I lived in Beijing for a year, which was an amazing, terrifying and eye-opening experience, all at the same time. As anyone who has lived in Asia will know, WeChat is a must, and most of us could not sing its praises more highly. Here are the five reasons you need to get WeChat in and around your life.
Networking
China is, even in 2015, a relatively misunderstood and mysterious country for many in the West. If you are one of the few Western journalists to have WeChat, you will find yourself part of a community instantly. Many people in China will warm to you as you’re making much more of an effort in their culture, and not presuming that Whatsapp, the American equivalent, is superior. With over 300 million users, can journalists afford not to take advantage of this networking platform?
Also WeChat can be seen as something of a hipster accessory in the West. If you have WeChat you are part of a small club and are showing your international credentials.
Innovation
WeChat is a ‘cherry-picked’ version of Facebook, Whatsapp, Tinder and Instagram. Plus, in terms of intuitive technology, it is streets ahead. Scanning your friend’s QR code instead of typing their name, and voice messaging in a walking talkie style, is standard to most WeChat users. While these are features on Western social network sites, they are not used as commonly.
You have a personal wall like on Facebook and the same filters as on Instagram but without the competitive inconvenience of others being able to see how many likes you’ve got. With WeChat driving social networking, it is worth getting to grips with its innovations.
Emojis
The emojis and interactive element of WeChat undoubtedly leave WhatsApp in the dust. After relying on WeChat for a year, I now feel unable to express the full breadth of my emotions with WhatsApp’s lack of emoji pictures. Once you’ve been able to use the frog and horse animation to express happiness, everything else feels somewhat inadequate.
WeChat also adds pictures for certain trigger words, i.e. if you say “Happy Birthday” animated cakes will rain down over the screen for a couple of seconds.
Perhaps this isn’t entirely relevant to journalism, however if emoji is indeed the fastest growing language in the world, then WeChat is providing a far larger vocabulary.
Conspiracy (are you joking)
I’ve had a few qualms about using Wechat due to the somewhat dubious question of the Chinese government monitoring my conversations or having access to my phone. However, with the new changes to the privacy laws being whizzed through British parliament as we speak, WeChat will be the least of your problems.
Community
If as a journalist you want to gauge public opinion for an article, WeChat is an instant place to get feedback.
There is a large and responsive community accessible through many applications on WeChat. An example is the “message in a bottle” setting where you can send out questions – though be warned, of course, that there are a lot of creepy guys out there too. There are also various other functions for getting in contact with strangers such as “Look Around” and “Shake” applications.
So what are you waiting for? Download WeChat now and get experimenting!
And maybe commerce?
http://digiday.com/brands/wechat-mobile-commerce/