How to master fan circle marketing?

The "2018 White Paper on Chinese Youth Social Interests" shows that nearly 89% of young social users are star-chasing, 79.6% are willing to actively support or vote for their idols, and about 50.3% of star-chasers are willing to buy products endorsed by their idols.

( Data source : iResearch )

Through intuitive data, it is not difficult to understand why the girls in Idol Producer bought more water than they could drink in their lifetime, which directly caused the e-commerce sales of Nongfu Spring Vitamin Water to surge 500 times during the cooperation with the program; the "Ju Family Army" in "Produce 101" made the counterattack from "Ju Ju Nobody" to "Ju Ju The World's Attention"; all of this made us witness the powerful power of fans.

2018 was the year of boom for the domestic fan economy. Fan circle culture has gradually moved from "inside the circle" to "outside the circle". More and more brands have realized that in this era, fans are no longer just audiences that brands need to conquer, but participants and contributors to brand marketing . Fans are the well-deserved "first productive force", and fan circle culture has become a compulsory course for brand marketers .

But…although fan circle marketing can bring effective conversions in a short period of time, brand owners may end up making things worse if they are not careful. So what kind of "economy" is the fan circle? How should brands conduct fan circle marketing? Today, hardcore star-chasing Wang Hezijun will help you deconstruct fan culture, so that brands can truly understand fans and ultimately gain super traffic that fans gladly contribute!

1. Let’s learn more about fan circle marketing

Fan circle, Fandom (Fan+Kingdom), literally translated as "the kingdom of fans", refers to a small group composed of many supporters of a certain star.

Fan circle marketing is the marketing of brands or products using the operating methods of idol artists. It is a form of revenue-generating behavior based on the relationship between fans and idols. Reach fan groups through various advertising forms, realize the fan economy brought by fans, and consolidate and upgrade fan monetization of brand value.

2. The popularity of fan circle marketing is not accidental

1. The power of fans cannot be underestimated

First of all, fan culture has huge traffic behind it. Looking at the consumer group, the epitome of purchasing power, traffic, and tap water efficiency is none other than the fans of each idol. There are many examples of fans spending huge amounts of money to support their idols.

• After announcing Lu Han as the brand spokesperson, L’Occitane’s sales in China surged by 26.9%;
• OPPO teamed up with Li Yifeng to launch the OPPO R7 special edition mobile phone for fans, which became popular all over the Internet. The number of pre-orders reached 70,000 within 3 days, and the sales conversion rate was as high as 37%;
• Yi Yang Qianxi's 21-day vitality plan attracted more than 1.5 billion people to watch Qianxi's ideal life, and it was on Weibo's hot search list 19 times in 21 days. All celebrity-themed products in the plan were sold out.
• In addition, many fashion magazines with young handsome men on their covers have achieved amazing sales.

Of course, it is not just the big stars in the entertainment industry who can attract fans. Many corporate brands have established fan clubs, such as Apple’s “Guofan”, Xiaomi’s “Mifan”, Huawei’s “Huafen”, etc. Various types of fans emerge in an endless stream, and these fans play an important role in building corporate brands that cannot be underestimated.

2. The rise of vertical circle culture

Secondly, although fan circles are vertical, they are not niche. In terms of population attributes, fan circles are basically composed of young people, who are exactly the target group that brands are concentrating their firepower to capture. The gathering of fans means the traffic appeal of the vertical circle of young people, the possibility of going viral and gaining attention from the entire network, as well as the tap water effect and viral effect generated by the spontaneous behavior of fans.

Case: Rainbow P Duck

This year, JD.com used the context of the fan circle to break the current Double Eleven marketing situation, launched the #彩虹P冲鸭# topic interaction, and used fan circle terms to transform fan circle culture into brand productivity and play with fan economy.

The "Rainbow P" has successfully become popular and attracted the public's attention. The topic has been read nearly 100 million times and discussed over 140,000 times. Nearly 100 brands and Blue Vs responded to the call and interacted with JD's official blog.

3. How to master fan circle marketing?

1. Find the resonance point between idols, fans and brands

For fans, loving an idol does not necessarily mean loving a brand, the two cannot be simply equated. It is not uncommon for fans to turn from fans to passers-by because their idols endorse brands that they cannot accept. Fans also play the role of "supervisors" more in the process of idols endorsing brands, and both good and bad things will be infinitely magnified in the media.

In the context of fan economy, what is the most important thing for brands looking for "spokespersons"? The answer is matching.

Brands need to combine brand positioning, choose suitable celebrity endorsements, learn to stand in the fans’ perspective and ask “This product is very suitable for him, what do you think?” and communicate with fans on an equal footing. At the same time, we combine fans' concerns with the spokesperson's characteristics, further explore the spokesperson's value for in-depth cooperation, and add customized creativity to touch fans.

Case: A Chinese Ghost Story

NetEase recently teamed up with Zhu Yilong to jointly open a new era of "A Chinese Ghost Story ". This is a role-playing computer client game with love as the main theme. The spokesperson will be integrated into the game by setting a suitable role.

This time, Zhu Yilong transforms into the "national husband" in the game - Gongzi Jing, which is extremely consistent with Zhu Yilong's own tall, handsome, sunny and warm image and temperament, and the degree of fit is 100!

It successfully ignited the emotions and attention of fans. It is reported that on the day of the official announcement, the topic #朱一龙代容新赵女鬼魂# topped the Weibo 24h list. It is estimated that a large number of "Soul-Snatching" girls will soon join "A Chinese Ghost Story".

2. Be familiar with the fan circle culture. Those who understand fans will win the world.

As the "Generation Z" represented by those born in the 1990s and 2000s gradually grows up, they have become the largest user group of social media . The two-dimensional culture and fan culture that are popular among this group of young people have gradually broken through the circle and become increasingly familiar to the public. How to satisfy their diverse preferences and tastes and stimulate their enthusiasm and vitality probably starts with understanding their entertainment attitudes.

As an integral part of contemporary popular culture, fan circles have their own language system and way of communication. For example, in order to maintain the peaceful order of the fan circle and prevent disputes, a trend of pinyin abbreviations such as zqsg, "xswl", "bhys", "xyxf", "dbq", etc. has recently emerged.

If brands can become familiar with the terminology of the fan circle, exchange "secret codes" with fans, get the interaction methods within the circle, and communicate in a friendly manner using their favorite methods and language, they can give young people a friendly and authentic feeling, thereby narrowing the distance between them.

3. Since ancient times, licking dogs cannot be retained, but pampering fans always wins people's hearts.

In the past, when people liked an idol, they would think they were high and mighty, but now young people like stars who are real and close to themselves. The relationship between fans and idols has become very subtle. It is no longer a simple relationship between admirers and the admired, but a two-way emotional choice that includes emotions, personality and attitude towards life.

Based on the change in the relationship between the two, fan marketing came into being. Through long-term companionship marketing cultivation, it attracts the attention of fans, gradually deepens the relationship with fans, and forms a wave of spontaneous dissemination of brand reputation.

Case: Youku VIP Membership Sixth Anniversary

As the chief surprise officer of this event, Zhu Yilong formed a three-dimensional communication network throughout the year, from suspense previews, layers of warm-up, time-divided reveals, H5 interactions, etc., which greatly mobilized the enthusiasm of fans. The whole process was remarkable and can be called a textbook-level "fan marketing."

• Through outdoor advertising, the topic #Unexpectedly so cool# was promoted, and it became a check-in spot for fans to encounter and take photos;
• The H5 launched to deepen online interaction has become a magic wand to help fans realize their wish of having a copper mine (being in the same frame);
• The four 15-second videos featured all show fans patting their heads, making video calls, and fist bumping their faces. The doting eyes and smiles provide fans with 360-degree surround sound (click to view the video) ;

Under such an overwhelming welfare offensive, fans all bowed to Youku. In 2 seconds, the "Zhu Yilong three-color customized physical card + Youku VIP membership for 3 years" package priced at 399 yuan was sold out.

4. Stimulate fans to produce content and trigger high-quality UGC

High-quality pictures, texts and videos can not only be forwarded in large quantities, but also inspire technology fans to create a large amount of UGC. This not only helps brands expand content coverage and attract new fans, but also increases the loyalty of existing consumers.

By using fan circle KOLs to derive peripheral products, pictures, texts, videos, etc. from brand content, they can trigger discussions and sharing in the fan circle, allowing the brand to be further spread and deepening fans' recognition and brand stickiness. At the same time, providing exclusive fan benefits and integrating brand elements into the scene is also an important way to encourage fans to actively produce UGC.

Case: KFC Special Dessert Station Manager

KFC used the language produced by fans to create a super sweet Baizhanzhang H5, and even generously released a watermark-free and logo-free Bai Yu emoticon package online, and expressed: "No watermark, I want to be more in tune with you." It inspired fans to create and spread their own content.

In addition, KFC also gave fans various Bai Yu Q-version stickers and peripheral posters offline. Although the routine is old, the key is to make fans buy into it, otherwise it is just the brand’s self-entertainment.

Celebrity endorsement is a way for brands to promote themselves, but not all brands can hire celebrities to endorse them.

Does it mean that a brand cannot survive if it cannot hire celebrities to endorse its products? Not really. Even without celebrity endorsements, we can still look for other methods. With the help of some good marketing tools on the market, we can plan a variety of marketing activities for the brand, consolidate the user base, promote the product down to earth, and convert users into product fans step by step.

IV. Conclusion

In today's era of social media, massive amounts of fragmented content invade consumers' minds every day. If the brand wants to cover the audience in all aspects at this time, fan circle marketing is undoubtedly the best choice. Because to some extent, the existence of idols is a living advertisement for fans.

However, when brands use idols for marketing, they need to strike a balance and not be too “direct” in asking fans to pay. Otherwise, they may lose not only economic benefits but also the reputation they have accumulated, which is not conducive to the sustainable development of the brand itself.

Therefore, only by reasonably linking idols as content, brands as channels , and fans as economy , can fan circle marketing usher in its poetry and distance.

Source: Activity Box