WeChat is a powerful tool that can be used to streamline one's daily life if set up purposefully. The document discusses tagging contacts by location, industry or interest to better organize messages and moments. It also recommends pinning important conversations, getting involved in relevant groups, and posting valuable updates on moments to strengthen relationships and stay top of mind with contacts. The overall goal is to optimize WeChat to be aware of events, connect with the right people, build relationships and leadership skills, and gain real-life benefits from the online platform.

1. WeChat for the
Personal Power User
Abe Sorock
Global Shapers Beijing II Hub
April 29, 2017

2. A power user… is a computer user who uses advanced
features of computer hardware, operaDng systems,
programs, or web sites which are not used by the
average user.
A power user may not have extensive technical
knowledge of the systems they use… but is rather
characterised by the competence to make the
broadest or most general use of computer programs
or systems.
--”Power User” defini.on from Wikipedia

9. Three Theses
1. WeChat is (uniquely) the digital layer over your natural ‘real-world’ life.

10. Three Theses
1. WeChat is (uniquely) the digital layer over your natural ‘real-world’ life.
2. Like your senses and mind, it directs your a1en3on to certain informaDon
and away from the rest.

11. Three Theses
1. WeChat is (uniquely) the digital layer over your natural ‘real-world’ life.
2. Like your senses and mind, it directs your a1en3on to certain informaDon
and away from the rest.
3. The O2O (online-offline) loop that you build with WeChat becomes your life.

12. Three Theses
1. WeChat is (uniquely) the digital layer over your natural ‘real-world’ life.
2. Like your senses and mind, it directs your a1en3on to certain informaDon
and away from the rest.
3. The O2O (online-offline) loop that you build with WeChat becomes your life.
So, people who set up their WeChat purposefully get real-life superpowers.

13. • What does that mean?
• Stop being barraged by meaningless information and noise.
• Get access to information/conversations we want to be part of.
• Strengthen relationships with people who are important to us.
• Study and adopt what top performers do (behind the scenes).

14. Quick Intro
• From DC, in China 7 years
• CEO, Atlas China. Staffing, sales,
strategy.
• AmCham YPC/Entrepreneur Forum
• Global Shapers Beijing
• Moishe House

15. • What’s your name?
• What do you do in Beijing?
• What made you interested in joining the session today?
• Can you share a story where WeChat added value in your life?
Quick Group Intro

16. Today’s Goals
• Get our heads around the real power and potential of WeChat for our
day-to-day lives.
• Start setting up your WeChat so that:
• You’re aware of and get involved in cool things in the city more often.

17. Today’s Goals
• Get our heads around the real power and potential of WeChat for our
day-to-day lives.
• Start setting up your WeChat so that:
• You’re aware of and get involved in cool things in the city more often.
• You find it easier to connect with your kind of people.

18. Today’s Goals
• Get our heads around the real power and potential of WeChat for our
day-to-day lives.
• Start setting up your WeChat so that:
• You’re aware of and get involved in cool things in the city more often.
• You find it easier to connect with your kind of people.
• You’re less stressed out by your messages.

19. Today’s Goals
• Get our heads around the real power and potential of WeChat for our
day-to-day lives.
• Start setting up your WeChat so that:
• You’re aware of and get involved in cool things in the city more often.
• You find it easier to connect with your kind of people.
• You’re less stressed out by your messages.
• You stay top of mind with your important contacts.

20. Today’s Goals
• Get our heads around the real power and potential of WeChat for our
day-to-day lives.
• Start setting up your WeChat so that:
• You’re aware of and get involved in cool things in the city more often.
• You find it easier to connect with your kind of people.
• You’re less stressed out by your messages.
• You stay top of mind with your important contacts.
• You can easily do more to build and strengthen relationships.

21. Today’s Goals
• Get our heads around the real power and potential of WeChat for our
day-to-day lives.
• Start setting up your WeChat so that:
• You’re aware of and get involved in cool things in the city more often.
• You find it easier to connect with your kind of people.
• You’re less stressed out by your messages.
• You stay top of mind with your important contacts.
• You can easily do more to build and strengthen relationships.
• You make it easier for other people to help you with what’s important.

22. Today’s Goals
• Get our heads around the real power and potential of WeChat for our
day-to-day lives.
• Start setting up your WeChat so that:
• You’re aware of and get involved in cool things in the city more often.
• You find it easier to connect with your kind of people.
• You’re less stressed out by your messages.
• You stay top of mind with your important contacts.
• You can easily do more to build and strengthen relationships.
• You make it easier for other people to help you with what’s important.
• You’re poised to develop further as a leader if you want.

23. Key Principles of Personal WeChat
1. Most information is not public – the default is you miss it.
2. Feedback loops. Better your life, better your WeChat – it’s a cycle!
3. WeChat is other people’s window into your life.
4. You can’t keep up, the best you can do is pick your battles.
5. Your activity on WeChat is following some script. Did you choose it?

24. • We’ll get more out of WeChat forever by making changes in real time.
• These slides will present practical action we can do right now based
on the principles we’ve discussed and best practices from experience.
• If you have any questions, supporting examples, or ideas, chime in to
share!
Our Format Today

25. • A lot of ways to do this:
• City/location tag
• Industry tag
• Interest groups (squash, frisbee, etc.)
• You can share moments to just these people, i.e., friends
or professional.
• You can also choose NOT to share moments to a certain
category.
• Can add notes too.
• People can’t see how they’re tagged.
Tag Your Contacts

26. • I pin almost my full top screen and then don’t scroll
down that far during the day.
• If it would be a disaster to miss a message from
someone, pin them.
• This also makes it a lot more likely that you toss a
message off.
• If you manage a group, sticky it.
• Think it through, figure out who really needs to hear
back from you quickly – then give yourself permission
to let everyone else chill until you’re ready.
Sticky Important Conversations

27. • Maybe the most key and underrated function of social WeChat.
• There’s probably a group with all of the people you should be friends with and
you haven’t found it … if not, you should start it.
• There’s no way to search groups, you can only get in through relationships.
• Certain groups can change what you think is going on in tech, industry, a city.
• Contribute to groups. Post your favorite article.
• Add the leader and other people who are contributors. Pull people out of
groups into your life.
• You never see what people are doing. You need to ask very specifically. You
can sit right next to someone and not know.
• Change your name in groups to reflect your specific goals and interests there.
• Advanced challenge: start a group yourself.
Get Into Groups

28. • If you aren’t getting value from a group, get out of there!
• Huge distraction/bandwidth drain.
• Give yourself permission right now to scroll through groups
and leave as many as you can.
• True of all life but especially WeChat, if you let garbage get
mixed in with gold, you’re in trouble.
Get Out of Groups

29. • Moments is super useful IFF you care about the people.
• You can’t bulk block unfortunately but block a few each day.
• This makes it so that you can really focus on keeping up
with key people.
• You don’t want to tune out or miss moments. People share
amazing stuff. Don’t let this become noise.
Block People’s Moments

30. • People love this. It’s a nice, solid little gesture.
• You get someone’s attention for a minute. They might ping
you. Very inexpensive way to get on someone’s mind.
• Don’t like indiscriminately, but do if you appreciate something.
• If you see someone just posted a moment, ping them. They’re
looking at their phone.
• Also re moments – if you’re about to meet someone, check
their moments. Wow!
Like People’s Moments

31. • Give people hooks to know you and help you!
• Be added value. Don’t post dumb stuff or spam, repetitive, etc.
• Regular posting (if valuable) is really good. You stay top of mind.
• Every time you post a moment, people will reach out to you who
wouldn’t otherwise have.
• Good things to post: articles, events, family stuff, personal/professional
wins. If it’s done well people love it.
• Some creative moments displays. Sights, videos, 9-image posters, etc.
• Ask questions if you want.
• If you don’t like moments to hang around, delete them!
• Everyone has a story about how they posted a moment and it turned
into a referral, date, etc.
Post On Moments

32. • Everyone treats WeChat a little differently. There’s not a clear
etiquette.
• If someone hasn’t responded to you, and you’re going for them,
go through now and ping again.
• Be cooler about WeChat than other forms of communication.
This is always true, but especially this medium.
Ping someone who hasn’t got back to you yet.

33. • Look at WeChat (or below pinned conversations) only at certain times.
• You can change your name and/or edit your personal info to:
• Put on an away or traveling message (even when you’re not).
• Facing deadline / offline til X time, etc.
• Manage expectations around response time.
• Make it a habit to get out of groups and block moments, don’t get
cluttered!
Set boundaries! Make WeChat work for you.

34. • WeChat makes it much more valuable to know great people. They’ll put
you in groups, you’ll see about their events, etc.
• If you have WeChat friends you’ve never met in person, or want to
connect to people in groups, invite them to coffee or better yet an event.
• If you meet someone at an event, add them and then get to see
everything they post.
• QR codes for anything you’re trying to do.
• Post moments so people can track you.
Going forwards: Working the O2O Circuit

35. • What interesting stuff have we seen or decided to do?
• What’s the best group you’re in, or the coolest thing you’ve
seen someone do with WeChat?
• Further interest?
• WeChat for event organizers
• WeChat for community managers
• WeChat for business and specific business cases.
Q & A

36. • Thanks for coming!
• New group we’re creating right now: WeChat Best Practices. If you see
something impressive post what it is and why. Could be group
management, a clever or creative moment, excellent share etc.
• This is important, so let’s keep getting better at it!
Closing