Abstract

Nowadays more and more advertisers notice the importance of doing business with WeChat official accounts in order to acquire new customers and maintain relationships with current customers. This study firstly focuses on the perspective that a information promotional campaign’s effects can be explained through the social context of WeChat; secondly, it explores whether the strength of social relations between senders and receivers of WeChat in a viral marketing campaign influences the campaign’s persuasiveness, users’ behavioral responses and how far the campaign can spread.

In order to answer these questions, this study primarily describes the use of Activity Theory framework and the AISDALSLove model （Attention, Interest, Search, Desire, Action, Like/dislike, Share, Love/hate Model） to explore new features of WeChat as a platform for advertising. Next, the study also investigates the ways that information promoters adapt WeChat official accounts for viral marketing, and, in turn, how such a strategy modifies the types of advertising. To do so, it qualitatively analyzes the implications of two cases in which information promoters adapted and appropriated WeChat official accounts to engage with their users. Moreover, a user-oriented survey has been conducted to measure the effect of social media advertising on WeChat official accounts, as well as to understand users’ attitudes and behavior towards brands, products and services and, in turn, guide information promoters to decide what strategies should be applied at every stage in the AISDALSLove model.

The findings indicate that as a small-circle social media, WeChat official accounts serve as a distinguished platform for customer relationship building and maintenance. This platform possesses the semi-decentralized nature. Its activity system demonstrates a new form of division of labour — equal power distribution and the interlocking of three contexts: atmosphere, coordination and unified taste. In addition, the survey data reveals that participating in offline activity and pushing time are key factors for establishing a long-term loyal relationship between information promoters and WeChat users. This platform enables a four-step strategy: 1） identify more profitable segments of the users; 2） integrate online-to-offline activities; 3） cultivate a friendly atmosphere; and 4） create a sophisticated reconsolidation of customer relations.