How do the koi fish that are all over the circle of friends stimulate users' psychology?

In late October, an article titled "In front of this woman who has been winning all her life, Yang Chaoyue is really not a lucky fish..." (hereinafter referred to as "Lucky Fish") suddenly appeared and quickly went viral on WeChat Moments . Overnight, the amount of rewards received for the article reached the upper limit. Friends in the new media circle said that her family achieved the annual target of other companies with just this article.

Opening the article, you can find that the whole article is just about the author's glorious "lucky history" from childhood to adulthood: he passed the junior high school entrance examination with a low score; before the college entrance examination, he casually flipped to the next day's exam questions; in the civil service interview, the person in front of him happened to be absent; as soon as he graduated, his family was assigned to Xiongan New Area...

The author, who calls himself Fuwa, tells a series of dramatic stories filled with mysterious coincidences. Objectively speaking, the author's story does not stand up to scrutiny, and she has not produced any decent evidence to support her story.

Then why are there still so many people buying into her posts, forwarding them, liking them, and giving them rewards?

I don’t want to discuss whether the author of the article is Fuwa. What I want to say is that she is definitely a master at stirring up users’ psychology.

1. Good articles are like good products. User positioning is also very important

Throughout the article "Koi", the examples cited by the author include: middle school entrance examination, college entrance examination, level 6, job hunting ... From the examples selected in the article, we can find that in terms of the choice of reader audience, the author clearly targeted college students and newcomers in the workplace from the beginning.

For these target readers, the experiences the author describes are those they have just experienced and are still fresh in their memory, or those that have been deeply engraved in their minds after many hardships, so readers can have a strong sense of involvement in the content of the article.

For students, heavy exam pressure is the main worry in life. After witnessing the author's magical exam experience, they will inevitably be envious.

Imagine a college student who has fought hard for further study and exams, and has failed many times. Under the heavy pressure of the exam, he will try any method that seems to be able to help the test results, no matter how unreliable it is. After all, in addition to hard work, exams also involve a component of luck. Since you can't control your luck, you can only try to ask for help from "koi". It doesn't cost money to try anyway.

For newcomers in the workplace, they are just starting out and beginning to experience the hardships of life and the cruelty of society; the huge gap between their beautiful dreams before graduation and the reality makes them lost and confused. And "koi" happens to be the most easily available "quick-acting heart-saving pill" around them.

The appearance of an article titled "Koi" seems to have given newcomers in the workplace an emotional outlet, allowing them to express their hardships and their yearning for an easy life.

These readers were chosen because the author is a member of the reader group and understands their psychological needs, and they just need "koi".

Some people may wonder, these readers have all received higher education, why don’t they realize how absurd “koi” is.

It can be said very clearly: they can't!

"The Crowd" points out that when a group of people have a common goal, they form a group. In a group, people tend to act instinctively and rely on emotions to make decisions rather than thinking rationally. This is group psychology. The people who make up a group, no matter where they come from or what their backgrounds are, once they form a group, they will have a common group psychology: they will not observe or think, but will only identify what they believe.

The readers of "Koi" are such a group.

2. Psychological techniques to influence users

The reason why the author of "Koi" is said to be a master at stirring up user psychology is that, in addition to her ability to accurately find the target group, more importantly, she is well versed in the methods of influencing the group.

Let’s analyze the techniques used in Koi to stimulate user psychology:

1. Establish a distinct image

As we have mentioned in the previous article, the examples used in "Koi" include things that almost every reader will experience, such as further studies, exams, and employment.

The author's experiences are almost the same as everyone else's, but the lucky result in the end is completely different from that of ordinary people. Once such a contrast appears, the vivid image of "lucky man" is deeply imprinted in the readers' minds.

The purpose of vivid images is to deepen the reader's cognition and memory and ensure that the reader can accept and receive the author's intention.

2. Deliberately create coincidences

In "Koi", good luck appears in almost all important events of the author from childhood to adulthood. The occurrence of such unconventional coincidences again and again turns the events from coincidences into facts, making readers more convinced that they really happened. And this "fact" is exactly what readers want to see.

Thousands of years ago, Chen Sheng stuffed a note with "King Chen Sheng" written on it into a fish's belly, and Wu Guang pretended to be a ghost and hid behind a campfire, shouting "The Great Chu Will Rise", thereby launching the first peasant uprising in Chinese history. Didn't this also use the method of "creating coincidences"? It can be seen that the technique of "creating coincidences" has a great appeal to the psychology of the masses.

3. Use hints

In "Koi", the author mentioned that he was well-known by his neighbors in his hometown because of his luck. A junior even cut out the author's name and put it in a book, praying for some luck. In the end, the junior was admitted to his ideal university as he wished.

These events, which have no necessary connection, have strong suggestiveness through the author's description, as if telling readers: "As long as you worship me, anyone who has any connection with me will be blessed with some good luck." After reading it, readers will naturally have the idea of ​​"forwarding it to pray for good luck."

The role of suggestion is to allow readers to deduce obvious conclusions through highly biased phenomena, because this conclusion comes from the readers themselves. Therefore, they will subconsciously believe it, not knowing that this conclusion is just something the author deliberately asks them to deduce.

4. Create infection

Under this article "Koi", the comment with the most likes was from a reader who claimed that he received an interview invitation as he wished after forwarding the article. We have reason to doubt whether the appearance of this comment is another coincidence created by the author.

Three people make a tiger, and when such a lucky coincidence happens to multiple people at the same time, the credibility of the matter becomes higher. Once others believe it, they will start to imitate it , and the infection will spread. Therefore, the first task in creating an infection is to provide an object that can be imitated, and the cost of imitation should not be too high.

The popular online stores we often see hire a group of fake customers to queue up, or deliberately reduce the number of seats in the store to create the illusion that the store is bustling with people, which is an act of creating infection.

In general, the method used by "Koi" to arouse readers' psychology is a magical process from establishing an image, to enhancing credibility, and then to motivating readers to take action. This process is silent, yet allows the reader to act like a puppet following the author's intentions, which is quite brilliant.

3. The shaping of Koi

Some people on the Internet described the "Koi" incident as "cult-like." In fact, rather than calling it a cult, it would be more accurate to say that the author is creating a certain kind of idolatry.

Not only in writing, but also in fields such as commercial products, creating idols is the most successful realm.

We used to say that users are God and products serve users. But now we know that what users actually need more is an idol who can meet their emotional needs and give them hope and direction. Like Apple and its fans, Xiaomi and its fans, Sony and its party members, or the internet celebrities and their fans on Tik Tok and Weibo. In a sense, it is a successful relationship between idol and believer.

Products satisfy users' emotional demands to a certain extent and convey certain values, life philosophies or taste pursuits to them. Once users accept these in their subconscious minds, they become believers in the products.

Once a product and its users form an idol-believer relationship, this relationship is solid and will continue to grow. Not only are believers absolutely loyal to their idols, they will also spread the word of their idols to other people. The word-of-mouth communication that Lei Jun mentioned is actually this kind of infection among believers.

Summarize

We do not agree with the values ​​conveyed in the article "Koi", but it is undeniable that the method of creating "idols" in "Koi" is worth our consideration and learning.

Source: Miyata