Author | Hong key
"No Zhang Xiaolong" has become the biggest news point of the 2022 WeChat Open Class PRO, but there are still many points to watch in the open class, and the context is clear.
On the morning of January 6, the main forum introduced the progress, achievements and planning of video number, WeChat payment, Mini Program, search, and enterprise WeChat business. In the afternoon, the sub-forums covered more topics, such as video creator ecology, brand wisdom management, private domain growth, smart industry, logistics industry digitalization, people's livelihood government, wine, tourism, catering, education and medical care, etc.
WeChat has entered so many areas that it has also attracted criticism. In the eyes of skeptics, today's WeChat features are complex and even bloated.
Such criticism is hard to say, especially for a "national-level" product with more than 1.2 billion users.
Last year, Zhang Xiaolong said that "I hope WeChat has always maintained its own style, a small and beautiful product." In this year's WeChat open class PRO, we can still see this "continuity", a sense of balance that belongs to this super App.
Atomization
"Atomization" is the key to understanding WeChat's various businesses.
On the 2022 WeChat Open Class PRO, the WeChat Open Class instructor representing the video number said, "The video number is the best carrier for the form of video and live streaming media, and is an atomized content component and the most basic component." ”
This sentence reflects the logic of the WeChat product system - WeChat is the most atomized component, and this component can no longer be divided. Components can flow naturally within the WeChat ecosystem, and various chemical reactions can be generated between different components.
For example, the video account will appear in the public account live reminder, in a look at the live broadcast, short video, in the search user will search for video content, the team does not need to consider what kind of ability to do for the video number, the video number content in the WeChat ecology "everywhere".
The combination of different components will also generate more new imaginations:
"Video number + WeChat Pay" can derive the charged content. The video number team said that in the future, it will not rule out the ability to charge or tip live or video content. In the sub-forum, the team announced that the video number is "coming soon to launch the paid live broadcast room";
"Video number + public account", users can pay attention to the author's official account through the video, and the author will get more private domain traffic. Subsequent authors can also reach users through the message box for fan operation and accurate drainage.
"Video number + enterprise WeChat" derives the brand's private domain operation capability. Enterprise WeChat also predicted in the speech that the new version of enterprise WeChat released next week will "fully connect the WeChat video number".
This is a very "WeChat" idea, which is also related to the advantages of WeChat itself. Whether it is WeChat Pay, Mini Program or video number, the user IDs of different components are open at the bottom of WeChat. This is the unique value of WeChat.
According to different scenarios, various "atomized components" can be efficiently combined to match the needs within the WeChat ecosystem. For example, at present, the video number is encouraging live broadcast merchants to exert public-private domain linkage, and in order to help businesses activate private domains and improve the conversion of watching broadcasts, video numbers provide capabilities including "live red envelopes" and "live bookings", which reflects the possibility of combining atomized components.
The WeChat open class instructor said that in the past year, the video number team has been continuously optimizing the framework to allow atomized products to interact more richly with other capabilities. "We have released a lot of capabilities, and we will release more abilities in the future, you can imagine."
connect
In various forums and speeches, the most mentioned word on WeChat is "connection".
The official account connects people and content, and the Mini Program connects people and services. Nowadays, the business within the WeChat ecosystem has increased, and the business itself has become bigger and bigger, but the development logic is still to create more "connections".
Taking WeChat Pay as an example, WeChat Pay initially defined itself as a "mobile payment tool", but later found that WeChat Pay has many connection capabilities to help merchants improve their connection behavior on the customer side and create new scenarios, which will bring about the improvement of repurchase and the improvement of marketing efficiency.
Therefore, WeChat Pay put forward the concept of "more than payment" and continued to exert efforts in "establishing more connections and making connections closer". In the 2022 WeChat Open Class PRO sub-forum, Bai Zhenjie, head of WeChat Pay retail, said that WeChat Pay will continue to dig deep into the connection capabilities: connect offline contacts, connect content scenarios, and connect business models.
Similar expressions appear frequently: the Mini Program team said that it will provide more new capabilities to connect hardware devices, search is the "connector" of the WeChat ecosystem, and enterprise WeChat is the "connector" of the enterprise - connecting customers, connecting employees, and connecting upstream and downstream.
So, what real value can "connect" bring to individuals and businesses?
Taking vaccine appointments as an example, users often want to get online appointment services after searching for "vaccine booster injections should not be hit". Such services and channels actually exist, but users are not easy to find. To this end, WeChat search has excavated various official channels and appointment methods, and sorted out and gathered to provide users with the best solution for the nearest vaccine. Behind this is the value of extensively connecting services and optimizing the ecosystem.
In terms of enterprises, through the enterprise WeChat, Sophia headquarters connects 7 major factories and tens of thousands of dealer employees across the country, realizing integrated management of accounts, data and processes. In the WeChat group of Wuling Hongguang's enterprise, some riders proposed that it was inconvenient to hang bags in the car, and Wuling Hongguang added two hooks next to the driver's seat. This daily chat interaction has become the secret of Wuling's innovation, which has led to the explosive model MINIEV.
Sophia and Wuling Hongguang respectively interpreted the diversified value of "connection" for enterprises - connectivity allows information to be exchanged, customer satisfaction and enterprise productivity are improved. At the same time, connectivity also keeps businesses in sync with consumers, and capturing user needs is capturing the market.
Less is more
In 2021, the tenth anniversary of WeChat, Zhang Xiaolong used the words "connection" and "simple" to describe WeChat:
"The connection is beautiful. For the workings of the world are carried out by the connection of all things. For a product, to do connectivity means to do the underlying facilities of the service, because the results that can evolve based on connectivity are the most abundant. ”
"Simplicity is beautiful. From a physical formula to an everyday item, it's often better to be simple. There are a thousand ways to achieve the same goal, but only the simplest one is the most beautiful. Precisely because there are a thousand methods, it is really difficult to be simple. ”
The same line of thinking goes back much further. There are two paragraphs in the "Product View Behind WeChat", one is the early paragraph about whether to add Tab in order to add functions, when WeChat set that the interface can only have 4 Tab "agreements" within two years (until today, there are still only 4 Tabs at the bottom of WeChat); the other paragraph is about the "shake a shake" function - "minimalism can not be surpassed".
"We've made this feature extremely simplified, and this minimalist experience is hard to surpass. If something has been done very, very little, it is difficult to have less. ”
From the era of instant messaging tools to the beginning of a new decade, in an industry environment where the outside world compares video numbers with peers, we can still see the main vein of WeChat.