It is so inconvenient to fold the service account messages. How to move them out? More than 4,000 words to explain it all at once!

Recently, when using WeChat, you can clearly feel that there are fewer notifications and messages, but you can't tell what's wrong for a while - later you suddenly realize that the service account has been folded! The service account was suddenly folded, and everyone is still not used to it. Some people find it very inconvenient, and many people complain about the restoration. Today I will share with you a few tips to make your service account convenient again!

Recently, many people have left us messages in the background, asking me to talk about the issue of service account messages being folded .

Indeed, from the current point of view, the folding of service account messages is in internal testing. Some of our employees have been folded, and some have not. It seems that everyone is very concerned about this matter! As a veteran who has been working in the public account world for 11 years, today I will talk to you about this matter from the following 5 aspects.

• The style of the service account message after being folded
• Why are service account messages folded?
• The impact of service account message folding on different people
• 3 solutions to the problem of service account messages being folded
• 4 favorable opportunities and precautions for public accounts at present

1. The style of service account messages after being folded

The collapsed WeChat friend conversation list page

As you can see in the screenshot above, the service account template message becomes a notification pinned to the top, appearing as N red notifications. Even if there are new service account tweets, they will not cover the notifications. The overall layout after folding is also similar to that of the subscription account.

The inner page of the service account after folding

Among them, the top is the "My Attention" section, the middle is a separate "Notification" message section, and the service account information flow display is below. From the overall layout, the interface of the service account looks a lot fresher after the revision. However, many netizens also reported that the service account has become very useless after the revision, and they want to give up directly.

Many merchants and operators complained about the revision

Why do many businesses and operators complain? Previously, when the service account was upgraded to the default message do not disturb mode, it had an impact on everyone, but at least it was still displayed in the message list like chat messages, which could still be a very eye-catching reminder to users.

The friend conversation list page before folding (service accounts and WeChat friends are listed side by side)

2. Why are service account messages folded?

As an experienced operator of public accounts for 11 years, I have led many articles with more than 100,000 views, and later started my own business. I have served hundreds of brands and enterprises in the public account operation business. What I want to tell you is that I don’t know if you have noticed that the value of service accounts is actually getting lower and lower.

For a long time, the WeChat public account platform has been divided into two categories: subscription accounts and service accounts. The former focuses on content creation and sharing; while the latter mainly serves businesses.

As shown in the picture above, this is the difference between a subscription account and a service account, but after the message is folded, the advantage I drew the red line is gone. After the message is folded, it becomes similar to a subscription account.

In terms of content publishing frequency, subscription accounts can post once a day, and service accounts can only post 4 times a month, but these 4 times will be strongly reminded in the friend display list. 4 strong reminders per month means that even if you post advertisements and junk content, you will have a good open rate.

The lower the opening rate of subscription accounts, the stronger the advantage of service accounts in this regard, and the more spam content there will be. But now that service account messages have been folded, this advantage is gone.

Another advantage of service accounts is that they have the permission to push template messages, which can ensure timely notification of messages. The initial positioning of template messages is to push event nodes to users, such as hospital appointment reminders, logistics information, course progress, phone recharge, bank payment, etc.

However, template messages are the most abused feature of service accounts, and there have always been functions on the market that maliciously harass users by sending group messages through template messages. Now that service account messages have been folded, this advantage is gone.

In the past, these message notifications would remind us directly in the friend chat list. For example, I am now learning English and Japanese on the Duolingo app every day, so every day I will receive a reminder of my course progress from the Duolingo service account in my friend list, which is very eye-catching.

But after the message is folded, I can no longer receive message notifications in my friend list. If I want to find these notifications, I have to open the service account folder and then find them one by one in the notifications. As shown in the figure below, I have to find these notifications one by one.

From the perspective of development capabilities, compared to subscription accounts, service accounts have the ability to obtain advanced permissions such as openid, but in terms of services, they are far behind mini programs. In other words, compared with subscription accounts and mini programs, service accounts only have the ability to provide strong reminders and timely notifications.

However, this strong reminder and timely message notification capability is exactly what WeChat hates the most, which is "excessive harassment" of users. As a social platform with billions of users (according to Tencent's first quarter 2024 financial report data, the combined monthly active accounts of WeChat and WeChat have reached an astonishing 1.359 billion, covering more than 200 countries and regions around the world), WeChat has always been committed to improving user experience.

Folding service accounts can reduce the redundancy of the homepage information flow, allowing users to focus more on communicating with friends and browsing personal dynamics. For service accounts that are not frequently visited, this folding method also avoids frequent interruptions.

3. The impact of service account message folding on different people

From an official perspective, this revision can minimize interference to ordinary users. However, for most businesses and some users, the service account has become useless after the revision. For example, service account notifications related to express delivery, hospitals, banks, and courses now need to be manually searched, and sometimes key messages are missed.

1. For those who are accustomed to receiving public account and service account message push directly in the message list.

The folding of the service account undoubtedly increases the operating cost. You need to manually expand the folded window to view the message notification of the service account, which undoubtedly reduces the efficiency of information acquisition.

If the message is folded, people will not be able to receive it in time. Many people are worried about missing out on important information. After all, everyone is busy nowadays, who has time to look through that folded corner every day?

2. For most businesses and operators, this is a bolt from the blue! Once users no longer see frequent messages from the service account, but a bunch of folded messages piled together, the content opening rate will plummet. This means that the marketing or promotion effect is worse than before. The company itself has little traffic on the official account, so the number of readers in the future can be imagined.

IV. Three solutions to service account message folding

The folding of service account messages is still in internal testing. Some of our employees have had their messages folded, while others have not.

If the service account is collapsed, you can try the following methods!

4.1 WeChat version upgrade I saw some friends asking how to get the folded service account back? It is said that WeChat was updated and then it was no longer folded, from 8.49 to 8.50, which is in WeChat - Me - About WeChat - Version Update. You can try it.

If this doesn't work, you can try downloading the previous version of WeChat installation package from the official WeChat website. Install it directly after downloading, and it will directly overwrite your current WeChat version, and the chat history will not be affected. After restoring, remember to set it not to update automatically.

4.2 Migrate service account to subscription account Service account can be migrated to subscription account. If the official finally decides to fully open the function of folding service account messages, then for most ordinary enterprises, the value of service account will become increasingly useless. Then you can consider migrating service account to subscription account, at least you can increase the amount of posts to get more traffic through content.

4.3 If you can't get the official feedback , you can go to the WeChat Developer Community and try to give feedback to the WeChat development team. If more people give feedback, maybe the official will consider everyone's opinions. Currently, many people have given feedback. These are as follows.

5. Some favorable opportunities for WeChat Official Accounts

As a public account operator with 11 years of experience, he has led many articles with over 100,000 views. Later, he started his own business. He has served hundreds of brands and companies in the public account operation business.

I also want to share with you some favorable opportunities for official accounts this year.

5.1 Official Accounts began internal testing of the "Content Boosting" function

"Content boosting" is currently an incentive action for small and medium-sized original creators, led by the platform, and is not a fully commercial paid promotion capability. Only high-quality original content from small and medium-sized creators with a certain timeliness and that has passed the platform's review can be promoted.

It is understood that the WeChat platform will allocate different "boosting quotas" based on the creative situation of small and medium-sized authors, such as whether they continue to produce original content and the popularity of the content, and then the creators will initiate boosting in the background to achieve boosting exposure. WeChat officials specifically mentioned: "Content with clear and complete titles, originality, and more interactive content will have the opportunity to receive more boosts."

Moreover, there is an upper limit to the boost of a single content. Currently, a single content supports multiple exposure incentives, and the upper limit of a single exposure is temporarily 5,000. A piece of content can only be successfully boosted once. The boosting duration is 24 hours after the successful start of the boosting. The boosting will be stopped if it times out or the content status is abnormal.

The amount of boosted exposure may not be fully used. WeChat officials said that the actual boost results are limited by the quality of content and distribution efficiency, and it is possible that the exposure quota is not fully consumed. The many restrictions also reflect WeChat's cautiousness in opening up traffic.

Faced with the "content boost", public account practitioners have mixed feelings. Some say "it's too late, but it's finally here", while others say after a preliminary trial that "the current user recommendation tags are not accurate enough". However, considering that it is still in the grayscale testing stage, it is still difficult to make a final conclusion on the actual effect.

5.2 WeChat public account titles can be modified

Just now, WeChat officially announced that the title can be modified. From now on, everyone can avoid the pain of having to delete the article and repost it because of a typo.

I have sorted out the specific rules for modifying the title of a public account.

• The title supports modifications within 3 words, including deletion and replacement.
• After the modification is successful, "Title modified" will be marked at the beginning of the article.
• In which scenarios will users see the modified title? The modified title will be effective on article pages, public account homepages, and newly received sharing cards.
• Can the title of all types of content be changed? Currently, picture messages and picture and text messages can be modified.

5.3 WeChat public account message function is fully reopened

The WeChat public account message function is open again. Currently, 90% of our own and our partners' more than 30 accounts have already obtained the message function. Including the account we are sharing now, the message function was opened on March 11.

Starting from February 12, 2018, in accordance with the requirements of national regulatory authorities, newly registered WeChat public accounts will no longer be able to enable the message function.

After the message function was shut down, public accounts that already had the message function became a scarce resource. The only way to enable it was to migrate it, and the market price was generally several thousand yuan.

Author: Nan Zebei WeChat public account: Nan Zebei