How to Make a Viral WeChat Post

To make a viral WeChat post, start with a clear goal and a precise audience, then give people a reason to share: a strong visual, an emotion, a simple message, a question that sparks curiosity or an interactive element. Publish it on your WeChat Official Account, where followers can share it to their Moments and chats.

When this article was first published in 2017, news reports said WeChat would soon reach 900 million users. This guide gives you key points and suggestions to create and develop a viral post. If you want a team to design and run the campaign, our WeChat agency can help.

What Does It Mean to Go Viral?

To become viral means that you are using some viral marketing which is a marketing technique that uses a social network and other technologies to increase brand awareness or to achieve some other marketing objectives (either a long-term objective such as the brand awareness or a short-term objective such as the promotion of a specific product). The idea here is to spread news or messages as fast as possible and it is often done by word of mouth.

As for WeChat, it can be a great place and tool to be able to do some viral marketing. Indeed, WeChat has a huge potential thanks to its number of daily users. Moreover, if you refer to one of the previous articles, you will see that WeChat has a great user retention rate. They use it frequently throughout the day and mainly for personal use.

How Can You Create a Successful Viral Post?

First of all, there are different ways to create a successful viral post. We could categorize them in two categories: the creation of viral posts through the use of different tools such as emails, social networks, etc.; and the other one would be to create exceptional content that will stimulate a great interest to your audience.

There are different ways to raise your users’ interest:

• Make it visual: it sounds obvious but if you post a video on WeChat for instance, it would be a great way to make your message visual.
• Stimulate emotions: posts can resonate with the feelings of your users. If they feel moved by the content then the message will be forwarded/shared to generate more views.
• Keep the campaign simple: “A picture is worth a thousand words” this idiom is the best explanation possible. Keep it simple and easy to understand otherwise you will lose the interest of your users.
• Be controversial: this is a bit tricky in China, you need to respect the rules of the country but if you start being controversial you will gather the attention of people and will create a wide-range discussion with people that have different opinions.
• Generate curiosity: curiosity is the core of all innovation. If you can start playing with that you will catch your users’ interest since they will want to know the crux of the matter.
• Be interactive: the more creative you are, the more the people will have interest in your post. Also if you combine your creativity with the possibility to create something that allows people to have an interaction either through a game or something else, the interest will be much higher and you will be able to engage with more people. If the game or the page asks users to share, check the WeChat rules for external links first: they forbid making users share to see the next step or the answer, and rewarding them for sharing with red packets, coupons or points.

Once your post spreads, turn its readers into followers with our 9 ways to gain followers on your WeChat Official Account.

What to Do Before Launching a Viral Campaign?

If you want to have a successful viral post/campaign you should be aware of some points. You cannot launch something like this without any precaution. You should keep these few points in mind:

• Define your objectives: it is really important to know what you want to achieve before launching your campaign. If you do not clearly know your objective you will not be able to establish KPIs and see if your work was successful.
• Know your audience: if you want to launch a campaign and target everyone, your chance of success will not be very favorable. That is why you should know whom you want to target and know what is the best way to reach to them.
• Plan your message: this point is related to the previous part of the article. You have to plan and prepare what you will say to your audience. It is best to prepare yourself and understand what will work with your target.

What Is Your Next Step?

This article is here to give you some ideas. Every concept and every project is different, so adapt these tips to your own needs and objectives. Start with one post, one audience and one goal, measure how often it is shared, and improve the next one.

If you want to know more about this topic, or if your project needs expertise in social marketing campaigns, our WeChat agency in Shanghai will be glad to help you. Don’t hesitate to contact us.

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