The secret code of Weibo "stalk" marketing traffic

Farewell and longing for the distant past, breaking willow branches to express feelings, the just-concluded Winter Olympics may be the first Winter Olympics that most Chinese audiences watched seriously. From the International Down Jacket Exhibition, to Bing Dwen Dwen and Shue Rhon Rhon, from the frog princess Gu Ailing winning the championship in succession to Meng Zhu's commentary, hot topics surrounding the Winter Olympics are endless. One can't help but marvel that the speed at which the topic changes is faster than that of skeleton.

I believe that #Gu Ailing's competition uniform has a Chinese dragon behind it#, #Ren Ziwei wore shark skin#... Every topic of the Winter Olympics is still vivid in our minds. The concentrated heat and attention in these hot spots have affected the emotional ups and downs of the majority of netizens. We found that the Internet memes derived from these hot topics have become the traffic code for brands to get closer to users and win attention.

Faced with fragmented information and attention, "memes" are the most easily spread social currency in modern society, especially among young people, and are also the biggest communication lever. "Accepting memes", "creating memes" and "playing with memes" are undoubtedly the "fast lane" for brands to enter the social context.

However, "the Internet has memory", and all content remaining on the Internet will be accumulated into brand social assets. Many Internet memes have evolved over time and have been integrated into the brand's DNA, becoming an exclusive way of communication between the brand and its users: for example, Kindle's "Instant Noodle Incubator", Alibaba's "Zoo", Tencent's "Silly Goose", and so on. In these traffic codes, we can get a glimpse of how brands can use "meme marketing" to achieve user interaction, brand awareness and favorability in the current public opinion field and with the rise of Generation Z.

01 Information fragmentation, “stalk” marketing quickly goes viral

In the era of social networks where everyone is a media, brands have become a new phenomenon in the social media era because they are seen, discussed, and because of the influence of memes such as picking up, creating, and playing with them.

The just-concluded Winter Olympics provided the best example. I still remember the most popular emoticon package at last year's Olympics - Wu Jing is still popular, and Wang Meng, who is the most capable of making fun of this year's Winter Olympics, has emerged again. The phrase #My eyes are the ruler# made the Migu Video APP the biggest dark horse in this year's Olympics. On the night when the Chinese short track speed skating team won the gold medal, Wang Meng's professional and highly personal live commentary made #王蒙解说# an instant hit, with 1.3 billion reads and 310,000 discussions, pushing the atmosphere of discussion on the entire Winter Olympics to its highest point.

Subsequently, with the enthusiastic participation of netizens, various videos, pictures, emoticons and golden sentences about Wang Meng's commentary were quickly released. Wang Meng was on 7 hot searches in a row, attracting media reports, forming a closed loop for Wang Meng to become popular. Netizens have expressed that they were attracted by Wang Meng's commentary. During the Winter Olympics, the Migu Video APP soared to the second place on the Apple store download list, and even fed back to China Mobile, directly raising its stock price.

Another example of a domestic brand, Fenghua, using marketing techniques to help brands break out of their circle of followers in recent years is this one.

A netizen accidentally discovered that there were no Fenghua products in the local supermarket, so he asked the brand in the live broadcast room. The rumor that "Fenghua is going to go bankrupt" spread like wildfire, and netizens began to buy crazily to support domestic products. The topic #We’re trying our best to keep Fenghua from going bankrupt# was made a hot search on Weibo by netizens, followed by #Will Fenghua be the next Hongxinger? Hot search terms such as #, #Fenghua has no record of punishment in 36 years since its establishment# This prompted the official Weibo account of Fenghua to respond that Fenghua is in its prime and domestic products are stronger.

Although this wave of hot memes originated in the brand’s own live broadcast room, it has been continuously “magnified” and “seen” on Weibo.

In order to prevent it from going bankrupt, netizens gave the brand many suggestions, and Fenghua’s response was exactly “Every word they say is about poverty, but not about poverty.” With the joint participation of different entities, Fenghua's "crying poor marketing" has made the topic continue to gain popularity, and has been certified as a hot event, becoming a magical "phenomenal" level marketing. According to Fenghua officials, they sold 20,000 orders in one day during the period when the topic was hot, which is the normal monthly sales volume.

By reviewing the cases, we can find that whether it is the Olympics that attracts nationwide attention, or the rise of domestic products, Weibo has become the most direct entry point for netizens to express their emotions.

Weibo is not only the "source of hot memes" but also the "fuel of new memes". Even if the "memes" are generated on other platforms, they are usually connected to a wider group through Weibo. It is like a big fish pond with surging flow, and the "梗" is the most easily seen fish in this fish pond. On Weibo, "梗 marketing" is a youthful social method that allows brand content to be spread quickly, stimulates interaction and multi-directional feedback among different circles and roles, enables the brand to quickly gain popularity, and forms a unique product language and unique value for the brand on social media.

02From strong traffic attack to two-way rush

Luo Zhenyu, the founder of Duoduo, once proposed the concept of total national time, pointing out that the competition in the second half of the Internet has shifted from seizing users to seizing users' time. Under the premise that people’s time is limited, what they are competing for is not only traffic, but also users’ limited time. Contents such as "memes" and "jokes" that convey social emotions are precisely the tools for brands to seize users' time and attention. Through diversified outputs such as picking up memes, creating memes, and playing with memes, brands can quickly attract users' attention and allow users to be involved in the brand building process in the easiest way and to the greatest extent, allowing brand building to evolve from a simple and crude "traffic attack" to a "two-way rush" that resonates with the entire nation.

Taking stock of the most popular memes in 2021, it has to be Mixue Bingcheng, whose viral theme song brainwashed the entire Internet.

As soon as the magical MV was released, the topic #Is this a new song from Mixue Bingcheng# on Weibo became the number one hot search, with over 600 million readings of related topics. There were also derived Mixue Bingcheng emoticon packages, etc. Some netizens even dug out the scenario setting of the IP image Snow King released by Mixue Bingcheng last year. They were all "split-minded" and "double-standard", complaining about its "rustic" image while being keen on playing with memes, which invisibly did a wave of brand promotion for Mixue Bingcheng.

Young people have a strong ability to play with memes and to accept and spread new things. If brands want to get close to and become friends with young people, they need to make good use of these characteristics of young people.

The official Weibo account of Mixue Bingcheng posted a timely update, "I'm dying of laughter. Netizens are so talented," actively responded to and interacted with the majority of netizens, and even launched an event to let netizens participate in covering Mixue Bingcheng's brainwashing songs, which greatly promoted the brand's popularity.

On social media platforms, magical MVs are no longer just a marketing move for a brand, but have become a tool for creating and playing with memes for national entertainment. Around the "meme" of Mixue Bingcheng, the brand has continuously magnified its insights and grasped the "emotions". The "meme" has become the currency of current mind and attention, and is a new "payment method" for contemporary netizens.

If Mixue Bingcheng's behavior was a deliberate act planned and initiated by the brand itself, then Erke's popularity was completely discovered by Weibo netizens and was a classic example of "meme" marketing. It was a real "two-way rush" between netizens and brands.

Mengniu, a national brand, uses various memes to "tease" users, allowing them to actively participate in the brand's content marketing and develop a favorable impression of the brand in an unconsciously joyful atmosphere.

As the spokesperson for Mengniu, every appearance of Gu Ailing is also the best moment for brand exposure. As soon as the news of Gu Ailing's competition was exposed, Mengniu took Gu Ailing's Big Day as an opportunity to issue a "heroic call" #Mengniu invites talented people to do talented things#, soliciting creative copy about Gu Ailing, and at the same time requiring the copy to be in line with Mengniu's brand spirit of "Born to be Strong".

A million-dollar prize, creativity for Gu Ailing, and a natural strong character... these factors directly hit the netizens' high points and triggered their enthusiastic participation. In three days, nearly 3,000 submissions were received, which not only brought exposure and topicality to the brand, but also deepened users' impression of the brand and won consumers' attention to the brand.

It is not difficult to see from these hot topics that brands choose Weibo as the hub of the entire marketing chain because they value the close relationship between Weibo and users. By connecting users from different circles through the Weibo space, brands can cleverly transform conventional piggyback marketing into a whole-network event, providing netizens with the opportunity to participate in "major social projects" and finding an outlet for them to vent their social emotions.

For brands, creating "梗" can effectively carry down-to-earth secular culture, making serious and official brand accounts instantly become friendly and flesh-and-blood, and can also turn hard advertisements into emotional connections with users; at the same time, the "梗"'s own communication characteristics such as extensibility and replicability can allow brands to co-create value with users in the shortest and fastest way, actively participate in the brand life management cycle, and help brands achieve comprehensive occupation from traffic to mind.

03Instant effects become brand social assets

The emergence of a meme is often accompanied by certain social hot spots, so it has a life cycle. By connecting with and playing with memes, consumers’ memories of memes can be transformed into memories of the brand. Whether it is possible to continue the popularity and create new memes, turn short-term exposure into brand social assets, and continue to have an impact on users is a greater test for brand marketing.

To accumulate brand social assets, brand personalization is a key step. As Philip Kotler, the father of marketing, said, a successful personalized brand image is its best public relations, which can promote a closer relationship between the brand and consumers and gradually deepen consumers' feelings for the brand and its inherent culture.

Weibo official accounts provide brands with a window to communicate with consumers and are the best choice for brands to establish their social persona. Although opening an official Weibo account is a standard for almost all brands, being able to form an official Weibo account with a distinct personality can be said to be a rare commodity. In this regard, Lao Xiang Ji, which frequently appears on hot searches, can be said to have achieved the ultimate.

Lao Xiang Ji’s official Weibo account is nicknamed “Chicken Claws”. When it has no content, it only needs to “cluck” every day. Such a seemingly meaningless push was very popular, frequently making jokes and attracting enthusiastic comments from many netizens. In the comment section of Lao Xiang Ji's Weibo, one can often see netizens interacting and joking with Lao Xiang Ji. Lao Xiang Ji’s method of fooling people even led to a confrontation between Chairman Shu Congxuan and the editor of the fooling company. #The easiest job ever# and #Study for Confusion# directly topped the trending searches. The official Weibo account’s self-indulgent attitude established the editor’s “deceptive personality” and also made Lao Xiang Ji quickly popular, becoming a celebrity in the catering industry that is deeply loved by young people.

Another typical representative is Hema. As a member of the "Ali Zoo" with distinct personalities, Hema's personality has been firmly established in the midst of "embarrassing temporary failures but always being on the hot searches".

Do you still remember that Hema was on the hot search because of giving away watermelons in a lucky draw? The lucky draw post was originally published to increase followers, but unexpectedly, the number of reposts on Weibo soared because of a sentence "For every 10 reposts, you will get an extra pound of watermelon". When "Creation Camp 4" was on the air, contestant He Ma withdrew from the competition, and many netizens were heartbroken and indignant. Hema took advantage of the situation and posted a Weibo post: "The weather is getting cold again, let's have a hotpot together, let's start with Penguin 778." It captured and catered to the inner emotions of netizens in a timely manner, and gained a wave of goodwill.

In addition to taking advantage of hot topics, HEMA also made full use of the Blue V linkage on Weibo, identifying the connection points, banding together for warmth, and jointly working to strengthen its personal labels.

In 2021, in order to cooperate with the Double 12 event theme - "Good Food Comes in Pairs", HEMA Fresh changed the name of its original official social account from "Hema" to "Hehema Ma". Later, "Hehemama" found that the ID "Hema" had been occupied and could not be changed back. Many blue Vs including Xtep, Tmall, Xianyu, Ele.me, Canban, and AutoNavi were directly "ridiculed" by the group, and #Hema's nickname cannot be changed back# became a hot topic. Weibo's unique social media attributes provide a variety of interactive methods for brand marketing. Brands have a main social battlefield on Weibo. Through the "1+N" blue V matrix communication model, brands work together to improve their "social persona", achieve product-level marketing and conversion on Weibo, and multiply the volume of communication.

Whether it is fancy lucky draw forwarding or leveraging marketing, brands can operate through official accounts and cleverly use meme marketing to quickly grasp the traffic code of social platforms, leverage the maximum communication lever, improve brand perception, and accumulate brand social assets. On the other hand, brands are constantly improving themselves through user interactions and cultivating more loyal fans with high stickiness.

04 Conclusion

The bible of marketing, "Positioning", once mentioned that your brand is your relationship with your customers.

In the current context, no other media can match Weibo's ability to connect brands and users. Compared with other new media social platforms, Weibo has both media attributes and user open co-creation attributes. Its content browsing mode of pictures, texts, videos and social networking gathers user opinions and forms a public opinion field effect. Users on Weibo can participate in discussions on the same topic for a longer period of time by forwarding and commenting. This allows some hot events to be widely followed and discussed on the Weibo platform, thus forming hot topics across the internet, spreading and spawning new topics, making it a "hot public opinion field" and a "human meme machine."

At the same time, the public opinion field on Weibo, where everyone can participate, can accommodate various topics covered by brand marketing. Driven by the "social + hot spots" feature, brands can directly "get involved" and watch real-time hot searches with friends, create real-time memes, and effectively weaken the oppressive psychology that advertisements bring to the public through the entertainment effect of "memes". Allow users to actively participate in the expression of brand marketing content and outline a youthful image of the brand on social platforms.

In the context of increasingly expensive traffic costs, "梗" to some extent plays the role of a hotspot detector. At present, brands without "梗" find it difficult to attract users' attention.

Whether from the perspective of continuously breaking the circle and attracting new fans, or from the long-term strategic perspective of accumulating brand assets, the process of brand value creation requires connecting with users to the greatest extent possible and giving the brand social attributes and personal charm. Learning to "pick up the meme", "play with the meme" and "create the meme" is definitely the most appealing way for brands to enter the social media arena and accumulate brand social assets in the current context of mobile Internet.