WeChat "Group Administrator" function is launched. What new community gameplay are there?

WeChat has been online for seven years, but WeChat group administrators have only been available recently. Since this function has not been available for so long, why is it available now? What new community gameplay will the emergence of group management bring?

On August 16, WeChat launched a new feature called "Group Administrator", which has the following permissions:

1. Set the group entry method and confirm the group application;
2. The name of a group chat with 100 people can be modified;
3. Post group announcements;
4. Remove group members.

Many users lamented: " The WeChat group administrator who we have been waiting for for 7 years is finally online!" This sounds like there is nothing wrong with it, but after careful consideration, you will find that everyone has fallen into such a vicious circle of thinking: because WeChat has been around for 7 years, the group administrator function should have appeared 7 years ago .

But is it really like this?

1. Why launch this feature now?

1. WeChat groups used to solve social issues among acquaintances

When WeChat was first launched, its interface and functions were very simple. Version 1.0 was only capable of sending text and picture messages. It was not until version 1.2 that it supported multi-person conversations (also known as WeChat groups). The earliest WeChat groups were limited to 40 people, and were mainly used to solve social scenario problems between acquaintances, such as temporarily creating a group to discuss things between colleagues or friends.

(Group chat in WeChat version 1.2)

The content and messages in these small groups of 40 people are important to us and are of concern to us, so these groups basically do not experience the so-called message overload or spam. Then for these groups, the group administrator's settings are meaningless at all.

2. As the community grows, the management pressure on group owners doubles

Later, as the community developed, a large group of 500 people emerged. With such a large number of users, the number of messages generated in the group every day is quite considerable, and the content of the messages is relatively messy, so the group owners have to keep an eye on the group to see if there are any violations such as posting advertisements. At the same time, they also have to carry out operations such as adding people, kicking people out, issuing group announcements, and livening up the group atmosphere. The group owners said they feel very bitter.

In 2013, WeChat version 5.0 launched the WeChat payment function. This function has allowed some micro-businesses to smell business opportunities: WeChat has unique social attributes, a relatively closed communication space, and can realize direct transfer transactions. It can also attract people to form groups to achieve traffic fission . After 2013-2015 years of attempts, this strategy of creating groups to sell goods through fission finally exploded in 2016.

This directly leads to the fact that whenever we encounter a promotion project, we now think about doing fission and building a large number of WeChat groups. In the past, only the group owner could use the permissions of a WeChat group. When the number of groups increased, it was difficult to manage them, let alone keep track of them. This situation can easily lead to untimely handling of spam content or negative emotions within the group, which in turn triggers a broken window effect, and group management seems to be in jeopardy.

3. Frequent incidents in peer communities serve as a warning to WeChat to build a harmonious and civilized online community

WeChat groups are now more than just chat rooms. Collecting likes, voting, selling goods...all the business you can think of can find ways to spread and transact in WeChat groups. Faced with the increasingly powerful functions of WeChat groups, WeChat is "secretly delighted" but is also troubled by how to strengthen the management of these groups. After all, it is a challenge for WeChat to make more than 500 or even 500*N mouths comply with regulations in their words and deeds!

In September 2017, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued the "Regulations on the Management of Internet Group Information Services" and the "Regulations on the Management of Internet User Public Account Information Services", which stipulate the responsibilities of Internet groups and Internet "group owners".

In addition, from the beginning of 2017 to August 2018, many Internet platforms including Toutiao , Kuaishou , Douyin , Huajiao Live , Bilibili , etc. were summoned and ordered to rectify due to violations in community content, and Neihan Duanzi was permanently shut down.

Whether it is the first time that the Cyberspace Administration of China has clarified the responsibilities of "group owners", or that content community platforms have been summoned one after another, they are warning WeChat to strengthen the management of WeChat communities and build a harmonious and civilized online community.

Thus, the new WeChat "Group Administrator" function was born.

2. Possible impact/new ways to play in the community

1. Clarify the division of labor among group administrators and liberate the productivity of group owners

In the past, all management matters within the group, from promoting events to giving away airline tickets , had to be handled by the group owner himself. Although some mature WeChat groups also have division of labor, due to the imperfect group functions, there are still some phenomena of management shirking or excessive management.

After the WeChat "Group Administrator" function appeared, group owners can summarize and classify group management matters, such as: attracting new users (attracting new users to the group and informing them of group rules/group gameplay, etc.), content work (organizing users to discuss topics, and publishing industry morning and afternoon reports, etc.), event work (planning and organizing users to participate in online and offline activities ), etc., and then select reliable members to serve as group administrators for the corresponding work.

Through this refined division of labor, on the one hand, it can reduce the pressure on group owners and reduce the occurrence of management omissions due to limited energy; on the other hand, it can improve the service experience of group members. After all, the average service time allocated to each group member is greatly improved compared to before, and group members can get more timely feedback and solutions when they have problems.

2. Set up an administrator competition mechanism to liven up the community atmosphere

One of the most worrying things when running a community is the death of the group. The reason why a group dies is largely because the group members are no longer active. They are like sardines caught by fishermen, and a "catfish" needs to be put in to stimulate them to become active. In a WeChat group, this catfish can be an administrator competition mechanism.

So how should the administrator competition mechanism be designed?

The simplest way to play is to tell group members that as long as they are active in the group and answer users' questions a certain number of times, they can set you as an administrator. Then the question is, why would users buy into your approach?

In my opinion, it’s nothing more than three words: “power, money and fame”.

1. Quan: Being an administrator of a group of 500 people means you are second to none, and you also have the power of life and death (you described how to kick people out and how to kick them out so vividly, I'm convinced). But administrators should not fill up the vacancies at once. For example, the harem of the Qing Dynasty had 1 empress, 1 imperial concubine, 2 concubines, 4 concubines and 6 imperial concubines. Except for the empress, there would generally be 1-2 vacancies in other positions. This is to keep users (concubines in the harem) hanging and let them see hope (the emperor's favor) before they will become active in your community.
2. Money: Becoming an administrator can get certain rewards. For example, in a knowledge payment group, this reward can be course renewal or course coupons; in a product exchange group, this reward can be priority experience of new products. Xiaomi has done this a lot in its own forum before. "Everyone is seeking profit, and everyone is seeking profit." By setting rewards, users can be encouraged to contribute ideas for community development and maintain the community atmosphere.
3. Name: In a community, the group leader must be the one who is needed by everyone and surrounded by everyone. Many people want to be such a person. Therefore, in some communities, the existence of administrators is itself a temptation for users.

3. The administrator position is reserved for advertising partners who share the same values ​​as the community.

In addition to sharing the pressure of group owners and increasing group activity, the administrator's position can also be used as an advertising cooperation position to increase income sources for the community.

Recalling an experience of cooperation with other brands, the process was roughly like this: first connect with the cooperative brand, agree on relevant cooperation matters, then the other party provides promotional materials, and then you put them on the community, and finally give the results to the other party for verification. The whole process is actually quite cumbersome.

But with the WeChat group administrator function, we can completely simplify the entire process: after agreeing on the cooperation matters, directly add the person in charge of the brand partner to the group and set him as an administrator, let him "wander" in the group for a few days (to let him get familiar with the faces and complete the brand warm-up), and finally let him complete the delivery of promotional materials.

This has two benefits:

• First, it reduces the communication costs between us and brands;
• Secondly, compared with the blunt method of direct promotion, the latter can obviously better achieve brand promotion and conversion .

We discussed the three main reasons for launching the "Group Administrator" feature on WeChat:

1. WeChat groups used to solve social problems among acquaintances, and this function was not needed;
2. As the community grows, the management pressure on group owners doubles;
3. The frequent incidents in peer communities have alerted WeChat to its determination to build a harmonious and civilized online community.

And the three possible impacts/new ways of playing in the community after the launch of the new function, including:

1. Clarify the division of labor among group administrators and liberate the productivity of group owners;
2. Set up an administrator competition mechanism to liven up the community atmosphere;
3. The administrator position is used as an advertising cooperation position, reserved for brands that are consistent with the community’s tone, thereby increasing the community’s income source.

"Group Administrator" has been online for a week. Are you using it well? What are some features that WeChat doesn’t have now but you as community managers would like to have?