WeChat enters the deep waters of monetization: the focus this year may be advertising

As a tool for communication and social interaction, WeChat's basic functions are already very mature and it is difficult to see major changes in a short period of time. There is still a lot of room for upgrading its extended functions such as media and O2O. Judging from some of WeChat's recent actions, WeChat will make a big splash around public accounts and shake in 2015. The ultimate goal is to make WeChat's rich traffic available for monetization. It can be speculated that WeChat will make great efforts to monetize in 2015 and strive to become Tencent's new cash cow.

WeChat Shake app upgraded: you can shake to nearby merchants

Following the public platform supporting comments, according to Tencent insiders, WeChat will soon usher in a major version. One of the highlights is the ability to search for nearby businesses. In addition to text search, you can also search for nearby businesses by shaking. The author understands that WeChat has now entered into a strategic partnership with Focus Media. Relying on Focus Media's comprehensive deployment of the iBeacon network, it supports the WeChat shake function. Users can shake to get a big gift package from nearby businesses as long as they are in front of the Focus Media advertising TV at the elevator entrance. Shake, WeChat red envelopes, and nearby people, these functions are combined together to build a new O2O marketing model. This small function is a huge change for WeChat, which has always resisted marketing, and it is just the tip of the iceberg in WeChat's O2O marketing map.

The existence of the public platform provides a low-threshold, low-cost platform for offline enterprises to access the Internet. Merchants with a little computer knowledge can apply for the public platform, push messages, and provide services. Third-party WeChat developers help companies build richer public platforms. However, the high cost of acquiring new users on the WeChat public platform has always been a criticism. In the past, the main discovery channel for corporate public accounts was scanning, and the traffic obtained was mostly existing traffic, making it very difficult to attract new users.

Searching for nearby businesses, shaking nearby businesses, and cooperating with offline O2O advertising and marketing platforms such as Focus Media are equivalent to opening a new traffic entrance for businesses. There is no doubt that this traffic still requires costs for businesses, and may eventually become part of the WeChat marketing advertising platform. In the past, businesses had to place keywords on Baidu and purchase top ads on Dianping.com. In the future, part of the advertising budget may be allocated to WeChat.

WeChat may be developing an advertising platform, will Guangdiantong be replaced?

Once upon a time, people believed that the mobile Internet advertising model was ineffective because of screen size, network speed and user habits, and people were reluctant to click on mobile ads. However, as the above problems are solved, the mobile advertising model is maturing, as evidenced by Baidu's mobile revenue exceeding 36%, and this ratio will have a big breakthrough in 2015. Obviously, 2015 is a key year for mobile traffic monetization.

WeChat has the largest user base, the longest user attention and the most mobile traffic, and has huge potential for mobile advertising monetization. Previously, in order to quickly launch, it directly reused the Guangdiantong platform, but the effect was not ideal. The main players were self-media, and many advertisements were watches and other things, which had little to do with mobile Internet, LBS, and social networks. WeChat resources were wasted. It is against this background that, according to Deep Throat, WeChat is developing its own advertising marketing platform.

The new advertising and marketing platform is not only fully mobile, but also combines the business characteristics of O2O, LBS and WeChat. One of them is to facilitate functions such as searching for nearby shops and shaking nearby shops. This can generate advertising models such as keyword bidding ranking and public account advertising based on performance. This advertising platform may become the second largest source of income after mobile games. Of course, it is still very likely that Guangdiantong's advertising client resources will be shared with WeChat, and the application distribution advertising of App Store also has room for integration with it.

What is the impact? WeChat has entered the deep waters of monetization

At the end of 2014, WeChat opened public platform comments, and in 2015, it upgraded the shake and search functions. It can be seen that WeChat is no longer as afraid of "marketing" as in the past, but has begun to embrace marketing and release WeChat's marketing potential. This also means that WeChat is about to usher in a new stage of monetization. Mobile games can no longer satisfy WeChat's appetite. Many business models are being derived around this large platform, including content advertising, application distribution, search advertising, O2O advertising, mobile games, e-commerce shopping guides, and Internet finance. The focus of 2015 may be advertising.

As expected, an important part of WeChat's new generation of advertising platform is O2O advertising for offline merchants. This will undoubtedly create a huge competitive relationship between WeChat and traditional search portals such as Baidu and "middle page" advertising platforms such as 58. On the other hand, WeChat and O2O interactive platforms such as Focus Media complement each other. Focus Media complements WeChat in terms of technology, using iBeacon billboards spread across buildings across the country to build O2O marketing scenarios. In terms of resources, it can import offline merchant resources into WeChat, and in fact become an O2O marketing integration service provider.

Third-party developers also have new opportunities. In the past, helping companies develop WeChat was just a pure technical service. Companies are more concerned about how to get immediate results after the public platform is improved, such as how to push advertisements to people nearby and how to obtain potential users at a low cost. If WeChat launches an O2O advertising platform, third-party developers will be able to help companies make good use of this advertising platform and do WeChat marketing well in the future. In other words, WeChat marketing is no longer a deceptive course like Chen Anzhi's, but a practical technology, just like SEM derived from search engines. In the future, there will be a business called WXM (WeChat marketing), and if it doesn't cost money, it will be WXO (WeChat optimization).

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.