5 Steps to Social Media Operation in 2020

In order to understand how to operate a valuable community in 2020, I reviewed my past experiences and summarized the five-step operation method based on excellent industry cases: attracting new members, management, communication, welfare, and conversion.

I feel that 2020 has passed the era of wild growth of the community and is more like a watershed. It is not an exaggeration to say that people are afraid of the word "group", because this marketing strategy has been over-abused; violent harvesting and rough recruitment are beginning to be abandoned by more and more people, and refined and differentiated community operations are gradually forming an ecosystem.

The hottest word in 2019, “private domain traffic”, has also indirectly promoted the concept of community. Community has become an important business tool. It solves the traffic costs and marketing costs of enterprises. It also has the unique advantage of “value extension”. After all, cognition and recognition need to be cultivated. The community also allows you to directly reach users at almost zero cost.

In order to understand how to operate a valuable community in 2020, I reviewed my past experiences and summarized the five-step operation method based on excellent industry cases: attracting new members, management, communication, welfare, and conversion . 5 steps to double your community’s output.

Because I am a first-line operations practitioner in a second-tier city, the methods and approaches in this article try to be based on zero-cost and zero-based customer acquisition, to avoid being born with a "dragon-slaying sword", and try to export the experience of community operations from the perspective of a side job or a limited budget.

1. Attract new customers

1.1 The underlying logic of community operation

"Born by gathering people, thrive by chatting, and die by advertising" is a popular saying in the operation circle about the rise and fall of communities. When newcomers create communities, they often mistakenly position the number of people as the North Star indicator. Usually, they will first pull people in, regardless of whether they know them or not. At this time, there will often be "thorns" who say "Who can tell me what this group does?"

This group is basically declared useless. The essence of a community should be a scenario-based need based on common goals and common interests . The key North Star indicator in the early stages of a community should be to screen and match a group of people with needs to establish connections, even if there are only single digits in the early stages.

Here are a few scenarios:

• Scenario 1: A new store opens or there is a holiday event. You suddenly spend a lot of money to set up a QR code scanning function to join a group and receive prizes. Then you see hundreds of people joining your group one after another.
• Scenario 2: You gather all the people who have purchased your product into a group, and then continue to post advertisements in it without restraint or even ethics.
• Scenario 3: Your personal account in a vertical field has achieved some success and you become a KOC. Then you leave your contact information and everyone can speak freely and talk about the past and present.

In my opinion, it is a pity that this is not a high-quality and complete community, but just a circle that gathers some people. In my opinion, a high-quality community should have a purpose, a core, and a class.

Purpose:

Everyone in the community must have a common goal, which can be knowledge learning, coupons and discounts, offline friendships, cycling and hiking buddies, or even religious beliefs. In short, the group must have a clear purpose, just like a movie or TV series needs a main plot to support it, so that your community can keep moving.

core:

The core meaning is that you can control the direction of your community. When you organize activities to create a community, you can play a commanding role. You cannot let everyone "show off their talents" in the group without control (no one joins the group without a purpose). Otherwise, your community will soon die from advertising.

Class:

In my opinion, the existence of classes in a group is inevitable, which is somewhat similar to creating a community to cultivate and produce UGC content. A group needs to have some "great gods" who speak in a slightly condescending manner and have a hint of sharing the joy with the people; but they will also create value for the group, such as helping you to attract new members, output valuable content, etc.

Newbies will be happy to learn and acquire. Subconsciously, everyone wants to be the ideal "god" in the group. The liveliness of the community will come from chatting. If you are the only one who has the final say, you will find that the community will quickly lose its vitality. Therefore, you should deliberately cultivate some "great gods"

1.2 Traffic acquisition channels

The above may still be a bit theoretical, so let’s talk about some practical things below. In my opinion, how to attract people to a community is nothing more than three dimensions: its own platform + poaching from peers + third-party platforms.

(1) Own platform

You can place group QR codes as much as possible on your personal WeChat account, official account, and corporate resources, as well as on official websites and offline activities. The advantage of attracting new fans on your own platform is that you can directly direct fans to the right place, and there is no need to educate them to come on their own initiative. Most of them know the purpose and rules of the group. However, there are also disadvantages. Frequent mention of group creation will greatly affect your personal IP, and the investment in offline activities is too large. There is no continuity after one event, and the exposure disappears.

(2) Attracting new customers from the same industry

To put it bluntly, it means poaching, poaching people from similar groups of competitors; here I want to say that you have to have disguise, planning, layout, process, and long-term training , and it is definitely not something you go through a lot of hardships to get in, then give out a QR code and be given a plane ticket. How to find it? Communities of peers: search by interest/industry+community; scan the QR code to join the group; pay attention to the releases of public accounts of peers.

(3) Content Platform

I think content platforms are very important channels for attracting new users. Huhu, Hongshu, Shu, Ban, and Baidu Tieba are the most first-hand platforms for attracting new users. However, people often make the mistake of registering an account in a rush to achieve quick results and then finding all kinds of ways to leave contact, which often leads to their accounts being blocked. For these content platforms, you need to use content to guide and induce users , and one pain point here is the cost of creating in-depth content, which is the time cost. Here I will share my steps for traffic generation. I will focus on one topic on multiple platforms within a few days.

For example:

I created this article on community operation. At this time, I will move my content or part of it to the new media operation topic of a certain website or a certain platform to answer all questions of this type. In this way, my traffic-generating content on the content platform will come out, and I will add contact information at the end. To sum up, it is not that you answer questions when they arise, but that you look for questions when you have answers.

Such refined content induction is the correct way to attract new users on the content platform. The disadvantage of content platform induction is that it takes a long time to take effect compared to the platform itself. However, once you create a content, as long as it passes the review, it will stay on the platform for a long time and continue to attract new users.

1.3 Refinement of copywriting

I think the refinement of copywriting is a detail that determines your success rate in attracting new members . It is very likely that if you use the correct tone of request or a greeting, you will increase your success rate in recruiting friends from the same industry by 20%, and increase the active addition rate for your content platform by 30%.

Here I share a copywriting template. If you think it is good, you can apply it directly: cordial greetings + clear topic + benefits and advantages + cordial tone/questioning tone to obtain consent.

Hello, I have created a public account main communication group, and now there are 400+ friends in it. It is free to join the group. I will invite you to join us!

Hi, there is a local communication community, which is a group of friends who love to make friends, check in and share delicious and fun places. Let's invite you to join the group!

Hello, there is a knowledge sharing and exchange group, where many friends with 3-5 years of work experience discuss and share practical operation knowledge. I would like to invite you to join the group and make progress together!

Refined copywriting can greatly increase your success rate in attracting new customers and can also avoid the chance of you being reported. Of course, I am absolute in everything, and the purpose of intensive cultivation is to grasp the 80% of uncertainty.

2. Management

After going through eighty-one difficulties, you find that community operation has just taken the first step. After attracting people from all over, the first problem you need to solve is management. In my opinion, this is the most important step in community operation. The direction of a community is entirely determined by management.

2.1 It is wrong to be indifferent to the criticism of others or to be willing to be a servant of others in the community.

What information do you need, classmate?

Don't worry, dear. I'll take care of it right away.

This is customer service, not the administrator or group owner. When you use such a tone, you will find that you cannot control and manage your community. It will become a service Q&A group and an after-sales processing group. Then there will be more and more questions and your attitude will become lower and lower. But you should not be arbitrary and act in an untouchable manner, and directly remove members from the group with the content that leads to guidance. Remember that everyone enters the community for a purpose besides their own value. If the water is too clear, there will be no fish. I think there is a word that can accurately express community management: "relaxation". The relationship between you and them is not a transaction or service, but more like an older friend who has power but does not use it.

2.2 Use emotions and put yourself in others’ shoes

Let me give you an example to enrich the scenario. I once held a late-night food show in a local life community. However, two people started to disagree while commenting on each other, which affected the normal communication in the group. Of course, two plane tickets could put out the fire instantly at this time, but the activity and quality of the group would also be greatly reduced. At this time, the management girl used sympathy to instantly change the situation, and provided counseling, private chat and calmed the emotions, and used red envelopes to help the situation pass.

In fact, when conflicts arise, it is a physically and mentally exhausting thing for neutral community creators to explore right and wrong. By using emotions and letting everyone put themselves in other people's shoes, no one wants to know the truth, but everyone minds being influenced.

2.3 Rules and regulations are to facilitate the process

Change your business card when you join a group, don't post advertisements or irrelevant content, and it is forbidden to add friends privately. It is not difficult to understand that all of these are required. The underlying logic lies in the sense of ritual and order. The sense of ritual deepens the group's cognition and impression, making the people in your group more "elegant". Yes, that's the word. Allowing members to directly post advertisements later will go against their previous personality. Order is to tell them the bottom line of the community.

Sometimes core users violate group rules , and many managers will hesitate whether to kick them out. The advice here is to give warnings at different levels and kick the ball out if the bottom line is touched. However, core users who are kicked out of the group must also be further maintained and processed. They should be made to understand the reasons through private chats and allowed to re-enter the group through formal procedures. The knowledge of management will not be expanded here.

To sum up, the essence of maintaining and managing a community lies in investing emotions, which is somewhat similar to building a personal IP. That is, you should not pretend, but show your emotions in the process, and empathize with community members with your real identity . You can use more emoticons to reply, just like normal conversations between colleagues and friends, but be moderate and avoid talking about other people's private lives, what they eat in the evening, or gossiping. Don't ignore the key rules and regulations.

3. Dissemination

When a community has initial users and management becomes somewhat organized, it needs some icing on the cake operations to make your community more prosperous. In my opinion, the spread of a community is nothing more than through interests and word of mouth.

3.1 Benefit Communication

The world is bustling with people all for the sake of profit. The benefit can refer to red envelopes, useful information, coupons, etc. The choice of benefit must be in line with the user's appetite. For example, if you create a highly educated community, do you think there will be a few people in it who will share a red envelope with you?

Satisfying the appetite and conforming to the interests of the tone are the main core of capturing user communication. It can be your poster or your landing page (h5, official account pictures and texts).

3.2 Word-of-mouth communication

Taking advantage of vanity is a very important way of communication. If a great person in your group shares a very brilliant and profound idea, it is likely to gain a lot of approval, and there will also be people willing to share it in their social circles.

Here I would like to share an excellent example of using showing off to spread the word. In the early days, Qiuye PPT had a very distinctive link in the community: "Correct homework" on Weibo @秋叶, and submit the homework. This will instantly get a lot of exposure in the public domain traffic. By using the public domain skillfully, grasping word of mouth and showing off mentality, your communication can be better.

3.3 The threshold makes it more scarce

Nowadays, users are fed up with being bombarded with useless information, and their tastes have become more "picky"; the Internet is no longer the free-thinking it used to be. Instead, things with thresholds become more valuable and scarce. This is the same as the 9.9 introductory course. In the past, our promotion was: join the group and you will get XXX gift package. Now our promotion should be: share to social circles/friends, you can join the group and get XXX. Having a threshold represents high quality and can also guarantee your subsequent activities and conversions.

IV. Activities

The activity of chat communities requires everyone's participation. Small activities are often the beginning of warming up. Here are 6 common ways to activate communities:

1. Daily morning and evening greetings, funny holiday wishes.
2. Interact with topics within the group, pay attention to current hot issues, and focus on the business scope of the community.
3. Share daily useful information to maintain the long-term value of the community.
4. Regularly hold special lectures and use group live broadcasts to promote activity on a regular basis.
5. Distribute coupons, group buying activities and other benefits regularly.
6. Use social game tools to liven up the atmosphere, such as robots’ idiom chain games and riddle guessing.

Taking my own community as an example, the small activities I usually use are: morning newspaper, red envelopes for the best luck, and exclusive benefits in the group. The activities of each community are not fixed, and you can continue to explore and find your own set of methods, but be careful not to be too sales-oriented . The value of the community lies in extending long-term cultivation. In my opinion, I will not over-consume users or frequently harass users.

5. Conversion

In my opinion, many community transformations are natural. If you do a good job in the beginning, you can use clever methods to achieve it in the end.

5.1 Showing your order

Constantly exposing and mentioning your product in front of users and deepening their impression is a good way to increase conversions. Share your orders, good reviews, and experiences.

5.2 Priority for special status

Give community users a "special identity", such as exclusive prices in the group. They can enjoy XX price when entering the store by showing their group membership. Giving group members an exclusive treatment and identity will not only increase the value of the community, but also increase stickiness.

5.3 Sense of Urgency

To create a sense of urgency, you can use the pricing strategy of " pre-order-special price-original price-price increase" to make users feel that it is best to buy now, the later the price is, the more expensive it will be, and if they don't buy it early, the product may be out of stock. For example, for the paid PS course, the first 30 people can get the course and information package for 9.9 yuan, and the price will increase after 30 people. It is very effective for users who have needs but are hesitant.

But what if the effect is still not good after the price increase? The price must not be reduced. You can increase users' sense of satisfaction after purchasing by providing additional benefits.

5.4 Paying Users

When the community is active to a certain level, you can create small groups within the large group, pull out paid communities, and increase the deep value. The key to cultivating paying users lies in establishing long-term trust relationships. Only by cultivating trust can you create a paid community.

Regarding operations, I think if you do the first 5 steps well, you can create a successful community. Of course, there are many better options, such as how to use robot tools to manage more than 100 communities? How do community group buying communities operate? These are all deeper studies on community operations. It wouldn't be too much to write another article to describe the details.

Author: Wang Rongxiao

Source: Wang Rongxiao

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