The pitfalls I encountered in community operation: It turns out that meeting the high-frequency needs of users is the root of activity!

Community operation has been a hot topic and is becoming more and more popular, but the number of communities that perform well can be counted on one’s fingers. Why are other people’s community operations so good? I can collect millions from membership fees, but my community is a dead group? The author brings you a practical article today.

1. Why did I create my first WeChat group ?

Last year, when I was still on a dating website, my friends and I planned to set up a WeChat group in order to maintain fans more effectively.

As you know, marriage and love sell services, but the public account backend consultation cannot provide real-time replies, and only WeChat groups can solve this problem.

You may wonder why we should gather users in WeChat groups. Can’t we chat with them individually? Better not, you'll be exhausted. Generally, unless there are special circumstances, try to let users speak in the group. I usually reply to the messages in the group first, and then reply to the users' individual messages when I have time. This is the most effective way to use time. Some companies need to reply to users' individual messages in real time due to the nature of their industry. In this case, they will open another WeChat account and adopt a shift-based customer service system. This account is used specifically to resolve customer questions.

Building a WeChat group or community is to gather users with the same needs and provide them with better services, so as to form a chemical reaction. Only then will they pay and willingly recommend your products to people around them - this is also an important reason why e-commerce has recently transformed into community e-commerce.

2. How to gather users into WeChat groups: meeting users’ high-frequency needs

There must be a legitimate reason or a continuous demand from users, and this reason is also the reason that supports you to continue operating the community.

I saw some public accounts just wrote an article with the theme of food, and at the end of the article asked everyone to join the WeChat group. I quietly sneaked into the group, wanting to see their operating methods. After a period of time, the group was not as active as before, and fewer people spoke. This is the fate that most WeChat groups cannot escape.

Or some friends use the name "XX cooperation group" to attract users to the WeChat group. At the beginning, the users are very active, but they take the opportunity to leave after two days. Although the group owners are still struggling, the group is dead. It would be a pity to disband it, but it would be heartbreaking if it is not disbanded.

It is because although your theme is eating and cooperation, the transformation from theme to service is the basis of group activity.

1. Provide users with emotional knowledge sharing services

What reason did we find to import users into the WeChat group?

We want to provide users with emotional knowledge on a regular basis through micro-courses.

Those who listen to micro-courses are bound to have questions, and those who have questions are bound to have needs. However, micro-course lecturers are usually big names. After all, it is not easy to ask too much from them, and they are not responsible for the users of your platform. It is difficult to guarantee the level of care in preparing the manuscripts. In addition, since this is our first time testing the waters, we chose a solution that can better ensure quality and quantity: I will give the lectures myself. It took two whole days of preparation, rehearsal, and lectures. That evening, the lecture attracted more than a hundred people to attend the class, and the feedback after the class was good because the manuscript was really carefully prepared.

Therefore, micro-courses have "two guarantees and one thought": guarantee two points, 1. the care in preparing the manuscript, 2. whether the pre-course promotion is in place; think about one point, after the micro-course is over, where should the micro-course group go?

2. Micro-course groups are transformed into functional groups, adjusting the needs of users to meet their high-frequency needs.

I thought about it for two days and finally decided to turn the micro-class group into a functional group, the function of which is: emotional counseling at a fixed time every week. After two weeks, the activity in the group decreased. The reason is that emotional consultation is not a high-frequency demand. The correct approach at this time should be to change the function of the group again and choose relevant high-frequency demands.

By now you should have understood what I meant. Where should the micro-class group go? 1. Change the group attributes from a micro-class group to a functional group. 2. Ensure that the transformed functional group has high-frequency demand.
For example, regular topic discussions encourage everyone to share their emotional stories, and users help each other to answer questions. This way, user activity is maintained.

3. WeChat group management: group owner, group manager, group rules, group member management and ideas

What role should the group owner play: Don’t play the good cop. Being too serious and tough will not get real feedback. Don’t play the good cop. Xiaomi’s fan economy does not apply here. You treat users as friends, but they want to ride on your head. That’s the reality. So what should we do? Learn from Li Yunlong in Drawing Sword: be serious when necessary and joke when necessary. Believe me, you will gain a lot of fans and friends by doing this.

Group management: When a WeChat group develops to a certain extent, it will require the intervention of a group manager or even an assistant. Generally, group managers work for free and gain experience and some resources in return. Group leaders should not always think that they owe the group managers and how to compensate them. In fact, these experiences and resources are enough for them.

Regarding group rules: Before I personally operated the community, I had already participated in many WeChat groups. The management of WeChat groups was extremely strict at that time, probably because they were afraid of those who placed advertisements in the groups! In short, you can’t post anything. If you post a link to Ele.me, you will be kicked out. Later, I operated the WeChat group myself. I thought that I must not be too serious and make friends with group members. Then I encountered the problem mentioned above: members naturally took advantage of me. Therefore, group rules are closely related to the role of the group owner. If the group leader has a good temper, the friends in the group will inevitably take advantage of him; if the group leader has a cold face, the group members will just make fun of each other.

Some groups strictly prohibit advertising. I think this is wrong. Marketing is happening all the time and advertising is everywhere. If we cannot eliminate it fundamentally, then let everyone run benign advertising. How to do it? Anyone who wants to advertise or post a job posting should first send it to the group owner or group manager. Once it is reviewed and approved, it can be posted to the group.

Some groups only discuss things related to the industry, which is too limited and not fun enough. Take the new media group that I am currently operating as an example. There is a fixed question time every morning, a small part of the afternoon is used to discuss fixed topics, and useful information is shared at irregular intervals in the evening. The rest of the time can be spent chatting about creativity, hot topics, or even gossip. The weekends are just for casual chatting. It's easy to get lazy and inefficient at home on weekends, so don't talk about any practical stuff.

The overall idea is: let the friends in the group do fixed tasks during a certain period of time, and be more casual during the other period, but the group owner and group manager must grasp the balance during this period. Doing so is a combination of work and rest, and by utilizing different areas of the brain at different times, it can prolong members' sense of freshness.

Generally, group members are divided into three categories:

1. Purely for the purpose of acquiring knowledge . There are four types of people here: newbies, those with 1-3 years of experience, masters, and those who just want to make their presence felt. People with 1-3 years of experience and those who are just trying to show off their presence can be "utilized" and efforts should be made to cultivate these two types of people into influential figures in the group. They may not necessarily know the most, but they are the most vocal and willing to help maintain order in the group.
2. Seeking resources . After entering the community, he just added people one by one, but he didn't speak in the group;
3. To advertise . In fact, the effect of posting advertisements in the group is very limited. Here is an immature suggestion for this kind of people. If you have a very important advertisement to post, and on the other hand you feel that this group is meaningless, then add all the members in the group as friends first. After acquiring certain resources, you can then place advertisements. It won’t be unfair if you get kicked out (this is what I always do, and I won’t tell others about it).

Finally, let’s talk about the group name, group announcements and nicknames:

1. Don't worry too much about what name to use, the members generally won't care. Unless there are industry restrictions or group restrictions, for example, "older single women group" doesn't sound very nice, it would be better to change it to "FL", what does it mean? Find love. Write it in a more obscure way so that it won’t be discovered by nosy colleagues who may try to peek.
2. Group announcements should be brief and clear. Although there are many things to remind you, I still advise you to waste less time. If you write three paragraphs, I may read two of them, but if you write an announcement of ten paragraphs, let me tell you, I won’t read a single paragraph. The announcement states three points: what you can get by joining the group; what basic rules you need to follow; and that you should change your nickname to make it easier for members to get to know each other.
3. How should nicknames be defined? A normal community has normal regulations, such as region, nickname, occupation, company and other information. Generally, you can just select the three most important pieces of information and note them in the group nickname, for example: Lazy Investment-Beijing-Bian Yixiu. In addition, there are also some WeChat groups that require anonymity, you know the details.

4. WeChat Group Life Cycle

Now let’s talk about how to operate a WeChat group. Generally, friends who operate WeChat groups must have multiple groups in their hands! Do you feel that all your time is spent maintaining these groups and chatting with these users every day?

Since you can't have your cake and eat it too, just give up one; since you can't take care of both, just prioritize. Sort the WeChat groups by weight, and let go of the WeChat groups that are ranked at the bottom. Letting it fend for itself or disbanding it directly is much better than having a half-dead group. For example, I was on a certain dating website. In addition to operating a functional group for micro-course conversion, I also had a singles dating group. In the end, we put the singles dating group aside and ignored it. We would occasionally pop in and regularly check if anyone violated the group rules, and we would not interfere too much in other matters. The more you intervene in this kind of friendship group, the more they will be unable to let go. It's not that friendship groups are not important so you let them go, but this kind of community can generally maintain a high level of activity and there is no need to intervene at all.

Some people hold the view that "you should give full consideration before creating a group, and once you create a group, you should continue to maintain it."

That doesn't make sense. No matter how well you consider before creating a group, you will find out after creating the group that, alas, there are ninety-nine omissions in a hundred precautions! Three women are a big show, but there are hundreds of people in the group, how can they follow your routine?

So, how should a high-weight WeChat group be operated to be effective? A: Sensitive enough. No matter how active a community is in the early stages, it will decline in the later stages if you don’t keep a close eye on it. If you find that the community activity has slightly decreased in the past two days, you must come up with an incentive plan, whether it is throwing up topics or sending red envelopes, to raise the activity level again, except on weekends. No matter what kind of WeChat group it is, just take some time off during the weekend. Group members need proper rest, and so do you.

5. Five elements of building a community

Finally, here is Teacher Qiuye’s community model. Friends who are interested can practice their own community according to the model below.

1. Find people who share the same interests

• Who is suitable for building a community (Who is suitable for building a group)?
• How to do community positioning well?
• How to find the first members in the community?

2. Determine the structure

• Composition of members - How to distinguish between internal and external groups, and how to introduce members rhythmically?
• Communication platform - choose QQ, WeChat, YY or other platforms?
• Joining principles - open joining system, invitation system, screening system?
• Management norms - how to formulate group rules and what to do if someone breaks the group rules?

3. Output

• Output from core personnel - such as articles, voice, video, Q&A...
• Output from group members - for example, writing books together, using WeChat together, making products together...

4. Smart Operation

• Sense of ceremony - visual unity, group joining announcement, photo sharing, etc.
• Sense of participation - How to organize group sharing, and what tips can improve group vitality?
• Sense of organization – can the community collaborate?
• Sense of belonging - why do we need to hold offline activities ?

5. Ability to copy

• Whether a core group has been formed - how to build a core group.
• Whether self-organization has been established - the core culture of the group has been generated.
• Whether a subculture has been formed - a derivative of the core community culture.