Internet Business Thinking

Chapter 16 WeChat—"Spoiler" or "Successor" in the Mobile Era? (2)
From 3:11 to 16:20 on March 16, "Manager" entered the word "WeChat" from Sina and Tencent's Weibo respectively. As a result, 30 million messages appeared on Sina Weibo.On Tencent Weibo, the reflected data is 2.68 million.That is to say, the WeChat information that Tencent disseminates on Sina Weibo is 0.49 times that on its own Weibo platform.In addition, WeChat also set up a number of "big accounts" on Sina Weibo to hunt each other's fans: for example, "Creative WeChat Marketing" has 5.5 fans, "We all love to play WeChat" has 69 fans, "Tencent WeChat "Team V" has 30 fans, "Shenzhen WeChat" has 3 fans, etc.It can be seen that through the Sina Weibo platform with a higher concentration of high-end users, Tencent is continuously transferring other users to WeChat.

"Manager" also found that many Sina "microbloggers" even directly published their own WeChat IDs on Sina Weibo.For example, "i.wshang" Xu Wei, who has 1.5 fans, and Wei Wuhui, a lecturer at the School of Media and Design of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has 3.5 fans.Let’s deduce that when half of their 5 fans hope to switch from an open communication platform to WeChat’s one-to-one communication platform, then these fans will become WeChat users.

This may not be Zhang Xiaolong's idea, but in today's open social media, who cares whether this kind of marketing is right or wrong, and winning users is the last word.

After the rise of WeChat, it has not only gained high recognition from the outside world, but also gained the attention of Ma Huateng. It should take on more missions in the company system, but it is facing tremendous pressure from within Tencent: First, from within Tencent about the "left-handed QQ , Right-hand WeChat” controversy has become the biggest hidden danger of internal friction; second, can it transform from a free application to a highly market-oriented application product and achieve profitability?
Online Business Tips
On the Rise of WeChat

Why did WeChat rise overnight?Zhang Xiaolong believes that the rise of WeChat is an inevitable result.Because each new version of WeChat is in line with the development trend of the mobile Internet, can quickly feel the needs of users, quickly meet user needs, and reduce periodicity.Take the function of "Nearby People" as an example. It was born from the existence of people's real needs, changes in acceptance, and WeChat's keen capture of such needs.

Zhang Xiaolong is a person who likes to make products, because in his opinion, making products is more interesting than doing management.In order to keep WeChat team members innovative for a long time, he and his team make products with the mentality of sculpting works of art.They believe that the pursuit of perfection is an important factor in maintaining innovation.In addition, the WeChat team currently has only 200 people, which is a relatively small team. Compared with large teams, small teams are more flexible, so it is relatively easier to maintain innovation.

So, what new requirements does Tencent have for the current WeChat?In this regard, Zhang Xiaolong’s answer is that since the WeChat project was launched, the company’s leadership has paid more attention to it. The name of WeChat was given by Pony (Ma Huateng’s English name). Pony also often participates in the discussion of the functions of the WeChat version.The company's control over WeChat is very good, and it has given WeChat a very good space to try and let it grow freely.

As for how WeChat can be successfully commercialized, Zhang Xiaolong’s view is that at present, the outside world has some over-interpretation of WeChat’s commercialization. For WeChat itself, we hope that it will be a long-term platform with at least ten years of influence. product.We are not in a hurry to make a profit and realize it.We look forward to a more mature WeChat.Even if commercialization is considered in the future, user experience will always be considered first.

Referring to WeChat's international development plan, Zhang Xiaolong told reporters that at the beginning, WeChat did not consider overseas plans, and it was with the development of products that we looked overseas.However, we have only launched the only version for users around the world. We hope that WeChat is a product that transcends culture.The specific differences are only language differences and some almost negligible localization differences, and these differences are fine-tuned due to consideration of inevitable objective factors such as local policies.

Can Chinese Internet products have international influence like "industrial manufacturing"?Zhang Xiaolong believes that it is not an easy task.What the mobile Internet offers is an opportunity to start over and reshuffle the cards.For Chinese Internet products, it is important to seize the opportunity and maintain innovation.And innovation is not simply copying the content of the PC era, the mobile Internet has its own characteristics.

7 fun ways to play WeChat that you haven't noticed

1. Gathering group plus: When attending a party, it is really troublesome for many strangers to exchange business cards with you.As long as everyone shakes their mobile phones, everyone who is online on WeChat will immediately appear in the friend list.

2. Looking for someone to fight for an umbrella: It was pouring rain when I got off work, and I couldn't borrow an umbrella.Open WeChat, and through "Check People Nearby", spread a large net to send messages in groups to find someone who can fight for an umbrella.

3. Voice blessing: Don't forget to send blessings to the elders during the New Year and holidays. Sending text messages in groups is a bit insincere, and it is too troublesome to send them one by one.Use the send voice function to make your blessings more sincere.

4. Journey relief: on a business trip, being on a long-distance train is boring.You can open WeChat, use the "view nearby people" function, find out the people on the same train who are using WeChat, use WeChat to say hello, and if you can chat, you can also meet.

5. Face-to-face chat with relatives: I want to video chat with my parents whom I haven’t seen for a long time, but the elderly parents have difficulty using the computer.Using the video transmission function of WeChat, you can easily transmit the pictures of your parents to yourself, and the operation is simple.

6. Leader check-in: where did the colleagues go?Turn on "View People Nearby" to determine whether he is in the company. It is the most convenient for the boss to use it to check attendance.

7. Mobile phone anti-theft: After the police retrieve the stolen mobile phone, they can join the owner’s WeChat account through the account stored on WeChat to get in touch with the owner. (Second Section) The biggest opponent is often the same "senior brother"

On the one hand, Ma Huateng said that there is no conflict between WeChat and mobile QQ; on the other hand, he said that there is indeed a competitive mentality between the two R&D teams.The biggest trouble for Tencent now is that WeChat and mobile QQ are escalating disputes over resources and interests. This kind of internal conflict will eventually produce two results: one is the formation of internal friction that cannot be resolved; the other is that the winner dominates.But neither of these is the ending Ma Huateng would like to see.

With the rise of WeChat, the industry has a lot of interest and doubts about Tencent's layout and strategy in the entire mobile IM industry.Zhou Hongyi, chairman of Qihoo 360, broke the news not long ago that Zhang Xiaolong of WeChat once complained to him: "WeChat's biggest rival is not Michat, but mobile QQ, and doing WeChat is just to gain popularity." No matter, but from the analysis of Tencent's corporate cultural genes and WeChat's growth environment, the real problem of "left and right fighting" within Tencent is unavoidable.

Cruel situation
Unlike Huawei, which advocates a wolf-like culture, Tencent, which is also located in Shenzhen, shows more like a tiger-like culture.

The biggest difference between wolf culture and tiger culture is that the former must rely on a unified whole to fight, while the latter advocates its own way, fights on its own, and often even preys on each other. Whoever has the sharpest claws and the hardest teeth will be able to Survive in the end.Tencent's top management completely indulges and even encourages this tiger culture within the company.A Tencent employee mentioned to the author that the daily operation of the company is just one word - "grab", not only robbing projects, robbing funds, robbing bandwidth, robbing operation and maintenance, and even robbing people naked.For the same project, there will be 3 to 5 teams within Tencent rushing to do it at the same time.This can be seen from the birth of WeChat:
In January 2011, WeChat was born in the midst of mobile IM competitors such as Michat, Fetion, and Youyou.But what is puzzling is that it is not the mobile QQ department or the mobile department that released WeChat, but Tencent Guangzhou Research Institute, which has just achieved a monthly coverage of QQ mailboxes exceeding 1 million.At the same time, within Tencent, there are at least three teams, including QQ Contacts and Q Letter, working on similar or identical projects.Therefore, WeChat faced a cruel internal world when it was born.

However, the tiger-like culture is also beneficial. A large company is most likely to be complacent, and Tencent's culture effectively maintains the team's sense of urgency and combat effectiveness by stimulating life-and-death competition among the company's internal teams.Once it can survive the fierce internal competition, its combat effectiveness is so amazing that all Internet entrepreneurial teams will be asked a question, that is: "Tencent also does the same thing as you, what should you do?" ?”

It is under the tiger culture that the competition between WeChat and mobile QQ has been born.Different departments of the same company are trying to challenge the company's basic products, which is hard to imagine in other companies.Will Baidu's browser department do the same search?Will the Sina news department make another Weibo?However, Tencent will definitely do it, and it can do it.

civil war smoke
Before the rise of the mobile Internet, QQ, as the "Tiger King" in Tencent's "tiger group", had always been unbreakable, but now, a younger tiger named "WeChat" was born. With the tide of the mobile Internet, It launched a strong challenge to "King Tiger".In the battlefield of mobile platforms, WeChat only took 2 years to completely threaten the survival of the mobile phone QQ bred by "Tiger King".

The growth of WeChat is unstoppable.From the earliest access to QQ mailbox and QQ offline messages, to the functions of making friends with strangers such as "people nearby", "shake" and "drifting bottle", until the public platform, every action is for the mobile phone QQ. A heavy blow to internal competitors.And its public platform released in 2012 has turned WeChat from a simple mobile IM to a platform-based and open-oriented direction. Its growth process is very similar to the success of QQ on the Internet back then.

Look at mobile QQ again. Before being threatened by WeChat, it just transplanted QQ from PC to mobile phone, and the interface and functions are exactly the same as PC.The latest version of the mobile QQ interface is completely "WeChat-like". At the same time, in terms of functions, mobile QQ has also added elements of many mobile platforms such as voice chat, nearby people, and graffiti. The civil war with WeChat is gradually heating up.

The disadvantages of Tencent's tiger culture have gradually become prominent in the struggle between the two tigers:
The first is the battle over resource allocation.As a project hand-picked by Ma Huateng, WeChat can mobilize almost all internal resources, while mobile QQ not only cannot obtain resources from WeChat, but has to become the resource provider of the former, which has caused internal conflicts between the two departments.Ma Huateng and some high-level officials are trying to dilute this conflict, but so far there is no sign of internal harmony.

The second is that product homogeneity is becoming more and more serious.Whether it is the function or the interface, the difference between mobile QQ and WeChat is getting smaller and smaller. Mobile QQ has also used the trick of "imitation + micro-innovation" that Tencent is good at in the civil war against WeChat.

In the battle between WeChat and mobile QQ, the winner must be the loser in the end.If this competition occurs between external companies, there are legal and regulatory constraints on each other, but if it occurs internally, it is internal friction.

Convergence of interests
Under the current situation, Ma Huateng must think: When a department grows to the point where it can challenge the company's basic products, and even has a tendency to replace them, how to deal with it?

What is the foundation of mobile QQ or WeChat first?The reason why social software is highly sticky lies in the relationship network.Once people around you, relatives and friends all use this software, you can't stop it; in addition, the commercial value of social software also lies in the relationship network, and various business organizations use the relationship network to achieve promotion and marketing.After defining the foundation, the next step is how to develop value around the foundation.

The foundation of mobile QQ and WeChat is the user relationship, and a large part of WeChat users are imported by QQ, and their user relationships overlap.Therefore, no matter what kind of competition between mobile QQ and WeChat, first of all, they cannot affect each other's user relationship. The best way is to integrate the background of the user relationship between the two and establish an independent user relationship department. While sharing this resource, they can each supply new user resources for this resource, thus forming a situation where with the development of WeChat, mobile QQ can double the number of users.After the strategic convergence, discuss with each other the competition on the table. For example, when it is limited to the competition of client functions and experience, the two will form a benign innovation competition instead of a cruel tiger claw.

Online Business Tips
WeChat: Do something, don't do something
QQ may not be able to become WeChat, but WeChat is afraid of becoming a second QQ.

First of all, the unified QQ will surpass the original QQ.

History has endowed the QQ brand with younger, lively, living, and warm connotations, just like the influence and atmosphere created by QQ's TV advertisements: "With the snap of the fingers, the heart is seamless." Under the QQ parent brand, a huge sub-brand system and various QQ-based products will give birth to more product forms such as TV QQ, car QQ and even QQ phones in the future. The depth of the QQ brand culture is a product of the development of the Internet in the past ten years. As the dragon and foundation of the Tencent Penguin Empire, the QQ brand is incomparable to the WeChat brand that has risen in a short period of time. Its cultural connotation is not at the same level.WeChat cannot replace QQ, and QQ cannot represent WeChat.

Secondly, WeChat, do something and not do it, look for and stick to the brand boundary.

As a brand-new brand, although WeChat has just been born, it has well gathered the high-end and business user groups that the QQ brand cannot touch, and it has also hit the weakness of MSN and Sina Weibo.WeChat should continue to create a high-end, fresh and concise image, and avoid over-entertainment from becoming the second QQ.Every time I see media reports of negative incidents such as "WeChat sex dating", I feel very nervous. I am very worried that these accumulated word-of-mouth will "bad money drive out good money" and hurt a high-end brand that Tencent has finally acquired.

Again, WeChat, taking over and surpassing MSN, and QQ form a twin star brand, monopolizing the entire user base.

WeChat should consider taking over the future market of MSN—MSN will definitely withdraw from the stage of history in the future, leaving a market opportunity in China and even in the world. There is still a great demand for communication tools based on work scenarios. QQ cannot satisfy this market because of brand issues. Currently, WeChat has launched a webpage format to cover PC scenarios. I think that the PC client version should be further developed in due course to realize file transfer and other capabilities that the webpage format cannot solve well, so as to consolidate this market in one fell swoop and monopolize it together with QQ. Domestic market.

(Section [-]) Profitable only with experience

Before WeChat, in Tencent, almost all successful projects followed the rule of "user model-two years-revenue model" and embarked on the road to profitability.Now that WeChat has been launched for two years, Tencent will not wait any longer. Ma Huateng has driven it out of the laboratory, designed a game and a business platform coat for it, and is just waiting to see the results.

Ma Huateng recently publicly talked about the commercialization prospects of WeChat for the first time, and finally let the industry, which is "seeing flowers in the fog", gradually have a clear understanding of the future of WeChat.Ma Huateng’s speech expressed three main points of view: in terms of profit model, Tencent will promote value-added services on the one hand and implant games on the other; in terms of platformization, the ideal way is to construct some very simple rules and network layer connections , and then hand over the complex business model to partners or individuals; in terms of operator relationship, WeChat is the promoter of operator services from voice to data, and both parties are win-win.

Following his point of view, we further discuss the profit model and future development of WeChat.

Profits will start in the game
The industry usually likes to compare WeChat and Sina Weibo. Such a comparison is understandable, but in reality, the differences between the two platforms are extremely significant.

Due to Sina's own resource advantages and positioning, Sina Weibo has strong media attributes from the beginning, and with development, its media attributes have become stronger and stronger.For a platform with strong media attributes, how to make money is preset by the model, that is, to monetize traffic through advertisements.This is a simple and crude, but effective way.The reason why Sina Weibo has hesitated in the process of commercialization and has been criticized by others is not that the advertising model is unworkable, but that it is more constrained by the big data environment and the relative lag of socialized precision advertising technology.

The starting point of WeChat is different.Zhang Xiaolong believes: "The starting point of WeChat is a messaging system." The positioning of WeChat is a simple communication system that only includes communication between people.Obviously, the social attribute of WeChat is far stronger than the media attribute.In such a platform, advertising would be frowned upon.

But that doesn't mean WeChat can't take a cut from marketing managers with budgets.Ma Huateng mentioned that WeChat is "profitable" in the value-added services of mobile social networking.At present, WeChat provides basic functions such as text, pictures, and voice for people's daily communication, but in real life, people's communication methods will be more colorful.Isn't the so-called "value-added" the virtualization of people's rich and colorful communication methods in reality?The giving of virtual gifts is just one of the ways.Following this line of thought, WeChat can completely achieve the combination of brand marketing and social value-added, and achieve profitability through this method.External partners and company marketers may also wish to start from this idea and design marketing activities that conform to the social characteristics of WeChat.

(End of this chapter)