WeChat changed me into a social person!

Despite spending most of my career in digital creative departments, I honestly don't enjoy social media. It's a secret I find hard to admit to others. When I was young, if you wanted to record your innermost thoughts or daily events, everyone wrote in a diary. You could lock your diary and hide it somewhere. Now, people of every generation tweet their private thoughts and post them on social media for anyone to see. They want to get "likes." To me, that seemed very strange.

But that was before I encountered WeChat (Weixin in Chinese). It's fantastic free software for mobile. Lately, it seems like everyone in China uses it. Meet someone in Shanghai and you'll notice: no one asks for your phone number anymore. They ask, "Do you use WeChat?"

What's so great about it? WeChat was designed from the ground up to be used on mobile. So, of course, it's easy to use on mobile. With just this one app, you can do so many things. It's like the Swiss Army knife of social media.

Most people use it to send text and voice messages online. You can easily upload photos and share your best shots of the day with friends. Only people you're connected with on WeChat can see, read, or comment on your posts. No one can "follow" you without your approval. This makes the experience feel very intimate.

WeChat also has an excellent QR code reader. It has features like shaking your phone to see if anyone nearby is available to chat, and the ability to make payments at online shops. WeChat has strictly limited advertising. Since there are no ads within the app, advertisers cannot reach users on it.

WeChat is the first app born in China to achieve global success. An astonishing number of Chinese people already use it. People living outside China are also starting to catch up with WeChat. This intimate, fast, and incredibly easy-to-use app has finally brought me into the digital social network fold! (Supervised by Dentsu Inc. Aegis Network Business Bureau)