5 ways to master social media operations!

It is easy to build a good community, but it is not easy to build more than 600 communities. Whether each community can eventually become an active community that is valuable to the brand depends on the fan experience provided by the brand.

The author has actually managed community operations and has personal experience that the core indicator of community marketing is to increase the activity of fans and maintain the continuation of their life cycle.

When groups are first created and the number of groups increases to more than 100, in the absence of a good methodological system to guide them, the life cycle of the group is often only 2 weeks. That is to say, after 2 weeks of a new fan joining the group, if they are unable to perceive the value of the group, most people will choose to leave the group or turn on the do not disturb mode in the 3rd week. At this time, there is a special phenomenon in the group that a red envelope sent to the group cannot be snatched up, which means that the group has entered a dying state.

In the process of practical exploration, we gradually summed up a very effective practical system for active communities.

First of all, the most direct indicator to measure community activity is the group speech ratio, which is the number of people speaking divided by the total number of people in the community. This indicator can directly reflect the enthusiasm of fans' participation. When fans are interested in participating in the discussion, the activity of the community is boosted.

Secondly, effective means of activation and activating a community are different from simply doing activities in a crude way. Some people may think, if I often do some activities in the group, the activity level can be maintained. But the reality is harsh. If fans have not even integrated into the role of the community, activities are undoubtedly a disturbance. Many fans are annoyed that businesses use the community as an event notification platform. Frequent posting of activities will result in a high rate of withdrawal from the group.

How do you keep a community active?

When the number of communities increases to 600, how can we replicate the active methods and how can we better know whether each community has become a dead sea?

1. Create a sense of belonging for newcomers

To restore a scene:

When we join a community, the group owner neither introduces the group nor the group members all lurk, making it quiet and deserted. We neither understand the meaning of joining the group nor feel a sense of belonging, so we quickly choose to quit the group or turn on do not disturb.

If you want fans who join the group to remain active, you must first give them a sense of belonging. Only with a sense of belonging can there be identification, and only with identification can every fan have a common bond. Otherwise, it will be difficult for new fans to integrate.

How to create a sense of belonging for newcomers?

The methodology is as follows:

1. Welcome every fan who joins the group

On the one hand, it makes new fans feel welcomed; on the other hand, it takes advantage of the welcome opportunity to let new fans quickly understand what this group is about. What's its value to me? What can I do in this group?

Welcome message format:

@xx @xx Welcome to join the xx fan family~~ You can invite friends to join the group, and Xiaomei will also send coupons. [What benefits can you get by joining the group] 1. To order cakes, reserve bread, etc., you can directly @xx store manager 2. Weekly releases: group member prices, grass-planting and order posting, prize-winning topics, coupons, interactive activities and other forms of benefits. 3. Get timely information on in-store and online promotions. There are also opportunities to participate in various offline interactive activities, including baking classes, food tastings, fan meet-and-greets, etc. Please do not harass others by posting advertisements, bargaining, voting activities, or other information that is not related to the xx brand or baking topics, otherwise you will be temporarily removed from the fan group.

From the above copy, we can see that fans are immediately welcomed when they join the group, and they can also sense that the other party is not a cold robot, but a flesh-and-blood social media image: Xiaomei.

When we build a community, we focus on creating a brand image that can integrate with fans, which is both friendly and can give fans unlimited imagination space. The person who welcomes me must be a humorous girl or a handsome guy, which immediately brings me closer to the fans.

1. Immediate benefits for new fans

Only when I get benefits do I believe that I can continue to get benefits, and this is the fundamental reason why fans always stay in the group. Generally, various gifts for new fans to join the group should be designed, and the gifts can be used as a means to attract new fans, encourage store customers to join the group and invite friends to join.

Of course, the 600 community entry gifts are not sent manually, but are sent by our Xiaomei robot. In this way, when welcoming new members into the group, the entry gifts will follow, and as a fan, you will feel like you are being pampered.

1. Emphasis on group rules

Nowadays, micro-business is omnipresent, so of course they will not give up on flooding a community with hundreds of people. However, this simple and crude promotion is very likely to cause fans to be disgusted. If many fans think that this is an advertising group, they will leave the group on a large scale. As an operator, we must definitely stop this situation from happening.

The most effective way is to publicize the group rules at the bottom of the welcome message when fans join the group, so that the people you want to promote the group can feel the strictness of the group rules. Of course, what if there are people who really post advertisements?

The first time you do this you will be given a warning, the second time you can enforce the group rules. We have designed a blacklist mechanism and fans who are on the blacklist can never be added to any of our groups again.

2. Create a fixed welfare day for fans

After fans join the group, from their perspective, they hope to get more benefits from the brand. If businesses only use the community as a promotional platform, then the community is just a platform for spreading information, and the linkage between the brand and fans is completely lost.

So how can we encourage fans to buy products and make them feel valued and cared for?

That is what we are talking about, and the following is the methodology for creating a welfare day:

1. Group price day

The group member price is an exclusive benefit for fans and a form of identity recognition. Generally, 1-2 products will be selected as group member prices. Sometimes the group member price is even cheaper than the member price. For fans, cost-effectiveness is the best benefit in the group.

1. Free day

We focus on creating a special welfare day, on which coupons for free products can be obtained. Because of the existence of the free product day, many fans will invite their relatives and friends to join the group, achieving a continuous fission effect.

Of course, for free-of-charge days, we need to take precautions in two aspects: on the one hand, we must prevent the free-of-charge party from taking all the benefits, so that the real fans will have nothing to receive; on the other hand, we must consider the ROI. Free-of-charge is not something you can do without considering the cost, but we must consider the conversion operation of store traffic.

In addition, to prevent customers from simply redeeming a free product, a set of strategies is also needed. For every free coupon we invest on the free day, the actual ROI is more than 10, which means that this activity not only really has a traffic-generating effect, but also effectively drives repeat purchases for the store.

1. Planting Day

The benefit of product promotion is that, on the one hand, it can tap into the product's loyal fans, because the fans' promotion shows that they love the brand, and at the same time, as high-quality seed fans, they can act as active fans in the community and drive other fans to be active. On the other hand, by promoting products and displaying them from multiple angles and scenes, other fans can have a deeper understanding of a product, thereby driving the hot sales of the product.

3. Small interactive games or topics in the community to create an interactive atmosphere

It is not difficult to carry out interactive games in one community, but it is difficult to carry out it in 600 communities at the same time, which involves difficulties such as organizing activities, maintaining group order, counting the number of winners, and distributing prizes. If it is only carried out by the operations staff at the headquarters, it will not be feasible. Just counting the number of winners and distributing the prizes is a huge workload.

So how do we solve this problem?

Our Xiaomei housekeeper can not only organize online interactive activities, but also offline activities, truly realizing the extension from a simple virtual community to actual offline social interaction. When we organize similar activities, it is no longer a simple activity in traditional online marketing, but a social activity for fans to get to know each other.

I won’t say much about the small interactive games. Common forms of play include grabbing red envelopes, chain games, building buildings, and various H5 mini games. Another way to play is to develop interactive topics. You can combine hot topics, plan topics, and let fans participate in discussions.

The screenshot is of a topic activity we planned. The theme is to combine the very popular hot event of Shanghai garbage classification with some common baking things, and let fans reply what they think is the garbage classification. It not only stimulates fans' enthusiasm for hot topic discussions, but also brings the brand closer to fans.

4. Create offline fan events and meet-ups

Fans' strongest sense of identification with a brand often comes from deeper contact. Creating a social stage from online to offline to provide fans with opportunities to get to know each other or create more interesting offline interactions is the highest level of brand fan operations.

In terms of offline, we focused on trying some novel ways of playing activities and discovered a group of high-quality seed fans. Those who are good at photography were included in the list of photography experts. We usually encourage these fans to help us take more beautiful product scene pictures; those who are good at Dianping were included in the list of recommended experts. We usually encourage these fans to write more product promotion articles and carry out in-depth dissemination in the community to achieve the effect of promoting the products.

• Baking class: From free participation at the beginning to paid participation, it is the favorite of young mothers and provides fans with a platform for communication about their hobbies;
• New product tasting event: Invite loyal fans to participate, which not only provides fans with a place to socialize on weekends, but also promotes a wave of new products;
• Birthday Party: The store provides a birthday party venue where birthday fans can invite their relatives and friends to celebrate, which becomes a new customer acquisition point for the store.

5. Thoughtful customer service experience

The value of a community lies in whether it can provide fans with a considerate customer service experience.

There are only two purposes for fans to join a group: one is to get discounts, and the other is to solve problems quickly. If both goals are achieved, the value of the community will be highlighted and it will be difficult for fans to leave the community.

To experience, you must also have three points:

1. Rapid response principle

When fans have questions or needs, they will ask in the group and need to respond within 1 minute; if it takes more than 1 minute, the experience can be imagined, a feeling of being ignored and neglected. In terms of operations, all groups must meet this standard.

1. The principle of simplicity

The repurchase rate of our group can reach over 40%. The most important thing is to simplify the purchase process. When fans in the group ask to order a cake, the store will immediately accept the demand and determine the specific details before entering the production stage. If customers are asked to open the mobile APP to place an order or call to place an order, it will undoubtedly make the fans' operation cumbersome and easily lead to the loss of orders.

1. Courage to undertake principles

If fans express any dissatisfaction, the store will respond immediately and provide refunds or compensation.

For example, after a fan bought a cup of soy milk, he found that the cup was leaking. After taking a photo and sending it to the group, the store manager immediately apologized and promised to give the fan a free cup of soy milk when he came to the store. Another example was a picture posted in a fan group showing a fly landing on a loaf of bread. The store manager immediately destroyed all the bread in the product cabinet and live-streamed the entire process. Although the loss was huge, he undoubtedly won the trust of all fans in the community. The fans' dependence on this store cannot be shaken by competitors through price wars.

It is easy to build a good community, but it is not easy to build more than 600 communities. Whether each community can eventually become an active community that is valuable to the brand depends on the fan experience provided by the brand.

Only when a brand can establish an interactive relationship with every fan online and offline can the community have long-term value!

Author: Zhao Wenbiao

Source: User Operation Observation (ID: yunyingguancha)