How to do fan marketing? Five methodologies for fan marketing!

Luo Yonghao is the first generation of " Internet celebrity " in China. Over the past decade, he has run a blog website, an English training institution, and is currently working on the Hammer mobile phone , all of which are in the hottest fields of the time. Luo Yonghao has accumulated a large number of fans due to his superb crosstalk skills and personal influence. Luo Yonghao has more than 15 million fans on Weibo, almost approaching Lei Jun (17 million).

However, Lei Jun has made Xiaomi phones among the top five in global sales, while the Hammer phone is still just a niche product. This year, facing the cruel market, Luo Yonghao was unable to withstand the sluggish sales and was forced to announce a significant price cut for the Hammer phone. Fan marketing driven by humanistic feelings and the halo of internet celebrities is still continuing, but it seems to be reaching a bottleneck.

I would like to use this as a starting point to systematically explore what issues and skills need to be paid attention to in "fan marketing ".

I will explain my "fan marketing" methodology from the following 5 points:

1. How to deeply explore the commercial value of fans?
2. How to make your fans "live"?
3. How to produce content targeting fan groups?
4. How to build a good "fan community "?
5. How to do data monitoring well?

People's lifestyles have changed a lot. The consumption characteristics shown by "Double 11" users in the past two years are a projection of the " fan economy ."

Taking clothing as an example, the top online influencers have accounted for 30% to 40% of Taobao women's clothing sales. Companies like Zara are already lower than the online influencers on Weibo. Internet celebrities’ stores also perform very well when they open. Whether they sell clothes, daily necessities or provide paid knowledge services, the sales growth brought by fan traffic is amazing.

In this era, failing to do "fan marketing" well is almost equivalent to failing to do marketing well.

1. How to deeply explore the commercial value of fans? ——Replace “positioning” with “positioning”

In my opinion, "fan marketing" is different from traditional marketing. In the past, companies used a combination of positioning, targeting, and occupying a position to do marketing, and this order cannot be reversed; but today's "fan marketing" does not require positioning, the first step is occupying a position.

What is the difference between positioning and positioning?

Positioning is a traditional way of thinking. Starting from the product perspective, the market is segmented, and then the target users are targeted to seek precise advertising . However, market positioning has a prerequisite, that is, you clearly know where the market is and who your target users are. This is very difficult.

When smart bracelets first came out, Apple and Samsung were not sure where the market was and simply sold them together with mobile phones. As a result, sales were dismal. Don’t Apple and Samsung understand positioning? no. It is difficult to guess the needs of users today and it is difficult to accurately position them.

But as soon as the Xiaomi bracelet came out, sales grew rapidly and soon became the world's number one. Xiaomi did not do "positioning" at the beginning, but its fans helped it to "occupy a position". Many die-hard fans told Lei Jun that fans would only be willing to buy a smart bracelet if it looks like a certain product and has a certain price-performance ratio. Previous smart bracelets had many functions, but they didn’t sell well. Later, Xiaomi removed many of the functions of the bracelets, significantly reduced power consumption, and the bracelets could last for 30 days without charging, and the Xiaomi bracelets started to sell well. This is all thanks to the "education of fans". Lei Jun did not need to do product positioning in advance. Instead, those die-hard fans assisted in "product positioning", which is called "positioning".

The positioning is designed around the needs of fans, allowing fans to directly help you position yourself. So, we can accept Xiaomi selling rice cookers, but if Huawei also sells rice cookers, you definitely cannot accept it, because Huawei does not have such fans to help it pave the market. Today, when social media and social marketing are already very developed, "positioning" is obviously more in line with practical marketing needs than "positioning".

The biggest prerequisite for a good marketing "positioning" is that you have to have die-hard fans. It would be best if you are an internet celebrity yourself, or have an internet celebrity to help you. If you have nothing to do with internet celebrities, then you must build your own loyal fan base even if it takes a lot of effort. For example, the founder of Bama, an Internet company that makes Hunan rice noodles, invited 50 friends to each find 40 people who are interested in Hunan rice noodles and invite them to try them. In this way, 2,000 seed users were found. If you can’t serve your acquaintances (fans) comfortably, how can you conquer strangers?

In addition, it would be best if this niche is a blue ocean market. For example, after Xiaomi became popular, other mobile phone manufacturers would definitely not be able to beat Xiaomi if they wanted to use Xiaomi’s method. Because there are only so many active users on a certain topic on social media, and Xiaomi has already turned these people into its fans, it would be extremely difficult to win over the same group of people using the same method. It seems that many people who do "fan marketing" may fail at the first step, because the positioning is too demanding on vision, insight and speed of action.

Of course, there are also ways to win the "fan" positioning war by striking back, but this requires an unorthodox operating method - establishing a "chain of contempt."

Some people even bluntly said that "only when there is a chain of contempt can it be called fan marketing." What is the business logic behind this?

The source of the "chain of contempt" is out-of-control communication. For example, "fan fights" often occur in the entertainment industry, and the Chinese football team was unable to participate in the recent World Cup in Russia , but this did not hinder the enthusiasm of Chinese fans to start a war of words. Some like the German team, some like the Brazilian team, and some like Argentina. Different camps look down on each other and even damage each other. Fans' emotions are like dry firewood that is everywhere and can ignite instantly with just a little spark. This is the out-of-control communication in the era of social media. However, if this kind of "fan-to-fan conflict" spreads to the business field, it can be used by smart marketers.

Look at Jiang Xiaobai . It was originally just a small wine that focused on youth and literature. Some people thought its literary and artistic flavor was pretentious and annoying, while others thought it was particularly touching and made them feel understood. These two extreme emotions will turn into an endless "war of words". Jiang Xiaobai is very popular nowadays. Its WeChat index ranks only behind Moutai and its Baidu index ranks first. Its communication power is comparable to Moutai and Wuliangye, and far exceeds Yanghe and Fenjiu. Many young people regard drinking Jiang Xiaobai as a fashion and identity label. They despise those who say Jiang Xiaobai is hard to drink, saying that they are middle-aged greasy men who don’t understand the world of young people and can’t keep up with the pace of the times. This "chain of contempt" helps Jiang Xiaobai successfully gain a foothold among young people.

2. How to make your fans “live”? ——Find the five dimensions of "fan marketing"

The direct purpose of "fan marketing" is to convert fans into paying users , or even spread word of mouth to attract more paying users. Lei Jun and Luo Yonghao are both internet celebrities of their generation, and the size of their fan base is not much different. However, in terms of the actual effect of "fan marketing", Xiaomi phones can achieve annual sales of over 100 million, while Hammer phones are still a long way from achieving sales of 10 million. Of course, you can say that the two brands have different market positioning, but isn’t this “market positioning” also a “helpless choice under the constraints of marketing capabilities”?

Back to the specific question, how to make your fans "come alive"?

Some self-media people have already gained 100,000+ or ​​even 1 million+ followers, but the embarrassing thing is that only a few hundred or a few thousand people read their content. Although many "high-end" brands are already well-known, they are still helpless in the face of the decline in "fan activity". Your fans only follow but are not active. What's going on? Some organizations have conducted surveys on fans and self-media professionals to find out the specific reasons for the low level of "fan activity":

From the perspective of self-media people, there are four main reasons:

1. The pushed content is not high-quality enough and does not reflect the brand tone enough;
2. Not enough followers;
3. The fan base that follows you is not an active user in itself;
4. There is too much marketing and too many advertisements .

From a fan's perspective, the main reasons are:

1. The account is not personalised;
2. There is no habit of guiding fans to interact;
3. Fans’ interactive behaviors did not receive timely feedback;
4. The product placement did not provide fans with the benefits they wanted;
5. It only emphasizes the communication of brand mindset without matching the corresponding population.

In this way, "activating fans" is a process that constantly enables them to find similar people and create many surprises. Personalized accounts (sense of intimacy), guiding fan interactions (sense of closeness), timely feedback on interactive behaviors (respect), reasonable interest points (surprises), and marketing to more targeted groups of people (finding similar groups) are the five dimensions of thinking for doing a good job in "fan marketing."

In fact, if you do a good job of "fan marketing" and focus on building one "small group" at a time, you can win many opportunities. Someone selected the social graphs of nearly 50,000 users of Sina Weibo for analysis. The result was that the most valuable large communities like Sina Weibo are actually the countless small communities within them. Users are active in small groups and are more easily influenced by small groups. The phenomenon that people actively share and spread information in "small groups", triggering huge social communication and conversion results, is called the "small group effect". The "marketing dividends" of social platforms often come from this "small group effect."

I have always recommended that marketing companies conduct "fan operations ", preferably in small areas and small groups at a time, and do it in a solid and thorough manner. For example, the Wangjing area in Beijing can have a special community tribe to gather fans who are particularly concerned about things in this area.

"Wangjing" itself is the biggest consensus among these people, and it naturally feels familiar. A lot of things happen in Wangjing every day, and many of them are closely related to oneself. There are many opportunities for interaction between group owners and fans, and between fans, which makes it easy to form a sense of intimacy. For group owners, the process of giving feedback to fans is also a process of obtaining information for themselves. Fans are helping you pay attention to the big and small things in Wangjing. Of course, you have the motivation to interact with them and make them feel respected. If we build a good fan group for Wangjing, everyone will find similar people and have a sense of belonging. There are hundreds of restaurants there, which will bring in tens of millions of revenue. This is the most practical precision marketing. Inform fans of the latest offers and discounts from merchants in Wangjing area, or pass the information on to other fans, and there will be constant surprises. In this way, the links are closely linked, and fans will continue to be active without the need for activation.

The real purpose of "fan marketing" is not to increase the number of fans or to grow them quickly. For example, Burger King in the United States has 35,000 fans in the community, but the quality is not high. So it organized an activity: if you quit the group, I can give you a free hamburger. Nearly 30,000 people received the hamburgers and left, and 8,000 people stayed and refused to leave even if they were given the hamburgers. These are the "die-hard fans". As a result, the activity of fans in the community increased five times compared to before. These people gave Burger King feedback and suggestions and spread word of mouth, which in turn made Burger King even more famous. Many of these fans are not only loyal customers of Burger King, but many have also become holders of Burger King stocks. Therefore, the real value of fans does not lie in having a large number of them, but in constantly finding high-desire, high-quality users, actively participating in word-of-mouth communication and brand marketing , and even forming a community of interests with you.

3. How to produce content targeting fan groups? ——Projecting emotions, seeking recognition and determining belonging

In the movie “The Lost Life”, the bakery was doing badly, and the clerk said to the boss: “Weibo and WeChat need to be innovative, and we can’t always post those dry things.” Later, they added a touching story to each pastry for promotion , and after a while, the sales really increased significantly.

Fans will not always be loyal to you. Their vision is becoming more and more discerning, and they will only pay for truly valuable and high-quality content. So, what kind of content can truly impress fans?

There are three major effects behind the dissemination of new media content :

1. Projection effect - fans will project their own dreams, desires and pleasures onto "big Vs" and "Internet celebrities", and fans will believe that the experiences of those they follow are equivalent to their own experiences.
2. Identification effect - the words, deeds and values ​​of "big V" and "Internet celebrities" will set an example for others, allowing fans to have endless fantasies, and they will identify with their personal charm.
3. Belonging effect - Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, human psychological needs are divided into five categories from low to high, including physiological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, self-esteem needs and self-actualization needs. What level of needs does "fan attention" meet? It’s the need to belong.

Projecting emotions, seeking recognition and determining belonging are the three stages of producing content for "fans". After all, humans are emotional creatures, and rationality can easily be defeated by emotions. Therefore, the most common practice is to repeatedly include universal emotions such as love, pain, separation, sadness, confusion, etc. Whether you are selling cosmetics or writing inspirational stories, you must have these contents. You see, how come Mimi Meng can attract so many fans and has such a high "fan conversion rate "? Is there anything profound, rational and memorable in Mimi Meng’s articles? No. Almost everything is forgotten as soon as it is seen. But Mimi Meng’s articles are designed to help you release various emotions. You may not remember the content of the articles, but you can remember Mimi Meng.

Of course, emotion-driven and resonance-inducing are not the ultimate goals of content production. Because fans' loyalty starts with emotional resonance and stabilizes with resonance of values.

What is value resonance? It means handing your thoughts over to others, which is equivalent to conscious hypnosis. Once you fall into it, it will be difficult to escape. Jack Ma ’s strength is creating a resonance of values. Every time he speaks to employees at Alibaba , he often gives long speeches, but he will summarize the content of his speech into two sentences and then repeat them over and over again. Is he shouting slogans? No. Jack Ma is "exporting values" and using the simplest expression to drive nails into people's minds.

4. How to build a good “fan community”? ——Overcoming the “social evaporative cooling effect”

Today is an era where the circle of friends has the final say. Marketing is no longer about spending money on advertising, but about building word of mouth and creating a community. Most people understand that building a community is nothing more than attracting people who are interested in a product, the more the better, so that it is easier to advertise. But, does this really work? In fact, the real value of the community lies in screening out high-desire, high-quality fans and collaborating with fans to carry out brand marketing. The key to future brand competition is to build a "fan community".

The biggest difficulty in building a community is not attracting a lot of fans, but the unavoidable "social evaporation cooling effect".

In a "fan community", the value of its members is similar to the temperature of a liquid. When the liquid with the highest temperature evaporates and turns into gas (the member with the highest value leaves the community), the average temperature of the remaining liquid will drop (the average value of the community will further decrease). As the number of people in the community increases, the most valuable members will feel that the average level of the entire community has dropped, so they will choose to leave. Their departure will lead to the departure of more high-value members, so eventually, the community will become a mediocre place.

What is the reason for the evaporative cooling of the fan community? The answer is - openness.

"High-value fans" are more willing to go to closed circles because there are people there who are at similar levels to themselves and can socialize on an equal footing. In other words, the key to building a good "fan community" is to "respect the fans' identity needs."

Why has Facebook quickly become the world's largest social marketing company? Because Facebook has chosen a "slum model" to eliminate the "evaporative cooling of fan communities." Before Facebook, there was a social networking company that adopted the "square model". Their social software could randomly display strangers' information to users, just like anyone in a square can come into contact with anyone else. However, the quality of strangers varied greatly, so many users felt disturbed and had a bad experience, so they gradually abandoned it.

Facebook's approach is the opposite. From the very beginning of the product's settings, users are prevented from feeling the influence of strangers because they can only see the small area they follow. This is the "slum model", and users can only move around in their own yard. From the beginning to the end, Facebook's user base increased 500 times, but the user experience did not decline. Avoiding the mediocrity of the community is Facebook's real secret to increasing the "fan activity" of the community and discovering the "fan value".

"High-value fans" can be divided into two categories: one is basic users, who can help you increase your reading numbers and buy your products; the other is important users, on whom you rely to increase your influence, and they can even help you produce high-quality content. Marketing is not about burning money, it is about finding accurate seed users and letting them help you spread the word. Uber’s approach to fan operations is more direct and targeted at three types of people: one is Chinese with a study abroad background, one is media professionals, and the other is people working in public relations and luxury goods industries. The common point of these three types of people is that they have extensive social connections and can quickly bring others in.

5. How to carry out data monitoring? ——Accurately realize "clustering and segmenting of fans"

After implementing the "fan marketing" techniques, you must make direction corrections and strategy adjustments based on "data feedback." This "data feedback" mainly includes two categories: background data and sales data.

Large platforms like JD.com and Pinduoduo all adopt the approach of "data first, content later" to systematically position their fan groups. Their content backgrounds have corresponding user analysis/fan analysis. After understanding the characteristics of the crowd, they can better produce content that interests them. Such as regional consumption styles, different information points of concern to different consumer groups, and different consumption demands of different age groups. This all depends on local conditions and varies from person to person.

Internet celebrity companies such as Duode APP and Hammer Mobile Phone mainly verify "fan loyalty" by holding events regularly and using ticket revenue. Luo Zhenyu, the founder of the Get APP, holds a New Year's Eve speech every year. The purpose of selling tickets on site is not to make money, but to obtain real feedback and form a virtuous circle. If there is no box office, no sponsorship, no copyright fees, and it is not commercially viable, it means that "the relationship between your fans and you is not strong enough."

In terms of "fan marketing", Tencent Social Advertising emphasizes the four-step method of "selecting influencers, finding users, playing with content, and monitoring", and conducts in-depth integration from the dimensions of " data analysis , refined marketing, customized creativity, and optimized strategies". The goal is to target fans and potential fan groups and implement precision marketing, especially the creativity must be "ruthless" and customized based on the combination of fans' concerns and the characteristics of Internet celebrities, which will make it easier to impress and touch fans.

In my opinion, the key to good fan data monitoring is to "cluster and segment fans", which is also a necessary step in operating fan communities and implementing precision marketing. Based on users' social behavior and interaction data, fans can be divided into six categories: "chatters, serious-minded people, friends who like posts, insiders, value discoverers, and partners with common interests." "Chatterers, serious-minded people, and friends who like posts" contribute more attention time, which is very important. It can help brands evaluate fan conversion effects and adjust marketing strategies based on real-time advertising data; "insiders, value discoverers, and partners with common interests" are willing to deeply participate in brand communication and corporate development, and are the most important group of high-value fans.

summary

Traditional companies do brand marketing in roughly three steps: tell a good story for the brand, build sales channels , and then connect designed products with sales. Have you noticed that these three steps are isolated and fragmented? "Fan marketing" is to leverage the influence of various "big Vs" and "Internet celebrities". They themselves are brands and directly face users, eliminating the middle links to achieve the best cost efficiency in marketing.

Hardcore fans can directly help you with market positioning, so the risk of you misjudging market demand is greatly reduced. You can design products based on the needs of your fans, or you can use the personality of an internet celebrity to influence your fans. Once this kind of atmosphere is created, this kind of emotional interaction + business interaction is more in line with human nature, and everyone likes it more. The consumption desire of many people will be stimulated, and the market will expand.

Fan marketing ultimately comes down to “birds of a feather flock together.” Everyone can express themselves in their own community in the way that suits them best, provides the best experience, and has the greatest commercial value. Niche products are very sticky because the circle is small and everyone will have a sense of superiority that "I am the only one and you are not." And this sense of superiority only requires you to like it and doesn't require too much effort. Healthy "fan marketing" will definitely be a socialized business that conforms to human nature. Bringing people of the same kind together is the most practical long-term strategy for developing commercial value.

Source: Li Meng