WeChat strengthened the regulation of the marketing activities for the official account, and also published the regulations of the penalty.

Recently Tencent announced that they set a limit of the friend number of WeChat, and its number was 5000 users at most. And this time, they also published the regulations of the penalty for the official account on WeChat. According to them, the official accounts who force and recommend to their followers are rapidly increasing. So they decided to discipline to such heinous official accounts as follows.

According to this regulation, in case that the official account will be alerted the first time, then that official account will be stopped their activity during 7 days. And if the official account will be alerted 4 times, then the official account will be frozen eternally.

Actually, Tencent have expressed that WeChat is not the marketing platform for a long time, and they have not prepared the method of spreading information in the platform to the official accounts. But on the other hand, the normal accounts can post the information to 'Moments', and it's comparatively easy to get a lot of friends by using the function of 'People Nearby' or 'Shake'. So some official accounts use the normal accounts to spread their information on 'Moments'.

Tencent recognized that the some of such official accounts are heinous accounts, so they prepared this regulation. At this stage, we don't know how strict this regulation is, but it's better that official account of WeChat don't use the words such as 'recommend forwarding this information to Moments' or related message.


Source=> The official page of WeChat for the official accounts

A report said that 13.4% of the WeChat user already canceled to follow the official accounts. Why...?

Sootoo published the report that was written about the user activities on WeChat before, but they also published another interesting report that was written about user analytics at this time.

1. How did you get to know the official account?

#1 Already know on the other platform and so forth    55.7%
#2 QR code    39.1%
#3 Recommendation from the other person  36.2%
#4 Advertisement   27.4%
#5 Search   16.4%

Other   2.9%

About QR code, it has to put on somewhere like the official site or Weibo, so it can be said that this can categorize getting from "other site".


2. What is the purpose that you have followed the official accounts?

#1  For getting the special benefit or information    34.3%

#2  For paying attention to the hot topic or news   26.3%

#3  For the hobby or killing time   22.8%

#4  For the personnel exchange   14.4%

Other   2.2%




3. What type of the official account have you followed?

#1  News    65.5%

#2  Comedy   37.3%

#3  Science and technology   30+％

#5  Analects    17.1%

#9  Travel and traffic   10.3％

Some big news site, such Tencent or Sohu, also have provided the official account on WeChat, but more than 65% users have interest to them as a result.


4. How often read the information from the official accounts?

#1  Occasionally read   42.3％

#2  Frequently read   24.7%

#3  Canceld the follow   13.4%

#4  Already known   12.5%

#5  Unknown   7.1%



13.4% of the WeChat user already canceled to follow the official accounts, but the next graph explained why they already canceled it.

The first reason of it is that the all of the posts were spam or advertising (56.2%), and the second reason is that the posts were worthless information (53.0%).

Tencent would like to avoid that the official accounts use WeChat as a marketing platform, but it follows that the user side also wouldn't like to read the such posts.


As I explained before, WeChat for iOS was updated to the newest version "5.0", but Android version was also updated the last week. And as I explained before, the display method of the official account was already changed.

   


Anyway, we have to read the changing of the official account policy among with this again, and we may have to rebuild the strategy or activity of marketing on WeChat.


Source => Sootoo research center

Tencent updated the login page of WeChat public platform and the case studies.

As I explained before, WeChat have a management platform(PPoW) for the official accounts, but recently its login page was updated as follows.

Last time, I explained that the oversea users of WeChat already exceeded 40 million people, but the image of this login page looks like to suggest that Tencent will accelerate overseas advance.

There is no update in the page of after login at this time. But there are some new features compared to my last explanation, so I would like to explain them.

As the above picture, the feature of "Advanced Settings" was added the right end of menu. And on the "Advanced Settings", users can manage auto reply feature and customize the menu of display screen of WeChat. And users can also demand to become its developer to refer the APIs of WeChat PPoW.


And at the same time, the case studies on this page was also updated.

They introduce 5 case studies on there, and China Southern Airline leverages WeChat to reply automatically the flight information, the weather in the each place and so forth to their users.

And Evernote is also leveraging WeChat, they makes WeChat user easily share the information in WeChat to each Evernote accounts.


Recently, the official account on WeChat is more and more increasing, but I would like to continue introducing the interesting case studies as ever.


Source => Public Platform of WeChat(PPoW)

China Mobile also started to provide "Public Platform" for the Feixin corporate accounts.

Few days ago, I explained the new action of China Telecom challenging to WeChat.
And at this time, China Mobile also started the new action. It is that they started to provide "Public Platform" for the Feixin(It's their SMS service.) corporate accounts.

The name of this platform is as same as Weixin's, and the UI of this platform is also almost same.

The feature of this platform providing is also almost same as Weixin's, but there is a one interesting feature. It is a questionnaire survey feature.

 


Another difference is the method of applying "Verified Account". As I explained before, you have to get 500+ followers to become a verified account  on WeChat, but about Feixin, you have to get 100+ followers. But about feixin, you also have to submit the operating license in China to become a verified account on there.
*It seems that they don't target to the foreign companies at this time.


China Telecom started to provide the similar apps to WeChat, and China Mobile started to provide the similar platform to WeChat. Well, how about China Unicom?

We have to keep watching their next actions.


Source => LeiPhone, Public Platform of Feixin

Tencent CEO Ma declared that they will start monetization of WeChat in a few months.

Tencent CEO Ma declared in a interview that they will start monetization of WeChat in a few months.

He gave some example of monetization method as follows.

1. Mobile game on WeChat
As I explained before, over half of their revenue is earned from game. Furthermore their rival LINE already got some constant success in this model, so I think that it's natural thing.

2. Mobile payment on WeChat
He said that this payment business focus to micropayment at first, and as a example of it, they will start paying fee of the taxi via WeChat.

3. Marketing activity of corporate users on WeChat
As I explained before, they already provided its management platform for corporate users.They will expand this platform service, and they also start advertisement service for the corporate users.


They already got a new domain "wechat.com", and they also started to provide the new management platform at the same time.

This new management platform supports English menu :)


Besides the monetization, he said that they accelerate the overseas deployment hereafter.
As I explained before, they already have constant users in India, Thailand and Malaysia.And they recently established the office in US, and they will open joint-venture company in Indonesia.

Monetization and overseas deployment may be the main keyword of this year for WeChat.


Source => TechWeb

Total revenue in 2012 of Sina Weibo was 66 million USD. Its 77% was from advertisement revenue.

Recently Sina published the performance reporting in the fourth quarter, and they also published some report that is related with Sina Weibo.

Sina announced that the total revenue of Sina Weibo in 2012 was 66 million USD, and its 77% was from advertisement revenue. And according to them, mobile advertisement was rapidly growing, its revenue share already exceeded 30% of total advertisement revenue.

Sina Weibo started to publish advertisement space to the public from last second quarter, and they also started to provide "Advertising Center" to the corporate users. So they will also continue to accelerate their advertisement solution as ever.


The other 23% of revenue was from services on their platform, such as games or "Weibo Club" and so forth. According to them, the revenue of these service was also rapidly growing. So I would like to keep attention that these services how contribute to their revenue-up as ever.



They also published that the number of registration users were more than 500 million people, and its active users per was 46.2 million people per a day. Of course this number increased compared to the previous year, but the speed of increasing became more and more slow.

So the overseas deployment for increasing their user number and keeping the number of active user will become the key factor for them in future.


Source => TechWeb, China News net

Sina Weibo strengthen marketing support service for corporate users. Can these services become also the foothold of their monetization?

As I explained before, Sina Weibo already started some activity of monetization on their platform. And they recently started some marketing support service for corporate users, so I would like to introduce typical 3 services.

1. Advertising Center

This service is a one of promotional tweet, and is similar to the service that Twitter or Facebook already provided. This service is a one of promotional tweet, and is similar to the service that Twitter or Facebook already provided. 

I asked its cost to the customer center of Sina Weibo, but they said that its cost will be decided after Chinese new year. But the calculation method of its cost is already decided, and there are two calculation method as follows.

CPM : The number that was read of relevant tweet

CPE : The number that was forwarded of relevant tweet, or the number that was clicked link in relevant tweet, etc.

2. Wei-task(Micro task)

This is like a matching service between corporate users and general users who would like to earn money on Weibo.

Corporate user give the task(such as forwarding the relevant tweet or post the relevant contents) to the general users, and its cost will be decided on the basis of the followers number that the relevant general users have or other factor.

3. SMS marketing

This service have three type of sending the message to general users.

1. Register the phone number that already knows.

2. At first post the recruitment messages (such as "Please become a target user of sending SMS announce. If you will become it, then you have a chance to get the luxurious prize", etc. ) on the Weibo.

3. Using the list of advertisement agencies.

In case of this sample, the cost of one message is 0.6RMB(= 0.1 USD) per a person.

As I explained before, SMS is the most popular communication method of mobile devices in China. And this is also the effective method to reach the user who rarely login to Weibo.

Of course, Sina Weibo would like to accelerate their monetization, but I think that these service are also good for the company who would like to strengthen marketing activity to Chinese market on Weibo. 

Source => Sina Weibo

Let's start marketing on WeChat(Weixin)! Guidance of managing official account on WeChat.

As I explained before, WeChat is now rapidly increasing their users in China. And many companies already started marketing activity on WeChat, such as Starbucks.

And it's no doubt that other companies who are in the English-speaking countries also would like to start marketing on them, so I would like to introduce how to manage official account on them. 

First, when you would like to manage the official account on WeChat, you have to use the "Public Platform of WeChat(PPoW)".

After accessing the top page of PPoW, you have to click the button of "注册(= Register)". After clicking the button of "注册", a dialog will be appeared as follows.

If you already have a QQ account, please enter the its ID number and password on it. If you still don't have any QQ account, then please click the button of right side "注册信QQ(= Register the new account of QQ)".

*Notice: You cannot use the QQ account that already coupled with the private WeChat ID.

After you enter the ID and password of QQ, the registration page of new WeChat will be appeared as follows.

You have to enter the WeChat ID, introduction of this account, nation, languages and the type of this official account. If you enter the all of item, please click the button of "确定(= OK!)".

*Notice: Actually you can select "English" at the section of languages. but as a result, it seems that PPoW still only support for the Mandarin.

If there are no problem, you can see the top page of PPoW as follows.

This PPoW is consist of five menus as follows.

1. 实时消息 = Real-time Information

You can receive the message from followers of this account, and send the reply to them on this page. 

2. 用户管理 = User management

You can manage users(followers) of this account on this page, and you can also categorize them by each type(favorite, black list, self-customized and etc.).

3. 群发消息 = Posting to the group

You can set the message that you would like to send to the followers at this page. There are the five type of message as follows.

a. 文字 = Text  b. 语音 = Voice  c. 图片 = Picture(s)  d. 视频 = Video(s) 

e. 图文消息 = Text + Picture(s)

And you can specify the message type from these.

*Notice: If you are not a verified user, you can only one message in a day.

4. 素材管理 = Contents management

You can upload the contents that you would like to send with the messages on this page. And you can send the preview of messages to the specific users. 

*Notice: It is necessary that the specific user is a your follower.

5. 设置 = Settings

You can change the information and nation of this official account on this page. Furthermore you can download the QR code of this official account here, and you can put its QR code on your Web site or other social media for increasing followers.

And you can apply to become a verified account, but it's necessary that this official account has more than 500 followers for this applying.

If you input the correct ID and password on mobile apps, it will return the error code of "(4, -69 Login failed)". It seems to be a specification of WeChat at this time.

Actually, you can register to this PPoW as a private person. But if you enjoy WeChat as a mobile collaboration tool, you should not register the account via PPoW.

Ok, today that's all. 

I would like to write about the advanced method or case study of WeChat marketing in near future.

The end of this article, please forgive me to introduce our official account of WeChat.

Actually, our official account usually introduces our products or services in English, but we also introduce the trend of social media or mobile market in China. 

According to the explanation of this PPoW, verified account have more variety method of sending messages. In order to know these merits, and I will write the blog about this, we have to become a verification account. I appreciate your cooperation :)

P.S. Now Tencent provide an international version of PPoW. Because this version provides the English menu, let's try this if you want!

Source => Public Platform of WeChat

Tencent Weibo upgraded their business account page to increase their corporate accounts.

Tencent Weibo upgraded their business account page "Wei Space(Micro Space)" yesterday.

In this upgrade, they focus intensifying management function such as tweet management, follower management, page management and so forth.

It can also understand the property of their follower such as age, sex, area, tweeted place, tweeted device and so forth.


And new version can use tweet reservation feature.

Corporate user can set the date, hour, minute and text for tweet as they like.


And its new version has enhanced the function that is related to other applications.

Corporate user can put their pictures and video on their page, and also can put some EC function apps on their page.

Sina Weibo also upgraded their corporate page three month ago, so in this year the battle of getting corporate user will be more briskly in Chinese Weibo industry...



Source => Tencent Weibo "Wei Space"

Sina Weibo upgraded their corporate user page to ver.2.0.

Sina Weibo prepared corporate user page on their weibo last June, and now they updated it to ver.2.0.

This ver.2.0 mainly have 5 topics as follows:

   1. Users can define its wallpapers as they like.

    

2. Users can define favorite links with text or links with picture on their page.

  3. User can define some topics(text/picture/video) on the top of their page.

  

  4. Upgraded page and follower management feature.

  

  

User can manage not only the total number of followers, but also how much active users there are.

  5. Enhanced its user guide page

  

Now, Weibo already be a powerful tool for corporate marketing, its version will be more helpful tool for corporate accounts.

Chinese Weibo white paper for business users.

CIC and Sina Weibo co-released "Weibo white paper for business users in 2012".

According to this white paper, as of Feb 2012, 130,565 corporate accounts are registered in Sina Weibo, and 143 companies in Fortune 500 already register there.


And, the summery of this white paper is as follows:

-  the account usage by each industry

The food‐service industry occupied over the one third ratio.


- the account usage by country(except China)

#1  Unites States
#2  Japan
#3  Australia
#4  United Kingdom
#5  France
#6  Korea
#7  Canada




And they propose "LEIMO(Listen -> Engage -> Integrate -> Measure -> Optimize )" model for operation of corporate accounts.

Now they published its only Chinese version, but you would like to read the detail of this white paper, you can download it here : )




Original article => A miscellaneous notes of Micorblogging(Weibo) in China