"Anticipating what your audience needs is key when you are creating a brand or marketing on social media."
Anticipating what your audience needs is key when you are creating a brand or marketing on social media. This is something Chinese based company Weixin (pronounced “way-shin”) has done well. In 2011 Weixin, a social media app, similar to WhatsApp in the United States, launched (Mahoney and Tang, 2016).
What made Weixin stand out among the throng of social media apps? They gave their users a one-stop-shop for messages, news, and photo sharing. Their target audience were young, urban, smart phone owners (Mahoney and Tang, 2016). Once they figured out their target audience, they focused on filling the needs of young urbanites. So, they created an app that was Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Ebay, and more in one (Mahoney and Tang, 2016). By 2014, Weixin had 300 million users (Mahoney and Tang, 2016). If you had the choice to volley between several different medias, would you? Or would you pick the platform that gives you the most options?
Weixin wasn’t just thinking about giving their users an all-in-one platform, they also focused on making the app user-friendly. Regardless of how amazing a product is, if it is difficult to use, you will lose customers. Not only is Weixin convenient to use, but you can also create a message with the touch of a button (Mahoney and Tang, 2016). Users speak into their device and it types out the message for them. Whether you are reading an article or trying to make a purchase, you can do all this from the Weixin app (Mahoney and Tang, 2016). The app will pull the URL up in its own browser instead of leading you to a separate app like Google or Safari.
Weixin is always coming up with new ways to meet users’ needs. Anticipating users’ moods is an effective marketing strategy. For instance, in January of 2014, Weixin launched a Qiang Hongbao campaign (Mahoney and Tang, 2016). Qiang Hongbao (the Red Envelope Campaign) took the Chinese tradition of gifting someone a red envelope with money in it into the virtual world. Now, all someone had to do was link their bank account to Weixin and they could send a monetary gift to any number of people with the app. It even allowed for users to disperse the money in different increments.
In 2014 they also addressed the need of reserved transportation. Partnering with over 350,000 taxi drivers in 30 cities in China, Weixin created Didi Taxi, where the user could reserve a cab, by paying for it online (Mahoney and Tang, 2016). By providing this service to fill a need, Weixin changed the behavior of approximately 22 million users (Mahoney and Tang, 2016). This is goal of social media marketing: to change the behavior of your audience to use/buy your products.
"Weixin gave users an easier, more convenient way to do things they were already doing."
Weixin gave users an easier, more convenient way to do things they were already doing. They targeted every way people could use it throughout the day. Need to send a message to someone? Weixin. Want to skip the line at lunch and order your food ahead of time? Weixin. Want to send a picture to your best friend? Weixin. Need a taxi? Weixin. They ensured that their users never need another app again, as long as they keep meeting the needs of their users.
References
Mahoney L. M., & Tang T. (2016). Strategic Social Media: From Marketing to Social Change. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118556900/
Images
Figure 1. WeChat Banner. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WeChat_logo.svg
Figure 2. WeChat Screenshot. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WeChat_ScreenShot.png