Monthly active users of WeChat reached 762 million as of March in 2016 and has become a major platform for social communication.
Many brands have signed up WeChat official accounts to make it a channel to communicate with target audience according to a report from Lvyouquan. The report covered 8,006 brands and 294,176 official account posts in 18 industries published in Q3 2015.
80% official accounts published posts on working days. 36% posts are published on Wednesday and Friday. Over 40% official accounts published posts between 4pm and 7pm to attract readers who would skim through WeChat in buses or subways after coming off work at 6pm or 7pm .
The number of average post views on Friday were 3,449 among 294,176 posts according to the survey. Many users were likely to read articles after getting up between 6am and 7am, the peak time for news reading. After coming off work, 7pm to 8pm was also the reading rush hour.
Among the 18 industries surveyed, over half of the brands in network operators, e-commerce, air flight, automobile, apparel, gaming and smartphone industry had WeChat official accounts. Over 80% of operator brands utilized official accounts to cultivate consumers and potential customers.
Most official accounts released less than 10 articles in each month. Brands official accounts in the health care industry, supermarkets, insurance and automobile updated content most frequently. 60.79% health care brands released an average of 20 to 31 passages in each month while the quality index was the lowest. Official accounts of catering, gaming and banking had the highest quality index.
Xiaomi received the highest quality index among the smartphones official accounts, followed by Vivo and Huawei. Seven of the top eight high-quality smartphones official accounts were domestic brands.
Among the top 10 banking WeChat official accounts, seven were credit card accounts. Xiaomi put much effort in media and marketing every year that it received the highest quality index.
64.71% automobile brands had official accounts while the quality index was only 450. SVW, Volvo China, and Buick were top three accounts with the highest quality index.
Over 57.37% gaming brands had official accounts and the quality index was fairly high. 29% content from gaming official accounts were on gaming gift packs while readers were more likely to read articles on gaming announcement compared to gaming gift packs.
Smartphone industry official accounts published 37% posts on product publicity and 19% on promotion information. They also released content on chicken soup while few readers were interested in those.
Influenced by the third-party payment methods, banks have searched new means for more consumers. 36% content on banking official accounts were on promotion, 23% on the brand news, and 5% on chicken soup. However, the average views of promotion and chicken soup articles were higher.
Over half of automobile brands passages were on the brand news and product publicity, 15% on promotion, and 8% on automobile knowledge. However, automotive official accounts should publish more articles on promotion for readers prefer reading posts on promotion.
Companies are not the same in industry, size, resources, background and others. Thus brands must make full use of their own resources and publish posts basing on readers preference and reading habits. And companies should adjust content and publish time of official accounts to improve quality index and improve the brand awareness.
Also read: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts