How can new media create year-end promotional hits?

In order to give some inspiration to colleagues who "feel they can still save themselves", we reviewed the year-end plans of the big WeChat accounts last year and interviewed some of them to see how they handled the year-end plans and what common operations are worth learning from.

WeChat big accounts’ year-end plans, here are 5 common types

First, we reviewed the common year-end plans of WeChat big accounts. Here are 5 types that are easy to get.

1. Review the major events of the year by timeline

Summarizes the major events of the year in timeline, suitable for most public accounts. Pay attention to your work during normal times, and at the end of the year, review what major news you have followed in your vertical field in the past year, and then compile an inventory. It should be noted that you should try to avoid making a simple aggregation of pictures and texts, otherwise it will look like a dry diary.

A less boring example is the article "2018, cannot be withdrawn" pushed by the entrepreneurial public account "Chuangyebang" on December 29, 2018. The article reviewed 2018 in the form of a timeline + comic strip, and implanted hot topics into various scenarios. After reading it, you can not only review the major events of 2018, but also experience the feeling of finding Easter eggs.

2. Annual list style

Annual, top ten, hottest... these are the high-frequency words in the titles of year-end planning for lists. However, the authority and popularity of the list largely depends on the account itself. For example, on December 31, 2018, the "WeChat Security Center" published an article titled "Annual Review | The Top Ten Hottest Rumors in WeChat Moments in 2018", personally summarizing the top ten most widely circulated health, event, and video rumors in WeChat Moments in 2018.

Some lists also adopt the UGC model, for example, the list results are obtained through user voting, but there are high requirements for the number of fans and fan stickiness of the account.

The big fashion account "深夜发媸" published an article on the first day of 2019 titled "50 good things of the year voted by fans, worth buying in 2019". They first launched a submission campaign titled "What good things did you buy from Cuihua in 2018" and after collecting user feedback, they compiled the list into a list with the labels "big brand", "high cost performance" and "affordable price under 100 yuan".

3. UGC story collection

The editor has worked hard to write for a year, and the readers have also been reading for a year. At the end of the year, you might as well try handing the pen to them.

A typical case comes from "New World View". On December 31 last year, New World View launched a short film "The Last Night of 2018" adapted from five real readers' stories.

Gao Yi, editor-in-chief of the New World Brand Story Lab, believes that before making year-end plans, one needs to think clearly about what to say to users, what form and perspective to use to summarize people’s real lives in the past year, and to inspire readers to move positively into the new year.

"What we want to say most is the words that run through the entire film - 'No matter how difficult life is, it cannot beat the warmth of the human heart'. This sentence is to give users confidence. The old may not pass, but the new will surely come."

4. Use comic strips to create a sense of ritual

In the past year, comic strips have become very popular in the graphic content ecosystem. This more relaxed presentation method compared to longer paragraphs of text can also be used as a carrier for year-end planning, creating more ceremonial sense for year-end content. "GQ Lab", which has produced many popular comic strips, also made its 2018 year-end planning in the form of comic strips.

According to Rocco, the new media director of "GQ Lab", their year-end planning is mainly an inventory of jokes and cold spots. However, although these are all memes that have been used in previous content, the editorial department will still try to package the same content in different forms. Innovation in form is always the most difficult point.

5. Use video to bring readers back to the scene

Compared with pictures and texts, videos have a stronger sensory impact. Using video to do the year-end review can instantly bring readers back to the scene of the event.

On December 27, 2018, the People's Daily released a 3-minute-40-second year-end review video titled "What kind of life did you experience in 2018?" ", with questions such as "Do you have the courage to explore the unknown", "Do you have the courage to fight against suffering" and "Do you have the courage to face farewell", etc., is a string of news events and hot topics, accompanied by epic background music. It is also a very ceremonial year-end summary.

How to create a year-end series of vertical content? Share 5 planning ideas for vertical accounts

Seeing this, there should still be many colleagues who are confused. After all, different vertical public accounts have their own routines when planning content. To this end, we started with five vertical content categories, including culture, emotion, fashion, food, and technology, and took stock of what kind of year-end planning the top accounts in different fields are doing for your reference.

1. Culture

Major cultural events of the year, buzzwords of the year, good books of the year, mourning the deceased ... these are the regular programs planned by many cultural public accounts at the end of the year.

For example, last year's "Zi Media" annual buzzwords TOP100 stood out from a bunch of TOP10s in terms of magnitude. It consisted of 10 small lists. In addition to buzzwords, there were also emoticons, personalities, new cultural phenomena, amazing replies... and even outdated internet celebrity words, making the "Annual Buzzword" a full banquet.

Therefore, don’t be afraid that the topic is outdated. As long as you think hard, you can always find new angles (or at least the number of them will be eye-opening).

If most of your peers are looking back at the past, try predicting the future. On the second day of 2019, "New Weekly" released "50 Predictions for 2019" . This reverse operation can also bring a sense of freshness to readers.

2. Emotional

The year-end planning of emotional public accounts can be more emotional, and whether the details can resonate with people is more critical. Even if the article contains a "golden sentence" that can be used as a signature, or an emoticon package that makes people laugh, it has the chance to be spread.

Last year's year-end planning of "Girl Rabbit" took a funny route, using emoticons to tell a silly story, which made people laugh at the end of the stressful year (and there were countless emoticons).

3. Fashion

Fashion public accounts can take stock of celebrity styles and trendy items , and can be used to promote and pull out new products. There are so many year-end plans that can be made that it’s dizzying.

Taking inventory of the styles of popular celebrities is a cost-effective year-end plan for fashion accounts. "深夜发媸" took inventory of the 2018 styles of "hot search queen" Hyuna in early 2019.

Strictly speaking, the UGC year-end planning "Shiliupo Report" is not a fashion review in the traditional sense, but it is also appropriate to push such a humane article at the end of the year.

4. Technology

Common year-end plans for major technology accounts include popular science rumor refutation, technology product inventory, and review of major technology events of the year .

"Guokr.com" did a series of reviews at the end of 2018, one of which was to debunk 10 rumors in 2018. It’s still the familiar Guokr-style complaints.

"Bad Review" made a short video of about 2 minutes to review the major technological events in 2018. The style is very technological and futuristic.

5. Food

The year-end planning of food-related public accounts is mainly about various recipes, food, and store visits. For example, the annual recipe list of "Xiachufang" is a routine operation. It adopts the inventory form of user comments + mini-program links. The article layout is clearer, which improves the reading experience.

What should you consider for a good year-end plan?

From the perspective of time and energy, year-end planning often means more cost investment, but not all year-end plans can achieve ideal communication effects.

When we observed the year-end plans of major public accounts, we found that the number of readings and views of many of the public accounts’ year-end series push notifications was not higher than that of other articles. All the hard work in preparation may not be as effective as just chasing a hot topic at the last minute. But does this mean that the year-end planning is useless? What should a good year-end plan consider?

With such doubts, we interviewed "New World" and "GQ Lab" to hear what they think about year-end planning.

In the past three years of year-end planning, Xin Shi Xiang has tried various forms such as pictures, texts, short films and event activities. Gao Yi, editor-in-chief of Xin Shi Xiang's Brand Story Lab , said that Xin Shi Xiang's year-end planning pursues social significance in content, pursues the scale of user participation in influence, and requires collaboration from multiple parties in execution, which is actually very time-consuming. She also revealed that the planning for key events and short film projects at the end of this year began in August.

Recently, they and China Daily launched the "Good Night Text Project", allowing 1 million people to receive a good night text message every night for a month. It is still the familiar "New World" style of romance and was once on the hot search on Weibo.

Rocco, the new media director of "GQ Lab", revealed that they start preparing for the year-end plan around December every year, spending 1-2 weeks preparing 1-2 articles to be published at the end of the year. When preparing, we don’t think too much about the communication effect.

"The main thing is to create something that I find fun and interesting, and that can make people think more, even if it's just one step further." Rocco said, "We still focus more on topics that young people in first- and second-tier cities are most concerned about. The "self-deprecating" style we have always adhered to is also to hope that this group of people can be less self-centered and pay more attention to others, understand others, and love others. Maybe this will make us live a more comfortable life. "

In recent years, there have been more and more new forms of year-end planning, such as comic strips, H5, and short videos, but Rocco feels that the form is not that important.

"The most important thing is to accurately grasp the mood of the times. 2019 is not a very good year. Everyone may need a little more warmth, encouragement and comfort. "

Author: Xiaobai

Source: WeChat public account: Newrank (ID: newrankcn)