Has the new media dividend passed? You don’t know how to spread content!

We often say that the bonus period of WeChat new media has passed. For new and small accounts, it is impossible to compete for traffic without spending huge amounts of money. But in the blink of an eye, the WeChat accounts registered in March have more than 10,000 posts, and the WeChat accounts certified in August have more than 100,000 posts. It's like a slap in the face unexpectedly. It feels like everything I said in front of my boss has become perfunctory and an excuse. The fans are other people's, the reading volume is other people's, and the dissemination is still other people's. Therefore, in the era of universal media, how to create content-based products with dissemination power has become a pain point for many operators .

Three levels of content dissemination

I believe that new media content dissemination can be divided into three levels: the first level is interest-based dissemination, the second level is justice-based dissemination, and the third level is social dissemination, from low to high.

Profitable content dissemination

Profit-based content dissemination can be divided into direct profit-based and indirect profit-based . Direct benefits are visible . By participating in content dissemination, you can gain vested interests, such as grabbing red envelopes and promotional discounts. The most typical example is the Koi dissemination that was particularly popular a while ago.

When applying direct benefit-oriented methods, it is important to note that there must be a hot topic . For example, "Koi" and " Double Eleven ", some users have said that there are no benefits without reason, and there is a purpose behind every action of new media, and they don’t want to fall into the trap!

Therefore, in this type of communication, in addition to giving users an incentive, you also have to give yourself an incentive and make users believe in your incentive, and make users believe that their vested interests and the purpose of your content are a win-win situation, or even a situation that is greater than the other.

For example, when a merchant holds a promotion on WeChat, the incentives for themselves may be: store anniversary, Double Eleven, etc.; the incentive for users is the discount they receive.

The success of this type of content communication depends on two ways: one is the fan base and loyalty ( you can just give up on small or new accounts). The second is timing and courage , which means being able to seize the hot spots and take advantage of them quickly to see how much you can invest!

When Jay Chou held a concert in Shaoxing in October, two platforms simultaneously launched content activities to give away tickets. One was for the most expensive tickets on the day of the ticket grab; the other was for medium-priced tickets on the eve of the concert. The former attracted hundreds of thousands of fans, while the latter only a few hundred. It can be said that the former was a content marketing activity , while the latter was a scalper, and the effects were very different.

The indirect benefit type is cumulative and users can gain practical value by participating in the dissemination, and this value is highly durable and repeatable. For example, there is a list of various little tips in life, a health series that grandpas and aunts like, and also practical tools for various workplace industries.

There are two points to note for indirect benefit operations:

First, there must be time value . Indirect benefits are also called practical benefits. This kind of benefit is not fleeting and can withstand repeated consideration and the test of time. Just like various health knowledge, lists of tourist attractions, and summaries of life skills, they are content worth collecting.

Second, it should be comprehensive or detailed . Remember, it is "or" rather than "and". Just like the dry goods articles of new media, it should either cover all aspects, or it should focus on one point in depth and be meticulous, so that users are reluctant to spread it.

I did an experiment on a new account with a few hundred followers. The two articles were both about autumn scenery. One article listed the actual destinations, "How many of these 8 beautiful ancient roads in Shaoxing have you walked?", and the other article was a general concept, "Autumn should be great if you are in Shaoxing." The data of the two articles differed by 2 times, as shown in the following figure:

We can find that because the time value of the previous article is high, it will not expire, and the segmentation is better, it is easier to spread; while conceptual articles are more niche and have limitations.

There are also two ways to successfully spread this type of content:

The first is professional authority . In fact, this type of content does not require any innovation on your part. The key lies in whether you can be more professional than others, just like public accounts such as Ding Xiang Doctor and Rishi Ji. They have achieved refinement and perfection in their respective segments, and thus gain a higher sense of trust.

The second is patience and meticulousness . You will find that a lot of list-type content is not necessarily original, but a process of integrating known things. If you cannot compare professionalism, then compare meticulousness. One is depth, the other is breadth. Imagine if you want to comprehensively introduce love travel attractions, others just give a brief introduction, and you include surrounding transportation, food, accommodation, etc., whose strategy is more valuable? This is the method of the early bird catches the worm. The worst thing is that you cannot compare with others in everything and are unwilling to spend time searching and verifying.

Justice content dissemination

The justice type can also be called the emotional type or the physiological type . It is a high-level physiological emotional arousal, such as anger, sympathy, excitement, etc., which can stimulate the user's emotional sense of justice.

The most obvious examples of this type of content are social and livelihood events, such as Cui Yongyuan's reporting of Fan Bingbing, which was widely spread. That's because for users, the dissemination means participating in it as a righteous person. There are many such examples, such as the Jiang Ge case, various negative content about Didi , and the melamine issue that has been brought up again.

You must have had this experience: in society, all kinds of criminal incidents are particularly easy to spread and discuss. This is the role of a sense of justice. In addition, people have a public herd mentality. Even if they are not interested in something, they will still try to learn about it. There are also various inspirational stories and anxiety-mongering, which are all designed to stimulate various emotional justice in users to achieve the purpose of dissemination.

You will find that many of the current popular new media content actually come from this level, including many articles by Mimi Meng (I am not a fan of Mimi Meng, but she does a very good job in awakening emotions).

This level is also the level that is most likely to produce a hit. Some of my articles that have received over 100,000 views came from this level, such as the inferior milk powder incident, the village secretary beating incident, the continuous reports on the Fushan murder case, the reports on the suicide of my fiancée, etc. These articles awakened the public’s shock and indignation. At the time, I wrote like a fish in water. Later, I read the book “Influence”, which said that a report of a suicide can trigger N follow-ups, so I rarely write this kind of article.

There are three factors that need to be present for this type of content to be successful:

The first is a firm attitude , which is the new media personality in a broad sense. Take Mimi Meng as an example. When she writes about the workplace, her attitude is that the boss should give employees a lot of money. This immediately touched the sense of justice of the majority of people in the workplace and was widely spread.

The second is to communicate with users , say what others want to say, and use more emotional language, which is what many experts mentioned. Copywriting should speak human language, just like you are chatting with a friend. Imagine what your friend will say and ask during the chat, and convert the dialogue rehearsal into text. The reason why the Didi girl murder case in " Ergeng " caused public outrage at that time was because it used too many descriptive words that were thought to be icing on the cake. Therefore, the copy does not need to be beautiful, it must be practical, simple and easy to understand.

The third is to seize the initiative , which can be divided into two categories: the initiative of the entry point and the initiative of the event. Find an entry point that is different from others. For example, in the original article "Shaoxing University of Arts and Sciences "intrudes" into Tsinghua University and Peking University, can there be a "Cinderella" in the recruitment of central enterprises?", the entry points of many media triggered the public's doubt, surprise and sense of justice. However, the entry point of one article was that Shaoxing has produced many celebrities and heroes, and it did not matter where they came from, which aroused the public's sense of justice. After all, many people did not come from famous schools or from first-tier cities. This immediately caused a large number of reposts. Or maybe you can learn about the event before others and spread it as soon as possible.

Social Communication

Social communication is the application of social currency. In the book "Contagious", the six principles of viral communication are mentioned: inducement, practical value, publicity, emotion, story, and social currency .

Regarding social currency, he proposed that: more than 40% of the topics people talk about reflect personal experiences and private relationships, and nearly half of the rumors are self-centered; Harvard University neuroscientists found that: brain waves when sharing personal opinions are the same as brain waves when obtaining money and food; word-of-mouth communication is to maintain people's good impression of themselves.

I think, to understand it in a simple way, social currency is that users use the content they spread as currency to gain social links, social recognition, image building, honor comparison and all other factors that can enhance their influence. Let’s look at the following example:

"Chinese military propaganda video goes viral on Twitter! Americans: I want to join the People's Liberation Army", "Although defeated, it's still an honor! Go women's volleyball team!" Once these two contents are spread by users, they will be labeled as patriotism and honor, which is obviously very popular among users.

Let's look at it again, "Heavyweight 'big names' all speak out, the stock market opened low and reversed, has the policy bottom come?", "Teaching Faye Wong Cantonese, singing with Nicholas Tse... Why is this vampire of the Hong Kong music scene admired by so many people after his death?", one is about financial content, with the labels of professional and wealthy; the other is about character content, with the labels of emotion and literature. When users spread this content, they naturally spread their own tags.

As long as the content can be linked to the tag, it is very likely to be forwarded by users, leading to primary or secondary dissemination. Users spend money to get things to talk about and find common topics to relieve stress from daily work and find a sense of existence. What we need to do in operations is to guide and prove the users’ presence as much as possible with positive energy!

There are three ways to successfully spread this type of content:

First, we can find the common sense of honor among user groups . For example, we can use cities as boundaries to inspire the pride of users in the same city. We can start with the scenery, economy, region, and humanities to show the most beautiful side of the city.

The second is to create topics on the same channel . These topics can be divided according to industries, such as finance, entertainment, and new media. Topics should either cause strong resonance or be profound, allowing users to post on their Moments to show off their talents and gain vanity and comparison.

The third is to link social memories by style , such as old photos, summer vacation like this 30 years ago, etc., all of which are linked to people of the same era through a label, thus triggering dissemination.

Three types of public psychological needs

After understanding the three levels of communication, we must understand the three needs corresponding to these three levels: cognitive needs, emotional needs, and social integration needs. Only when the needs are clear can the communication be effective!

• Cognitive needs: Cognitive needs are one of the most basic needs and motivations of human beings. They generally refer to the individual's internal motivation to pursue, recognize, and understand things, such as thirst for knowledge and curiosity.
• Emotional needs: Emotional needs are a kind of emotional satisfaction, a kind of psychological identification, and a kind of emotional release.
• The need for social integration : The public needs to exchange their cognition, emotions and society on an equal footing in order to be recognized, admired and even influence society.

Steps to creating content

To summarize, I believe there are four steps to creating content that has the power to spread: group positioning, demand selection, level focus, and channel delivery.

• Group positioning: Content is not RMB, it is impossible for everyone to like it. What we need to do is to choose a group of people to like it. By age group, it can be those born in the 80s or 90s; by attributes, it can be workplace, life, etc. Apply the MECE principle of the " Pyramid Principle " to avoid overlap and omission, and then select your target.
• Demand selection: As we said before, there are three types of public psychological needs: cognitive needs, emotional needs, and social integration needs. What you need to do is to choose one of them, go deep into it, and focus on dissemination; or choose several, integrate them, and match them reasonably.
• Level focus: Next are the three levels of communication, the first level is interest-oriented, the second level is justice-oriented, and the third level is social. Only by choosing the corresponding level according to the corresponding needs can efficient results be achieved.
• Channel placement : Now is the era of universal media. In addition to the various media platforms we are familiar with, every KOL and even every individual is a media. According to the level, choose the corresponding channel to achieve targeted results.

Let me take a public account that completed WeChat certification on August 2 as an example to illustrate:

I won’t mention the name of the public account, let’s first take a look at the recent article reading volume of this public account:

The target group of this public account is very clear, that is, those born in the 1990s! Let’s take a look at their most recently read article, which has nearly 100,000+ views - 20 Years of “My Fair Princess”: Rivers and Lakes at Night, Characters’ Ups and Downs!

The user has chosen the social integration demand, which corresponds to the third level of content dissemination, social dissemination! Why do I say so?

First of all, his article does not provide visible wealth, nor does it have any practical value, and cannot increase users' cognition; in addition, it cannot inspire users' emotional sense of justice! However, this article has a label - feelings!

Through this tag, users pay currency (i.e. spread content) to gain topics to talk about and find like-minded people to discuss topics, thereby shaping their own memory image and enhancing their social presence. Users follow "My Fair Princess" as a reference, watching the ups and downs in life of Zhao Wei , Ruby Lin, and Fan Bingbing, and finally derive a value: life is full of mysteries, with hidden clues and lurking veins for thousands of miles!

Allow users to go from memories - emotions - resonance, forming a closed social loop.

In terms of channel distribution, we put the title into Baidu search and can see that there is almost no information, which shows that the main channel for this content is the official account.

I think the reason for this is probably because the audience of this content is all on the official account. It can be seen that sometimes an effective channel is more conducive to dissemination. But we should not forget another more important channel, that is personal word of mouth. The "individual" here does not mean KOL, but every ordinary post-90s. The more ordinary people there are, the greater the power of dissemination.

When we want a million fans, others have achieved it; when we want 100,000+ fans, others have also achieved it. Sometimes we feel that life is a process in which we constantly set goals and others constantly achieve them. So, why not start from now on, without hesitation or wavering, and let the dissemination begin from this moment.

Source: Huahua Xiaomengzhu