Do you really understand "brand operation" in the Internet industry?

Operations is a major category of positions in Internet companies, but in actual work, it actually includes several smaller categories. For example, the user operation , content operation , event operation , hot spot operation , channel operation, etc. that I mentioned earlier, each category will have corresponding positions, and different positions work together to achieve the operation goals. There are many courses and work experiences related to these on the Internet, and I have shared them separately before, so I will not repeat them here; but there is a category that also belongs to the operation category, and it is very important, but it is often confused with other jobs, so that you will only know this position when you look at the recruitment information. It is "brand operation", and today this article will talk to you about brand operation.

1. What is brand operation?

Brand operation is not a new thing, nor is it exclusive to Internet companies. In traditional companies, it is often called brand planning, brand management or brand promotion .

No matter what kind of enterprise, to establish a brand, at least two parts of work must be done. One part is the formulation of brand specifications, including the company name, logo, packaging that everyone can see visually and the invisible corporate culture, service concept, etc. Most of this part of the work is done by the founders and core employees; the other part is long-term, targeted and planned brand shaping and promotion to make more people know and recognize the brand. This shaping process is the work of brand operation.

2. Why do we need brand operation?

The benefits brought by brand operation are not immediate, so in a company, brand operation work often gives people a very empty feeling, especially for new operators. If there is a lack of correct working methods and positive result feedback, it is easy for people to doubt the value of this work. In this case, why should companies still engage in brand operations?

Let’s first look at the three categories of enterprises:

• The first type of companies sell products . Most Chinese companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, belong to this type. They work hard and earn money honestly. They produce products and sell them with a profit. At this time, consumers buy the products. I will choose the one with good product quality and low price.
• The second type of companies sell services . For example, large home appliance companies generally provide services such as door-to-door installation, 7-day free return and exchange, and one-year warranty. This type of company bundles products and services together. They not only sell you products, but also provide you with supporting services. The price and profit margin are naturally high. At this time, consumers choose products not only based on the price of the product, but also on whether your service can keep up. If it can't keep up, they will not dare to buy it no matter how cheap the price is.
• The third type of companies sell brands . Companies like Coca-Cola and Apple, for example, do not produce their own products, but entirely outsource the production to Chinese factories, and then they put their own logos on them and sell them. Why can they do this? It is because these companies have strong brands, so strong that when consumers think of them, they can only think of their good points, and it is difficult to think of their bad points. In this relationship, companies are stronger than consumers, and their products can naturally be sold at high prices. Take Apple as an example. It only releases two mobile phones every year, but its profits account for about 90% of the global mobile phone market's profits. So many mobile phone manufacturers have released so many mobile phones, but the profits added up are not as big as Apple's.

Through the above classification, we can see the huge benefits that brands bring to enterprises. Without their own brands, enterprises can only earn hard-earned money. Only companies with brands can climb to the top of the industrial chain and have broader development space and voice. Therefore, many companies dream of establishing their own brand, and the importance of corresponding brand operations is self-evident.

3. What is the goal of brand operation?

Just like other operations, before starting work, you must first determine your goals and know why you are doing this. Although the purpose of all operations is to make the company earn more money, the goals of each job are different.

For brand operation, there are generally three purposes:

1. Brand exposure: Let your brand be exposed, let others know you, and increase brand awareness;
2. Build a good reputation: gain recognition from customers through good products and services;
3. Brand strengthening: convey the brand's philosophy, values, etc., so that customers will have brand loyalty and repeat consumption;

The above three goals are general directions. In actual work, more specific goals should be set based on specific circumstances.

4. What is the main method of brand operation?

Above we talked about the goals of brand operations. Once we have the goals, we need to think about how to carry out the work.

Here, we provide you with four common ways of brand operation:

Story Packaging

The brand is spread by packaging the founder or company's product development process into a touching story, and then constantly telling this story to the audience. Usually, stories with big contrasts, such as a founder who becomes a loser and makes a comeback, or a returnee who studies abroad and gives up his billions of dollars to start a business in China, are the most eye-catching. Also, stories about the nitpicking and pursuit of details in the product development process are good topics. We often see many bosses appearing on various shows and telling their sad entrepreneurial stories, all for the sake of their company’s brand.

Brand activities

The brand activities here are slightly different from the activities done by event operations. The most obvious difference is that brand activities are generally larger in scale, with greater capital investment, duration, and influence. Events like Tmall’s annual Double Eleven Shopping Festival, the e-sports competitions organized by Honor of Kings , the annual ChinaJoy game show, the Baidu World Conference, etc. are all very good brand events.

Brand Advertising

This method may be the most common, but also the most expensive. To put it simply, it means placing advertisements on various media. However, this type of advertising is also divided into many ways. The most common ones are hard advertising, embedded advertising and advertising sponsorship.

Charity Events

Promoting one's brand by doing good deeds has become the most common method used by companies. Many companies of a certain scale will set up a public welfare department to handle these matters, including public welfare donations, launching some public welfare products, initiating public welfare activities, funding children in poor mountainous areas to go to school, donating Hope Primary Schools, etc.

5. What is the relationship between brand operation, marketing and public relations?

From the above we can see that the work of brand operation is actually not as simple and specific as the previous user operation and content operation. It involves multiple tasks such as activities, advertising, media, public relations, and charity. This confuses many people. In a company, there are departments such as marketing and public relations to do these tasks. Why is there a need for dedicated brand operations?

Let's first look at the marketing part. In a company, the marketing department is mainly responsible for the growth of key performance, such as product promotion, user acquisition, etc. Sometimes it is one-on-one with customers, sometimes it is through email, phone and other channels; sometimes it is cooperation with other companies. As long as it is not illegal, various means can be used as long as performance growth can be achieved. If brand operation is highbrow and marketing is lowbrow, then the work of the marketing department is more down-to-earth.

Let’s take a look at public relations. In a company, the public relations department is mainly responsible for corporate public opinion monitoring, crisis management, media and government relationship maintenance, and the release of major company events. This is a way for a company to communicate externally, and it is often a cooperative relationship with brand operations. For example, brand operations plan a big event, and then public relations will seek media coverage to amplify the influence of the event.

Finally, let’s take a look at brand operation. As I said before, the main task of brand operation is to position the brand, and then based on this positioning, continuously package, operate and maintain the brand to make the brand’s influence grow.

Through comparison, we found that marketing is responsible for performance growth, while public relations is responsible for the company's external communication, and brand operations are only responsible for the brand. Some specific work of the three is similar or even overlapping, but the direction and goals of the work are completely different.

6. Should I choose brand operation as a career?

Now that everyone knows what brand operation is, some friends will ask:

1. Should you choose brand operation as the direction of your career development?
2. How can we do a good job in brand operation?

Finally, I will talk about these two issues.

For traditional enterprises, brand building is a long process, and brand communication is only meaningful where sales can reach. But it is different for Internet companies, because the Internet has no geographical restrictions, and brand communication often has a "trillion-mile" effect. Through brand operation, not only can the rapid growth of users and profits be achieved, but also the brand accumulation that traditional companies need decades to complete can be completed in two to three years. It can be said that they can gain both fame and fortune. Having tasted the sweetness, Internet companies tend to attach great importance to brand operations. They will set up special brand operation positions or even establish independent departments. People in brand operations will have higher salaries and appearance, so it is a good career choice. You can search for relevant positions on Lagou, Zhaopin.com, and Boss Direct Recruitment to learn more details.

So how can we do a good job in brand operation? There are generally four steps to doing a job: determining operational goals, making plans, execution, and feedback on results. Brand operations are no exception.

However, brand operation is different from other operations. For other operations, as long as you are smart enough, it doesn’t matter if you have no experience. You can master the essentials in half a year. To put it simply, you can do it well through your own efforts, but brand operation work often involves a lot of interpersonal communication, capital, and resource docking and exchange. Therefore, whether you can do this job well depends not only on how hard you work, but also on your personal accumulation of resources. It is a profession that becomes more popular as you get older.

Therefore, if you are a newcomer in operations and if you choose brand operations as your career direction, you should pay special attention to accumulating personal connections and resources at work, so that you can do your job more and more easily.

The above are my thoughts and sharing on brand operations. Everyone is welcome to communicate and learn together.