Reusable community operation + live broadcast process!

Due to the impact of the epidemic in 2020, many companies were forced to transform online. Even some companies that have always insisted on traditional offline operations began to contact online in order to find new opportunities and not be eliminated by the times. They tried to open up a new business model online.

The online platforms we usually talk about can be roughly divided into:

• Website/Community
• Own App or Mini Program
• WeChat/QQ

The first two types are actually basically only aimed at companies that already have online sectors. For a company that wants to transform online from scratch, it still needs to take time to understand.

As for WeChat, it is currently a national-level social product. Almost everyone has a WeChat account, and the account has gradually become an important symbol for people to represent their identity online. For companies, the traffic on the WeChat system is also where these companies want to get a piece of the pie, and it can also be understood as the main battlefield for online market competition.

The best way to achieve conversion on WeChat is to create a group, gather customers in a group and then focus on operating the community to achieve online conversion of the community.

However, if you simply do some operational maintenance in the group, it will be difficult for customers to feel the value of the product and the content of the product.

Therefore, in order to allow customers to better see and understand the products intuitively, or to gradually guide customers to convert and realize sales, the community + live broadcast method has become the path for these companies to achieve this goal.

Since the beginning of this year, we can see that many companies have begun to increase their online operations, especially for education companies. The online lectures and courses that are everywhere have become a regular part of learning and daily life for many parents and students at home.

From this year to now, I have given hundreds of live lectures of various sizes in the community. Below I would like to share with you some of my experience and suggestions on the operational direction of online live broadcasts, as well as my views on community live broadcasts.

However, due to the increasing quantitative change, some courses or lectures that were originally valuable have become cheap and numb in the eyes of many parents and students because of their frequent appearance and conduct.

Usually, a live broadcast in a community can be divided into three stages: publicity and guidance before the live broadcast - the host creating an atmosphere during the live broadcast - and traffic conversion after the live broadcast.

Let’s first talk about what you can prepare and what you need to do before the live broadcast:

1. Before the Live Broadcast

1. Pre-publicity

Generally, when sharing live broadcasts in social networks, an announcement should be made 3-5 days in advance. This not only informs the group of subsequent activities, but also gives us enough time to promote the live broadcast.

The longer the promotion time, the more data it can bring to the final result.

2. Warm up the night before the live broadcast

In addition to making the first announcement, you can warm up the event in the group the night before the live broadcast.

Find some internet trolls to raise some questions about the content of this live broadcast in the group, and then the staff will give some targeted answers, but don’t explain everything. You can respond to some small questions appropriately to pave the way for the live broadcast content of the next day and guide group members to watch the live broadcast the next day.

If it is an e-commerce live broadcast with products sold, for example, you can let the water army raise some questions in the group about the price direction of the products sold, and then you can say that there are many shocking prices in this live broadcast, and there are more benefits waiting for you during the live broadcast.

3. Announcement reminder + welfare notification of the day

If the live broadcast time is scheduled for the evening, then do another warm-up in the group at noon or 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon that day, such as the live broadcast process, live broadcast content or welfare direction.

Firstly, it can stimulate their enthusiasm and anticipation for the live lecture; secondly, it can remind users in the group of the specific time of the live lecture tonight so that they can allocate their time reasonably.

4. The 1-hour countdown creates an atmosphere

When the live broadcast countdown reaches 1 hour, you can send an announcement to count down and recall users in the group. A common way to do this is to add a continuation sentence at the end of the announcement, such as: "Tonight at 7 o'clock, I will watch the live broadcast to win the grand prize."

Then the internet trolls started to take over, motivating all group members to follow suit, further increasing the enthusiasm and atmosphere for live streaming in the group. Now that WeChat has been updated, announcements in WeChat groups can remind users to complete group announcements, which can better help operators to recall users.

5. Live broadcast opening link (red envelope + announcement)

After completing all four steps, the basic pre-live broadcast warm-up is basically done. The next step is to wait for the live broadcast to begin, which is also the most critical step.

If the chain contact of the opening live broadcast cannot reach everyone, then all the previous things done will be useless.

My suggestion here is to send a red envelope at the beginning of the live broadcast. The amount does not need to be large, but it is recommended to set a larger number. Then throw out the live broadcast link, the double bombardment of red envelope + live broadcast will be more guiding than sending out a pure live broadcast link.

2. Live Broadcast

1. Live broadcast host + scene control

Usually, a live broadcast requires both front-end preheating and control during the live broadcast.

If it involves using some live broadcast platforms, after the live broadcast starts, we still need to do some simple hosting in the live broadcast room, such as the lecturer introduction before the opening, control of the interactive session, and closing at the end of the live broadcast.

But this usually has a template. You can write a more comprehensive one, and then make slight modifications to the specific ones and then use it for all live broadcasts.

2. Question collection

For live broadcasts with interactive segments, the instructor will generally have a question-and-answer session during the process or near the end. At this time, the host needs to collect users' questions and then ask them to the instructor one by one in the live broadcast room.

But there are also some situations where the lecturer gives a direct answer, but this does not apply to all questions.

3. Broadcast live content

For a live broadcast group of 500 people, we certainly cannot guarantee that all 500 people will watch the live broadcast, but we can try to guide more people to watch through some of our methods in the process. In addition to the methods we just mentioned, we can also upgrade after the live broadcast starts.

For example, after the start, we take some "good-looking" screenshots of the process, and then forward them to groups or friends circles with text to guide those who have not watched the live broadcast to pay attention to the live broadcast and enter the live broadcast room.

The above are some of my suggestions and sharing before and during a live broadcast.

Another important point is that after the live broadcast, we need to do a wrap-up and diversion. For example, we can use the lecturer's PPT as bait to guide these users to settle on our personal account and official account.

Or if you are interested, you can record the live broadcast into a transcript and use it as bait to lure customers. The appeal of the transcript is usually more attractive to targeted customers.

After talking about some suggestions and operating procedures for live streaming, let’s talk about some classifications of live streaming.

Because each live broadcast and different companies have different purposes for doing a live broadcast. Some are to convert goods, some are to explore business opportunities and clues, and some want to drive traffic through live broadcast.

Each purpose is different, so we can make some targeted changes when operating in the community.

3. Live broadcast classification

1. Product conversion

For example, some e-commerce companies generally want to increase product sales through the combination of social media and live streaming. In this case, most of them probably use third-party platforms such as WeChat and Douyin to do live streaming to sell goods.

Because of the product showcase function, orders can be placed directly, and the anchor only needs to introduce the products and guide the ordering.

There are also some that use their own mini-program mall and other platforms, first introducing the product and the discount through live broadcast, and then sharing the order link of the product to the group for customers to place an order. This is generally just for conversions among customers within the community.

One thing to note is that if you are guiding orders in the community, then we can make full use of the function of the water army. When the product link is sent out, the water army can come out to highlight the value of the product.

For example, "I finally waited for the price of this product to drop, I must grab it this time." Provide value-added endorsement for this product to reduce the decision-making time for other customers to place orders.

2. Business Opportunity Mining

I think this type of thing may be more suitable in the education industry. By live lectures, you can attract customers to join the group, and then set up information registration for the lectures to obtain customer opportunities, and then make targeted phone follow-up visits and make conversions later.

This is generally applicable to products with a higher average order value. Because the decision-making cost is high, some preparation is needed in the early stages to convince parents and thus achieve conversion.

In addition to being able to collect information within the community, when the lecture link is released, internal colleagues can also share it in their circle of friends; especially if it is an educational enterprise or consulting teacher, their circle of friends is generally mostly clients, and certain business opportunities can be collected by sharing it in their circle of friends.

3. Live streaming distribution and traffic diversion

This usually means they want to bring in traffic through live streaming, and usually they will set a payment threshold for live streaming, such as 9.9, 19.9, etc., and then set a distribution commission. All the commission can be given out, and they only get the traffic.

Based on the interests and the temptation of live streaming, a group of self-media will be attracted to do distribution, and the relationship between the two is very clear: one wants to bring traffic through live streaming, and the other wants to bring revenue through live streaming distribution.

Apart from these professional "freeloaders", users who have paid for the live broadcast basically recognize the content of the live broadcast and the background of the instructor, which will also encourage most users to share spontaneously.

In addition to the live broadcast classification attributes we have just mentioned, there are actually other ways, such as monetizing through live broadcasts by big names, pure live broadcast services for members, etc. The methods are basically the same, but the purposes of the live broadcasts are different. There will be some targeted adjustments in some promotional methods and group operations.

IV. Conclusion

1. The quality of live broadcasts is more important than the quantity

Some people think that the more frequency the better, because they think that as long as the volume goes up, the live broadcast data will also go up. This is not the only evaluation here.

I think that if it is a live broadcast for your own customers, especially in the education industry, the frequency should not be too high. You can conduct a demand survey among your own customer base and plan targeted lecture content that the customers in the group really need. This will also reduce labor costs.

At the same time, if the frequency of live broadcasts is too high, such as a live lecture every two days, customers will become numb and will not cherish the live broadcasts that are broadcast regularly.

Due to the epidemic this year, all students can only stay at home to take online classes and listen to online lectures. Educational institutions have begun to focus on online activities. Live broadcasts and online classes can be seen everywhere, but in the later stages, how many people can be guaranteed to have a stable number of listeners in a lecture?

2. Operational preparation before live broadcast

It includes group operations, preheating, organization of publicity channels, etc., which is what we just said before. It is especially important for the countdown preheating on the day of the live broadcast.

Because it will determine the data results of the entire live broadcast, I usually organize it into a word document in advance, clearly mark what to do in each time period, and then write the words that need to be sent in advance, and then follow the SOP process directly when the time comes.

3. Group operations after live broadcast

A common problem in communities is “dead groups”, especially for groups established through live broadcasts. If the live broadcasts are done by some big brands, they may establish more than a dozen or even dozens of live broadcast groups at a time.

But once the event is over, the group is basically abandoned. The company only wants to make a one-time use of it, and it eventually becomes an advertising group, which is actually damaging to the brand's reputation.

Therefore, before the event, you can think about the subsequent operation stage of the group. If you just want to use it once, you can also create a flash group. When the live broadcast ends, the group will be disbanded immediately. This way, the reputation of your own brand will not be affected by the quick death of the group.

Author: Liu Zhixing

Source: LZX's study notes

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