Weixin’s Winning Strategy: How an All-in-One App Became an Everyday Essential

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First published: September 9, 2024 by Paul W. Romero

Want to know how to create an app that everyone will use? Want to know the secret behind growing an audience and creating brand loyalty? Have I got your attention? Good, let’s get to why you clicked on this article.

There is a fierce and competitive market when it comes to social media. Everyone is looking for likes, shares, awareness, engagement, and at the end of the road: brand authority and community.

But how do we convince an audience to use our products, more specifically our social media apps, over our competitors? First, we must understand our audience.

Know Your Audience

Mahoney and Tang (2016) state, “Regardless of which approach you are using in your social media strategy, all marketing should begin with a thorough audience analysis” (p. 81). As practitioners, we must first understand our audiences and get to know as much about them as possible. We can do this through various methods of research and analysis starting with data and metrics.

Some metrics we can use to better understand our audience include demographic information, audience interests, motivations, and behaviors. Some examples of these metrics include:

• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Income
• Geographic location
• Interest (are they looking for engagement, entertainment, or education?)
• Passions
• Personality types (do they prefer to read, watch, listen, or engage? Do they prefer to do things alone or with others? Are they introverted or extroverted?)
• Motivations (why do they use social media? What’s their personality type?)
• Behaviors (what daily habits and routines do they exhibit? How can we intertwine our social media apps with their daily lives in the easiest most efficient manner?)

We can also create an audience profile about who our idea social media user would be. Who would we most likely attract? Is there a niche audience that hasn’t been tapped that we can expand on?

Make it as easy as possible, as efficient as possible, and as rewarding as possible.

Overall, we want to research as much about our potential target audience as we can in order to create social media content that will best align with their interests, desires, behaviors, and everyday life. Make it as easy as possible, as efficient as possible, and as rewarding as possible. Create value for the audience and they will become loyal to your brand.

Mahoney and Tang (2016) state, “With unlimited media choices available to users today, audiences are doing whatever they can to reduce “search costs.” If audiences can get all they want from one platform, why bother to find other options. This helps to explain the success of Weixin” (p. 92).

This is how Weixin won over its audience: by creating a social media app that was easy, efficient, and rewarding to use. Weixin achieved this by knowing its audience.

Weixin Does It All

Weixin’s features were able to fit into their audience’s needs, tastes, and interests by creating an all-in-one platform that gave each user the functionality that they wanted out of a social media app while also introducing new functions and campaigns to promote engagement. Examples of this include Weixin’s “Qiang Hongbao” or “Red Envelope” campaign and a cab reservation function called “Didi Taxi.”

Mahoney and Tang (2016) state, “In January 2014, just before the Chinese New Year, Weixin introduced a “Qiang Hongbao” campaign (i.e., Red Envelope campaign), which allowed its users to link their bank account to Weixin account, send or receive red envelopes virtually” (p. 93). Mahoney and Tang (2016) continue to state, “Also in 2014, Weixin introduced a cab reservation function called “Didi Taxi.” Working with 350,000 taxi drivers in more than 30 cities in China, Weixin allows it users to book a taxi via Weixin payment” (p. 93).

Weixin knew the daily habits, interests, desires, and behaviors of its audience and did its best to address all these needs in its all-in-one platform. When audiences wanted to connect with others, Weixin took care of that. When audiences needed to send or receive money, Weixin took care of that. When audiences needed to make purchases, Weixin took care of that. Weixin made it possible for audiences with different backgrounds to individualize the social media app for their individual lives ranging from anyone of these needs and further expanding to other functions which, according to Mahoney and Tang (2016), include “sending a baby photo to friends, getting news, text messaging, to finding a cab on the street” (p. 92).

Mahoney and Tang (2016) state, “Audiences rarely needed to leave Weixin to open a mobile browser no matter if they wanted to read news or make a purchase, which is not only convenient to audiences but also helps Weixin keep the audience flow” (p. 92). Mahoney and Tang (2016) continue to state, “It seems that because Weixin makes everything so easy to do and significantly enhance its users’ self-efficacy, it has gradually become the norm for Chinese people’s media use” (p. 92).

Mahoney and Tang (2016) state, “When your social media product becomes a part of people’s daily life, it will be easier for you to make a behavior change, whether this behavior is a purchasing decision or a positive social change, starting with audience analysis” (p. 93 – 94).

Mahoney and Tang (2016) state, “Since Weixin targets mobile users, it is always with people no matter they are at work, waiting for their food in a restaurant, or taking the subway” (p. 93). Furthermore, Mahoney and Tang (2016) state, “Audiences can do almost anything via Weixin, which makes the platform particularly appealing” (p. 92). Mahoney and Tang (2016) continue to state, “Weixin is also easy to use” (p. 92). Lastly, Mahoney and Tang (2016) state, “When your social media product becomes a part of people’s daily life, it will be easier for you to make a behavior change, whether this behavior is a purchasing decision or a positive social change, starting with audience analysis” (p. 93 – 94).

Weixin’s Influence: Looking Ahead

I think in the heavily competitive market of social media platforms, apps, and content, the concept behind Weixin’s all-in-one feature is highly enticing. I think the concept has gained traction among other countries, but I don’t know how popular the Weixin app itself will be around the world. The textbook I am referencing was published eight years ago from this post, and things have changed since then. There is another app “WeChat” that is similar to Weixin but is somewhat different according to a quick Google search. WeChat ranks twenty-sixth in social networking apps on the Apple App Store with an average 4.0 review among users and has an average review of 3.0 among users on the Google Play Store.

Knowing your audience is the first step in determining which functions and campaigns will best align with their individual motivations and behaviors.

The success of any platform, more specifically any all-in-one platform, will depend on the apps ease of use, efficiency, and how much it can be incorporated into its audience’s daily lives via functions and campaigns that tailor to individual needs, wants, desires, and interests. Knowing your audience is the first step in determining which functions and campaigns will best align with their individual motivations and behaviors.

People want value, not a sales pitch.

In my opinion, just don’t ruin it with excessive bombardments of ads, in-app purchases, bugs, and microtransactions. Don’t try to make money off the user in order to retain them. Create meaningful content that will allow the user to want to stay on your platform. That’s how you build credibility, authenticity, and brand loyalty. People don’t want to be sold to. People want to be engaged. People want value, not a sales pitch.

NOTE: Please excuse any typos. I may be wrong, but I noticed some sentences didn’t quite sound correct in the quotes, but I’m quoting them as they appeared in the textbook.

Works Cited

Mahoney, L.M., & Tang, T. (2016). Strategic social media: From marketing to social change. John Wiley and Sons.

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