How to follow hot spots? Here are 4 correct steps for you

“Chasing hot spots” is certainly not unfamiliar to students in operations . For example, well-known brands such as Durex , Coca-Cola , and BMW often come up with some cool creative activities or copywriting centered around social hot spots, which amaze people. However, it is not enough to just look at the surface of many things, we also need to dig deeper into what is behind them.

Regarding the issue of "chasing hot spots", the most important thing is to solve three problems:

1. When to chase?
2. What hot topics are you following?
3. How to chase?

In this article, we will focus on these three points to explain in detail how to follow hot spots.

1. When to chase?

The "when to chase" mentioned here does not refer to when to chase a specific hot spot. But it means, in a company, when should we implement the strategy of "chasing hot spots"?

First, let’s look at the issue of chasing hot spots: a group of operations personnel revolve around a hot spot, combine the brand attributes of the product, output activities or content through creative packaging, spread among users, and obtain brand exposure and user growth and maintenance through high-quality word of mouth.

As you can see, there are three key elements here:

1. The brand attributes of the product;
2. Output after creative packaging;
3. Number of users.

This corresponds to the following three points:

1. The brand attributes of the product correspond to the business model

You can find that those companies that are good at following hot topics are basically ToC companies . Is it because those ToB companies don’t have the ability to do it? Of course not, but because there is no need. Do you still remember a sentence that was repeatedly mentioned in previous articles, "All operations revolve around users." The users of ToB companies are companies rather than individuals, and hot spots are spread among individuals, so there is no need to do this. This is why some large military-industrial enterprises or manufacturing giants such as Foxconn do not need to do things that follow hot topics.

Some companies connect both the B-end and the C-end, such as Liepin.com; or they use the B2 B2C model, such as some franchise brands. If this type of company follows hot topics, then the effect will definitely be better than the pure ToB type mentioned above, but relatively speaking, the effect will be slightly worse than that of a pure ToC company.

Therefore, one of the conditions for whether the effect of chasing hot spots is good is how short the distance between the product and individual users is.

2. The output after creative packaging corresponds to the team's creativity and execution

This is what I will talk about later in this article, the second condition: the team’s creativity and execution.

3. The number of users corresponds to the user base, budget and channels

Everyone knows that Durex is good at following hot topics, but don’t forget that it has millions of fans. Suppose it is a brand new brand with no fans, no budget and no channels, then no matter how well you do in chasing hot topics, it will be of no avail. Therefore, the third condition is: a certain amount of user base ( promotion budget and channels).

Those who have read the previous chapters must still remember our cube thinking ("Thinking Chapter | How to Become an Operations Expert (Part 2): Operations Cube"), we draw our cube based on the above three dimensions:

Conclusion: The larger the volume of the above cube is, the better the effect of "chasing hot spots" of the same mass can be. Of course, it doesn’t mean that when the area of ​​the cube is small, there is no need to create hotspots. Sometimes chasing hotspots is also a way to expand the cube. This requires everyone to judge based on the actual situation.

2. What hot topics are you following?

When it comes to chasing hot topics, what is the most basic point? Of course, it is the hotspot itself. Being able to quickly and timely obtain hot spots is one of the necessary conditions for chasing hot spots.

First, let's look at several types of hotspots and how to obtain them:

1. Conventional hot spots

Such hot spots refer to domestic and international holidays, historical events, product launch dates, company anniversaries, etc. The biggest advantage of this hotspot is that its time is fixed, so it gives us plenty of time to make corresponding plans; the disadvantage is that due to its repetitiveness, the effect is generally not too strong. This kind of hot spot is a "defensive" hot spot , which means that if it is done, the effect may not be very significant, but if it is not done, users will inevitably have certain doubts about the brand.

To obtain such hot spots, you only need to list all the relevant holidays according to the calendar, and then make corresponding plans in advance.

2. Sudden hot spots

This kind of hot spot refers to an "incident" that happens suddenly in daily life, such as "someone cheated", "someone got divorced", "someone's company went bankrupt", "someone fell down", etc. The biggest advantage of this hotspot is that it is very popular when it just occurs, and it is easy to cause a cluster effect; its disadvantage is that the time is not fixed and it is difficult to grasp. In addition, the life cycle of this hotspot is very short, which requires us to make a complete set of plans in a very short time and implement them quickly to be effective. This type of hotspot is an "offensive" hotspot , which means that if you do well, the gap between you and your competitors will be widened.

This kind of hotspot is mainly obtained from two channels:

1. Public channels: various popular rankings , such as Weibo hot searches, Baidu hot search list, Sogou hot search list, etc.
2. Industry channels: This is mainly aimed at hot spots within some industries. Some industry groups, personal connections and other places are the best channels to obtain relevant hot spots. For example, if the country releases a new explosive real estate policy, it will definitely spread in the real estate circle first; if a shared bicycle company dies again, it will definitely spread in the Internet circle first.

3. Predictable hot spots

You may be wondering about this. If it is an emergency, how can it be predictable? In fact, there are many such cases, such as: " The Chinese football team lost", "The stock market collapsed", "A certain celebrity won an award", etc. Although this kind of event is sudden, it is a predictable event with high probability for us.

Especially in certain sub-sectors, industry experts are very accurate in predicting some hot spots in the industry. For example, an article that was very popular in the investment field some time ago, "How I Accurately Found 360's Backdoor Listing of Jiangnan Jiajie from Thousands of Stocks", was published as soon as the news was confirmed, causing a sensation in the industry.

The biggest advantage of this hotspot is that it has good effects and sufficient preparation time; its disadvantage is that it requires high professional capabilities and may require preparing multiple plans at the same time. This type of hotspot is a "secret weapon" hotspot , which means that we have something that others don't have.

The above are several types of hot spots. When we obtain a hot spot, the next thing we need to consider is: should we pursue this hot spot? As for whether to pursue a certain hot spot or which hot spot to pursue, we can consider the following points:

(1) Keeping pace with the life cycle

A hot spot, like a product, also has a life cycle. Moreover, with the emergence of various information nowadays, the life cycle of a hot spot is very short. Whether you can accurately grasp the life cycle of a hot spot is one of the key factors in whether chasing a hot spot is effective. Let's first take a look at the growth curve of a hot spot in general:

Therefore, in terms of time attributes, the earlier you pursue a hot spot, the better the effect will be; the longer the life cycle of a hot spot, the better the effect will be.

You may have a question here: Sometimes it is very simple for us to chase a hot topic, just like Durex, each time it is just an advertising slogan with a picture, and the life cycle is also very short, why is the effect still so good?

This is because: although the life cycle of a hot topic that Durex is chasing is indeed very short, if the "chasing hot topics" thing is continued for a long time, the life cycle of the whole thing will be very long, because in the eyes of the advertising industry, the marketing industry or some fans, "Durex chasing hot topics" is itself a hot topic. This is also the reason why some Internet celebrity products and Internet celebrity stores become popular for a while and then disappear immediately.

(2) Hotspot growth and user engagement

A good hot topic is one that users can participate in and discuss, feel that it is somewhat related to them, and be able to empathize and resonate with certain viewpoints. For users, the following stages generally occur: knowing the result → clarifying the details → analyzing the point of view → subsequent extension . Let’s take the social hot topic of “a certain celebrity’s divorce” as an example:

• Stage 1: Know the outcome. "A celebrity couple who always appeared to be very loving in front of the media have divorced." In the beginning, as long as we broke the news and released the result as soon as possible, we could immediately attract the attention of the majority of users and catch up with the hot topics.
• Phase 2: Sort out the details. When everyone is paying close attention to this matter, it is obviously useless to just throw out the results. But if you can throw out some details and reasons behind it, such as the main reason for the divorce is actually because of "someone's cheating", "someone's domestic violence", etc., then it will further attract the enthusiasm of the majority of users.
• Stage 3: Analyze ideas. At this stage, relevant revelations have been dug up almost completely, and it is time to start analyzing viewpoints, such as "Is intolerable domestic violence worthy of sympathy?", "How should a marriage between a weak man and a strong woman be maintained?", etc. The key to maintaining popularity at this stage is whether it can generate consistent user behavior or whether it can generate several opposing viewpoints, each with its own arguments. In this way, it will be easier to extend the timeliness of the hotspot.
• Phase 4: Subsequent extension. At this stage, this hot spot has inevitably entered a period of decline, and what we need to do is to tap its surplus value as much as possible. For example, "The importance of women's maintenance can be seen from the divorce of a certain celebrity", "Learn asset allocation, the warning brought to us by the divorce of a certain celebrity" are used to promote some maintenance products or asset tools , etc.

The growth potential of a hot spot is an important reference criterion for us to judge whether to pursue a certain hot spot. What we want to choose is a hot spot with high growth potential. For example, the hot topic "A certain celebrity got married" is definitely not as effective as the divorce example mentioned above. Because there are not so many reasons, details, and opinions behind marriage, the growth potential is relatively poor.

(3) Matching degree between hot spots and brands

Even if we acquire a hot spot very early and it has high growth potential, for a company or a brand, the hot spot must be centered around the characteristics of the brand. If it cannot be matched, it will be useless.

For example, some time ago AlphaGo became the first artificial intelligence program to defeat the world champion of Go, and it became a hot topic for a while. Obviously, this hot topic belongs to the technology type, so for some technology brands, it is a very good hot topic. I remember that Sogou’s CEO Wang Xiaochuan also took advantage of it and announced to the media that the day when AlphaGo won the third victory would be designated as Sogou’s "Dog Victory Day", and the first working day after the Dog Victory Day would be a day off. The reason is that Sogou is also a technology brand with an artificial intelligence label. The attributes of the two are the same, so the effect will of course be good.

However, for some traditional enterprises, this hot spot has no matching features at all, so it is useless no matter how hard they try.

(4) Do not follow political or negative topics

Not to mention the political ones, negative ones such as homicide cases, major traffic accidents and other disasters, or the child abuse incident at the Red Yellow Blue Kindergarten some time ago, etc., these hot spots should not be pursued. At this time, all the people are immersed in a state of sadness or anger. If an advertisement pops up, it will definitely be unpopular and counterproductive. In short, chasing hot topics is a joyful thing, and it will only be effective when a group of spectators are happy.

After comprehensively considering the above points, we will know what kind of hot spots are worth chasing.

3. How to chase?

Through the previous part, we know what hot spots to chase. The next step is to talk about how to chase hot spots. Simply put, it is to find a way to connect ourselves with the hot spots. So how do we connect them? In fact, any hot spot must be composed of three things: people, things, and objects . We just need to have object-oriented thinking ("Thinking Chapter | How to Become an Operations Expert (Part 3): Object-Oriented") to decompose these things and find those points that match our attributes.

Here we will use the most popular "Wolf Warrior 2" as an example to illustrate how to use this method of matching the attributes of people, things and events to track hot spots.

Step 1: Sort out the attributes of people, things and events

The cast of Wolf Warrior 2 includes: Wu Jing, Zhang Han, Jasmine Lu, Wu Gang and other stars...

Things about Wolf Warrior 2 include:

• Due to the difficulties during the preparation of the film , Wu Jing mortgaged his 80 million mansion;
• The hardships during the filming of the movie nearly cost him his life in Africa;
• The popularity of the movie during its release was so great that the designers had no time to make the graphics;
• etc……

The items in Wolf Warrior 2 include: the cars driven, the wine drunk, the jewelry worn, etc.

Then we analyze its attributes based on the above, such as: tough guy, inspirational, patriotic, etc.

Due to limited space, the above only lists some basic ones. In our actual operation process, it is recommended that the team can brainstorm together, dig as deep as possible, and list all the points that can be thought of.

Step 2: Establish connections from simple to complex

What does it mean to start from the simplest way to the complex? It means to start from the simplest way to establish the system and set the priority of implementation, such as:

1) If you already know stars like Wu Jing, Zhang Han, etc., then quickly @ them on Weibo to congratulate them, or announce that you will star in or sponsor "Wolf Warrior 3" or something like that. Be direct and clear, and most stars do the same.

2) If our brand happens to be used in the “things” listed above, it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Hurry up and express your gratitude, such as Moutai Liquor and Dongfeng Motor in the movie. So the following appeared:

These brands are not sponsors who have paid for advertising, so it is a good opportunity for them to encounter such an opportunity. There are also some brands in "Wolf Warrior 2" that had such an opportunity but did not respond in time, which is really regrettable.

3) If the items inside are similar to our products, then we should immediately launch the corresponding Wolf Warrior 2 products, and the effect will be immediate. For example, there are all kinds of "Wolf Warrior 2 same jewelry", "Wolf Warrior 2 same jacket" and so on on Taobao , which are also sufficient to catch up with the hot "things".

4) If we cannot find a point of connection at a direct level, we must connect them through attributes.

For example, one of the attributes we have sorted out above is: tough guy. Then you can link it to the product through this attribute. Tsingtao Beer launched the slogan "Tough guy movies deserve tough guy beer".

For example, the fact that Wu Jing mortgaged his property to invest in filming is itself a very inspiring thing, so around the attribute of "inspiration", there was a hot article such as "Real Men Are the Luxury of This Era" with a total reading volume of millions on the entire network. etc.

Theoretically, people, things, objects, and attributes can be continuously decomposed. Wu Jing's hot spots cannot be followed, but because the film was shot in Africa, even African children can follow it:

Of course, the farther away it is, the worse the effect will be. This requires everyone to make a judgment based on the actual situation.

Step 3: Rapid implementation of division of labor and collaboration

This step has been mentioned before. The key to chasing hot spots is speed. Therefore, effective execution is the most important guarantee. Although no one likes to work overtime, when it comes to chasing hot topics, you must work overtime. Otherwise, if you are one step late, the effect will be far from satisfactory.

Okay, now we have to go through when to catch up? What hot topics are you following? How to chase? These three questions have explained the common and effective method of "chasing hot spots". Finally, we use a mind map to sort out the ideas and complete this article:

summary

The key to chasing hot spots is speed and accuracy. Speed ​​refers to the speed; accuracy refers to the accuracy of attribute matching. The effect will be better if it can be combined with some previous community , fission and other methods. So in addition to these methods of attracting new customers and promoting activation, are there any other effective methods in the transaction process?

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

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