How educational institutions increase followers and traffic through TikTok!

This article introduces the methods used by educational institutions to increase followers and traffic through Douyin: scene attraction, matrix construction and 4R growth model.

• How should an educational institution set up a Douyin account?
• Where is the connection between educational institutions and short videos?
• Can Tik Tok’s entertainment content be combined with professional educational content?
• Tik Tok and WeChat have banned each other, and the conversion rate of traffic is extremely low. What should we do?

Through two Douyin accounts with tens of millions of followers for art exams, we get a glimpse of a brand new way to play Douyin: the goal is not to attract traffic from WeChat, but to establish a Douyin private domain traffic matrix.

Let’s first look at the basic situation of the two cases:

• Douyin ID: Pang Chao Talks about Art Examination, currently has 4.16W Douyin fans, and is a Douyin account operated by a vocal art examination education and training institution.
• Douyin ID: 51美術, currently has 10.25W Douyin fans, and is operated by an art examination and training institution.

1. Seeding scenario: Let potential customers think of you first when their needs are stimulated

"Planting grass": It is to create a solution that can meet the future needs of potential customers and establish brand awareness in the minds of customers in advance.

Potential users may not have demand at this time, but may have it in the future; we know that once user demand has been stimulated, we will fall into a bloody battle in the red ocean, where the competition will be much more intense and the cost of acquiring customers will be much higher.

The most well-known case is actually the well-known "Lanxiang Technical School". Even if we don't need to learn excavators, if there is a distant relative in Shandong who is not doing well in study, I would really recommend him to learn about Lanxiang Technical School.

Let me give you another real example that happened to me: I saw an amino acid toothpaste on Xiaohongshu before, and after reading its introduction, it broke my previous understanding of toothpaste. In the past, when we chose toothpaste, we focused on selling points related to teeth, such as whitening and fresh breath, but we didn’t expect that amino acid toothpaste can actually repair gaps between teeth…

It is said that as we age, something called "black triangle" will appear between our teeth, which is intolerable for people who pursue refinement, because it not only exposes age, but also affects the appearance like tooth stains.

This is a product created to meet the evolving needs of users, or future needs, and Xiaohongshu’s “grass-planting effect” is quite effective for potential users. As our care needs become more in-depth and detailed, the need for care for the gums, teeth and other parts of the oral cavity has gradually emerged.

For example, if a bridal shop only serves newlyweds, its market is narrow.

In order to expand the market, bridal shops target their customers at "singles" and "couples in love". Although they won't be buying wedding dresses now. But as a bridal shop, there is no need to sell wedding dresses to this group of customers who are not getting married for the time being. What needs to be done is to provide date planning and singles parties; and to constantly introduce to this group of customers some of the services that bridal shops can provide.

After this group of customers have been served multiple times, their subsequent demand for wedding dresses can be easily converted into paying users by the bridal shop.

A wedding dress may only happen once in a lifetime, but a date will never happen only once.

How to build customer brand awareness through promotion? The essence is: we must enter the customer's life scenes in advance and build brand awareness associations in advance. If you wait until customer demand is very strong before competing with other institutions for the market, the available customer base in such a market will be very small.

For some educational institutions: early childhood education, preschool education, and art examination education; if you randomly find someone on the street and ask him if he has any needs for early childhood education, he may not have them. But he must have nephews and nieces, and children in the future. The people around him have such needs, and the possibility of such future needs definitely exists.

So a question that institutions should think about is: Will newcomers to the workplace have needs for early childhood education and childcare in the future?

Therefore, the goal of the Douyin account of an educational institution should be clear: to enter the hearts of customers through short video content and plant seeds in customers’ minds; and to maintain good contact with customers so that when customers have needs in the future, they can find the educational institution in the first place.

1. Use content to build brand awareness in the minds of customers

Building brand awareness requires creating the right associations with customers. However, many educational and training institutions tend to make mistakes when implementing content, making the content very messy.

Some misunderstandings of Douyin accounts: not associating customers’ brand awareness with the organization

• Quantitative probability - directly publish relevant course content videos on the Douyin ecosystem, and wait for luck to convert
• Entertainment Porters - Posting a large amount of entertainment and other content that is not related to the organization
• Talking to customers about reason - all the content published is about popularizing industry knowledge from the perspective of the industry

Traditional video content

To establish brand awareness in the minds of customers through new ways of promoting products, you can refer to three factors:

• Fixed space background
• Fixed plot guidance
• Fixed character image

Whether they are direct customers or potential customers, it is a difficult task to directly convert art exam customers on Douyin.

It is difficult to show the qualifications and teaching strength of an educational institution through audio-visual forms such as short videos. The display of teaching ability is highly related to user experience. Without sufficient contact with customers, it is not feasible to convey such information value through a short video content.

2. Fixed space background - establish the right image for customers

The fixed spatial background is a very valuable guiding clue for building customer brand awareness; it can help customers establish association with the organization through this clue.

For example: Pang Chao said that in order to establish a connection with customers, the fixed spatial background of art exams is the art exam scene and teaching scene; the classroom is a natural background advertisement for training and learning.

Pang Chao said that the spatial background of all the videos of the art exams is in the classroom. When organizations are designing content and associating paths with customers, they need such fixed scenarios to deepen users’ memories and establish connections (relevancy).

Without scenario-based communication, there will be barriers between the organization’s brand information and its customers, and correlation cannot be established. (We can think about a phenomenon: Why has Heytea never appeared on the streets and alleys?) The fixation of the spatial background is to guide customers.

Pang Chao said that the spatial background of art examinations is fixed: the music teaching scene, creating a scene atmosphere: students receive daily training under the professional guidance of teachers when learning and performing musical talents.

51 The spatial background of art is fixed: the studio where students practice painting, the scene atmosphere created: the superb painting skills of students when learning painting, and daily practice.

In order to leave a correct impression of the education and training institution in the minds of customers, it is necessary to fix the background space. The side value of fixed background space: educational institutions can showcase their teacher strength, brand image, qualifications and other key information.

Let’s imagine that, for example, if an educational institution has a Douyin account, the background of its content space is on the street. Such street-style video content may mislead customers into having a wrong understanding of educational institutions.

3. Fixed plot and character settings - showing the professionalism of the organization

Educational and training institutions need to build correct brand awareness and successfully convey the information they want to convey to customers; therefore, short video content also needs to have fixed plots and characters.

Fixed space background + fixed plot and characters = correct video content = smooth delivery

Good content = content that customers are willing to accept

If we want customers to be willing to accept our content, the content cannot be too rigid or too entertaining; it must be professional and skill-based entertainment: entertainment content is based on high-level technology and will not reduce professionalism while entertaining. If an organization creates a Douyin account and focuses on entertainment in order to attract attention, it will become a carrier of entertainment jokes.

Fat Chao Talks About Art Examination

Pang Chao said that there are three types of people appearing in Douyin videos about art exams: professional teachers, entertaining teachers, and students.

• The tasks of professional teachers: mainly responsible for some professional interpretation and guidance.
• The task of the entertainment teacher is to take on most of the topics and create laughs and attractions.
• The students’ task is mainly to set off the atmosphere of the environment, play the role of supporting roles, and drive the rhythm.

After some attempts, Pang Chao found a good entry point for the art exam: breaking the voice when showing off high notes. (Professional high notes + entertainment elements) If there is a person in life who can sing high notes very well, the public will definitely think that this person has strong vocal skills.

Pang Chao said that the art exam made use of this point and combined it with entertainment elements to create a contrast effect, making the entire video content very interesting and funny. But please note: video content cannot be just entertainment, there must be a balance between entertainment and professionalism.

51 Fine Arts

There are two types of people appearing in 51 Art’s Douyin videos: entertaining teachers and professional + entertaining students.

• The task of the entertainment teacher: mainly responsible for being pranked.
• Professional + Entertainment Students' tasks: Mainly responsible for using superb painting skills to tease the teacher, and showing off realistic art works to play pranks.

In life, the most direct way to express our appreciation for a master painter is by how realistic and vivid his or her paintings are.

Pang Chao said that the content of the Douyin accounts of Art Examination and 51 Art is similar to the dating services provided by bridal shops to single people; they are all about building brand awareness in the minds of customers.

4. Entertainment entry point: public consensus

We need to find points where educational and training institutions can gain entry from the public's consensus (singing high notes, realistic portraits, fluent English expression, etc.).

The best entertainment is not to act good or stupid, but the contrast from the lives of the masses. In the public life, there are many stereotypes that are not actually true in the professional field: people with good high notes = good singing, realistic paintings = great painting skills, exquisite plating = must be delicious, etc.

Therefore, the simplest entry point is to try to find contrasts in the public consensus, such as serious painting -> weird sound; singing high notes -> breaking voice; speaking as fierce as a tiger -> actually giving in (the most famous one is Zheng Jianpeng and Yan Zhen), etc.

Reverse contrast is also possible. For example, the well-known merchant "tinrry+" on the short book platform has repeatedly recommended the plot of dirty buns: it looks dirty, but it is actually very delicious. tinrry+ has 310,000 followers and 8.2 million views on Bilibili. In just 13 months on Douyin, tinrry+ has gained 860,000 likes and 370,000 followers. For an educational institution rather than an MCN institution, this is an excellent report card.

Therefore, for our educational institutions in different fields, finding a plot that combines storylines and teaching content can make Douyin's content operations simple and efficient.

2. Douyin Matrix, the core strategy of Douyin’s private domain gameplay

The Douyin ecosystem is not like the WeChat ecosystem, where you can follow friends and privately chat with customers at all times. Therefore, the purpose of creating the Douyin matrix is ​​to strengthen the relationship with customer fans (becoming friends), which is the Douyin private traffic pool we mentioned; each Douyin matrix account actually also serves as a customer service account.

When a large organization has to deal with at least tens of thousands of customer messages every day, energy becomes a big problem. If you want to achieve refined operations, the Douyin matrix account method is more suitable for building the Douyin ecosystem.

Normal Tik Tok users are usually accustomed to asking questions through direct comments and private messages. Utilizing the Douyin matrix model not only disperses the operating pressure of the main account, but can even add it to the WeChat account through private message guidance to further obtain sales leads.

The Douyin matrix account uses the relationship stage of the 4R model. The idea is the same as that of private domain traffic:

• Pang Chao said that art examinations are the top and largest contact and drainage point with customers.
• At the same time, it operates four main matrix accounts: Teacher Yu, Director Zhang, Teacher Zeng, and Student Jiang.
• The large, irregular content at the top will be @ed by the teacher whose style matches the corresponding style.
• Its matrix account sets the pace in the comment section.
• Matrix accounts can interact and direct traffic and answer questions in the comment section.
• The matrix account can publish similar content by @the main account to feed back traffic.
• Each matrix account has its own characteristics. It can publish its own content to attract external traffic and increase traffic entrances.
• The matrix account can try different content and help the main account test content selection.
• All numbers can be used to contact customers and maintain good customer relationships.
• Matrix numbers make customers feel more real, like living people.

The style positioning of the four accounts is exactly the same as the characters in Pang Chao’s Art Examination, but as a single matrix account, the style is more prominent and obvious. Content positioning has its own characteristics:

• Teacher Yu: He is a teacher of appearance, and his content area is professional and in-depth.
• Director Zhang: Entertainment teacher, responsible for funny content.
• Teacher Zeng: A professional teacher who provides some professional knowledge and popular science as well as daily life.
• Student Jiang: Cooperate with Director Zhang to create entertainment content.

The setting of the traffic conversion entrance can currently only be exposed on the homepage.

Pang Chao said that the homepage of each matrix account for art examinations has very detailed contact information: fan community account, personal consultation WeChat account, teacher’s private WeChat account, business WeChat account, Weibo account, etc., which increases the exposure of the entrance.

At the same time, the matrix approach can process potential customer information in batches, because in addition to using the homepage for information consultation, the most commonly used method for Douyin ecosystem customers is to interact through comments. At this time, the establishment of a matrix number will help educational institutions to implement SOPs for private domain operations.

However, compared with the homepage of 51 Art, 51 Art only has one phone contact method. Pang Chao said that the homepage of art examination is more worthy of our study, and Pang Chao said that the homepage of art examination has a refined path.

The important role of Douyin matrix operation: accumulating private domain traffic in the Douyin ecosystem and forming crowd assets for educational and training institutions.

3. 4R model, the logical thinking of growth

After reading the above article, I still recommend Amway’s 4R growth model.

1. Four elements of the 4R growth model theory

Relevancy, Reaction, Relationship and Return, the 4R growth model theory focuses on the interaction and win-win situation between education and training institutions and their customers. Not only do we actively adapt to customer needs, but we also proactively create demand, use optimizable and systematic ideas to integrate marketing, and form unique relationships with customers through association, reaction, and other forms.

2. 4R Growth Model Scenario

• Plant seeds for customers and build brand awareness (association). When customers are attracted by the content it is a good connection.
• When customers have future needs, the first thing they think of is the agency (response). This is where the reaction point is formed with the customer.
• Douyin matrix account, the relationship between vivid personal image and customer retention account (relationship). A good relationship will help the organization achieve more possibilities.
• Join the group through the Douyin homepage, or contact an organization to enter the private traffic pool (profit) of the Douyin ecosystem.

Short video platforms represented by Douyin are a battleground for educational and training institutions in marketing. By repeatedly promoting the idea to users through the Douyin traffic pool, the unfamiliar relationship between customers and educational institutions is weakened, and private domain traffic of the Douyin ecosystem is gradually formed; finally, it feeds back to word of mouth, brand and conversion.

This new idea opens up more operational imagination space for educational and training institutions.

Author: Jiawei Oscar

Source: Jiawei Oscar