How can social e-commerce make good use of “Internet celebrity” thinking?

Introduction: It has to be said that the topic of “Internet celebrity economy” has been very popular recently. This article will look at the current situation of the "Internet celebrity economy", what reference value and significance the "Internet celebrity economy" that originated from social media platforms has for the development of social e-commerce , and specifically describe how social e-commerce brands shape their own brand image.

The author knows a beautiful girl born in the 1990s. Her family runs a traditional clothing wholesale business, which has been in the business for many years. They have a stable supply of goods and customers, and the overall business has been stable and profitable. One day, the girl told me that she wanted to start a business , but she didn’t want to follow her parents’ path. “Nowadays, so many Internet celebrities have opened Taobao and WeChat businesses, and their business is booming. I have the funds, the source of goods, and my good looks. Can I also become an Internet celebrity? In this way, I don’t have to stay in the market every day. I can sell goods and make money just by dressing beautifully, posing, and posting photos.”

1. The wild growth of the “Internet celebrity economy”

"Internet celebrity" must be the most popular word and group in 2015. Most of them have looks that are as hard to tell apart as the ones in "matching faces". It seems that they have nothing to do every day except shopping, taking selfies and showing off their branded clothes. No matter how netizens complain about "Internet celebrities' standard plastic surgery" and "showing off wealth and worshipping money", Internet celebrities still live a "white, rich and beautiful" life that most young girls envy. From makeup and hairstyle to clothing matching, they are all the objects of attention and imitation by young girls.

Thus, the "Internet celebrity economy" came into being. Some people describe the core of the "Internet celebrity economy" as - click on this link and you can become me!

Among the top 10 women's clothing C-store sales in 2015, 5 are Internet celebrity stores (Photo from Tencent Entertainment)

Last August, Taobao held a communication meeting on the "Internet celebrity" phenomenon in Shanghai, systematically sorting out the "Internet celebrity economy" for the first time and publishing official data: as of August 2015, there were more than 1,000 "Internet celebrity" stores on the Taobao platform, and the transaction volume of some "Internet celebrity" stores could exceed 10 million yuan when new products were put on the shelves. For example, the one who has to be pulled out as a positive example whenever the "Internet celebrity economy" is mentioned - "Wang (Sicong)'s woman" Xue Li, a post-90s generation, has a Taobao women's clothing C store with double gold crowns and "money-making ability" comparable to Fan Bingbing. In just 8 months, the store has received 873,331 transactions with reviews (read carefully! These are transactions with reviews, and the actual sales volume is far more than this number!), and with an average customer unit price of 220-240 yuan, her annual income is definitely over 100 million yuan (Fan Bingbing, who topped the Forbes China Celebrity List in 2015, had an annual income of about 130 million yuan). They can earn huge sums of money and date handsome men - Internet celebrities are the representatives of the pinnacle of life in this era.

Of course, the above mentioned is only one type of "Internet celebrity", which is also the "Internet celebrity" we usually understand from a narrow perspective: a young and beautiful fashion expert is a KOL (key opinion leader), who uses her vision and taste to output aesthetics (selecting styles + various forms of visual promotion), gathers fans on social media, and then directs traffic to the store. However, with the rapid rise of the "Internet celebrity economy", more and more young girls and fashion gurus have joined this group in an attempt to share the pie, resulting in increasingly fierce market competition; at the same time, the public's interests are shifting at any time and difficult to understand, and even the most die-hard fans will have their aesthetic tastes waning one day. Many people are skeptical and wait-and-see about how long such simple, crude and barbaric growth can last.

In fact, in a broad sense, the "Internet celebrity economy" is ultimately about personalizing and shaping the brand into an expert, and then expanding the personal charm effect through the spread of social media, thereby monetizing fan traffic. For example, Luo Zhenyu, the "No. 1 Internet celebrity" in the self-media circle, has been selling various products through Weidian since 2014, including 40,000 boxes of "True Love Special" mooncakes (which are said to have instantly killed the online sales of Starbucks mooncakes), 75 tons of rice and more than 2,000 vibrators. It is very intuitive to express it with a formula -

Internet celebrity economy = influential individuals (KOL) + social media communication + personalized stores or products

2. How to make good use of "Internet celebrity thinking" in social e-commerce

The "Internet celebrity economy" that originated from social media is seen as an important manifestation of the social e-commerce trend. So, what kind of reference value and guidance do internet celebrities who use their own fan traffic as a competitive advantage have for mobile social e-commerce that "relies on people as traffic"? In the era of mobile social e-commerce, how can companies make good use of "Internet celebrity thinking" to play the fan economy card?

1. Find the right position

Personalize the brand As we just mentioned, the essence of the "Internet celebrity economy" is to personalize and shape the brand. This shaping can be multi-faceted and involve various fields. For example, in addition to the most common Internet celebrity image settings such as "fashion expert" and "white, rich and beautiful woman", we can also use social media to create KOLs in various fields such as health experts, fitness experts, and beauty experts.

Of course, the premise for this setting is to have a relatively clear positioning of the brand, product, target population, and the strengths and weaknesses of the selected KOL, and then to advance it in a purposeful and rhythmic manner.

For example, when fresh food e-commerce was very popular a few years ago, I paid attention to a fruit e-commerce brand called "Fruit Box". In the early stage, sales were mainly carried out through official websites, No.1 store and other platforms. At the end of 2015, we began to use the three-level micro-business distribution system Weiba Renrendian and opened a store on WeChat. In just 15 days, sales reached 500,000. Why is it that amidst the voices that “(fresh food e-commerce) is full of pitfalls” (former SF Express Best CEO Cui Xiaoqi), the small and beautiful Fruit Box is still doing well?

First of all, Guohe has a very clear market positioning - "purchase, sales and distribution of mid-to-high-end fruits", which determines the people and market it targets. What kind of people would buy mid- to high-end fruits through the Internet or WeChat channels? Generally speaking, they are people with strong financial capabilities, who have Internet/ mobile Internet shopping needs, and who pursue a healthy and quality life.

How can we effectively attract this group of people?

We believe that it is not easy for people to establish relationships with organizations, but it is easier for individuals to establish relationships with each other. The best way for a company to build a relationship with consumers is to create a personalized brand. This is exactly what FruitBox does, personalizing and labeling the brand.

All of FruitBox’s customers and distributors know its CEO Zhuang Ye, who has these labels: born after 1985, a stay-at-home dad (pays attention to safety and health), a highly educated person (graduated from Zhejiang University), professional and focused (worked in food safety management in Shanghai’s largest agricultural product wholesale market for 7 years), etc. The information conveyed by these labels is simple, clear and memorable. By explaining the original intention of the business and the brand story, the brand appeal of "fresh, nutritious, safe and high-quality fruits" is conveyed. Zhuang Ye himself is the personified brand spokesperson of Fruit Box.

It can be said that the image and characteristics of KOLs are closely related to the feelings and impressions that products and brands bring to people.

2. Continuously output valuable content

Personalizing your brand is only the first step in a long journey. Some people will remember you and even become your fans, but this is not enough to motivate them to buy. In addition, we live in an era of information explosion where even geese can become Internet celebrities. The audience's interests are widely distributed and migrate quickly, and the loyalty of fans is not long-lasting.

How can we continue to build up fans’ enthusiasm and convert it into purchasing power? It is very important to continuously output valuable content and have a long-lasting spiritual relationship with fans. In the internet celebrity economy, KOL itself is the brand’s biggest differentiated competitive advantage. Fans choose the products you recommend or sell because they like you, recognize you, and believe in you. What fans choose is not simply the product itself, but an attitude and way of life that is conveyed through the image you create and the content you produce.

There is a famous independent high-heeled shoe brand called "High Heels 73 Hours" on Weibo. The average selling price of each pair of shoes is more than 1,000 yuan. Even in shopping mall counters, this price is not cheap, let alone Taobao, which we usually think of as a place to "find bargains". However, new products in this store are often sold out by fans within less than an hour of being put on the shelves.

The owner of the store, "Miss Zhao's Insomnia", Zhao Ruhong's identities as a former host, actor, and publisher determine that she has strong topicality, content output, and fan management capabilities. In addition to sharing store updates, she uses fashion, food, fitness and other elements on Weibo to create a refined, optimistic, warm and romantic "socialite" image. Most of her fans recognize and envy her attitude and way of life. To use an Internet saying, "What I buy is not shoes, but feelings, a new lifestyle!"

It can be seen that when outputting content, we should pay attention to the following points:

(1) Persistence is the key

Insisting on exporting yourself actually means insisting on exporting your brand and products.

(2) What kind of words should be said to what kind of people?

For example, most of Miss Zhao’s fans are urban white-collar workers with girlish feelings and petty-bourgeois temperament. When outputting content to this group of people, we must pay attention to style and emotion; many of Guohe’s fans are young mothers born in the 1980s and 1990s, who pay attention to food safety, parenting health, etc. Only by being targeted when disseminating content can the content be effectively disseminated.

(3) Freshness and excitement

Among personalized brands, the consumption of KOLs is relatively high. Therefore, during the operation process, KOLs need to constantly enrich and improve themselves, grow together with users, and continue to get to the user's G-spot, rather than output stereotyped content.

The most famous representative: Papi Jiang became popular in less than half a year by "grasping hot spots + strong content output"

(4) Multi-platform operation

Wherever your fans are, there you are. In addition to platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, you can choose different channels and platforms for content output based on the distribution characteristics of your fans. For example, if your fan group is relatively young and funny, you can choose platforms such as Xiaokaxiu and Miaopai to interact with your fans.

3. Focus on fan operations and user experience

Compared with ordinary stores, a big advantage of internet celebrity stores is that the relationship between internet celebrities and their fans is not a simple buyer-seller relationship. Internet celebrities can act as idols or mentors in certain aspects, or they can be as friendly as friends and neighbors. And we know this: the stronger and deeper the relationship, the less the need for marketing .

Internet celebrities build trust and intimacy by interacting with fans through social media. In addition to continuously improving customer stickiness, they can also more clearly understand what customers need during the interaction process, thereby optimizing products and services. For example, many online celebrity stores now have to go through the following steps before launching new products: selecting styles → fan interaction (interested people leave messages or like buttons) → pre-sale, etc., so that fans (customers) can participate in product development and achieve precise production and sales.

Of course, this method is not only applicable to products such as clothing, shoes and bags, but is also very suitable for some scarce and differentiated products. For example, Fruit Box Renren Store sells fruits. In addition to the varieties that everyone is familiar with, they continue to search for various delicious fruits across the country and the world, and live-stream the search process in the form of pictures and texts on WeChat Moments. While gaining good interaction with fans and customers, they decide whether to place an order and how much to order based on the customer's intentions.

To sum up: through connection and interaction, the frequency of customer purchases can be increased; through trust and strengthening relationships, the average order value can be continuously improved; by launching new products and services that meet customer needs, the customer life cycle can be extended.

Regarding the "Internet celebrity economy", many people are optimistic about it, but there are also many people who are pessimistic about it. I will not comment much here, but I will just adopt an attitude of learning and studying towards any emerging thing. The reason why it can rise must be that it has its outstanding features. The internet celebrity economy is based on a social relationship and provides companies (especially those relying on social e-commerce platforms) with many new ideas in brand building, operation and promotion. You may wish to learn and refer to it with a more open mind and attitude, and learn from their strengths to make up for your own weaknesses!

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