Five key points of the new media operation matrix!

The concept of "private domain traffic" has become popular since 2019. According to our research, while large enterprises are increasing their investment in digital marketing, they are also entering the field of private domain traffic construction. The cases of emerging forces such as GSX and Perfect Diary that have quickly seized the market by entering through new media have further stimulated traditional enterprises. While sounding the alarm for enterprises, it has also strengthened their determination to build private domain traffic.

At the end of 2018, we contacted an education company that wanted to establish its own private domain traffic, but there were many problems. Through our efforts, we assisted the company in sorting out its existing layout in the WeChat ecosystem and built a suitable new media management and operation system. Taking a certain city as an example, during the period when the benefits of WeChat public accounts were declining, the quarterly net increase in fans in the pilot city matrix increased from 85,000 in 2018 to 121,000 in 2019, and the growth rate of fans increased from 16.5% to 17.8%.

For large enterprises, the management and operational problems encountered in new media construction are similar. This case solution effectively convinced leaders and other business departments, and helped the specific implementation departments with new media construction and performance transformation. Many of the methodologies analyzed in this case study are universal, but please believe that we are more professional and can help companies achieve twice the result with half the effort in building new media. Today we will review the whole process here for your reference.

Table of contents

1. Why do large companies put aside their attitude and try private domain new media marketing?

2. How do large enterprises overcome all difficulties and achieve fame and fortune in the new media field?

2.1 Introduction to pre-pilot cases

Pilot Project Introduction

Management and operational issues faced by enterprises in new media construction

2.2 Using 5S consulting solutions to solve management and operation problems in enterprise new media construction

2.2.1 Summon: Confirm the purpose of construction

2.2.2 Survey: Sorting out the current situation

2.2.3 Standardize management standards: confirm the management model and operation model, and build a comprehensive assessment and training system

2.2.4 Supervise Assessment and Empowerment: Improving Operational Level and Conducting Risk Management

2.2.5 Summarize stage summary: continuous monitoring and continuous optimization

2.3 Results after the pilot

3. Appendix: List of 5S Consulting Program Results

1. Why do large companies put aside their attitude and try private domain new media marketing?

Public domain traffic is becoming more and more expensive, and market competition among enterprises is intensifying and is no longer limited to traditional delivery. The rise of content distribution platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, and Toutiao has provided a boost to companies in building private domain traffic. Companies of all sizes are trying to conduct lower-cost, higher-quality brand communication on the platforms, and even build their own "CRM" systems based on the platforms.

As for the case analyzed today, the chaotic brand management in new media construction, the rising costs of offline market development, and the rapid maturity of new media construction by competing companies to seize the market have become the direct reasons for companies to sort out the current status of new media and invest resources to concentrate on building new media. The enterprise's new media construction project was organized and led by the enterprise's marketing department. With the assistance of Xinbang, the project was successfully launched and a one-year pilot was launched.

2. How do large enterprises overcome all difficulties and achieve fame and fortune in the new media field?

2.1 Introduction to pre-pilot cases

The case subject is an educational enterprise, and the new media platforms it has currently laid out mainly include WeChat Ecosystem, Enterprise WeChat, Sina Weibo, and Tik Tok. The purpose of the pilot is to sort out the existing new media resources of enterprises, formulate standardized management and operation specifications, create a pilot new media model city, and play the role of the strong leading the strong.

The pilot program will cover enterprises as a whole, with seven cities being selected as “vanguards” for in-depth pilot programs. Other cities across the country are encouraged to exchange and learn and actively develop new media.

The pilot platform is the WeChat ecosystem, covering public accounts, communities, and personal accounts. The reason for giving priority to building the WeChat ecosystem is that WeChat is the social software with the largest coverage and the longest average usage time per person. WeChat public accounts are an important part of the Internet content ecosystem. In addition, WeChat has a rich ecosystem and complete tools, and is constantly exploring new attempts such as enterprise WeChat and video accounts.

As of May 2019, the company has 443 WeChat accounts, over 1,000 social groups, and over 300 personal accounts, covering 68 cities and 18 business lines, reaching over 12 million users.

Before the pilot, the company mainly faced the following management and operational issues in new media construction:

Management issues:

First, the ownership of the account is unclear. Although the pilot is led by the company's marketing department, the power relationship between the company's departments is in the form of two parallel "corporate marketing department-corporate business lines" and "city marketing department-city business lines", and two vertical "square" nodes of "corporate marketing department-city marketing department" and "corporate business lines-city business lines". The company's marketing department has no jurisdiction and can only provide services. Therefore, there are certain communication difficulties in the account coordination process, especially in the early stage of coordination, it is unclear which accounts have been opened by each business department and each pilot city.

Second, the overall assessment and training system is not sound. Although all levels of corporate departments have opened WeChat public accounts, there is a lack of coordination and cooperation among the enterprise as a whole, its business lines, and various city departments. There is a lack of targeted assessment system for new media, or there is a rudimentary assessment system but it is unscientific, and there are large differences between departments and cities. The training system faces the same dilemma as the assessment system: there is no training system or it is irregular and imperfect.

Third, the operational level of new media personnel is low and their operations are not standardized. As the company's main business is education-related, all work requires a certain understanding of the education industry, while new media-related positions also require mastery of new media-related knowledge, which places high demands on operators. Among the existing new media operators , those trained in new media-related majors, such as Chinese, journalism, and advertising, account for a small proportion. At the same time, new media operators have little operational experience, and most of their years of work in new media are less than one year. In addition to the problem of low staff levels, many cities also have the problem of a lack of clear operational management standards.

Fourth, management’s positioning of new media was inaccurate and it failed to effectively empower the brand and business. As for the enterprise as a whole, the marketing department of the enterprise took the lead in planting the seeds of coordinating and standardizing the management of new media in the enterprise. It persuaded the leaders at the top to invest budget to sort out the development status of the enterprise's new media, and persuaded the cities at the bottom to cooperate in becoming small pilot projects to be pioneers of reform. However, in departments and cities at all levels, the leadership still has an unclear understanding of new media, and wants the horse to run fast but eat less, or the offline marketing effect is better than the new media under construction, which leads to the imminent reduction of new media manpower or full-time level. As for specific accounts, there is an unrealistic expectation that new start-up accounts can not only do a good job in brand promotion but also attract traffic and sell goods.

Operational issues:

First, the account positioning is inaccurate and the settings are not detailed . The main problems are inaccurate account positioning, and it is unclear whether the main focus is on brand promotion or user retention; the basic settings are not detailed, and there is no unified format for the names, avatars, and introductions of the company's accounts; the settings for replies to followers, automatic replies, and keyword replies are incomplete and update slowly; the menu bar settings do not work and are not updated regularly.

Second, there is a lack of ability to produce high-quality content . In terms of content operation, the most serious problem is the lack of production capacity of high-quality content (column content, popular content). Some accounts lack the ability to design typefaces.

Third, the operation of the activities is not strong enough. Although the company holds a large-scale event every year, it cannot cover all the company's city outlets. Secondly, each city and each account holds few events, the influence is weak, the cost-effectiveness is low, and the event uncertainty is large (the same event may have invested 500 yuan last year to increase the number of followers by 10,000, but this year it may only increase the number of followers by 2,000).

Fourth, there is a lack of standardized operations for social groups and personal accounts. Most communities and personal accounts are created spontaneously by business departments at all levels of cities. Even for personal accounts and communities in the same city, the naming methods and customer service procedures are different. In addition, the conversion rate of the official account-community-personal account process is low, and the level of refinement of user operations needs to be improved.

2.2 Using 5S consulting solutions to solve management and operation problems in enterprise new media construction

The 5S consulting solution was independently developed and launched by Xinbang Research Institute. It mainly targets the new media matrix and provides comprehensive consulting services from construction, assessment to operational support. 5S stands for summon, survey, standardize, supervise and summarize. See the figure below for a detailed explanation:

2.2.1 Summon: Confirm the purpose of construction

First, identify the project's coordinating center and participating entities. Establish an enterprise-level new media affairs coordination group, namely the enterprise marketing department; confirm the research pilot projects, namely the cities that cooperate in in-depth pilot projects.

Secondly, clarify the purpose of phased construction. First, sort out the current situation, second, build a matrix, and third, optimize the matrix. The corporate goal is to take three steps, and pilot cities need to adapt to local conditions and set different specific goals based on the level of development of new media.

Again, clarify the construction period. The enterprise survey period is 3 months, the urban pilot period is mostly 1 month, and the overall enterprise sorting, construction and optimization period is one year.

Finally, confirm the new media platform architecture and formulate a new media operation plan. Clarify the scope of entities involved in new media construction (horizontal matrix, i.e., the number of departments and cities within the enterprise) and the scope of platforms (vertical matrix: i.e., WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, Toutiao, Baijiahao, forums and other platforms). Specific operational plans (including quarterly OKR/KPI targets) are formulated by the coordinating cores at all levels.

2.2.2 Survey: Sorting out the current situation

A two-month survey was conducted on the company's accounts. The company issued a top-down notification to collect account feedback, and Xinbang collected and analyzed the data overview. Through questionnaires, telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews, etc., it conducted in-depth research on management and operational issues and conducted a comprehensive survey. By sorting out the current situation, corporate management can be more standardized and a sound and concise corporate matrix can be built; corporate communication can be more efficient, whether it is unified push from top to bottom matrix or providing high-quality content from bottom to top, all resources can be centrally coordinated.

This part of the work will produce the following outputs: data briefing (for pilot pre-communication meetings), pilot new media development assessment report (for sampling surveys before corporate research to derive development models and verify models), and corporate new media development white paper.

2.2.3 Standardize management standards: confirm the management model and operation model, and build a comprehensive assessment and training system

Through in-depth pilot projects in cities (data analysis + qualitative in-depth interviews + solutions + continuous tracking), we can identify common problems from operating specific public accounts to building and managing city matrices, and then to how to connect new media communication with actual business conversion processes, and provide targeted suggestions. By developing management and operation models for urban pilot projects, we will build a corporate new media matrix management structure from the bottom up, explore corporate new media operation models, establish an assessment and training system, and empower corporate new media personnel.

The management model and operation model are the core framework for the construction of enterprise private domain traffic, and new media personnel are the core force in the construction of private domain traffic. Through "management + operation", we can achieve standardized and controllable new media construction, through "management + people", we can create diverse talents, through "operation + people", we can carry out refined management of users and improve the conversion efficiency of online business. The three parties work together to make private domain traffic truly valuable to users, cover more target users, reduce corporate marketing costs, and set up feedback nodes throughout the new media chain to track marketing results.

This part of the work outputs the following results: enterprise new media management model (how enterprises manage new media), enterprise new media operation model (how enterprises operate new media), new media business flow model (how enterprises realize revenue through new media), enterprise new media assessment indicators and system, and enterprise new media training system.

Taking WeChat ecosystem as an example

2.2.4 Supervise Assessment and Empowerment: Improving Operational Level and Conducting Risk Management

Provide enterprises with a new media matrix operation execution manual, requiring new media operators to study it and conduct monthly assessments of matrix accounts. Through the periodic output of operation skills, practical cases, and competitive product dynamics analysis, the manual assists enterprises in building new media.

Empowering operational personnel can not only improve operational levels, but also achieve good risk management. The first is content risk. When operators create original content or reprint content, they may violate policy red lines and advertising laws. The second is copyright risk. Operators may not know the creators of text content and the sources of pictures, which may lead to infringement risks. The third is platform risk: marketing activities need to pay attention to the risk of platform-induced sharing and the risk of account suspension due to improper operation.

This work outputs the following results: Official Account New Media Operation Manual

2.2.5 Summarize stage summary: continuous monitoring and continuous optimization

After the pilot survey and training are completed, it is necessary to continue to monitor the development of the company's new media, sort out the construction status through periodic operational summaries, give targeted suggestions (especially focusing on business sales conversion suggestions), conduct summary training, and continuously optimize.

This work outputs the following results: monthly data report and enterprise new media data middle-office tools.

The data middle platform is to develop the WeChat public account matrix data middle platform system, and develop data collection interfaces according to needs and update them on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. The main functions of the company's backend are divided into four modules: data analysis: statistical data and rankings; personnel management: creation, management and authority division of new media operation and management personnel backend accounts; public account management: creation, management and authority division of public accounts within the company; data management: comprehensive visual management of all data of the company's public accounts (such as reading volume, number of viewers, etc.).

The data are all simulated.

The middle platform also has the following extended functions: content cloud library - improve the matrix content output capacity and increase the brand communication volume; training cloud classroom - provide strong training support for new media operators and realize resource sharing; activity cloud platform - provide tools and templates for new media units at all levels to carry out activities in a coordinated manner, and enhance the brand activity creation efforts; three-dimensional matrix - WeChat public account, video account, Douyin, Toutiao account, Baijia account...

2.3 Results after the pilot

After the pilot, the company sorted out its current new media development status and built a preliminary management and operation system.

In terms of management, we sorted out the company's new media architecture, clarified account ownership, confirmed a construction model with the Marketing Department as the overall service center, and promoted the construction of new media in pilot cities.

First, through pilot cities, we explored a new media management model, divided the responsibilities of the new media overall management and service relationship among various departments, and established a supporting personnel coordination, assessment, and training system. Secondly, through communication with the leadership of the pilot cities, we analyzed the current status of new media development in the pilot cities and gave improvement plans, so that the leadership and the practical level could reach a consensus, adjust the positioning of new media, and give a model for how new media can improve business conversion, thereby actually empowering sales and promoting the construction of new media in pilot cities.

In terms of operations, the project provided detailed operation improvement plans for enterprises and pilot cities throughout the entire process, realizing efficient and standardized operations of the enterprise's new media matrix.

First, we will encourage enterprises to rationally build the WeChat matrix, city matrices, and business matrices of "official account-virtual person/customer service personal account-community", build a content cloud sharing mechanism and an activity sharing mechanism, and realize the efficient operation of the enterprise matrix. Secondly, by compiling new media operation manuals and new media training courses, we have enabled new media personnel, especially editors, to be able to operate the accounts, and have established unified management standards for the maintenance and operation of WeChat public accounts. Especially for pilot cities, we have provided directly implementable suggestions for specific accounts, covering references to competitor accounts and content production suggestions, activity plan references, community/personal account settings, and operation suggestions.

Taking the data from a certain pilot city as an example, management and operational issues have been clearly taken seriously and gradually resolved, and the data has shown a significant increase after the pilot. During a period when the benefits of WeChat public accounts were weakening, the public account matrix in pilot cities not only achieved an increase in the net number of fans, but also increased the growth rate of fan attention.

Comparison of data growth of a pilot WeChat public account matrix in the second quarter of 2018 and 2019

Author: Private Domain Operation Guide

Source: Private Domain Operation Guide