WeChat is an essential and outstanding marketing tool for businesses to enter the Chinese market. Setting up a WeChat official account allows brands to reach out to a huge audience and raise brand awareness in an effective way. However, setting up a WeChat official account isn’t as easy as you might expect. 

In this blog we will be covering the traditional 3 accounts. Service Accounts, Subscription Accounts, and WeChat Work (otherwise known as an enterprise account.) 

WeChat Official accounts are available on media, government organizations, individuals/celebrities, and businesses. There are three types of WeChat official accounts: subscription accounts, service accounts, and enterprise accounts.

WeChat Mini-Programs are essentially apps that live within the WeChat ecosystem, and are different from the other types of WeChat Official Accounts. If this is your first foray into the China market this probably isn’t the right tool for you (but could certainly be worth it once you’ve got your business established).

 

1. Subscription Accounts (订阅号)

WeChat subscription accounts focus on information and brand communication. They are used much like a daily news feed. They can publish once a day to subscribers and publish 1-6 articles each time. All updates are sent to the users’ subscription folder with no push notifications.

Wondering why they limit these accounts to posting only once a day? WeChat search places a high priority on the time that an article is posted. This allows the most recent articles to receive priority. Limiting the number of posts is to prevent accounts from posting incessantly to maintain their position at the top of the WeChat search engine.

Subscription accounts are the only type of WeChat official account that is open to individuals, such as bloggers and celebrities, as the others require a company business license. This type of WeChat official account is most suitable for individuals and brands that are content based or information-oriented, such as media publications.

While these accounts can publish more and theoretically bring more users to your account, you have to remember that these accounts are nested in the subscription folder in a user’s contacts, drastically reducing visibility. If you’re looking for a WeChat official account with more visibility read on to the next section.

2. Service Accounts (服务号)

WeChat service accounts offer a lot of interesting features including customer service, API integrations, e-commerce, and CRM. These WeChat Official Accounts offer more robust functionality as compared to subscription accounts. Verified service accounts can also register for WeChat Pay and set up a WeChat Store. After verification, service accounts have access to 9 advanced APIs that enable the brands to create additional apps and functions such as Instant Customer Service, GPS, Payments, etc.

Service accounts can publish up to 4 times per month, with 1-6 articles each time. When the posts are published, the updates appear as push notifications in followers’ chat lists. Compared to subscription accounts, the posting frequency of service accounts is lower, but the visibility is higher due to push notifications.

Again these accounts are limited in how much they can post as they are the only accounts capable of generating push notifications. If WeChat official accounts were able to spam users with push notifications it would detract from the overall user experience on WeChat. Tencent’s main goal is to keep users on WeChat for as long as possible, so this would be something Tencent definitely does not want.

Service accounts are the best choice for businesses with a large audience or with large customer databases, such as airlines and hotels. For hotels and airlines, in particular booking systems can even be built within the app. They’re also used for customer service, as users can message the account directly with questions or complaints similar to other live chat software used by businesses around the world.

Another reason these accounts are so popular with businesses is the fact that they provide a larger amount of data. You can view data on who scanned which QR code, if users viewed your HTML5 Pages, or whether or not users shared a given piece of content. For companies that operate their WeChat official account as a website this can be crucial to setting up your marketing funnel.

 

3. Enterprise Accounts (企业号)

While subscription accounts and service accounts target external markets, WeChat enterprise accounts are primarily for internal communication and management. This makes this type of WeChat official account similar to what many businesses use Slack and Workplace by Facebook for.

They are not available to the public nor marketers. Users of corporate accounts must be verified internal staff in order to follow the corporate account.

With third-party APIs, corporate accounts have multiple internal management functions, such as internal chat rooms, video conferencing, and resource sharing. These accounts offer functionality similar to other workplace chat apps like Slack and Workplace by Facebook. Corporate accounts have high visibility and high security as users have to follow the account and then be added manually by the account owner entering their name, phone number and WeChat ID.

As of December 2017, 1.5 million businesses in China were using WeChat enterprise accounts, with 30 million users subscribed to these accounts.

 

How to set up a WeChat Official Account?

To register a WeChat official account for most businesses in China, you will need the following:

• Chinese Business License obtained by a local company or WFOE (Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise)
• Chinese ID of a Chinese National with a WeChat payment account

There are 3 options available for overseas companies looking to register a WeChat Official Account

 

Option 1: Register a company in China

After setting up the company, you’ll have the business license required to register an official account. However, this approach is not recommended as it took a huge amount of time and money to set up a company in China.

 

Option 2: Use a third-party business license

You can use the business license from another Chinese legal entity to register an account for your company. Each Chinese company can register up to 5 WeChat Official Accounts, so companies with extra slots on their business license are often willing to sell them for extra cash. The price they charge can range from a couple hundred USD into the thousands.

This method does have its risks. Ultimately, the account is tied to the company that provides you with the service, so choosing a reliable provider is absolutely essential. Imagine purchasing an account for a few hundred dollars, investing in promoting the account, only to have it shut down or held ransom by an unreliable partner.

Although the account will be attached to the Chinese legal entity, you can still decide on the details of your account, such as name, logo, and description. The name of the account sponsor would only be found on the information page of the account.

WeChat also allows people to transfer official accounts now, which means you can transfer your account from a third party business to your own company later (if you eventually decide to open a company in China).

 

Option 3: Use your own international business license

WeChat faces a lot of scrutiny from the Chinese government as it controls a huge amount of user data and can easily shape public opinion through its platform. This means they must be incredibly careful with what types of people or companies can register accounts and publish content on the platform. This unique situation has led Tencent to be very strict in its approval of international companies without a Chinese business license.

As of May 3rd, 2018, WeChat has begun accepting applications from all foreign countries. However, these applications are processed on a case-by-case basis, so, unfortunately, it’s not a certainty you’ll be able to obtain an account with your own business license. There are also several key differences in terms of functionality between accounts registered using a Chinese business license and those registered with an overseas business license. You can see more about these differences in the table below.

The process is quite complicated. As an example of what’s required, this is what must be provided by a Hong Kong registered company:

List of Documents Required for HK Company WeChat Official Account Registration

– Certificate of Incorporation

– Business Registration Certificate

– Annual Report (If Available)

– ID Card of Intended WeChat Operator/Admin (This should be someone who will be with the company long-term)

– Business Bank Account Number

– Letter from Bank

– Proof of Business Operation (Photos of the Shop/Screenshots of the Website)

– Company water bill or electricity bill or bank letter to prove the BR address

– Recent 3-month mobile phone bill of WeChat operator (The same person who provided the ID)

– Company shareholder information (this is to comply with the national KYC practice for anti- money-laundering)

As you can see this is quite extensive. Reviewing all of this and ensuring everything lines up properly can take quite a lot of time. 

 

Do take note that, as of early 2018, The WeChat admin team announced the maximum number of WeChat official accounts able to be registered by an individual had been reduced from 5 to 2. For companies and organizations, the number of WeChat official accounts per business license has also been reduced from 50 to 5. It is extremely important to stay up to date with the latest regulations on WeChat.

Resource from : https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/beginner-guide-wechat-for-business/