Why can your activities attract fans but fail to retain them?

The purpose of organizing activities is not to consume this group of people, but to make them feel that you have done something useful.

Holding events is the most common way for companies to increase followers, especially in the post-bonus era of WeChat , it is becoming increasingly difficult to create popular content, and planning a good event to increase followers has become the marketing choice of many companies. A complete fan-increasing activity can generally be divided into two stages: the first stage is to attract fans, referred to as "fan-increasing"; the second stage is to retain fans, referred to as " retention ". A fan-increasing activity can only be considered successful if it can effectively “increase followers” ​​and “retain followers”.

But the reality is that most companies ignore the latter when organizing activities and just blindly pursue increasing followers. If you search “fan-increasing activities” on Baidu, you will see a large number of articles about “increasing X fans in X days”, but few people talk about the retention rate issue.

If fans drop out in droves as soon as the event ends and only a few remain, what’s the point of such an event? So, in today’s article, Sister Chen wants to talk to you about the key factors that affect fan retention after the event .

Activities that meet lower-level needs vs. activities that meet higher-level needs

All activities to increase followers are essentially a form of "inducing attention", the only difference is the bait. There are as many baits as there are demands.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, people have five types of needs, and we can design corresponding activities (i.e. bait) for any one or several of these needs. The lower-level needs are more concrete and easier to understand, while the higher-level needs are more abstract and more difficult to understand, and the difficulty of event planning increases accordingly.

1. Follow-up activities targeting physiological needs

We can understand follower-increasing activities targeting physiological needs as material incentives. They are the most common type of follower-increasing activities in daily life. The most classic ones are “ scan the code to get a drink” and “scan the code to get a red envelope”. The “retweet to win a prize” commonly seen on Weibo also belongs to this type of activity. For the stage of increasing followers, this type of activity attracts a wide audience and is simple, direct and effective.

But in most cases, the fan retention rate of the above activities is unbearable to look at, and the reason is easy to understand: after people get the red envelopes and drink the beverages, why would they still pay attention to you?

At this point, some people may not be convinced and say, "I increased my followers by giving away drinks, and the retention rate and activity are pretty good. How do you explain that?" Don't worry, the following article will give you a satisfactory explanation.

2. Follower growth activities targeting safety needs

Safety needs include personal safety, health protection, family safety, etc. Typical activities of this type are health knowledge lectures, especially those for middle-aged and elderly people, which are often overcrowded.

3. Follower-increasing activities targeting the needs of love and belonging

Everyone hopes to be cared for and taken care of by each other. The need for love and belonging is mainly reflected in the need for family, friendship and love.

The most successful company in this type of activity is Xin Shi Xiang . For example, during the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2016, Xin Shi Xiang gathered 10 users with "stories" to have a live in-depth chat with their fathers. The topics included being single, coming out, DINK, mental health and other issues commonly faced by people in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The cumulative number of viewers for this live broadcast exceeded 4.7 million, bringing a large number of fans to Xin Shi Xiang.

4. Follow-up activities targeting the need for respect

Everyone hopes to have a stable social status and hopes that their personal abilities and achievements will be recognized by society. The voting activities that are popular in the circle of friends have, to a certain extent, taken advantage of people’s need for respect.

Candidates in voting activities actively forward voting links to canvass for votes. On the one hand, they want to win the game and get gifts, but more importantly, they want their relatives and friends to know about their talents in certain areas and gain recognition.

5. Follower growth activities for self-actualization needs

The need for self-actualization is the highest level of need, in layman's terms it is the need for "I want to become better." These types of activities have one common feature, which is that they can improve the participants' abilities or experiences in certain aspects, or at least improve the participants' "self-perception".

For example, the Hedgehog Experience event organized by Hedgehog Internship is completely free. Just sign up and you will have the opportunity to get 7 days of overseas volunteer experience, including food, accommodation, air tickets , and visa-free. After the event, the local official NGO volunteer organization will issue an international volunteer certificate. For most students, this is undoubtedly a good opportunity for "self-realization".

The first Hedgehog Experience event - Southeast Asia International Volunteer Event, added 300,000+ fans to Hedgehog Internship. Since then, the Hedgehog Experience event has become a special column event of Hedgehog Internship and has now been held for the 27th time.

Now that we have understood the five types of fan-attracting activities, let’s compare the differences between them:

Generally speaking, activities have two functions. The most direct function is to increase product exposure (let everyone know that there is such a product), and the indirect function is to influence users' perception of the product (let everyone know what the product does).

Activities targeting lower-level needs are relatively concrete, the user's cognitive cost for the activities is low, the activities are easy to spread, and it is easy to increase product exposure; while activities targeting upper-level needs are relatively abstract, the user's cognitive cost is high, the activities are difficult to spread, and it is relatively difficult to increase product exposure, but it is easier to embed product awareness in such activities. Once users understand and participate in the activity, the awareness of the product has been formed, and the possibility of retention is extremely high.

For example, the activity of “Scan the code to get free water” can be explained clearly in just four words, and most people can understand it at a glance. The needs met are very direct (water), and the participation process is also simple (scan the code), so this type of activity is very easy to spread by word of mouth and increase product exposure in a short period of time. However, it is difficult to embed such activities into product awareness. Apart from the items given away by scanning the code, users cannot establish any awareness of the product. Therefore, the retention rate is highly uncertain.

Relatively speaking, activities such as Xin Shixiang’s “4 hours, escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou ” are not so easy to understand. Although Xin Shixiang has tried its best to simplify the event slogan (only 8 words) and the event process, I believe that most people will still be confused when they see the slogan for the first time - what is this event for? How to participate? What benefits can I get? However, once the event is effectively exposed through effective distribution channels and the event itself is designed well enough, users will establish effective understanding of the product during the event, and the retention rate will be very high.

Needs stimulated by activities vs. needs satisfied by products

Increasing followers and retention are two completely different stages. In the stage of increasing followers, users only consider whether your activities meet their needs. Once met, they will choose to take the bait (follow you). In the retention stage, users will make a judgment: can the product continue to meet the needs (which attracted them to follow you in the first place). If so, users will continue to follow; if not, users will leave.

Take the fan-attracting activities of a plastic surgery hospital in Nanchong as an example:

In this activity (scan the code to get water) stimulates the lowest level of physiological needs (water), while the organizer's product (plastic surgery) satisfies higher-level needs (pursuing love/enhancing self-confidence, etc.). The gap between the two needs is very large, which is an important reason for the low fan retention rate.

If water is replaced with items such as combs and facial masks, the retention effect will be much better. Not only are the stimulated needs closer to the needs satisfied by the product, but the targeted gender groups are also highly consistent (all are women).

As mentioned above, for the same "scan code to get free drinks" activity, most companies have a low fan retention rate, but some companies have achieved a good retention rate. The reasons are explained as follows:

When the needs satisfied by the product and the needs stimulated by the activity are very close, retention rate will increase significantly. For example, public accounts related to food and drink also satisfy users’ physiological needs. By adopting activities such as sending water by scanning a QR code (which stimulates physiological needs), the retention rate will be much better than that of public accounts related to plastic surgery and beauty.

In addition, tool -type products with obvious regional restrictions are suitable for activities that stimulate physiological needs. For example, campus-related public accounts have a very clear target audience (all students and teachers), and the group gathering range is small and clear (campus). By carrying out activities such as "scan the code to get drinks/red envelopes" on campus, a large number of target users can be acquired in a relatively short period of time and at a lower cost. Moreover, the tools provided by this type of public account have great practical value for the target users, so the natural unfollowing rate is low and the retention rate is high.

summary

There are two main factors that affect fan retention after the event:

1. The type of needs that the activity meets.

Activities targeting low-level needs are relatively concrete, and users have a low cognitive cost for the activities, so they are easy to spread, but users cannot establish awareness of the products during the activities, so retention is difficult; activities targeting high-level needs are relatively abstract, and users have a high cognitive cost for the activities, so they are difficult to spread, but users can easily cultivate awareness of the products during the activities, so retention is easy.

2. The gap between the needs stimulated by the activity and the needs satisfied by the product.

The smaller the gap between the two, the higher the fan retention rate; the larger the gap between the two, the lower the fan retention rate.

Finally, I would like to share with you a few words from Zhang Wei, the founder of New World, who successfully planned phenomenal events such as “4-hour escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou”, “Book Throwing Campaign” and “Why Don’t You Go Home for Mid-Autumn Festival”:

The purpose of organizing activities is not to consume this group of people, but to make them feel that you have done something useful. We hope to spread the information for the second time through this group of existing users.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

This article was compiled and published by @琛姐 (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map