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As of December 2021, WeChat had more than 1.2 billion active users worldwide, making it the most active online social media in mainland China. The term social commerce is used to describe new online sales through a mix of social networks and/or peer-to-peer communication or marketing strategies in terms of allowing consumers to satisfy their shopping behaviour through online social media. Thus, given the numerous active users, the development of online social media and social commerce on WeChat is a critical issue of internet research.

This empirical study takes WeChat as the online social media research object. Questionnaires for WeChat users in China were designed and distributed. All items are designed as nominal and ordinal scales (not Likert scale). The obtained data was put into a relational database (N = 2,342), and different meaningful patterns and rules were examined through data mining analytics, including clustering analysis and association rules, to explore the role of WeChat in the development of online social media and social commerce.

Practical implications are presented according to the research findings of meaningful patterns and rules. In addition, alternatives to WeChat in terms of further development are also proposed according to the investigation findings of WeChat users’ behaviour and preferences in China.

This study concludes that online social media, such as WeChat, will be able to transcend the current development pattern of most online social media and make good use of investigating users’ behaviour and preferences, not only to stimulate the interaction of users in the social network, but also to create social commerce value in social sciences.

An increasing number of users join and become immersed in WeChat official accounts, but many users quit using these services as well. Nevertheless, most of the previous studies mainly focussed on the usage behavior. The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap by examining factors affecting users’ unfollow intentions for WeChat subscriptions in a Chinese context.

Structural equation modeling is used in our study. A field survey with 260 WeChat users is conducted to test the research model and hypotheses.

The results show the following interesting key findings: first, the effect of actual cost on users’ unfollow intentions is larger than the effect of opportunity cost; second, users’ unfollow intentions will decrease with the increase of users’ perceptions of information usefulness; third, the results of the control variables showed that only landing frequency has a negative effect on users’ unfollow intentions; and fourth, users’ demographic differences are also examined in regard to how they may affect users’ unfollow intentions.

First, this paper studies factors influencing users’ unfollow intentions for WeChat subscriptions from a social exchange theory perspective; the authors considered both extraneous factors and users’ internal perception factors potentially affecting users’ unfollow intentions, which has rarely been researched. Furthermore, the authors examined significant differences among users’ demographic characteristics in affecting users’ unfollow intentions. The results of the study provide a more comprehensive understanding of the influencing factors of users’ unfollow intentions.

China has been one of these countries that followed glocalization with the establishment of Chinese social media platforms, which adopt global trends and software patterns. WeChat has been a success story that at first emerged as a social communication tool but has extended to include commercial dynamics as well. Hence, this study aims to understand WeChat user’s general perceptions of the WeChat platform as a general social platform and as a commercial business platform.

In this study, the sample (n = 400) was obtained from a specific group of people who have had experiences with different WeChat tools and their payment systems. Nonrandom purposive sampling was used by considering its higher probability of representativeness. The online survey that was given to participants through the WeChat groups included 14 questions, in which eight questions are for demographics and general WeChat use, and six questions are for WeChat payment. After descriptive statistical analysis, comparison-based tests were conducted and interpreted accordingly.

Overall, the study participants had a high frequency of using WeChat’s messaging and moments features. Moreover, users perceive WeChat and its payment tools as unsecured or not secure enough. However, that perception did not affect their intention to continue adopting the app. Hence, regardless of the unsecure perception, study participants still had high usage of WeChat pay.

This paper provides an example from China that is known as a high-tech country, and there are a very few studies on the WeChat app despite their high number of users and daily financial transactions.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically unpack whether and how WeChat network size is correlated with perceived social capital and life satisfaction among Chinese overseas students in Germany.

Based on a web-based survey data collected from 218 sojourners, zero-order correlation analyses and structural equation modeling were separately implemented to tackle the complicated research questions.

Findings demonstrate that an individual’s WeChat network size significantly and directly influences bridging, bonding and maintained social capital. Importantly, a path model demonstrates that these distinct dimensions of social capital are all significant predictors of life satisfaction. Furthermore, the empirical evidence reveals that bridging, bonding and maintained social capital can mediate the association between network size and well-being outcome.

Theoretically, the paper is an initial attempt contributing to the previous studies on estimating the influence of WeChat friendships on social capital and life satisfaction. Practically, these findings will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of effect of personal network characteristics derived from the dominant media interaction on social connectedness and life quality.

Despite WeChat is immensely prevalent in Mainland China, only few studies have concentrated on the role of WeChat network size in fostering individuals’ social and psychological development. The work provides unique evidence that number of friends on the emerging technology could indirectly benefit sojourners’ satisfaction with life through processes involving diverse categories of social capital in a trans-cultural environment.

Mobile social apps permeate every facet of daily life through the pervasive use of smartphones. Customer retention with mobile social apps has become extremely important for app-related companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore why experienced users in mobile social apps (e.g. WeChat) are likely to continue using the app.

This study proposed a conceptual model to identify key determinants of continuance intention of WeChat users and highlight the effects of individual experience. Data were collected from WeChat users, which is one of the most popular mobile social apps in China. The study employed partial least squares regression to test the research model based on a survey of 295 valid responses.

Results showed that trust, which was driven by user satisfaction and perceived critical mass, played a critical role in influencing the continuance intention of WeChat users. Moreover, tie strength exerted a negative moderating effect on the relationship between trust and continuance intention. Specifically, tie strength and perceived critical mass had strong impacts on the continuance intention of low-experience users. In addition, the effect of frequency was closely associated with the continuance intention of high-experience users.

This study addressed the issue of mobile social app continuance intention by providing an innovative means to explore the key antecedents of user continuance intention from the experience perspective. The findings not only prove that trust plays a central role in influencing the continuance intention of experienced users but also reveal that the determinants of continuance intention vary among users with different experience. The results provide insights into the key antecedents of experienced WeChat user continuance intention and contribute to the literature on mobile social apps and individual differences.

The results provide suggestions for mobile social app practitioners to effectively plan mobile social app retention practices and to set up appropriate incentive mechanisms for retaining users with different experiences.

Although abundant studies have focused on the adoption of media users, few studies have investigated the post-adoption behavior of experienced users in the context of mobile social apps. This study revealed the key determinants of the continuance intention of WeChat users and pinpointed the different impacts of these antecedents on users with different levels of experience. It also provides useful guidelines for practitioners to effectively retain users with different levels of experience.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how WeChat addiction influences users’ physical, mental, and social health.

A national survey was conducted in China. A total of 1,058 responses were collected from 31 regions of China.

The regression results show that WeChat addiction is negatively associated with users’ physical, mental, and social health. The negative effects are significant even after adjusting for the effects of the Big Five personality traits, years of using WeChat, and demographic variables such as age, gender, education level, and monthly income. Years of using WeChat is not significantly related to users’ health. It is also found that the influence of WeChat addiction on health outcomes is sensitive to years of WeChat use. The influence is dormant when users have less than three years of WeChat usage, but starts to exhibit itself after three years.

Addictive use of WeChat is associated with declining overall health among Chinese users. Given the cross-sectional nature of this study, definite causal relationship between WeChat addiction and health deterioration cannot be established. Controlled experiments are needed to further examine the causal effects of WeChat addiction.

WeChat is the most popular mobile social network service (SNS) in China, but its comprehensive impact on users’ health is rarely studied. This paper extends the extant research on SNS addiction by providing a deepened understanding of how mobile SNS addiction affects personal health in the unique context of WeChat, which provides an important contribution to the interdisciplinary research in public health, psychology, and information systems.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the intensity use of WeChat is associated with perceived social capital and psychological well-being factors among Chinese international students in Germany.

Based on an online survey data collected from 212 Chinese international college students in Germany, correlation analysis and structural equation modeling were sequentially implemented to deal with the research questions.

The correlation analysis results indicate that the intensity of WeChat use is positively correlated with bridging, bonding, and maintained social capital. Additionally, a path model demonstrates that bonding social capital is positively related to life satisfaction and negatively related to the sense of loneliness. Furthermore, both bonding and maintained social capital mediate the relationship between WeChat use and these two well-being outcomes.

Theoretically, the research is an initial study contributing to the existing social media literature on evaluating the effects of WeChat use on social capital and well-being. Practically, these obtained results can be beneficial to the understanding the dynamics of how social media may potentially impact students’ social connectedness and life quality.

Although WeChat has become the most prevalent social networking site in Mainland China, the social and psychological implications of the emerging technology are not completely understood. The paper offers evidence that WeChat has functioned as an efficient platform for sojourners to develop diverse types of social capital and promote well-being in an intercultural setting.

This study aims to introduce a new mode of mobile library service, named “WeChat Library”, developed under the WeChat (social media platform) public service platform. The design and realization of WeChat Library is also presented with Chongqing University Library taken as the example.

This study designed a new mobile library service system, WeChat Library of Chongqing University Library, analyzed its construction cost and usage statistics and discussed the advantages of the new service mode.

Investigation results showed that 84.6 per cent of the “985” universities opened up WeChat Libraries, which signified that WeChat Library has become one of the important mobile service modes for Chinese university libraries. WeChat Library received high appreciation from the patrons; in 20 months of operation, 20.3 per cent of patrons in Chongqing University had used WeChat Library. The five most commonly used services are OPAC retrieval, items borrowed, personal center, resource discovery and announcements. WeChat Library was found to have many advantages, such as low development cost, automatic cross-platform service, adaptive screen, low acceptance cost, easier promotion, strong user viscosity, strong interactivity and real-time consulting.

The functional design and technological architecture of WeChat Library was presented with Chongqing University Library taken as the example. The technical realization of several unique services, namely, QR code access, space reservation and overdue reminders, was also demonstrated. The study will provide favorable suggestions and references for other libraries that have also launched the WeChat Library.

The mainstream service mode of mobile libraries is application for mobile terminals (APP). Although mobile services are applied extensively in China, numerous small- and medium-sized libraries are still unable to provide mobile services for patrons primarily because the investment is too high to bear for some libraries. Therefore, mobile library services urgently need a more economical model of mobile services. The most prominent advantages of WeChat Library are its low development cost and low technology threshold. WeChat Library can provide a better solution for mobile library services.

Although blood banks have recently started to recruit blood donors through social media platforms, including WeChat, to increase recruitment effectiveness, few researchers have studied their effects on blood donation behavior. The aim of this study is to examine the influence of using official WeChat accounts on repeat blood donation behavior.

This paper used the backstage operation data of official WeChat accounts and blood supply chain management system data from the blood bank for the study to analyze the changes in repeat blood donation behavior. First, to analyze the changes in the average frequency of blood donation per year, average volume of single blood donation and blood eligible rate of repeat blood donors before and after following the official WeChat accounts by difference-in-differences model combined with propensity score matching (PSM-DID). Second, we examined the impact of official WeChat accounts on the proportion of repeat blood donors through survival analysis.

The results show that following WeChat accounts increases the average frequency of blood donation and blood eligible rate of repeat blood donors by 14.36% and 1.19%, respectively, and have no significant effect on the average volume of single blood donation. Further, WeChat accounts have a more significant impact on the average frequency of blood donations per year for workers, farmers, medical staff and groups with education levels of junior high school. In addition, official WeChat accounts can effectively increase the proportion of repeat donors.

The results provide a quantitative basis for the influence of official WeChat accounts on repeat blood donation behaviors. On the one hand, it is of great significance to guide the publicity and recruitment of unpaid blood banks. On the other hand, it provides an evidence for the promotion of official WeChat accounts.

The primary objectives of the article are to systematically investigate the effects of differentiated functions of WeChat use (social use and recreational use) on university students' online self-presentation, social support and sense of belonging.

The data were collected from a web-based survey on a sample of 485 university students in mainland China. Correlation analyses and structural equation modeling (SEM) were implemented to address the corresponding hypotheses.

The results demonstrate that the social use of WeChat is positively related to online self-presentation, whereas recreational use is unrelated to such behavior. Additionally, the findings verify that online self-presentation is a significant predictor of both social support and sense of belonging. Furthermore, online self-presentation could mediate the influence of social use of WeChat on social support and sense of belonging.

Theoretically, the study represents an initial effort to elucidate the joint impact of differentiated functions of WeChat use and online self-presentation on social support and sense of belonging. Practically, these findings identify the crucial mediation role of online self-presentation in assisting individuals to acquire social support and promote sense of belonging.

Although mobile social media has brought dramatic revolutions in interaction and interpersonal behaviors, the empirically studies regarding the potential influences of its utilization are equivocal. These outcomes may shed meaningful light on the comprehending of unique characteristics of WeChat communication and how it could impact people's psychosocial development in the digital era.