4-step method for private domain traffic community

Private domain traffic , or private domain traffic pool, was first proposed by Alibaba in 2018: traffic is divided into public domain traffic and private domain traffic. Therefore, private domain traffic was originally just a concept in the field of social e-commerce. Later it gradually evolved into what we are familiar with.

Compared with public domain traffic, private domain refers to channels that can directly reach users at any time and frequency without paying, such as self-media, user groups, WeChat accounts, etc., which are the circles that KOC (key opinion consumers) can reach.

If you still don’t understand what I said, let me put it in simpler terms. In fact, the private domain thing is nothing new. It’s just a change of concept.

For example, everyone should know the membership system, right? It can be said that almost all membership systems are basic forms of private traffic! Private domain traffic simply increases members' in-depth business awareness on this basis.

1. Community Operation of Private Domain Traffic

The concept of private domain traffic can be big or small. We will not talk about anything too grand today. We will use community operation as the entry point to expand on it one by one.

What is a community? Community is a vehicle that emphasizes the relationships between people. It is important to note that: WeChat group = carrier ≠ community, or in other words, WeChat group is just a type of community. The community covers a wide range, for example: public account content operation, mini-program service carrier, personal circle of friends creation + one-on-one private chat, WeChat group event planning, etc.

What level a community can achieve depends largely on your target audience. The size of your audience determines your ceiling.

Common communities can be divided into: traffic communities, conversion communities and organizational communities

Traffic-based communities : such as product welfare groups, groups established by providing free information, etc. This type of group has low operating costs and is a relatively efficient means of attracting private domain traffic. It is widely used by many beauty and online training companies, such as Perfect Diary, GSX, etc.

Its core operating idea is to treat the community as a traffic channel and achieve further conversion through copywriting. In actual work, an operator often manages dozens or even hundreds of groups at the same time. After all, for operators, these groups are just a free advertising channel.

Transformational communities: most common are general education and training institutions. The core idea is: prepare some attractive things, such as trial classes, operational materials, etc., to achieve conversion through experience classes + community services. The characteristics of this type of group are short, frequent and fast communication. A trial class is used as an inducement to establish a group link, and then there will be dedicated customer service in the group to urge students to attend classes, assign homework, etc. After the course is over, for interested customers, the operator will have one-on-one private chats for further communication.

Organizational community: This can be considered as a further step towards creating a transformational community. It generally includes product groups, student groups (those who have registered for a course), knowledge payment groups, and some online + offline organizational communities. This type of community generally features a warm and visionary learning atmosphere, and enhances community cohesion through so-called altruistic thinking. Focus more on the long-term value of users and the connections between members.

The above three types of communities basically cover all the ways of playing private domain traffic communities on the market. At most, they are just called differently. No matter which social media gameplay is used, there is no difference between high and low for enterprises, only whether it is suitable or not.

After understanding how to play private domain communities, let’s take a look at how to operate them specifically. Many times when we operate a community, we use activity as the criterion, but in fact not all communities need to be active. In other words, the activity of a community should be divided into two parts: one is whether the company needs to be active, and the other is whether the users need to be active?

From this table we can see that not all communities must be active. For example, e-commerce sales groups are most useful as traffic channels. When there are new products or promotional items, links can be posted in the group to achieve an advertising effect.

Another example is some educational fission groups, whose key role is to quickly find potential users through the community by offering trial classes as incentives, or to use the community as a base point to achieve fission of course sales through a distribution model, etc.

As for communities that need to be active, by observing all the communities currently on the market, we can find that the most typical case is: joint study groups! This type of group is suitable for almost all industries to attract new customers and convert them.

Why are these groups the most active? First of all, it is naturally because the scope of the group here is the highest. Secondly, no matter what industry it is, it can be packaged into a so-called learning and progress group. Finally, the learning group has the most ways to play, and almost all community gameplay you can think of is applicable.

I have joined many study groups and found that many so-called joint study groups have the following problems:

1. The group has no positioning (that is, the packaging is not done well), and there will be a lot of enthusiasm in the early stage of joining the group, but it will often die in the later stage;
2. Many learning groups have no threshold, which leads to a large number of users not paying attention to the community;
3. Without good content planning, people will either spam the screen or chat nonsense in the group, and eventually they will unconsciously block such groups.

2. Four-step method for community operation

After talking about the theoretical knowledge of communities, let’s talk about the issue that everyone is most concerned about: how to operate the community gameplay of private domain traffic? !

Step 1: Design

The first step of the four-step community operation method is design, which involves designing the group’s vision, rights, and thresholds.

Before creating a community, the operator must first clarify the goal of creating the group, the rights and interests of users after entering the community, and the threshold for users to join the community.

(1) Vision

Every company has a vision, and so does a community. You can understand it as the slogan we often say, such as: Douyin’s "Record a beautiful life" and so on.

Among so many types of communities, Pi Ye found that the best ones are WeChat business communities. They often shout out a slogan that makes people full of yearning to gather users, such as: "You can still be the pillar of the family without going to work!", "2 hours a day, achieve your financial freedom", etc. So the so-called design vision, in a broad sense, is to use a certain point to unite social groups, and in a narrow sense, it is a slogan that attracts people at first sight.

(2) Equity

Equity usually includes three parts: content, social and service:

• Content rights are to provide users with exclusive and scarce content, such as the price of a specific exclusive product, a course trial, etc.
• Social benefits are to help users connect to certain social activities through social groups, such as resources and connections. The most common ones are recruitment groups, blind date groups, business cooperation groups, etc.
• Service rights are to solve certain needs of users, such as student Q&A groups, after-sales service groups, takeaway ordering groups, etc.

(3) Threshold

The biggest taboo in community operation is actually operation without any threshold. Setting thresholds can not only filter out non-target users, but also maximize user cooperation.

The most common design of community threshold is price, that is, there is a fee to join the group. It is most commonly used in knowledge-based paid communities.

The setting of a price threshold can help the operation team clarify the commercial value of the community and obtain sufficient costs for maintenance. Most importantly, it can provide greater room for imagination for subsequent profits. For users, because of the price threshold, they will have enough expectations. The advance preset will make users willing to spend more time, and because of the sunk costs, users can continue to persist.

In addition to price, the threshold design can also include identity thresholds, action thresholds, etc. For example, the identity threshold means that you need to have a certain identity to join a group, such as a car owner group, alumni group, supplier group, etc. As the name suggests, the action threshold requires users to complete a certain action before they can join the group, such as submitting an application, forwarding an event poster, filling out a research report, etc.

Regardless of the type of threshold design, its core function is similar, which is to screen target users and at the same time let users cherish the taboos of joining the group, thereby improving cooperation. Moreover, users who meet a certain threshold to join the group are more likely to establish relationships with each other.

Step 2: Build member institutions and member relationships

It is undeniable that the community is actually a microcosm of society and also a small gang. Therefore, the community needs to build an organization, and the strength of community relationships = the strength of interest relationships + the strength of emotional relationships.

Therefore, it is important to note that community organizations are not limited to the relationship between group owners and group members. We can roughly divide community members into the following 8 categories:

1. The person in power (group owner) has the highest management position in the community and can be said to be the soul of the entire community. What needs to be noted here is that real power does not equal mighty power. Don’t let the group owner have the final say in the group, especially in a group that advocates sharing.
2. There can be multiple butlers (administrators) depending on the total number of group members. The steward is the true organizer of the community. His core job is to maintain the daily management of the community and serve the community members. In the best social relationships, the chief steward and the group owner can "check and balance" each other;
3. Hidden boss. It is best for any community to have a hidden boss. It is the backbone of community content and has a certain authority in terms of content and knowledge. This authority is reflected in the fact that diving still has enough deterrent power;
4. The backbone elites are different from the hidden bosses. The backbone elites are relatively active and have a certain degree of persuasiveness in their professional fields. The backbone elites can be said to be the core contributors to the community’s value content;
5. Every community should have such a member, who is mainly responsible for adjusting the atmosphere of the community. He can be nonsensical, lively and humorous. If this kind of member is a user, the effect is of course the best. However, in the early stage, the company can let its own people play the role, and of course it is best to be a female role. As for the reason, I think everyone understands;
6. The spectators, followers of the community, active members. When hidden bigwigs or core elites publish valuable content, we provide unconditional support. You can also interact when the group pets are joking;
7. Lurking parties and fill-in-the-blank crowds. It is generally more reasonable to control the number of people in a community to around 200. But even so, you don’t require all 200 people to be active. Generally, it is enough to have around 20-30 active people every day. Every community has its share of lurkers and people who just come to make up the numbers. This type is different from the spectators. They are not as active and will not interact all the time, but they can be activated under certain conditions. Therefore, this type of members should agree with the community value, so they need to have a certain ability to distinguish themselves from non-target groups;
8. Reactionaries, there is no doubt that this type of people are those who doubt the value of the community and challenge the rules, such as posting advertisements and information about other similar competing products in the group. There is no need to hesitate for this type of members, and don't expect to change them, just give them plane tickets.

The above 8 types of members may not be needed in all communities, nor are they limited to these categories. For example, there are also the following:

But if you observe carefully, you will find that any excellent community will have these 8 types of members. When creating a group, the operator needs to design the member structure. The eight types of members must be matched in a certain proportion. Sometimes one person will have multiple identities, and sometimes the identities of members can be converted into each other.

Step 3: New users join the group to break the ice

The first day after a new user joins a group often determines the member’s future level of activity in the community, so operators should pay special attention when designing ice-breaking activities for new users.

• The group owner’s personal endorsement = emotional account. Many learning and knowledge sharing groups often use a big name to attract traffic and build groups. For example, the operation circles and three classes mainly rely on operation masters such as Xiaomayu and Huang Youcan as selling points to attract traffic through personal IP packaging;
• WeChat group name, never underestimate the group name, an excellent group name can often attract people at the first time. The name of the group is generally determined by two dimensions: clear theme, clear style, and arousing curiosity, or clear theme, clear interest points, and clear gameplay, such as Baidu network disk sharing group, XX community vegetable garden group, etc.
• There are many techniques for designing group rules. I won’t elaborate on them here. Just remember that they should not be too long or too complicated.
• The first 20 messages in the group. Generally, the first 20 interactive messages after a new member joins the group are important conditions for the user to decide whether to be active in the group. Therefore, personalized welcome messages, red envelopes for new members to greet them, etc. are usually set here. This requires operators to determine it based on their own company.

Step 4: Maintain activity through column-based operations

Column-based operation means treating the community as content operation, by dividing it into sections and then filling in appropriate content in different sections. For example, the most common ones are morning and evening reports. Many groups will share some information and news in the group at a fixed time in the morning and evening; there are also fixed times every week for online knowledge sharing or answering of group members' questions, etc.

Let’s briefly talk about the first three:

(1) Push of information and consultation

It depends on the attributes of the community, usually once in the morning or once in the evening, and can be achieved using an operation robot. The push of this type of information and consultation can increase the value of the community and enhance users' dependence on the community. However, this type of consultation should not be sent too frequently, generally 1 to 2 times a day is sufficient.

(2) Social sharing

It is best to share on the social network at a fixed time, such as 20:00 every Saturday night. A fixed time can help users develop a habit. For operators, in addition to fixed time, community sharing also needs to be planned in advance, from determining the topic, warm-up to the final summary, etc. It is best to form an SOP.

In addition, social sharing cannot be done for the sake of sharing. When making plans, you need to think clearly about who will share. What do (big names in a certain field, group leaders, etc.) share? (Product usage, new media operation plan, etc.) Why share? (Link resources, brand exposure, talent attraction, etc.) These three issues. Many learning and knowledge sharing communities often like to use topic crowdfunding to determine sharing topics:

The advantage of this is that by collecting topics, you can not only warm up the sharing session in advance, but also mobilize the enthusiasm of members.

Finally, it should be noted that no matter whether it is a theme sharing or a topic discussion, a summary needs to be made at the end, and the valuable content shared/discussed should be shared in the group so that those members who did not participate can also enjoy the value sharing. This summary can be a collection of content or in the form of publishing tasks/assignments:

(3) Community consultation

In fact, it is to answer the questions of members in the community, such as confusion in product usage, problems encountered during the learning process, etc. The so-called community consultation is basically the same as community sharing. The only difference is that the former is more user-oriented (it can be the questions of most members, and then answered in a unified manner, or a member can be the initiator and the group owner can be the host, inviting other members to participate in the discussion), while the latter is arranged according to the plan of the community operator.

The process of community consultation can be simply divided into:

Different companies and industries will have different approaches to community content columnization. The key is to select appropriate content for refinement rather than pursuing the pursuit of more content.

For example, communities like group buying and e-commerce product promotion groups do not need to select historical content (after all, there is no need to make a collection of products that have already participated), but they need to plan some activities frequently; while communities like learning and knowledge sharing do not need event planning, and they need to think more about thematic discussions, historical content selections and other column content.

The above are the four steps for community operation of private domain traffic. There are not too many specific ways to play or routines, and it seems very simple, but it is the core foundation of all community operations. Many operators and companies will excessively pursue various gameplays and routines, but if the foundation of a community is not well built, no matter how good the gameplay is, it will not last long.

Private domain traffic is not simply about adding WeChat, posting advertisements, and browsing Moments. No matter what industry you are in, it is obviously not feasible to simply copy and paste the various social networking methods on the market.

If you want to play the community of private domain traffic well, the key is to find and understand the core points of fit of users. This point of fit is the foundation, just like the article that Pi Ye shared today, it is just a foundation and does not introduce too much specific gameplay. But it is applicable to community operations in almost all industries. The so-called various gameplays and routines, in fact, are simply to use all kinds of methods to strengthen the relationship with users and ultimately realize commercial value through this trust relationship.

Author: Pi Ye Operation

Source: Pai Ye Operation (pyyunying)