How to become a social marketing expert?

The advantages of social marketing lie in high awareness, high conversion, and fast dissemination, which are respectively reflected in content, KOL, and activities, which I refer to as the "three axes of social marketing."

Create content that users love

Not everyone can write with great talent. When we want to create content, is there a methodology?

Content is for users, so the first step is to understand your users, especially active target users, what they talk about on social media, their interests and hobbies, reading habits, and purchasing behaviors. This will make it easier for us to launch topics that users like and create materials and copywriting with higher click-through rates. As shown below:

Next, you need to create content for your target users. Before creating content, it’s best to do some work.

1. Detailed collection of target user interests

By monitoring topic rankings and user hot comments, we can collect the interests of target users and tag them. For example, if the target users are interested in traveling but also love food, then it is necessary to create food-related content. It is very necessary to make rational use of various tools . For example, Weibo can use keywords to search for accounts and content. When we find a very matching KOL, his fans' comments may be the information we want to collect; WeChat can use Sogou and Xinbang .

2. Collect materials from multiple channels

Unless we can create content as stably and efficiently as Durex 's new media team, it becomes inevitable to organize some materials for content reserves. When I was doing tourism social marketing, the most important material I collected was the travel notes section of major travel communities, especially the travel notes on Mafengwo, which were exquisite and interesting. Of course, if you can get first-hand content from some active users, it will be very helpful for subsequent dissemination. In addition to normal material collection, it is also necessary to monitor the latest hot topics in real time to ensure that the hot topics are leveraged to the maximum extent possible. For some beautiful pictures, I will also store them in real time, because beauty is the key to content creation.

3. Start your content creation

Copywriting is not something that can be achieved overnight; it requires constant practice. From a title to a story and illustrations, all require constant practice to reach a mature level. A better way is to imitate and see how excellent peers create content. If possible, make a list of ten good titles to ensure you have a steady flow when creating. Some people may say that writing is too difficult. At this time, the excellent materials you have collected can come in handy. If you can’t write, can’t you adapt it? In addition, we need to dig out more real stories of users, such as collecting membership stories.

4. Develop and execute content publishing plans

In fact, before creating content, a corresponding content publishing plan needs to be formulated. Many companies will adopt a social communication matrix involving Weibo, WeChat, Douban, Zhihu, Space, Tieba, and a certain channel may have multiple accounts. For different channels, the content release plan will be different. For example, Weibo is suitable for videos, while WeChat is suitable for articles; for example, the content pushed by WeChat subscription accounts and service accounts will have different directions. Therefore, we need to formulate a corresponding content release plan based on different channels, account attributes, time, and quantity, and then execute it according to the plan.

5. Optimize your content

The secret to optimizing content is data. For example, I once led a social communication plan and found more than 20 bloggers to promote it. However, after sorting the data, I found that some copywriting had a high readership and many reposts and shares, while some copywriting had a very low readership. We made timely adjustments based on data feedback, and after changing two versions, the data improved significantly. The principle of optimization is A/B testing to find what users like.

Remember, all content is to inspire KOLs, get them involved in your social communication campaign, and gradually become your loyal fans. If you don’t like the content you create, no one else will like it either.

Find the real KOL

It is far from enough to rely solely on content to attract users. After all, KOL is the secret of social marketing. Sometimes an article may get less than a hundred reads after it is sent out. For example, what is the difference between a marketing director with a monthly salary of 100,000 and one with a monthly salary of 30,000? , which had less than 2,000 readers on the personal public account, but after being forwarded by the Chief Brand Officer and iHeima, the number of readers reached 80,000 and 30,000 respectively. This shows that KOL is the key to social communication.

Who is your KOL? Why would they help you with marketing if there is no money? In fact, we don’t have to look for the most famous KOLs. You can’t afford the high fees, and the results may not be good. What we are looking for is a KOL who is truly suitable for the product.

My team once served on a charity project. We hoped to help more deaf children, but the funding was very limited. We sought cooperation from well-known KOLs, but most of them rejected us. Finally, we searched for people and content through keywords on Weibo and gradually found a group of philanthropists. Some of them were initiators of charity schools, some were CCTV reporters, some were college students, and of course, there were also enthusiastic farmers. We grouped them, planned themes, pushed different copywriting to different KOLs, and @ed them one by one. The process was difficult because it is really hard to do things without benefits, but persistence finally paid off. Two bloggers agreed to join this charity program for free, and then the third blogger came in, and then more people came in, including hosts of well-known programs and even celebrities. They promoted this charity project on their blogs, Weibo, WeChat, and video sites such as Youku. The project was finally highly recognized by customers, thanks to the power of KOL.

Let’s review how to find the KOLs you want and manage them:

1. Identify who your KOL is

A KOL does not necessarily have to be a big IP. As long as he has a certain influence, even if he can only influence 100 classmates, he must have excellent social habits and be relatively active. If you are not active, no matter how many fans you have, it will be meaningless. Other personal KOLs, especially those who are not commercialized, are easier to cooperate with, but you need to plan an excellent theme , which can be charity or emotional, to inspire the other party and make him feel that this matter is interesting rather than LOW or boring.

2. Connect with your KOLs

After finding the KOL, @ him, comment on him, or even contact him by using the KOL who knows him. A hard connection may not get a response, so it is necessary to plan a topic. As the saying goes, if the name is not right, the words will not flow. How can the KOL pay attention to something that the KOL himself finds boring? In addition, you need to understand the rules of the platform . For example, when I was looking for KOLs in a travel community, more than a dozen accounts were blocked by major travel websites, and several weeks of hard work went to waste. The territory belongs to Weibo or WeChat, and those who don’t follow the rules will have no chance to play.

3. Carry out communication with KOLs

When the KOL is willing to join, you need to provide corresponding services, such as the creative direction of the copy, the company's brand story, product introduction and materials, including the communication goals. Good results must be based on consistent goals. For KOL, appropriate incentives are also necessary, not limited to money, but also include exquisite gifts, or company honorary certificates and titles. You can also give some prizes to KOLs to help them increase the number and activity of their fans. This is a win-win situation. When KOLs embed your products and ideas on their social media, it is more effective than advertising on any other channel.

4. Manage your KOLs

During the period of serving the public welfare project, as more and more KOLs joined, we formed various honor groups for them. The groups are not big, with 30 people in each group, but I was surprised to find that many people knew each other and brought in many friends. When a well-known KOL came in, everyone was excited and the activity level soared. So some people hoped to organize some offline exchange meetings, and later it actually happened. With a small amount of sponsorship fees and spontaneous activities by users, it was very successful. Manage your KOL and build a communication platform.

Remember, what KOL wants is not necessarily money, but whether he is interested in doing this thing.

Involve users in your fun activities

No matter whether it is KOL or content, what can really impress users is the activities.

Why should users participate in activities? Behind the activities are human nature, for example, the invitation to withdraw money from Jiedaibao represents interests; for example, the blurred photos in the circle of friends represent curiosity.

Here are a few types of activities:

1. Rewarded

Simple and crude. This approach is more effective for new products. But as users discovered that the chances of winning were extremely low, fewer and fewer users actually participated. Weibo is flooded with a large number of freeloaders who make money by forwarding messages for prize draws. Some people register hundreds of accounts specifically to participate in the draws, resulting in most of the participants in Weibo's prize-winning forwarding messages being freeloaders.

2. Invite withdrawal

Very rough. Jiedaibao relied on this method to quickly reach the top of the Apple mobile phone store rankings. For users, being able to get real money is undoubtedly much better than forwarding messages with a chance of winning, so the effect is relatively good. This method is more suitable for products with lower barriers to entry, because it only achieves a simple purpose of communication, does not deepen the cognition of the invited users, and does not stimulate their sense of participation, so the conversion rate is not high. However, since it can only be realized after a successful invitation, similar to CPS cooperation, it is widely adopted.

3. Rankings

There are many forms of rankings, such as voting, points, and game results. This type of activity mainly takes advantage of the users' desire to win and have fun. Of course, if KOLs participate, it will bring about a herd effect.

4. Member activities

Mainly for members-initiated activities, including points rewards, discounts, and lucky draws. The best effect is usually the big wheel lottery, which is very immersive and takes advantage of the user's gambling psychology.

5. Festival activities

Festival activities are the focus, especially important festivals such as National Day and Spring Festival. The main forms of festival activities are promotions, buy one get one free, discounts, etc.

6. Creative activities

Compared with other activities, creative activities are not limited to rewards, but focus more on the emotional appeal of users. Through a certain topic or event, attract people's attention and encourage them to participate in the interaction. For example, the recently popular "Four-hour escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou" combines people's emotions and activities of escaping from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, triggering crazy forwarding.

Remember, activities need to leverage momentum, such as launching an activity with multiple merchants, or conducting business cooperation with Tencent, iQiyi, etc., so as to maximize the effect of the activity within a limited budget. Secondly, when doing invitation rewards and promotional activities, you must grasp the scale of stimulation. If the cost-effectiveness is too high, it will not be good. If it is too low, it will not stimulate the user's G-spot and no one will participate.

Summarize:

1. The three axes of social marketing: content, KOL, and activities.

2. The essence of social marketing is to stimulate user participation and maximize the use of content, KOLs, and activities.

3. The secret to content optimization is data, which can be optimized through A/B testing.

4. Finding a KOL does not necessarily require money, but it does require fun.

5. Behind the activity is human nature, and leveraging the momentum can maximize the effect.

6. Channel operation is one-to-one, while social marketing is one-to-many, because activities and content trigger forwarding. Channel operation conversion is low, while social marketing conversion is high because content and KOLs enhance user awareness.

Young people can live without love and money, but they cannot live without dreams. Come with me and change yourself!

A skill interpretation article is published every week, summarizing the methodology in practice and logical reasoning.