15 key activity designs in the social network operations of 5 major brands

When it comes to community operations , many people will think of brands such as Perfect Diary, Yuanqi Forest, and Luckin Coffee. Through social media operations, they not only significantly increase sales, but also improve user stickiness to the brand. What lessons can we learn from this?

This article is more suitable for community activity operations. The focus was on displaying the specific activity content and forms of five brands, including Perfect Diary, Xiaomi Youpin, and Luckin Coffee, in WeChat groups, weakening community theory, focusing on on-site operations, and facilitating truly effective practices.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, offline store traffic has been restricted, and online WeChat groups have become an important platform for effectively reaching users and activating traffic. Various brands have gradually begun to intensively cultivate community operations. At the end of 2020, I started to collect WeChat groups of dozens of brands and observed their group operations in daily life and during this year's Spring Festival for two months. I organized and briefly analyzed the key activities of some key brands as follows, hoping to be helpful to students who are doing community operation activities.

This article will not describe the theoretical knowledge such as the purpose of creating a group, how to join a group, the time period for sending group messages, and the role settings within the group. It will only summarize the design of activities such as group activity and group purchases.

1. Perfect Diary

As the leading domestic beauty brand in sales today, the operation of its WeChat groups can be said to be outstanding, with a very diverse way of playing and rich content output. Moreover, the community operators did not miss a single day during the entire Spring Festival. It was the only brand that pushed information within the group every day for seven days during the Spring Festival, which shows the depth of its refined operations.

1. Low-price group buying

The "group buying" model has been deeply rooted in people's minds, and it is a common awareness that group buying = discount. Currently, group buying is also one of the mainstream forms of community activities, but the prerequisite is to use mini programs. There are several advantages to push messages in the form of mini programs. First, it can solve special promotional forms such as "group/limited time" where two people place an order. Second, the form is more recognizable than pictures and texts, and is more likely to trigger user clicks.

2. More is more

Stockpiling of beauty products is actually a common thing. However, it is generally not easy to sell bundled packages on e-commerce platforms, because the unit price of one product is low and the sales volume is high, the product exposure weight is higher, and it is easier to achieve high sales; but in a WeChat group, the group owner will take the initiative to make real-time recommendations, and the two gifts can be regarded as a major benefit, which is easier to attract users.

At the same time, there are many ways to express "2 items get a gift": limited time discount for two items/free luxury gifts, second item at 1 yuan/half price (with emphasis on the discount for the second item), buy one get two, etc. You should find a better way to express it when recommending the event.

3. Courtesy for new customers

Offer some products with lower average order value (such as beauty samples) and give new users a certain degree of discount. Of course, it is not given away directly. Various types of prerequisites can be made, such as completing the mall information (name, mobile phone number, delivery address, etc.), or postage is not free, and postage will be free only when it is purchased together with other normally purchased goods, etc. This way, the gift will not be lost in vain, but instead deepens the user's sedimentation.

4. Diversified presentation including pictures, text, video, tables, etc.

When recommending products, Perfect Diary does not simply drop a product link and leave it at that with a simple text description. Instead, it uses a whole set of very detailed combinations [product ingredient introduction table + real product photos + user trial photos and experiences + video introduction]. More importantly, there are not just one or two such combination products, but many, and they can be seen in the group almost every day. This shows that Perfect Diary’s user operation system is very rich.

2. Xiaomi Youpin

Xiaomi Youpin is a boutique e-commerce platform under Xiaomi. In addition to its original self-operated brands, it also adds many other categories covering daily life. It is the main manifestation of Xiaomi's "new retail" strategy.

1. Flash Sales

Flash sales are the main form of activity I see in Xiaomi Youpin groups at the moment. Due to the limitation of the average order value of the main product categories, Youpin cannot give away many samples like the beauty and food categories. Coupons also seem very cheap in the face of high average order values. Therefore, Youpin has adopted more limited-time promotions.

Strictly speaking, there are two types of flash sales: (1) Flash sales of popular products at low prices. Use a small amount of high-priced popular products at super low prices (such as 1 yuan, 9.9 yuan), designed specifically for the mentality of getting the best deal, to attract users to return. (2) Regular special price flash sales. The product only offers a small discount, but it is in the form of a limited-time discount, with a rich variety of products, designed for users with a certain purchasing intention, stimulating real-time ordering rate.

Youpin has taken flash sales to the extreme, using a combination of [flash sale single product push (Figure 1 below) + flash sale notice push (Figure 2 below) + flash sale special event push (Figure 3 below)] within the group. The flash sale special event page is designed with a variety of special flash sales, including [50% off flash sales + flash sales of heavy-duty single products + limited-time flash sales of categories]. Both user attention and order rate are well balanced.

2. 1 Yuan Wish

It is essentially a lottery event, and the prerequisite is to invite friends to help. The overall packaging is in the form of winning a wish prize for 1 yuan, which is full of gimmicks.

3. Luckin Coffee

The biggest difference between Luckin's model and other communities is that Luckin is mainly based on offline stores, so when promoting the community, it attaches great importance to pushing to the corresponding stores, and feeding back offline traffic through online community operations.

After following Luckin Coffee’s personal account, customer service will push a link to a related Luckin new user activity + store group entry.

This store group push link has LBS (location based service) capabilities, which can directly display the QR code of the corresponding store after searching based on the user's location. Does anyone know how this function is implemented? That would be great!

There is a unified schedule for activities within the community. As shown in the figure below, the activities are concentrated before 3 o'clock (before users have afternoon tea), and the frequency is maintained at about one wave per hour;

The activities are mainly in the form of coupons (drink coupons), direct coupons, flash sale coupons, invitation coupons, lottery coupons, live broadcast coupons, and various other options. In addition to this fixed activity content, other activities of WeChat mini-programs + official Weibo + official public accounts will also be distributed in the group (such as forwarding Weibo to win a free meal, etc.).

In addition to the above activities, Luckin also attaches great importance to the output of cultural content within the group.

4. Yuanqi Forest

Yuanqi Forest, an internet-famous beverage that has gained popularity with the concepts of “sugar-free” and “low-calorie”, also has its own style in new social media gameplay.

1. Welfare countdown (last 22 items)

In addition to the product promotion graphics and texts, we added a countdown warning for stock availability (“Last ## copies” is written on almost every product recommendation graphic), creating an atmosphere of shortage of stock and a rush to buy if you order now.

2. Get it for free for 0 yuan

The more common invitation support model is that you can get limited products by inviting a specified number of friends, and the first few people invited can receive other products. Even in the absence of purchasing demand, it is still possible to achieve good in-group activity and user fission.

The requirements for the activity in the picture are quite high, and 35 people need to be invited. This may be because the prices of the gifts are quite high. I usually take the initiative to participate with around 5 people, and I will be very satisfied if I can get a small sample. The requirements are too high, which is very difficult for people with social anxiety, so I will ignore the activity directly.

3. Unboxing comparison between the new and old versions

I think simply unboxing a product may not inspire reading, but unboxing of new and old versions, large and small versions can catch users' attention.

4. Group-exclusive in-app purchases

When a new member joins the group, the system automatically sets the reply content to be "Introduction to special community activities + In-app purchase price of main products". This is the clearest and most concise first reply so far. It directly tells the group members the benefits of joining the group, rather than waiting for the users to ask the confusing question "Is this group just for promoting products?" The in-app purchase price is a preferential price exclusive to the group, giving users a certain group identity recognition.

5. Lilbetter

lilbetter is a Chinese original designer brand founded in March 2011. Lil means small, and Better means better.

1. Share the 10,000 yuan red envelope

The form of sharing red envelopes is more common on e-commerce platforms, and there are fewer red envelope activities in communities, but lilbetter is very good at it. By inviting friends to add customer service WeChat, you can share the red envelopes. The prize pool is advertised to be very large, but the number of places and quantities that can be collected each day is limited, so the duration of the event can be appropriately extended. And more importantly, because there is no shipping cost, the cost of attracting new customers through red envelopes will be lower than directly giving away gifts.

2. Clearance sale

Special clearance areas (less than 50% off) are the most common form of promotion for clothing during the seasonal transition period. The prominent display of discount numbers is very attractive.

3. Cashback

Another way to use red envelopes is to return them after receiving the goods. On the one hand, it increases the probability of consumers placing orders, and on the other hand, it can simultaneously increase the evaluation rate.

VI. Conclusion

The above-organized activity forms are for your reference when practicing specific community activities. However, the specific effect of the activity still depends on the brand attributes, product orders, user preferences, etc. The activity is not absolutely good or bad. Therefore, you still have to take the initiative to try more, try more first, and then summarize more.

A small conclusion: The key factor in online event operations (whether e-commerce or social networking) is to attract user attention and gain user "attention, participation, purchase, and repeat purchase" through "discounts/low prices/red envelopes/gifts/flash sales" and other means. Before I organize an event, I usually think about whether I would participate in it. If I am willing to participate, then I will continue to delve into the design. Don't just do it for the sake of doing an activity.

A strange phenomenon: We often say that we should make users active in the group, but I find that the more users discuss in the group, the more people will leave the group; and correspondingly, the high frequency of information push by the group owner will not necessarily have an offensive effect of causing people to leave the group. Therefore, I predict that users who join this type of brand sales group are mainly looking forward to benefits and activities. Therefore, there is no need to blindly pursue the activity rate of group users.

Author: Mu Mu Jin

Source: Wood Violet