The new 4C rule: How to ignite a community at low cost?

As the saying goes, "He who controls the community controls the world." How to play community economy? Today we will use the "New 4C Rule" to explain it in detail.

You may have heard of the two traditional marketing methodologies 4P (product, price, channel , promotion) or 4C (consumer, cost, convenience, communication), so what is the new 4C? "New 4C" comes from Professor Tang Xingtong's " Exploding Community , the New 4C Rules in the Mobile Internet Era".

New 4C definition: In the appropriate scenario (Context), for a specific community (Community), use content or topics (Content) with great spreadability to achieve rapid diffusion and dissemination through the fission of connections (Connection) between people in the social network. Thereby achieving effective communication and commercial value.

The formula is:

4C = Context + Community + Content + Connection

The "New 4C" has built a good marketing knowledge framework under the mobile Internet . But everyone has their own perspective on the details of each framework. I will explain the new 4C from my perspective.

01 Context

At present, as online traffic becomes more and more expensive, more and more people are turning their attention back to offline scenarios. The scene is different from the traditional marketing 4P sales channel. It is a small world defined by multiple dimensions such as people, place, and time. The scene is the sum of the communication environment and related factors, focusing on the concentration of customers in physical locations, the concentration of needs, and the concentration of group emotions and states.

1.1 Customer Experience Map

In the scenario, we focus on four elements: time, place + contact points, needs, and emotions. When we do analysis, we can use the Customer Journey Map in service design for analysis.

• Time: In addition to considering factors such as seasons and festivals, you should also consider the entire experience process: what customers do at different stages before, during, and after the experience;
• Location + touchpoints: In addition to considering the geographical location, you also need to feel the user's environment and consider the stories that may happen when the customer contacts the service in the scene;
• Demand: Insight into problems from the customer's perspective and find unmet pain points and joy points in the process;
• Emotions: Feel the psychological changes from the customer's perspective: joy, annoyance, anxiety, boredom, etc., and utilize or optimize the user's negative emotions.

The following figure is an analysis of the entire experience of a user drinking coffee at Starbucks :

In the above figure, the horizontal axis represents the different stages of the user's entire Starbucks experience: preparation (driving from the office), entering the store, enjoying the service in the store (queuing, ordering, paying, sitting down, tasting, doing things), leaving (packing up and walking out), and feedback (evaluating the service in the car). The user's emotional changes during the process are marked by high and low changes, and corresponding instructions are marked for each touch point. For example: When a customer turns on his computer to work, he is happy to find that he can connect to free wifi.

1.2. Frequency of scenarios and rigid needs

Some scenes happen every day, but some scenes can only be experienced a few times in a lifetime. Combined with the intensity of user needs, it can be divided into four types:

1. High-frequency and rigid demand, such as ordering meals
2. High-frequency non-rigid demand, such as discussing entertainment gossip
3. Low-frequency rigid demand, such as buying a house and renovating it
4. Low-frequency non-essential needs, such as family financial management scenarios

Zhou Hongyi proposed the six-word rule for good products: "urgent need, pain point, and high frequency". But I think there is no absolute, everyone is keeping an eye on the things that are easy to do. When everyone is trying their best to meet high-frequency and urgent needs, the competition is also fierce. In fact, most traditional companies are engaged in non-high-frequency or non-urgent needs: most traditional companies' e-commerce products are low-frequency, and products like kitchenware and home furnishings are bought once every one or two years; most products that create demand are themselves non-urgent needs. No one wants to sit on a shared massage chair every day. What should we do in low-frequency scenarios? What to do if it is not an urgent need?

There is not much point in blindly attracting fans without finding the right operating strategy, and there is not much point in blindly pushing messages at a high frequency. For example, some companies’ WeChat accounts , which have worked hard to attract fans through activities, usually lose fans as soon as they post a tweet.

There are two strategies for dealing with this situation:

Digging deep into the service experience in the scene:

Experience in pre-sales consultation, usage process, after-sales service, updates, etc. If it is a product that requires heavy decision-making, the company can provide relevant information and suggestions before the user purchases; improve the playability of the product during use, such as Lego products; and improve the after-sales function on the WeChat service account .

Expand high-frequency scenarios around the theme:

If your mindset is limited to selling goods, you will be limited by the frequency of demand for the product itself. For example, a mattress is a necessity for sleeping. We extend the theme of sleep to introduce high-frequency demands. For example, we can use the WeChat service account to provide hypnotic music or stories to listen to before going to bed.

1.3. 3 ways to find the right scene

Insights into life:

Be a caring person and have insight into the problems and opportunities in various scenarios in life. For example, most people use their phones to check their phones while using the toilet. The advertisement of a reading club APP is posted on the wall opposite the toilet, and users can see it as long as they squat. This marketing scenario achieves insight into life. But it’s not good enough, because the bathroom WiFi signal is weak and it’s not convenient to download apps. It would be more appropriate to promote WeChat applets .

Hot spots:

Jack Ma forcibly transformed " Double Eleven " from "Singles' Day" to a "Shopping Festival". Under various offensives, users will have the desire and behavior to shop on this day. If you don't have the ability to create a festival, you can take advantage of the popularity of "Double Eleven";

Advance booking:

Be prepared before this scenario arrives. For example, brands like Nike and Adidas usually prepare two plans for their sponsored stars: how to promote if they win and how to promote if they don’t win. Once the results come out, they will start to report extensively.

Through scenario analysis, we can find the time and place where consumers’ needs are most concentrated to meet their needs; the scenario is to seize the opportunity when consumers are more receptive to marketing information and communicate most effectively; the scenario is to fully consider the macro environment, micro environment, and specific emotional atmosphere, so as to adapt to local conditions and take advantage of the situation. Once you grasp the scenario, you are one step closer to effective service and communication.

02 Community

A community is a tribe of like-minded people coming together. In the web1.0 era, most people lack trust in the virtual world of the Internet. Community forums such as BBS provide more text-based exchanges on the value level, and meeting netizens seems to be generally considered something that "naive people" do. In the era of mobile Internet , most people have developed the habit of sharing their lives on WeChat, and the online world has completely merged with the real world. The current strong community relationship is " O2O ", maintaining daily high-frequency value exchanges online, and meeting offline to enhance mutual trust.

2.1. Community value = K × N²

There is a formula for community valuation: Valuation = K × N²

K is a comprehensive coefficient, which mainly involves factors such as community quality, purchasing power, online time, and stickiness. N is the number of users. The K value can be improved by improving service quality, while the N value can be improved through large-scale operations. But in real time, K and N are absolutely correlated. The better the service quality, the higher the user retention . Because a low K value will result in a low user retention rate , the cost of increasing N will be greater. Therefore, the key to judging whether a community is good or not lies in the K value. If you want to build a community, increasing the K value is the key.

2.2. 7 characteristics and 5 elements of a high-quality community

A good community should have the following seven common characteristics: common values, common goals, behavioral norms, organizational structure, internal links, role model power, and stable output. Otherwise, it is just a group and cannot be called a community.

A good community should include five elements: like-minded people, structure, output, operation, and replication. These five elements can guide us on how to build a community. For specific discussion, please refer to my previous article "Seven Characteristics and Five Elements of High-Quality Communities".

2.3. Breaking the community

In the marketing process, it is more efficient to break into the entire community than to break into scattered users one by one. The process of detonating a community can be summarized into four steps: "find the pond", "capture the king", "accurate output" and "rapid iteration":

1. Find the pond: find the gathering place of community members, not limited to online or offline. For example, industry summits, competitors’ WeChat groups , QQ groups, themed forums , Weibo topics, Zhihu questions, e-commerce product reviews, and apps used by the target audience, etc. In the process, user portraits can be used to analyze the typical user's Internet usage behavior and find their gathering points on the Internet. When you sneak into the community, you start fishing;
2. Capture the King: Aim at the target leader or KOL (opinion leader). To use an inappropriate analogy, "to catch a thief, you must first catch his leader." Finding a community leader can achieve twice the result with half the effort. In online communities, we can actively identify the KOLs of the community through indicators such as the number of likes, readings, and answers. We should actively attract KOLs who already have enough influence, and support those who have not yet established influence to expand their influence;
3. Accurate output: Output content that meets the needs of the community. Only content that matches the target community can resonate and spread within the community. For example, Redmi used QQ Space during its explosion. Because through the data we know that most QQ space users are discussing the topic of replacing feature phones with smartphones, and they have a good perception of Xiaomi phones. The first marketing campaign of Redmi launched quickly set off the entire QQ space;
4. Rapid iteration: Take the opinions and feedback of the community seriously and make timely optimizations. If you do "community iteration" of products and services in the early stages of your business , entrepreneurs need to quickly adjust their products based on feedback until they exceed user expectations. In marketing scenarios, we should be concerned about whether negative information is generated during the communication process. If so, we should adjust our strategies and prepare countermeasures.

03 Content

Content is the carrier of value transfer. In a broad sense, products are also content. If users feel happy using your product, it will lead to word-of-mouth communication. In a narrow sense, content refers to media-attributed content such as pictures, texts, audios, and videos. If users like it, they will share it on their Moments . Here we mainly discuss the narrow content. In the era of mobile Internet: advertising is a luxury, but content is a necessity. Advertisements are spread through mass media with obvious purpose and can be easily regarded as spam. However, content dissemination is soft and can penetrate into every corner of the Internet and exist for a long time, meeting users' needs in certain aspects. Users can find the content through search and other methods, and understand the value of the company through the content.

3.1. Focus of different contents

According to the content frequency, there are two categories:

Instant content: It may be sudden and catch the attention of the public.

Routine content: Content with predictable quality and stability on a daily basis.

The predictability of regular content gives old users a reason to continue following you. Through long-term attention, let old users understand your brand tone through content and cultivate feelings between old users and you. Our long-term planning content can be transformed into brand columns, one per week or one per month. Previously, I was responsible for a monthly parent-child community check-in. Since there were no updates during a month's vacation, fans kept urging me to update. Some fans who lost their patience started posting advertisements in the group. Therefore, let users develop the habit of expectation, and once the habit is formed, try your best not to disappoint users.

Instant content mainly attracts more new users' attention through sudden hot spots. It must be able to grasp the spreadability. The content may be short, but it can trigger users' emotions: funny, curious, angry, pity, etc. The display methods include posters (straightforward, simple and creative) and pictures and texts. The following picture shows a Weibo post by Durex to take advantage of the college entrance examination hotspot :

According to the content attributes, they are classified as follows:

• Essential content: conveys the methodology so that users can master a skill after reading it;
• Emotional/inspirational content: express emotions and express a point of view on social phenomena;
• Promotional content: event promotion information to stimulate purchasing desire.

Every author hopes that his or her article will become a hit. Articles with communication attributes usually have the characteristics of low reading threshold and the ability to mobilize readers' emotions, which is suitable for emotional and inspirational articles. To evaluate the reposting attributes, the forwarding rate after reading is the key indicator.

The practical content mainly focuses on explaining a certain knowledge point, and it needs to make readers want to collect it after reading it. The author's standard for useful articles is "clear framework and substantial content": clarity means a clear structure of the article, so that users can see at a glance what tools and methodologies you provide, and they can gain insights and gains after reading each knowledge point. The key indicator is to evaluate the like or collection rate after reading the useful articles.

Promotional content articles are related to marketing activities and should be able to mobilize users' emotions and desires. The key to evaluating promotional content articles is to look at the conversion rate that leads to the event page.

3.2. Three strategies to enhance content value

The community valuation formula mentioned above is: Valuation = K × N²

Content is the main carrier for spreading value in the community, and this announcement also applies to the content level: K represents the quality of the content; N represents the number of readers or subscribers of the content source (such as a WeChat subscription account ). There are three common strategies for increasing this estimate:

• To ensure the quality of content, we must rely on word of mouth
• Expand content distribution channels
• Increase the frequency of content updates to increase the cumulative value N

Although there are three strategies, just like the community, improving the K value is our key. For example, the author uses his spare time to write useful articles. If he chooses to update them daily, the quality of the articles will inevitably decline. Through data observation, it is found that high-quality original articles will continue to increase followers and reposts. Although lower-quality articles have increased frequency, their reading and forwarding volumes are lower. If you reduce the quality of content, your existing fans’ recognition of you will also decrease.

In the age of information explosion, readers have no shortage of content to read. If you want to stand out, simply increasing the frequency of article updates does not make much sense. The premise of increasing the frequency is to ensure the quality of the articles. Therefore, when resources are limited, the quality of individual articles should be given top priority. But the update frequency cannot be too low, otherwise your fans will think that your output ability is not good enough. Therefore, taking all factors into consideration, "weekly update" is more suitable for the author.

3.3 Two ways to make your content go further

3.3.1 Make content more discoverable

• Do the "surface work" well:

The title , cover image, and introduction should be able to arouse people's desire to click, and the main evaluation indicator is the number of readings. There are usually two techniques for choosing titles: evoking users' emotions and associations, and letting users know what they can get at a glance. For example, the title style of “ UC Shock Department ” is “Shock! A woman actually did such a thing in broad daylight! 》Use emotional words and bad suggestions to attract users to click, but usually after clicking, they will find that they have been deceived. The following are common words used by the "Shock Department" and should not be used too often:

Common words used by clickbait headlines

My articles are mainly practical articles. When naming them, I try to make readers feel the value of the articles and make the target audience feel that they will gain something by reading them. But if it were "Awesome! After reading this article, you can start your own business! Although this title may increase clicks , it is quite different from the author’s brand tone. Because the author's position is an Internet expert rather than a web writer. Therefore, the title style should be different depending on the article positioning.

• Multi-channel distribution: WeChat, Weibo, Tieba, Baijiahao , Toutiao , audio and video platforms, WeChat groups, QQ groups, themed Tieba, Weibo topics, Zhihu questions, APPs used by the target audience, etc. In addition, you can also find big accounts and KOLs to forward. Building a media matrix is ​​also a good strategy if you have the resources. Different accounts target different segments of the population. Multiple accounts can complement each other, share resources, promote each other, and direct traffic to each other.
• The "Recommendations for Past Issues" at the end of each article allows readers who like you to continue reading your past articles;
• Categorize your articles to make them easier for readers to find.

3.3.2 Give readers a reason to share

As mentioned above, we should improve the K value of content: research the target users , ensure that the content can meet their needs and tastes, and make users feel that it is worthwhile and necessary to share. In addition, we can use the "6 principles of virality" to optimize the induction of sharing:

1. Social currency attributes: As the name suggests, it is a currency, but it is not used to exchange for goods, but to exchange for others' positive evaluation of the currency user or community recognition in social activities. For example, some little knowledge and topics for conversation after dinner. For example, the articles on “Sir Movies ” that explain and recommend movies and TV shows are a form of social currency with strong communication properties. When choosing a topic, consider whether it has the attributes of social currency;
2. Set incentives: able to activate readers' desire to spread the word. 1. You can guide users to share in the content. For example, you can mention some information in the article, which users can only obtain by sharing it on WeChat Moments. 2. You can provide profound and insightful interpretations of hot topics that everyone is concerned about, but you cannot cross the red line of public opinion just because you want to be different.
3. High arousal emotions: can evoke readers' emotions and associations, both negative and positive emotions. Common ones include: comparison, love, showing off, fun, curiosity, etc.
4. Public visibility: Articles that discuss issues that are too narrow, have too high a threshold, or are too private are not conducive to dissemination. When selecting topics and writing content, we should consider lowering the threshold appropriately to broaden the audience, and explain things in simple terms. As the saying goes, "the layman sees the excitement, the expert sees the doorway."
5. Practicality: Let readers gain something from reading, understand a small skill, a truth, gain some insights into life, etc.
6. Stories: Humans naturally like to listen to stories, and telling a good story can help spread it more effectively.

04 Connection

Mass communication is dead. As mentioned in the previous article "Two cases to understand the difference between Internet marketing and traditional marketing", traditional communication methods such as paper media and television have gradually become ineffective due to the influence of the Internet. Communication between people on the Internet appears to be more accurate and effective.

4.1. Mining seed users

According to Moore's law of technology adoption life cycle, users are divided into the following categories: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. From niche to mass, early adopters (13.5%) play a key role.

New Product/Technology Adoption Curve

In the early stages of a project, we should find our seed users as early as possible: innovators and early adopters. These users can help us iterate our products. After the product is completed, you can formulate a strategy to spread word-of-mouth among early users. For example, Xiaomi’s early 100 seed users were recruited from mobile phone forums. The main methods are as follows:

1. Find the right pond and conduct demand research: As mentioned above, through portrait analysis and other methods, find the gathering place of community members, not limited to the Internet or offline; find users in the pond who are willing to try new products, and conduct point-to-point chats to investigate user needs.
2. Build a product community through MVP testing: Use MVP (minimum viable product) testing to verify whether the product development direction is correct and whether the functions meet the user experience . In terms of operation, you can design a small viral activity, such as micro-classes, appointments, crowdfunding, to test users' willingness to forward or pay. During the test, we established good connections with interested users and pulled them into the group;
3. Continue to interact in the community, constantly absorb feedback, and optimize products and services.

4.2. Discover and cultivate opinion leaders

In the process of information transmission, we must try to find the central node of transmission (through one node, it can be transmitted to N nodes). If it is H5 virus transmission, we can use technical means to find the users of the central node, analyze the transmission capabilities behind it, and prepare for the next transmission.

Key opinion leaders (KOLs) are central nodes with strong influence. On some platforms such as Weibo and Zhihu, we can find opinion leaders through platform data such as the number of fans, likes, comments, and favorites. Different opinion leaders focus on different areas, and their remarks can determine the attributes of the people the opinion leaders are targeting. However, the price-performance ratio of already famous KOLs is relatively low. Therefore, we hope to attract KOLs with high cost-effectiveness.

Opinion leaders usually have the following characteristics:

1. Active enough: Have good output ability and actively output information;
2. Professionalism: Have a deep understanding of the field and be able to provide in-depth insights;
3. Take the initiative: Be willing to take on a community task and help others improve;
4. Consideration for the collective: Ability to consider issues for others and the collective;

If a person meets these four characteristics, you can further explore and win over the person. The strategy is as follows:

• Well-known opinion leaders can usually be wooed and establish deep collaboration;
• If the opinion leader does not have a sufficient number of fans, he should be supported to cultivate his influence.

The next two pictures are the mechanism for cultivating Internet celebrities :

4.3. Creating a transmissible virus

Viruses are usually designed in the following ways:

1. Benefit-induced communication: Users can get discounts by inviting friends. Similar products include: group buying and rebates for inviting new users. When inducing benefits, it is necessary to estimate cost risks and whether the cost risk can be sustained if the spread index rises.
2. Arouse users' emotions: Use emotions such as comparison, love, showing off, fun, curiosity, etc. to create dissemination. For example, the "Cultural Relics Drama Conference" that was banned by WeChat last month suddenly made the cultural relics move, making people feel lively and interesting, and eventually gained over 100 million disseminations.
3. Topic-based communication: Communication based on a hot topic, such as the popular online variety show "Creation 101". In the voting interaction session, fans are required to vote on the sponsored page. Fans are canvassing for votes everywhere so that their idols can make their debut.

Fans use drifting bottles to canvass votes for Wang Ju

In the process of designing viral transmission, there is an evaluation formula as follows:

Viral formula

This formula tells me what factors to consider when launching a virus:

• Custs(t): is the target of our viral spread, which is the number of new users added after a period of time;
• Custs(0): the number of seed users. This value tells us that the larger the base number of detonation, the better the effect;
• t: time consumed , such as the time from the initiation of the activity to the current point in time, which is counted as one t;
• K coefficient is used to judge the coverage of virus transmission. The formula is: K factor = number of infections × conversion rate. When K>1, it means that each infected user can infect multiple people, and the virus can multiply quickly.
• ct: Viral cycle, which refers to the time it takes from a user sending a viral invitation to a new user completing a conversion (such as clicking to read, registering, or purchasing).

It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand this formula. It tells us to pay attention to the following points during virus design:

Is the base of seed users large enough at the time of detonation? When detonating on a large scale, the larger the base, the faster the detonation speed. In the marketing activities of WeChat Moments , the choice of the time of detonation becomes particularly important. If you choose the peak time of refreshing Moments from 6 to 10 pm, the virus can spread rapidly. However, if you choose to detonate in the middle of the night, since most people are asleep, the detonation effect will inevitably be poor;

Increase K coefficient: increase the number of infections and conversion rate. For example, if users are encouraged to send more invitations on average, such as adding options for sending Weibo and mass emails in addition to one-on-one invitations to address book contacts, the chances of infecting more users can be increased. Optimizing the landing page that the infected person sees and making the registration steps as short as possible can increase the conversion rate of successful registration.

Shorten the viral cycle: The shorter the viral cycle, the better the effect. Why is Tik Tok short video so popular? Users only need 15 seconds to know whether the video is interesting or not, and then share it on Weibo or WeChat, attracting fans to watch. The entire viral cycle only takes a few minutes. In order to shorten the viral cycle, the user's operating costs should be reduced as much as possible, such as eye-catching calls to action, convenient one-click sharing buttons, and fool-proof download, installation and registration processes. Secondly, you can try to increase users' sense of urgency, such as offering coupons that will expire after 24 hours or promises of receiving a 10 yuan rebate immediately after registration.

Expanding the boundaries of virus transmission: There is one thing that the formula does not tell us, which is the boundaries of transmission. In real life, deadly viruses like Ebola cannot spread on a large scale because the time period from infection to onset is short and fatal. African tribes are relatively scattered, and the host dies before he has time to go to another tribe. The same is true in the online world. When the spread reaches the tribal boundaries, the K coefficient begins to decrease. At the beginning, one person can invite 3 friends, but in the end, one person may only be able to invite 0.1 people. In response to this situation, we must promptly expand new populations and activate the spread of the virus in new tribes.

05 Conclusion

Finally, I have come to the end. The purpose of this article is to use Mr. Tang’s “New 4C” to re-sort out the Internet operation and marketing knowledge system , and to effectively summarize and organize the scattered Internet operation knowledge as a guide in my own work. These 4Cs must work together to ignite the community at low cost. We will continue discussing specific case analysis in the next issue. Finally, I hope this article is helpful to everyone.

The author of this article is @PM Xiong Shu. It is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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