Community operation methods and mainstream community types!

The main members of online fan communities are young people.

Social media provides fans with a platform to communicate and express themselves with like-minded people, a space to produce creative content, and an online channel to interact with idols.

Online fan communities have formed a unique management model, relying on hierarchical structure and institutional design to maintain the stability and activity of fan communities.

In the era of self-media, online communities have shown greater initiative, voice and communication power in the process of their organization and communication. This type of community is dominated by core fans, with the participation of ordinary fans and influencing passers-by fans.

Generally speaking, it is divided into two categories: community operations and participants.

In my other article "How to operate on Valentine's Day? 》A friend mentioned this question in the comments, I would like to share it with you:

1. What is community operation in my opinion?
2. How to build a community?
3. How to operate after it is built?
4. What aspects should we pay attention to in community management?

1. What is a fan community?

In general, online fan communities are hierarchical and standardized fan organizations with relatively mature operating models and management norms.

This phenomenon not only exists in the entertainment industry, but also in a time when traditional enterprises and traditional e-commerce are in a state of mourning. We see a new business model developing in full swing.

Social platforms have become an important marketing battlefield. Through the spread of social circles, the marketing communication effect can be spread exponentially and expanded exponentially.

An Internet community is “a fixed group of consumers whose needs are met by commercial products, gathered together by interests and common values.”

It has the characteristics of high aggregation, high communication efficiency and concerted action, such as Baidu Tieba and university BBS.

Self-media represented by blogs, Weibo, and WeChat have opened up a new way of information dissemination and have natural advantages in forming communities:

1. Crowd-source communication effect. It refers to "a communication method that uses the self-media system as a platform to integrate various communication methods, channels, types, and interactive methods through the adhesion of information and media, and condenses homogeneous audiences among heterogeneous masses."
2. In simple terms, personalized self-media can form internal cohesion through content production and multi-channel dissemination, gather a group of people among countless netizens, and turn this group of people into users of self-media. At the same time, self-media must provide content and products for these users to meet user needs.

2. Why create a community?

Each of us will feel a completely different atmosphere in different groups.

As a community operator, have you fallen into these common bugs?

1. Follow the trend and build a "community"

2. Build customer base and PR group

3. After frantically pulling in people, the group becomes a dead group

4. Investing indiscriminately in pursuit of activity

5. Active online but absent offline

…

How to avoid getting infected?

I summarize it as – focus on “3+2”.

In the era of circle consumption and precision marketing, there are goals, structures and cores.

Initial stage of establishment - discussing goals and positioning

First of all, many groups cannot be called communities, let alone operated communities.

I think the main reason is that many people don’t understand the meaning of the action of “creating a group” itself.

Compared with other social products in society, such as gangs, clubs, etc., the current various community operations are actually doing many similar things.

However, due to the emergence of various social tools, such as WeChat group chat, the cost of building a group has been significantly reduced, giving people the illusion that "building a group is easy", but often ignoring the ultimate difficulty:

How to operate after establishing a group?

When building a community, is your positioning a “product fan group” or a “feedback group”? Why can this positioning attract users to join actively?

This is a very critical issue. Many operators start doing it without thinking it through, and end up accomplishing nothing.

Therefore, in the early stage of building a group, we must think deeply about a question:

What kind of rewards will group members get from joining a group?

Because human beings are profit-seeking, they have to calculate whether their efforts (such as time cost) are proportional to the returns.

Some group users feel that they gain very little, neither making any connections nor learning anything useful, and they simply quit.

In some groups, people feel that the gains are half and half, and they can learn something, but they also have to endure a lot of screen harassment and distraction from work.

In some groups, everyone feels that they have gained a lot, and some of these gains can help them break through the limitations of their thinking at one time.

Some people have met a good friend with similar interests, and some have grown through continuous sharing. Especially those who have gained growth will feel that they have found a sense of belonging.

Before explaining how to operate, let’s first answer the question “Why create a group?”

1. What do users come to this group to gain?
2. What is the purpose of our group?

After understanding these two points, it becomes obvious what should be done during operation.

3. Mainstream types of communities

The characteristics of the community are "circle consumption" and "precision marketing".

Wu Xiaobo himself once mentioned in his article "After 2015, China's money will be stored in four places": "Circles have appeared in this world. Why don't we know Lu Han and Tian Can Tu Dou? Because there are circle consumption. I like golf, and I am in the golf circle. I like traveling, photography, and financial management, and they all have their own circles."

"Luoji Siwei" is a very well-known and typical self-media. Now "Luoji Siwei" has become an Internet community brand. Since its establishment, it has gained a good reputation and won the reputation of "the first knowledge community".

This is based on its three important positioning: audience positioning, product positioning and personalized positioning.

"Logical Thinking" focuses on middle-class intellectuals who are closely connected with the times, are proactive and progressive, and pursue freedom. The main characteristics of this group are high education, youth, and strong spending power.

From online video talk shows to Weibo groups, WeChat public accounts, and then to books, micro-publications, and e-magazines, the product forms of "Luoji Siwei" have been continuously enriched, but the product concept of "working hard on yourself and pleasing everyone" and "being a reader around everyone" has never changed. The products of "Luoji Siwei" have maintained their vitality.

In order to form a brand, self-media must have its own personality and uniqueness.

For users, there are six common community needs:

1. The need to obtain high-quality information in vertical industries

2. The need for personalized consultation

3. Find the demand for professional reports and articles

4. The need for mutual encouragement

5. Crowdsourcing case collection and summary requirements

6. Find the need for on-the-same-frequency communication

For operations, there are three common types of communities:

Operators need to know that when creating vertical communities, the target users are almost all experts in the field. They are almost already aware of the information that has been circulated many times on the Internet.

Therefore, it is necessary to provide original/exclusive/fresh content to enhance the appeal of the community.

To achieve this, community operators should invite relevant experts to become community consultants and contracted authors, and regularly publish exclusive content to attract the attention of community users.

Operators need to know that when creating a learning community, the target users have a clear purpose, which is to find learning supervisors and exchange experiences, so pay attention to the following points: "clear group rules", "how to check in", "submission of assignments", "advertising is strictly prohibited", etc.

Operators need to know that when creating business-related communities, such as "users who convert after learning about the product," they are generally gathered together through a trial class or lecture event, and group members just want to attend a class once and then leave.

However, as operators, our goal is to encourage users to pay for higher-priced products through low-priced or even free short-term courses, so we must pay attention to: "ensuring the quality of the course", "setting up a good conversion process", and "even preparing the scripts for each step, so as to further convert willing users."

You need to be extra careful with this type of group. Do you know the conversion process?

When you have spent a lot of effort to gather users and have them try your courses or lectures, but you don’t do a good conversion process and don’t have a good process design to tap into potential users, then all your early efforts are actually in vain.

Therefore, you must design it before users join the group, what steps can lead to conversion, what steps can stimulate users' further consumption desire, and how users can quickly contact you when they want to buy more expensive products.

Summary and review:

1. Carefully analyze your original intention. Is the purpose of building a community to market and sell products?

2. Or is it for everyone to learn and grow? Or is it to enhance brand influence?

3. Or is it a purely charitable organization or interest group?

4. Or are they just high-end social people?

5. Emotional type or mission and value type?

These will affect your fan audience targets and subsequent operational strategies.

The form and visualization of community operation. All behaviors in community operation are media, and all content is marketing. Do you have a self-media expert or video expert?

Let all your operational actions encourage more users to pay attention or join, generating greater connection value.

Sorry, if you do not meet any of the above points, then it is obvious that building your own community is not suitable for you, but you can choose to invest in a community, build a community together, etc.

Finally, those colleagues who have not yet operated a community can start preparing, but please make sure to choose a popular spot.

Whether it is the rapid rise of smartphones among Xiaomi fans or the prevalence of logical thinking and Internet thinking, they have greatly accelerated their success.

Therefore, community positioning must consider the structural trends, carrier trends, emotional trends, tool trends, and operational trends of community users...

Only by recognizing, seizing and creating momentum can community operations achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Although what I say today may be more theoretical, mastering the overall world view and macro thinking can lay a solid foundation for building a good community, doing a good job in operations, and even everything else.

Related reading:

1. “Perfect Diary” community operation method!

2. Summary of practical experience in 3 steps of community operation!

3. Community operation: 2 tips to increase community activity!

4. Community operation: skills to keep the community active!

5. The implementation and methods of community operation!

Author: Operation Publicity Xiao Leilei

Source: Operation Publicity Xiao Leilei