Why do we try every possible means to occupy the circle of friends with "pictures"?

A few days ago, the H5 "Put on Military Uniform" was all over the WeChat Moments .

According to data released by the producer "People's Daily Client", this H5 has over 800 million PVs and over 100 million users, which is unprecedented and unmatched.

There are several reasons for its success. For example, "it captures the grand theme of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the army and people's love of showmanship, the operation is simple and easy to use, and the picture synthesis effect is good."

In addition, communication forms such as “sharing pictures to Moments” are also crucial to the success of a product and marketing campaign .

Why is it so important to spread information in the form of pictures in the circle of friends?

Let’s slowly find the answer by carefully analyzing the characteristics of various types of information in the circle of friends.

Analysis of information types in Moments

The information shared in Moments includes the following four types:

1. text
2. picture
3. video
4. Link

No matter what kind of information it is, we can edit and produce it ourselves, or we can share and forward it directly.

For these four types of information, we analyze them one by one from four aspects: "display size, visual appeal, reading efficiency, generation/forwarding threshold", to see the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

1. Display size: The size of the content of this type displayed on the page

When sending text, if there are too many words, it will be folded and the link will be displayed as a narrow strip . It can be seen that the display size is very small.

The display size of picture and video information can occupy a large area.

Moreover, you can send up to 9 pictures, which will take up half of the screen size and achieve the effect of "dominating the screen".

2. Visual appeal: At first glance, the visual appeal of this type of content

People are naturally more sensitive to graphic and image information, so pictures and videos have a higher visual appeal.

However, the attractiveness of a video also depends on whether the preview frame is appropriate.

Obviously, the visual appeal of pure text and link information is much different.

3. Reading efficiency: the efficiency of reading and understanding such information

The text needs to be read word by word and line by line, the link needs to be clicked to open the page for reading, and the video needs to be clicked before it can start playing.

Therefore, the reading efficiency of these three types of content is relatively low.

In comparison, pictures are very easy to read.

Nowadays, people browse their Moments very quickly, taking in a lot of information in just a swipe. People often say "scrolling through the circle of friends", which is a very appropriate term.

When browsing information quickly, picture information is very advantageous. Many times, you can understand the basic content by just taking a quick glance without opening the large picture. Even if you need to click on a large picture, you can get information instantly.

4. Generation/Forwarding Threshold: The threshold for generating and forwarding this type of content

This is self-explanatory and easy to understand: the video type has the highest "generation/forwarding threshold", while the other three are lower.

The many benefits of posting pictures on Moments

Now, the above analysis is summarized as follows:

Therefore, it can be seen that for the four types of information in the circle of friends, from the above four dimensions, pictures are the best form of information.

In comparison, pictures have all the advantages of “large display size, great visual appeal, high reading efficiency, and low threshold for generation/forwarding” .

In addition to these advantages, there are more benefits to encouraging users to post pictures to Moments:

1. It can attract more attention

Pictures taken by friends and pictures that contain friends' "personal imprints" will attract more attention.

For example, photos of friends’ selfies, homemade cakes, and paintings can all attract attention, likes, and comments.

2. Accurate screening of user groups

We know that a typical marketing challenge is how to reach target users efficiently and accurately. And encouraging users to take photos and post them on WeChat Moments is an excellent way to achieve this goal.

Imagine if a person posted a photo of himself enjoying the "infinity pool of Singapore Sands Hotel" or "a feast at a Michelin restaurant" in his circle of friends, then it is obvious that this information can reach the potential customers in his circle of friends.

As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. People all have their own circles and classes. If he is interested in and can afford the content, then that means there must be many similar people in his circle of friends.

3. Directly achieve sales conversion

For pictures that express the attractiveness of a product, forwarding an official advertising picture is far less convincing than taking a photo and posting it on WeChat Moments by the user themselves.

Moreover, in many cases, this kind of sharing without any profit motivation can actually directly lead to sales conversion.

For example, we often see people taking photos and posting them on WeChat Moments, saying that a certain wine is delicious or that a certain restaurant has a unique environment, and soon many people will ask for details.

In fact, I have had several experiences of placing orders online directly because my friends recommended a certain brand of wine.

Revelation and Countermeasures

Now that we understand the importance of taking photos and posting them on WeChat Moments, how should we respond?

• First of all, we must do everything possible to stimulate users' awareness of taking photos . Only in this way can we achieve “fast, good, and economical” self-propagation, making products popular and marketing a hit.
• Secondly, you need to have pictures to post . Neither coercion nor inducement is feasible. There must be a way to make users spread the word willingly. That is, there should be either content that inspires users to take photos actively, or a page or tool that makes it easy to generate pictures.
• Again, pay attention to reflecting the brand . In the pictures shared by users, try to display and expose the brand. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time and effort.

Next, we will discuss the strategies in detail for the two business forms of “physical and virtual”.

1. Entity business

Physical businesses are businesses that have physical goods and venues, such as beverages, books, restaurants, scenic spots, etc. For this type of business, the goal is to encourage people to take photos and post them on social media.

It is worth pointing out that for such products and businesses, if one only focuses on the solid basic functions that the business itself possesses, that would be a narrow-minded view and would not be enough to stimulate self-propagation.

This is because these features are often unpretentious and fail to arouse the interest of users.

This is because the "goodness" of the product is not visible and cannot be seen. Either it is because everyone’s tastes and aesthetics vary greatly, so even if it is done very well, it cannot be “universal”.

Therefore, after the basic functions of the product meet the requirements, it is necessary to do some emotional communication and implant and add such self-propagation points.

for example,

• Alcoholic beverages: They should not only taste good, but also be interesting. For example, you can print interesting and resonant copy on the bottle, like the Coke nickname bottle, Weiquan juice spelling bottle, and Jiang Xiaobai expression bottle.
• Restaurants and restaurants: Not only should the windows be clean and the food be delicious, but they can also have "robots delivering food and face-changing dance performances."
• Scenic spots and tourist areas: Not only should they have pleasant climate and beautiful scenery, but they should also have towering sculptures like the Nanhai Guanyin in Sanya and the Leshan Giant Buddha in Sichuan, or cool and shocking performances like the tree-flowering dance in Weixian, Hebei and the Saibei waist drum in Hebei. It makes people's eyes light up and take photos frequently.

Only with such a visual, unexpected, and eye-catching self-propagation mechanism can it attract attention and inspire people to take photos and post them on WeChat Moments.

2. Virtual business

Virtual business is a digital and virtual business related to IT and the Internet that has no visible or tangible entity.

For this type of business, since it is not easy for users to take photos directly, we can develop products and design activities so that users can generate interesting pictures through simple participation and share them on WeChat Moments.

In recent years, there have been many online products and activities that have gained huge influence through image generation and sharing.

In addition to the "Wear Military Uniform" H5 mentioned at the beginning of the article, there are also Baidu Magic Photo PK Big Name (calculate which celebrity you look most like), Black Pineapple Poison Story (generate jokes about your friend with him as the protagonist), Get App (generate pictures from insights and comments and share them on Moments), etc.

In short, we should not only ensure that users can “use the product smoothly and have fun” within the product, but also find ways to bring the good experience beyond the product boundaries and let users share it.

We put brand logos, event QR codes and other information in the pictures shared on WeChat Moments, thus achieving the purpose of brand exposure and direct traffic .

Conclusion

In the era of self-propagation, always think about how to "make your brand popular in the circle of friends, rather than on billboards."

A picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures speak louder than words. To achieve self-propagation, we must do everything possible to encourage users to forward pictures to their Moments, either by allowing users to take photos or generate pictures.

Pictures are extremely important in Moments, which is why Zhang Xiaolong has always been a little stubborn, equating posting to Moments with posting pictures and calling Moments an "album."

Now, think carefully about how to get your users to take photos actively and let your brand occupy the circle of friends?

Note: This article uses WeChat Moments as an example for analysis, but its conclusions are also applicable to other social products such as Weibo, although I have abandoned Weibo for many years.