Community operation SOP strategy!

SOP generally refers to standard operating procedure, which is the capitalization of the first letters of the three words Standard Operating Procedure. It refers to describing the standard operating procedures and requirements at a certain time in a unified format to guide and standardize daily work.

It can be said to be a label and synonym for the Internet industry.

It is most widely used in community operations .

For example, if we want to do a three-day conversion of three groups, we need to know when to create the group, what the group name should be, how to write the group announcement, how to set up the group welcome message, when to start inviting users, what kind of words to push after inviting users to the group, what kind of tasks to leave in the group, etc. All related matters, no matter how big or small, should be clearly marked in the table.

So that community operators can push information at specified time points (sometimes also by machine) to achieve conversion and management needs.

However, do you believe that someone would compile operational SOP sheets for various industries that seem useless but can help newcomers grow quickly?

Do you believe that there is someone who would carefully study more than 600 SOP sheets for more than 10 industries from beginning to end?

Perhaps, in traditional industries this would be considered crazy, stupid and weird!

But, I'm sorry, in the Internet industry, there is nothing these people can't do, as long as you can't think of it.

After all, people in the Internet industry can withstand 996, 007, and the 35-year-old crisis.

So, don’t be surprised that someone worked as hard as a ox to compile and organize these 600 SOP sheets, giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts!

Perhaps through these SOPs we can achieve rapid growth in GMV, or perhaps through SOPs we can rack our brains to think of more new marketing methods and new ways of playing, or it is possible that through SOPs we will be quickly and ruthlessly eliminated by this industry because we do not use the right methods.

So, how should we analyze and judge SOP, how to quickly discover the ideas and wisdom behind SOP, how can operators avoid the 35-year-old crisis, and whether to leave or stay in 2022 when layoffs are coming one after another?

I hope that my thoughts can give you more thoughts and references, and that we can think and progress together in the years to come! Of course, your comments are also welcome!

1. Thinking 1: The pros and cons of SOP

1. The value of SOP

As shown in the above picture taking the education industry as an example, if you have such an opportunity, you can quickly understand the operating methods of different companies in the industry, absorb the essence of friendly competitors, avoid shortcomings, and summarize operational ideas and methods that are in line with your own company.

In addition, SOP greatly improves the efficiency of executors through simple language, clear description, and fool-proof operation.

At the same time, due to the standardization and regularization of content, it is easier to maintain the brand image and reflect the professional image of executives, providing conditions and foundation for the rapid and wild growth of the Internet.

At the same time, SOP generally involves user psychological operations, product highlight display, brand position in the industry, standardized community or event operation procedures, etc.

Simple descriptions and clear expressions lower the threshold and make it easier for users to quickly understand and master a series of knowledge about an industry, brand, product, customer, etc., making it easier to accumulate knowledge in the shortest time possible.

2. Thinking behind it

The standardization and standards of SOP provide the conditions and foundation for the rapid development of enterprises.

However, due to the high degree of transparency in the Internet industry, the operating strategies of enterprises also lack moat protection.

Whether users or peers, they only need to purchase a product once or click on a company's program to quickly understand the brand's activities or community strategies. This cycle will inevitably lead to the need for operations and management personnel to constantly innovate and plan new tricks and new ways of playing, creating tremendous pressure.

At the same time, the normalization and standardization of SOPs have caused grassroots executors and users to lose their personalized expression in the process of participation, which makes them lack a sense of personal accomplishment or belonging.

Especially when we can't see clearly what the ideas and thinking behind these SOPs are. For example, the three-stage rocket model that I mentioned in previous articles that uses formulas to express growth, the universal model that uses tables to express activities, and so on, will be even more confusing and only give a superficial understanding.

This is also why many people are in the Internet industry, but they don’t like their jobs very much.

Although the Internet industry is a place where people come and go, it is generally not conducive to the long-term and healthy development of the industry.

2. Thinking 2: What characteristics should an excellent SOP have?

1. Characteristics of an excellent SOP

The rise of the Internet is not too long ago. When it comes to the operation and development of the Internet industry, we often have to cross the river by feeling the stones, and many methods are not replicable. Therefore, there is no particularly complete knowledge system in this industry.

Therefore, it is difficult for managers in traditional industries or newcomers in the Internet industry to have sufficient knowledge to evaluate the quality of SOP.

So, among the uneven plan materials, what characteristics should an excellent SOP have?

(1) Concise and professional

Sometimes, when we see an SOP sheet with dozens of pages, the rich content makes it difficult for us to understand and get started in a short period of time; while another SOP sheet, with only 3-5 simple pages, seems a little "unprofessional".

In fact, whether it is users or employees, simplicity is a basic physiological need, and simplified content is easier for the brain to remember and absorb; however, in addition to meeting the need for easy memory, the company's SOP also needs to meet the need for conversion.

This requires designers to comprehensively consider other aspects that are conducive to user conversion while maintaining simplicity.

For example, people's needs are often based on the existing stage.

People have three attitudes towards the current stage: satisfied, dissatisfied, and indifferent.

What we often see are actions such as building future expectations for satisfaction to achieve conversion, amplifying user pain points for dissatisfaction to achieve resonance to achieve conversion, and directly giving up without caring about one's current situation. These actions are based on human thinking and are professional expressions.

(2) Appropriate flexibility

I have seen too many companies that notify users, create groups, start campaigns, and convert users within one day. The people below are extremely busy, users are confused, but the management is proud of their high efficiency. Ultimately, it ruins the user experience and destroys the cohesion of the company.

Regarding moderate flexibility, reasonable space should be given in terms of time flexibility, operational flexibility and user flexibility.

For example, in terms of time flexibility, an event must be notified at least 2 days in advance, a group must be established 1 day in advance, and no less than 3 notifications must be made 12 hours in advance.

If a group is created and requested on the same day, not only will the operations staff be rushed, but users may also miss the opportunity to join the group due to being busy that day. Even if users join the group in time, there will be too much content in the messages to clearly identify the key points, resulting in untimely information delivery.

Operational flexibility means that during the operation process, managers must give operators certain powers to innovate and deal with emergencies.

At the same time, different operators can show their own personality. Let users feel the warmth of operators rather than the cold and distant feeling of machines.

3. Thinking 3: How should SOP adapt to the rapid changes in the environment?

From 2015 to 2022, in just seven years, we have experienced the social era, the self-media era, the public domain traffic era, the growth hacker era, the private domain traffic era, the short video era, the live streaming era, etc. Perhaps the public domain traffic era can be traced back further.

However, it is not difficult to find that the business environment is constantly changing rapidly, users' focus is constantly changing, and operating methods are also constantly changing. Companies that seized the opportunity and caught the trend have achieved their own takeoff.

As a regular, standardized, transparent and inflexible working method, is SOP suitable for the era of live streaming and selling goods? Should it also adjust and optimize itself according to the changes in the era of live streaming and selling goods?

As mentioned above, SOP likes to plan everything clearly, such as when to notify, how to notify, who to notify, what the next step is after the notification, and what actions to push at 7, 8, 12, 18, and 20 o'clock every day after inviting people to the group. These may be an efficient choice in the past era dominated by private domains and communities.

After all, SOP is more based on community management and operation, and the community is more of a private domain display. Live streaming is the most popular way for users to reach out, and it is a way to attract traffic.

Since SOP can play a leading role in the social era, self-media era, public domain traffic era, growth hacker era, and private domain traffic era. So, can it also play a leading role in the era of short videos and live streaming?

In fact, this is not the case. As shown in the above picture, the live broadcast operation SOP is not as detailed and standardized as the community operation SOP . This part of the content mainly provides introductory information on the platform and processes.

This also confirms that compared with several other eras, the era of live streaming sales is currently the era with the most complex business environment, the fastest changes, the highest challenges, the best conversion effects, and the fastest performance growth.

Perhaps we can design the SOP in advance and plan the live broadcast operation in advance.

However, the standardization and standardization of SOP will inevitably make live broadcasts become rigid and passive. This requires the SOP to have more space and consider more possibilities.

In addition, from the perspective of traffic and conversion, the effectiveness of live broadcast or short video is far superior to other methods. Therefore, operators who put traffic or conversion into the community SOP also need to think about how to separate them out.

4. Thought 4: Should young people leave the Internet or stay?

The rapid development of the Internet industry is due to the large amount of capital attracted in the early stage. The capital brought in a large number of outstanding talents. The gathering of outstanding talents enabled the rapid development of enterprises and created more opportunities for quick wealth and rapid growth.

This opportunity to get rich quickly and grow rapidly has in turn attracted more talents to join this industry, thus creating today's situation of high thresholds, high incomes, high pressure and high assessments.

However, we found that after domestic Internet companies obtained a large amount of capital and excellent talents, they did not enter high-tech industries, but entered basic industries such as selling vegetables, food delivery, and taxi-hailing for the sake of revenue, forming a situation where a strong group used huge amounts of capital and technology to seize the sinking low-end market.

The 985/21 and outstanding overseas returnees who should have been engaged in scientific innovation, technological innovation, and business innovation are now doing basic work in large Internet companies for the sake of dignity and income! I believe that this is the best way to enhance national competitiveness, technological competitiveness, and human resources.

The large influx of personnel has also resulted in talents not receiving the respect they deserve and their labor value not being truly appreciated. No matter whether you are good enough or not, you will face 996 and 007, and you will face the 35-year-old crisis.

Perhaps, this phenomenon will make more young people think about whether the Internet is really the only way for their growth and success, whether there are more directions and opportunities that are in line with their long-term development and long-term planning, and whether they can use their highly educated background to return to scientific research, technological development and other high-tech industries that urgently need talents!

V. Conclusion

Perhaps, at some point in the future, there will no longer be SOP in the Internet industry.

However, the standardized, normalized, transparent and fool-proof management method provided by SOP will always help us think forward and make progress!

We also hope that the majority of operations personnel will not be superstitious about SOPs, nor will they blindly follow SOPs. Each SOP is the crystallization of the wisdom of our predecessors. What we need is to think about operations and cultivate our own operational thinking, and develop our own operating methods.

Author: Zhong Jiazhen

Public account: Things about Internet operations