Operation strategy of traffic-generating communities

Community is a relatively important part of private domain traffic. Currently, most private domains connect with fans through WeChat communities. What are the ways to operate a community ? The author of this article has analyzed this and shared it with you.

There is a very important part in private domain traffic, which is the community. Because based on the current actual situation, the vast majority of private domains rely on the WeChat community to connect with fans. In the entire WeChat ecosystem, communities can perform a series of actions such as traffic generation, fission, and transactions. Now you can even do e-commerce live streaming directly through WeChat communities.

Therefore, the importance of the community is self-evident, which is why many people mistakenly believe that the private domain is the community. But in fact, the community can only be said to be a relatively important part of private domain traffic, but it is not completely the same. Of course, today I am not here to talk about what private domain is, nor the difference between the two. I am just saying it out of habit.

Having said that, today I mainly want to talk about how to play in the community.

There are many ways to play in the community. One of the more popular ones is to first use personal accounts to attract traffic, then market and promote through WeChat Moments to continuously stimulate users, and finally use group buying, preferential benefits and other means to complete sales transactions in the community. In this process, personal accounts are mainly responsible for attracting traffic, the circle of friends is mainly responsible for brand and product exposure and stimulating users, and the community is mainly responsible for creating an atmosphere for the event, setting off an atmosphere of rush to buy, completing the harvest, and further achieving fission. For the vast majority of retail products, this is basically the approach.

With the development of community live streaming e-commerce, the entire community operation chain has also undergone some changes. The most important thing is to create an atmosphere and conduct transactions, which have been transferred to the live broadcast room. The community mainly plays the role of fission.

But no matter how things change, the role of the community remains irreplaceable. So let’s talk about community operation strategies today.

Before we get into details, we first need to know what the categories of communities are. Common community classifications can generally be divided into three categories:

• Traffic diversion group: aims to increase followers and mainly undertakes traffic;
• Fan group: achieve user transaction conversion and repeat purchase through content operation and other means;
• Flash group: In a relatively short period of time, the script guides users to complete designated actions, thereby completing the product/service experience and achieving conversion and transaction!

Among them, the main purpose of the traffic-generating group is to increase fans, while the fan-type community and flash mob group both aim to convert transactions, so they can also be summarized as: 2 types of transaction-type communities.

A big part of the reason why many companies fail in building communities is that they did not do a good job of positioning the communities in the beginning and were not clear about what category their communities belonged to. You should know that different types of communities have completely different specific operating strategies. So next I will talk to you about these three different types of communities and their respective gameplay strategies:

1. Strategies for traffic-generating communities

The first type is the traffic-generating group. This type of community is mainly aimed at increasing followers, and it is not used to make transactions. The greatest significance of the diversion group is to quickly establish connections with people and guide users into the group through the bait you set. And make good savings for the next step of converting the group.

1. Bait Design

Whenever there is a traffic diversion group, there will definitely be one key point involved: bait!

This is what we often call the "hook". To put it simply, it means giving customers a reason that they cannot refuse, thereby attracting users to join your community. Therefore, the setting of bait is very important for the drainage group, and it is the core of the drainage group's fission.

Two principles of bait setting:

When we set the bait, the first principle is that the hook must be related to your product. For example, if you are buying fruit, then the bait is your fruit; if you are making cosmetics, then use one of your products, such as facial masks, as bait; if it is paid knowledge, such as selling courses, then generally use free e-books, trial classes, etc. as hooks. In short, the bait should be related to your product and content. Otherwise, it will be meaningless to attract a lot of non-target users.

The second principle of setting bait is to distribute benefits in a timely manner

In so many activities I have done, I found that the best time period for fission effect is usually after the first batch of users receive the benefits. Because there is a so-called principle of reciprocity here. After receiving tangible benefits, users will usually be more active in helping you promote your activities. Therefore, once the first wave of products is sent out and customers receive them, the overall fission volume will begin to enter a growth period. Therefore, when we are doing fission, we must do a good job of statistics. Once a user meets the requirements, we will send out the benefits as soon as possible so that the user can receive them as soon as possible.

The above are two principles about bait setting. In fact, the design of the hook is not that complicated. The gameplay is also very simple, just invite people to join the group, and you can enjoy certain benefits based on the number of people you invite. The simpler the better, and it is not difficult for users to operate. I have been in contact with a cosmetics company before, and the design of its bait is really hard to describe. Although after final calculation, the benefits are actually quite large, the overall rules can easily discourage people.

After the bait is set, we also need to package the bait. Many times, due to cost considerations, companies cannot give away things that are too expensive. For example, when selling courses, the benefits are usually set up as related materials, e-books, etc. To put it bluntly, the price of these things is only a few dozen yuan at most. If you do this directly, it will be difficult to generate traction. However, if you exaggerate its intrinsic value through packaging and use copywriting to describe the value of related materials and e-books, you can let users know that what you are giving away is not an e-book, but some very practical value. Then this is completely different. For example: You can get a business manual that can change your destiny. Even Ma Huateng and Liu Qiangdong are strongly promoting it, which allows you to earn your first pot of gold right away.

So when we throw out the bait, we must not only consider its own value, but also package it so that the bait can have further value from the user's psychological perspective.

As for the specific words of bait packaging, the core focus is to highlight three key points:

• Reflect the user's identity: Make the words look like what the user said, rather than something that looks official at first glance;
• Highlight specific benefits: The script should highlight the specific benefits of the activity, and the more the better.
• Really effective: It is required to emphasize the authenticity of the activity so that users can trust the activity.

Determine how to add people to the group:

After the bait is designed, we still need to determine the specific method of attracting people into the group. Different methods are suitable for different industries. The specific methods can be roughly divided into the following three types:

Direct invitation to join the group: that is, the seed users invite people to join the group. When a certain number of people are invited, they can enjoy certain benefits, such as product trials, red envelopes, etc. For operators, this method mainly involves counting the number of people, which can be achieved using some tools.

Send invitations to join the group through WeChat Moments: that is, let the seed users send our group QR code and related copywriting to their WeChat Moments so that they can receive the benefits. Use the circle of friends to invite people. Compared with the first method, this method puts relatively less pressure on customers and can be said to pay more attention to user experience. Normally, when a seed user posts on Moments, he can usually invite 3-5 friends to join the group.

The above two methods each have their advantages and disadvantages. The first one will cause some harassment, and many people will have a certain psychological resistance to this method, but the effect is definitely the best; the second one, on the other hand, is relatively Buddhist, and has a better user experience and higher accuracy of target users, after all, they all actively scan the code to come in.

Generally speaking, if your product is a necessity, such as daily necessities and fresh fruits and vegetables, which have a relatively high user demand, you can use the first method. For products such as knowledge payment and course sales, which require protecting the user experience to a certain extent, you can use the second method.

3. When there are XXX people in the group, everyone can receive benefits (usually raffles, sharing of red envelopes, etc.). This is also a way to attract people into the group. This method was used a lot in the early days of community operations. However, it has several fatal flaws. The first is that the user type is uncontrollable. In many cases, you may create a group of 300 people, but only a few of them are truly the target users. Secondly, it will be unfair to some users in the group. For example, some users will not take the initiative to invite people when the number of group members is relatively small, and will only take action when the number of group members reaches a certain number. This will result in a disproportionate amount of effort and income. Because of these two reasons, fewer and fewer people use this method now.

However, if this method is combined with activities, it is actually quite effective. Especially after the development of social live streaming, use live streaming for promotion and cooperate with your own people to constantly stimulate in the group and live streaming room, such as how much has been pulled in, how much is left... and so on. The effect will be very objective.

As for attracting people to join the group, in the actual operation process, I found that the best way is to combine the first and third methods at the same time, and the effect is the best.

Once you have determined the bait and the method of attracting people to join the group, you can start the actual operation. The specific implementation steps of the drainage community can be roughly divided into the following three steps:

Step 1: Bait preparation

This step is what we mentioned above, which is to set up the bait content, including specific benefits, sharing copy, words of speech, etc. In addition, you also need to prepare specific fission tools. In current community operations, in most cases we need to rely on tools to help us effectively improve our operations. Especially when the fission effect is particularly good, if there is no help from tools, on the one hand, the operator will be exhausted, and on the other hand, there may be great risks, which will eventually ruin an originally successful activity.

There are many commonly used fission tools at present. Some of them require payment, while some can be tried for free. I will not go into details about them. The key is to figure out whether you are using a corporate WeChat account or a public account for fission. There will be certain differences between the two, and the tools used may also be different. However, one thing you need to pay attention to is that you should never use a personal account to split, because the risk is extremely high and you may get blocked if you are not careful.

Step 2: Create a group

In this step, the first thing we need to do is to give our group a name. Generally it is related to my products, benefits or activity content. Another little trick is that when it comes to specific numbering, don’t start from 1. At least start from 6 or 7. In this way, at the beginning, when there are not many users, he will also feel that many people have participated in this activity. Gives people the illusion that the event is popular.

Secondly, in this link, a more important thing is to identify seed users and active users. Among them, seed users are the basis of any fission activity. They determine the starting state of a fission activity. The more seed users there are and the more precise their types are, the better the final activity effect will be.

Another active user is also commonly called the atmosphere group. It is usually composed of company colleagues and other partners, and its main role is to create an atmosphere and activate users.

The last thing in this step is to write a group announcement. The main thing is to write about the purpose of the group, what value it brings to users, and group rules such as prohibiting random advertising.

Step 3: Share the invitation

Start by letting seed users do the first round of fission. Here, in terms of rhythm, it can actually be further subdivided:

Let internal employees send private messages to friends first: Generally speaking, if the number of seed users is not too large, internal staff will usually send private messages to each of them one by one to get as many seed users as possible to participate in the event. Under normal circumstances, 10 seed users can eventually fission into about 300 users. Therefore, it is crucial to stimulate the enthusiasm of more seed users to participate.

Pay attention to the effect of seed users pulling people into the group: In addition to stimulating participation enthusiasm, operators also need to pay attention to the fission situation at all times, constantly adjust the way of pulling people in according to the effect, and optimize the copywriting and rhetoric.

In short, at this stage, the operator's main focus is on sharing and inviting people.

The last step: benefit redemption

Here, it is mainly the community administrators or customer service staff who complete the corresponding work. Specifically include: review of completed tasks. For example, if a certain user completes a task, on the one hand, it should be announced in the group immediately, such as congratulations to the user for completing the task and what benefits can be obtained; on the other hand, the benefits should be redeemed in a timely manner. The sooner the first wave of users who complete their tasks receive the benefits, the better the overall effect of fission will be.

In addition, at this time, the number of people in the group has reached a certain scale. At this time, the group management needs to pay attention to the status of the group at all times. For example, if someone posts an advertisement, they must be reminded in time or even kicked out. If there are any questions or inquiries, we must respond promptly.

At this stage, there will definitely be users who are not aware of the situation and are pulled into the group. If they see advertisements in the group as soon as they come in, they will have a bad impression from the first perception, and some will even choose to quit the group directly. Therefore, at this stage, the operator should focus more on the internal part of the group. As for the fission effect, you don’t actually need to spend more energy on cueing.

The above are the four specific steps for the implementation of the drainage group. As I said before, for the drainage group, the most important thing is to increase the number of fans. We will not consider sedimentation and retention here for the time being.

There are a few points that need to be noted during the specific implementation of the drainage group:

The traffic-generating group usually chooses to disband after the event ends. The difference between the traffic group and the core fan group is that the users of the latter have purchased your products or services before, and they have a certain degree of trust in you, while for the former, most users do not trust you. Therefore, in order to avoid unnecessary risks, the general approach is to disband the group.

The drainage group cannot just drain traffic for the sake of draining traffic. Although the user does not trust you enough at this stage, at least the user should be your potential target. So although the diversion group has been disbanded, you still need to prepare for the next conversion work. For example, by creating a circle of friends on a personal account, you can continuously influence users. Finally, cooperate with big promotions, group buying activities or live broadcasts to complete further conversions.

Generally speaking, the activity cycle of a group should not be too long, normally about 3-5 days is enough.

The above is the specific gameplay strategy for traffic-generating communities. In the next article, I will share the second type: fan community! That is a type of transaction-based community. Let’s talk in detail about how this type of community can achieve rapid conversion and repeat purchases, and what its specific gameplay and strategies are!

Author: Pai Ye Operation

Source: Pai Ye Operation (pyyunying)