A new way for Filipinos to connect on social media launched
Poshu Yeung, vice president of International Business, Tencent, and host Rizza Diaz at the recent Philippine launch of WeChat, considered one of the world’s most popular social media communication apps. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – The war of the mobile social communication applications in the country heats up as what is considered one of the world’s most popular social media communication apps was officially launched in the Philippines.
With over 300 million registered user accounts worldwide, WeChat is set to change the way social-media-savvy Filipinos communicate with friends, family and people from all over the world.
“Whether it is the desire of Filipinos to create their own profile, share photos or engage in live chats over audio or video, they can now enjoy all these features in one integrated mobile social app. Everything you need is on WeChat and it is free!” said Poshu Yeung, Vice President of International Business, Tencent.
“The Philippines is a very important market for WeChat in Southeast Asia. In a country dubbed ‘the texting capital of the world’, WeChat is destined for the spotlight. We are now launching a series of brand engagements to reach as many Filipinos as possible, so that they are aware of this new, creative and free medium to express themselves, communicate with one another, and connect with the world,” he added.
Young celebrities Iya Villania and Drew Arellano, brand ambassadors for WeChat, spoke on the virtues of WeChat’s new and exciting features in a press conference officially launching the popular application to the Philippine market.
“I think it’s amazing how WeChat makes it fun and easy not just to stay connected but to find and make new friends. With the feature called ‘Look Around’, WeChat locates other WeChat users in your area so that you can simply send them a message. And to make it twice as fun, you can use emoticons, send voice messages, video chat.”
Villania said: “We Filipinos love to share photos. Often, what we share with others is a reflection of how we feel at that particular point in time, and are expressions of our individuality. This is the reason I love WeChat’s ‘Moments’ feature which allows me to share photos, posts and online stories so easily from my mobile onto my social networking sites.”
“WeChat’s is our first commercial as a couple and we are so happy to be doing this for the brand,” said Villania of the brand’s new television commercial, revealed at the launch. “Download WeChat now and you can see yourselves how easy and fun it is to use.”
A Newer, More Fun and Safer Way to Connect to the World
Young celebrity couple Iya Villania and Drew Arellano, WeChat ambassadors, discuss how the “Moments” feature allows the sharing of photos and posts easily from mobile onto social networking sites. With them are Poshu Yeung, vice president of International Business, Tencent, and host Rizza Diaz. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Designed for users to easily chat with friends or to connect with people from all around the world, the application enables users to add friends through various methods including, scanning QR codes, connecting via phone books and activating location-based functions such as “Look Around” and “Shake”.
WeChat also comes with its very own social network for one’s selected circle of friends called “Moments” It gives users the ability to share pictures, comments and URL links with close and trusted friends. To safeguard privacy to users, only friend are granted permission to connect and view the photos and comments posted.
For users who would prefer to speak “face-to-face” with friends, WeChat offers a real time Video Chat function. And thanks to WeChat’s network efficiency feature, users can switch between voice and video dynamically without finishing the call. The safeguard privacy of Moments, also extends to this feature.
Against the backdrop of security and privacy concerns on social media, these measures leave users with a peace of mind, and ensure that users are sharing and interacting only with those they wish to be in contact with.
A WeChat feature that is bound to pique the interest of Filipinos is the ability to personalize emoticons. Filipinos are known to be very expressive and this app is the perfect fit to do so. To many, emoticons are as essential to social conversation as acronyms. And with WeChat, users are able to either download unique emoticons from its vast online portfolio or choose to create personalized ones with photos from the albums on their very own devices.
WeChat is now available for download on iOS, Android, Symbian, BlackBerry and Windows Phone smartphones and remains the most downloaded mobile social app on iOS and Android smartphones in many Asian countries including Indonesia and Malaysia.
