How to operate brand self-media well?

First, communication needs to be more campaign-oriented. When you take action, you should do a larger brand campaign, do your best within your capabilities, and make it as big as possible;

Second, in an era of distracted attention, try to make brand content a complete whole, rather than a slow cooker;

Third, what brands need more is word-of-mouth public relations. The official should talk less, and the outside world should speak more to let the brand be talked about. This approach can actively create public relations reputation and create more topics for the brand.

The three suggestions re-sold above are the three core principles commonly used in brand communication today, and they are not in direct conflict with the topic of where official self-media is going at the moment. Just like drinking, some people sip slowly while others drink heavily. You can't say who is right or wrong. It only depends on the drinker's alcohol tolerance, the scene, purpose, and needs.

Why do users follow you?

Whether consumers actively seek out brands or brands take the initiative, the ultimate goal of Weibo and Douyin is to achieve "real attention" from users, which in turn leads to real traffic conversion.

So, why do users pay attention to a certain brand’s self-media?

First, for IP information or expertise.

It is actually not common to actively follow official media just to obtain information about a certain brand (news, advertisements, etc.). Active followers often have little to do with how interesting your Weibo, Weibo and Douyin are. Few people will search, open or follow a brand’s self-media with an entertaining mindset. The value of such a platform is often reflected in professional knowledge and specific activity information for specific groups of people. For example, the official account of "Lenovo Holdings Micro Space" gathers many loyal fans of IP figure Liu Chuanzhi.

Second, earn discounts.

With the popularity and use of micro-mall, most brands will bind micro-mall with official accounts and stimulate user attention through various discounts and benefits. KFC, McDonald's and Uniqlo are typical examples. In addition, WeChat service accounts often serve as a gathering place for "brand members", and product and discount information is also more concentrated.

Third, functional usage.

The micro-accounts of service brands, especially WeChat official accounts, are mainly focused on providing services, and the main purpose of users' attention is the convenience of using functions. For example, official WeChat accounts of banks, Varimax, official WeChat accounts of major well-known hospitals, Dingxiang Doctor, etc.

Fourth, interesting content.

Beautiful appearances are all alike, but interesting souls are rare to find. Among the brand accounts on Weibo and Douyin, only a handful can achieve this. Everyone knows Durex (Weibo), Haier (Weibo) and Alipay (WeChat). These three companies seem to be "unproductive" but have achieved attracting attention with their content.

Understanding user needs and clarifying the reasons why users follow brand accounts are exactly what brands should focus on in terms of content. For most brand accounts, content is the key to failure! ——Open the competitor’s account and then look at your own content. The difference is not obvious. Same content, same gameplay, and even the same hot topics...

If operators don’t know why users pay attention to content, how can they present content to users?

Whether a brand stops updating its official media has no direct relationship with the update frequency, but only has to do with how you face users.

Should brands choose drip irrigation or flood irrigation?

Weibo, which was launched 10 years ago (launched in August 2009), WeChat, which was launched 8 years ago (launched in January 2011), and Tik Tok, which was launched 3 years ago (launched in September 2016), are they still strong media?

According to their respective official data, Weibo and Tik Tok both have over 100 million daily active users, while WeChat has as many as 1 billion daily active users. These powerful platforms are destined to be the stage where brands should be active in communication.

Of course, our target users may account for a very small proportion of this traffic. We must realize that brand communication is not about pleasing everyone, and we cannot expect that all users we reach will become our fans.

Spreading our voice on more powerful media will increase the chances of our brand coming into contact with users. If the content is good enough, it may successfully attract users' attention and make users feel good about our brand. However, appearing once alone may not necessarily generate a favorable impression, and a favorable impression generated once may not necessarily lead to love at first sight. Therefore, if you want to attract users' long-term attention or even influence their consumption decisions, insisting on speaking out more becomes an effective "stupid method."

After all, some brands may not be as aloof as Lao Gan Ma, where products are king and natural fermentation has been formed over the years; some brands may not have a first-class content output team like Alipay, let alone the innate brand topic gene like Durex, so it is difficult for them to be "high-profile" to continue. In the absence of favorable timing, location and population, perhaps the only thing that can be done is to hold on to the official self-media (WeChat, Weibo, etc.) and keep the brand’s voice heard.

If the strength allows and the budget is sufficient, the brand communication campaign approach is certainly worth looking forward to. However, brand campaigns, on the one hand, require a lot of funds to match resources. It may be difficult for small and medium-sized enterprise brands to gather effective resources to implement one or even several rounds of brand communication campaigns; on the other hand, they require sophisticated brand positioning, systematic planning, and strong execution support. In case of mistakes and the communication does not achieve the expected results, the one-time large-scale investment will further increase the cost of the attempt.

Companies usually have their own choices as to whether to use drip irrigation or flood irrigation. But the most common approach is to combine the strengths of the two and coordinate them reasonably.

The unique position value of brand self-media

When your target users are active on WeChat, Weibo and Tik Tok, I can’t think of any reason for you to give up establishing your own communication channels on these platforms. Based on Sutu’s many years of communication experience, what companies sometimes need to give up are actually those grand “communication goals” that sound great but are unrealistic to implement, those that are proposed by leaders on the spur of the moment but are not supported by the budget.

We all know that without the support of promotion, it is not easy to attract new users by relying solely on the daily operations of brand self-media. However, for every large-scale communication campaign organized by a brand, brand self-media is a position that cannot be ignored.

There is no unified routine for every important marketing campaign of a brand, and the tactical role of brand official microblogs in communication is also different, but there are usually two common tactics:

Tactic 1: At the end of the communication campaign, show the spokesperson's attitude and express that "this brand is responsible for this communication."

Example: Communication path map of PepsiCo’s Year of the Monkey Spring Festival Campaign project: Start-up period: Monkey King failed to be selected for the Spring Festival Gala, and the topic was hyped on Weibo; Push-up period: KOL boosted and stirred up netizens’ emotions; Harvest period: Official TVC was exposed and the brand’s dominant position was demonstrated through the official Weibo account.

In the two stages of "start-up period" and "push-up period", the purpose of "pushing up the peak" is clear, the information transmission is pure, the brand exposure is very small, the consumer acceptance is extremely high, the participation in the topic and the radiation of the topic in the second circle are extremely high, which can accumulate a large amount of real traffic for the final brand outbreak stage (harvest period).

Strategy 2: Speak out at the beginning of the communication campaign.

Example: Durex Air Cannon live broadcast communication path map: the official Weibo releases a preview in advance – KOL promotes and spreads event preview information – event communication is fully launched.

This communication path is more common. As long as the content is high-quality, the results are often simple, crude but effective. Brands that choose this tactic often hope that the brand will be exposed from the beginning to the end of the communication. Unfortunately, most of such communications only achieve "exposure", and the rigid brand information excludes it from the beginning.

The conclusion I want to draw is that a communication campaign that attracts widespread external attention does not conflict with the role of official self-media. In fact, the explosion of wide-area traffic and the accumulation/operation of private-domain traffic can form a reasonable coordination.

In fact, many brand self-media have become irreplaceable in communication campaigns. This is especially true for Haier's Weibo and Lenovo Holdings' Micro Space official account. Through "de-productization/selling personalities + early traffic dividends + long-term operational accumulation", they have a strong traffic base, which has provided significant support for the brand's communication campaigns and is even the main platform.

Related reading:

1. 6 promotion skills of self-media operation, telling you how to do a good promotion!

2. How to start your new project from the four dimensions of new media operations?

3. New Media Operation丨How to operate self-media platforms such as Toutiao and Baijiahao?

4.【Practical Information】85 self-media platforms have been sorted out, with a mind map attached!

5. In the second half of self-media, cashing out failed and accounts were constantly blocked!

6. How to operate self-media in 2019?

Author: XO Kitten

Author: XO Kitten