Deconstructing private domain traffic: How to manage personal IP?

Personal IP refers to an individual’s right to own a certain achievement. It can be a symbol, a value, a group of people with common characteristics, a piece of content that brings its own traffic, etc. In 2016, entrepreneurial IP entered a period of dividends. Wu Xiaobo, Fan Deng, Luo Pang, etc. were all beneficiaries of this wave of dividends.

In 2020, personal IP is your dazzling business card, the MVP of your entrepreneurship, and the intangible asset you leave for the future. In 2020, let us work together to create our own IP. ”

Personal IP Profile

1. What is a personal IP?

The definition of personal IP is a personality that brings its own traffic. Its core is self-generated traffic and personalization, which means that IP is a "person". Not only that, many product IPs are also being personified, such as Xiao Ming, Jiang Xiaobai, etc.

In layman's terms, "personal IP" refers to the specific cognition or impression formed after a person's value is content-based, labeled, and promoted and displayed. For its owner, "personal IP" is an intangible asset that can more easily establish connections with people around him, build trust, bring premiums, and generate added value.

In the past, personal IP has always been called personal brand. The difference between the two is that brand is a product of the industrial age and is based on products, while IP is a new species in the mobile Internet era and is based on people. Therefore, for individuals, personal IP is more appropriate than personal brand.

The actual meaning of IP in reality is that it represents a person/product that is very professional, influential and an expert in a certain niche field. People trust these experts, and over time they accumulate "built-in traffic".

However, personal IP in the Internet era is even flatter. Short video bloggers and self-media people are all vivid IPs. After all, in today's world of freedom of speech, it is becoming a trend that everyone is their own media and everyone has their own IP.

2. What are the benefits and opportunities of personal IP?

In 2020, what are the benefits of building a personal IP for individuals?

1) Low-cost private domain traffic

As mentioned above, personal IP is an "expert" in a small range. The top personal IP represents a company itself. For example: in the Internet circle, there are Jack Ma of Alibaba, Pony Ma of Tencent, Zhang Yiming of ByteDance, etc.; in the field of knowledge payment, there is the "Hearing Wu Xiaobo Everyday" worth 300 million yuan, Fan Deng Reading Club, etc.; in the field of short videos, Li Ziqi, as a fellow villager, is even more popular all over the world, with an annual income of 170 million yuan.

In fact, they are all independent individuals, but they all have huge public recognition and number of fans. And those who follow them directly or indirectly are their private traffic.

2) High Trust

In the Private Domain Traffic Series (Part 1), I mentioned that trust is the human foundation of private domain traffic, and all cooperation stems from trust. The user trust of personal IP needs to be maintained over many years and the quality of service needs to be maintained. This sense of trust based on people is incomparable to any other marketing methods.

3) Quick Monetization

At present, there are five common ways of monetization on the Internet: advertising, selling goods, finance, data or information, and value-added services. Personal IP relies on trust and reduces communication costs, giving it a natural advantage in the monetization model of advertising and selling goods. Take the UP host "Noju Youth" whom I often watch as an example. They have tried to sell cherries before. The effect is good and fans are willing to help them make money.

4) Enhance personal value

In addition to gaining fame, building a personal IP will also bring you profits if you are someone who understands marketing. In addition, as your own value continues to increase, in addition to fame and fortune, you will also have the opportunity to become a KOL who makes valuable contributions to society.

5) Lean self-growth and cultivation

In my opinion, there are things that should be adhered to in doing anything.

• The same goes for personal IP. Manage it with an entrepreneurial mindset and constantly hone your IP. With the purpose of self-growth, making money is just a by-product.
• Knowledge-based IP enriches its knowledge barriers in the process of continuous output.
• For IPs that sell products, they constantly hone their operation capabilities and marketing thinking in the closed loop of product packaging, sales, and after-sales.

In 2020, for people in the workplace, personal IP is a resume and a business card; for entrepreneurs, it is a means to reach users and a tool for monetization. Whatever it is, it's always a good start for you.

WeChat system (personal account + public account)

In the previous articles in the private domain traffic series, I have talked about how to operate personal accounts and public accounts in the WeChat system, and combined with store scenarios, I have explained in detail how personal accounts should be operated. These operational knowledge will not be repeated here, please refer to the WeChat and store sections for details. Next, I will mainly talk about personal accounts and public accounts, and what uses they have for personal IP.

1. WeChat personal account

In the past few years, personal WeChat accounts have formed a natural advantage in personal IP by relying on social networking among acquaintances. Personal WeChat accounts can not only be used for publicity and promotion, but also carry private domain traffic. In summary, there are several advantages to personal IP:

• Convenient to establish your personal image: From adding friends to carrying information in WeChat Moments, you can easily add your label to your nickname, avatar, personal signature and Moments background image. Taking a certain marketer as an example, he usually gives himself a nickname of "name + field + marketing expert", and the background picture of his circle of friends will be written as "Awesome self-introduction + service items".
• Convenient to reach users: WeChat personal accounts are more proactive than the subscription-based public accounts. The personal WeChat account is the center of WeChat social networking. Not only can it be actively added by others, but it can also be used to purposefully find your customers and add them. For example, a personal IP related to mothers and babies will generally be looking for expectant mothers and new mothers.
• Convenient fission and secondary marketing: The business trend of personal WeChat accounts has become increasingly strong in the past few years. In the past, we often looked at the "success" of WeChat business with the mentality of "laughing at Baidu when it is 50 steps away". Now, we have to learn from these predecessors in the creation and management of personal and corporate IP. In the micro-business model centered on "selling goods", the fission distribution routine they explored in the early days is being copied by private domain companies. Now, whether it is personal IP or corporate IP. Fission activities are the main means of attracting new customers, while secondary marketing spreads the marketing costs.

2. WeChat Official Account

Since its inception, WeChat official accounts have been the core of the WeChat system for carrying "content". After four years of development, operating players have created a fission and commercialization model centered on content.

For example, story-telling soft articles, advertising models within and outside the official account system, and the integration of official accounts and mini programs, etc. In recent days, WeChat has started public testing of paid reading for official accounts. For knowledge IPs like "Product Matangdui", this is a good start.

To operate a personal WeChat IP, the "public account + personal account" model is now a more mature way of playing. Personal accounts are close to users and suitable for marketing; public accounts accumulate "content" and to a certain extent provide "ammunition" for personal accounts. Output-oriented personal IP, especially creative IP, is an evergreen model. Marketing IP, by mastering the fission of personal accounts, can seize the first place.

Weibo system (Internet celebrities)

If the WeChat system is a training ground for grassroots entrepreneurs, then the Weibo system is a machine for producing "influencers". Some people may say that Weibo’s bonus period has passed. But I think it is premature to say this.

In fact, Zhang Dayi, Xue Li, and Liziqi were all amateurs before, but on this year’s Double Eleven, their Taobao stores all achieved sales of over 100 million yuan.

In addition to the "gods" mentioned above, in the past two years, there have also been many ordinary people who have achieved over one million fans and over 100 million monthly readings. Of course, the Weibo myth is still continuing. In this big square where everyone is singing, perhaps you will be the next celebrity.

1. Accumulation of fans

How to build a personal IP on Weibo starts with accumulating fans. Weibo is an open platform. If you want to get more traffic exposure in a short period of time, you must grasp the rules of traffic. It’s like you dancing in the square, from knowing nothing to becoming a “star”.

The easiest shortcut is to keep up with the trend and be the first one in the square to learn it.

During this period, Weibo personal IP can start from the following points:

• Take advantage of the hot spot: No matter what platform, for newcomers who have missed the departure time, the fastest way is to catch a "ride". Weibo is no exception. In the early days, you could find "hot spots" that you could integrate or continue in the daily rankings and Weibo posts of big Vs.
• Diverse attempts: In combination with hot topics, you can try more Weibo, pictures, videos, articles and live broadcasts within the Weibo system. In line with your own characteristics, find a way that suits you through different carriers. During this process, you can try using some tools to refresh your data. Once the number of readings and likes increases, you will naturally be able to receive push notifications, and at the same time you can also test the quality of the "content".
• Summarize the rules and form a unique style: As you continue to analyze topics and iterate your Weibo posts, you will slowly find your own characteristics and "content" style. From 0 to 1, you need to persist and keep polishing.

2. IP creation

After going through the period of grassroots marketing accounts, you have to reconstruct your Weibo account system to deepen users' understanding of you.

There are several entry points:

• Basic business card: According to the positioning of your own IP, fill in and complete your nickname, self-introduction, education and career information, personal tags, etc., to facilitate fans' basic understanding of you; if the recognition conditions have been met, you must undergo V certification; at the same time, make good use of the automatic replies and custom menus after fans follow you to fully demonstrate your own advantages and deepen fans' understanding of your IP.
• Adjust content positioning: Content positioning must be combined with the rules verified during the marketing period, and combined with one's own interests, career, or future development direction, the content positioning must be readjusted. It is recommended to use 70% main topic, 20% supplementary content, and 10% red envelope and other marketing content.
• Key points to note when developing content: focus on the key points of the title and question-type topics; Weibo will directly link to question searches to increase exposure; provide valuable, high-quality content that can resonate with or attract the attention of fans; pay attention to style; a humorous style with a unified layout is more popular with users. Of course, the most important thing is to set a limit on the number of Weibo posts you send every day. Continuous output can help you get more exposure.

3. Lean Operations

The third stage of building a personal IP on Weibo is often based on original content, supplemented by meticulous operations.

The lean operation of Weibo personal IP mainly considers the following three aspects:

• Interactive communication: Respond immediately when fans forward, comment, like, or send private messages; establish an interactive circle, focus on core fans, proactively answer questions, and gradually form a professional community; appropriately forward your past Weibo posts, such as the New Year's wishes posted in 2019. When summarizing at the end of the year, you can forward the original Weibo to emphasize timeliness and generate resonance.
• Activity operation: In daily activities, you can do mutual following activities with other big Vs, which can not only increase fans, but also deepen fans' awareness. At the same time, you can also do some activity games, task draws, etc. While enhancing fan stickiness, it also motivates fans.
• Data analysis: Weibo provides each user with a set of data analysis tools (data center), which includes analysis of new fans, fan types, fan sources, attention trends, mutual fan analysis, Weibo visits, number of posts, interactions and number of readings. In addition to official analysis tools, data analysis can also be performed through third-party tools. When analyzing, it should be noted that the purpose of data analysis is to discover problems and continuously optimize IP and content direction through data feedback. Take the content with high forwarding and comment rates as an example, analyze the reasons for its popularity and embed it into subsequent Weibo posts.

Compared with the WeChat system, the creation of personal IP on Weibo has more marketing and rigor. Persist in creation, continuously output value, and the economy will remain prosperous even after the heyday.

Baidu Tieba (SEO)

Because of its product form, Baidu Tieba cannot serve as the center of a private domain like personal accounts on WeChat and Weibo. However, because of the support of Baidu search, Tieba has advantages that cannot be replaced by other products.

Brand promotion: Currently, Baidu Tieba app supports the application of personal Tieba. The application process is very simple. Submit the information and pass the trial within 7 days. The name and introduction of the forum can be filled in according to personal IP. When the Tieba is retrieved by users, the personal IP can be implanted into the users' cognition.

Free channel in private domain: The core logic of Baidu search is keyword search, which is also one of Baidu’s profit methods. But because of the logic of paid ranking, most people focus on hot words that are easy to convert and ignore long-tail words. These long-tail words that no one is bidding on are most suitable for refined SEO.

At present, the Baidu mobile app mainly directs traffic to mini-programs, while the free traffic within the Baidu web will be given priority to products within the Baidu system, including Zhidao, Wenku, Tieba, etc.

By implanting questions with relevant keywords in your own forum and setting conversion paths in the answers, you can deposit traffic into private traffic pools such as WeChat personal accounts.

Quick conversion: Baidu Tieba is Baidu’s attempt in social networking. In 2019, Baidu also launched short videos in the Tieba app. For short video creators and sales IPs, quick conversions can be made in Tieba without having to divert traffic to their own private traffic pools.

Although Baidu Tieba's SEO is not new, this old trick has been neglected. When talking about official websites, many people will think of SEO optimization, but few people know about the private domain gameplay of Baidu Tieba.

In this gameplay, the core is still personal IP and "content" related keywords. You can pay more attention to the Baidu search rankings, or you can use third-party tools for automatic screening. Baidu Tieba SEO, new wine in old pot, the longer it brews, the more fragrant it becomes.

Knowledge Planet (knowledge community)

Knowledge Planet is a tool product based on a closed community form that provides creators with knowledge monetization services.

Currently, the main users are those born in the 1980s and 1990s, and are concentrated in first-tier and new first-tier cities, led by Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Compared with WeChat communities, Knowledge Planet not only satisfies the need for communication, but also makes up for the difficulty in knowledge accumulation in WeChat communities. Because of these characteristics, Knowledge Planet has become the first choice for paid knowledge IP in central China. To build a good knowledge planet, you can start from the following points.

1. Community Positioning

Any IP cannot be separated from positioning analysis at the beginning of its creation, and personal IP based on the community is no exception. Community positioning analysis is detailed as follows.

• Community positioning: When conducting actual community positioning analysis, we need to consider positioning, user value, and the differentiated advantages of the community. Positioning means describing the content or highlights of community services in one sentence. Taking a certain reader group as an example, its positioning is the reader group of a certain knowledge brand; its user value is to bring technology and civilization closer; and its differentiated competitiveness is the unique style of combining technology and civilization. In addition, when conducting community positioning analysis, you must first investigate the situation in other circles.
• Account creation: When creating a circle, you need to consider four key factors: name, description, icon and price. For a name, if it already has a certain influence, you can use your own IP; otherwise, you can choose an attractive name to facilitate its dissemination. The introduction is crucial. Try to explain the circle’s service content, achievements, etc. in three sentences.

2. How to promote

It is easy to create a circle, but difficult to promote it. You can consider the following aspects:

• Own channels: Many knowledge IPs will first build up a certain degree of fame through public accounts, communities or offline lectures before creating knowledge planets. When Knowledge Planet launched its cold-start promotion, these proprietary channels became a natural seed user group.
• User hooks: The so-called user hooks means that wherever the users are, the hooks are there, which can also be called off-site traffic. Because the user match between Knowledge Planet and Zhihu is high, many paid circles use soft advertising and circle links to promote within Zhihu, with good results. In addition, you can also consider channels such as QQ groups and WeChat groups. Of course, if you have time to make videos, short videos are also a good choice.
• Fission activities: Currently, knowledge-based fission activities are mainly based on fission posters. The poster mainly explains three things: what the circle does, what users can get, and what achievements have been made in the past. Of course, the poster’s layout and conversion path also need to be carefully designed. In addition, it is also possible to consider introducing a distribution system, using profit distribution as a catalyst to accelerate fission.

3. Creation-oriented, continuous output

Knowledge IP is currently difficult to monetize due to many reasons, such as weak intellectual property protection and the need to grow people's consumption awareness. But, in the long run, originality is a more difficult and longer road.

To put it in a more inspiring way, the core purpose of originality is self-growth and self-entertainment, and making money is just a by-product. It's not that it hasn't changed, it's just that the time has not come yet.

For you and me, the Knowledge Planet is not as noisy as a market, nor as boring as offline lectures. It is a knowledge store tailor-made for you, always preparing a speech for you.

Conclusion

This article explains how to build personal IP from the perspective of WeChat, Weibo, Baidu Tieba and Knowledge Planet. I’m planning to write short videos and 5G series later. What else do you want to hear? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area.

To build personal IP, the WeChat system focuses on the circle of acquaintances and puts the emphasis on the management of personal accounts. For knowledge IP, you can consider using public accounts. To create internet celebrities through the Weibo system, one must learn marketing and promotion. Baidu Tieba, SEO harvests free traffic. Knowledge Planet, knowledge community, a good IP promotion and monetization tool. Of course, tools are just carriers. Only by managing them carefully can you achieve the "myth".

In 2020, when everyone is a self-media person, have you found the way forward?

Author: Richard.du

Source: Richard.du