Using QQ groups to explore user cold start growth

Some people may think that not many people use QQ anymore, so why should we make QQ.

Data from July 2019 showed that WeChat, Alipay and QQ, the three major national applications, ranked in the top three in MAU (monthly active users), with MAUs of 1.096 billion, 683 million and 569 million respectively.

The picture below is the data just captured. You can count that there are more than 200 million online users. This document mainly discusses how to expand users based on the QQ channel.

This article mainly discusses how to expand users (taking psychological counseling users as an example) based on the QQ channel.

It should be said that if we want to make good use of any channel, we must have a good understanding of the relevant functions of this channel.

This is equivalent to that if you want to play a game, you must have a better understanding and understanding of the rules itself. Only on this basis can we win the game.

If we don’t have such a foundation, then our occasional win is just luck; such a win cannot be replicated and is not transferable.

The preliminary work for large-scale promotion is to explore replicable, scalable and sustainable ways of acquiring customers. The customer acquisition channels must be cheap, accurate and controllable.

In addition to the large number of people, why was QQ chosen as the key channel at this stage?

Relatively speaking, QQ has advantages in forming groups. It is a social aggregation platform itself, and QQ groups naturally have a community effect. By attracting users from QQ groups that have already been formed by others, a lot of steps can be saved.

The users are very clear, but it cannot be ruled out that competitors may be added to the group. This can be found out through continuous operational monitoring. The QQ group formed by oneself has better control.

First use QQ as a breakthrough point, and then expand to other channels based on the knowledge content, methods, models, etc. accumulated by QQ.

The above is the reason and explanation for choosing QQ channel and purpose.

1. How to determine the QQ group theme

Every QQ group must have a group name, which is the theme of the QQ group.

Why do you say this first? This is the question of user positioning. What is user positioning? It means which users you want to serve.

Only when the user groups are clear, can we know how to better serve them, so it is necessary to clearly position the users.

There are more methods for user positioning, such as the scenario method - whether users have any similar usage scenarios, or have the same problems.

As for our platform, we will focus more on the same pain points, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, marital relationships, etc.

Combine the classifications sorted out earlier with the Baidu Index and the ranking of the number of Baidu related web pages, and choose the categories with higher rankings and weights first; because higher rankings and higher weights attract more attention, which is a more natural thing.

Then through the above work, we will have a priority for the QQ groups we need to form.

2. Preparation before forming a QQ group

After determining the theme of the QQ group, you also need to form a small team to be responsible for related matters.

• Who is the person in charge of this QQ group?
• Who are the people involved in recruiting members to this QQ group?
• Who is responsible for collecting the information - is it prepared properly?
• How should a psychologist prepare for this type of situation?
• Are the progress and goals clear?
• Which QQ combinations are mainly used?

3. Group building work

You can start building a group based on the clear identification of the main person in charge. The theme of the group has been determined, and the name of the group has been determined; when creating a group, some matters need to be paid attention to; doing these things well will be of greater help to the subsequent promotion of the group.

• Tap a contact first, then tap a group.
• Right click on the mouse to pop up the option to create a group, click to enter.
• Choose the QQ group category according to your own choice. It is best to choose hobbies and industry exchanges here.
• Fill in the information - click in and fill in according to the instructions. Note: You must fill in your interests. If you do not fill them in here, you cannot change them later. You can choose the interests within the content, but you can also enter them manually. It is best to enter those related to the group, such as depression, such as depression, psychology, etc.
• The group locations are selected in large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and other regions.
• Group name - group theme name, adding some long-tail symbols will help with search optimization (network recommendations).
• For group size, choose the largest size that can be built, which will be beneficial for later search rankings.
• Group joining verification - set a certain threshold, but not too high, such as "Why do you want to join the group?", it can be lenient to enter but strict to exit.
• After creating the group, upload about 5 pictures (beautiful scenery or other similar ones) and files (sorted out in this category in the early stage). Uploading materials will help improve the star optimization ranking.
• You need to set the relevant permissions for the group: a. Search method - set it to be searchable by group number and keywords; b. Set it as a pinned group; c. Joining the group requires answering questions and being reviewed; d. Invitation method - select No review required; e. Member information - select both; f. Access permission - non-group members cannot enter; g. Session permission - only allow group video, do not select any other. If you select any other, you will be pulled into the group or cause trouble.
• Editing information: a. Group label, that is, the keywords of the group, put as many as possible, related to this topic, you can use some keyword auxiliary tools - such as Jinhua, Baidu entries, etc.; b. Group introduction - compile a paragraph of text to introduce the group. These can increase the likelihood that the group will be retrieved by searches.
• Set up group administrators - who will be responsible for creating the group and which QQ numbers will be used.
• Try to find a group that can directly pull people in and mark it, then ask members who are involved in pulling people in to join and start pulling people in.

4. Join a group

1. Search and find groups

After entering keywords in the Add Group box, the searched group appears, with several filtering indicators on the right:

• Scope——Scope, you can search for related groups according to the geographical scope, for example, according to Chengdu, Sichuan, the lowest level is the city.
• Default - the default sorting method, such as the level of the group, etc.
• Number of people - the one with the most people goes first.
• Activity level: Those with higher activity levels in the group will be ranked first.

2. Join a group

Add a group. The entry conditions of the group are roughly divided into three categories:

• Automatically join;
• Identity verification;
• TOLL.

It goes without saying that you can join automatically, and you can temporarily not join if you have to pay. For those who need identity verification, you need to organize the words and prepare them in advance.

You can consider yourself a patient with depression, or pretend to be a family member. If you pretend to be a patient with depression, you can say: "I am a depressed person and hope to join a group to communicate and relieve symptoms"; if you are a family member: "Family member of a depressed person and hope to join a group to communicate and learn more"; if the question goes further, you may be asked to briefly describe a depression drug, such as what kind of medicine you take.

You can directly look up commonly used drugs for depression on Baidu Encyclopedia. Commonly used drugs include imipramine, amitriptyline, doxepine, and clomipramine.

3. Set up grouping

Right-click an existing group, click Add Group, edit the name of the group, and after adding it, right-click the added groups of the same type and move them to the newly created group.

4. Group message settings

If there are too many group messages, click on the group chat settings, as shown in the figure below, group message reminder settings, and select the message reminder mode.

5. Invite people to join the group

1. Create a group with strangers

Follow the process as shown below, step by step. It seems that it can only be operated on a mobile phone - the first step is to click the group member icon in the upper right corner of the QQ group chat.

As shown below, click the group member invitation button:

Click to select from group chat:

The following interface will appear. Search for the group chat you want to invite in the search box. If you search for keywords such as depression, all depression-related groups will appear.

As shown in the figure below, the relevant group will appear. Click the group name. If the group settings do not restrict adding group members, you can directly enter the group member list. If there are restrictions, you will be reminded.

Then all the people in the group will appear in a list format. Click the circle in front to select it.

QQ has a mechanism that allows you to add about 50 people every day, and there will be a limit if you add more than that; add about 15 people each time, in 3-4 times, and click Invite after selecting them.

Note: Take a quick look at who the group administrators are. Do not directly add a group administrator. Pay attention and do not add psychological counselors from other groups, such as those in the group that have a clear note that there is a counselor.

2. Create a group with acquaintances (friends)

Simply invite friends to join the group.

The purpose of formulating this QQ group operation rules:

• Maintain the normal operation of the group;
• Improve the activity of the group;
• To reserve seed users for later operational development;
• Rehearse in advance some problems that may exist in the later operations, and explore operation methods, including communication methods, topic search, and psychological knowledge reserves.

The following method is an initial method. If there is a better method, please propose it for improvement.

6. QQ Group Operation

1. Daily operations

1) Daily Greetings

Prepare philosophical content for the previous day before every Sunday. The content should be positive. If you cannot prepare it on the weekend, you need to prepare it before 8 o'clock. It is best to have pictures with QR codes and download links.

Send a message to the group around 8 am every day and @ everyone.

2) Daily sign-in is encouraged

It is recommended to sign in daily, stick to a habit, and cultivate a habit - exercise your willpower and self-control, and emphasize that this is helpful for recovering from the disease.

3) Daily topic guidance

According to the characteristics of each group, find appropriate topics and maintain a level of activity; but the topics must also be selected, with appropriate controversy but not too extreme, such as related news, tests, and choices.

2. Activities

1) Consultant Activities

• Every Tuesday: Initiate a discussion on the topic of that week’s activities, provide several options, and use group voting for everyone to choose.
• Wednesday: Results are tallied and topics are chosen on Wednesday evening.
• Every Thursday: Count the voting results, share the link for the week, share it in the QQ group, share it in the WeChat group, and distribute it on the official account.
• Weekend (Saturday or Sunday): Remind again on the day of the live event, and again 1 hour before the event starts. Prepare some topics in advance during the event and have some people cooperate.

2) Content organization and upload

Systematically organize knowledge about depression, select some content that is suitable for public disclosure, and put easy-to-understand content, tests, music, movie introductions, etc. into group files.

These contents can be downloaded and used by everyone, and are also preparations for later platform content; through the natural downloads of group members, we can estimate the content of interest and some later operational focus points.

Include platform-related introduction, QR code, logo, and download link in the uploaded document content.

3. Exception handling

1) Prohibited images and texts

If there are pornographic pictures or anything that is banned by the country, or involves political parties, religions, etc., the account will be directly banned, blocked, or kicked out.

2) Advertising

Warnings about ads or direct blocking may be given, depending on the ad and its severity. For competitive ads, direct blocking will be given and the content will be deleted.

3) External links

Look at the external links to see what kind of external links they are.

If it is normal pure knowledge about the group topic, it can be allowed. If it is of an advertising nature, it will be handled in the same way as advertising.

4. Others

The operation of QQ groups requires continuous improvement of skills and techniques. There are many things on the Internet that can be used as reference, and you should be familiar with some basic methods.

7. Copy group list

1) Click on a group where you are the group owner or member and click Settings in the upper right corner, or right-click the group in the QQ interface and select Member Management.

2) Enter the member management interface and click Advanced Management.

3) Click Advanced Management to enter the PC management interface of the group.

You can see the nickname, group name card, QQ number, gender, QQ age, joining time, level points, and last speaking time of all group members.

5) You can copy the three mentioned contents, select them with the mouse, or select all. It is recommended not to select too many at a time, a list of 200-300 is appropriate, and then create a new Excel table to paste; adjust the relevant formats, and add a group name and group number.

Directly paste the following effect diagram into Word; this data will be summarized later and can be used for user development and contact, such as email marketing.

8. Attract users to join the group automatically

1. QQ Group

Add a large number of QQ groups containing users. How to distinguish them has been mentioned at the top of the article. Upload some information to other QQ groups and add our own contact information, preferably in the form of a watermark; also adjust the file format to PDF, jpg or other unchangeable methods.

The uploadable materials include music, tests and some knowledge content.

2. Tieba

1) Analysis of depression-related forums

Tieba is a place where related people gather. For example, taking depression as a reference, the number of followers of the depression bar is about 260,000, the number of posts is 20.5 million, there are more than 600 featured posts, there are 30 posts per page, and there are 23 pages in total. For those with more than 200 replies, the number of featured posts divided by 5 is about 100.

The screenshots of Depression Bar are as follows:

The Depression Forum has more than 90,000 followers and about 3.74 million posts.

There are other depression-related forums, but they have fewer members and are not listed here.

2) Search for contact posts in Tieba

Many forums have special contact posts, in which you can see the contact information of relevant personnel, including QQ number, mobile phone number, and WeChat number.

When you find relevant contact information, record it in an Excel spreadsheet for later use.

3) Search for featured posts in Tieba

Best posts on Tieba:

Filter the number of replies, which is the number at the beginning of each post, and enter those that exceed a certain number. The number of replies is different from the number of views, and the number of replies is much smaller than the number of views.

After screening, go in and paste the pre-prepared text (including descriptive language and group number) on the first and second pages of the essence post, then on the middle one or two pages of the post, and on the last one or two pages. Don't paste too much, as it is easy to delete the post.

4) Post the best posts in Tieba

At present, the overall quality of articles in Tieba is not good. Most of them are popular science knowledge found on the Internet, netizens' personal cases, personal treatment sharing, and recovery sharing.

Based on the basic knowledge of the category that has been established, relevant knowledge can be published on Tieba to attract popularity and leave QQ group contact information, etc.

IX. Conclusion

The result of this method is that within about one month of part-time work, about three groups were established. The largest group had nearly 1,000 relatively accurate users, and the total number of the three groups was about 1,500.

In addition, I have joined nearly 200 related depression groups, with each group having about 600 members, and can reach 120,000 potential users; I can directly obtain the QQ numbers and QQ email addresses of 120,000 users, and do further email marketing in the future.

New marketing channels are constantly emerging, but some old channels (such as Tieba and QQ) are still valuable because of their large user base even if they decline. When promoting, we should not stick to any particular channel, but should focus on the cost-effectiveness of the channel.

Author: markzou

Source: markzou