Developing a successful social media strategy can be a complicated process. It may seem overwhelming when first starting off. What do you focus on? Where should you put your time and energy? How do you know if what you’re doing is working? These are common questions that plague many individuals wanting to develop a social media plan that resonates with the people.
A safe bet would be to start with the basics. There are many reasons why people use social media. What you need to do is find those reasons and use them to your advantage. There is a concept called “active audience theories” that explain the reason why people choose and use media. These theories adopt a psychological viewpoint and focus on how individual motivations, moods, personality, attitude, preferences, and demographics influence social media use.
Weixin (also known as WeChat In the US), a popular Chinese social networking app was able to use these theories masterfully to create a network of over 300 million users in just the period of 3 years. What did they do to accomplish this incredible feat? Today, I am going to discuss some of the strategies Weixin used to have such a successful campaign
Focus On Demographics
It’s important to understand your audience demographics. For a company like Weixin, it was important for them to focus on young, urban smartphone users that aimed to provide them an “all in one platform” experience. When creating the app, they knew that this particular demographic was going to be their target and they customized the features to appeal to them.
For example, Weixin has a wide variety of functions such as messaging friends, sending photos and videos, getting news, and even ordering a cab on the street. All of these features appeal to the young, technologically savvy user. Once you understand who your primary users are, then you can focus on what makes them tick.
Understand The Motivations
As mentioned above, different people use social media for different reasons. For the users of Weixin, it’s a combination of simplicity, ease of use, social ability, habitual behavior, and satisfying their needs. Weixin did a great job tailoring their app to play to these motivations.
One of the biggest motivators that Weixin focused on that had a huge impact was making the app a part of the users daily routine and habit. The fact that the app is able to do almost anything – allows users to limit the amount of apps on their phones and just focus on one. This saves people time and energy. In fact, research shows that over 50% of all media behaviors are habitual.
Make It Easy and Simple
Weixin’s interface is simple, clean, and extremely easy to use. One feature that demonstrates this is the recording of messages using just one button. Users are able to hold a button and talk into the phone instead of tediously typing out characters. This can be a hassle and even a hazard especially when driving.
Another feature is Weixin’s built-in internet browser. When reading news or other articles, Weixin links them to the source URL within its own browser offering a better viewing and visually pleasing experience vs. having to leave the app to open another browser. For this reason, users rarely need to leave Weixin which is not only convenient, but keeps the user within the app which is Weixin’s ultimate goal.
Personally, when I’m trying a new app, game, or social media network, if it’s not simple and easy to use, there’s a higher chance I won’t even start or quickly lose interest.
Stay Relevant
Staying up to date with the latest trends and technologies is vital for keeping your brand from becoming stagnant and boring. Weixin does this by regularly running campaigns that showcase their ability to stay with the times.
For example, in January of 2014 just before the Chinese New Year, they introduced a “Qiang Hongbao” campaign – also known as the Red Envelope campaign. During this time, Weixin users could link their bank accounts and send out a virtual Red Envelope to their family and friends.
Red Envelope is a long standing tradition in Chinese culture where people put money into a Red Envelope and give them to family and friends to celebrate the new year. The campaign generated lots of excitement and as a result, nearly 5 million people participated in the Red Envelope campaign, and sent out 20 million cash-filled red envelopes virtually.
Conclusion
Crafting a successful social media strategy requires an understanding of your audience and their motivations, as demonstrated by Weixin’s impressive rise to prominence. By focusing on demographic insights, tapping into users’ motivations, ensuring simplicity in design, and staying relevant through innovative campaigns, businesses can create a compelling social media presence that resonates with their target audience.
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, harnessing these principles will not only engage users but also foster brand loyalty and drive sustainable growth. Embracing these strategies can help any organization navigate the complexities of social media, ultimately leading to a stronger connection with their audience and greater success in achieving their goals.
Weixin is such a great example of knowing and understanding your audience and how to reach them. I agree with your introductory comments about how it can be an overwhelming challenge in deciding where to even begin. The active audience theory is really all about understanding what makes people “tick”. What values, beliefs, motivations and interests people hold, and truthfully, the answer is different for everyone. However, what Weixin understands is that audiences can be grouped and targeted by understanding generalities and themes across subsets of the population. When we look at this companies start in China, we can see how well they understood their target population. They were able to meet the needs of young, tech-savvy young people in China, and become the only app that they needed.
They did this by analyzing what this audience bases wants most and then making Weixin the “one-stop-shop” for all those needs. Users can send messages, share photos, read the news, shop, and even hail a taxi ride, and they can do this all within an easy-to-use interface. By making an all-in-one app they have essentially worked out any possibility of competition in this space. Why would you use another app when everything you could ever want is already here? The answer is simply that you wouldn’t. By continuing to add new features they have pushed their app into a spot of continued germaneness.
The continued success of Weixin will depend largely on their ability to enter new markets and again meet the needs of a new demographic of audience members. People in Australia, Europe and even America each present a unique and different challenge. Each regional demographic will bring an audience that has different wants and desires out of the app itself. Weixin has already laid out the template, now it needs to be adapted to new opportunities.