Unveiling the secrets of WeChat reading volume: Who controls the profit chain?

The number of WeChat readings is becoming the most popular topic among WeChat subscription accounts, and behind it lies a huge black industrial chain.

After WeChat modified the rules for public platform text and picture messages, "omnipotent Taobao" quickly followed suit, and a large number of online stores appeared to provide services to increase the number of views and likes. Subsequently, Tencent stated that it began to crack down on technical means of fraud, including the use of verification codes, etc. The backend will delete suspected cheating situations such as repeated visits by an account, the same device number, and the same user from the reading count, and will introduce punishment measures such as a period of account suspension warning and permanent account suspension. Immediately, most of the WeChat reading volume-boosting products on Taobao began to be offline, and it seemed that everything was back on track.

But this is far from enough. According to NetEase Technology, the WeChat reading volume on Taobao is just the tip of the iceberg of this black industry chain. A practitioner told NetEase Technology: "For this system, what is presented on Taobao is not even as good as the capillaries."

Take a WeChat traffic-boosting website that the reporter learned about as an example. It was back online just two days after Tencent claimed to have cracked down on it. Its customer service told the reporter: "Will the account be blocked if the traffic is boosted? If we maliciously boost other people's accounts, will all the subscription accounts be taken offline?" As for the inability to boost the number of views in the previous two days, the customer service claimed that it was because of Tencent's system upgrade and that the problem has now been resolved.

This makes people wonder who is behind this huge industry chain? Perhaps it is just like the joke circulating on the Internet: "One month later, Tencent will launch a reading volume recharge service, QQ members will have their reading volume accelerated, and installing QQ Mobile Assistant will give a one-time reward of 500 readings and other related services. Please stay tuned!"

out of control

At the end of July, WeChat suddenly conducted a test version change. The most prominent change was the ability to display the number of article readings and likes in real time. At that time, there was an argument that a group of boastful WeChat self-media would die in the light. Some media conducted tests and found that some public accounts with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of fans only had one or two hundred hits, and readings of a few thousand were rare. Then a magical scene happened. Just a few days later, the number of readings and likes of WeChat big accounts began to rise collectively. Of course, most of the readings and likes came from Taobao purchases. At this time, a large number of WeChat likes and traffic sellers could be searched on Taobao.

On July 27, WeChat public accounts began to crash, and most public accounts displayed the message "page does not exist" when logging in. It was rumored that the crash was related to the large number of followers of public account articles. Tencent responded that it was due to server upgrades. Tencent later publicly stated that it already has corresponding technical means to deal with cheating methods such as followers, and to fight against the behavior of brushing false data through verification codes.

According to NetEase Technology, before WeChat released the number of views and likes, there were already public accounts and subscription accounts that were involved in the business of inflating the number of views. The purpose was generally twofold: first, self-media accounts wanted to raise the advertising price and create good-looking data; second, corporate WeChat managers used these data to deceive their bosses in order to meet corporate targets. Even some marketing companies or training companies have adopted this method to make profits. You can still find promotional links for this business on Baidu.

According to an insider of a marketing company, before WeChat announced the number of readings, there was an easier way to increase the number of picture and text readings, which was to log in to the web version of WeChat, and then use software such as Keyshot to automatically refresh, thereby increasing the number of readings.

As Tencent launched a strong crackdown on the WeChat inflated traffic business, many products on Taobao were quickly removed from the shelves. Reporters can hardly find any stores on Taobao that inflate traffic on WeChat, and the few dozen or so stores that do have almost no transaction records.

It seems that the WeChat volume-boosting incident has come to an end for the time being, but things are getting out of control in corners that we cannot see.

Start Over

The first to jump out are vulnerability researchers.

According to an analysis in a forum, each WeChat account can now add up to 5 valid readings per article per day. Currently, most WeChat subscription accounts have order demands ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand, and there is almost no order demand for tens of thousands of accounts that are obviously fake. From this data, it can be simply inferred that if you have dozens to hundreds of WeChat accounts at the same time, you can meet the demand for brushing subscriptions. Some individual practitioners have begun to hoard mobile phone numbers or WeChat accounts (these two accounts can also enjoy first-time use discounts in multiple e-commerce or other Internet systems, 7 yuan per mobile phone number and 1 yuan per WeChat account) to manually brush readings.

The second method is safer. Some marketing companies have started to find offline people to manually click on the reading volume, with each click earning 1 or a few points. The external quotation for subscription accounts is about 10 cents. Ironically, these tasks were successfully published thanks to the expansion of WeChat groups some time ago. The derivative method is to establish a large group of multiple subscription accounts and click on each other to increase the reading volume.

In addition to the almighty Taobao, classified information websites have also begun to play a role. Similar recruitment information can be seen on 58 and Ganji. According to insiders of marketing companies, in the past, such information posted on 58 and Ganji would be written more directly, but when Tencent began to crack down, it would often become WeChat promoters or other similar positions, followed by a sentence: "I hope you can understand our business."

What’s even more frightening is that those companies that inflate the volume have made a comeback after just 1 to 2 days.

Last weekend, a whistleblower told reporters that the reading volume-boosting company is still operating normally. According to him, this is a Shenzhen company that claims to be able to operate all WeChat data through WeChat's open interface, with video courseware to teach users how to operate, and online customer service to provide guidance.

The reporter then contacted a marketing company familiar with the website, and an insider said that the website has been doing all kinds of business related to WeChat volume inflating, including the number of readings, the number of fans, the number of replies, etc. It was temporarily closed in the first two days of August and reopened to the public on Monday this week, but the speed of volume inflating has slowed down a lot. It takes about half an hour to add a hundred fans, and the speed of reading volume is roughly the same. At the same time, the insider also said that volume inflating is an open secret in many public accounts and subscription accounts. At that time, WeChat would also make some controls on this behavior. For example, abnormal growth would lead to account suspension, but it was not as sensitive as it is now. According to the insider's analysis, the reason why the speed of adding fans is slow now is to avoid risks.

The content displayed on the web page is relatively comprehensive. According to reports, you can also increase the number of fans by region or gender, but the number of fans will increase more slowly, and it may take two weeks to a month to increase the number of fans by one hundred.

The reporter then contacted the website's customer service. According to the customer service, the website's WeChat traffic-boosting system is similar to a pyramid scheme. After applying for a gold agent, you can be given levels downwards, and each level has a rebate settlement.

When the reporter asked the customer service staff what the difference was between the WeChat follow-up tools on Taobao and theirs, the customer service staff said that the follow-up tools on Taobao basically came from their company.

Benefit

According to marketing experts, most of the self-media that need fans and reading numbers before WeChat announces the number of subscription account readers are subscription accounts for inspirational stories, jokes, and health preservation. Because they must pursue economies of scale, they need to quote advertisers based on the number of fans. In addition, the entry threshold for WeChat Guangdiantong advertising platform is 100,000 fans, which is also a driving force for subscription accounts to buy fans. It is understood that the current price of an article on a well-known subscription account ranges from 2,000 to 10,000 yuan, which is not worth mentioning compared to the cost of investment.

Relatively speaking, the requirements for the number of readers of technology self-media are not high, and they pay more attention to the quality of fans and the intensity of dissemination. A marketing person familiar with the industry told NetEase Technology that technology self-media has almost no requirements for the number of fans, but is more concerned about whether there are industry leaders and opinion leaders among the fans. According to NetEase Technology, there is little difference in the quotation between accounts with 1,000 subscriptions and 10,000 subscriptions.

What worries tech media is whether WeChat will become the next Weibo after publishing the number of views. As we all know, zombie accounts and trolls have become the norm on Weibo. Blindly pursuing the number of views and reposts may hit some WeChat public accounts that insist on originality, thus reducing the quality of WeChat content.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.