You may heard of WeChat a lot from “Most popular social media Apps list”. And somehow you have never used it before. Even someone around you. Seems like nobody use WeChat, how come it’s one of the top used App in the world. What is WeChat?
WeChat (also named Weixin) is the top one messaging App in China. WeChat is a Chinese App, created by Tencent company in 2021. We call it Weixin(微信) In China, But globe version, we call it WeChat. At the beginning, WeChat is just a Messenger App, kind of like a dating App. But, after years growing, WeChat has incredibly wide range of functions, chatting, shopping, gaming, video,etc. Almost everything covered. With so many features just in one App, make life so easy, especially for Chinese, which gained over 1.25 billion monthly users in second quarter of 2021.
WeChat WeChat can do?
In short, WeChat allows you to chatting, shopping,gaming, reading,writing,advertising,getting traffics, and for fun.
WeChat features:
- More ways to chat:
Message friends using text, phone, voice, video, location sharing and more.
- Voice call & Video call:
Voice call and video call supported just like other mainly messager App. And you can set up voice call or video call group chatting with up to 9 people.
WeChat Moments is where you can post text, photos and videos, etc. You can share something with your friend on WeChat Moments. You can filter the post for specific friend or WeChat. Apparently,WeChat Moments is a good place to advertise your products and services.Actually, it is. This kind of business mode is what we called “Weishang微商” .
- Translation in-App:
You can translate the messages, Moment posts, articles of subscriptions in-App. What’s more, WeChat App offers you translate with camera. You just need to shot a photo, the text in photo will be translated. You don’t need to install other translation App specifically. If you’re on traveling, you will understand how convenient it is. With the latest version of WeChat, launch a new feature, which allows you Real-time voice translation. Enjoy that!
- Real-time location sharing:
I think most social media has location sharing function, it will help you to know the location of your friends. But this is just a vague location. Then real-time location will incredibly help you know friends exactly location. Yes, use this function to meet your friends when you’re on traveling.
Scanning QR code is not surprising, but scan items like flowers,cars, products,wines,foods is beyond my knowing.
- Nearby and Shake:
WeChat nearby and Wechat Shake is mainly for you to make friends. You can see WeChat users around you by Nearby feature, and see WeChat user who Shake at the same time by WeChat Shake feature. Before 2019 there’s a feature called “Bottles漂流瓶”, really cool and fun. Unfortunately, it’s far more like a real dating features, but banned later. If you don’t know any WeChat users then you can use Nearby and Shake to get WeChat friends.
WeChat Broadcast Messages allows you send messages to multiple friends at once. It will save you days. If you’re doing business with WeChat then you definitely should use it to notify them.
- Favorites:
WeChat Favorites allows you to save Media,links,Files,Music,Chats,Audios,NOTE and Place to your WeChat account. All free to use.
- WeChat Games:
I know there are many users register for WeChat and QQ just for Games. Because game PUBG and Arena of Valor belongs to Tencent company. You will not know how popular they are in China. it’s so poplar between kids below 18 years old, so government launched a new policy for that. I played both Chinese and global version. I think the global version of PUBG and Arena of Valor are boring and the UI is beautiful as Chinese version. That’s why so many foreigners try to sign up WeChat and QQ.
- Reminders:
You can set Reminders from chatting message. If you’re using WeChat for working, then you can set reminders for the boss told you to do. Even the message doesn’t show any time, you can set a “To Do Lists” reminder.
- WeChat Official accounts:
WeChat official accounts is kind of blog, yeah I think “blog” suit it. Why? because it allows you post text, video, audio, files,etc. And WeChat users can subscribe to it. This is another way to get traffics from WeChat. In other words, WeChat official accounts is best tool for business on WeChat.
- Mini programs:
Mini programs is like Google instant App without installing App. Majority of Chinese companies have Official account and Mini Program. WeChat official account mainly for getting traffics and branding, and Mini Program for purchasing or other business branding. Mini programs will save your phone space as it doesn’t to install so many App. You can do the same thing just in WeChat.
- Search engine:
Based on wide range of in-App article, videos, images,etc. WeChat is a search engine. And that’s what WeChat doing now.
WeChat almost lost video marketing compare to Tiktok and Kuaishou. So WeChat launched WeChat Channel to compete in video marketing.
WeChat Pay function make WeChat perfect than ever. Payment includes so many things, like Take out, Taxi ,Top-up,Shopping,Money transfer, Financial management,etc. All this can be done just in one App, that’s make WeChat keeping users. With that said, we use WeChat EVERYDAY!!!!
- WeChat Out:
WeChat Out is a VoIP feature to help users call mobile and landlines around the globe at low rates. But WeChat Out is only available for outside of China Mainland users.
- Support 20 languages:
etc.
Difference between WeChat and Weixin(微信)
- Basically, the UI design and features are totally the same. But some features are only available for outside of China users. And some features are not available for Chinese users.
- Besides, the Privacy Policy is different. WeChat users of foreigners Privacy Policy is so much more strict than in China.
- Data stored differently ,Chinese version, Weixin(微信) , only running in China and data stored in China. but the data pf WeChat (global version) is not stored in China.
NOTE: WeChat and Weixin will be totally split apart to running since October 2021. In other words, you can’t switch WeChat to Weixin anymore, vice versa.
WeChat Pros:
The WeChat features I lists above is the Pro of WeChat
WeChat Cos:
- WeChat registration needs verification (Some users may not) .
- Features available less than Weixin.
- Blocked easily.
- NO Read, Unread mark.
- NO online status.
- WeChat Moments(Post) can be seen only by friends.
- WeChat don’t store chatting history.
WeChat was designed with your Privacy and Safety, For that reason, WeChat does not store your chat log or message history on servers to make sure that third-parties including WeChat itself are unable to view the content of your Messages.
As your message history is not on weChat’s servers and only on the devices. So you need backup and transfer message history manually.
Let me make an example, if you lost your phone, you try to login to new phone, then message history will be gone. If you uninstall WeChat App, then message history will be gone too. So, I will manually back WeChat to prevent losing chatting history.
And I also recommend you use WeChat PC and WeChat Pad, phone could be lost, and change often. But PC and Pad will not.
So, don’t hesitate to get WeChat. if you have any questions, please comment below.
