Imagine an app that combines all the functions of Facebook, WhatsApp, Amazon, and Uber into a single, easy-to-use platform. Imagine using it to order food, dry clean, purchase cinema tickets, and pay bills at restaurants and shops. It is also an online dating app, gaming platform, and news site.
For the people of China, this is exactly what WeChat offers. Originally developed primarily as an instant messaging platform, the app’s functionality has become more closely resembling a full-scale mobile operating system. The app’s versatility has seen its popularity grow exponentially, and it now boasts over 889 million active users.
Establishing a presence on the site is becoming increasingly essential for schools to create opportunities in the world’s largest international student recruitment market.
The Rise of WeChat: An Overview for Schools
WeChat is owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, which also runs the country’s second-largest social media platform, QQ, with over 500 million monthly active users. The app was originally launched in 2011 as a basic instant messaging platform for mobile phones, quickly gaining popularity because SMS messages in China are relatively expensive.
As time went on, however, it became far more than that. Tencent introduced new features to the app at an incredible rate, quickly equipping it with almost every function you could think of. At the time, the Chinese app ecosystem was far less developed than in the West, where people are more accustomed to using several different applications for different tasks.
As a result, WeChat’s multifunctional nature was welcomed by eager mobile users who liked the convenience of having everything in one place. Indeed, many experts have commented that Chinese users find the combination of different apps required to get the functionality of WeChat primitive in other countries.
By the end of 2016, WeChat had surpassed QQ as the country’s most popular social network, with 50% of users spending over 90 minutes daily on the app. Most of their users are based in China’s 1st tier cities, making them the ideal demographic for international student recruitment.
How Can Schools Use WeChat for Student Recruitment?
Successful WeChat marketing strategies for universities and schools require an official account. This can be difficult for organizations outside of China, and you may need to go through an intermediary with a Chinese business license unless you have a registered office there. HEM offers this service through its Chinese partners as part of our Chinese digital marketing package.
Once your account is set up, you will be given a unique user ID and can create a QR (Quick Response) code. This barcode-like label allows users to follow you automatically by scanning it with their phones. This is the most popular method of following accounts among WeChat users, and you should feature your QR Code heavily on any pages of your website that are likely to attract prospective Chinese students.
Example: The University of Surrey in the UK provides its QR Code and WeChat user ID on its website.
WeChat users mainly discover new brands through messaging and the site’s ‘Moments’ newsfeed rather than search, so attracting a lot of followers will be crucial to your success. Encouraging your current Chinese students to follow your account is a good way to do this, as they can share your content and help you build your brand visibility among their peers. You could also target alumni who may have returned to China after graduating from your school and are likely to use the app regularly.
Example: Kings College London has a WeChat account specifically dedicated to alumni engagement. The university encourages followers to invite their friends to join and regularly posts about alumni events throughout China.
WeChat Tools for University Recruitment to Engage Prospective Students from China
WeChat’s incredibly versatile functionality can make it seem daunting when you first attempt to use the app to connect with prospective students. For the most part, however, you will focus on just a few social and messaging features. Here are some of the most useful tools and features:
Instant Messaging- The site’s original function is still one of its most popular features and can provide schools with a valuable channel for initiating direct contact with prospective Chinese students. In contrast to some Western IM apps, where organizations sending unsolicited messages to users might not be welcomed, WeChat users expect engagement from official accounts through this channel, making it extremely appealing for schools.
Example: Many schools, such as RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, send automatic greetings to WeChat users as soon as they follow them.
Group Chats—WeChat allows you to create group chats with up to forty members, which can be extremely useful for schools. For instance, you could create a group chat to alert prospective Chinese students of your presence at a recruitment fair or an online event that might interest them.
Some schools with a large Chinese presence also use group messaging to engage with current students, alerting them to important campus announcements and utilizing the app during their orientation process. This can be a great way to make your Chinese student base feel welcome.
Customized Menus—Official accounts can create custom menus at the bottom of your followers’ messaging screens. The menus can contain three first-level links and up to 15 second-level links, and they can either link to web pages or trigger automatic messages to your followers.
Example: Dorset College in Vancouver, which offers a range of academic preparation and university transfer programs for international students, created a custom menu for its WeChat followers. The first-level links are labeled ‘Introduction,’ ‘Campus Information,’ and ‘Q&A,’ and each option has several second-level links, too. Each option triggers an automatic response message.
Auto Replies—You can also set up your account to send automatic reply messages to users who type in certain keywords. These messages can contain audio, video, images, or links. Like customized menus, they can be very useful for schools looking to provide information quickly and easily for students. For instance, you could set up an auto-reply for the keyword ‘apply,’ which would include a link to an application form for your school.
Moments—Moments is WeChat’s in-app social media site, similar to Western sites like Facebook and Twitter. You share content on your feed, such as articles, images, videos, or status updates, which will be visible to your followers and can be liked, shared, or commented on. Moments is the best way to grow your following on the site, and you should post regularly with informative, relevant content that will attract shares from users.
Example: Swinburne University in Australia posts frequently on its WeChat Moments feed with Chinese language content.
WeChat also offers several other features, such as Walkie Talkie, which allows you to record and send voice messages directly to users, and Shake, which allows users to connect with other people nearby by shaking their phones. While these functions are less likely to be part of your regular strategy, they can still engage students in creative ways from time to time.
Example: During an orientation meeting, Michigan State University encouraged its new Chinese students to find each other on WeChat using the Shake feature.
Is Advertising on WeChat an Option for Schools?
In addition to promoting your school organically, several paid advertising options on WeChat can be effective. Moments Ads are most visible in a user’s Moments newsfeed. The ad will include your school’s name and WeChat profile picture, a description up to 40 characters long, up to 6 images, and a CTA that can link to a WeChat account or a web page.
You can also create a video ad, which can contain between 6 and 15 seconds of video in the ad itself and a click-through video between 30 and 90 seconds. Video ads are approximately 20% more expensive than ads with images.
The other main method of advertising on WeChat is banner ads. These ads appear at the bottom of WeChat articles and contain a logo, account name, headline, and CTA.
Bidding can start at as low as 0.5RMB (around USD$0.07), but you must still commit to a minimum budget of 50,000RMB. In addition, you must have a Chinese business license to run a banner campaign, and it can be very difficult for foreign organizations to set one up. However, this may change as WeChat continues expanding and courts international business.
Moments and Banner ads use the same targeting system, which allows you to target users based on location, gender and age, industry, marital status, and education level. You can also target groups of users based on certain WeChat behaviours, including users who already follow your account and those who have shown interest in your previous ads.
WeChat also introduced two-way banner ads—or Key Opinion Leader (KOL) advertising—last year. This system allows users to enter into direct agreements with specific WeChat Official accounts to show their ads. However, this can be very expensive and beyond the price range of most schools.
Measuring Your Student Recruitment Efforts on WeChat
If you consider WeChat advertising at any point, you will be pleased to find that the platform offers a fairly comprehensive analytics suite to measure your performance. This suite includes data about various Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as impressions, clicks, interactions, and shares.
WeChat also offers in-app and web analytics tools to track your overall account performance. WeChat’s web analytics interface is somewhat similar to Google Analytics. It lets you view data on up to 40 KPIs, including page views, downloads, and shares on external sites like QQ and Sina Weibo.
Another recently launched analytics tool that might be useful for schools is the WeChat Index, which allows users to search for trending keywords over 7, 30, and 90-day periods. This can allow you to optimize your WeChat content to improve engagement.
What’s Next for WeChat? How the App’s Future Will Affect International Student Recruitment
At this point, there is little argument that establishing a WeChat presence is necessary for any school looking to recruit students in China. However, it may soon become important in other markets, too, with Tencent eager to expand the platform’s reach.
So far, efforts to target other Asian countries and South America with high-profile ad campaigns have been largely unsuccessful, but the app has gained something of a foothold in Africa. In particular, the company has rolled out features previously only available in China, such as WeChat Wallet, in South Africa. It now has over 5 million users in the country—almost 10% of the population.
Schools can also expect WeChat to continue consolidating its position in its home country. Search is one of the few areas of the Chinese digital landscape in which the app does not currently dominate. As you may know, Baidu is the country’s number one search engine, controlling approximately 70% of the market.
While Sogou currently has a market share of just over 10%, this could increase as WeChat becomes even more ubiquitous, and schools looking to optimize their websites for internet searches in China would be wise to continue monitoring the situation. WeChat also continues improving its in-app search function, which could become more important as time goes on.
In addition, WeChat is impacting other major internet players’ business. Facebook’s recent endeavours to introduce e-commerce functions and social media features into apps like Messenger and WhatsApp are believed to be at least partly inspired by WeChat’s model, and it would not be surprising if more social media apps begin to integrate more versatile functionality in a bid to replicate its success.
With that in mind, familiarizing your recruitment team with WeChat’s far-reaching capabilities and functions could have even greater long-term benefits to your overall digital marketing strategy than you think, helping to prepare your school for the more integrated online landscape of the future.
FAQ To Consider
How to use WeChat for recruitment?
Successful WeChat marketing strategies for universities and schools require an official account.
