Facebook Groups go private, copying WeChat - Ben Cavender

Ben Cavender

Facebook is struggling to remain relevant for its users and has a good look at China's WeChat where group interactions are more private than the chaotic mess Facebook offers. But business analyst Ben Cavender wonders if the Chinese approach works at Facebook, he tells the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

“Facebook has struggled to find ways for its users to feel that they have valuable ways to share and engage in interesting discussions with relevant groups of people versus the wider platform in recent years,” said Ben Cavender, a Shanghai-based analyst at China Market Research Group.

“They've seen just how popular WeChat has become as a platform for sharing within smaller, more private groups and realised that this is something that might work similarly well for them ... the challenge though is that in more mature markets like the US, consumer trust in the platform is very low.”

WeChat, developed by Tencent Holdings and with over a billion users, is heavily centred around the basic functions of messaging and social media. Moments, its social media space that Messenger’s new ‘close friends circle’ resembles, is open only to WeChat friends.

Compared to Facebook’s efforts to help users discover new groups by recommendation, WeChat employs a more hands-off process. Users can only join groups by invitation of an existing member, but the group can boost its visibility by sharing a QR code that works as a link to the group.

More at the South China Morning Post.

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