WeChat's "Little Red Book" is here?!

Recently, WeChat official accounts have caused heated discussions among official account creators and operators because they only display large cover images to frequently read and starred users, while other users only display small cover images. Everyone is discussing that it is too difficult to do "pictures and texts" on WeChat now! Today, WeChat Pai uses a new update method: the content theme is no longer an article, but a short content combining pictures and texts, that is, "notes", which is quite similar to Xiaohongshu. Compared with official accounts, this kind of content is shorter and has a lower threshold for creation, which can attract mass users UGC. What impact will it have on long text creators?

Yesterday, WeChat’s official public account “WeChat Pie” posted a tweet: “Today, let’s meet in a different way.”

Although it is also published on a public account, the content format of "picture + short text" is completely different from the common public account tweets: the content theme is no longer an article, but a short content combining pictures and text, that is, "notes".

Many netizens' first impression was: Isn't this too similar to Xiaohongshu Notes? Some netizens even said, isn't this just "Xiaoweishu"?

In fact, this revision occurred as early as August 2022, when the WeChat official account upgraded the picture message section, and from the content interface, it was somewhat similar to Xiaohongshu Notes.

The latest layout of WeChat Pie push has strengthened the interactive module, and the overall look is more like Xiaohongshu notes.

Many users think that the new content layout makes them more likely to comment. As users’ attention is increasingly fragmented, content is becoming shorter and shorter, whether it is video or text. The former has made Douyin and Kuaishou rise strongly, and WeChat has pushed video accounts to catch up; the latter has made Xiaohongshu replace Weibo as the most popular short content community. Xiaohongshu has weaker media attributes and stronger community attributes, and its content is more life-oriented and has more female users, so it is closer to money.

Xiaohongshu's "filtered and distorted" content has been widely criticized, but this has not affected its status as one of the fastest-growing content platforms. In 2021, Xiaohongshu's monthly active users exceeded 200 million, and its market value once reached US$20 billion. Current news claims that its market value has been halved to US$10 billion, but with the success of its video strategy and the effects of its deep cultivation in niche areas such as tourism and food, Xiaohongshu's future is still "infinitely bright."

Tencent is one of the shareholders of Xiaohongshu, but this does not affect the layout of its business itself, just like it is a shareholder of Kuaishou but still focuses on short videos. It is not impossible for WeChat to embed a "Xiaoweishu" similar to Xiaohongshu in its ecosystem, especially at the moment, this matter is more important to WeChat.

As early as January 2020, Zhang Xiaolong talked about the importance of "short content" at the WeChat Open Class Pro. He said:

“The original idea of ​​the public platform is to replace SMS and become a mass messaging tool based on connecting brands and subscribers, and effectively avoid spam SMS. The content of the mass messaging is not the focus, and all kinds of content should be acceptable, such as text, pictures, videos, etc.”

It was just a coincidence that WeChat "accidentally" turned the official account into a platform with articles as the content carrier. But this was just the beginning, not the end. Zhang Xiaolong said at the time that he attached great importance to "content that everyone can create," or UGC content. In addition to Moments, WeChat also "lacked a carrier that everyone can create, because we can't require everyone to write articles every day." So, we saw the video account, and we will definitely see a note-taking product like "Little Red Book", which is in line with Zhang Xiaolong's judgment that "the threshold for creating photos is lower than that of text."

Judging from the high-profile announcement of "changing the way" by the WeChat group, WeChat is incubating a life content community similar to Xiaohongshu on the platform. This community is based on the public account system and has evolved from the previous "picture" messages. Compared with public accounts, this kind of content is shorter, the creation threshold is lower, and it can attract mass users' UGC. The interaction threshold is lower and it is more community-oriented. Compared with the short content in the circle of friends, the biggest feature of WeChat's "small micro book" is that it is open to the public, that is, everyone can create and everyone can read.

What is completely certain is that in the future WeChat will further integrate such short content with video accounts, just like the picture and text notes and video notes in Xiaohongshu.

One point that needs to be emphasized in particular is that WeChat has not yet officially launched a separate platform such as "Xiaoweishu", which is in line with WeChat's consistent concept of "growing" new products as products continue to evolve.

According to Lei Technology, current creators are mainly concerned about the traffic allocation mechanism and content distribution logic of short content such as official accounts. "Xiaohongshu is a content distribution model that combines algorithms with attention, which allows users to discover interesting life interests. If WeChat does not have a matching interest discovery and distribution mechanism, short content will also face the problem of traffic sources." Currently, WeChat is strengthening the presence of algorithms in the content system. Frequent official account revisions and the emphasis on decentralized distribution channels such as SouYiSou and KanYiSou are constantly disrupting the original traffic distribution logic. Strengthening short content also means that WeChat will pay more attention to algorithm distribution.

In addition, some creators complained about the shortcomings of short content on public accounts: there is no powerful creation client for creators. The "Subscription Account Assistant" for public account creators is not convenient for creation. "What era is it now? Users are still required to upload pictures on the PC background? This is too unfamiliar to young creators on Xiaohongshu." Therefore, if WeChat wants to strengthen UGC content, it must also provide a more low-threshold, efficient and convenient creation tool.

If WeChat is really determined to create a "Little Red Book" on the platform, it will undoubtedly have a huge impact on Little Red Book, because the users and creators of the latter are essentially a subset of WeChat users. Users only need a "Little Red Book" platform, and people who use Little Red Book do not need Dianping, Mafengwo, or even search engines. Similarly, if users can see similar "life notes" on WeChat, they probably won't need Little Red Book.

Not only Xiaohongshu is hurt, but also the creators of the public accounts.

WeChat users have limited attention span. Introducing more content to divide their attention will inevitably impact original content creators, especially long content creators such as articles. As WeChat pays more attention to multimedia content such as video accounts, the original content system of public accounts is being destroyed, and many creators are reporting the problem of declining image and text traffic. When WeChat pays more attention to algorithm distribution, public account owners are still facing the problem of "uncertain distribution and unstable traffic". Many public account operators have complained that "it is becoming more and more difficult to do WeChat."

According to Lei Technology, in the unofficial public account transfer transaction ecosystem, the estimated value of a public account's real fans has dropped from several yuan in previous years to 20 or 30 cents each. This also shows that the public account ecosystem is in poor condition.

From WeChat's perspective, all these actions are completely reasonable.

WeChat is a product with more than 10 years of history. Official accounts were launched in August 2012, and have been on the market for 10 years. It has set off a revolution in content distribution and set off a wave of self-media, but it is now facing the problem of being too big to fail. The introduction of video accounts has also set off a catfish effect in the entire content ecology. Compared with the "loss" of the weak official account ecology, WeChat's "gain" in the field of short videos is obviously much more valuable.

The essence of breaking stability is to step out of the comfort zone. The process of WeChat seeking change is also to reshape itself. For it, as long as and only if creators continue to update and replace, the entire content ecosystem can maintain long-term vitality. As for whether the creators are the original wave of creators, it is not important.

The Yangtze River's waves behind push the waves ahead, and the waves ahead die on the beach. This is a natural law, and it is also a problem that all platforms and all creators will face. The platform is permanent, but the creators are changing. No platform can guarantee you wealth and prosperity for life. "Making plans early" is probably the only solution. What do you think?

Editor: Luo Chao Channel; Layout: KT

Source public account: Lei Technology (ID: leitech), focusing on technology and life.