Case Study: Branding and IP-based Operation Practice of User Communities

Due to the impact of the epidemic, businesses are paying more attention to the operation of online user communities . Due to the lack of correct cognition, they often "try all kinds of methods in desperation"... Based on my research and practice on user communities, I wrote this article to provide colleagues with cross-border community management ideas.

This article takes "91 Education" as an example to explain some thoughts and practices in the operation process. 91 Education: A user community based on the WeChat ecosystem, serving 1 million parents of primary and secondary school students.

1. About the Community

1. Community is a marketing system based on social interaction

What we generally call "community" is based on the WeChat ecosystem, and its essence is a private traffic pool.

"Community" is not just a WeChat group, but an entire social marketing system built on the WeChat ecosystem, which usually includes a public account matrix, a WeChat personal account matrix, a group matrix, and a mini-program matrix.

Due to the diversity of business models, the focus of "community" of different businesses may be different. For example, the "91 Education" community focuses on the operation of "official account + WeChat personal account" (as shown below), and many businesses also focus on WeChat group operations.

2. Three major advantages of the community

Where there is a "private domain", there will be a "public domain". The "public domain" is the Internet we use, which is like a vast ocean, and acquiring customers is like "fishing in the ocean". Relatively speaking, “private domain” has the following three advantages:

(1) Low user reach cost

For example: Without causing any disturbance, the cost for "91 Education" to reach 250,000 WeChat friends is almost zero.

(2) The timing and frequency of user reach are more controllable

For example, we found that the most effective thing is to post 7 to 8 Moments on WeChat every day. The conversion rate of marketing articles is highest at 11:30am, 18:00pm and 21:00pm every day. In addition, we can also make flexible adjustments based on actual conditions.

(3) Deeper impact on users, greater chance of establishing trusted agents

For example: parents can see useful information we post on WeChat Moments every day. They also often ask us for learning materials, consult us on learning problems, etc., and gradually build a sense of trust.

Only by making full use of the above three advantages can you achieve twice the result with half the effort in building a community.

3. Two key marketing points to improve social media conversion

It is worth mentioning that the "fish" in the private domain are not absolutely "private". A user may exist in the private domains of multiple similar merchants at the same time. From a marketing perspective, the final destination of the fish depends on two factors:

1. Reach : including the timing of reach, the form of reach, the frequency of reach, etc.
2. Trust : How much users trust you.

Based on our thinking on “reach” and “trust”, we have adopted a branding and IP-based business strategy. On the one hand, this makes “reach” warmer; on the other hand, it allows users’ trust to gradually accumulate into two visual brand symbols, one is the Logo and the other is the IP.

2. Branding and IP

1. Key points of understanding

• Branding : refers to operating a "community" as a "brand" in order to gain: recognition and credibility;
• IPization : refers to integrating IP into the "community", which is warm and humane, with the aim of gaining affinity and recognition.

If the brand is your face, making people remember you, then IP is your hands, allowing you to hold others tightly, create emotions and build relationships with them. User trust needs to be accumulated, and the community is not a "magic tool for cutting leeks", so it is necessary for the community to adopt a branded IP-based business strategy.

The following is the overall operation idea of ​​"91 Education" branding and IP:

First, we reach users through official accounts, personal WeChat accounts and a small number of offline theme activities, providing them with useful educational information. Over time, we gradually build a trusting relationship, and this trust gradually condenses into brand symbols and IP symbols.

Because we have the trust of a large number of users, we have value, so we find high-quality partners and launch suitable products, such as online education, knowledge payment, and educational e-commerce. After purchasing the product, users will personally experience the quality and will trust us more. We gradually establish a virtuous circle of mutual trust between us and our users.

2. Operation points

(1) Positioning

Community positioning is the key to success at the strategic level, but it is often overlooked by businesses. The following is a detailed description of 91 Education’s positioning:

① User-level positioning: a rigorous platform for improving academic performance

• "Strictness" is the brand tone, which should be well perceived by users;
• "Advancing academic performance and improving grades" is the functional positioning, and any community must clearly define its own functional positioning.

② Commercial positioning: precise traffic distribution platform

• "Precise" means that we only want precise users, so we only use high-quality content to attract fans and ensure the accuracy of fans;
• "Traffic distribution" means that 91 Education only does traffic distribution, and does not provide educational services and products (if it wants to do it, it will set up a parallel project and form an independent team to do it). It always insists on maintaining the purity of the 91 Education brand and team, and "does what it should and does not do what it should not"!

③ External slogan: Improve academic scores and understand parents better!

Highlight functionality so that parents can understand it easily.

④ Internal slogan: Make education simple!

Emphasize sense of mission. Education practitioners should have a sense of mission.

(2) Execution

The execution level can be divided into "external" and "internal".

① Externally: easily perceived, including “visual” and “personality”.

• "Visual" refers to VI and its application, including logo, graphic layout, advertising pictures, avatars, cooperation documents, etc., striving to convey a unified, recognizable, rigorous and friendly brand image to the outside world (as shown below);
• "Personality" refers to identity, stance, rhetoric, tone, etc., and it insists on exporting a rigorous and opinionated brand image to the outside world.

② Internally: can be divided into "people" and "things".

• “Things” refers to various application specifications and behavioral specifications;
• “People” refers to the training of the team. In addition to training operational skills, it is also necessary to cultivate brand IP awareness;

No matter how good the methods and standards are, they still need people to implement them, and the team’s brand IP awareness is very important. We have done a lot of work to cultivate brand IP awareness among the entire team.

• Internal training: Since its establishment in 2017, we have continued to carry out brand IP related training.
• Daily details: Training alone is not enough. The entire brand IP concept must be integrated into daily details so that the team can truly feel the existence of the brand and IP. For example: We will condense the goals for the new year into several keywords and design them into notebook covers. They will be used internally only, one for each person, and distributed to friends at the beginning of the new year.

3. How to achieve “product and effect integration”?

Let’s talk about how “91 Education” achieves “product and effect integration”.

I divide "91 Education" into four major modules, namely: attracting new customers, retaining active users, commercial realization, and brand building and IP shaping (as shown below).

The green part on the far left is the core conversion chain. From attracting new customers to retaining active users, and then to commercial monetization, we are engaged in brand building and IP shaping throughout the entire process.

Users' trust in "91 Education" is gradually increasing, and they will help spread the word, such as forwarding our articles to their friends or class groups, and pushing our personal WeChat account business cards to other parents. When we launch suitable products, users' purchasing concerns will be reduced a lot because of the trust foundation... This is the feedback of the brand and IP to the core conversion chain.

The above four links are not separated, and "brand and effect integration" should be a complete system.

A few dozen minutes of sharing can only give you the basics, so that everyone can understand the overall logic and key points and avoid detours. The specific details still need to be practiced personally to be deeply understood.

Conclusion

When we were first founded in 2017, we had very few users and our main consideration was commercial value. But as the user base gradually expands and users give us more and more trust, our sense of mission arises naturally, so we now place social value on an equal footing with commercial value. I hope that when businesses build communities, they will not only treat it as a business activity, but also pay attention to its social value.

Author: Zhou Jiaxiao

Source: Zhou Jiaxiao