The subscription account is full of red dots, and 95% of the fans are out of touch! How can public accounts awaken dormant fans through operations?

It is becoming increasingly difficult to run a public account . It is difficult to increase followers and the number of readers is declining.

On June 30, the last day of the first half of the year, we released a report on the top ten trends in self-media in the second half of 2017, which hit the pain points of many content entrepreneurs - the operation of public accounts has entered the "5+2" era , that is, the industry's average reading rate has dropped to around 5%, and the opening rate is about 2%.

It is said that "good content brings its own traffic ", however, the loss of open rate means that the official account you have worked hard to manage has "lost connection" (sleeping) with 95% of the fans - self-media has been trying every means to increase the number of fans, and after finally attracting fans, they are too lazy to read your content!

It is very likely that the speed at which you gain followers is slower than the speed at which you lose contact.

If intensive cultivation of content is the trend, then one of the key points in operations is "activation" - how to make 95% of silent fans active? It is worthy for more self-media people to think carefully and act quickly.

First of all, we have to emphasize a misconception.

As one of the value standards for measuring the operation of public accounts, nowadays, no matter whether it is editors, founders or investors , when talking about content entrepreneurship , they always talk about the number of fans.

A certain account has so many tens of thousands of fans, and a certain account has gained so many tens of thousands of fans... The excessive pursuit and attention to the number of fans often confuses people, causing them to ignore the user quality behind the numbers, that is, the number of active fans.

What are active fans? To put it bluntly, I not only read every one of your push notifications, but I can't help but nag you in the comment section. If you are lazy and don't update one day, I will come to the backstage to ask: What's going on? Even if you write poorly one day, they will still complain about it.

In fact, although content entrepreneurship is covered with the cloak of "content", it can never be separated from the core of Internet products. He Caitou mentioned in “Also on the Decline of Public Accounts” (click to read) a few days ago:

You can't throw a liberal arts student alone in the crowd and expect him to solve all problems with just his mouth and a pen. Content creation also needs to be upgraded, especially in the field of WeChat public accounts . Science students, especially technicians, need to be involved. They need to provide new production tools and new ways of creation.

Following the same logic, in addition to content thinking, to do a good job in self-media we also need people who are good at " Internet content product thinking ".

For example, some people have summarized that the commercial value of Internet products depends on: the number of users, the quality of users, and the influence of the product on users , and depends on the "shortcomings" of these three factors.

Similarly, even if you have millions of fans, if the open rate drops to 2%, it means that the number of real active fans may be only tens of thousands. This is a huge bubble and the commercial value will be greatly reduced.

What’s more, the number of fans of most self-media is far from reaching millions.

Stop treating fans as traffic

In the opinion of Pang Xiaoliang, Operations & Course Director of New Media University, this problem can be solved by starting with "relationships". The most important thing is to stop "treating fans as traffic", for example:

Providing participatory activities can enhance interaction.

Provide WeChat groups for communication and give them opportunities to participate in new social activities.

Provide valuable products to make their work/life better or more convenient.

Provide your personal WeChat account , participate in their circle of friends discussions, and make them feel that you are a real person.

If you regard fans as traffic, then you have a "weak relationship" with them: you provide them with some content, they come here to take a look, and leave, and the relationship is over.

If you don’t want the relationship to end, then you need to establish a “strong relationship” that goes beyond the “I came to take a look” type of relationship.

Providing unique content is, of course, the most important way. However, if there is a lack of good operations, relying solely on content output will be a thankless task. This time, let’s put aside the content level and talk about the operational methods of “promoting activation”.

Method 1: Data! data! data! Have a strong sense of data

Important things should be said three times.

I have a lot of contact with self-media people on a daily basis, and let me tell you about my personal experience. Most content entrepreneurs or editors do not have a strong or even weak awareness of data.

For example, a very important point in operation is to analyze user portraits : only when you figure out what the users look like, can you know where to find them, what they like, and what kind of content can impress them.

In conversations or chats, many new media practitioners cannot accurately describe their user portraits. If I ask you the same question right now, think about whether you can explain it clearly through data from several dimensions?

However, there are also high-quality operations editors who can report accurate data at once: What is the ratio of men to women? What is the geographical distribution? We also conduct regular sampling surveys on users’ age, education level, income, reading habits, etc., and have a certain quantitative understanding.

How magical and important is data? Let me give you a simple example. Since most of the editors are girls, we tend to think that there are more women in the content entrepreneurship field. For example, there was this conversation in the "China WeChat Top 500" group of Xinbang not long ago:

But in fact, judging from the backend data of Xinbang, male users are slightly more than female users, accounting for 52%.

But this is still a superficial user portrait analysis . In the "Single Article" details page of "Image and Text Analysis" in the WeChat background, there is also user portrait data for each article.

There are also many public accounts, such as "bookface" that Xinbang has previously interviewed, which have already used the user portraits behind each article in data analysis .

In addition, data awareness runs through the operation of the official account. In addition to the number of posts, readings, likes, and the increase or decrease of fans every day, there is also analysis of the reading source of a single picture and text, the secondary dissemination effect, the conversion rate of reading the original text, and the browsing progress of the video in the text...

In short, data of different dimensions in the background often hide the overall feedback of users. Whether it is user analysis, graphic analysis, traffic analysis, menu analysis, activity analysis...it is inseparable from the operator's data awareness.

Don’t simply assume that the data lying in the background will only be used for leadership evaluation at the end of the month .

Method 2: If you can’t do community operation well, what’s the point of talking about content entrepreneurship?

People in self-media often say that they should focus on content on the one hand and community on the other.

When talking about communities, we often can’t help but think of those densely packed WeChat groups on our phones that have long been set to “message do not disturb” mode.

Although forming a community is the most convenient way to "promote activity", it is the stupidest thing to do if you don't think it through and "subconsciously create a group".

Essentially, the positioning of the community must be clear: What does this group do? What problem does it solve? What value does it have to group members?

Many public accounts such as " Youshu " and " Shidiandushu " have not only established their own community systems, but are also equipped with dedicated community operation and maintenance teams.

As the saying goes, "Birds of a feather flock together", the same principle applies to community operation, which emphasizes "meeting a worthy opponent and being evenly matched". For example, the community system under Xinbang has established more than 50 different communities based on the Xinbang index, region, function, theme and needs, and this does not include smaller communities with more refined functions.

New Media Community Matrix of Xinbang (Part)

Many communities are managed through WeChat groups or QQ groups.

Lin Shao, the founder of "Ten O'clock Reading", previously told Xinbang that they have established online and offline "Ten O'clock Reading Clubs" in 30 cities. Each city has several WeChat groups. Members can communicate in the group or meet in offline bookstores, cafes and other places to communicate.

"Ten O'clock Reading" has clear membership system, group rules and elimination system, so as to maintain the activity of the reading club.

Zhao Junqi, co-founder of Shanxi Commercial Bank, once said that in the highest sense, a community is self-managed, and the group owner is only a symbol and role in maintaining discipline , allowing group members to communicate spontaneously, and the group owner provides guidance. A community is an ecosystem, and attracting new members and retaining them is a constantly iterative process.

In the communication between Bangge Bangmei and many high-quality community operators, they all expressed the same view - it is very important to consciously cultivate active elements and opinion leaders within the group, who can greatly improve the activity of the group.

Method 3: Replying to every comment is a good way to promote fan activity

To sum it up, “comments promote activation”.

To be fair, the fans who can "overcome all difficulties" and leave comments at the end of the article are truly "living" fans! In a word, we must create conditions and insist on responding quickly to comments .

In addition to quickly selecting comments, those comments that are not suitable for selection and background messages should also be responded to appropriately.

Imagine, from the user's perspective, if you write a few comments with great enthusiasm, but they fall into silence; or if you get an immediate response after writing the comment, the two user experiences will be completely different.

What's more, the selected comments and replies will be reminded in the user's WeChat dialog box. The "connection relationship" established by such direct interaction is far better than the red dot prompt after the subscription account is pushed.

Secondly, interesting and personalized comments and replies are also an important part of the content. Remember the nine-character title that used three editors of “Xinhua News Agency” ? (Click to read) It was the editor’s witty reply at the end of the article that not only made this central media official account attract much attention, but also gained a considerable number of fans.

There are even reports from industry insiders that after seeing such excellent online comments, a large Internet group also wanted to spend a large sum of money to poach this central media editor. We can't help but sigh that the communication power of comments is so huge.

Wu Wei, the founder of the public account "bookface", talked about a concept: a piece of content is a work completed jointly by the author and the user. What this means is that we should focus on guiding users to comment and provide good responses.

As content, an article is completed once it is typed and pushed. But as an Internet product, after a push is released, this "content product" is at most two-thirds completed , and the comments in the subsequent dissemination account for at least one-third.

Speaking of this, we have to mention He Caitou, who is "criticizing everyone and everyone". In addition to reading the content of the public account "Caobian Wangshi", many people are also keen to see how this "hot-tempered" person replies to comments, such as the end of this article "Also on the decline of public accounts":

Of course, don’t imitate others and respond like that.