The tricks behind flooding your Moments with national flags!

The national flag was all over the WeChat Moments for two days, with more than 300 million users participating in just two days. The familiar Christmas hats that flooded the screen on Christmas Day in 2017, it’s the same routine, why do users still fall for it, why do they still actively spread it, why do they still have so much fun with it, what is the logic behind it?

If you have experienced the Christmas hats flooding your friend circle during Christmas 2017, you will not find it strange at all, because the routine is the same. We should also think about why everyone is so obsessed with this kind of "routine" activity?

First, let’s review the event.

1. Activity Review

• Activity theme: Welcome the National Day with a new look/Give me a national flag;
• Event planning: From event planning, product development to operational communication, the Tencent News team spent a total of two months;
• Purpose of the activity: To allow everyone to express their patriotic feelings and patriotic feelings;
• Activity time: officially launched at 8:00 on the 24th and offline on the 25th;
• Activity effect: More than 300 million people participated in the activity;

More than 300 million people participated in the event! How come users are so easily fooled? Let’s take a look at how users fall into the trap.

2. Four steps for users to be tricked

It only takes four steps for users to get hooked and have so much fun that they can’t stop!

1. The first step of the trap: herd mentality

The reasons that can make users actively forward and share are nothing more than: curiosity, fun, showing off, and self-improvement.

When there are only a few reposts in the Moments, it generally does not arouse people's enthusiasm for reposting; but when seeing the entire Moments screen filled with "@微信官方", it is enough to arouse users' curiosity.

When everyone is frantically forwarding “Please give me a national flag @微信官方”, are they thinking: Is this a new activity launched by WeChat? As long as you share it on your Moments, the national flag will be automatically added to your profile picture, right? My friend’s avatar does exist, I’ll try it too!

Out of curiosity, you also copied and pasted it and posted it on your Moments, and were looking forward to adding the national flag to my profile picture.

2. The second step of the set: trial and error

After a while, why haven't you added me yet? What's going on? Is it because there are too many people and it’s not my turn yet? Maybe the network is bad? Please refresh the avatar.

I've been waiting for a long time, why is it still not here? Why? I was so anxious that I had to check again to see if I had written it wrong. After trying countless times, I finally found that it still didn't work.

In fact, everyone is like you, and this is how you scroll through your Moments.

3. Step 3: Discover the truth

I quickly asked my friend in private how to put the national flag on my profile picture?

A kind friend revealed the truth: I'll give you a link that can automatically create an avatar with the national flag. At this moment, you must really want to curse.

At the same time, many WeChat public accounts seized the opportunity to attract traffic and put the tutorials on their own public accounts. If you follow them, you will get a national flag. Currently, many public accounts have been blocked for using “national flag avatar” tutorials to attract users’ attention. The national flag represents the country and must not be abused to increase followers.

4. Step 4: Start the self-entertainment mode

The Moments are very popular, and many people are following the trend and starting to have fun, making their own wishes and @WeChat official. Isn’t it fun?

The book "Contagious: Let Your Products, Ideas, and Behaviors Invade Like a Virus" mentions the three main codes for content to go viral in social networks: relevance to me, interest appeal, and showing personality or love and superiority.

First, we start with the three most popular passwords and analyze the logic behind the WeChat Moments screen.

2. The logic behind the user's crazy sharing

1. Relevant to me

Users don’t care about who produces the content, what they care most about is whether the activity/content is “relevant to me”. My image, my story, my friends, my experience, as long as the activity/content being disseminated has an interface that allows users to quickly generate their own version, then it is likely to spread quickly.

The national flag that is flooding the friend circle is of course related to myself. The annual National Day is coming soon. After a long vacation, changing to a special National Day profile picture to increase the sense of presence in advance is also an early carnival from the people. Especially as the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China is approaching, the whole country is celebrating and using social platforms to express or pinpoint their inner patriotic feelings.

2. Interests

Interest appeal refers to practical value, which is what benefits this activity/content brings to users and how to maximize these benefits.

From the perspective of emotion and rationality, it can be divided into the pursuit of material interests or spiritual interests. Common material benefits include: various rewards such as red envelopes, coupons, prizes, etc.; common spiritual benefits include: Can I show off my style and tone? Can it reflect my dignity and personality? In comparison, material interests are short-lived, while spiritual interests are more lasting and warm.

The purpose of flooding the Moments with national flags is more to satisfy users' spiritual pursuits, create a National Day atmosphere, show their presence, and express their patriotism.

3. Show personality or love, superiority

The book "Contagious" points out that people tend to choose iconic identity signals as the basis for judging identity. People like to share because they feel it reflects their personal identity and makes them look smarter and more resourceful, earning them more praise. This is what is called "social currency".

If an activity/content allows users to demonstrate their love or moral superiority when spreading it, then users will have a strong motivation to spread it.

The book "The Social Dividend" points out that the rise of social networks has greatly reduced the threshold and cost for the public to express their love and participate in public welfare and charity.

Therefore, users can share with a simple action, showing their love and moral superiority, and helping others, which is undoubtedly a very cost-effective business.

The exclusive National Day avatar not only displays the user's personalized social network avatar, but also demonstrates the user's good patriotic image and sense of superiority; the user operation cost of spreading it in the circle of friends is also extremely low.

From the perspective of user psychology, Tencent News has grasped the social psychology of users as the national flags flooded the Moments.

3. User Social Psychology Analysis

1. Follow the herd mentality. Everyone is playing and forwarding it, it must be very interesting. I also want to change my avatar to a special one for National Day, hehe.
2. The unwillingness to fall behind. In fact, it is similar to the routine of hunger marketing. Everyone has gone to play and grab it, so I want to try it too, but I can’t suffer any loss.
3. Make fun of others to highlight your own wisdom. I was fooled at first, but I can’t let other people in my circle of friends get away with it. I also want to forward it to my friends circle and act it out as if it were real; if others ask me, I will definitely answer that it was given to me by WeChat officials. I won’t tell you the truth, you can find out for yourself.
4. The mentality of entertaining oneself. There are all kinds of self-entertainment in the Moments, and it is getting more and more outrageous. Even though people know it is fake, many of them still make wishes in the Moments and @微信官方 to express their greatest wishes. It feels good to be self-entertained for a while, and it feels good to be self-entertained all the time!
5. The psychological need for self-actualization. As the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China is approaching, citizens are expressing or pinning their inner patriotic feelings through some medium on social platforms; this form of exclusive avatar with national flag is a good medium for instant display.

Finally, let’s take a look at how Tencent News plans events and its strategies.

4. Marketing strategy analysis

1. Take advantage of hot events

According to Tencent News, it took two months to plan the entire event. This shows that in order to create a hit marketing campaign, it is really necessary to plan ahead for hot events and plans to take advantage of them.

The event fits the hot topic of National Day. The annual National Day is coming soon. During the long holiday, the presence of users is shown in advance, which is also an early carnival for netizens. The high-explosive screen-swiping has ignited users' enthusiasm for participation. In addition, as it is the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China, users' herd mentality has greatly increased their enthusiasm for participating in the event.

2. Grasp the user's social psychology

Event planning fundamentally grasps the social psychology of users. Such as: the mentality of following the trend, the unwillingness to fall behind, the desire to highlight one's own wisdom, the desire to entertain oneself, and the psychological need for self-realization.

As the People's Republic of China celebrates its 70th anniversary, citizens actually have a desire to express their patriotic feelings (the psychological need for self-realization), and the "Give Me a National Flag as My Portrait" campaign happens to be a vehicle for expressing patriotism; and everyone is expressing their patriotism, so how can I fall behind? (Follow the crowd + don't fall far behind)

In the later stages of the activity, it had almost turned into a wish-making activity for "self-entertainment". If we use the term "self-entertainment" to describe the later stage of the activity, it would be better to get to the essence of the phenomenon: users are facing great real-life pressure that needs to be released urgently.

In real work and life, everyone may face various kinds of pressure, and the popular entertainment method of social networks can undoubtedly alleviate this real-world pressure. For example, some friends posted: Give me back my hair, give me a working brain, give me a house, help me lose X pounds, isn’t this the real pressure of users?

Tencent News truly grasped the social psychology of users and almost played this event to its fullest.

If many people participate, will you definitely participate? Not necessarily. The cost of participation must be low. The biggest characteristic of Internet users is "laziness". It must be simple and yet able to get something in return (to achieve the goal).

3. Low participation cost

The explosive point of the event also benefited from the simple and convenient way of participating in the event. You can "get" the national flag by simply copying, pasting and forwarding it to your friends.

Even if the truth is discovered, it is easy to find the "New Look for National Day" H5 and get the National Day exclusive avatar easily, and the user operation cost is very low.

4. Leverage social currency

Social currency is the freshest and most spreadable topic that all netizens know. Using social currency can gain praise from others and establish a more positive image. More and more brands are using social currencies when disseminating content to help netizens establish a good image, thereby stimulating them to actively share, spread and interact.

If an event can become social currency and spread widely in the social circles of netizens, there are actually very deep tricks involved. In 2017, putting a Santa hat on your avatar became popular on WeChat Moments for Christmas; in 2017, photos in military uniform became popular on WeChat social networks; in 2018, the koi fish Xin Xiaodai became popular, and koi fish were widely forwarded and spread on Weibo, and koi fish became social currency; this year, the cat claw cup became popular on social circles, and the cat claw cup became social currency.

Conclusion

A successful marketing campaign is not simply about planning the form of the event. The most important thing is to truly grasp the social psychology of users and leverage the momentum to achieve low-cost and effective marketing results.

Author: Rain

Source: Rain