As an important growth engine, search is a battleground for soldiers.
On December 11th, WeChat officially announced that WeChat search was officially upgraded to “WeChat Search and Search”, and continued to increase the search. In addition to the brand upgrade, WeChat Souyisou also revealed two new services, which are launched around “brand owners”.
First, brand owners can download the new “WeChat search and search” visual materials on the WeChat public platform, including search box styles of different colors and shapes, which can be embedded in brand promotion pages of different styles, offline and offline. Promote simultaneously under the channel.
WeChat search one of the visual materials
Secondly, WeChat Souyisou’s front-end display solution in the official area of the brand provides three options for brand owners. A plan contains 5 top keywords and a front-end display style that adds high-definition pictures to highlight the brand sense; B plan keywords are reduced to 3, and the search results include applets, public accounts, services, and products; C plan You can set the full name of the public account as the search top keyword.
Sample example of brand A area plan
WeChat search function since June 2014Appeared as an independent portal, initially only supporting the search and chat function ; In September 2014, WeChat search supported the search for public account articles, etc., and began trying content distribution; In May 2017, WeChat added “Look at” and ” Souyisou “two main entrances; in September 2017, it supports search and find applets; in April 2018, it accesses Sogou, Zhihu, WeChat and other in-app content.
At present, users can actively obtain more than 20 kinds of information and services such as public numbers, applets, games, encyclopedias, and medical consultations through search keywords. On the search portal, in addition to the most obvious WeChat conversation window, there is a hidden entry on the search page, “ Long press to select a paragraph of text when browsing public account articles or H5 pages, The “Search a search” option will also appear.
Super traffic + content ecology is the premise of WeChat search. Starting from the public account, WeChat opened traffic resources to content creators and established its own content ecology. In addition, WeChat Souyisou synchronized access to external platform content such as ZAKER, Zhihu, Ma honeycomb, sugar paper, Douban, etc., to improve the content ecology.
If we say that content search is the connection of information, plus WeChat payment and applets, we have completed the connection between users and a large number of services.
From information to service, from on-site search to off-site search, every small function point of “WeChat search and search” is expanding the boundaries of search, whether it is the boundary of information / service types, or the inside to the outside of the site. Search engine boundaries.
The public visual upgrade of the “brand owner” materials and the upgrade of the official area of the brand are intended to compete for brand owners. It is conceivable that the cost of the brand owner’s investment will also be cut in WeChat, Baidu, Toutiao and other platform ecosystems.
Creating business value through content distribution is the business logic of search engine Baidu. Baidu’s first-mover advantage is the user’s perception of its “search engine”, while WeChat and Byte Beat chose a similar path in the search business-first do their own content search, then do the whole network search. But without exception, the “close to money” search business is an important growth engine for major platforms, and it is a battle for soldiers.
From the PC era to the mobile Internet era, search is also changing. When major apps indirectly block the flow of information, the WeChat public account, headline account, and Baijia account form a differentiated search source through self-built content ecology. The search method is not limited to text search, voice search, expression search and other forms coexist, and strengthen the role of search as a “connection” channel.
Technology is evolving, and the future form of search engines is likely to be “conversational”. The extension of every detail function is advancing the user-side experience and greater business possibilities on the platform side.