Do You Use Wechat

WeChat instructs you to have a friend take a picture of a QR code required for membership first. —WeChat is widely used in the United States by people who used to live in China and use it to. WeChat is one of the popular apps in China used for instant messaging. In addition, WeChat Pay is the easiest way for foreigners living in China to send and receive money within Mainland China. Though WeChat has wonderful apps for iOS and Android smartphones, sometime you need to open WeChat on you computers. If you go to a restaurant in China, use your WeChat app to scan the QR code on the table to order and pay for your food and drinks. Besides restaurants, people also use WeChat for a lot of daily payments.

Do You Use Wechat

Reporter

Jekyll theme github pages. In China, people will soon be able to bring nothing but their smartphones (and clothes, perhaps) when going out, and the one and only app they'll need to download is WeChat.

Owned by tech giant Tencent, WeChat has evolved from China's answer to WhatsApp to an all-in-one app that let users order food, hail cars, and pay utility bills through its payment function. It has made cash and credit cards obsolete for many users, and it might soon do the same to physical identity cards issued by the government.

Earlier this week, WeChat rolled out a new function that lets users have a digital version of their government-issued ID cards. Users can go to a state-backed platform inside WeChat, enter their names and ID numbers, and then go through facial recognition to get their electronic ID cards. These digital versions will be accepted in place of ID cards for hotel check-ins and airport security checks, among other things. The program is currently available to citizens in the southern Guangdong province, and will be extended nationwide next month, according to a report from state newswire Xinhua (link in Chinese).

Previously, both WeChat and rival payment service Alipay from Alibaba rolled out similar ID card schemes in cooperation with local governments in cities such as Wuhan and Nanning. But the new WeChat feature is poised to become China's first national, official electronic ID system powered by a tech company.

As the app continues to add features, people will only become more dependent on it over time. But the scary part is that WeChat gathers and monitors user data that can be shared with the government whenever deemed necessary. Police have arrested WeChat users for writing messages critical of the government. In some cases such messages are blocked from reaching their recipients, but the sender isn't alerted to the fact.

So while WeChat is an all-encompassing system that does indeed make everyday life easier, it's also a powerful tool of government surveillance and control. That's an awkward situation, but it's the kind any tech company has to deal with when operating within China's authoritarian realm.

Below are two lists of all the things you can—and can't—do with your WeChat account in China.

Things you can do with WeChat

• Messaging, voice messaging, stickers (including badly made government ones), voice and video calls.
• Share updates and photos with friends through the Moments feed.
• Share real-time location with friends.
• Find random people nearby through the Shake and Look Around features.
• Toss Drift Bottles into a 'sea' and let random people pick up your messages.
• Read articles (and tip authors) through Public Accounts owned by traditional news outlets, online media, and solo bloggers alike.
• Search everything that's published and shared on WeChat.
• Check friends' updates and rankings in Tencent-owned mobile games (including some of the world's most popular titles, such as Honor of Kings and Clash of Clans).
• Send virtual red envelopes stuffed with real money to friends—especially popular during the Lunar New Year.
• Transfer money and pay in stores through the Wallet feature.
• Repay credit cards, pay utility bills, top up mobile phones, or buy wealth management products and a virtual currency owned by Tencent through the Wallet feature.
• Get access to third-party services including ride-hailing, online shopping, and food delivery through Wallet.
• Get access to public services including booking doctor appointments, applying for visas, and checking driving records.
• Use the Mini Program feature, which offers miniature, low-memory 'apps' within the WeChat app itself—and basically includes everything.

Things you can't do with WeChat

• Send politically sensitive messages or images.
• Publish articles critical of the government (they'll soon be deleted).
• Change your alias to certain terms including 'Xi Jinping,' 'Falun Gong,' and 'low-end population.'
• Transfer 6.4 yuan or 89.64 yuan through Wallet around the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, also known as 'June 4.'
• Spread rumors, information, and other content that 'disrupt the social order,' which can lead to up to seven years in jail.

Sim­i­lar to the mes­sen­ger ser­vices we know in the West (see What­sApp or Face­book Mes­sen­ger), WeChat can be used to send text mes­sages, voice mes­sages, pic­tures, videos and doc­u­ments to con­tacts and groups. Audio or video calls can also be made via WeChat. You can also share links from oth­er apps (like LinkedIn, Spo­ti­fy, Wei­bo, etc.).

Fur­ther­more, WeChat is also a social media plat­form. That means there are pro­file pic­tures, gal­leries, sto­ries, fan groups, likes, etc. as we know them from our social media plat­forms like Insta­gram, Face­book or LinkedIn.

Connect and Share

So far, I have described WeChat as if it were some sort of pla­gia­rism from the big Amer­i­can social media chan­nels. This is far from being the case. Because beyond the com­mu­ni­ca­tion func­tions known to us, the Chi­nese ver­sion con­tains many more pos­si­bil­i­ties. Let's not for­get that Ten­cent is orig­i­nal­ly a com­mu­ni­ca­tions provider. For this rea­son, oral com­mu­ni­ca­tion is much more impor­tant than com­mu­ni­ca­tion via text, for exam­ple. Besides, the Chi­nese font is much more com­plex than our 26 let­ters. So it stands to rea­son that con­sumers pre­fer to talk to each oth­er rather than write.

I will come back to this par­tic­u­lar­i­ty lat­er when it comes to mar­ket­ing. After all, of course, the pri­or­i­ty is giv­en to voice com­mu­ni­ca­tion also has an impact on the way sales are made in Chi­na. Chi­nese mar­ket­ing is based on net­works. Every­one in Chi­na is only as impor­tant as the peo­ple you net­work with. If you want to achieve some­thing, you can only do so if you know the right peo­ple or have con­tacts. So it's no won­der that net­work­ing with the help of WeChat is extreme­ly impor­tant in China.

In the fol­low­ing I give you a brief intro­duc­tion to the func­tions of WeChat.

WeChat Shake

WeChat Shake is a very pop­u­lar func­tion to con­nect to some­one at ran­dom. The right con­tact is cre­at­ed like a lucky tick­et in a lot­tery. WeChat Shake uses a ran­dom gen­er­a­tor to estab­lish con­tact with anoth­er user when they shake their mobile phone at the same time. You heard right, the mobile phone has to be shak­en. If two peo­ple some­where in Asia shake their mobile phones at the same time, they are con­nect­ed. It becomes a chat for both pos­si­ble. The two can add them­selves as friends and chat togeth­er. This is, of course, a won­der­ful way to meet a new friend or a poten­tial bride.

Wechat Sign Up

How­ev­er, the tran­si­tion from pri­vate to com­mer­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion is flu­id in Chi­na. Offline sell­ers such as super­mar­kets and hotels also use the shake func­tion to dis­trib­ute spe­cial offers and prof­its in this way. Second life land for sale cheap. If users come to a defined loca­tion at a cer­tain time and shake their phone there, they can win some­thing in the right match.

TV sta­tions also use this func­tion to attract view­ers. With the shake func­tion, they can inter­act with them in real-time. For exam­ple, if users watch TV and a WeChat logo appears in the pic­ture, view­ers can shake their smart­phones and then win a coupon or a spe­cial offer at the right match.

People nearby

This func­tion can be used to net­work. This time, how­ev­er, with peo­ple in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty. If you go into a bar alone and look for con­tacts, you can dis­play on your smart­phone who would like to be con­tact­ed. The app func­tion shows peo­ple near­by who are 'on recep­tion'. So you can first add and chat with each oth­er before look­ing at each oth­er direct­ly in the eye. This func­tion helps shy peo­ple to talk to strangers and thus pos­si­bly find friends and make appoint­ments. But of course, you can also find friends in the crowd. The func­tion is based on real-time local­iza­tion of the user.

WeChat for business communications

WeChat is also very impor­tant in the work­ing envi­ron­ment. For this rea­son, the social media app also includes func­tions that have been spe­cial­ly devel­oped for coop­er­a­tion with col­leagues. For exam­ple, files can be shared and for­ward­ed. Con­fer­ence calls and streams make it pos­si­ble to orga­nize vir­tu­al con­fer­ences. In addi­tion, there are enter­prise accounts, which are increas­ing­ly used for PR and cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Fur­ther­more, project track­ing (e.g. how far the project has been com­plet­ed) or to cre­ate invoic­es can be done. Anoth­er very pop­u­lar fea­ture is that users send and scan WeChat QR codes to each oth­er instead of exchang­ing busi­ness cards. The advan­tage of QR codes is that the data is exchanged dig­i­tal­ly and does not have to be entered manually.

WeChat Moments

Moments are anoth­er social net­work func­tion with­in WeChat. It works like a semi-closed plat­form where pho­tos, videos, arti­cles, and out­bound links are avail­able for select­ed users. The Moments inter­face is par­tic­u­lar­ly used by brand man­u­fac­tur­ers. They use this chan­nel to pro­mote them­selves or their prod­ucts. New users and cus­tomers can be acquired via Moment-Ads (ads). Or influ­encers have the task to spread the Moment-Ads by for­ward­ing the ads to their followers.

WeChat Moments can be com­pared in the broad­est sense with the feed on Face­book, where users also share expe­ri­ences or inter­est­ing things with each other.

WeChat Pay: Digital wallet

The most impor­tant dif­fer­ence to the Amer­i­can social media plat­forms is the dif­fer­ent pay­ment func­tions of WeChat. The WeChat Wal­let (also called WeChat Pay) opens up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cash­less pay­ment. To acti­vate this func­tion, the WeChat account must be linked to a bank account from which the sums are deb­it­ed or deposit­ed direct­ly. Since Octo­ber 2019, WeChat Pay can also be oper­at­ed with an inter­na­tion­al cred­it card.

The link to WeChat Pay makes it pos­si­ble to pay bills by scan­ning QR codes. Users can also trans­fer mon­ey direct­ly to oth­er users. There is also a func­tion that allows bills to be shared. This is handy if you want to go out to din­ner with the team or your friends, or if you want to buy a birth­day present for a colleague.

A spe­cial fea­ture in Chi­nese cul­ture is the 'red envelopes', which, filled with mon­ey, are tra­di­tion­al­ly giv­en away on spe­cial occa­sions. With WeChat, these 'red pack­ages' can now be giv­en as dig­i­tal gifts. A func­tion that is very pop­u­lar with the Chinese.

Third-party applications and mini programs

In addi­tion to the stan­dard func­tions described above, it is pos­si­ble to upgrade your own WeChat appli­ca­tion with addi­tion­al 'wid­gets' or even 'mini pro­grams'. These dig­i­tal exten­sions are avail­able in our own WeChat App Store. Pos­si­ble func­tions include book­ing and pay­ing for rental bikes (shared bikes), sub­scrib­ing to news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines, book­ing taxis, smart home appli­ca­tions and man­ag­ing and pay­ing elec­tric­i­ty bills. In addi­tion, flights can also be booked and paid for. Par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar are mini pro­grams, which allow a con­sumer to con­nect to shop­ping chan­nels. In this way, shop­ping becomes a leisure activ­i­ty that can be enjoyed at any place and at any time of day.

The mini pro­grams are also made avail­able to com­pa­nies who then acti­vate spe­cial ser­vices such as book­ing flights or cars for their employ­ees with­in the WeChat app.

Search

Can We Still Use Wechat

The search func­tion offers great enter­tain­ment val­ue. It can be used to estab­lish cross-con­nec­tions between the indi­vid­ual Mini pro­grams. Prod­ucts, top­ics, and con­tacts are searched for using key­words. To be found, the shop oper­a­tors pub­lish their arti­cles in the 'Offi­cial Accounts' with key­words. Like­wise, con­tent from friends can be found in the cat­e­gories 'Moments', 'Con­ver­sa­tions', 'His­to­ries', 'Stick­ers' etc.

Cus­tomers search for prod­ucts, research news from the media or dis­cus­sion top­ics and con­ver­sa­tions from friends. The search func­tion serves pri­mar­i­ly to keep track of all top­ics in the app. From a mar­ket­ing point of view, it nat­u­ral­ly has the func­tion of retain­ing the atten­tion of cus­tomers for as long as pos­si­ble. Today, every user spends an aver­age of more than 90 min­utes per day alone with WeChat.

Ok guys, I hope you learned some­thing new about the func­tions and pos­si­bil­i­ties WeChat offers. Did you know about the func­tions before? Let me know in the comments!

Cheers,

How Do You Use Wechat

Nora