Official accounts suddenly upgraded their “publish” function. Has WeChat come to its senses?

Recently, the official account was updated again, announcing that the previous two functions of "mass send" and "publish" were officially merged into "publish". So, what impact will the emergence of "publish" have on operators? Why are official accounts updated frequently recently? What are the considerations behind it? Let's take a look at the author's analysis.

Jam Girl never expected that the public account, which has been asked "Are you still making money" in recent years, has been updated so frequently that it seems like it has been injected with chicken blood.

Look, the publishing function, which has been tested and modified over and over again for several weeks, has been modified again.

The words "The original group messaging and publishing functions of the official account have been upgraded to 'publish'" are clearly written on the backend homepage, reminding operators that it is time for a new adaptation period.

The publishing method of "Mass Notification" is the same as the original mass notification. After publishing, it will be displayed in the subscription account message list and the public account homepage, and the number of notifications is the same as the original mass notification. The publishing method of not enabling mass notification is the same as the original publishing capability, with no limit on the number of times. After publishing, it will be displayed on the public account homepage and may be recommended by the platform. The corresponding function of the Subscription Account Assistant App needs to be upgraded to version 2.18.5 and above.

Although it was just a small change to the push button, it broke everyone's operating habits over the years.

1. The "Publish" function is finally here

In recent times, the official account has been repeatedly struggling with the push-related functions, and now it is probably time to finally make the final decision.

Late last night, the official account backend received a "Notice on Upgrading the Publishing Function" from the WeChat team, announcing that the previous "Group Send" and "Publish" functions were officially merged into "Publish".

After the function upgrade, you can choose whether to enable group notification when "publishing" an article:

• If you choose to enable it, the publishing function will be equivalent to the original group messaging function. The article will be displayed in the information flow and account homepage, and the number of times it can be used per day is the same as the original group messaging number;

• If you choose not to enable it, the publishing function is equivalent to the original publishing function. The article will only be displayed on the account homepage. It may be recommended by the platform, and there is no limit on the number of publications.

Specific operation -

1) To send articles to a group as before so that users can receive push notifications: click the "Publish" button in the lower right corner of the editing page - click the "Mass Notification" switch - click the "Publish" button below the pop-up window.

The "Scheduled Publication" turned on on this page is a mass-message schedule. The scheduled publication content will be pushed to users on the account history message page and displayed in the information flow and account homepage.

2) To use the original publishing function, the steps are: click the "Publish" button in the lower right corner of the editing page - confirm that the "Mass Notification" switch is not turned on - click the "Publish" button below the pop-up window.

The "Scheduled Publication" turned on on this page is the publishing schedule. The scheduled published content will not be pushed to users and will only be displayed on the account homepage.

Note that when the switch for group notification turns green, it is turned on. You can also confirm it through the small text at the bottom of the pop-up window "Group notification is turned on/not turned on for the currently published content" to avoid accidentally wasting the number of group messages for the day or the content failing to successfully reach users.

After some experience, I feel that WeChat listens to advice, but not much.

WeChat probably thought that since everyone finds it difficult to distinguish between group messaging and publishing, they should merge them and only use whether the notification is a group message to distinguish them. But in fact, what account owners need is to add a switch to display the message on the account homepage in addition to the publishing function...

Furthermore, this update has complicated the originally simple push function. There is one more step to post content than before, and you have to repeatedly confirm whether it is a mass message or a published message.

Internet products can discourage a group of people by just one extra step, but it seems that official accounts are not afraid of that at all.

2. Is WeChat striving for KPI, or has it let go?

The recent update frequency of the official account makes it hard not to smell some changes.

First, it bet on the "little green book" of picture messages, then gave ordinary users the opportunity to speak in a different identity, and then provided a display window and traffic entrance for the publishing function. This time, it directly put the publishing function and the group messaging function together, once again emphasizing the status of the publishing function to the account owners.

Looking at these updates step by step, WeChat is obviously playing a big game, and the main task may be to activate the traffic pool of public accounts.

If we move the timeline forward a little further, there is a function that looks small but has been repeatedly complained about by many operators and may also be on this chessboard - the crossing function .

The underline feature has been in internal testing on iOS since December last year, and was finally fully covered some time ago.

Users only need to long press the text of the official account article and select "underline" in the pop-up function button to mark the article content.

Click on the underlined content and select "Forward" in the pop-up function button. The underlined content will be sent as a picture. There will be "Read original text" under the picture. Click to view the content of the shared article.

To be honest, this sharing method is very suitable for sharing article content in the form of pictures, and has positive significance in article dissemination, private domain operations, etc.

On the other hand, the underline is visible to all users, which does affect the original layout aesthetics. However, this "visibility" does not open up the communication function between accounts and users or between users, which inevitably makes people wonder, what is the use of this underlined content?

However, if we combine the underline function with recent updates, we have a bold guess - is WeChat going to take the "content community" route?

Here is a brief summary of the roles played by these updates:

• The underlining function represents a kind of interactive enthusiasm. Although communication is impossible, when you see that other people have underlined the content that you feel touched by and want to mark, the sense of resonance that arises spontaneously is very similar to when you go to the library to borrow a book and accidentally see that the page you like has a bookmark left by someone else.
• Giving users the freedom to change their identities when leaving messages is intended to increase user activity, reduce restrictions, connect various carriers within the platform, open them up and then feed back, so that traffic can flow in both directions.
• The continuous upgrading of the "Little Green Book" and publishing functions not only demonstrates its attitude of supporting short, flat and fast content, but also helps account owners to publish more content, enrich the entire content ecosystem, and increase opportunities for interaction with fans. This is actually in line with WeChat's original positioning of public accounts.

Putting these together, isn’t this the most common “content community” in the early days of the Internet?

Baidu Encyclopedia defines content communities as: various online communities that are content-based and have enhanced interactive sharing and interaction functions.

Enriching content and strengthening interaction are what the official accounts are doing now. In the final analysis, it is still to change the current stagnation and revitalize traffic.

So, how can we take advantage of this opportunity?

As mentioned in the previous article, some short and quick content can be displayed on the homepage using the publishing function. In addition, there are more ways to operate. For example, in the past, some user interactive questionnaires, material collection and other content always did not want to occupy the number of group messages on the same day, so they had to be pushed on weekends. Now, users can be guided to the account homepage to view the published interactive topics through group messages.

Information flow and subscription mechanisms have been in parallel for so many years. Information flow is the general trend, and subscription is the last stubbornness. However, this wavering attitude of wanting both has caused the public account content to fall into a dilemma of not being able to please both sides. Now WeChat is trying to jump out of the tangle of the two and take a new path.

Of course, the final effect will take time to verify. Although these changes have repeatedly made a splash on the creator side, ordinary users may not feel it deeply during use.

For ordinary users, content is still the highest standard for retaining them. For us creators, this is also an important factor for continued survival and development. WeChat's fancy updates are just a supporting role.

Author: Chen Chumu

Source public account: Weiguojiang (ID: wjam123456), focusing on the forefront of new media and insights into new consumer fields.