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any change in wechat will invisibly affect many people. in august 2013, wechat version 5.0 folded wechat public accounts, and all subscription account-related content was folded into "subscription accounts", which made many wechat public account creators wail. wouldn't the traffic be cut in half after the folding? but for hundreds of millions of users, they finally don't have to hear the "ding ding ding" wechat notification sound frequently.

in this version, wechat divides public accounts into subscription accounts and service accounts. subscription accounts are folded, but service accounts are not folded. the number of posts for a single account is limited to 4 times per month, which greatly reduces the frequency of information harassment from service accounts to users.

in the past year, wechat subscription accounts have completely broken the restriction that zhang xiaolong once mentioned that "subscription accounts do not provide information flow", and public accounts have moved towards personalized recommendations. wechat's approach has once again invisibly changed the survival mode of a large number of wechat public account creators.creators can choose to "not turn on" the platform recommendation button when publishing pictures and texts to fight against wechat's algorithm. however, as long as you pay attention to traffic and want more people to see your content, "turning on" platform recommendation is undoubtedly the most appropriate. even the button itself is turned on by default.。

according to guo jing's observation of the internet circle, wechat service accounts have also begun to fold recently. the content published by the service accounts will be folded into the "service account". above are the conversation messages between the service accounts and users, displayed in the "notification" channel, and below is the list of service accounts that the user follows.

users can click the portrait icon in the upper right corner to view the "service accounts i follow". the settings button can turn on/off the "personalized recommendations for service account content". the system prompts "after turning it on, you will receive recommended content in the service account that is more in line with your personal preferences." this button is also turned on by default.

the "take a look" list below the service account is mainly composed of "picture messages". this function was launched in february 2023 and is very similar to xiaohongshu. some netizens joked that the service account should simply be renamed "little green book".

similar to the personalized recommendation route of wechat subscription accounts, the impact of the folding of service accounts is obviously huge. for merchants, it will inevitably be a cry of grief, but for users, it will be a cheer.

no one is watching

the folding of subscription accounts has had a drastic impact on wechat public account creators, that is, the strong will always be strong, and the weak will always be weak. the fans and traffic of the top large accounts are getting higher and higher, while the small authors at the tail end have almost no chance of making a breakthrough. constrained by the small fan base, even if your content is good, it is difficult to gain traffic and influence.

after wechat public accounts started personalized recommendations, small and medium-sized creators were reborn. even if you only have a few hundred fans, you still have the opportunity to reach 100,000+. the personalized recommendations of wechat public accounts are a reshuffle of the entire traffic pool, and anyone can enjoy the opportunity to be flooded with traffic.

the reason why wechat subscription accounts broke zhang xiaolong's "established rules" and took the personalized recommendation route is largely related to changes in the industry.

on the one hand, more and more content platforms are beginning to compete with wechat official accounts for creators. the content on wechat official accounts can also be seen on other platforms. in the past, creators would use wechat official accounts as the main content distribution channel, but with the "encouragement" of other platforms, creators have long begun to adopt the "one source of water for the world" model and distribute content across the entire network.

on the other hand, the traffic of wechat public accounts has declined. the traffic generated by the subscription distribution model is very limited. as users' cognition and knowledge system change, their recognition of wechat public account creators is not that high. in addition, users will get bored after reading the content of one person for a long time, which leads to a lower and lower opening rate of wechat public accounts.

therefore, if you want to re-stimulate the traffic pool of the entire wechat official account, personalized recommendations are an inevitable step. wechat official accounts are the last content platform to adopt personalized recommendations, and other platforms have already done so.

nowadays, the impact of the folding of service accounts on businesses is that even fewer people read their content. the advantage of service accounts in the past was that they were not folded into a certain list, but when new messages were pushed, they would be in the same list with other communication messages. even so, the opening rate of service accounts is still not high, and users sometimes close them quickly even if they accidentally open them.

subscription accounts generally contain mainly self-media content and news content. after the wechat subscription account added the "quick news" function, the role of the subscription account has been greatly enhanced. users are easily attracted by the "quick news" in the subscription account. once users open this channel, it is certainly impossible for them to read only one message. the content of other subscription accounts also increases the exposure opportunities.

the content of service accounts is generally less important than that of subscription accounts, which means that users may click on subscription accounts to read content, but rarely click on service accounts. wechat's purpose in doing this is still to play the platform game and make "service accounts" the content distribution center, but the traffic of merchants will obviously be affected.

according to guo jing's observations in the internet circle, after the service account is folded, only the first of the multiple pieces of content released by the operator will be displayed in the service account, and the following pieces of content will not be visible unless the user clicks on the account. this means that only the traffic of the headline will be high, and the traffic of the second, third, and fourth pieces will drop significantly.

if there is no traffic, will merchants still find ways to operate service accounts?merchants are at a crossroads again in choosing between service accounts and subscription accounts. i think the best result may be to directly operate the subscription account, and then link the relevant services directly to the mini program. the link to the mini program can be placed at the bottom of the subscription account. this is simple and convenient. the subscription account can also publish once a day, and if the title and content are properly operated, there is a chance of 100,000+.

user applauds

looking back at the subscription account collapse in 2013, although the creators were upset, the users were undoubtedly the beneficiaries. i know that many people usually follow two or three hundred wechat subscription accounts, and some netizens say that the upper limit is around 1,000. if the subscription accounts were not collapsed, then the push notifications from these hundreds of subscription accounts would keep the phone ringing non-stop every day, and this user experience would obviously be very unpleasant. subscription account collapse has greatly reduced the information harassment of users by account content.

the folding of service accounts also reduces the information harassment of service account messages to users. in addition, the newly added "service accounts i follow" function of "service accounts" allows users to check the number of service accounts they follow with one click, and for some accounts that are not frequently used, they can be directly cleared.

as a super app, wechat carries more and more things. therefore, some users say that wechat is becoming more and more bloated. the folding of service accounts has alleviated the bloated feeling to a certain extent. no wonder users applaud it.

zhang xiaolong once said: "every day, 500 million people complain about wechat, 100 million people teach me how to make products, and 800 million people say they don't understand."

indeed, with such a huge user base, every update of wechat seems to cause dissatisfaction among some users. the folding of service accounts also caused dissatisfaction among users. some users found that they could not find the content of a certain service account. therefore, there are even tutorials on how to fold service accounts online.

wechat folds its service accounts, apparently from the perspective of user experience, to reduce the frequency of nuisance message pushes on service accounts. but for businesses, it means they need to change their marketing strategies.

in fact, for current merchants, there are too many marketing platforms to choose from.in addition to subscription accounts and service accounts, short videos and live broadcasts that are popular on the entire internet have long attracted the attention of countless businesses. in addition to various mini-programs and vertical platforms such as dianping, ctrip, and maps, businesses are too distracted to do a good job of marketing online. before the store is even opened, they need to find ways to market on various platforms, and the cost of building an account, operating it, and pushing traffic is not low.。

however, the service account folding function is still in the testing phase. some accounts have the function, while others do not. the situation is also different for android and ios. do you think the service account folding function is a good thing or a bad thing?