Events are a good way to drive O2O interaction. Although WeChat does not offer solution for companies to publish their event and collect payment, a lot 3rd party event platforms do, and some even provide this service for free. We compared the 5 most popular WeChat event platforms in China that provide payment solution, and are all easily sharable on WeChat.
1. Huodongxing (活动行)
Huodongxing is one of the biggest event platforms (ranking after Douban.com). This means posting your event on Huodongxing will attract new users beyond your WeChat platform. It is still a relatively new platform, so most events listed are in first tier cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzheng). You can resigner as an event host and get Huodongxing followers. Technology and social events seems to be the most popular category of event on Huodongxing.
One neat feature of Huodongxing is that you can publish an event directly from Huodongxing’s WeChat account (WeChat id: ihuodongxing).
The drawback is that if any of the members decided to cancel event signup and request a refund, you will be entitled to pay a 10% service fee. Click here to view the complete price plan.
website: http://www.huodongxing.com/
2. hudongba (互动吧）
Hudongba is great website/APP for drive interactive activities within a WeChat group. It is free and easy to setup.
The best part is you can setup an event using your phone. Simply type hudong.ba in any conversation box in WeChat, you can access this page to start an event.
It is also great for other interactive activities like voting，publish articles and job posting.
The biggest drawback is that hudongba can seems unprofessional. Since bar of registration is low (you only need a Chinese ID), most of the event hosts are individuals. Lots of the most popular events on hudongba use personal Alipay account for payment collection.
We recommended to use Hudongba as a tool to increase interaction within a WeChat group, or on a casual basis. It is also a great tool to start a vote to receive feedback in a WeChat group.
Website: http://hudongba.mobi/
3. Douban (豆瓣同城）
It is the largest platform for event: douban.com gets average of 70,000 Baidu searchs everyday. It is also one of the biggest site to sell concert tickets, discussion group, book review clubs, and P2P goods exchange. For companies with strong presence in China, Douban will be the best platform to drive traffic to your event page.
But Douban is not for everyone. The competition of keyword search within the website is extremely high. You can choose up to 4 search keywords for Douban event search engine. Popular key works like social （交友），concert (演唱会）， food (美食）can be so competitive that your event can be listed on page 10+. Companies with lower brand awareness in China might find it hard to attract online traffic, and end up with an embarrassing one digit of Likes(有兴趣） and Attendants（参加） on your event page.
The Payment function on Douban is also a bit tricky. Chinese business license is a requirement. You are also requested to host minimal of 5 paid events without using the Douban payment system. This means you will need to first list 5 events, list ticket price on the event page, and collect payment through other channel (i.e: Alipay or pay at door), before you are eligible to apply for Douban event payment function.
Website: http://www.douban.com/location
4. Yoopay.cn (monthly fee)
Yoopay is one of few channels that provide an English back-end and a (somewhat) user friendly registration page for event attendees. There is a monthly fee to use the platform if you want to sell tickets (it’s free for posting free events). Yoopay also offers customize packages if you would like to design special functions for your events, including templates, data analysis, data import and export.
The only drawback of Yoopay is it is entirely based on your WeChat channel for event promotion. It does not have an event website for users to browse. You attendance will have to discover your event through a direct URL, or QR code. This focus of distribution channel is limited in terms of user acquisition, but it does enhance the user experience required for mobile views.
Website: https://yoopay.cn/
5. Yishenghuo(艺生活)
Yishenghuo is a new event platform aiming to bring the social experience. It does has an English page, although to a limited extent (payment pages are still in Chinese). The most interesting function of Yishenghuo is the Social Circle (爱圈子） function. All the attendees of your event will be able to join a “social circle” and chat with each other.
As a new platform, it also has some function limitation. For example, the cash settlement between event host and Yishenghuo is done manually calculated by its staffs.
Yishenghuo is a good choice for small companies that want to create a social community around their events.
Website: http://i.x-one.cc/index/signin
Conclusion: how to pick the right WeChat event platform
Some platform are integrated with a website where users can browse events. Others are completely relying on WeChat for event promotion. As your target customer may prefer one channel to another, testing out different channels can help you to find the best solution to market toward your target customers.
And if you need a customised event posting module or creative marketing campaigns on your WeChat, feel free to contact us for advice.