45 essential things to know about community operations!

Be patient, take it slow and it will be faster. It will help you if you read it carefully! Let’s talk about this big thing in the community today!

01. What exactly is a community? It doesn't seem to be that important. It can be regarded as a group of people in a virtual space. Everyone comes with a certain purpose and wants to get something, and they stay together in the form of a virtual meeting. So, in fact, there is no essential difference between virtual communities and offline meet-ups. People get together for something, always want to brag, and always want to get to know each other.

02. It’s just that online communities make the distance between people seem so close, but in fact so far, a virtual meeting that cannot be touched or seen.

03. The biggest pitfall in community operation is not understanding the above two points, and learning all kinds of messy operation techniques. The best community operation technique is to treat the community as an offline gathering of many people, most of whom are strangers. At this time, you are the organizer, what do you think everyone should do?

04. First of all, don’t we have to get to know each other first? Otherwise, you don’t know me and I don’t know him, so how can we communicate together? That would be awkward. Secondly, shouldn’t there be a central theme? What are we getting together for? Secondly, do we need to directly select a few people, some of whom like to organize activities, let them be the group leader, some of whom like to brag, let them be the atmosphere group leader, some of whom are very insightful and everyone likes to listen to them, let them be the opinion leader...

05. Of course, as the organizer, you still want to sell something to these people. So should the topics we discuss and the angles of communication revolve around this product? This is the mutual match between the product system and the community content system.

06. If it is not a community for selling goods, the operation method must be completely different. This involves the classification of communities. It can be classified according to user stickiness, whether it is paid, or by form. Each has its own classification method, but if you operate this group, you must ask yourself three questions. What is the purpose of this group? What do the users of this group care about? What value can I provide to this group?

07. Not all groups need to be operated by yourself. A good community model is designed to allow you to slack off every day. You can allow the group to be self-governing. Let those who like to lead come out to manage the group. Let those who like to share come out to create community content and topics. Those who are socially adept can come out to brag and liven up the atmosphere. Let those who like to lurk come out to like and then listen and watch quietly.

08. What the organizer needs to do is to establish a good mechanism and find these people, so if you want to slack off, you must have the ability.

09. A community is a place (field) where people gather, so you must be vigilant and good at utilizing a community effect: the herd effect. Be alert to your social media comments and prevent people from fanning the flames. At the same time, you can also take advantage of this effect, such as buying on the trend, which is good.

10. What are the criteria for measuring the quality of a community operation? You can refer to points 01 and 03 to see how to measure the quality of an offline gathering organization. Well, that should be the depth of the relationship between community members. To put it in one indicator, it is links, number of links and link depth.

11. If there is only a link between the group owner and group members, the number of links is N-1, the number of people in the community. What if we expand the pattern a little bit and allow all community members to have links? The answer is: N*(N-1)/2. When the number of people in the community is 100, the number of such links is 50 times the previous number. Therefore, if you are not good at running a community, it means that you are not big enough, well, your vision is not big enough!

12. There is another emotional indicator to measure the quality of a community, which is community culture. It does not mean that the people in this community are very cultured, but that something similar to corporate culture has been formed in the community. Members have reached a certain understanding and norms, and are proud of them and are always maintaining this culture. Moreover, people outside the group cannot understand this kind of community culture. Does your community have a community culture?

13. At this time, the community siege appears, but the people in the community will be very happy to be in this group, and will actively show off and spread the group. People outside the group envy this group and want to join this group.

14. The community is a true subset of the private domain.

15. IP can also be created within the community, or in other words, it is easier to operate a community with an IP, but it is not a necessity. The group owner can also be an insensitive community operator, which is called self-operation.

16. Should we start with a large group or a small group? When you have some choice or are just starting out, of course it’s a small group. Because a very important point about the community is screening. When your community has only 20 members and you have a lot of users, you will screen them. People who can enter this group must feel honored, because they at least recognize you or your product. Is it possible that such a group cannot be run well?

17. Let’s continue talking about small groups. Let’s change the dimension. Why can’t we create a small group within a large group, such as a core group of 5 people in the community? Who do you think can join this group? Why join this group?

18. Regarding the above two points, in fact, if we talk about the circle theory of the community, the community members we should influence the most and first are our core users, and then influence the outer layers through the core layer.

19. So, now take a look at your group again. Can you divide the group members into different levels? Who are the people in the core layer? Who are the people in the closer outer layer? Who are the people in the outer layer further away?

20. No one stipulates that the number of members in a community must remain fixed. Why must those peripheral members who do not contribute to the community, who are always lurking and unwilling to give a like, be in the group? This requires an entry and exit mechanism, which must be agreed upon in advance.

21. Every country has its own laws and every group has its own rules.

22. An interesting ice-breaking game and a valuable self-introduction are both powerful tools for breaking the ice in the community, and breaking the ice is a must in the community.

23. How to activate a group? I have 10 tried-and-tested tips for social interaction. Make a friend: zzfang and get them.

24. The community is not a tool for sales conversion, it just provides a venue for conversion. The premise of purchase is trust. It is not the group that establishes trust. You have to deliver value through the group and connect with the depth of social interaction to gain trust. It’s just that the community will accelerate and amplify this trust, mainly because of Article 09.

25. A good community is not just about random chats and nonsense, but it should be able to generate high-quality social exchanges and topic discussions. Both the group owner and group members should be aware of this and jointly build community content.

26. However, the community is not very friendly to the accumulation of content, so the 2017 version of Knowledge Planet was created.

27. A good community not only outputs content, but also outputs value, or valuable content.

28. A community that only operates according to SOP is equivalent to a user talking to a robot, or a robot that only talks to itself. Users treat you as a human being, but you don’t treat yourself as one and instead shape yourself into a robot.

29. No one wants to communicate with a machine that talks to itself. They will feel insulted. Therefore, a community that only operates according to SOP will definitely not operate well.

30. Community points are an incentive policy. Of course, they are not necessary, but it would be better to have them. The points dimensions can be set from four dimensions: activity, content contribution, new customer acquisition and conversion contribution. If you need to talk in detail, let me make a friend: zzfang007.

31. The purpose of the 2B community is not to make a deal, because you cannot make a deal. The purpose of the 2B community to discuss and communicate is for you to fully convey the value of your products. Therefore, the core purpose of the 2B community is to gain an opportunity for in-depth communication with major customers, provided that they know or recognize you through the group.

32. 2B communities should not only be conducted online, because the decision-making chain on the B side is very long. If you can get the opportunity to meet offline through online communication, and then obtain needs, find and further KP communication through offline communication.

33. The logic of community fission is the consumption of potential energy. You increase potential energy through bait, and users obtain bait by completing fission tasks. After the tasks are completed, the potential energy is reduced.

34. You may feel that after so much effort to attract new members and create so many groups, should you keep them and do some operations or conversions? In fact, it is basically difficult to succeed. Each group has one purpose. People who join your fission group are here to take advantage of you. It is very difficult for you to convert them, and it is often not worth the effort.

35. It is impossible for a short-term training camp community to have a good conversion rate. Don’t be superstitious about the so-called SOP operation method. Users will only buy if they are familiar with and trust you and your products. To achieve this, you need to slowly establish a trusting relationship with users through the community, or build your own brand on the entire network, so that you don’t need to educate users in the group.

36. Therefore, the core point of conversion through training camp communities lies in whether you can establish a good trust relationship with users. At this time, operations for the purpose of communication are very important, and the product experience is also very important.

37. In order to achieve conversion and considering the energy of the operators, either the number of members in the community should not be too large, or the community operation time should be very long, giving the operators and users enough time to understand and trust each other, and then make purchases.

38. A training camp community with high stickiness and high conversion rate must have created an unforgettable experience for users. Therefore, operations need to bring experience design to the table, starting with breaking the ice when entering the group, and then designing the experience for a series of subsequent links. Please refer to a book "Peak Experience" here.

39. If a conversion community has an IP character, it will be very helpful for the conversion rate. IP+community operation is the standard for high conversion rate, so building IP is not just about building yourself, but also about learning to build others.

40. When it comes to selling products, you must say it in advance, the so-called "say the ugly things first". The sales point of a group should be very advanced. You should leave some time for yourself and the users. Don’t just be a good person and always think about bringing out the sales product at the end. At this time, users have no time to digest your product.

41. A die-hard fan group is a group of die-hard fans. So what are die-hard fans? You have to have your own definition. No matter how you define it, purchasing your product is a true recognition of you, especially for users who keep making repeated purchases, who are most likely loyal fans.

42. Build a highly active fan group: screening, connection, culture, and offline.

43. The operation of a loyal fan group requires slow and deep progress.

44. The core of replicating offline communities is to replicate the core group of people and operational capabilities of the community. The first step is to find the core group of people, and then help build a localized community around this person, while giving him operational capabilities or assisting him in doing so.

45. Community operation, like business operations, must comply with basic common sense. Common fantasies include: wanting to sell goods directly without communicating with users, wanting the community to be active by mechanically copying and pasting texts every day, and wanting a high conversion rate by luring users with bait. Please be sober.

Attached are the knowledge points on community operation abilities. If you really want to be a comprehensive community operator, the following skills are what you must master at present.

Author: Uncle Liangshan

Source: Liang Shanbo