Attracting new members to the community is a problem that has troubled many community operators for a long time. We will talk about issues such as how to make the community active later, but in the early stages we still need to consider attracting new members and traffic.

This article will share with you my ideas on community operation and attracting new users, which attracted 16,000+ users at zero cost. I believe it will be of great inspiration to you. The full text is as follows:

1. Do a good job in community positioning

Community positioning is the first step for us to build a community. Nowadays, general traffic has no meaning. Only by clarifying the community positioning can we find the target group with real needs, which will be more conducive to our subsequent traffic diversion and conversion.

Now I will give you some specific methods on the issue of "how to do community positioning well".

Let’s take the example of a KOL who is a mom and wants to set up a group for moms to explain the specific operations in detail. You can give corresponding answers based on your own situation.

First, ask yourself a few questions using the 5W1H method:

1.Who:

1) Who am I? What are my core skills and characteristics?

I am a self-media person in the maternal and infant industry;

My core skill lies in my knowledge of the maternal and infant industry.

2) Who are the users I want to influence? What do their portraits look like? What are their common needs?

The users I want to influence are pregnant mothers and mothers with babies aged 0-3 years old;

Their profile: around 24-35 years old; they focus on topics such as life, health, and children. Some are office workers who work while taking care of their children, and some are full-time mothers.

Most mothers are interested in everything related to their children:

For example, what complementary food the child eats, what clothes he wears, what educational toys he plays with, what milk powder he drinks, what brand of diapers he uses, etc.

Their common need is to understand maternal and child health knowledge so that their children can grow up healthily.

2. What:

1) What problems can I solve for users?

I can provide relevant knowledge about pregnancy and parenting, including maternal and child care, complementary food addition, growth and development, baby diseases, etc.

2) What kind of knowledge do users hope to obtain in the community?

In this type of mothers' group, users may want to learn some knowledge about mothers and babies in the community on the one hand; on the other hand, they may hope to get some solutions when encountering temporary emergencies.

3) What is the essential difference between my community and other similar communities?

The essence of the community I want to create and other similar communities is that there is a strong atmosphere of learning and communication. There will be popular science on maternal and child knowledge every day, and there will be a special communication and sharing conference every week.

On the other hand, we will also promptly answer urgent questions encountered by mothers and provide the most reasonable solutions so that mothers can feel the value of this group.

3. When:

When are users usually active in our community?

Most users are active from 14:00 to 19:00 and from 20:00 to 23:00.

4.Where:

1) Where and how can users join the community?

Users may join communities on Douban, QQ groups, Moments, major mothers’ exchange forums, etc.

2) In what scenarios will users be active in the community?

For stay-at-home moms, babies will be more active during their afternoon naps and evenings;

For working mothers, the commute to get off work and the evening leisure time are more active.

5. Why :

Why would a user join my community instead of someone else's?

They want to learn about maternal and child care, agree with our values, think our platform is professional and reliable, and like the good communication and learning atmosphere in our group of mothers.

6. How:

How: How to make community users active?

Live lectures are held every week, which can be in the form of text + pictures, voice + pictures, or live video. Regular live lectures are used to promote active users in the community.

Then arrange some small accounts to ask questions in the mothers’ group, and the big accounts to answer them in the group, so as to create a good atmosphere of interactive Q&A.

Based on the above questions, we listed them according to our own situation and clarified these contents.

Let’s think again about the purpose of creating this community.

Do you want to sell a product or build a brand image?

Or is it because you want to communicate and share knowledge with people who share the same interests and hobbies?

Or is it just to build a tool-based community to meet users' communication needs in specific scenarios?

If you think these through clearly, the next step will be much clearer.

2. Choose the best channel to attract new customers

Since we want to attract new customers, we need to build our own self-media matrix in the early stage, scatter the traffic on various platforms, and get more exposure. In the later stage, we will focus on the best channels for attracting new customers.

Common platforms are as follows: Build a self-media matrix:

First matrix:

WeChat platform: WeChat public accounts, WeChat personal accounts, WeChat groups, WeChat advertising resources

Weibo platform: corporate official blogs, Weibo advertising resources

Q&A platforms: Zhihu, Baidu Q&A, 360 Q&A

Encyclopedia platform: Baidu Encyclopedia, 360 Encyclopedia, Hudong Encyclopedia

Second matrix:

Live streaming platforms: Yingke, Huajiao, Yizhibo

Video platforms: Tik Tok, Kuaishou, Bilibili, Video Account, etc.

Audio platform: Himalaya, Qingting, Lizhi

The third matrix:

We-media platforms: Toutiao, Baijiahao, Yidianhao, NetEase, Sohu Wemedia, Jianshu, etc.

Forum platform: Douban, Baidu Tieba, forum

This type of self-media platform is more suitable for community brand image building, and of course it can also play a certain role in attracting traffic, but it is not as powerful as the following traffic-attracting platforms that can generate high-frequency interactions.

Here are a few high-frequency interactive traffic-generating platforms for you.

1) Tieba

As a general traffic platform, Tieba is used by almost everyone from different industries, but current tests show that it is more suitable for users in universities.

The author’s experience: the quality of users attracted by Tieba is not high, and it is filled with a large number of service providers and competitors)

2) Douban

A general traffic platform, because it can differentiate into various interest groups, and posting through interest groups can attract more precise fan groups.

3) Forum

It is a general traffic platform, but different industries will have different large-scale forums, such as the Fobu Foreign Trade Forum for cross-border e-commerce.

Add some information about cross-platform traffic diversion:

Tik Tok, Zhihu, Douban, Knowledge Planet, etc. are all very good platforms, and cross-platform traffic diversion is very suitable for companies with strong content capabilities.

In order to have more contact points with users, we can first lead them to personal accounts.

Tik Tok traffic diversion : You can put WeChat and Weibo on your homepage. Weibo traffic diversion: You can put the official account in the top Weibo. Zhihu traffic diversion: users can be guided to send private messages or follow public accounts. Douban traffic diversion: Search for groups that match your positioning in Douban, join the group, and you can divert traffic to the group.

Xiaohongshu traffic diversion : You can put email and Weibo on the homepage.

3. Set up drainage products to attract target groups

Generally speaking, the hooks set up by different platforms are also different.

For example, for websites like Baidu and Sogou, the hooks are mainly in the form of pictures and texts;

For platforms like Zhihu, the hooks may be professional information, inspirational stories, money-making cases, etc.

For information flow platforms such as Toutiao, Dayuhao, and Baijiahao, the hooks are mainly in the form of pictures and texts;

For video platforms such as Tik Tok, Kuaishou, Meipai, Weishi, and Bilibili, the hook is pure video.

For grass-planting platforms such as Xiaohongshu, the hooks are mainly in the form of pictures and texts.

Generally speaking, setting hooks is the most important step in attracting new members in community operations, and all the previous steps are paving the way for this step.

Simply put, setting hooks can be understood as choosing an appropriate drainage method. Here I list the most comprehensive drainage methods. You can choose the drainage method that suits your product tone based on your specific product.

Traffic can be attracted by using the following content as bait:

1. Physical welfare diversion

2. Information package collection

3. Free live streaming in the group

4. Industry resource exchange group based on resource docking

5. Use red envelopes and lucky draws as an excuse to use the live code function

Regarding the selection of drainage products, here is a detailed explanation:

Traffic-generating products are usually divided into physical products and virtual products.

Physical drainage products are not chosen randomly, but need to take into account the following attributes:

1. Relevance. For example, you can use the product experience package as a traffic-generating product.

2. Practicality. Such as meal coupons, milk, etc.

3. Versatility. Such as tissues, fruits, etc.

4. Necessities. Such as razors, toothbrushes, etc.

Virtual drainage product reference:

1. Training. Such as live classes and training camps.

2. Information. Such as information packages, offline summits, offline salons, etc.

3. Membership type. Such as communities and VIP membership groups.

4. Service oriented. Such as diagnostic services, one-on-one consultation, and design services.

Virtual traffic product information package traffic bait:

* Sort out 100 frequently asked questions from customers (this can be collected from internal employees, customers, search engines, by combining related words)

*Organize it in the form of pictures and texts to form articles and short video content.

*Data package summary

In summary: Preparing traffic-generating products requires preliminary research, good community positioning, identifying the target population and appropriate channels, and then choosing different traffic-generating products based on product characteristics. It should be noted that the traffic-generating products must be strongly related to the product, so as to establish user awareness of the product and service.

Another thing is that the value of some products can be perceived, and it is difficult for physical traffic to withstand the marginal cost. Virtual products are more suitable as traffic-generating products, such as cards, membership benefits, recorded courses, etc.

However, offline stores may not be suitable for virtual goods, and it is necessary to find suitable products to attract traffic based on product characteristics.

4. Actual new customer acquisition scenarios

Usually, with the drainage products, how do we attract new customers? Here are a few practical scenarios to help you understand the following:

1. A friend you added to a group posted a message on WeChat Moments, saying that you can get XX information by contacting him, and then he privately chats with you to guide you to join the community.

2. When you see a poster sent by a friend in the circle of friends, there is an instruction on the poster to scan the QR code to add a friend, and you can get the XX template. After adding the user, you will be guided to join the community.

3. When browsing Zhihu and Toutiao, you see a good article and while reading it, you will be prompted to chat with the article privately to receive XXX. After the private chat, you can add him as a friend and then be guided to join the group.

The above are a few simple examples. The paths to attract new users in the circle of friends are somewhat different, for example:

1. Poster fission.

Main path: A follows -> A gets a poster -> A shares the poster -> B follows/joins the group (A gets the reward) -> B gets another poster -> ….

2. Friends help you redeem prizes.

Main path: A obtains basic rewards -> A invites helpers -> B completes helpers to increase the value of rewards (A redeems rewards) -> B obtains basic rewards again ->…

3. Friends help in the lucky draw.

Main path: A obtains basic lottery chances -> A invites helpers -> B completes helpers to increase the lottery chances (A consumes the lottery chances) -> B obtains basic lottery chances again ->…

4. Team up to top the leaderboard and share the rewards .

Main path: A forms a team -> A invites someone to join the team -> B joins the team (the number of team members increases, and the bonus is doubled) -> B completes buying cards (the team bonus value increases) -> B completes selling cards (the team bonus value increases) - B forms another team ->...

To summarize:

You can use this idea to attract new members to the community.

Simply put, you need to first position the community, then choose a platform suitable for promoting your community, then choose appropriate traffic-generating products, and finally complete the process of attracting new members to the community.

Author: Community Operation Research Institute

Source: Community Operation Research Institute