Alipay has made the right move by entering the social networking market through social networking

For Alipay , it is neither trying to build a community nor to engage in social networking . Its essence is to increase user stickiness. Whether it is a community or social networking, it will continue to try whichever one can help increase stickiness and frequency of use.

No one can shake WeChat ’s dominance in social networking among acquaintances. After all, you are competing not only with the WeChat team, but also with your complex social relationships.

Even for a company as big as Alipay, when it first launched the Moments status feature, no one was interested.

However, Alipay, which has always been courageous and touching, has entered the field of stranger social networking this time. From this point of view, Alipay has finally admitted that it cannot compete with WeChat in social networking among acquaintances. This is a good sign for Alipay: at least it proves that it has begun to understand itself and is no longer acting recklessly.

This time it is indeed different because Alipay chose to enter from the community.

According to an interview with an Alipay insider conducted by Blue Whale Media, the "Circle" function is an attempt launched by Alipay and its partners on the social network. Since there has not been a product form that is particularly suitable for community operations in China, it is currently in grayscale testing.

The essence of social interaction is relationships, and the essence of a community is shared values. Since Alipay chooses to enter the community and build a circle, it must introduce topics and attract the same group of people.

Judging from the several circles that have been criticized, only women can post in white-collar diaries and campus diaries, and in order to win rewards, large and large-scale pictures appear. Many people expressed their disappointment. With such unique advantages and so many social media topics to showcase, Alipay chose to touch on the lowest level of sex and desire to trigger the topic. Its approach was just like that of operating a second- or third-tier small APP. This kind of social insecurity unfortunately turned a good community circle drama into a country dance troupe.

Although every social journey of Alipay has been ridiculed, I think the launch of the "Circle" function this time is indeed a step in the right direction.

Communities and community economies have been around for at least two or three years. There are indeed quite a few communities that are doing well, but there is no truly good community tool . Some previous apps, whether for live lectures or community management, were just online games that could not touch the essence of the community - trust.

If Alipay wants to build a community, it has two powerful weapons: real-name registration and Sesame Credit.

To be honest, once these two killer weapons are launched, if Alipay can continue to expand its social functions, it can almost solve all the problems in today's social development:

1. Truly connect online and offline

As mentioned earlier, many of today's Internet products (not just social products) are often only based online. Many online communities look like children's games , with no constraints on group members and no reflection of their real-world lives.

In the Alipay circle with real-name system and Sesame Credit score, every group member is real-name, and each group member has a credit score that reflects a certain level of real economic and credit ability. This effectively implements the regulations on the real-world lives of group members.

It is conceivable that in the future Alipay circle, online, you will be a member with a real name and credit score that reflects your real offline life; offline, every economic and credit behavior of yours will affect your credit score, and in turn affect your points and level in the online circle.

2. Perfect solution to community activity and sedimentation

A major problem facing online communities today is how to truly solve the problem of group members' activity and retention. The essence of this problem is actually the driving force for community development. For group members, no matter how active I am online, it is unlikely to bring any changes to my life. Once the novelty of a community wears off, there’s naturally no motivation to stay active or stay.

With the credit score regulations, especially if the Alipay circle can open up certain permissions to the circle owners and group members, allowing them to improve their credit scores through online and offline performance in the circle community, then the group members' dependence on the circle will be greatly improved, and there will no longer be any concerns about activity. From the overwhelming number of articles in the past two days, some of which are either sarcastic or true, on "how to improve Sesame Credit scores", we can see how much people really care about credit scores.

3. Provide efficient monetization scenario tools

Previously, monetization of WeChat- based communities has always been a major problem in community operations. Community groups either lack monetizable content, lack monetization scenarios, or lack monetizable products. It can be said that whether it is collecting membership fees, selling products, or advertising, everyone is treading on thin ice.

The Alipay circle naturally has various merchants and payment scenarios such as Taobao, Tmall , and word-of-mouth, which makes it easy to form a circle centered on word-of-mouth and create scenarios that facilitate payment. Coupled with the already existing Alipay groups, monetization will become unprecedentedly convenient. Think about how many communities have set up a separate Alipay group for monetization, and you will know how big the market here is.

4. Natural manufacturing community threshold

Anyone who has run a community knows that setting certain community thresholds (charging fees, answering a series of questions, etc.) and screening out some people who do not conform to the community’s values ​​will be very beneficial to the subsequent operation of the community and even directly determine the success or failure of the community’s development.

It can be believed that after the Alipay circles are opened in the future, circle owners (community owners) will be able to freely set the credit score for joining the group, and can also set some corresponding questions, which can screen group members very accurately.

5. Greatly reduce community operation investment

It is said that building a community is a job that requires heavy operations. To run a good community, the investment in energy, time and intelligence is almost a bottomless pit. This leads to many communities that actually performed well in all aspects but unfortunately failed mainly due to lack of time to operate them.

If we acknowledge that Alipay Circles can solve the above four major community development problems, we will naturally acknowledge that operators will no longer need to invest so much energy. As mentioned earlier, Alipay Circles will likely solve problems such as online and offline, community activity, and community monetization. This means that many tasks that previously required one-on-one manual input from operators no longer require 24-hour online service like robots to group members.

Focusing on content, values, and culture will be what many community operators should do.

Personally, I feel that if Alipay wants to continue along the community path, the most important thing it should do now is to eliminate the negative impact of "payment madams" on the C-end, introduce as many healthy and high-end community circles and community topics as possible, and allow communities centered on content and values ​​to develop in the Alipay circle.

However, for Alipay, it neither wants to build a community nor does it want to engage in social networking. Its essence is to increase user stickiness. Whether it is a community or social networking, it will continue to try whichever one can help increase stickiness and frequency of use.

Regardless of the original intention, at least, choosing to enter the community to build stickiness is the right direction.

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