WeChat Changed the Presentation of Its Subscription Folder Again to Drive Up Your Advertising Cost

On September 25, WeChat released its version 6.7.3. Besides supporting the selfie stickers, WeChat again changed the way to present its subscription folder, where media and businesses push daily contents to their subscribers.

Two obvious changes were made in this latest version. One is the “Frequently Visited” window on top of the main page. Based upon the user’s behavior, WeChat will display up to 12 accounts that the user has visited most frequently. And if these accounts have unread new contents, a green dot will be displayed in front of the account name. The other is the display of the featured images for the top posts of those accounts not in the “Frequently Visited” window. Previously, the top post for all accounts were presented in the same way with the headline and a full width featured image. Now, only thumbnail images are allowed for the accounts not in the top window, while those in the top window still enjoy the full-width images.

Now, a subscription account is averagely read by less than 5% of its subscribers for each update. The number will probably further decrease due to the smaller display spaces in the feeds streams. To compete for the 12 positions on the top window, account owners have to bring their subscribers high quality contents to ensure the views. For those depending much on the advertising revenue, they have to sell the top post to paid contents less frequently and insert less display ads to make themselves more reader friendly. Either they have to increase the unit price for each placement, or they give less views to their advertisers to keep the price unchanged. No matter which one, the advertisers have to pay more for each view.

To secure the return of your ads spending if you do want to use WeChat, you have to do business with those who can stay on the top.

However, how to identify if an account can keep the top spots?

• Don’t look at the number of subscribers only.
• Check the views of top posts in past three months and see if the performance is stead and stable. The number of views can be found at the bottom of each article.
• Check the views on the paid contents and compare the average number with that of other contents.
• Compare these numbers with its competitors.

Finally, compare the price performance of your WeChat advertising with other tools. There are many cost effective tools to reach Chinese in Canada.