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.

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4 Ways to Gain WeChat Followers without Spending Big

In 2018, not only online traffic tends to become more pricy, but also the cost of acquiring new social fans will go up. Acquiring new fans at controllable cost has become a challenge that the brand marketing manager must overcome.

While those premium brands with big marketing dollars have a lot of more liberty on buying driving traffic, other brands will have to leverage some light investing and smart ways to attract followers to fit in their limited marketing budget.

WeChat Apply, as a service provider for Tencent social advertising, has been living and breathing in the new media era. We want to share with you the 4 most frequently used methods to increase followers for WeChat official accounts without spending big.

WeChat Ad

It is a display programmatic type Ad offered directly by WeChat. Advertiser is able to do two types of Ad: Official Account Ad and Moment Ad

The Official Account ad appears at the bottom of WeChat articles in the WeChat Eco System. It offers the advertiser the option to build ad to for the purpose ranging from following, App download, pick voucher and other promotion. It supports the ads in multiple formats of landing pages.

The Moment Ad used to be the luxury play only affordable to those deep pockets couple of years ago.

BMW China used to burn RMB1 million (AUD $200k) a day on WeChat Moment Ad nationwide in China.

Since the beginning of 2018, Tencent has lowered the entry bar to those medium brands. An anonymous source from a household mobile phone company tells WeChat Apply that their mobile phone. The brand launched a WeChat Moment Ad campaign targeting all WeChat users located in Australia on Valentine’s day 2018, it received 1 million impressions and 10%+ CTR. IT was an absolute killer result.

Cost of fans acquisition:★★★★★

Effectiveness:★★★★☆

Retention: 40% ~ 60%

Scope of Application – all kind of official accounts

WeChat Wi-Fi

WeChat Wi-Fi provides Wi-Fi beacon device and developer ports integrated with WeChat official account. The set up can provide free Wi-Fi to people around shop, pop up store, cinema, exhibitions, train station, airport, shopping Centre and other public space as such.When users are promoted to follow the WeChat official account in order to connect to Wi-Fi.  The new fans number increase can be significant however it is kind of all cover approach other being selective on target audience.

Cost of fans acquisition  ★★★☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★☆☆

Retention: 20% ~ 35%

Scope of Application: Telco, Travel and Transport type with national or regional presence

 WeChat Payment

WeChat Payment has become a standard-to-have way for Chinese consumers nowadays to pay for their goods and services. It is applicable both online purchase and offline store visiting. User were by default “forced” (if they do not untick) to follow the official account after the payment is completed.

It is really a good tool to capture those real paying customers and nurture them in the subsequent community managing and social influences with the aim to get their repeating purchases.

Cost of fans acquisition ★★☆☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★★☆

Retention: 50%~60%

Scope of Application: eCommerce, Finance and Investment management type

Doll Machine & Photo printer

Users are attracted to scan QR code attached to the Doll Machine or Photo Printer in order to get free use. It is an effective way to attract new followers in public space.It fits to those brands who are not very critical about segmentation of audience. Retention rate is not very high, people tend to follow when they want to use and unfollow afterwards. However it can work well for those brands selling kids products/services.

Cost of fans acquisition ★★★☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★☆☆

Retention 25%~40%

Scope of application: Entrainment, Photography, Cultural and lifestyle.

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.

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Zombie WeChat Official Accounts to Disappear Online

Tencent made an official announcement on March 17 that WeChat official account automatic logout mechanism is about to go online, which means those non-active registered WeChat Official Accounts within 210 days will be automatically canceled.

Tencent stated that this move will directly improve the situation where nicknames/usernames are taken without being actively used.

It is understood that within 14 days after receiving the warning notification inside the official account, if the user has not logged in, or pinged the communication port, the account will be frozen.

At present, there are a total of more than 20 million WeChat official accounts. It is believed that there are a vast number of user IDs are not used actively. WeChat Apply estimates about 8%~10% of the existing official account names are registered by the people or organizations with speculation intent, they would have registered some brand names first, stopping the genuine brands from registering. It is wasting resources in the eyes of Tencent.

Tencent refused to give details about how many or percentage of those “Zombie” accounts. It is not hard to guess that Tencent is trying to improve its own social ecosystem and user experience. It is just another positive move made by Tencent recently – freeing up those reallocate resources of those names taken by those “Zombies”

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.

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Impacting Messages from China 2018 National Congress

There are plenty of initiatives have been proposed since the currently undergoing China’s Annual National Congress (NPC) since its opening on 3 March, about politics, economy, education, military, cultural aspects and so forth.

WeChatApply team has just picked some key initiatives which we believe would have the significant impact on China’s consumer market in order to broaden your vision about what’s going to happen in China in next short or mid-term.

Tax cut on both individual and business

Since 2008 GFC, the State owned sector has enjoyed phenomenal growth thanks to leaning support from Central bank’s monetary policy while the private sector is shrinking their share in the whole economy. Offering tax cut for both individual and business is expected to improve personal and SME disposable income and encourage the private sector’s innovation,  therefore improve consumer spending power.

Individual income tax system will lift the tax-free bar as the government has recognized the increasing living expenses driven by the ever-expanding urbanization and economic growth. It also includes expanding deductions related to education and childcare.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang , on 5 March, promised to lighten the tax burden on businesses, pledging more than 800 billion yuan (S$167 billion ) in tax cuts.

Faster internet and lower fees.

The government will do more to speed up broadband and bring down internet rates to boost the development of a “Digital China”, said Mr Li at the opening of the annual session of the national Parliament.

The domestic data roaming charges will be abolished by 1 July this year and the rates for mobile internet services will be cut by at least 30 percent. Chen Xiongxiong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will promote basic telecom companies to speed up the process of combing and adjustment of packages, system development and transformation ensure that users will enjoy faster and cheaper mobile internet connection

The move would absolutely boost up the already fast developing mobile e-commerce market in China.

Strengthen financial market regulation

The development of digital payment method in China has reshaped the Chinese people’s lives for the last decade. The Central bank has not only felt threatening pressure from mobile payment giant of Alipay and WeChat Pay, it is now more worrying about the abuse of virtual currency such as Bitcoin as a retail payment and investment instrument. The central bank currently does not accept or approve related services.

It does not like to create a speculative product, people have the illusion of overnight riches. The bank needs to consider the overall situation and not let the virtual money conflict with the current financial order.

New energy vehicles will also grow rapidly

Miao Wei, Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated that China’s new energy vehicle technology has greatly improved. Last year, the battery energy density reached twice the level of technology in 2012, and the price per kilowatt hour dropped by more than 70% from 2012. “As technology continues to advance and charging facilities continue to improve, new energy vehicles will continue to show rapid growth in the future.”

The sales volume of electric vehicles and new energy vehicles in China reached 770,000 with the total possessions exceeded 1.6 million, accounting for half of the world’s total in 2017. The development of electric vehicles in China is an important part of the transformation and upgrading of electric vehicles in the world. “Welcome that all countries’ electric vehicles come to the Chinese market so that we can all enjoy a wide range of products and diversified services.” Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology, said during the press conference.

NPC is scheduled to close on 20 March 2018. NPC is held annually at Capital Beijing during March, after Chinese New Year. Similar time, local congresses are also held at state and local governmental levels throughout the country.

About WeChat apply

Wechatapply 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.

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Things to Know about WeChat Search

What is WeChat Search?

The search in WeChat has been there for some time. It was limited in what it could do. User were able to search for WeChat official account and WeChat posts, but that was about it. With the new features and improvement, WeChat search becomes more powerful.

WeChat trying to get into the search game? Not exactly. While the new WeChat search function is a lot more refined than before, it doesn’t quite work like search engines you are familiar with. If you go on Google or Baidu and search the term “maserati”, the official Maserati website, followed some ads if someone is doing SEM bidding there, followed by news & social media mentions and sometimes Wikipedia or, in China, Baidu Baike. If you click on any of the links in the search result you’ll be directly taken to another website, this means you’ve left Google or Baidu and enter another company’s domain.

WeChat search, however, is completely internal. If you search, “maserati” on WeChat instead of seeing Maserati’s website you’ll see recent news related to “maserati” that are from other WeChat official account or properties that Tencent has a stake in, such as Sogou. And clicking on any of the links, the article will open up in WeChat’s own browser.

We really like about the social aspect of the new WeChat search though. WeChat search will also return results of social mention by your friend’s moment in the past. This tallies with WeChat’s preference of friend to friend close relationship nature.

Here is an example of WeChat search on the term “maserati.”

Why does this matter for businesses in China?

WeChat has a lot to gain by building a better search system. Since launching in 2011, it has grown to encompass most functions of daily life in China. You use it to communicate, pay bills, shop, order food, and hail taxis. You can read the news on WeChat, or use it to watch videos and listen to music.

Both users and service providers would benefit greatly from a more finely tuned search system. Given all the user data WeChat has – transaction data, social graphs, and more – the app is well-equipped to make more targeted advertisements and personalized recommendations.

Sometimes we’re faced with a choice to try something new or stick to our old ways. For those of you brave enough to explore a new frontier, we offer you some tips on how to leverage the new WeChat search function for your business.

WeChat Backlinks

So far Tencent has not released any information on how WeChat is going to rank results, and they may never. We can, however, make some best guesses by looking at Baidu and Google.

Even though Google’s algorithm has changed drastically over that past 5 or 6 years one thing they never changed is the value of links. Sure, how Google weight links now differ from years ago, but until this day having a strong backlink profile is how you can rank on Google.

And since WeChat started to allow links between different WeChat official account and other Tencent properties, we believe links will be playing a strong role in WeChat search.

Product Search

So far, all product searches on WeChat seem to return results of eCommerce pages that Tencent has shares in. For example, if you search “lip stick” the top results may return a sponsored ad of a mini program, an e-commerce platform pinduoduo(拼多多)

Some of these mini programs will have a 1-click buy button and with WeChat pay, you can literally purchase a product in less than 2 clicks.

This could be great news for eCommerce business, who are looking for a less competitive channel to sell their products at least for now.

Sogou Baike

Most people search on Google because they’re looking for an answer or information. This will most likely be true for WeChat search as well, after all the nature of the search will never change.

Just like Google or Baidu, we found that many top results on the new WeChat search resulted in Sogou Baike(搜狗百科) which is the equivalent of Baidu Baike or Wikipedia. This again is because Tencent is a shareholder of Sogou.

Unlike Baidu Baike however, Sogou Baike is currently free of charge to use, although that could change any day now as it is gaining more popularities thanks to WeChat.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply 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. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

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WeShop Available for Public Beta

WeShop, “Micro Choose” in Chinese language sense, is a mobile marketplace embedded in WeChat powered by mini programs, has been released for public beta in the first week of this March.

It is a joint venture by JD.com and online fashion retailer Meili, WeShop has reportedly got over 50,000 merchants and local Chinese on board on the platform. It is regarded as a strategic move to make online shopping more fun, exciting and fulfilling for Chinese consumers. It brings innovative social e-commerce features to shoppers and a vast set of tools to businesses that want to reach customers through more effective Chinese social media marketing

JD.com, the leading Chinese online retailer, had been added onto WeChat in 2014 as the “Shopping” channel under the Discover tab, and now the new venture powered by WeChat’s mini programs is strengthening JD’s current prioritized position on WeChat, helping merchants to reach a broader customer base. Users can easily get access to WeShop by entering the “Shopping” channel and tapping the “WeShop” button in the Chinese version of the app.

WeShop has yet made available the direct purchase or shopping features, while shoppers can directly communicate with the merchants by tapping on the chat button on the bottom of the merchant page, or even add the merchants as friends on WeChat.

The new JV is believed to amalgamate JD’s advantages in customer service, logistics, retail infrastructure and its quality/authenticity control with Meili’s social commerce leadership in female shopping landscape.

“The new platform will change the way that sellers target consumers and serve a wide range of underserviced consumers in China,” said Chen Qi, the CEO founder of Meili Inc., who has been named the chairman of the new joint venture.

WeShop has so far seen a significant number of local merchants, especially SMEs. While JD.com remain its main platform at JD.com, JD certainly is not afraid of making efforts to sell on WeChat. WeShop’s ambition is to revolutionize “social commerce” by removing the barrier for both merchants and consumers. A good chunk of the trade volume is expected to come from JD’s WeChat shopping entry point.

About Meili Inc.

Established in mid-2016, Meili Inc. primarily targets female customers, and includes several different platforms under it, including MOGU Street and Meilishuo, among other popular shopping sites. As the leader in Chinese social commerce, Meili Inc. is experienced in integrating community, content and e-commerce and has already leveraged this strength to achieve significant success within the WeChat ecosystem in the last year.

WeChatApply is specialized in building mini program and mobile e-commerce solution. If you have, come on to chat with us to find out more information to help extend your access to China’s rapid-evolving mobile shopping market.

Article Sourced from Timmy Chen, 2 March 2018 Technode

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply 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. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

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Tourism Australia Stands Top 10 Popular WeChat Moment Ad

“Australia isn’t just a place you see, it’s a place you feel”

WeChat just released the Top 10 popular WeChat Moment Ad in 2017. Tencent Advertising Unit conducted a survey contest in early February with more than 600,000 WeChat users participated in the voting.

The brands on the rally are (no particular order)

Adidas

Tourism Australia

BM

Dior

Dolce&Gabbana

Jimmy Choo

JD

TripAdvistor

Tencent 

Montblanc

Interestingly, the Top 10 have seen only two are China locally grown brands Tencent and JD, all others are international brands.

Apart from those deep pocket premium brands like BMW, Dior, JD, Tourism Australia stands out of the crowd. It was not a coincidence when record high 1.382million Chinese tourists came to Australia in the year of 2017.

The Ad appeared a bird eye look of an Australian beach – very Australian, wasn’t it? Once clicked, it opens up a short video hosted on an H5 page with carousel slider underneath, and certainly, there is a button that user can click on to follow Tourism Australian official WeChat account. The 30-second video was about a young Chinese couple taking tour in Australia, a male Aussie voice speaks in English with Chinese subtitle, “Australia isn’t just a place you see, it’s a place you feel”

Having some English elements in ad copy keeps the brand’s original taste. I can imagine had it been all Chinese speech and texts, the outcome would have been very different.  Tourism Australia made a right call on speaking the right messages to the target audience, more and more of whom are choosing independent travel and can understand English.

What exactly is WeChat Moment Ad?

Regards it as the equivalent of Facebook ads appearing on the timeline. Unlike banner ad, Moment Ad has brought a much more sophisticated way to reach the WeChat user timeline by directly buying access from WeChat. A brand can target users according to their location, interest, age, gender, device and phone network.

It supports texts description, image(s) and video,

Individual users can see up to one Moment ad every 48 hours. The ad will disappear within 6 hours if the user did not like, comment or click on the link. If the user interacts with the ad, this will increase the likelihood of his/her friend receiving the same ad. This viral effect will increase the number of target users. Very socially, a WeChat user can see their friends’ comments about the ad

Moment Ad can help advertiser to achieve Brand awareness, Click to convert (purchase or signup), Download app and Gain new followers

Since the beginning of 2018, WeChatApply has noticed Huawei Australia and BMW started on targeting Australian based WeChat users. It is a groundbreaking event for WeChat’s development at Australian Market since Tencent first made the ad available in China in 2015. Any brand who looks to take advantage of this tool, really have to start with getting an official verified account before able to even spend your marketing dollar. Unlike the easy and flexible admin offered by Western online social advertising, brands also need to go through WeChat’s advertiser application process in order to gain their qualification to advertise. Bear in mind that certain industries are completely banned and some are restricted.

Interested in this powerful way of placing your brand in front of targeted WeChat users?

WeChatApply team can help you with this process with our know-how and experience.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply 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. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post Tourism Australia Stands Top 10 Popular WeChat Moment Ad appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

WeChat Mini Program

Mini program or some people call it Mini App, is a new function of WeChat. Launched in January 2017, mini programs have similar functions as native Apps, but they are hosted within WeChat App. Mini programs have a number of significant advantages over native apps, as well as complementary features to WeChat official verified accounts, either service type of subscription type.

Benefits and Advantages

Easy access – Users can access mini programs by scanning a QR code, by searching for their service name on WeChat, or by clicking on a link shared by friends. Once opened, mini programs will are automatically saved under the mini programs folder.

Speed – Mini programs run faster than Apps.

No download/Install – They takes far less room on a user’s phone because they do not require download and install. For example, Ctrip’s streamlined mini program is just 1MB, compared to 114.6MB for the full-function app.

Searchable – They’re also easy to find directly through WeChat they work on any kind of smartphone.

Lower cost and less time to develop – Mini programs takes half of the time needed to develop an App, saving money and time.

Flexibility on what you can build for your user – They provide massive flexibility for any WeChat official verified account’s manager who has development capability.

Native apps require both iOS and Android versions, as well as testing, but mini programs do not.

Better UI. They load much faster than HTML5 pages, so they run more smoothly and are easier to navigate.

Pinable at phone home screen or on top inside WeChat App. A mini program can work concurrently with other WeChat functions, as it becomes a standalone page that can be pinned to the home screen, acting in effect as a native app. The huge advantage here is that users can check their WeChat messages without having to retrieve the mini-program page afterward.

Mini programs are very strong when it comes to promoting online to offline activities. For example, a retail company can create a mini program for each individual shop, with the address, contact information, coupons and membership cards. Users can then search these mini programs through the ‘mini programs nearby’ LBS function, allowing them to find nearby shops and look at what kind of promotions and products they have there. Mini programs can be used to sell directly as an e-commerce program.

On the other hand, businesses can also encourage offline to online use by providing WeChat users at an event or shop with QR codes that will then open the mini program on the users’ phones.

Mini programs can be used as an ecommerce platform, as they already are by luxury brands like Lane Crawford. This can complement companies with content-driven subscription accounts by giving them a good monetization opportunity. In terms of travel, review sites like Qyer or Mafengwo can now use mini programs to sell travel products, while keeping their subscription accounts content-focused. At the same time, mini programs can drive sales campaigns with promotion and coupons.

Application in travel industry

WeChat mini programs can provide a good complement to subscription accounts, as they can be used to sell products directly. Like mobile apps, mini programs can also support bookings, check in and other travel services, and they are already being used by travel brands like Booking.com, Huazhu Hotels and Spring Airlines.

Canadian national park, Banff & Lake Louise Tourism has been one of the first overseas travel destinations to launch a WeChat mini program. This mini program serves as an interactive, digital brochure to help visitors keep up to date with the park’s activities, and it is promoted on Banff’s WeChat account. Users have access to a directory with quick links to activities, restaurants, accommodation, shopping, attractions and more useful information, and they can also create and save itineraries. An LBS function provides location-based recommendations for visitors at the destination, which helps local providers to reach a Chinese audience. A map function and photos of attractions, restaurants and other destinations allow visitors to visualize and plan their time at Banff and Lake Louise most effectively.

Future growth

Tencent is very focused on making this function a success. WeChatApply has already seen more and more applications of these programs for a varieties of sectors. WeChatApply development team has successfully helped a number of Clients to achieve this function in the last 6 months. With so much potential, as well as relatively quick and easy development compared to native apps, WeChat mini programs are a promising new area for digital marketing in China.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply 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. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post WeChat Mini Program appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

How to get your first 10,000 Weibo followers without a cent on paid Ad

Like any matured powerful social app, Weibo, you can call it a Chinese version of Instagram+Facebook, has already makes heaps ads revenue from their social advertising tools for business to spend on, however, given Weibo has reached 340million monthly active users in 2017, 30% up on the previous year, is there an organic marketing approach to grow followers and turn your fan base into a lead funnel?

Over the past year, our WeChat Apply social team helped a B2B software company client starting with an empty account and zero followers. In the brief span of just 50 weeks, we accumulated more than 14,000 followers for the client. As a result, my client now gets about 15 to 20 leads a month from Weibo for their supply chain enterprise-grade software services targeting China-based corporations in China market.

How would you like to do that?

Let me explain how you can follow our example and build up your Weibo Chinese audience that will help you market your business in China

1. Start with Goals

As with so many other things in business, it all starts with a set of goals.

What do you want to do on Weibo? What are you hoping to get out of it?

You might decide that you want to use Weibo as a cost effective way to penetrate into China market without large capital investment？Or you might be thinking that Weibo is a great way to share pictures, videos, stories or announcement of your products or your business because it’s rich media focused. Maybe you’re just looking to land some direct purchases from your Weibo account cross border?

Whatever your goals are, make sure you approach Weibo marketing with an eye toward fulfilling it. Then start looking for ways to gather your audience.

On Weibo, you have two demographics: partners and customers.

Partners are people in the same industry or in an industry related to your niche. They’re not necessarily competitors, though.

For example, if you’re a web developer, then people who design WordPress themes might be among your partners. They complement, rather than compete, with your business.

They can also help you promote your business.

How? By commenting on and liking your updates. They help give your Weibo account the appearance of authority.

Then, there are Weibo followers who are in your target market. Those are the people whom you want to become customers.

Once you’ve identified partners and people in your target market, it’s time to start gathering information about them. What are their typical qualities? Where do they spend their time online?

And this is important: Whom do they follow on Weibo?

That’s important because you want your Weibo account to attract them. Fortunately, you can do that by imitating other accounts that they already follow.

Find between two and five Weibo accounts that your distributors and potential customers follow and analyze them. What kind of content do they post online? Who follows them?

Also, take a look at their bio. How do they describe their business? What does the profile photo look like?

Go through their posts and look at the hashtags they use. Make a note of the most popular hashtags. You’ll probably want to use those in your own posts.

It’s important, though, to make sure that the post corresponds to the hashtag you use. Otherwise, you’ll be branded a spammer.

Finally, take a look at their most popular posts. Make a note about the types of photos used in those posts and the topics they cover.

Now that you’re armed with that information, it’s time to get to work.

2. Build a Profile That Converts

Your profile is where you’ll put the link to your landing page. That’s why it has to be optimized for conversion.

Weibo does allow links on stories, though. Those are collections of photos and videos put into slideshow format (an idea Weibo “borrowed” from Snapchat).

If you think you can promote your brand best by marketing with stories, then you can add links outside of your profile.

So how do you produce a profile that converts? Follow a few simple steps.

First of all, give yourself an appealing bio. Remember the basic rule of marketing here: Emphasize what you do for customers. Tell people that you fix their problems and make their lives better.

In other words: Don’t just talk about what you sell. Instead, tell people how your products or services benefit them.

Also, give yourself a fabulous profile photo. Go professional with the picture if you have to. It’s your one chance to make an outstanding impression and convince people that you take your business seriously.

You should also give people a reason to click on your link. Whet their appetites with a tease such as a discount or a freebie. Then, tell them they can learn more by clicking on the link.

Keep in mind: There’s nothing wrong with having a landing page dedicated solely to people who arrive at your site from Weibo. In fact, you’ll probably make your Weibo visitors feel special if you do that.

You can also do the “Mashable trick” with the link on your profile page. As the name implies, that’s a technique perfected by the website Mashable.

Here’s how it works: When you post a photo, add a caption that explains the photo and include text like: “For more information, click on the link in our profile.” Here’s the important part: After posting the photo, change the link in your profile so that it goes to a part of your site relevant to the Weibo post.

In other words, change the link in your profile with each update.

3. Create an Editorial Calendar

If you want to move ahead of your competition on social media, create an editorial calendar. Many brands don’t bother with that.

An editorial calendar is a schedule of your upcoming posts. It tells you what you’ll post and when you’ll post it.

Get the ball rolling on your editorial calendar by going over the successful posts you learned about in step 1. Then, go and do likewise.

Yes, copy the type of content that others have used successfully and use it yourself. Imitation isn’t just the sincerest form of flattery. It’s also a great way to promote your brand.

Keep in mind: Some stuff is copyrighted. You obviously don’t want to run into a copyright dispute or lawsuit.

You can, however, post content very closely related to the successful posts of others. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Also, don’t come across like a sales rep on Weibo. If you just post content that’s trying to make a sale, you’re going to have trouble gaining and keeping followers.

Instead, mix up your content a little. Post some humorous memes now and then. Share lifestyle tips. That will help you add some personality and humanity to your brand.

Make sure that some of your content uses the hashtags you found in step 1. You especially want to use the more popular hashtags, because they should give your posts greater exposure.

4.  Publish and Engage

Once you’ve got your editorial calendar in place, it’s time to start following it. Promote your business by publishing content on a regular basis.

There’s more to being successful on Weibo than just posting content, though.

Remember: Weibo is part of social media. It’s called “social” media for a reason.

You need to be social on social media.

That means you should engage with other Weibo users. Follow accounts in your niche and accounts related to your niche. Like and comment on posts you appreciate.

If you’re viewed as an active member of the Weibo community, you’ll come across as a genuine user and not somebody who’s just trying to sell something.

Also, you’ll often get a follow back from the people you follow. That’s especially true if they’re interested in your business.

Here’s another thing to do: Look at the top profiles in your niche. Then, go through some of their posts. Follow people who are commenting on those posts. These are the most engaged people, so there is a chance they will engage with you also.

All of this will help your posts show up in Weibo Search, which can send more people to your profile and business.

5. Analyze, Scale, and Promote

After a few months of Weibo marketing, take some time to review what’s working best for you.

Go over your analytics. Make a note of the types of posts that receive the most engagement. Be sure to publish posts with similar themes in the future.

Also, make a note of what types of posts are receiving the least engagement. Scratch those kinds of posts off your editorial calendar if there any more like them coming up. Replace them with the kinds of posts that are more successful.

Finally, consider running ads on your top posts. That will give you a chance to effectively add a link to them.

6. Rinse and Repeat

Repeat step 5.

Go through your analytics constantly to find your top performers. Then, add more posts just like those to your editorial calendar.

Also, keep on engaging with other posts. Remember, you’ll appear “real” if you’re liking, following, and commenting on the posts of other Weibo users.

Finally, focus on growth. Keep working to build your audience so you can reach more people. Then, customers will find their way to your website.

About WeChatapply

Wechatapply 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. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post How to get your first 10,000 Weibo followers without a cent on paid Ad appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

From Imitator to Innovator: Evolution of WeChat In 7 years

In China, more than 80 percent of smartphone owners are actively using this mobile App WeChat. That’s almost a billion of users; more than the population of the US, Russia and the UK combined.

At its start, WeChat was just a replicate of WhatsApp Messenger with push-to-talk feature, also known as walkie-talkie. But now it has evolved as a mixture of WhatsApp, Instagram, Skype, Apple Pay and many other apps that westerners are familiar with.

As this “king of Apps” in China near its seventh birthday, its developers are considering the app’s future: In addition to copying and mixing, they are trying to create something new.

Cross-platform for the win

The App was launched on iOS in early 2011, and ported to Android right afterwards. At first look, it looked just like WhatsApp with its somehow similar green icon and user-friendly interface.

But under the hood it was carefully crafted to penetrate the Chinese market. Most Chinese phone players didn’t need to register for an account to use WeChat. They can sign in with their mobile phone numbers or other social media accounts.

It sounds very normal to people nowadays. But at a time when mobile operators asked extra charge for inter-operator texting, it was a killer function.

Cross-operator availability is the key for WeChat’s initial success. It’s huge for the App’s developer, Tencent, whose desktop-dominating messenger QQ had a struggle in the rising mobile market.

Tencent buried their company name deep inside WeChat. A lot of users were not even aware they were still on Tencent. The ad-free experience was also very different from previous Tencent software.

WeChat also provided location-based service, enabling users to find other nearby users. The App was called a “one-night-stand tool” for a while.

People-to-people, money-to-money

WeChat succeeded in gathering mobile users, but it needed more to keep them following.

In April 2012, Tencent introduced social networking to WeChat. It works mostly like Instagram. You share your photos on your stream and watch others’ stream at the same time.

It’s still one of the most popular ways to share photos with friends in China. Other ways to enhance communication include a sticker shop copied from famous Asian chatting App Line and a “game center” for users to compare their mobile game scores.

These features helped WeChat to reach 200-million-user milestone in the same year. But Tencent wanted even more. If you get tired of sharing photos with friends, you can share it with everyone by making your account public like a blog.

WeChat’s enormous users attracted salesmen, who used public accounts to distribute coupons with potential customers. The method was so widely-used that Tencent eventually added online payment to WeChat in 2014, igniting the wildfire of person-to-person wholesale model in China.

Small change indicates big confidence – WeChat used a Nasa satellite photo of the blue planet with Africa the Human’s origin. After Sep 2017, WeChat quietly changed the photo to an APAC centered view taken by a China’s own geostationary orbit satellite.

This move threatened Alibaba, who owns Taobao, the largest online shopping platform in China back then. Alibaba founder Jack Ma started to fight back by building his own messenger Apps, but none of them have come near where WeChat has gone.

At the same time, WeChat Pay cut a big chunk off from Jack Ma’s decade-lasting online payment empire. According to data company iResearch, the market share of Tencent’s payment platform in China rose from 10 percent in 2014 to 40 percent in 2017, while Alipay shrank from 80 to 54 percent during the same time.

Kill other Apps

As WeChat became a must-have for Chinese mobile users, Tencent went on to stabilize its monopoly by merging even more features into the App, including car hailing, hospital appointment, civil service and many, many more.

In 2016, head of the WeChat team Zhang Xiaolong announced a new plan to make all other mobile Apps unnecessary.

Dubbed as “Mini Program,” Zhang created an App store inside the WeChat App.

For the phone users who do not want to install too many Apps, this is absolutely good news. Open WeChat and you have everything at hand.

Demonstration of WeChat’s Mini Program. Users can access mini-apps by swiping down the recent conversation list. The mini-app is listed in system multitasking UI as a standalone app.

Any App maker can share WeChat’s vast fan base, WeChat Apply team believes the Mini Program is a game changer and has passed its initial stage and in 2018 it will become widespread a lot more.

So after seven years of development, what will the Chinese App market dominator do in the future? Stay focused on WeChat Apply to for more updates about the WeChat annual gathering.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply 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. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post From Imitator to Innovator: Evolution of WeChat In 7 years appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.