【Li Jiaoshou】Build the community in your mind, not on WeChat
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Everyone wants to create a community based on WeChat . But what do most people do? "Bring people in, and then let them discuss issues, chat, and share." Then we hope to be able to discover human connections, unleash human value, and welcome the new Internet era as described in books such as "Big Connections" and "The Era of Everyone." This is a very strange "dream". If you were to be a director and make a movie , you wouldn't gather Andy Lau, Huang Bo, Ge You, Fan Bingbing and other actors, and then just say: Now that everyone is here, you can start acting! Call me when you’re done. Because you know: a good movie needs to be "designed", it must have a positioning, a plot, a theme, and lines... But when you are building a community, you often forget this - you think you don’t have to do anything, just pull people in and let them "connect themselves". And good communities are also designed. So how to design it? How to compete with so many groups? A normal white-collar worker faces various work groups, project groups, design groups, Double Eleven preparation groups, Weibo operation groups, new product opinion groups... every day. There are also a large number of alumni groups, relatives and friends groups, roommate groups, and late-night snack groups... They also need to keep an eye on them, and once the boss sends a group message, they will immediately go in and applaud. And all the groups have red envelopes... At this time, you sent them a group invitation notification: “Hello dear customer, thank you for purchasing our power bank. We solemnly invite you to join the [Geek Smart Power Bank Fan Group] and communicate with us!” In this case, if it is just "simply organized", it is basically impossible for anyone to participate. Yes, alumni groups, work groups, and boss docking groups can be simply organized, but this is ineffective for most product communities. Because alumni communities and work groups already exist (even without the Internet) - these people have already established a connection or sense of identity in their minds. Creating a WeChat group does not "create a community", it just provides a convenient way for "already existing communities" to communicate. When you create a group for users of your product, it is equivalent to "only creating a way of communication" and not creating a community. The task before you is to recreate relationships and create connections, not just leverage existing ones. Because communities do not exist in WeChat (it is just a communication tool ), communities only exist in people’s minds. Just as home does not exist in the house (the house is just a tool of the home), home exists in the mind. Therefore, when you want to create a community, your key should be "creating a community in people's minds" rather than "using WeChat as a tool to attract a group of people." So how do you build community in your mind? A loose community of "giving out red envelopes and communicating" and a community that is remembered by group members from scratch often have the following differences: 1. Clarify the mission - why we gather together; 2. Design the ceremony - how we can achieve the goal; 3. Provide feedback - how far are we from the goal; 1. Clarify the mission The biggest difference between a group and an organization is that an organization has a common goal. And "a common clear goal" is the greatest force that brings people together. Cui Yongyuan gathered a group of people and wanted to use the power of a group to oppose GMOs. (PS. This does not mean that Li Jiaoshou objects) Qiuye gathered a group of people who wanted to improve their PPT skills through mutual learning. The aunties in a community can also gather a group of people to practice square dancing and prepare for square dancing competitions. A college student gathered a group of people and started the "Free Hug Movement" in the hope of reducing social indifference. In short, we are not "pulling a group of people together", but "first have a mission and a goal, and then pull a group of people together to complete it." If you are a "fitness club", then what you set up is not a "communication group for fitness enthusiasts", but a "change yourself together in 6 months" group. If you are a "health care product" company, then what you set up is not a "health care product fan group" or a "health care enthusiast communication group", but a "health care secret competition group" or a "group to become health care experts together". The essence of "community" is to gather a group of people and do something together. When building a community, many people only focus on "finding a group of people" but forget to "do something together" and "why we should do this". This is equivalent to gathering a large number of outstanding soldiers, forming an army to go into battle, but you don’t know who the enemy is, and you don’t tell them: why we are fighting, why we are defending our motherland. In short, what you need to do is not to "build a group" but to "inspire a group of people and start a movement." The reason why we come together is not to "communicate" or "exchange", but to "change something", "improve something" and "gain something" together... So how do you find the mission of a community and use it to unite everyone? Any mission stems from some kind of "conflict", and conflict refers to the "difference between ideals and reality." Such conflicts are divided into "external conflicts" (the difference between ideal environment and actual environment) and "internal conflicts" (the difference between ideal self and actual self). For example, in the movie "The Lord of the Rings", "external conflict" refers to "the big devil wants to get the ring and destroy the world, and we have to stop him" (corresponding to the "big plot" in the play), and "internal conflict" includes "the protagonist should try his best to defeat the big devil, but he feels that he is a small person and it has nothing to do with him, so he thinks about giving up" (corresponding to the "small plot" in the play). Then the movie becomes a process of a group of people overcoming "external conflicts" and "internal conflicts" and finally defeating the big devil. For example, in the movie "Lost in Hong Kong", "external conflict" includes "after the bad police committed a crime, they wanted to kill people to silence them and destroy evidence." "Internal conflict" includes "the protagonist gradually realizes that the pursuit of first love is nothing more than an inner fantasy, gradually wakes up, and turns back to love his wife." Then the protagonist also gradually overcomes the "external conflict" and "internal conflict", bringing the story to its end. Similarly, when building a community mission, we can create "conflict" to build the "mission" and launch a movement, just like in movies. Some movies are mainly based on "external conflict" (such as "The Lord of the Rings"), and some communities and movements can also be mainly based on external conflict. For example, electric car users have always faced the problem of "difficulty in charging for long-distance driving". Tesla owner Zong Yi launched the "charging pile construction campaign" and cooperated with hotels to build Tesla charging piles to provide free charging for owners who love electric cars. This movement harnessed the power of people and gained a lot of support, leading to the construction of more than 200 charging stations across the country—more than Tesla could achieve in a year. And, in the process, he sold 150 Teslas, more than any sales manager could ever sell. So, when you are thinking about external conflict, you can ask yourself: I am organizing a community and I want to tell the members what we want to change together? What have you done together that you’re proud of? Similar missions: Let square dancing occupy the capital, let Chinese people no longer believe blindly, let more people reduce ignorance, and let Party B no longer be forced. Some movies are mainly based on "internal conflicts" (such as "Lost in Hong Kong"), and some communities and movements can also be mainly based on internal conflicts. For example, Mantou Business School , where you can learn how to become a product manager . For example, I formed the [Li Jiaoshou Research Society], and in two months, we have been working together to make our marketing capabilities more professional. So, when you are thinking about internal conflict, ask yourself: What do we want to change about ourselves together? What do you want to have more of? Similar missions: get up at 7 o'clock every day, gain one more key connection every week, become a health care expert, etc. Of course, the best mission setting for a community is one that clearly inspires and defines two types of conflict (one of which may be dominant) - what do we want to do for others when we come together? What to do to yourself? 2. Design a ritual In order to bring a group of people together to do something, in addition to having a clear mission, fixed ritualized behaviors are also needed. Christianity has Sunday, families have the New Year, couples have anniversaries, Xiaomi has Orange Friday (the release of the latest MIUI). In short, there are fixed ritual behaviors. So, the same goes for communities: activities need to be ritualized. If your arrangement for the community is: push red envelope discounts, while everyone chats about a topic together, and occasionally invites people to join the group to share. Community members have no idea what they should do (should they participate every day?), nor can they form fixed usage habits, let alone anticipate the next event. However, if community activities are "ritualized" and similar things are done in a fixed way every time, participation will gradually increase and members will develop habits. For example, my own organization, the Li Jiaoshou Research Society, does not usually have any activities, except for a one-hour class every Sunday at 9 pm. The format of each class is the same: comment on the previous students' homework and share relevant theories; the top three students share their homework experience; and then assign the next homework. In order to reinforce this ritual, roll call will be taken before and at the end of the one-hour class, and students will be allowed to participate in a relatively fixed way (such as asking questions). I know that I can’t occupy all the time of everyone in the group, so I just fix a time and an activity, and at other times, everyone can assume that this group does not exist. For example, I once talked to someone who runs a community for residential residents (their company provides O2O services). When I asked him what activities he organized, he said that they mainly provided various benefits to group members (such as sometimes giving out red envelopes, providing free benefits, and letting residents organize activities within the community, etc.). If you want to increase the sense of participation of group members, you need to "ritualize" these activities - for example, at 9 o'clock on Friday night, XX Community Welfare Night, countdown to announce the latest benefits of this week, and the activities that can be brought to everyone next week. So how can we ritualize the activity so that more people can continue to participate? (1) Rituals need to be relatively fixed and strictly limited Each activity needs to have a fixed format, such as clear start and end times, clear organizational forms, etc. For example, in Qiuye’s PPT community, every time a new member joins, there is a ceremony of posting photos of themselves without makeup. In this way, before new members join, everyone will be fostered with a sense of anticipation. Why fix it? Because an important part of increasing participation is that everyone knows what to expect before it starts. If your weekly “Benefit Day” activities are similar, then all members will know what to expect before they start - what new benefits will be released this time? I guess, maybe it’s fruit? This is also why series of movies and TV series are so popular, and why public accounts with stable styles can easily accumulate fans - because the style is fixed, users already know what to expect before watching. For example, audiences who have watched the Mission: Impossible series of movies know what to expect before watching Mission: Impossible 5 - there will be an action scene at the beginning, and the awesome agent Ethan will get into trouble, receive an impossible mission, and then lead the team to find a way to complete it. But we don’t know what it is specifically - as for what this possible mission is and who the villain is, the audience doesn’t know. In order to fill this gap, the audience will watch the movie attentively. This is why whether it is a movie, a product launch, or a large-scale lecture, it needs to be warmed up in advance (movie trailers, conference warm-up posters), which can let the audience know what to expect before it starts. However, those completely random activities (such as sending a red envelope today, promoting an article tomorrow, and organizing a discussion the day after tomorrow) are to suddenly present content in front of the audience, at which time the audience has no sense of expectation at all. It's like you suddenly walk into a movie theater and see a movie start playing, but you have no idea what movie it is. Therefore, community activities should be regularized to cultivate a sense of anticipation. (2) Clear triggering scenarios need to be designed It was mentioned above that we need to cultivate a "sense of anticipation", but it is impossible for people to have "expectations" every day, so we need to design a scenario that triggers "expectations". Sometimes, this triggering scenario is a “fixed time” - for example, holding an event every Sunday at 9 p.m. So when this time approaches, with a simple warm-up, everyone will be looking forward to it. Sometimes, this triggering scenario can also be "a certain event" - for example, forming a "press conference research group". Every time after watching a major product launch, the first reaction of group members is to discuss yesterday's press conference in the group. The scenario that triggers the ceremony at this time is the event of "major press conference". As long as this combination of triggering scenarios + ritual activities is cultivated and reinforced over a long period of time, users will form conditioned reflex-like behaviors - every time they encounter a certain scenario, they will think of doing it within 1 second. For example, Jiaduobao has been emphasizing for many years that "if you are afraid of getting a sore throat, drink Jiaduobao". You may not pay attention to it at ordinary times, but when you sit in front of a spicy hot pot and worry about getting a sore throat, it will immediately trigger the behavior of "drinking Jiaduobao". For example, Wang Ziru insists on using a similar style to review various newly launched electronic products. Over time, when his readers see that Xiaomi, Hammer, etc. have released new products, their first reaction is to go to Wang Ziru to see: What does he think this time? What's the controversy? In short, you need to design a trigger scenario for your ritual so that users will reflexively enter your ritual when they reach a certain moment. (3) Need to design participation behavior As mentioned before, a community is "gathering a group of people to do one thing", but the practice of many communities is simply to arrange one person to join the group to share every week. This is actually not about "gathering a group of people to do one thing", but "you do one thing for this group of people". In this way, what you do is more like a "media" rather than a "community". So, in addition to sitting in the group and listening quietly, you need to have your members do something that will increase participation and reinforce the ritual behavior. For example, scoring each other, making honor lists, taking turns to sit on the pole, etc. 3. Provide feedback Now that your community has a clear mission and ritualized behaviors that can help members accomplish that mission, what remains to be done is to provide feedback on their behavior so that they can gradually increase their participation and dependence on the community. Feedback is to let others know clearly: how far am I from my goal? For example, when mobile game players play games like "Run Everyday", they can know their scores and how far they are from the best scores at any time. If the best score is 3,000 points and this time you get 2,900 points, the player will say, "Damn, I was just so close to breaking the record, let's try again." After getting 1000 points, the player will say: "This is such a terrible performance. This is not me at all! Let's try again and perform normally!" This time, the player got 3100 points and broke the record. The player would say: "I am so awesome. I broke the record again. Please call me the Little Prince of Records! If I play again, I can break even higher records!" Continuous feedback - letting others know where you are, how far you are from your goal, and what your next goal is - can make people addicted to a behavior. In community design, as mentioned above, there are two goals at the same time - external conflict (what we do to the outside world) and internal conflict (what we do to ourselves) It is necessary to establish feedback for these two goals. Feedback from external conflicting goals: For example, "Let every middle-aged woman in Beijing start square dancing" and keep reporting the results - now we have infected 460,000 new middle-aged women with the habit of square dancing, and there is only less than a week's effort left to reach 500,000! For example, the " Dry Goods Learning Group" allows members to output their valuable opinions to the public, obtain feedback from other readers, and give people a continuous sense of accomplishment. Feedback on Inner Conflict Goals: For example, the "Li Jiaoshou Research Association" grades each person's homework and calculates points based on the quality of the homework, contribution, degree of speaking and number of sign-ins, and allows everyone to see their own points. (Similar to game upgrade) The top three students in each assignment will receive scholarships, and the bottom ten students in the total score ranking for two months will be automatically kicked out of the group. These are all ways to provide feedback on everyone's learning and participation. In this way, everyone knows their current level, what achievements they have made, where they lag behind others, and how far they are from the next goal. For example, you can set levels and division of labor for group members just like you treat employees, clearly define each role, and provide them with clear feedback. Of course, receiving red envelopes on a more regular basis and making new connections every week are also feedback (at the benefit level), and will also help strengthen the community. However, it is important to note that feedback is only effective when it can be clearly perceived as being directly related to an action. The reason why grabbing red envelopes is used by many people is because it is directly related to the behavior of "actively participating in the group" (if you are a step late, the red envelopes will be gone). However, many groups based on building connections are not very active because the feedback of "building connections" is often not directly related to the behavior of "participating in the group" - even if I lurk all day long, I can still join the group. Conclusion The community does not exist in WeChat, but in people’s minds. It is nothing more than: bringing together a group of people to do one thing. You need to design a clear mission and goal, then design a ritualized behavior to achieve that goal together, and then provide feedback for everyone to perform that behavior. A complete community, where members recognize each other, help each other, and actively participate, can continue even if WeChat disappears - because it was not WeChat that created the community, communities had already existed thousands of years before WeChat. illustrate 1. Some community building skills are still important, why are they not mentioned? For example, it can connect members with each other, enhance their sense of belonging, increase cohesion, and form subculture. Of course I know these are important, but after analyzing them, I feel that these are more like "results of community success" rather than "methods for shaping a successful community." A clear mission, continuous rituals, and positive feedback will gradually shape a successful community. Once the community is successfully built, members will naturally begin to actively connect with each other, help each other, and have a strong sense of identity and belonging. 2. Why are some communities simple and don’t require these complex designs? For example, a class group in a certain school or a group of leaders in a certain industry, just create a WeChat group, isn’t that quite successful? In this case, your act of "creating a WeChat group" does not actually create a community, but only provides a way of communication for the existing community - (WeChat). Class relationships and relationships with bigwigs in a certain industry already exist and can be achieved naturally. These relationships and communications actually have little to do with your behavior. But for some companies that sell products, the situation is completely different - the task they face is to create new connections, new goals, and new organizations from scratch. Your consumers don't have the habit of connecting in this way, and if you try to create this habit, it will definitely be a difficult task that requires complex design. However, if you still create a class WeChat group like others do and think that just creating a group will be enough, it will basically lose its vitality very quickly. Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising The author of this article @李叫兽 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map |
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