8 practical directions for community operations!

Nowadays, WeChat groups, QQ groups, Weibo groups, Alipay groups, and Maimai groups are everywhere in our lives. We have all joined some communities to a greater or lesser extent, about work or interests, such as local cycling groups, hiking groups, fan groups of certain celebrities, etc. However, after spending a long time in the community, you will find that some groups have long disappeared, while some groups have remained active.

The reason is that different communities are vastly different in their operations, which leads to different vitality. Today I will share what are the things to note in community operations at the practical level.

1. Community value, that is, the community has a clear segmentation positioning

From a user-oriented perspective, we have to think about: Why do users join our group? What are the benefits for users to join our community? Different users have different needs, and people's motivations for joining communities may vary greatly. For example, they want to find similar people with whom they can resonate, want to reduce the cost of obtaining information, or want to continuously improve their abilities in certain areas. A community is such a platform where people of the same kind gather together, bringing together a group of people with the same needs. Therefore, different groups need to have different positioning, and in order to avoid excessive personnel turnover, the community positioning must be sufficiently detailed.

Community positioning also points out the value of the group. The first step for all excellent communities is to be "profitable" and to bring real value to group members. For example, if you join a fitness check-in group, someone will urge you to exercise every day and share fitness experiences with group members. In the end, you will gain a lot. This is where the value lies.

2. Community sense of organization, participation, and identity

Humans are social animals, and it is important to find feedback from the "organization". Only a sufficiently segmented community can bring together a group of people with the same values ​​and give members a sense of organization. To achieve this, the community must have a good positioning, screen and review members, create topics that resonate with people, and expel unfriendly and disharmonious members.

In terms of highly matching member attributes, the community should actively explore group topics and allow members to participate in discussions. It should give good responses and feedback, create a good atmosphere for topics that have received a lot of attention, and appropriately respond to or encourage members who have been ignored. Only by creating good topics can we create a good atmosphere and inspire greater participation among group members.

Gaining a sense of identity can only be achieved through highly consistent communication within the group. Various exchanges and discussions within the community will basically form some kind of consistent conclusions among members with consistent value orientations. Ultimately, this good feedback will make group members feel that their views are recognized, and in turn, recognize the entire group.

3. The high-frequency cycles of users in different communities will be different

The user's high-frequency cycle refers to the time period when the user is active in the community. The active cycles of different communities can vary greatly. For example, some communities are active during lunch breaks, some during morning or afternoon working hours, and some after 7 o'clock. In short, the high-frequency cycle should be judged based on the actual performance of different communities, and used to guide the time for topic discussion and sharing and communication.

4. The community should do a good job of its own metabolism

Every community has its own group rules, and resolutely enforcing the group rules is a good way to maintain "metabolism". In every community, there are bound to be all kinds of people, ranging from 20 to 500 people. For example, those who post advertisements, send links indiscriminately, post illegal pictures, do not modify the group name card, make irrelevant remarks, or even provoke trouble with group members. They must be cleaned up in a timely manner. Then in each group, there will be about 70% of lurking users. If they have not spoken for a long time, when the number limit is reached, some of them can be cleared out appropriately to facilitate attracting new members.

5. UGC content accumulation is worth persisting in

Most communities can generate valuable content during in-group communication. Some users, unable to stare at the chat box all the time, will look through the chat history in their spare time. We call this behavior "climbing stairs", but climbing stairs has a very poor browsing experience. Therefore, if the operator can do a good job of content sedimentation, it will greatly facilitate group members, filter information, select high-quality content for organization, and allow group members who missed it to quickly get to the essence.

The high-quality UGC content produced independently by group members can be disseminated for the second time after being sorted out. It can repeatedly emphasize a certain cognition, or allow group members to revisit a topic and gain new thinking.

6. All communities should not take up too much of members’ time

In today's fragmented era, everyone has their own work pressure and life rhythm, and everyone's attention is also squeezed to the limit, so the community should not blindly pursue group activity and let group members fall into a state of information fatigue and being disturbed.

An excellent community has formed a long-term and regular sharing mechanism, which allows everyone to put down TikTok and participate in a specific period of time, rather than taking up too much of the group members' attention.

For example, last year, the community operation of "English Fluency" was criticized by users for arbitrarily initiating group discussions and check-in PK activities, coupled with frequent push of course information and supervision by the class teacher, which eventually led to many users leaving the group.

7. Strike a balance between altruism and self-interest

The communities established by businesses definitely have the utilitarian purpose of conversion, but they must also take into account the interests and needs of community members. Only after meeting their own needs can they consider conversion, which will make conversion more natural and efficient.

For example, an institution that sells courses for accounting qualification examinations has established a community and attracted a large number of students who want to apply for the exam. The institution insists on leading everyone to do questions in the community, giving professional analysis, urging everyone to complete mock exams, and encouraging students to share their scores and communicate with each other. And because of the large amount of communication within the group, the points where everyone is prone to make mistakes will be summarized and sorted out, and group members will often enter the group to watch repeatedly. Because of the valuable nature of the community, members have developed a high degree of trust and recognition in the group over a long period of time. When the courses were finally released for sale, the response was very good, with a conversion rate of up to 15%.

8. The community must have KOLs

If no one in the community is willing to participate in topic discussions, then the group atmosphere is just empty talk. The presence of KOLs can contribute a large number of high-quality speeches, guide other members' speeches, stimulate more discussions, extend to broader topics, and create activity among group members. Every community needs such "active speakers" and "influential" people who can start a conversation, save the situation, lead the direction of the topic, create a climax of the topic, and inspire more KOLs.

KOL not only plays a vital role in group activity, but also provides trust endorsement for brand conversion, helping brands better influence the minds and consumption decisions of other members. Therefore, KOLs are indispensable in excellent communities.

Author: PR Home

Source: PR Home

Related reading:

How to start community operation and fission planning from scratch?

Community operation methods and mainstream community types!

“Perfect Diary” community operation method!

Summary of practical experience in 3 steps of community operation!

Community operation: 2 tips to increase community activity!