What is WeChat and why can it conquer the world?

After the Golden Shield blocked access to the world's social networks, resourceful Chinese began to develop their own web services for information exchange. In 2011, Tencent introduced WeChat, a messenger application that in a few years became not only a real social network and a kind of media, but also a popular platform for payments.

Now WeChat has more than 700 million active users, with 10% of them living outside of China. WeChat is considered the best way to connect with Chinese partners and customers. And although many of the app's lauded features are not visible to those registered outside the country, foreign versions of WeChat are still different from simple WhatsApp and Viber. In this material, we will tell you in detail about the main features of the unique service.

Chats and Moments
First of all, Tencent provided people with a convenient way to exchange text and voice messages. New contacts in WeChat are added on the principle of WhatsApp - through users' phone numbers. With the app, you can send photos, videos, share your location, make audio or video calls, and create group chats.

By the way, among messengers, WeChat has, in our opinion, the funniest animated stickers.

Moments is the same news feed familiar to us from VK or Facebook, but with a higher level of privacy. Here you add statuses, videos, links to articles, and your friends comment and like them. Your updates can only be seen by the friends you allow.

Wallet
The Chinese have become so enamored with electronic payments that Wallet has literally become their wallet. When registering, the user binds a bank card (necessarily Chinese) to Wallet, but the funds received are not immediately credited to the account - they must be withdrawn.

Working with Wallet is very easy. This section has options that allow you to pay for utilities and online purchases, order cabs and movie tickets, transfer money to other users. Wallet can also be used to make offline purchases and pay in a restaurant. QuickPay system is built into the application - it displays a QR code, and the cash register scans it and deducts the required amount. It turns out that you open your wallet wide open in front of the seller! But there is nothing to be afraid of. First, after each transaction the user receives a notification about how much money has been deducted from the account. Secondly, the QR code is updated every minute.

Among other things, Wallet allows you to send e-hongbao - electronic red envelopes. You've heard of the Chinese tradition of giving each other money on New Year's Eve, right? Well, now the Chinese send electronic money to close relatives. But the developers tried to preserve the moment of joyful anticipation in these virtual greetings - you can find out the amount only after you "open" the envelope.

And yes - for now Wallet is available only for users who have registered in China.

Features for those who want to get to know each other
WeChat will have some extremely weird options that give you the chance to get to know each other. Let's say "Shake." You select this feature from the menu, type in who you'd like to see - male or female - and then shake your phone. You'll be shown a potential friend - the person who was also shaking the phone at that moment - and the distance between you.

A similar feature is called "Letter in a Bottle." You write any message you want and send it to the network. If any user likes it, they reply to you.

Official accounts and stores
Although Tencent does not rely on advertising, WeChat is a good marketing platform. The Subscriptions section contains official accounts from various companies - subscribe to them and see updates in your newsfeed. In addition, brands have the opportunity to run an advertising post in Moments, though the minimum cost of such a campaign is $30,000. Ads are targeted by age, gender, location, and device type.

Official account holders can open a store in WeChat: both with limited functionality and with the ability to analyze and actively promote products.

New WeChat features
In the updated version of WeChat, two features have become available to users: Top Stories and Search. Top Stories are the top news from the Moments feed, while Search allows users to search for a word to find anything related to it.