Recently, it was reported that the WeChat applet supports one click sharing to the circle of friends. This new function has gradually supported the Android version of WeChat, and the IOS system will gradually be realized in the subsequent version updates.
As soon as the news is heard, many businesses are believed to be excited. If the applet can be shared with the circle of friends, it will mean that in the future, the applet will break through the lightning protection of community communication and gain more exposure. Users will be easier to find and recommend high-quality applets, and businesses will rely on the WeChat ecosystem to greatly expand their flow pool.
The coveted WeChat flow pool
WeChat flow pool has always been a big cake that e-commerce covets.
According to Tencent's financial report in the first quarter of 2020, WeChat and WeChat have combined monthly active accounts of 1.2025 billion, up 8.2% year on year. The number of active accounts of applets exceeds 400 million per day. In addition, another group of WeChat data shows that the annual turnover of small programs in 2019 was 800 billion yuan, up 160% year on year.
Zhang Xiaolong also disclosed in the 2019 WeChat open class that the number of people entering the circle of friends has been growing every day since the release, and there is no momentum to stop. Up to now, 750 million people go into the circle of friends every day. On average, each person has to watch it more than a dozen times, so the total number of times per day is 10 billion.
The circle of friends is one of the scenes with the most traffic and attracting the most user time in the WeChat ecosystem, and it is also the main platform for social sharing. WeChat can be credited with the rise of Pinduoduo.
Most users first contact Pinduoduo from WeChat. In order to buy goods at a lower price, users will send the message to their family and friends, or invite them to cut a knife for themselves. Some Pinduoduo loyal users are crazy about sharing information to friends and relatives. It is this form of sharing and communication among acquaintances that forms Pinduoduo's social e-commerce thinking.
This kind of friend circle sharing is mostly based on acquaintances' social interaction, which is easier to gain users' trust than other channels' information publicity. If the applet supports the function of forwarding the friend circle, it is equivalent to expanding the traffic pool for the applet, and the applet merchants can break through the original closed state, and obtain more traffic at a lower operating cost with the mutual recommendation between friends and acquaintances.
E-commerce retailers are the first to benefit
Applets are now widely used in e-commerce, retail and fresh food industries. WeChat officially disclosed that from January to the end of June 2020, the accumulated GMV of shopping malls and department stores increased by 670% year on year. Applets enable some traditional businesses to no longer limit themselves to the offline market and realize the interconnection of online and offline channels.
Liu Qiuzhi, CTO and co-founder of instant application of small app SaaS service provider, also felt that fresh e-commerce and community group buying small apps were rising in the past six months. He said: "Merchants' acceptance of small programs largely depends on their cognition. Now, people who are engaged in chain stores, community operations and we media will be more sensitive."
The application of applets in e-commerce retail and other scenarios is just the tip of the iceberg. More and more applets can be shared, and it will be a trend to gradually improve the business ecosystem of applets. Since JD announced the launch of applet this year, giants including Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Toutiao, 360, etc. have been laying out applet ecology.
When the business ecosystem of small programs is gradually improved, small program merchants will have more customer acquisition channels and content presentation forms, and will be able to introduce more traffic from the circle of friends at a lower customer acquisition cost. Businesses can purposefully strengthen their social attributes and user stickiness, and promote user fragmentation.
More convenient for promotion and sharing
At present, the form of getting customers for small programs mainly depends on the active search behavior of users' scanning and searching. In order to carry out large-scale publicity, businesses can only publish pictures with small program codes. If users want to share an applet, they must go through the tedious path of generating pictures in the applet - saving to the album - exiting the applet - opening the circle of friends - publishing the circle of friends. The longer the path, the more difficult it is to obtain new users.
When the applet can be directly shared in the circle of friends, the sharing path is greatly shortened, and users are more willing to share actively, which is also more conducive to traffic conversion and user precipitation.
More abundant and stable promotion channels
In addition to scanning the small program code, the current way for merchants to promote is to forward it in WeChat groups or chat with friends. But this kind of continuous advertising in the group is likely to be kicked out of the group and blackmailed. Many users also reject this kind of behavior, which is not conducive to business publicity.
When the applet unlocks the "sharing circle of friends", businesses also unlock more diversified publicity channels, so they don't have to worry about being kicked out of the group. The promotion channels are also more stable, and they can be more comfortable selling and marketing.
The improvement of small program business ecology is both an opportunity and a test for large brands and small and medium-sized enterprises. Businesses need to think about how to attract the attention of users in the massive circle of friends, which requires businesses to have stronger operational capabilities and fan maintenance capabilities.
