Review of the "User Growth Fission" experiment!

Activity review framework:

1. Background (What is the project background and why do we want to make this attempt)

My personal understanding of fission marketing is that the individual who spreads the content posts a bait in the social network or circle of friends , which triggers users to spread it, thus achieving the goal of one user leading N users around him.

In the past two years, user fission has been very popular. Various fission posters and tweets are flooding our WeChat groups and Moments. Some of the more successful cases include: the brand marketing of NetEase Cloud Music’s instruction manual, the course selling marketing activities of Xin Shixiang , the social platform promotion activities of Pinduoduo, etc.; in addition, there are various large and small fission activities.

What is novel to us is that once a good fission is initiated, users will continue to forward and pay attention to it. Even a good public account fan-increasing campaign can easily reach an increase of 5,000+ fans within a day. So what is the principle behind this? How does it work? So our team decided to conduct a small experiment on user growth fission activities.

2. Process Review

1. Purpose

Try to use user growth tools to complete the fission process and increase traffic for the official account

2. Target Users

Job seekers who want to work in the Internet industry

3. Fission content

The most selected and exclusive job search information package in history

Selling point: The fission content of other public accounts is often a package without organization and screening, which takes up a lot of memory, is of low quality, and contains a lot of useless information. The information packages we launch are carefully organized, screened, and original by senior professionals. They do not increase the information burden and can help you complete the practical training with the highest efficiency and win the offer.

4. Use tools

• Robot (wetool)
• Small account (assistant, group creation)
• Fission poster
• Official Account Configuration
• Information Pack

5. Fission process

6. Experimental Results

The official account eventually gained about 60% followers.

3. Analysis of the reasons for the lack of popularity

1. Path analysis

What is the path of those popular fission cases? Take the "Limited-time Free Data Analysis Class" activity launched by NetEase Cloud Classroom on the evening of May 10 as an example. It only achieved a small-scale fission with the help of "official public account + WeChat + course". After the activity was blocked, it launched the "Limited-time Free Access to 10G Workplace Materials" activity again on May 14, with the same fission method. The path of the NetEase Cloud Classroom fission case is shown in the figure:

The same method of sharing text + posters in Moments is different from our own path in the following key points:

1. NetEase Cloud Classroom first asks users to scan the QR code to join the group, and then prompts them how to receive the course. We directly follow the official account and send keywords, and the official account will prompt us how to share.
2. After sharing, the screenshot of the Moments will be sent to NetEase IT Internet Course and verified by the official account background. We send the screenshots to the assistant, who verifies it manually.

The key points here are: whether the QR code is scanned to join the group, whether it is shared to the circle of friends, and whether the screenshot is sent to the backend of the official account.

In contrast, we did not conduct any community operations ; and the background verification of the official account was replaced by manual verification by an assistant.

In addition, we also found two problems during this process:

1. Since we use the wetool robot to set up automatic adding of friends, the other party can directly accept adding the assistant as a friend, but the assistant still needs to take a screenshot and confirm the approval. When the confirmation is passed, the data package will be automatically sent. Therefore, when the user thinks that the keyword is sent to the assistant instead of the official account after adding the assistant, the assistant does not receive the screenshot and cannot pass it, which can easily cause user loss.
2. Many users forget to send screenshots back to review the resource package after sharing it on WeChat Moments.

With the help of the above comparison of differences and the path problems that arise, we analyze two core issues:

(1) First, WeChat group fission

WeChat group fission is very common. Why can it carry this kind of fission? The characteristic of WeChat group fission is that in this process, we do not need to participate in every transmission, these transmissions are completed by one group member after another. We just need to be the source of information transmission, and we are also the center of information gathering. This whole process is called group fission.

So what motivates users to share and participate? I think it is nothing more than profit-driven, but it is also the needs of users. If joining a group can satisfy the benefits you want , such as obtaining limited-time free courses or information packages, and it is free, why not do it?

However, this does not mean that adopting WeChat group fission is necessarily a good thing. We have found that such fissioned communities generally cannot operate for a long time and will eventually become advertisements or dead groups. After the information collection period ends, the group basically becomes a place for advertising. At the same time, people who receive the information will add the personal accounts of some institutions, and they have been using these personal accounts to send group messages. Community fission takes advantage of information asymmetry to rape users, resulting in a very poor user experience . Due to cost and model limitations, it is difficult for us to operate it into a high-quality community. Therefore, not establishing a WeChat group will have some impact on the increase in fans, but it is not the core reason for having few fans.

So, how can we do better? Referring to the classic case above, we can first guide users into the community, have the community robot remind users of the collection process, and have the assistant take screenshots for authentication and send the information package. In terms of the community, we will carry out certain maintenance and throw out more job-seeking related topics and relevant spring and autumn recruitment information. When you encounter someone who advertises, remove them from the group to improve the experience of other users.

(2) The second problem is that the user misunderstood a certain step during the collection process, resulting in an operational error and being unable to collect the coupon.

Most users experience this situation because they only see the word "Receive" on the poster and ignore the guidance of the official account's copy . This may also be related to the fact that users rarely perform such operations. So we can do better here, how can we do it? Start from two aspects:

• First, the official account's guidance copy should be as concise and clear as possible, so that users can understand the operation process in a short time;
• Second, reduce other unnecessary misleading information, such as changing "Scan the QR code and reply to receive" on the poster to "Scan the QR code to follow, reply to receive".

2. Subject matter analysis

Our fission content is: to provide resource packages for job seekers who want to work in the Internet industry to quickly recharge their knowledge.

Let’s take a look at other popular content. The more popular ones include course selling activities, spring and autumn recruitment community information sharing, and coupon redemption activities. In comparison, it is quite difficult to conduct large-scale fission activities by collecting resource packages.

First of all, in terms of attractiveness, the users’ rigid demand is not very great, and the activity is not carried out during the peak recruitment period in spring and autumn or the specific period of frustration. In order to create attractive content, we need to research the needs of users within a certain period of time and understand the pain points of users within a certain period of time. Determine the subject matter and time, then start fission.

Secondly, in terms of dissemination, it is relatively easy to obtain resource packages. For example, if user A obtains a resource package, users B and C are familiar with user A and can directly ask user A for it, which limits the dissemination.

We have found from some classic cases that we can also consider taking advantage of the popularity when selecting materials. For example, when mini programs first came out, everyone was creating mini program communities; when blockchain first came out, everyone was particularly keen on learning about blockchain;

3. Poster Analysis

Here is our poster~~~

There is nothing wrong with the poster itself, but from the user's visual perspective, neither the copy nor the color can catch their attention at once.

Let’s take a look at other classic poster examples.

From the poster, we found a few things we can do better:

1. Impact: The colors of the poster have a strong impact.
2. Sense of urgency: New Year's class; Limited time special offer; The first 1,000 students will receive "NetEase Internal Operation Documents"
3. Cater to the needs: Copywriting is not just words of praise. Instead, you can explain more clearly what it can bring (activity process, UGC core methodology, user demand mining method and the underlying logic construction of user operation ) to cater to user needs.

4. Analysis of tools and implementation platforms

The previous path analysis mentioned that we directly let users follow the official account and send screenshots to the assistant.

• The platform used to implement the entire process is: official account and assistant.
• The tools used are: the configuration that comes with the official account and wetool's automatic data sending package.

To optimize, we should recognize the role of robot guidance after users join the group. If we can use robots to guide users into the group and solve the problem of users not knowing how to receive the rewards, will we get more fans?

5. Initial user traffic analysis

The most important function of initial user traffic is to promote fission. If the fission fails at the beginning, it will be difficult to continue.

Many successful cases have had a strong user base from the beginning. Those popular fissions basically have a powerful entity, such as NetEase, New World, Sanjieke , etc., which determines the initial traffic. We almost don't have this. Secondly, they clearly define the initial users, whether they are Internet newbies, job-seeking college students with certain experience, job seekers who are changing careers, or experienced professionals.

From the above analysis, several reasons are obtained:

1. The topic is not a hot topic and user demand is not strong;
2. The initial users are unclear and there is a lack of initial traffic;
3. Community operations were not established during the process design.

In general, successful fission depends on the following points: clarify the user group, grasp the user psychology, provide sufficient dissemination power, and lower the user operation threshold at each link.

4. Inspiration, optimization and suggestions

The biggest revelation from this user growth fission attempt is that if you don’t have a strong user base, you must first identify your user base and understand what their needs are. If there is a next opportunity, we will also pay more attention to the choice of subject matter and the key points of each operation. Will the user continue to operate at a certain key point? Why is that? Why not? In addition, if we can use social robots to optimize the steps of obtaining information and at the same time achieve the purpose of community operation and increasing the number of followers of the official account, I believe it will bring in more users.