Six "viral factors" to help you create a hit event

I talked about user retention before. Many people who do product operations know that retaining users is more important than anything else, but today we are going to talk about viral transmission factors that are just as important as user retention . What is the viral factor? It refers to the factors that prompt users to actively help you spread the activity when they are using a product.

The H5, posters, activities, etc. that we often plan all require us to consider what are the communication factors of this form? If you don't have a good reason for users to spread the word about you, even if you do this activity, the effect will not be particularly good.

What are the transmission factors? I have mainly sorted out the following 6:

Reciprocity, recognition, individuality, comparison, love, interests, etc.!

Among the product operation cases on the Internet , there are many activities that have become popular by using communication factors.

Benefits of Viral Transmission Factors

On the evening of June 21, 2013, a widely circulated message appeared in major forums, Weibo, and QQ groups: "The payment system of Baidu Cloud Disk seems to have a major bug. The price of all paid packages has become 1/1000 of the original price. You can buy a one-year membership for 0.1 cent, and the highest-level package with 100GB is only 0.5 cents. Hurry up and grab the benefits!!" For a time, netizens went crazy. Regardless of whether they had a Baidu Cloud Disk account before, they all rushed to buy it. The original annual fees for the 15GB, 30GB, 50GB and 100GB packages were 75 yuan, 150 yuan, 250 yuan and 500 yuan respectively, and the actual payment process at that time only cost 0.08 yuan, 0.15 yuan, 0.25 yuan and 0.5 yuan.

This online frenzy, seemingly caused by a bug, is actually a marketing campaign carefully planned by the Baidu Netdisk team. The purpose is to take advantage of the user's desire to get a bargain and plan this BUG marketing. Although Baidu did not make any comments on this, it finally "fixed" the bug in a low-key manner dozens of hours later.

A few days later, Baidu announced that the number of Baidu Cloud users exceeded 70 million and was growing at a rate of 200,000 per day. At this point, any discerning person can tell that Baidu Cloud's oversight was entirely a "bug marketing" and the entire spread confirmed the old saying: "Good news doesn't travel far, but bad news travels a thousand miles."

Virus transmission factor of love

On August 29, the second day of Chinese Valentine's Day, most couples may not have woken up from the sweetness of the festival. However, on such a morning, the charity event launched by Tencent Charity - Children's Gallery attracted the attention of many friends, and it was much more loving and lively than the circle of friends on Chinese Valentine's Day. These paintings not only received donations from everyone, but also received unanimous praise.

Simply put, the "Children's Gallery" event was initiated by the Shanghai Yitu Charity Foundation on the Tencent Charity Platform. The donations will be received by the Shenzhen Aiyou Future Charity Foundation, which has public fundraising qualifications, and will support the "Art Lights Up Life" project initiated by WABC Accessible Art Path to help special people with intellectual disabilities integrate into society. After paying one yuan, users can share their acts of charity, which is meaningful and can attract friends to participate, conveying the message that "you can help those in need at a very low cost." And there are many ways to share, you can post pictures with QR codes, links, or screensavers. In short, it is to convey a positive energy and a selfless love.

Virus transmission factor comparison

In 2014, there was a game that many people probably played - Surround the Nervous Cat. Click on the link shared by a friend, and you will see a white cat with its butt exposed and a proud expression twisting its graceful waist in the center of the phone screen, waiting for you to surround it by clicking the dots on the screen. According to later statistics, the performance of "Surround the Nervous Cat" was relatively average within 24 hours of its launch, with the number of independent players (IP) being only 234,000 and the traffic (PV) being only 863,000. However, it exploded the next day, with the IP data soaring to 2.41 million and the PV reaching 10.26 million within 48 hours of its launch. Why did it suddenly become popular?

There is not much novelty in the gameplay of "Surround the Nervous Cat", but the use of the well-known "white cat" image is unique. Long before the birth of "Surround the Nervous Cat", there were many similar games on the market. For example, there is Chat Noir, a black cat game created by Japanese game designer Taro Ito in 2007, the online game "Circle the Cat", and "Surround the Kittens" which was launched on the Android market in 2012. But unlike the above games, the image of the mean cat in "Surround the Nervous Cat" makes users feel very close and can't stop playing.

However, it is not so easy to surround this "crazy cat". Players still need to use their brains. After all, they have to show their results in the circle of friends in the end. Some players have even developed a set of "cat surrounding" strategies based on practical experience and sophisticated algorithms. In addition, WeChat ’s relationship chain played a great role in promoting this game, and H5 was extremely popular at the time. Although “Surround the Nervous Cat” has not yet incorporated social elements (such as leaderboards , points, etc.), by sharing the game results, you can see each other’s scores among WeChat friends, which will also create a competitive mentality and make the interaction stronger.

The personality of the virus transmission factor

To put it simply, the personality of this communication factor is style. Your product or activity should give users enough topics to talk about, that is, after they participate in your activity or use your product, they will feel more confident and proud, and then recommend it to other users. Then your goal is achieved. In March 2015, my screen was flooded with comments about an APP - Zuji .

Different from the usual "square picture + text" format of sharing in Moments or other graphic and text social apps , "Zuji" combines pictures and text in the form of " movie wide frame + subtitles", "disguising" it as a movie screenshot (as shown below). The pictures come from users, and the texts include preset lyrics, famous quotes, etc., or can be original by users. The cinematic visual presentation also makes such original expressions look very personal, fully satisfying users' desire to express themselves and their literary style in the circle of friends, and swiping the screen seems to be natural. The subsequent decline was due to the limitations of the product, so we won’t go into details here. At the very least, it left a significant mark in the case studies of Internet product dissemination.

Identification of viral transmission factors

This identity psychology actually examines the sense of identity of a group. As long as the current pain points of this group of people are captured and magnified, it is easy for the event to spread. The article "20 million people in Beijing are pretending to live" is the best proof.

On July 23, the article "In Beijing, 20 million people are pretending to live" pushed by the public account "Mr. Zhang Said" swept the circle of friends. To sum up the article, the general meaning is: Beijing is ultimately Beijing for Beijingers, and the immigrant generation without ancestral property is destined to be trapped in a house for the rest of their lives. Those who successfully pursued their dreams went abroad, and those who had no hope of pursuing their dreams fled back to their hometowns. There are still more than 20 million people left in this city, pretending to live. "20 million people in Beijing are pretending to live" also soared sharply on the Baidu Index. Some people say that this article touches the soft hearts of people who have moved to Beijing; some people say that this is just hypocritical whining; others say that the author has a tendency to exaggerate facts and stir up emotions in order to attract fans... But no matter what, this article just hits the psychology of a certain group of people.

This pain point of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen has been repeatedly consumed. How many people in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are overwhelmed by life and work, and articles like this give them an outlet to vent. Just as the article "Beijing, 20 million people are pretending to live" pointed out: "In Beijing, exchanging business cards is considered acquaintance; making a few phone calls a year is considered a close friend; if there is someone willing to run from the east to the west of the city to have a meal with you without talking about business, then you can be said to be a friend for life; as for those who meet every day and have lunch together every day, they can only be colleagues." Although it is a bit exaggerated, it also reveals the current situation of high social costs in Beijing .

The word "life" appears frequently in this article. Every city has the same rules of survival, and for many people, behind their efforts, there is still a trace of nostalgia for "poetry and distant places". They yearn for a life that they can control, not just survival.

Similarly, copywriting such as " Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou " always triggers screen-sweeping storms:

In February 2017, Zhao Lei 's song " Chengdu " went viral, making white-collar workers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou yearn for Chengdu's slow life.

In July 2016, the "Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou within 4 hours" campaign launched by Xin Shi Xiang sparked heated discussions, making tenants in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou fantasize about "escaping";

In the same month, the song "Feeling My Body Hollowed Out" by Rainbow Chorus went viral, causing people in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou who work "996" to complain about overtime.

Such cases all point out one point, that is, by gaining the psychological recognition of the group, outputting values ​​that are consistent with this group, and allowing them to gain a sense of psychological security, it can easily become a hot event.

Reciprocity of viral transmission factors

Influence talks about the principle of reciprocity: we should try to repay others in the same way for everything they do for us. Because of the influence of the principle of reciprocity, we feel obligated to return favors, gifts, invitations, etc. that we receive in the future. Because the acceptance of such things is often closely linked with the obligation to repay. The most impressive thing about the principle of reciprocity and the sense of indebtedness that goes with it is that they are almost ubiquitous in human civilization. This is also the reason why many users share and spread it.

The "reciprocity principle" in the marketing field can be simply described as giving the target audience certain benefits through "coercion" or "inducement" to make them feel guilty - that is, "feel embarrassed", and then engage in compensatory consumption behavior.

For example, the lowest-cost shopping guide model (this model is basically ineffective due to abuse). The other party provides you with detailed information about the products you want to buy, changes several products for you (such as trying on clothes), and carefully introduces its usage, taboos and matching. You feel that the other party provides you with a lot of services and help. If you do not buy, you will feel "uneasy" (guilt). Another example is the now very popular food tasting model, which not only allows you to test in advance whether the food suits your taste, but also secretly takes advantage of the "reciprocity principle" in the minds of consumers. If you gain benefits from others (eat other people's food), you should also provide some help to others.

I believe that on the eve of National Day, many of you will be asked by your friends to help click on this link, and even you will participate in it! After all, the money invested by Didi Hitch this time is quite sincere. But this is not the highlight of the entire event. The real highlight lies in users helping each other. If you receive this link from your friend today, and you like it, and you think it is good, you will continue to call your other friends, of course including the friend you just helped, so the principle of mutual benefit is formed, and the amount is random, so this adds more unknowns to this activity. If you have not reached 100 yuan, you can only continue to look for other friends to help you, and if other friends also play, you can help each other.

When you plan an event, it is recommended that you list some communication factors that can encourage users to actively share, and then think of some creative ideas in a directional manner. After all, your event is conducted when users are interested and can hit some of their factors. Such an event can maximize the participation of more users.