How to monetize community operations? 8 major community monetization models!

First, let’s talk about product-based communities. This type of community is built based on a certain product, and the most critical factor for a product-based community to grow is “product.” Therefore, the prerequisite for building a product-based community is to have one or more products of your own, and these products must be of excellent quality, so that you can establish a deep connection with users through word of mouth of the products.

The key to sustained profitability of product communities is word-of-mouth marketing. If we want users to help us promote and spread the product through their social network, in addition to the quality of the product itself, we also need to have sufficient emotional connections with users.

Regarding the emotional connection with users, we need to provide timely answers to users' questions and provide users with a good user experience.

If the above two points are achieved, users' trust in the product will be enhanced, and subsequent repurchases will become possible. Even after you have established continuous trust, users will actively help you promote your product and expand the size of your community.

For example, Xiaomi Technology's first batch of seed users were built through word of mouth on forums. In the early days, their staff would hang out on forums every day to look for experienced digital users. Several of them registered hundreds of accounts and flooded the mobile phone forums with spam and advertisements every day. Finally, 100 seed users were carefully selected to help participate in the design, development, and feedback of MIUI. Because their products are iterated quickly and they pay close attention to user experience and feedback, MIUI was quickly promoted thanks to the word-of-mouth spread among these 100 people.

At that time, engineers also had to reply to posts on the forum on time, and Lei Jun himself would spend an hour every day replying to comments on Weibo. In addition, Xiaomi also has a powerful offline activity platform called "City Meeting". Each event will invite 30-50 users to the site to communicate with engineers face to face, and the offline links will greatly increase user stickiness and sense of participation.

Because the topics of communication among this group involve interests and knowledge, content is the core.

One characteristic of users is that they hope to make continuous progress. Here, operators can organize check-in sharing, let users feel the value of this group through content, and form a good positive cycle.

Another characteristic of users is that the sense of accomplishment will make them stay longer.

In other words, everyone likes to communicate with powerful people, so the group can mobilize KOLs from different levels and use their own resources to maintain the atmosphere of the group and provide strong support for the subsequent development of the community.

When everyone gains and shares in the community, a large number of hardcore fans will emerge in the community. The higher the long-term value provided by the community, the more motivated members will be to join the community, and only in this way can the community develop in the long run.

Here is a summary of the common characteristics of excellent interest communities:

1. User groups with common interests and hobbies

2. The group has a wide user coverage and the users are continuously stable.

3. The content is centered around specific topics of interest, is simple and clear, and is easy for users to absorb

4. The marketing monetization model is relatively diverse and the conversion rate is high

For example, Shidian Reading is such an interest-based community. Their monetization model is mainly to advertise for brand companies; sign books and try to publish books themselves; use recommendations to help publishers recommend new books; and establish paid memberships and paid communities.

We can learn from this aspect, for example, through advertising, build our own personal IP, build our own professional potential, and further monetize it through paid memberships and paid communities.

The community goals of educational communities are very clear, and the topics will revolve around specific themes, such as Chinese, mathematics, workplace, etc. The users in this part are usually more precise and have specific segmentations. The shortcoming of this part is that the conversion method is relatively simple, and most of them are monetized through the sale of books, application tools or courses.

Take "Uncle Kai Tells Stories" as an example. "Uncle Kai Tells Stories" mainly tells high-quality children's picture book stories to babies. They are positioned as a life-related children's story self-media program, and the target audience is mainly parents and children's families.

Their monetization model is mainly through recommending storybooks, picture books, and books to families, as well as micro-class training for mothers and guiding listeners to buy books in the micro mall.

This type of community has a clear positioning, high user loyalty, diversified monetization models, and high conversion rate. If brand content and activities are easy to spread, it is easier to form word-of-mouth marketing.

The group owner of this type of community is supposed to play the role of an opinion leader, so the requirements for the operator are high. If you want to extend the life cycle of the community, you need to formulate effective and accurate operating rules and reward mechanisms.

Brand-based communities are actually an extension of product-based communities, and brand-based communities are also linked by users’ emotional interests in products. Because users have feelings for a certain product, they will have new spiritual sustenance for the brand. For example, they identify with the brand's values, believe that the brand can reflect their own experience value and image value, and feel psychologically in tune with it, thus generating psychological resonance.

This type of community can play the emotional card to meet the spiritual needs of users, and can stimulate user activity through some brand activities. On the other hand, the trust that users have in it will lead to trust in its products.

For example, the Chenzao brand aims to "provide a communication platform and self-management tools for women who have expectations for themselves." Chen Zao has "Chen Zao Reading Club" in many cities across the country. The reading club will spontaneously plan some activities, such as: workplace sharing, movie salons, psychological lecture topics, etc.

For the members of the Chenzao community, these activities can mainly broaden their knowledge, solve problems, allow everyone to grow together, and meet some like-minded friends, etc. Therefore, its headquarters will also provide support for reading clubs, speaking tours, and running group funds. The development of reading clubs will gather a group of self-disciplined, aspiring and like-minded women to form a community. They gather users through various forms such as websites, communities, apps, activities, online stores, and memberships.

Then, we can use this group of people to raise the brand's profile, so that there can be more equal connections between the brand and users, and we can make progress together.

The monetization model of Chengzao is mainly through financing, book sales, touring, and membership fees.

This type of community leader, namely KOL, will play the role of an opinion leader, so the requirements for operators are relatively high. Just like brand communities, if you want to extend the life cycle of the community, you need precise and effective operating rules and reward mechanisms.

Users of this type of community are often loyal fans of the group owner, with high loyalty and conversion rate. In addition, because the community members cover a wide range, the community is not easy to become quiet and the topics of discussion are more diverse.

Taking Luoji Siwei as an example, their currently influential Internet knowledge community includes WeChat public subscription accounts, knowledge talk show videos and audios, membership system, micro mall, Baidu Tieba, WeChat groups and other specific interactive forms, mainly serving the post-80s and post-90s groups who have a strong demand for "love of wisdom and truth".

One of their profit models is to use the core content "Internet" to sell books. For example, connection can make you successful, free people's union can make you successful, and Internet thinking can make you successful.

The next step is to collect the membership fees, add them together and take out a portion of them to pocket first. The remaining portion is the prize pool, which is drawn by members. The lowest prize is a consolation prize of a book, and everyone gets a consolation prize. This model is actually slightly different from lottery. Sports lottery and welfare lottery give out money directly, but this one only gives out prizes.

There is also hunger marketing for high-profit products. Luo Pang selected two types of this high-gross-profit product. The first one is a gift edition book set. The second type is moon cake.

With high-profit products and a hunger marketing strategy, the most important thing left is a good advertising slogan. Luo Pang's slogan is: "Let's conduct an Internet experiment." As soon as we said we were going to conduct an Internet experiment, everyone immediately rushed to queue up and pay. This is more effective than "I won't accept any gifts this year, the only gift I accept is Naobaijin." This can be said to be the best promotional advertisement of the year.

In addition, Luo Pang also gives lectures to entrepreneurs. After "Luoji Siwei" became popular, his appearance fees for Internet lectures skyrocketed, and now can reach six figures on an hourly basis.

This type of community focuses on sharing content and useful information. Most of these users are keen on learning knowledge and form a specific group of people due to common needs. It mainly provides thoughtful community services and continuous content output to make community members sticky to the community and generate continuous consumption.

For example, the member group of our [Community Operation Research Institute] is positioned as a learning community focused on the growth of operators aged 0-3 years old. It mainly aims to solve various problems encountered by operators aged 0-3 years old in the workplace and in improving their skills.

Through our online community, we have regular sharing sessions every month by experts with rich online practical experience. We have fixed practical operations seminars every Tuesday, and sharing sessions by experts or operations-related book and course reviews every Thursday. We also hold offline activities such as local operators’ community meetings.

Our monetization model is mainly based on membership fees.

This type of community belongs to a specific industry community, with strong professionalism and sharing characteristics. Most users of this type of community are professionals within the group, with closer communication and stronger user stickiness. In addition, because the community is precisely positioned, it is easy to form an elite circle and spread widely.

The member group of our [Community Operation Research Institute] mentioned earlier is both a learning community and an industry community, and is mainly aimed at industry exchanges for operators. In addition, let me give you another example: Blueberry Club, a mobile community for corporate public relations and brand marketing professionals to communicate and interact with media professionals and creative people.

Their target audience is public relations and communications personnel from many well-known global and Chinese companies, brand marketing managers, and elite figures from major creative agencies of the domestic mainstream media.

Their monetization model is mainly through membership fees, class fees and training fees.

The above are the commercial monetization models of the eight major communities. Next, I will give you a summary:

It is not difficult to see that the community's commercial monetization model is centered around products, content, and services. The community provides the ultimate products, content, and services to bring together users, and users attracted by common values ​​and interests become the most valuable resource of the community platform.

Product category: mainly through acquiring users, controlling traffic, acquiring users through entry-level products, and finally making profits through traffic monetization.

Content: Mainly through increasing user stickiness, through organizing online and offline activities, teaching, lectures, training, salons, industry conferences, forums, summits and other forms of monetization, while providing users with more valuable information and resources.

Service category: mainly through WeChat public accounts, WeChat groups, Moments, micro communities, interest groups, QQ groups, WeChat QR codes, invitation codes, software and other tool services to obtain user information, accumulate user pools, and thus bring about sales conversions.

The above is the full content of this article. I hope it will be inspiring to everyone.

Author: Community Operation Research Institute

Source: Community Operation Research Institute