微信用户体验(英文)An analysis of users’ relationship with WeChat

A New Media Lifestyle- An analysis of users’ relationship with WeChat 1. Introduction In such an internet era that information is on people’s fingertips, many new mobile real-time communication tools are developing rapidly and have become an important part of people’s social life especially the young and middle-aged group between 15 to 40 (Su, 2013). For example, Kik, What’s App, WeChat and Youni. Tencent Group released Wechat in 2011 in China. In only two years, the user number has achieved 0.5 billion. WeChat is a free appliance which provides real-time communication service for smart phone users. WeChat supports cross-telecommunication operators, cross-operation system platforms to use the mobile interest to send texts, voice messages, videos, images and support group talks (Su, 2013). In this paper, the author will analyze my relationship and those of others to this popular media product combined with my user experience and relevant media and communication theories, so as to get a better understanding of the media study and communications with our life. 2.Personal user experience of WeChat Homepage of WeChat official website Source: WeChat is very powerful and interesting. From the function aspects, the updated WeChat has the following uses. Its core functions include sending texts and multimedia information such as sounds, images, videos, emoticons. These two functions can realize the direct communication of mobile internet anytime and anywhere under the wireless internet or 3G network. Besides, it supports group talk. Users can conduct long-distance voice call and video conferences. For example, I have some lost friends, we are at different places. One day, we entered into a WeChat group, then we chatted happily through texts, videos and images happily, successfully rebuilt our friendship. Besides that, WeChat is also tied up with many other services such as QQ, QQ mail, Tencent Micro blog etc.  According to classic media communication theory, traditional media ( newspaper, radio, TV) has the functions of agenda-setting. As for the so-called agenda-setting functions, from the physical view and common people with limited activity range, their understanding and judgment about current affairs events and the importance usually come from the mass communication (Cheng & Li, 2013). The mass media is not only an important source of information, but also an important source of influence. In other words, before the existence of new media, people’s cognition of the outside world is mainly from media coverage, even the report methods can influence people’s understanding. New media like WeChat also has the agenda-setting functions (Fang & Cai, 2012). It uses the methods like follower number and clicking rank to realize. Interface design of WeChat Source: WeChat breaks the condition of single opinion leader in traditional media. Opinion leader and two step flow of communication are two important concepts in communication theory, which mean in people’s daily life, there are some people who have influence on others through spreading some information, they are the so-called opinion leaders (Fang & Cai, 2012). Compared with common audience, the contact frequency and contact amount of opinion leaders are much higher. Some scholars propose that in mass communication, information is not directly flown to common audience, but via the middle step, opinion leaders, thus creates the two step flow of communication (Dang, 2012) . The existence of new media makes opinion leaders do not need to use the mass communication step. They have more convenient communication methods, thus more and more opinion leaders emerge on WeChat platform. However, due to the diversified opinion leaders and communicators, fake information has the soil of survival, thus the reliability of information source is hard to be guaranteed. 3. Advantages of WeChat as a new media product Based on my own experience, Wechat has the following advantages. 3.1 Create new user experience based on user demands Different users at different regions have their certain cultural backgrounds and behavior modes, therefore media products also have their special market environment. It also determines that the design of media products in China should conform to the user habits, thinking mode and aesthetic appreciation of the public. WeChat simplify the communication way of mobile device users, let people’s interpersonal relationships become more flexible. As in the premise of real-time or asynchronous communication, people could communicate with familiar friends as well as new friends, therefore, users could manage social relationships at will. On the one hand, Wechat is a simplified social media platform. Currently, in China, products such as QQ, mailbox, cellphone contact list and Weibo contain network platform interpersonal relationships (Ong, 2012). WeChat gets through this kind of products and add several social media methods such as LBS(Location Based Service),     Shake, Drift Bottle, and many functions like Voice intercom, Two-dimensional identification, Dynamic emotions, Small games. The communication form of WeChat integrates text, image, sound, video, and has transformed the form of short message into the multimedia era (Su, 2013). It helps users to effectively integrate and manage their relationship chains, realized the efficient combination of communication contents and ways in the information fragmentation era, satisfy users’ in-depth and multiple-layer communication demands, perfect user experience. At the same time, WeChat has naturally become a new communication product. The interface of WeChat obeys the design principle of less is more, the function design is relatively simple and clear, regular and unified, thus every function can be accessed within three clickings. On the other hand, it presents the multi-dimensional trend of social communication. The social communication application of mobile internet has formed a new type of social relationship. In this relationship, people seem to be quite familiar with each other. They have common interests, hobbies, values, however they seem to be unfamiliar with each other, they may not meet each other till they die. Such relationship society is called “half-familiar society” (Morley & Robins, 2013). Under such circumstances, WeChat creates and manages a brand new, multiple dimensional social relationship circle that familiar people and strange people co-exist. The representation of the whole people social circle is a kind of node-to-surface communication, the existence of LBS, Shake, Drift Bottle and other social networking means let users have more communication and exchange channels. For example, people can use the LBS function to search for users who open their location information, so that the group communication function with geological feature integration brings the popularity of whole people social networking circle. As a result, the product structure of WeChat originates from user demands and social networking. 3.2 Create a new media lifestyle A new media product may create a new lifestyle, so as to make people changes their consumption way and content. Since the release of WeChat, its version gets constant updates. Due to its humane design concept, its audience range becomes wider and wider, its value also continually increases. The hot trend of Talkback on phone has replaced traditional contact ways and changed the user relationship. From this sense, WeChat has noiselessly changed people’s lifestyle. The power of WeChat on interactivity is embodied as it depicts a scene that without any strangers. Users can real-time make new friends or know strangers on the basis of maintaining relationships with relatives and friends. That is to say, mobile short message service in the future is not limited to communication form and content, but is the multimedia information distribution based on user relations (Ong, 2012). A big disadvantage of traditional information is that privacy cannot be secured, while WeChat effectively protect user privacy through mobile phone identification and user relationship identification, so as to avoid the spams and malicious harassment in the basic communication field. Besides, WeChat also has the mobile phone binding function and further promotes the real-name system, thus compulsory promotion and ads cannot work (Gao, 2013). It forces the marketing staff to adopt better services. From this point, WeChat conforms to the humane way of socialized principle, it shows the hospitality of interactive media design. Nowadays, user experience of WeChat is still increasing. No matter voice talk, LBS making friends or other interactive media functions, they are creating a kind of relaxed and interesting mobile social networking life (Berger, 2013). If WeChat can combine directly with smart phones and integrates into low-end phones, it will further enter into a bigger user group including the disabled, children and the elder. The design concept of people-oriented of WeChat brings a simple, free and unique communication channel, through social networking method, the large-scale information sharing is realized, user experience scale is also expanded (Cheng & Li, 2013). It just satisfies modern people’s pursuit for free life. With the grouped revolution of communication and social networking mode, WeChat is leading a brand new media lifestyle. 3.3 Create a new marketing platform WeChat is a closed platform with the core of strong relationships. It can act as a channel between brands and customers to connect emotion and interaction. As the sales marketing distributes concrete product information, one to one precise communication has an advantage. When a brand uses the sales marketing of products or services as the main marketing goal, it is a good choice to open a WeChat public page, as WeChat users who follow the brand homepage are effective potential customers, it will be convenient to conduct centralized management (Gao, 2013). The portability and real user group of WeChat determines the feasibility of O2O (Online 2 Offline) marketing on WeChat, among which, life service brands like restaurants, hotels, business centers are particularly suitable for O2O marketing on WeChat. Besides, the one to one communication feature of WeChat also determines its potential as a Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform (Hong, 2012). All in all, as a new marketing platform, WeChat contains huge opportunities and challenges. Recently, Tencent also implements the international strategy of WeChat. WeChat will support multiple languages and integrate many overseas SNS platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, no matter for brands, agencies, third party service companies or investors, it is very important for them to grasp the initiative on this new marketing platform. 4. Problems of WeChat As a relatively new media product, WeChat still has many problem, so it is hard for it to totally replace traditional media. Firstly, the incomplete regulatory law limits the healthy development of WeChat. Currently, the fake information on WeChat is flooding, causing many complaints of users. Therefore, it is urgent for relevant departments to restrain the spread of unhealthy information. Secondly, as a communication media, the advertising profiting mode which supports the smooth operation of WeChat needs to be developed. Currently, WeChat has not found its advertising profiting mode. Thirdly, due to the restrictions of technological conditions and the lag of operators’ services, WeChat’s fluency in communication should be optimized. Some users even complain that their texts reached target audience after a long time, thus severely disturbs the instantaneity of information. In addition, as a new media, WeChat does not have the recognized rights in news gathering, most of its news communication activities still stay at the forwarding stage, its authority cannot compete with traditional media (Morley & Robins, 2013). Meanwhile, the large amount of information on WeChat public platforms result in audience’s disorder of choice, thus it even hinders the effective communication of news to some degree. 5. Conclusion From my point of view, the success of WeChat gives people much inspiration particularly in the aspect of product development thinking. The success of WeChat tells us that for products, using minimal-simplicity and entertainment could attract users, that is to say, the so-called user experience should be simple, natural and interesting. With the constant development of internet technology, the emergence of new media has gained much popularity. Though in short term, WeChat will not result in the disappearance of traditional mass media, and will not threaten the dominant position of traditional mass media, its existence and development has broken the relatively stable media condition, the competence between new media and traditional media will become undoubtedly fiercer and fiercer. Therefore, the integration will be an irresistible trend.  References: Berger, A. A. 2013. Media and communication research methods: An introduction to qualitative and quantitative approaches. SAGE Publications, Incorporated. pp. 45-65. Cheng, X. Y. & Li, G. J. 2013. WeChat marketing: marketin revolution in mobile internet era. Beijing Press. pp. 40-55. Dang, H. Q. 2012. Deconstructing WeChat’s information communication mode from the perspective of media studies. Southeastern Communication. (7), pp. 71-72. Fang, Z. X. & Cai, L. B. 2012. 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