Introduction to WeChat OA
It is fair to say almost every netizen in China will have access to WeChat and most probably have been following multiple brands’ official accounts (OA). Now the question is how to make sure your OA stands out from the 20 million others (as of 2020) and how the content is able to produce engagement with your followers. So in this WeChat 101 section, we will briefly introduce the different types of WeChat accounts and the one that is suitable for your business.
WeChat Subscription Account VS WeChat Service Account
Subscription Account is the most basic type of account, and its core usage for businesses is for notification and news update purposes since it allows account holders to blast out communication once daily. This type of account is commonly used by media outlets since they demand to publish multiple pieces of content every day. The downside is the news that they published will be placed or precisely “hidden” in the subscription tab, making it difficult for users to receive direct notification especially when a lot of users are following multiple subscription accounts.
Service Account on the other hand offers much more functionalities to businesses, and that’s also the commonly used account type that most brands employ. It enables CRM integration, miniprogram integration as well as payment services which allows complex interaction to be made with your followers. Of course you don’t enjoy the frequency of publishcation like the Service account, and only four times of blasting per month is granted to Service Account, although similarly you may post up to 8 articles in one single blasting. Nevertheless, the visibility of the blasting is higher since the blasting goes right into the section where users read updates or a.k.a WeChat moments posted by their friends (similar to the concept of wall and feed messages on Facebook).
Talk with us if you would like to start gaining traction for your brand on WeChat, and we are here to help you go through the application and setup process as overseas brands might need work to be done in order to be qualified.