Want to be the next hit? See Youtui CEO tell you how to double your app users through social media promotion

Since traffic from social media has more than doubled from the previous year, while traffic from search has begun to decline, it is estimated that the ratio will be closer this year. We can generally feel that many of the products or apps we come into contact with are not first encountered through search or some channels. When there is a problem, we do not search on Baidu first, but directly shout it out on WeChat Moments, because behind social media is not only information, but also people.

This trend has also led to a change in traditional marketing methods. In the past, when a company wanted to launch a product, after working hard to make the product, it would promote its product through certain channels or advertising. Users in need would buy the product, and loyal users were the last part of the funnel model. Now, as social media becomes more and more developed, more and more companies are paying more attention to, or need to pay more attention to, word-of-mouth communication among users, maintaining the first batch of seed users and loyal users, acquiring more users through their word-of-mouth communication and social media communication, and then building channels to develop the market.

How to spread word-of-mouth among users, from a strategic and tactical perspective, mainly focuses on this picture. This picture is quoted from a recent book titled "Sense of Participation" by Xiaomi co-founder and vice president Li Wanqiang. As we all know, Xiaomi is a company that has grown rapidly in recent years and is the best in social marketing.

Indeed, there are many aspects here that are worth learning from and even reflecting on, such as word-of-mouth communication. In fact, whenever we talk about operations, it must not be separated from the product, and the product is always the core. So when you see the word-of-mouth iron triangle here, the product is the engine at the bottom, the one on the right is the user relationship, and the accelerator on the left is social media.

From the perspective of Tao and Shu, the inner triangle is Tao and the outer triangle is the level of Shu.

Let’s first talk about the moral aspect, which is that you have to realize that the product is the core, focus on maintaining user relationships, and make full use of social media. How to do these things well? These correspond to the outside parts.

1. First of all, we must ensure that the product is useful and easy to use, and continuously improve the user experience. It is very important to strive to exceed user expectations. Even if you cannot do it immediately, you must make subsequent improvements to achieve it. This is also the basis for the following links.

There is a very simple formula: sharing amount = number of users * sharing rate , but it is often overlooked by many people. That is, after you have introduced users through some external channels, you should pay attention to how to increase the user's sharing rate. For example, if your sharing rate increases by 5 times, then the traffic you obtain will increase by 5 times.

How to increase user sharing rate and enhance user word-of-mouth communication?

Content, materials, and participation nodes are the three most important points.

There is no need to explain the importance of content. However, the material is often neglected by many companies, especially start-ups. Many companies spend 80% of their time on various channels and less than 20% on materials. But in fact, if more time and effort is spent on content and materials, the overall effect will be greatly improved.

Regarding participating nodes, for example, before Xiaomi, the e-commerce ordering process ended after the order was placed. However, based on the tactical idea of ​​opening multiple participating nodes, Xiaomi generated a Weibo post with product pictures for users after the order was placed. The material was also quite clever, with Mi Rabbits with different expressions, which increased the number of shares at once and drove millions of additional disseminations.

There are two common problems when doing activities:

1. Not enough attention and resources are not concentrated enough;

2. Treat the activity as a web page instead of a product.

When Xiaomi was first launched, most of their users were still on the forum. Lei Jun talked to Li Wanqiang about how to attract some users without spending a penny on advertising. Later, the planning team organized an event on Weibo, asking users to show off their previously used phones. And we have specially made a small tool for this purpose to allow users to participate to a greater extent. In Xiaomi's words, providing users with sufficiently convenient tools will generate greater potential for communication!

This event was also Xiaomi’s first attempt at event productization, with over 100,000 reposts on the first day of its launch. Until now, there are still users participating in the discussion, with a total of more than 1,700 people participating, which has been a beautiful positional battle.

1. Send messages directly through WeChat or Weibo. It is also recommended to use some H5 tools to optimize the materials and add some interactive elements, which will have better effects.

2. Create some interesting content information to attract users to spread it. For example, in the third picture below, I have seen it in the circle of friends. NBA data is generated for each user. If the user finds it interesting, he will share it. We can see that there are advertisements for the app below. However, it is recommended that the content of this test based on interest-based segmentation should be consistent with your audience.

3. Set up activities with gifts. This type of activity is quite common on Weibo, and can have amazing effects if used well. This requires content planning and some promotion to attract traffic. After a friend's app went online, they teamed up with a popular cartoonist on Weibo to organize an activity where you could send 100,000 postcards by forwarding the app. To get the postcards, you had to download the app and fill in the address on it. This activity brought in tens of thousands of downloads and quickly accumulated the first batch of users.

4. Share your achievements through small games. Games are a more interactive content medium. Surround the crazy cat and don't step on the white blocks are good examples.

5. Open a public account for the App. Because WeChat official accounts are light and relatively easy to attract traffic through content, you can first use official accounts to provide content and services, and then add an app download entrance. In fact, many apps will first use official accounts to attract users before they are launched.

Some of the examples mentioned above can be seen in the picture above. The picture in the middle is a WeChat h5 activity of Weijing Tourism. What is more interesting is that it transforms common invitation rewards, such as giving a 5-yuan consumption voucher for inviting a friend, into a more interesting and interactive bargaining scene. More than 100,000 people participated in the activity, and the effect was very good.

In-app activities are often easily overlooked. We have also seen that many apps do not make full use of the scenarios within the app, wasting a lot of in-app sharing traffic. This is actually a pity. The common ways to use in-app social sharing traffic are as follows:

1. Create interesting data within the app for users to share. For example, the WeChat phone book launched a while ago will tell you the distance of the call after you make it. For more than 80% of people, it digitizes user behavior, and indeed many users will share it.

2. Conduct interstitial activities within the app. As shown in the picture on the right, this app held an interstitial event during the World Cup and added some event materials, which was very helpful in enhancing user participation.

3. Set up in-app sharing reward activities. Our product also provides such a tool, which I will talk about later. It gives points after sharing to increase the sharing rate.

4. Give users red envelopes and let them send them out. This is a little different from sharing and giving in that you are given a red envelope first and then asked to send it out, which fully demonstrates the philosophy of giving first and then gaining. The effect will be several times better than sharing first and then giving. Didi Taxi has taken the sharing of red envelopes very uninhibitedly. From the fact that Didi Taxi never tires of giving out red envelopes, we can see that the effect is worth it. This is also worth everyone's careful study.

Another relatively new case is a small tool that Baidu developed after the subway fare reduction. It was made very quickly. There are also similar small tools that are modified based on hot spots. When doing similar activities, whether you can fully utilize the potential energy at the time node will make a huge difference in the effect. In addition, you should also pay attention to the novelty of the form.

Only in this way can we sort out the principles and techniques involved, and win more users through battles of position! I hope this sharing can be helpful to everyone.