Hello villagers, I am the village chief
In the past, every revision of WeChat was quite exciting, such as the launch of red envelopes, mini programs, group chats, and folding.
But now every revision of WeChat makes people feel helpless and disappointed, and it feels like WeChat has become a hodgepodge more and more, gradually becoming Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Baidu.
Today, let's take a brief inventory of the impact of WeChat's recent minor feature updates.
01
Mutual selection of advertisements on official accounts
It's chicken ribs
WeChat began to pave the way in April and May last year, requiring the authors of the official account to publish advertisements to be clearly marked and to follow the WeChat official account's own advertising mutual selection platform in the future, similar to the Douyin star map.
On the one hand, the online mutual selection of advertisements on official accounts is beneficial to some authors and users, and small and medium-sized authors have become formal channels.
But on the other hand, one of the biggest advantages of the official account is that users can send and receive advertisements by themselves, and this seemingly disorderly way is actually its unique biggest advantage.
However, once in accordance with the official requirements, as long as there is a third-party link jump or content guidance is about to be judged as advertising and marketing, it will have a serious impact on the transactions of many authors and merchants.
My most personal feeling is that now small bloggers can't receive advertisements at all, especially public account mutual promotion, crowdfunding, selling classes, etc.
02
Official account support
Image modification
This feature may seem small, but it is a big deal for people who have been writing official accounts for a long time.
Many times, the posted photo accidentally matches the wrong picture, or the published photo has someone else's profile picture and is complained of infringement.
In the past, we had to delete the article, but now we are given the opportunity to correct 3 images.
In addition to pictures, the same is true for text, and the official account supports the opportunity to modify 20 words at a time.
I'm still curious here, why doesn't the official account directly put a function that allows the author to modify the picture or article and then republish it?
03
WeChat Moments
The top was open
A long time ago, we said that some users passively participated in the beta test function at the top of the circle of friends.
Whether it's text, images, or articles, it can be pinned.
From the perspective of the circle of friends, this function is redundant.
But from the perspective of private domain marketing or account Douyin, it is useful.
At present, when you upgrade to the latest version of WeChat, everyone has the function of putting WeChat Moments at the top.
The number of pins in the circle of friends is not too limited, which is helpful for accounts that do private domain marketing and private domain customer service.
04
The official account is open
Message function
Since 2018, the message function of newly registered Official Accounts has been turned off.
Recently, many bloggers have said that their official account already has a message function, and they are very excited.
But personally, I don't think it makes much sense whether this feature is open or not.
First, the core of the official account is still the content exposure and private domain drainage of the text.
Second, the message of the official account needs to be reviewed
Third, the cost of leaving a message on the official account is too high, and now Android users can leave a message without pulling to the bottom.
But let's take a look, there are many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of read articles on the official account, and there are few comments.
Therefore, the openness of this function has little impact in nature.
05
WeChat article
You can listen to it too
Since last year, I noticed that some of the articles I wrote had a small sign that showed that many people had listened.
To be honest, I think it's quite interesting that there are people who are willing to listen to the article.
WeChat supports direct online reading, and also supports favorites to listen to later.
In the official account and video account, it also supports uploading content in audio format, and the drop-down entrance of the WeChat homepage also adds two shortcut functions of music and audio.
But the sound of listening to the article on WeChat is too uncomfortable, and it stands to reason that AI is so convenient now that it can completely simulate the voice and tone of a real person.
You can also make a bold prediction here, and the content of pure audio in the future can also be paid for subscription or traffic sharing.
06
WeChat Little Green Book is here
As early as February last year, the WeChat public account upgraded the graphic function.
Authors can publish a collection of pure pictures + text in the background of the official account, and the function is very similar to that of Xiaohongshu.
But in fact, I know that this similar function video account has been supported for a long time.
In August last year, WeChat began a small range of content, and added a graphic section to the function entrance for some users to take a look.
There is not much difference between the entire area and the homepage of Xiaohongshu, and it is also regarded as the beginning of WeChat's encirclement and suppression of Xiaohongshu.
After all, in the past year, Xiaohongshu's users have increased tenfold, and this year Xiaohongshu has fully opened e-commerce.
There is Douyin Kuaishou in the front, and Xiaohongshu in the back, how can WeChat be in a hurry? But do you think this kind of revision is useful?
07
Channels
Paywall
In recent years, a lot of knowledge bloggers have emerged, whether it is Douyin or an official account, and they will eventually be imported into the paid community for monetization.
The current practice of paid membership is to direct users to WeChat groups or through third-party paid community tools, such as using Fanchuan and Maiwan to convert and undertake.
But at present, the video account has begun to launch a paid membership subscription system for the account, similar to the paid membership function of Douyin.
From my personal point of view, it is of little significance for Channels to engage in paid areas and paid memberships, firstly, the function is too simple, and secondly, it does not solve the concerns of bloggers about attracting traffic to the private domain.
08
WeChat asks
There is traffic
Recently, many people have been struggling with traffic acquisition in WeChat, whether it is the restriction of external backflow or the lack of traffic in WeChat posts.
But ask about the current channel, you can take a look, it is difficult to monetize directly, but it is still effective to do exposure and drainage for the brand.
1. I have personally tested and asked some questions, and the traffic is not bad, and the system will help make recommendations, which is equivalent to giving free exposure to the brand.
2. At present, there are many questions that are still to be answered, and the quality of answering questions and guiding behavior are not so strict, so many friends have done a lot of drainage for their official accounts and video accounts by answering them in batches every day.
3. From a long-term perspective, in the future, Q&A will definitely be displayed on the search page, and doing some Q&A layouts in advance is equivalent to intercepting the stream.
09
The launch of WeChat in the same city
If you pay a little attention, you will know that the original shake has become nearby.
In the nearby channel, it has been changed to the service of city life, shops and scenic spots in the same city.
At present, there is no distribution function, but it is foreseeable that with the video account, it will become like Douyin in the future.
There are bloggers visiting stores to share, and there are also distribution of good things in the same city, so this section is worth everyone's attention.
The updates to these features and services are actually not very new in terms of novelty.
After all, in the face of competition dominated by Douyin, even if WeChat and video accounts have nearly 1 billion daily active users, there are still worries.
And the suggestion is that while everyone is complaining about WeChat, they still have to seize the opportunity.
After all, in the next five years, WeChat will still be the largest traffic platform, and it is still worth everyone's investment.
Especially when WeChat is eager for content e-commerce and self-operated e-commerce, it means that there is an opportunity for dividends.
Unauthorized, reprinting/handling/washing must be investigated!