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fferent mobile platforms is possible. WeChat provides users an innovative way to communicate and interact with friends through text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, one-to- many messaging, photo/video sharing, location sharing, and con- tact information exchange

Fig. 1. Profile of WeChat official account.

With the advances in Internet connection and the popularity of smart phone, WeChat reached 355 million monthly active users at the end of 2013 and is available in over 200 countries and sup- ports 18 different languages (Tencent 2013 Fourth Quarter and Annual Results Announcement). The monthly active users refer to the total number of WeChat users sending out at least one mes- sage during the last calendar month prior to the relevant date (Tencent 2013 Fourth Quarter and Annual Results Announcement). Consumer activities in WeChat range from socializing with friends and entertaining to exchanging information and experiences regarding a product/service. WeChat is the most widely used social networking service in China and has become an important social media platform for computer-mediated communication (Gao& Zhang, 2013).
China’s use of social media is increasing faster than the rest of the world. Chinese consumers tend to consider products or ser- vices if they see them mentioned on a social media site. Because social media such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are blocked in China, WeChat is one that marketers could use to directly com- municate with their Chinese audience.

2.3 Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing has proved to be effective in archiving marketing goals. Social media pages provide marketers with useful information of individuals. The free online dating website OkCupid provided the data provider Lotame with information such as their users’ frequency of drinking, smoking and taking drugs (Mayer & Mitchell, 2012). As mobile Internet develop, it has become popular to share real time location on social media. Advertisers can make good use of such information to reach consumers with targeted adverts. It happens a lot in the tourism industry, such as car rental ads, city tour ads and so on (Pariser, 2011). The more marketers know about consumers’ physical activities, the more effective their marketing activities are going to be. That explains why marketers describe themselves as ‘ digitalanthropologists’, trying to find out how consumers live their lives via traces they leave online (Treffiletti, 2012).
Apart from providing valuable consumer information, social media works well as a platform to manage word of mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth refers to informal, oral and person-to-person communication among consumers about a brand, a service, a product or a company (Higie, Feick, & Price, 1987 ).Marketers spend huge efforts in managing word-of-mouth because positive word-of mouth benefits a product/service’s reputation and promotion without incurring additional promotion or advertising cost (Maxham, 2001). Some research results suggest that consumers are more willing to engage in word-of mouth in real life rather than word-of mouth on social media because of the social risks related to social media. Social media word-of-mouth happens within a group of people who are in close relationship with each other, such as family members and friends. Therefore, people tend to be more conservative in recommend