WeChat Uses QR Codes to Bring Forward Social Media Platform

WeChat, which is known as the world’s largest group messaging app, is using quick response codes to bring its social media marketing platform forward. This move is expected to give marketers a way to make their content directly accessible to its over 100 million users.

The WeChat app, known as “Weixin” in Chinese and which was created by Tencent, is a social media marketing platform that allows blogs, TV shows, celebrities, news agencies, newspapers, and others to gain direct access to users. The app allows members to log in and to browse the media and the people that they are interested in and which they can then follow.

At the heart of this social media service are QR codes. The app gives users who own a smartphone the ability to scan these two-dimensional barcodes. Users can also create their own QR code then share them with friends or contacts online or print them out.

WeChat has now redirected its focus to marketing, making it highly appealing to brands. With this, brands are expected to use the app now for the distribution of discount coupons that consumers can take advantage of when shopping in-store or online. This means that the app will be able to use the 2d barcodes to connect directly with Chinese consumers.

This platform is comparable to Weibo — also created by Tencent — and some other Twitter clones in China.

A few Chinese celebrities and television shows, like the hit dating show Fei Chang Wu Rao, have already joined WeChat’s QR code-focused effort. Some local technology blogs are also using WeChat as their first venture out into the world of social media.

Using WeChat may involve risks, though. One of these is that, in the future, companies, brands, and other marketers may be able to send a large amount of spam directly to WeChat users. However, this risk is presently being prevented by making communication between the brands and the consumers fully dependent on scanning the QR codes.