versions of official accounts.

• There is one way that you can differentiate the two versions by looking at the URLs of the official account backend.
  To register an official account that works for mainland users, you should go to : https://mp.weixin.qq.com/.
  For an official account that targets users outside mainland China, you should go to : https://admin.wechat.com.
• For those targeting mainland users, they need to register an official Weixin account, and then go through the official procedures for activation and verification. By doing so, the account will be searchable and available to potential mainland customers, so they can promote their brands and products to these mainland users.

Others

Other functions also differ relatively slightly between the two apps. For example, the game centers in different regions show different games.

The post WeChat vs Weixin, WeChat not simple English Version of Weixin appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

WeChat Mini Programs are more and more popular now. Many overseas companies have a plan to develop a mini-program to provide their products or services for Chinese audiences. But wait a moment, before you start to do that you should know what kind of services you can do within the WeChat mini-programs platform. Otherwise, you may be waste your time and money.

Tecent opens different service categories depends on your entity. for example individuals, non-individuals, overseas.

For Overseas Entity

available categories as below:

if you have a Chinese ID, you can try to use it to request a service category for individuals . for individuals, you will have more service categories to select.

For Individuals

The post WeChat Mini Programs Open Service Categories appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

WeChat officially releases a new feature, you can insert an official account into your article with business card style very easily.

Just to login to your official account backend, create a new article, put the mouse somewhere in your article, and select the official account from the top quick menu bar as below:

Preview your article, you can see your official business card which one is better use experience than only QRCode.

Hopefully you enjoy it!

The post How to insert an Official Account into your article with Business Card Style appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

On March 29, WeChat released a new version of iOS 8.0.3. The update details showed that “this update solves some known issues and updates several functions.” 

According to experience, in the update, Moments can support 30-second video upload, and the maximum number of WeChat emoticons added has been increased from 300 to 999. 

In addition, WeChat has also optimized the experience of using the video account, and the live broadcast function of the video account has been further enriched.

Currently, long videos can be played at double speed mode, and music can be added to the live broadcast.

The post New Version WeChat Supports 30s Video appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

Tecent News On January 26, the WeChat official account backstage launched a low-key new feature “Public Image Library”, which means that when images are needed for WeChat articles, you can directly search for copyright through the official account free images library.

After logging in to the backend of the official account, open the graphic editor and click on the “Picture” component at the top to see the newly added “Free Picture Library” feature. After reading and agree with the terms of use, you can jump to the search page of the image library and enter keywords to search for images. In the “Free Picture Library”, the operator can filter the materials according to the proportions of a square, vertical, horizontal, etc., and click the magnification button in the upper right corner of any picture to view the original picture.

Operators can directly use the applicable pictures when they see them or click the star icon in the upper right corner to save them for future use. The “favorite” pictures will appear below the search bar.

However, operators need to pay attention to the fact that the pictures obtained through the free gallery are limited to use in the WeChat official platform scene only, and they will bear copyright risks if they exceed the scope. For example, if the same article with pictures is added to other platforms, there may be a risk of infringement.

The post WeChat official account adds free gallery feature appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

Dec. 3 2020, there were reports that many users found that WeChat had started internal testing and added recommendations for WeChat official account content at the entrance of the enterprise account.

The specific situation is that in the WeChat enterprise status reminder of the WeChat service notification, the content of articles that colleagues have read more will be pushed, and WeChat will also selectively push industry information. This may be one of WeChat’s initiatives to increase the distribution channels of official accounts.

Previously, the recommended method of WeChat Official Accounts has undergone many changes, including the disorder of the timeline-based list form in the article stream. Subsequently, WeChat has successively added tags at the bottom of the article to collect articles, and also provided likes and watching, Share, and favorite buttons; during a look, WeChat successively conducts hotspot collections and friends’ watching recommendations; in addition, after adding “#topic”, users can click on the label to enter the list and read with topic words Articles with related keywords.

The post WeChat internal test enterprise account entrance recommended WeChat public account article appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

WeChat public account adds a tag function at the bottom of the article, which can be associated with keyword articles

WeChat today launched a new feature for the public account article, supports adding small tags at the bottom of the article, and click on each tag to see the articles associated with the keyword. It is reported that the number of articles that can be associated with each tag varies.

Unlike the articles associated with their own accounts on the WeChat Official Account album, the tag function associates articles with different official accounts, which is equivalent to content aggregation with keyword association as the core. The WeChat team said that this feature is very convenient for authors and readers. At the author’s end, you can associate popular tags to increase exposure; readers can click on the tags to read related content in a list, which improves reading efficiency.

The post WeChat public account adds a new tag function at the bottom of the article appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

On the morning of January 9, 2020, in the annual WeChat open class, we got the – WeChat Data Insights Report 2019 .

When will the public account be watched the most in 2019? What keywords do male and female users search most on WeChat?  Who uses WeChat to pay for dinner? Below, let me take you to have a look at insights!

Note: According to the official WeChat note, except for the search data, the rest of the data is up to September 2019. WeChat protects the privacy of users in accordance with the law, and part of the data such as age and time comes from sampling.

How many users

1.15 billion monthly live accounts on WeChat, users’ favorite open WeChat Time at 21:00

Active Users

In 2020, WeChat’s monthly active number reached a staggering 1,151,000,000 WeChat data reports , while in 2019 it was 1,082,500,000. With the original base number already so huge, it also achieved a growth of nearly 100 million. Before lunch and after getting off work is the peak period for users to open WeChat.

21:00 is the time WeChat users most like to use the WeChat App.

Young people like to watch cartoons

middle-aged people like to watch pregnancy and raising a baby.

WeChat Mini Program

WeChat mini program has got 300 million daily user activities

Most of WeChat Mini Program users like to play WeChat mini-games at 20:00

Before and after lunch, after working and dinner is the peak period for the user to open the mini program.

Young females prefer to use e-commerce mini-programs (such as “Good Shop”), while middle-aged women prefer entertainment with mini-programs (such as “Jandou Square Dance”).

Young males love party board games (such as “Leopard Fun Party Board Game Assistants Encyclopedia”), young and middle-aged people love to play farm restaurants (such as “Happy Farm 2”), and the elderly only love puzzles (such as “Idiom Xiaoxiu”).

In the circle of friends, men like to share work or games, and women like to share food or emotions.

Emotional Activities

Face covering, teething, snickering, strong, and rose are the most frequently used  WeChat Emoji by users. And the songs that everyone likes to share are 《我和我的祖国》(“My Motherland”),《你笑起来真好看》(“You look so beautiful when you laugh”), and 《芒种》(“Mang Seed”), which are closely related to our normal lives.

Exercise

The average number of steps per person on WeChat Sports Day is nearly 7,000 Steps.

The average number of daily steps in WeChat exercise is 6932, with the largest amount of exercise on Friday.

I usually work busy, and I love at home on the weekends. There are 12 million people with the same idea, but they all have less than 100 steps. These “100-step youths” are always at the end of the WeChat sports rankings, with a praise rate of 23%. Among these “100-step youths”, the ratio of men to women is about 4:6, and women are more willing to stay at home.

The usage of this kind of takeaway mini-program (such as “美团外卖-Meituan takeaway”) increased by 93% over the workday, and the use of shopping mini-program (such as “好物商店-good shop”) increased by 53% over the workday.

Top Search Keywords

“我太难了-I’m too hard” on the WeChat annual hot search keywords

In WeChat Search, the most searched new keyword is the “黑洞-black hole” and the top ten popular searching keywords are:

我太难了- I’m so hard,

小姐姐 – Miss Sister

正能量 – positive energy

佛系 – Buddha  likely

996 -996 working style

单身狗 – like a single dog

都熟悉吗？ – Are everyone familiar?

勾起2020的回忆 –  evoking your 2020 memories?

男人买单 – Most men pay for meals

90后爱攒钱 – 90s generation like to save money

WeChat Payments

WeChat payment data shows that 59% of the orders are bought by men for eating

57% of the orders are bought by women when shopping in supermarkets.

In terms of receiving red envelopes, men receive 42% of the red envelopes each month and women receive 58% of the red envelopes.

The post WeChat Users, Insights and Statistics 2019 Report appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

Top 5 Chinese Music Apps

Spotify had reached 140 million monthly active users (MAU) worldwide. This number fades in comparison to music streaming services in China: the most popular music app in China, KuGou, had almost double the number.

What is interesting about China’s music streaming is that they are all free. Most of the apps make  money by offering subscriptions for better audio quality, ads, concert tickets, virtual gift-giving, and song purchases. Chinese fans are enthusiastic to make the industry successful. In only 3 days of its release, Katy Perry’s album “Witness” ramped up 1.3 million purchases on China’s leading music apps, with NetEase Music taking the lead.

Here is the top list of China’s hottest music apps selected by WeChat Apply team

1. KuGou (酷狗)

KuGou’s karaoke feature (Screenshot from KuGou app)

KuGou, meaning Cool Dog, made its way to the top range by appealing to a very wide audience, in particular those in small towns, according to a report from Sixth Tone. This means that a large portion of their content is dedicated to square dancing tunes and KTV by local hipster population. KuGou has  won users by integrating KTV streaming which enables users to receive “song coins” that can be transferred into real currency. Users can comment on songs through “bullet screens” (弹幕) where comments stream across the video, listen, watch, and interact through the social platform.

Although the app has 228 million MAU, Kugou is still figuring out how to earn money, but it has been earning from their live streaming service Fanxing. KuGou and KuWo are both owned by the China Music Corporation which merged with Tencent’s QQ Music in July 2016.

2. QQ Music (QQ音乐)

QQ is Tencent’s very first social product. It started out as an instant messaging tool back in 1998. Although QQ Music shares some  same features as Kugou, such as radio, KTV, and live streaming. It caters to a more urban crowd. QQ Music also offers articles and enables users to watch music videos, concerts, and interviews with famous musicians, including international stars such as Linkin Park.

The app has 211.43 million users. It owes its success to Tencent’s huge presence in the Chinese market, including WeChat. This enabled the service to strike deals with major record labels and allow its users to buy concert tickets through its payment service.

3. KuWo (酷我)

KuWo is an app with a focus on KTV streaming. The App hosts KTV tournaments with cash rewards. It also streams and broadcasts popular talent shows and comedies. KuWo also reserves a part of its app for China’s rising DJs.

KuWo offers a wealth of video content bordering on trashy which users can comment through bullet screens (Screenshot from KuWo)

Like other apps, KuWo offers song purchases and subscriptions. It tries to make money with in-app gaming and its own brand of headphones and speakers. The app has 107.72 million MAU.

4. NetEase Cloud Music (网易云音乐)

What differentiates NetEase Music from other apps is its stronger focus on indie artists, enabling it to compete with internet giants like Tencent and Alibaba. Besides short videos, the app has social features that enable users to interact with performers which have profiles on the service. It also has a music streaming option for joggers called Run FM (跑步FM) that selects music with a BPM rate that matches the listener’s running tempo. Aside from music, users can listen to podcasts and watch videos.

With 62.7 million MAU, NetEase is the first music service Unicorn securing RMB 750 million in Series A financing in April 2017.

5. Xiami Music (虾米音乐)

Xiami started off as a P2P platform but had to abandon the model due to copyright regulation. Recently the service added more niche content by featuring emerging musicians with original creations. It has launched The Undiscovered Nationwide Spotlight music program, a talent search where users can explore and select their favorite out of more than 6000 artists.

Xiami Music, with 14.4 million MAU, is owned by Alibaba along with another music app called Alibaba Planet (阿里星球).

No different to other online battlefields in China, Music Apps will see more intense competition in 2018. Let’s stay tuned to see who will be up or down the list this year.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

People Also Read:

WeChat Users, Insights and Statistics 2019 Report

The post Top 5 Chinese Music Apps in 2020 appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

What’s WeChat Mini Program Framework (WMPF)

1. Product summary

The Wechat Mini-Program Framework, or WMPF for short, is an operating environment that allows the hardware to run WeChat applets in an environment that is separate from the WeChat client, and currently supports Android devices.

2. Product capabilities

The WeChat applet running on WMPF is the same as the WeChat applet of the mobile client. Through WMPF, developers can enable WeChat platform capabilities to hardware devices. For details, please refer to the “Beta Beta Capability List” at the end of the article.

3. Product advantages

For hardware developers:

• Low development costs: Developers no longer need to invest in high costs to develop or maintain updates to the App, and small programs can be updated online, that is, more ready to use.
• Rich content ecology: WeChat mini-program ecology has a wealth of content services. The hardware can directly run the mini-program content on the existing network to provide users with comprehensive services.

For mini-program developers:

• Cross-terminal operation: Only one development is required to achieve the multi-terminal operation of small programs, and the adaptation cost is low.
• Expand offline scenes: Mini-programs get more traffic from offline scenes and draw users online through offline scenes.

4. The use of scenarios

The WMPF applet hardware framework can be applied to hardware such as Android system tablet computers and large screen devices in various industries, providing low-cost screen interactive solutions. Accessible devices include, but are not limited to:

• Smart retail: cash register / numbering machine / shopping mall navigation screen / vending machine / order tablet / interactive advertising screen, etc …
• Home and Entertainment Equipment: Smart Refrigerator / Children’s Tablet / Treadmill / TV / KTV Jukebox, etc …
• Public services: hospital registration machine / book rental equipment / gallery card machine, etc.
• Office equipment: education tablet / conference terminal / conference projection screen, etc …

5. Access Application

• Step 1: Register for an account at https://wecooper.weixin.qq.com To register an account, please prepare a business license for uploading in advance.
• Step 2: Experience the product Enter “WeChat Mini Program Hardware Framework-Product Usage Guide” Download and test the demo, install the demo on an Android device, and then experience the WMPF ability in your hardware device.
• Step 3: If the activation function needs to be used formally, please click “Apply for activation”. After the approval, you can bind the small program that needs to be officially run on the hardware.
• Step 4: Register the device

Only devices authenticated by the platform can run WMPF.

① Add device-Please add the device type of the hardware framework of the applet you want to go online in “Home-Device Management”.

② Add a model-Add a specific model, and select “Wechat Mini Program Hardware Framework” in the “Access Business Module” item.

③ Register interface-After adding devices and models, you need to configure the public ID AppID in the “Home-Upload Interface”, register the background interface and upload the device ID, and see how to register the deviceId interface .

• Step 5: Development and Implementation Through the following development guidelines in this document, the ability of LauncherAPP to call WMPF is realized.
• Step 6: After completing the development of the bound applet, you need to enter the mobile application AppID (ie, AppID of LauncherAPP) on the “WeChat Mini Program Hardware Framework-Applet Management” page to bind the applet to be run by the hardware device. See how to bind applets。

6.  Development guidelines

Step 1: Run the applet on the target device

According to the APK file provided in the “WeChat Mini Program Hardware Framework”, the developer needs to install the APK to an Android system device. After the installation is successful, the “WeChat Mini Program Hardware Framework” (WMPF) will be applied to the hardware device. The application contains the environment needed by the applet to run and can respond to requests to start the applet. This application is called WMPF Service.

Merchants need to write an application that sends requests. This application is called WMPF Client.

These two parts are all installed in the same device and communicate through our defined Task. A Task can be understood as an API that defines a certain service, such as IPCInvokerTask_ActivateDevice for activating the device and IPCInvokerTask_LaunchWxaApp for starting the applet.

It takes at least four steps to run an applet

① Register the hardware.

② Call IPCInvokerTask_ActivateDevice to activate the device.

③ Call IPCInvokerTask_Authorize to log in.

④ Call IPCInvokerTask_LaunchWxaApp to start the applet.

1. Send device activation request IPCInvokerTask_ActivateDevice:

Note: Get the process and the way ProductId, keyVersion, deviceId and signature Please see registration process hardwareIn order to ensure that the device is legal, you can run the applet when you are not logged in.

The code example is as follows:

WMPFActivateDeviceRequest request = new WMPFActivateDeviceRequest()
request.baseRequest = WMPFBaseRequestHelper.checked()
request.productId = 1
request.keyVersion = 2
request.deviceId = "Your DEVICE ID"
request.signature = "Your SIGNATURE"
WMPFIPCInvoker.invokeAsync(
    request,
    IPCInvokerTask_ActivateDevice.class,
    new IPCInvokeCallback<WMPFActivateDeviceResponse>() {
        @Override
        public void onCallback(WMPFActivateDeviceResponse response) {
            // process result
        
    }
);

2. Send an authorization request to IPCInvokerTask_AuthorizeNoLogin or IPCInvokerTask_Authorize:

Note: For the acquisition process and method of DeviceTicket and Ticket, see the sample code OpenSdkTestUtil.java in WMPF Client Demo

The code example is as follows:

WMPFAuthorizeNoLoginRequest request = new WMPFAuthorizeNoLoginRequest()
request.baseRequest = WMPFBaseRequestHelper.checked()
request.ticket = "Your SDK Ticket"
request.appId = "Your AppId"
request.scope = "snsapi_userinfo,snsapi_runtime_apk"
WMPFIPCInvoker.invokeAsync(
    request,
    IPCInvokerTask_AuthorizeNoLogin.class,
    new IPCInvokeCallback<WMPFAuthorizeNoLoginResponse>() {
        @Override
        public void onCallback(WMPFAuthorizeNoLoginResponse response) {
            // process result
        }
    }
);
WMPFAuthorizeRequest request = WMPFAuthorizeRequest()
request.baseRequest = WMPFBaseRequestHelper.checked()
request.ticket = ticket
request.appId = appId // OpenSDK AppId for App
request.scope = "snsapi_userinfo,snsapi_runtime_apk"
WMPFIPCInvoker.invokeAsync(
    request,
    IPCInvokerTask_Authorize.class,
    new IPCInvokeCallback<WMPFAuthorizeResponse>() {
        @Override
        public void onCallback(WMPFAuthorizeResponse response) {
            // process result
        }
    }
);

3. Send the launch applet request IPCInvokerTask_LaunchWxaApp:

Note: it can only be called successfully if the device is successfully activated

The code example is as follows:

WMPFLaunchWxaAppRequest request = new WMPFLaunchWxaAppRequest()
request.baseRequest = WMPFBaseRequestHelper.checked()
request.appId = "Your AppId"
request.path = "Target Wxa Path"
request.isNoLogin = true

WMPFIPCInvoker.invokeAsync(
    request,
    IPCInvokerTask_LaunchWxaApp.class,
    new IPCInvokeCallback<WMPFLaunchWxaAppResponse>() {
        @Override
        public void onCallback(WMPFLaunchWxaAppResponse response) {
            // process result
        }
    }
);

4. When you do not need to run the applet, you can send a deauthorization request: IPCInvokerTask_Deauthorize:

The code example is as follows:

WMPFDeauthorizeRequest request = new WMPFDeauthorizeRequest()
request.baseRequest = WMPFBaseRequestHelper.checked()

WMPFIPCInvoker.invokeAsync(
    request,
    IPCInvokerTask_Deauthorize.class,
    new IPCInvokeCallback<WMPFDeauthorizeResponse>() {
        @Override
        public void onCallback(WMPFDeauthorizeResponse response) {
            // process result
        }
    }
);

To quickly experience the process of launching the applet, you can install the sample DEMO provided in the attachment and run the applet. However, in a formal environment, you need to write the application that sends the request according to the above process (you can customize the interaction and interface to start the applet as required). For specific implementation, see the code of the sample DEMO.

Step 2: Run the applet on the target device

• The API in the applet hardware framework is the same as the input and output in the WeChat client, and you can use it as described in the applet’s documentation. Some APIs may not be supported yet, such as code scanning / multi-threading. For specific support capabilities, please refer to the appendix “Beta Beta” Edition capability list》
• The development tools are the same as WeChat developer tools.

Step 3: Run the applet on the target device How to debug the applet on the hardware device

• After installing WeChat developer tools, open the project or modify the code, click “Preview” to upload the local code to the WeChat background server to generate a QR code. Developers can send real-time debugging by requesting IPCInvokerTask_LaunchWxaAppByQrCode on the hardware device.
• Specific implementation can refer to the sample DEMO code-remote debugging:

Click for more detailed development guidelines

7. Contact information

We sincerely invite developers to access the applet hardware framework project. For more latest developments, welcome to follow the following public accounts:

For more cooperation information, please contact wecooper@tencent.com

8. WeChat Mini Program Hardware Framework-Beta Beta Capability List

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