The way of WeChat operation is the way of business, the way of the Internet, and the way of human beings.

When the Internet was first created, it was intended to eliminate information asymmetry and the differences in information caused by geographical locations. At the time, the US military did not expect that the Internet would be applied to civilian use in the eighties or so.

In 1997, Sohu was the new media at that time, but that is certainly not the case today. In 2008 and 2009, China’s new media was Weibo, and we changed the way information was disseminated. In 2012 we had WeChat, but what happened a few years later? Is WeChat still a new media?

"New" will always become "old" one day. Internet consultant Liu Run once said that the Internet has changed human beings in three "flows": information flow , capital flow, and logistics. Using the Internet as information and media is the most convenient, so that now everyone regards WeChat as the current new media, and WeChat can actually do much more than media. The current Internet is also releasing people's desires.

2. The Internet is unleashing people’s desires

Clothing, food, housing and transportation are the most basic needs of human beings. The above three companies have built a platform respectively, with various products and services. When you have life needs, you don’t have to go out to do anything like before. Now you only need to press a button. You don’t have to wash clothes or cook by yourself, or wait for a car on the roadside. The car will wait for you. Survival problems can be solved with just one button. The Internet has digitized human life and also digitized people.

At present, basically there is a startup company meeting every conceivable demand, and more and more demands can be met and digitized. And when people can also be digitized, the operation of the whole world becomes simpler. At the same time, by following the banner of mass entrepreneurship and innovation, more desires will be satisfied with one click.

When information is symmetrical and logic is transparent, the biggest difference between people is the accumulation of resources, and the biggest commonality is that there are only 24 hours in a day. Therefore, the best business model is to help people consume their time, and then help them use the resources they have accumulated to exchange for extra time. Most gaming products do this, so they are the most profitable companies.

3. Is having sufficient cash flow the way to operate a business?

A long time ago, a very famous name was popular on the Internet: the Fortune 500 companies - the competition was about who had the highest annual profit. In the pre-Internet era, companies competed with each other based on how much profit they made. It was not until one day that Lehman Brothers, a company with high cash flow for more than 100 years, went bankrupt that people gradually realized that cash flow is unreliable and user loyalty is reliable.

A classic question: Which one is more powerful, Germany's Volkswagen or Tencent? Most people would say without hesitation that Tencent is more awesome. I actually checked and found that Tencent is not even in the top 1,000, while Volkswagen ranks 8th in the world.

Volkswagen has 48 million vehicles worldwide, and the average owner of these vehicles changes his car every five years. This is a typical case where the user volume is good but the interaction is not frequent enough. But Tencent is different. When we used QQ in the PC era, we found that a window would always pop up in the lower right corner of the desktop. Tencent News was always faster than Sina and others because it popped up proactively, rather than you having to search after hearing about it. Tencent can communicate with 600 million users around the world at any given second and connect all users for interaction within one second. This is why Tencent, although not ranked among the top 500 companies in the world, has greater brand potential and influence.

There is a navigation company listed on the stock market called Siwei. Initially, it was much stronger than AutoNavi. They had strong manpower and satellites, and could do many things that others could not do. Like AutoNavi, Siwei makes a map and a navigation software and puts it in BMW cars.

Based on this sharing, we can think about what aspects of our business users can help us promote. Nowadays, enterprises are becoming more and more "de-bordered". We can formulate rules well to let users help us achieve what you want to do. In an era like this, what matters most is what your business can create and how to get users involved.

If you want to do a good job in marketing, don’t ignore these three issues:

Question 1: Did the exposure reach the target audience?

Question 2: Does reaching the audience create an impression?

Question 3: Is the correct impression created?

Almost most companies or teams doing marketing will encounter a "pitfall": exposure means brand exposure, and exposure means brand effect. That's not necessarily the case. We are very afraid of giving users the wrong impression. Someone once said to me, "Hey, I think the milk tea you sell at 3:15 is really delicious!" At that time, I was thinking, how tragic it is that I didn't spend a penny but ruined a company's brand!

1. I want to reach my target audience

Marketing Promotion No matter what time or stage I am at, no matter how big or small the company is, the first thing I have to do is always to find a way to reach my target audience (there is no point without reaching them) and to make them have the right impression of me.

In the beginning, I wrote advertisements in newspapers; after a while, I went to TV to make touching advertisements; when the Internet era came, I was constantly planning banners, buttons, and website structure; today, with the popularity of Weibo and WeChat, I am also doing social activities. In a word, I am using every possible space to reach my audience and create an impression. Only when I do these two things well, I am actually occupying the minds of my target audience (Top of Mind).

Since there is competition, when doing marketing, you are actually competing for the minds of consumers. Have you ever thought about whether consumers think of you or your competitors first?

2. The power of content distribution has changed

When we place advertisements , manufacturers will use several indicators to measure them. Before the era of mobile Internet , there was a famous marketing theory: if we run an advertisement today, the more we invest, the greater the promotion effect we will get (two years ago, almost all marketing methods and forms were paid). However, the actual situation is not ideal. The more investment is made, the slower the growth. There are only so many people out there, and exposure once is useless, or you’re facing the wrong target audience.

Things have changed since the era of mobile Internet . The cost has been reduced, but the effect has been high. Even if a case is messed up, it is only a few tens of thousands of yuan. A good reputation will immediately become a hit. And all these changes are driven by users.

Everyone is a media. When you send content to your circle of friends or social groups, who are the leaders who recognize and spread your content? It is you and everyone around you. It is no longer Xinhua News Agency, Sina, Sohu, etc. We have found that many of the tools in e-commerce stores today tend to have some social attributes. The change in content distribution power has caused a change in the entire marketing model curve.

3. How to create an impression?

I can say for sure that even if you have never bought any Melatonin products, you must have an impression of it. In the early days, people relied on television for entertainment, and the TV commercials kept talking and talking, so you would definitely be impressed.

Recall the famous Cornetto ice cream. The previous TV commercials all looked like this:

If you want your brand elements and what you want to convey to be forwarded, you should consider not the relationship between you and your target audience, but the relationship between your content and your target audience. This is the most important core. It is because of this that all startups and any large companies will be pulled back to the same starting point. Therefore, large companies are often not as effective as small groups in marketing. This is no longer an era where whoever spends more money can do well. Whoever can more effectively help the target audience interact with the circle will be more likely to be favored by consumers.

Whether a piece of content is good or not depends largely on whether it can cause emotional fluctuations in your target audience. Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, and even complaints, only when there are emotional fluctuations can there be impressions.

Therefore, we have come to some conclusions:

How to achieve effective reach?

Although we can use "promoters" to spread content more naturally and widely when we publish it, you will find that the more your content resembles your story, the more it can influence the emotions of your target audience, and the more useful your content is to your target audience, the more you will be able to stand out from the vast ocean.

But where do you get your content? This is what "Three O'clock a Moment" is doing, just like the case described above. We focus on helping the team to shape content. In "Three O'clock a Moment Think Tank", we also bring together self-media people like "Bang Tui Ke". No matter what industry you are in, as long as you want to create content, we will help you with lower costs and more reasonable matching to help you create content that is more useful to consumers. Of course, once the content is created, it will be more effective if it is put on the "Bang Tui Ke" platform.

In short, when doing marketing, we must remember our goal - to occupy the minds of consumers. It’s not just for the purpose of increasing followers or sales; these are just additional goals. Reach your target audience in the right way and give your target audience the right impression in the right way.

Be the best version of yourself and let others like you!

3. “Create a good Weibo topic”

Are there any of you who don’t use Weibo at the moment?

Most of our information now comes from WeChat Moments, but why do we still insist on making Weibo topics in this era?

Let's take a simple example:

We were in Prague Square, there was a fountain, people were selling things, people were dancing and singing. This is called the Weibo era - information is transparent, open and instant. You can see what everyone is doing right now. WeChat is different. There are rows of small Western-style buildings behind the Prague Square. Only if you and I are good friends will you allow me to enter your house to chat.

On WeChat, we socialize largely for the sake of socializing, and we only see messages between people we know. Weibo is different. It has fast circulation and strong traffic. Of course, the premise is that you know how to use Weibo.

If you are a start-up company, you want to improve your PR, don’t want to spend too much money, and you think your design inspiration is very good, then I suggest you try to do Weibo topic marketing. As long as your topic can make it to the hot search list, it will naturally attract a lot of attention. Then various media and WeChat public accounts will most likely organize your topic into articles and spread it for the second, third or even more times.

1. Why do we need to create Weibo topics?

Many startups face a problem: they want to conduct marketing activities, increase market visibility, and sell products, but they have no money. The funds are limited, the creativity is not satisfactory, and the copywriting and editing are not good. But on Weibo, a simple action may really be able to get tens of millions of traffic.

The advantages of Weibo topics are obvious: low cost, wide coverage, and fast speed of dissemination. Whether you are a startup or a self-media person, what you need to be sure of is the purpose of creating this Weibo topic.

Selling products?

Increase brand awareness?

Attract new users?

Keep users active?

You have to understand that these are four completely different things.

Alibaba has held a "616" event. Everyone knows that "618" is JD.com's event, and 616 is an event specifically planned for JD.com. Each of our operators used their own resources to advertise on various platforms, but later found that no matter what method they used, it was too tiring, too difficult, and too expensive. So the boss decided that we should just “buy” Weibo, and in 2015 the Weibo section had its own column on Tmall .

2. How to create a topic on Weibo?

A typical Weibo topic #Can I take a day off during my period# also has a vote below it. After 48 hours, more than 40,000 people participated in the vote. There was a small episode at that time. This topic once caused dissatisfaction among many departments. One was the Women's Rights Association, which stated that women would not have the opportunity to get high salaries in the future; another was the Days sanitary napkins under Yunnan Baiyao, which quickly created another theme #Support taking a day off during menstruation# (of course, it sells sanitary napkins); and another was the Anhui Provincial Government, which issued an approval document allowing female workers to take leave during menstruation, which even made me feel like I had done something good for the first time in my life.

(1) #Can I take a day off during my period?#

What I want to point out is what the significance of my doing this topic is - selling products. A good friend of mine, who is also an employee of Alibaba, wants to sell a kind of Auntie Congee (red bean and barley porridge). In 2015, competition in the e-commerce grocery store market was very fierce. When the topic was being discussed, the price of this porridge was 9.9 yuan, with a minimum order of 5 packets. More than 50,000 servings were successfully sold within 24 hours. What they didn't take into account is that there are still quite a number of women who disagree with this topic.

(2) #As long as there is sand in your heart, everywhere is the Maldives#

There is a case that everyone will understand if I tell you about it: #As long as there is sand in your heart, everywhere is Maldives#. He used a lot of viral marketing techniques, and his posts were forwarded all over his circle of friends. One question though: do you realise which business this was done for? The answer is Tuniu (I feel that Tuniu was quite wronged and spent a lot of money), and the effect is still good, resulting in a huge number of PVs.

(3) Reading and comment popularity of Weibo topics

In addition, you also need a certain amount of internet trolls who can help you post comments. I can say responsibly that if you halve the number of readings and discussions on the current hot search list on Weibo for promotions, brands, and soft-text promotion topics, they are all created by the Internet's cyber-army. We should also think about how much change the remaining half of the conversions can bring. This is a critical point and also reminds us to use the water army reasonably.

Normally, if you start a topic on Weibo, no one will pay attention to you. After all, if the topic does not generate enough discussion and reading, it is impossible for it to be on the hot list and let people know about it. Whether it is PC or mobile, as long as you enter the hot list, the survival rate of your topic will become very strong. Generally speaking, the life span of a hot topic is about 3-4 hours. If it is managed well, it can last for 48 hours. If you are selling products, your turnover can at least double. This is the benefit of using Weibo topics themselves to promote products. When it comes to attracting new users, if you are an App, attracting new users through Weibo topics will be about 10 times faster than WeChat.

3. Control time nodes and event nodes

(1) Let’s talk about the time node first.

Weibo has a delicate time node. Any pornographic and hype news we have seen, such as the Uniqlo incident and the Lujiazui incident, were all released after midnight. Weibo's servers are maintained between midnight and 1:30 am every day, so you can understand why news can spread so widely and quickly during these times, and in such an organized and disciplined manner. After this gray hour and a half, all the A-type portals and B-type news media will quickly publish their reports (all of which have been contacted). After the Uniqlo incident, ZARA and H&M immediately did public relations, which verified this point. If you really want to play it safe, you can choose to operate between midnight and 1:30 am.

By the same token, Weibo users happen to be the most active during this time period.

(2) Let’s talk about event nodes.

There are many more examples of using events for marketing. For example, one year when it rained heavily in Beijing, Durex used its products on shoes, and it became popular again. Be good at using what you express to attract people (the obvious) and achieve the promotion and marketing goals you really want to achieve (the hidden line).

Don't forget that even if you have determined the time for a big event, it may not be useful, because you have to see if there are any big events happening before, after, or around this topic: the Olympics, the European Cup, the National People's Congress, Tmall and JD activities, etc. In the face of these big events, your topic will be meaningless and will fall on deaf ears. You have to find the gaps between these big events. For example, you definitely can’t do anything on National Day. Your friends circle will be full of National Day celebrations, and Weibo will be full of enthusiastic celebrations, so it will be difficult to do any marketing. At that time, we were always in the top 2 of #Is it okay to take a day off during menstruation#, and could never get to the top #Fifth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China# ..

Weibo’s social media marketing events are always the core point of the explosion. Only after the information spreads through the core point can you see the exaggerated secondary outflow of hot products on WeChat, Tieba and other platforms.

4. Reasonably manage the potential energy of big Vs

Sometimes relying solely on the power of the masses is not enough to create a wave of energy. It is better to find a way to control the actions of a group of celebrities and big Vs. Nowadays, the Weibo accounts of many celebrities and fan clubs are mostly operated by agents or passers-by. There is no need to worry whether a celebrity will comment and repost my post if I tag him. More often than not, we actually attract small organizations or operation teams two or three levels under the celebrity big V. Of course, the probability of them opening their mouths is much higher than that of celebrity accounts. Their comments or reposts are already able to create a certain influence, and then through comments one level at a time, it goes up from fans to big Vs. It is not empty talk.

However, there are certain restrictions when looking for celebrities:

360 Mobile Assistant once wanted to find TFBoys to be their spokesperson and needed to create a Weibo topic for them. When I got this case, I was very excited to cooperate with a big company like 360, but in the end it fell through. The reason is very simple. When the topic first became popular, TFBoys’ fans got “angry” and complained to all our accounts related to the topic. This is a profound truth. When operating hot topics, you must be cautious when encountering celebrities with a large number of fans or super popular idols.

The appearance of WeChat as a "contact book" of strong relationships on our mobile phones only shows that we are still only able to make simple connections, rather than effective connections brought about by interests. This is not the case with Weibo, where seemingly weak connections actually create hot spots based on interests. This is what everyone sees on the Internet as “becoming popular for no apparent reason.”

Simply put, many big events are not created by you alone. If your content is attractive, countless participants will come to "hype" with you. As long as your overt and covert plots are reasonably arranged, there will be no problem with this event.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media information flow

The author of this article is @帮推客栈 Compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion), please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!