User operation: What else can you do without fission users to attract new users?

Without fission, how can we achieve healthy user growth?

On May 13, WeChat officially released the "Announcement on the Handling of Inducement to Share Moments Check-ins", which clearly prohibits the use of WeChat product functions to induce sharing, causing a huge shock in the Internet operations field.

WeChat’s official announcement reads: “It is prohibited to induce users to share or disseminate external links or WeChat public account articles through the use of benefits, including but not limited to: cash rewards, physical prizes, virtual prizes (red envelopes, coupons, vouchers, points, phone bills, traffic, information, etc.), collecting likes, group buying, sharing to increase the chance of winning a prize, and using points or monetary benefits to induce users to share, click, and like WeChat public account articles; (It is also a violation to induce users to share to Moments from other software.)”

At the same time, WeChat has cracked down on the check-in marketing in Moments that is popular in education and knowledge-based paid products, and has publicly banned related Moments sharing links from well-known accounts including Fluent Reading, Mint Reading, and Qingke, and even banned the sharing interfaces of their open platform accounts or applications.

This move by WeChat was welcomed with a lot of calls of support, but more were cries of grief from operators in various industries. This action has dealt a huge blow to the education circle, knowledge payment circle, and new media operation circle, and has affected many third-party companies whose main business is fission.

Since WeChat became the main channel for user growth, operators in various industries have begun to compete with WeChat in a battle of wits and courage. The early methods were very simple and crude. Articles had to be clickbait in terms of title and shared on WeChat Moments in order to be read or receive certain rewards or benefits. This method was soon banned by WeChat. The "WeChat Public Platform Operation Specifications" stipulate that if words such as "share" and "forward" appear in a WeChat article, the article may be deleted or the account may be blocked after being reported by readers.

Every policy from the top has a countermeasure from the bottom. Against this backdrop, a number of third-party tools with fission as their main function have emerged, helping many public accounts achieve explosive growth in followers. For example, the New World Marketing Course and NetEase Team Open Course, which were widely circulated and discussed at the beginning, were again punished by WeChat for reasons such as multi-level distribution.

For education and knowledge-based paid products, checking in on WeChat Moments is the most commonly used method of promotion and attracting new customers. Compared with the "bombarding" distribution fission of course posters, the learning check-in in the circle of friends seems gentle and enterprising. However, for businesses, clocking in carries with it an inducement to profit. Whether it is refunding tuition fees or giving away coupons, they have all been severely cracked down on by WeChat in this rectification campaign.

This rectification campaign can be regarded as a purification of the user social environment by WeChat. From another perspective, it is also a tightening of WeChat’s control over the traffic in Moments, which is also forcing the operation teams of various companies to study new ways to increase users. Without fission, how can we achieve healthy user growth?

01 Content + creativity, deep connection with customers

Good content itself has growth potential. In the early days of WeChat official accounts, a large number of content creators seized the dividends, accumulated a large number of fans and became giants in the official account field. For example, Youshu and Shidian Reading in the field of cultural reading have been committed to creating high-quality content and accumulating original traffic since the early days.

Since 2018, there have been constant voices criticizing WeChat public accounts, but this still cannot stop the pace of new media people. On August 9, Xin Shi Xiang announced that the number of fans of the official account "Xin Shi Xiang" exceeded 10 million; on August 15, Shi Dian Du Shu announced that the number of fans of the single official account "Shi Dian Du Shu" exceeded 25 million. Taking advantage of WeChat's super fission capability, after one year and three months of expansion, Fan Deng Reading Club increased its paid membership from 1.7 million to 8 million.

Of course, after the bonus period is over, how can the current small accounts achieve steady growth? High-quality and unique content is absolutely essential. In addition, the "Take a look" function under the WeChat [Discover] column also provides another traffic entrance. The original “Like” has become “Reading”. As long as the content is good enough and readers click “Reading”, it can get more display opportunities under the “Take a Look” function.

In the past two years, some small accounts have been constantly staging stories of counterattack. Cui Yongwang, who operates the company's public account "Sports Circle", usually has 2,000 readers. In 2018, he planned a series of articles, two of which had over 100,000 readers and three articles had over 50,000 readers. The overall number of readers of the articles has steadily increased. Jiang Daming usually has about 100 readers and has not done any operation or promotion. In July 2018, he produced an article with 40,000 readers, and the number of readers increased 400 times. The public accounts they operate are not as strong as Xiaomi and Alipay, which have their own traffic, and they do not spend money on large-scale promotion, but they all achieved a steady growth in readership in 2018.

In addition to content creation for official accounts, there is another company that puts a lot of effort into content and creative marketing. In March 2017, NetEase Cloud Music and Hangzhou-Hong Kong Metro jointly launched the "Music Review Train: See the Power of Music" event. NetEase Cloud Music first selected more than 5,000 reviews with the highest number of likes from more than 400 million comments on the platform, and finally selected 85 music reviews that were most likely to resonate emotionally with the subway audience, and placed large-scale promotional materials in the train carriages of Metro Line 1 and various subway stations.

NetEase Cloud Music’s “Music Review Train” not only spreads spontaneously among users, but also receives unanimous praise from industry insiders. During the promotion of the "Music Critics Special Train", a large number of netizens shouted "Welcome the Music Critics Special Train to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou". It has to be said that this is a heartfelt marketing effort that understands urban youth, and also a bold cross-border attempt. Of course, the basis of this event is still the accumulation of a large amount of UGC (user-generated content) by NetEase Cloud Music.

02 Return to social interaction and make good use of the chat window

WeChat’s governance action this time is mainly aimed at the Moments. In addition to prohibiting the temptation of benefits to check in on WeChat Moments, it is also prohibited to induce users to share to WeChat Moments through other software. One measure taken by WeChat is to stop access to shared content or even block the software's interface to WeChat, such as banning certain short video apps from sharing content to WeChat.

Another measure is to block content shared in Moments. For example, the mini program code of some ticket-grabbing website posted in Moments may appear to be posted successfully in the user’s Moments, but WeChat blocks this content from the user’s friends.

Although we have lost the huge traffic entrance of Moments, if we must rely on users' social relationships, we can focus on users' chat windows and encourage users to share information to chat windows or WeChat groups. Many food delivery apps have done a good job in this regard. In many WeChat groups, you will occasionally see external links such as "The Xth person to receive the biggest red envelope". This is a way to attract new users, and also a way to maintain continuous use of users in the form of benefits such as coupons.

In addition, some games also use WeChat chat windows to attract new users. For example, the recently popular "Virus Elimination" game consumes 5 energy points for each game, and after the energy is used up, it needs to be exchanged for diamonds. If the diamonds are used up, old users can get 20 diamonds for each new user they invite. Combined with the copy during the sharing process, it is hard not to let users click in to try it out.

There is also a classic example of fission through social channels - WeChat Reading. WeChat Reading has 3-day, 5-day, 7-day, 30-day, 365-day and lifetime unlimited cards. During the unlimited card period, you can read all the books on WeChat Reading for free. For users who are accustomed to reading on their mobile phones, this can be said to be a very tempting benefit.

WeChat Reading users can share to WeChat groups and Moments, and team up with friends to draw unlimited cards, and the unlimited cards obtained are random. With this wave of governance of WeChat Moments, I wonder whether the unlimited card fission of WeChat Reading will continue.

03 Activate the community and let users drive operations

From WeChat's restrictions on public accounts that induce sharing, to the phenomenal fission and new user acquisition that occurs several times a year, and the subsequent official bans and even notifications by WeChat, WeChat's management of public accounts and Moments has been tightened step by step. Relatively speaking, the current management of communities is relatively loose, and there is still a lot of room for commercialization.

Of course, many companies attach great importance to community operations, but as the number of community members grows, how to maintain the activity of the community and continue to attract new members becomes a key issue. The founder of the well-known running self-media "Runner Says" is very good at community operation.

Lao Hu, the founder of "Runners Say", started his business by writing about running techniques, thoughts and other content. After accumulating a certain number of fans, he started a new model for the running community - 100 people 100 days. The 100 People 100 Days project aims to recruit a group of people who love running, establish a community with 100 people in one WeChat group, and those who sign up will pay a certain amount of registration fee and pledge to keep running for 100 days. During the 100-person 100-day project, users who persist can enjoy a refund of the registration fee in batches. For users who cannot persist midway, the registration fee will be distributed to persistent users in the form of rewards.

After several years of development, the Hundred People Hundred Days Project has entered its 15th phase, with a total of more than 20,000 participants, and has now incubated more new ways of playing. For example, the "Tiger Tally" - obtained through community selection, offline running appointments, public account submissions and other forms.

The "Tiger Tally" not only represents the honor brought by persistence in running, but can also be used as a coupon to offset the registration fee for the next 100 People 100 Days event. In addition, in the 100 People 100 Days project, we have developed an independent interest community gameplay, and launched 5 diverse interest communities, including a reading club, a writing club, and a fitness club. This allows users to improve their spiritual level while maintaining their health through running. At the same time, the content generated by users' writing can be fed back to the official account for publication.

04 Cross-border marketing, diversified user acquisition

In addition to relying on social media platforms such as WeChat to attract new customers, cross-border marketing between different types of companies can sometimes have unexpected results. Cross-border marketing allows strong companies to join forces to exchange traffic, which not only helps attract new users, but also has significant significance for brand enhancement for both or even multiple parties.

In March 2018, NetEase Cloud Music and People's Daily Publishing House jointly selected more than 200 high-quality music reviews and compiled them into a book titled "Every Song I Listen to Is Like Singing Myself".

First of all, the title of the book can attract a large number of readers. Even readers who have never used NetEase Cloud Music will be retained by such an emotional title.

In addition, the unique binding design and layout allow users to not be restricted by the reading methods of ordinary books, and they can search and read freely according to their own preferences. Just like the title of the book, there will always be a sentence that will hit you. Through this book, NetEase Cloud Music not only gained a large number of new users, but also earned royalties through book sales.

In addition to publishing books, the "Music Review Train" mentioned above is also a great cross-border marketing campaign by NetEase Cloud Music using UGC content. In addition, as one of the most popular mobile games with the largest audience base, Honor of Kings has not stopped attracting new users in the past year. The Honor of Kings game has collaborated with many brands, such as McDonald's, Chimelong, Casio, Xiaomi, OPPO, etc., covering various types such as customized products and joint promotions.

Recently, King of Glory teamed up with the cosmetics brand MAC to launch customized lipstick. There are five colors of the co-branded lipsticks released this time: Dark Moon, Red Maple, Red Orchid, Bright Peach, and Red Carp, which correspond to the five female heroes in the game: Luna, Gongsun Li, Mulan, Diao Chan, and Da Qiao. Not only did it become a hot topic on Weibo, it also attracted a large number of "Pesticide Girls" to pay for the lipstick.

05 Channel distribution, rapid realization of monetization

Distribution is common in the sale of all types of goods, whether they are physical goods or information products. In particular, with the help of domestic third-party platforms such as Youzan and Weidian, distribution listing, delivery and settlement have become very simple. In the field of book publishing, content cooperation + distribution with various high-traffic large accounts is very common.

For example, the promotion cooperation of "Penguin Little Black Books" jointly carried out by CITIC Press, New World View and Good Books Alliance achieved sales of tens of thousands of books in a short period of time, and the partners also obtained high returns through distribution channels.

In addition to distribution through online platforms, distribution through offline agents or communities is also a good choice. Through this form, Fan Deng Reading Club has achieved tremendous growth.

Fan Deng Reading Club has recruited offline agents in hundreds of cities across the country and authorized these agents to sell membership cards. Fan Deng Reading Club signs agency contracts with companies with independent legal personality in various places. The agency companies sell membership cards of Fan Deng Reading Club in the form of branches, and Fan Deng Reading Club shares the sales revenue with the agents. It can be said that Fan Deng Reading Club’s offline distribution model has brought them a large number of users.

In addition, Fan Deng Reading Club has more than 1,000 branches around the world. Branches in various places will spontaneously organize various online and offline activities, which also attract a large number of new users to register and pay through these activities.

Every company has a different direction of development, but quickly acquiring new customers is a sign that your company is growing. The ability to attract new customers can be continuously enhanced, especially for startups, whose only goal is to grow rapidly. Only by achieving user growth can the company move to the upper right side of the growth curve.

The external environment is constantly changing. Whether it is attracting new customers based on social platforms such as WeChat, or attracting new customers based on other forms of online and offline channels, we must constantly adapt to changes in the external environment and constantly research new ways to attract new customers in order for the company to achieve sustainable growth.

Related reading:

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2. User operation: user growth in the post-traffic era!

3. Product operation: How to use data analysis to drive product user growth?

4. APP user growth: One model solves 90% of growth problems!

5.How to increase users? Take Pinduoduo and Xiaohongshu as examples

6. Triggering user growth: Is user operation just about attracting new users?

By Gabriel Weinberg

Source: CITIC Publishing Group Business Press "Attracting New Customers: Rapidly Achieving User Growth"